EarthBound Beginnings, originally named Mother in Japan, is a 1989 role-playing video game created by Ape Inc. and Nintendo. It was published by Nintendo for the Family Computer. This game is the first in the Mother series and was first released in Japan on July 27, 1989. In 2003, the game was re-released in Japan with its sequel on a single cartridge called Mother 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance. The story follows a young American boy named Ninten, who uses his great-grandfather’s research on psychic powers to stop strange, supernatural events that are causing chaos in the country.
Shigesato Itoi, the writer and director, shared the idea for Mother with Shigeru Miyamoto during a visit to Nintendo’s headquarters. Although Miyamoto initially refused the idea, he later gave Itoi a team to develop the game. Inspired by the gameplay of the Dragon Quest series, Mother was set in a humorous version of late 20th-century America, making it different from other fantasy games of the time. Itoi included common role-playing game features, such as using medicine and hospitals to heal, fighting enemies with baseball bats and toy guns, and encountering aliens, robots, and strange objects. The game uses random events to switch to a first-person battle system that appears on a menu.
When Mother was first released, it sold about 400,000 copies. Critics praised its similarities to Dragon Quest and its humorous take on typical role-playing game themes, but some found it too difficult or unbalanced. A version of Mother for North America, called EarthBound, was planned but not released because it was not expected to be profitable. A completed version of this game, known as EarthBound Zero, was later found online. Many critics believe Mother helped increase interest in preserving old video games and using technology to play them again.
In 1994, the sequel to Mother, called Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū, was released in Japan for the Super Famicom. This game was later released in the United States in 1995 under the name EarthBound. At first, EarthBound did not do well in the U.S., but it later became popular among a small group of fans. A third game, Mother 3, was released in Japan in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of EarthBound’s release in the U.S., Mother was made available worldwide as EarthBound Beginnings on the Wii U Virtual Console in June 2015. In February 2022, EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound were both released on the Nintendo Classics service.
Gameplay
EarthBound Beginnings is a single-player, role-playing video game set in a "slightly offbeat" version of the late 20th-century United States, as imagined by Japanese author Shigesato Itoi. Players battle hippies, undead zombies, animated objects and vehicles, aliens, robots, and mind-controlled humans and animals. The game world includes towns, deserts, swamps, forests, and caves that players must explore. The game does not follow the typical fantasy or science fiction genres seen in other Japanese role-playing games, even though both genres appear in the game. Battles take place in warehouses and laboratories instead of traditional dungeons, and players can travel between areas by train rather than walking. Instead of swords, guns, or magic, players use baseball bats, toy guns, frying pans, knives, and psychic abilities. The main characters, Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana, are about 11–12 years old. Lloyd and the fourth party member, Teddy, do not have psychic powers, unlike Ninten and Ana. Players can press a button to have Ninten "check" or "talk" with nearby people, animals, and objects. The game shares features with its sequel, EarthBound, such as saving the game by calling Ninten’s father on a phone, storing items with Ninten’s twin sister at home, and using an ATM to bank money. All party members are visible on the overworld map at once, similar to EarthBound’s design. Unlike games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, EarthBound Beginnings connects all areas into one continuous world map. The game’s structures are shown using an oblique projection, a style requested by Itoi.
Like the Dragon Quest series, EarthBound Beginnings uses a random encounter combat system. Players explore the overworld from a top-down view and sometimes enter first-person battles where they choose attack options from menus. During a turn, players can choose to fight, guard, check enemy stats, run away, use items, or use psychic powers. Players can also set battles to autopilot. Party members attack in an order determined by a random number generator and their speed. Critical hits are marked with the game’s signature "SMAAAASH!!" text and sound. If a character or enemy’s HP reaches 0, the battle ends, and the opponent becomes unconscious. If a character becomes unconscious, they can be revived using psychic abilities. If all characters are unconscious, the game shows a blank screen asking if the player wants to continue. If the player chooses to continue, Ninten is revived at the last save point with half the money he had when defeated. After winning a battle, players may gain experience points, new psychic abilities, or other stats. Enough experience points increase a character’s level, which affects their physical and psychic abilities. Players may also receive items after defeating enemies. After winning, Ninten’s father deposits money into an account, which can be withdrawn from an ATM. In towns, players can buy weapons, items, and food from fast food restaurants and department stores. Equipment like pendants, medallions, and bracelets can be worn to improve strength and defense. Items can be used to heal, clear obstacles, or unlock doors. Towns also have facilities like hospitals, where players can pay to be healed. In one town, the cost to heal is half the cash the player has at that moment.
Plot
In the early 1900s, a young married couple disappears without explanation from their small town in America. Two years later, the husband, George, returns and starts studying alone in secret. His wife, Maria, is never seen again. In 1988, a boy named Ninten lives in a home attacked by a poltergeist. After Ninten drives the spirit away, his father tells him that his great-grandfather studied psychic powers and asks him to help solve strange problems across America. Ninten begins by helping his hometown of Mother's Day and travels to a magical place called Magicant. There, the queen of Magicant, Queen Mary, asks Ninten to find eight musical notes from a song she dreams about and play them for her.
Ninten returns to Earth and becomes friends with Lloyd, a very smart child who is bullied at Tinkle Elementary School. Together, they travel to Snowman to return a lost hat to Ana, a girl with psychic abilities. Ana tells Ninten she saw him in a vision and joins the group to search for her missing mother.
While searching for the song’s notes, Ninten is attacked by a gang leader named Teddy in the town of Valentine. After a fight, Teddy joins Ninten’s group to avenge his parents, who were killed by wild animals on Holy Loly Mountain. Teddy forces Lloyd to stay behind. At a cabin near the mountain, Ana asks Ninten to stay with her forever. They dance and share their feelings for each other. A giant robot attacks the group, and Lloyd arrives in a military vehicle to destroy it. The robot is defeated, but Ninten and Ana are badly hurt, and Teddy is seriously injured. Lloyd then rejoins the group.
The group takes a boat on a nearby lake, but a whirlpool pulls them into an underwater laboratory. Inside, they meet a robot named EVE, who says George built it to protect Ninten. When the lab floods, they are pulled back into the lake and head to the mountain’s peak. A stronger robot attacks them, and EVE sacrifices itself to destroy it, leaving behind the 7th note of Queen Mary’s song. At the mountain’s top, they find George’s tombstone, where his spirit provides the 8th note. The group is then transported back to Magicant, where Ninten plays the full song on an ocarina. Queen Mary remembers the story of an alien named Gyiyg, whom she raised as her own child. She reveals she is Maria, George’s wife, and then disappears. Magicant, a vision created by her mind, also vanishes.
The group returns to Holy Loly Mountain, where Maria’s spirit clears rocks blocking the path to the mountain’s peak. There, they meet the alien Gyiyg, who thanks Ninten’s family for raising him but accuses Ninten of interfering with his people’s plans. Gyiyg offers to save Ninten alone if he boards the alien’s ship. The group sings Maria’s lullaby as Gyiyg attacks them. The song reminds Gyiyg of Maria’s love, and he is overwhelmed with emotion. He promises to meet them again and leaves in his ship. The story ends with a summary of what happens to the characters after their journey and a credits sequence. The player’s name is shown in the credits as a thank you. In the Japanese version, the group faces the screen while the credits play behind them.
Development
EarthBound Beginnings was created by Ape and released by Nintendo. In 1987, Shigesato Itoi, a copywriter, became interested in role-playing games after a coworker introduced him to the Dragon Quest series. While playing Dragon Quest II on his Famicom, Itoi imagined making a role-playing game set in modern times because he knew little about medieval settings, which were common in games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. He thought modern life would be more interesting. Since he had no experience in the gaming industry, Itoi hoped a company would help him make his idea. After he spoke positively about video games on a late-night talk show, Nintendo’s president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, became interested in his work and asked project manager Yoshio Sakamoto to invite Itoi to help advertise a game called Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School for the Famicom Disk System.
At Nintendo, Itoi met with Shigeru Miyamoto and shared his idea, then called "ESP1." He believed the modern setting would be unique because it did not include magic or weapons like guns, which were common in other games. Itoi’s proposal explained how to overcome these challenges. Miyamoto liked the idea but was not excited about it, saying he was unsure if Itoi could complete the project. He explained that game development required people who would actually create the product, not just propose ideas. Miyamoto asked Itoi to simplify his plan, which made Itoi feel helpless. Later, Itoi cried on his train ride home. After thinking about how to make his game special, Itoi received a call from Miyamoto, who said he had found a development team for the project.
Miyamoto was hesitant to work with Itoi because companies often used famous people for game endorsements, and Itoi was a copywriter, not a game designer. When they met again, Miyamoto gave Itoi documentation from a text adventure game and told him he would need to write similar materials himself. Miyamoto explained that the game’s quality depended on how much effort Itoi put in, and he worried Itoi could not commit enough time because of his full-time job. Itoi reduced his other work, and Miyamoto formed a development team. Production began in Ichikawa, Chiba, a month after Nintendo approved the project. Itoi wanted his workspace to feel like a group of volunteers working from an apartment, which Miyamoto tried to arrange. Itoi wrote the game’s script and traveled from Tokyo, a process he found very tiring but also motivating. Despite pressure to focus on development, Miyamoto faced criticism for hiring Itoi, a copywriter, for a game project. Miyamoto believed in Itoi’s ability, and the development team was surprised by Itoi’s deep involvement and close relationship with them.
Itoi’s goal was to create a game he would enjoy playing. He drew inspiration from works by Steven Spielberg, such as Poltergeist and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The game’s opening scene was influenced by Poltergeist, while the idea of using music to contact aliens and the importance of Devils Tower in Close Encounters shaped the game’s ending. Itoi added the world of Magicant to create a modern fantasy setting, though he later noticed similarities to The Talisman but said this was not intentional. The game’s title, Mother, was chosen near the end of development. It was inspired by the word "mothership" and a song by John Lennon, which deeply moved Itoi. The title also reflected his personal experience, as his mother was absent during his childhood due to his parents’ divorce. He described the title as a way to finally say the word "mother," which he had avoided for years. The game’s logo was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Elvis Costello album Blood & Chocolate. The planet shaped like the letter "O" was designed to look like an unfamiliar version of Earth.
Development of Mother took two years, and the initial idea remained unchanged from Itoi’s original plan. The company Ape helped with the game’s later stages. Ape was created to address concerns about the gaming industry’s future, as Nintendo’s president, Yamauchi, believed new talent was needed to keep the industry growing. Ape was founded in March 1989, with Itoi as its director. The company’s name and logo were inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mother was released in Japan on July 27, 1989, for the Famicom (called the Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan).
The game’s music was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. Tanaka, a Nintendo composer who had worked on games like Super Mario Land and Metroid, joined the project at his superiors’ request and initially did not understand Itoi’s vision. Over time, he came to support Itoi’s ideas, and they developed a trusting relationship. Suzuki was hired directly by Itoi, who had worked with him on other projects. Suzuki had enjoyed playing Famicom games but had never considered composing music for a game. While Tanaka handled the game’s music and sound effects, Suzuki wrote the soundtrack. Itoi asked Suzuki to base his compositions on pop music and include real lyrics, which was uncommon for Famicom games. Suzuki found it fun to create sounds that pushed the Famicom’s audio limits.
Suzuki and Tanaka mostly composed the music in Suzuki’s home, where Tanaka would travel from Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters. Suzuki played his tracks on a piano, and Tanaka converted the music into data using a computer he brought from his hotel each day. The team focused on creating rules for the game’s audio, considering how time and space connected, how characters related to each other, and how good and evil were portrayed. Itoi was excited about using music to enrich the game’s world. The Famicom could only play three notes at a time, which Suzuki and Tanaka noted as a challenge.
Prototype
In 1998, a finished prototype cartridge of the game EarthBound was found by a fan translation group called Neo Demiforce (or simply Demiforce). This group had already been working on an early English translation of the game's predecessor, Mother, before the prototype was discovered. Earlier that year, the prototype had been sold for $125 to an unknown person named "Kenny Brooks" by a game collector named Greg Mariotti. Mariotti had found the prototype years earlier at a game store. Steve Demeter, the leader of Demiforce, wanted to copy the game's data for preservation purposes and asked Mariotti to share Brooks' email address. Mariotti later ended his relationship with Demiforce. A Mother fan named "EBounding," who was in contact with Brooks, shared the information with Demiforce, wanting to play the game himself. Demiforce then negotiated with Brooks, and as part of the agreement, the EarthBound fan community donated $400 so Demiforce could temporarily take the cartridge from Brooks to copy its data. To differentiate the prototype from EarthBound, the translated sequel of Mother, the prototype's title screen was changed to show the name "EarthBound Zero," a tribute by Demeter to the game Street Fighter Alpha (called Street Fighter Zero in Japan).
On April 27, 1998, EarthBound Zero was released to the public, along with a backup copy of EarthBound's code. To make EarthBound work on a popular NES emulator called NESticle, a small part of the game's code was changed. However, this caused a security check to activate, locking the game on an anti-piracy screen. A second change to the code fixed the issue, and the game was shared again. Some members of the EarthBound fan community doubted the cartridge's authenticity at first, suggesting other theories about how it appeared. Later, they accepted it as real after Phil Sandhop confirmed its likely authenticity and because similar changes in EarthBound were found in Mother 1+2. The prototype was later sold by Brooks for $1,000 to a collector named Andrew DeRouin, who gave it to a friend who kept it for fourteen years. DeRouin later got the cartridge back for free. The cartridge, called the "TK-69" prototype, was copied again in 2020 because Demiforce's original backup was lost. Since the discovery of the "TK-69" cartridge, several other prototype cartridges have been found outside of Nintendo, with one confirmed prototype now stored at Nintendo of America's headquarters.
Release
Mother was the sixth best-selling video game in Japan in 1989, selling about 400,000 copies. To promote the game, an advertising campaign highlighted Itoi’s role as a celebrity. A promotional video showed him encouraging players to take their time with the game. A live-action TV commercial featured child actors playing characters Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd, who used psychic attacks to destroy a giant robot before heading to Mt. Itoi. The ad included two taglines: "No crying until the end" and "Guaranteed masterpiece," created by copywriter Hiroshi Ichikura. Merchandise based on the game and its commercial was made, along with the Mother Encyclopedia, a guidebook with expanded details about the game’s world and characters. Other guidebooks and a novelization written by Saori Kumi were also released. The game came with a fold-out manual that included paper clay models of characters and enemies, as well as a full-color map of the game’s overworld, inspired by maps from the Dragon Quest series.
Mother received a "Silver Hall of Fame" score of 31/40 from the Japanese magazine Famitsu. Reviewers noted its similarities to the Dragon Quest series and its parody of common role-playing game tropes. They believed the sequel, EarthBound, improved on Mother’s gameplay ideas. However, critics criticized the game’s high difficulty and balance problems.
Jeremy Parish of USgamer described Mother as a mild parody of the role-playing game genre, especially Dragon Quest. He noted that the game used a windowed interface, first-person combat, and graphics similar to Dragon Quest, but had a modern setting and non-fantasy story. Parish compared Mother to Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, another modern-day RPG, but said Mother avoided moving into science fiction or fantasy. He highlighted the game’s "sense of wonder and magic realism," as Ninten seemed to be pretending to be a hero rather than one in real life. Parish linked Itoi’s interest in making a satirical RPG to the popularity of the genre in Japan. Satoshi Tajiri of Famicom Hisshoubon praised Mother’s cinematic storytelling and new ideas for an RPG. Three Famitsu reviewers initially doubted the game’s quality but felt rewarded after finishing it.
Cassandra Ramos of RPGamer praised Mother’s graphics and music, calling them among the best for the console. She described the visuals as "rich" and the characters as resembling those from the Peanuts comic. However, she found the battle sequences unimpressive. She called the game "surprisingly complex" for its time and recommended it to fans of EarthBound. Two Famitsu reviewers praised the music, and one noted the game’s monsters were especially cute.
Akihito Tomisawa of Famicom Hisshoubon suggested the game would have been better if Itoi had full control over the project. Parish credited Itoi’s writing skills for the game’s vision, comparing him to American author Garrison Keillor. He noted that Itoi’s background as a writer helped create a unique RPG. Parish observed that non-player characters in Mother "contemplated the profound and trivial" instead of focusing on the plot. He also said the lack of an official North American release made the sequel, EarthBound, more respected.
Parish noted that Mother’s script was as strong as EarthBound’s but said its gameplay mechanics were less refined. Mother lacked features like the "rolling HP counter" and non-random encounters found in later games. He also pointed out balance issues, such as incorrect scaling of character stats and difficulty. Rose Colored Gaming, a company that reproduced NES cartridges, noted that the Japanese version was more challenging than the unreleased English version. Ramos also mentioned balance problems, including many battles, tough enemies, and reliance on grinding. Parish previously wrote that EarthBound was a "satirical deconstruction of RPGs," while Mother was a "clone" that inspired interest in preserving unreleased games.
Legacy
In 2014, Starmen.net hosted a Mother 25th Anniversary Fanfest. The event included a live broadcast of the game and plans to create a remixed version of its soundtrack. Later that year, fans released a 25th Anniversary Edition ROM hack. This version updated the game’s graphics, script, and gameplay balance.
A fan-made documentary titled Mother to Earth was created by 54&O Productions. It was funded through Kickstarter in 2016 and released on October 19, 2019. The documentary began as a single interview with Mother’s localization producer, Phil Sandhop, which was part of a project that was later canceled. The director, Joshua Bone-Christian, asked producer Christian Deitering to turn the interview into a documentary because Sandhop answered many questions from EarthBound fans. The film focuses on how Mother was localized and released as EarthBound Beginnings in North America. It includes interviews with people involved in the localization process and notable figures in the gaming community. During production, filmmakers encouraged the team to add more drama, but the team chose not to, believing the content would be enough to interest viewers. The documentary was released on Vimeo on August 31, 2020, and in theaters on January 22, 2021. It was also released on DVD and Blu-ray. Merchandise and physical media related to the documentary are available on the project’s website.
In 1994, a sequel called Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū was developed and released in Japan for the Super Famicom. It was localized and released for the Super NES in 1995 as EarthBound. EarthBound was not well received in the United States at first but later gained a loyal fanbase and is now considered an influential cult classic. Development for the third game in the series, Mother 3, began in 1994 for the Super Famicom. It was later moved to the 64DD, a special add-on for the Nintendo 64 that used a different type of disc. The game was advertised as a sequel to EarthBound in North America, titled EarthBound 64. However, Mother 3 had trouble finding a release date due to development challenges. It was later shifted to the Nintendo 64’s standard cartridge format in 1998 because the 64DD failed commercially. The game was canceled in 2000 due to resource issues with the GameCube. Development for Mother 3 was restarted in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance and officially announced in 2003. A compilation cartridge titled Mother 1+2, available only in Japanese, was released that year and included changes from the unreleased English version of Mother. While Mother 3 was converted to 2D graphics, its story remained the same as its Nintendo 64 version. It was released in Japan in 2006 and received critical and commercial success. Nintendo did not release it in North America despite fan demand. In 2008, a fan translation led by Clyde Mandelin was released and praised by fans and critics. Shigesato Itoi, the game’s creator, later said he had no plans to make a fourth game, ending the series.
Since its release, Mother, along with its sequels EarthBound and Mother 3, has been repeatedly requested for official re-releases by fans, critics, and journalists. In 1999, Starmen.net hosted a petition to release Mother for the Game Boy Color, but Nintendo did not respond. Starmen.net also petitioned for an English release of Mother 1+2, but it did not happen, possibly because the campaign ended too early. Despite Nintendo Power readers ranking Mother as the fourth most desired game for the Wii Virtual Console (with EarthBound as the most desired) in 2008, a release did not occur. In 2015, to celebrate EarthBound’s 20th anniversary in the United States, Nintendo re-released Mother on the Wii U’s Virtual Console in Japan and internationally on the same day as EarthBound Beginnings. The Japanese Virtual Console version of Mother included changes from the Mother 1+2 port, while the international version used the same ROM as the unreleased NES localization of Mother, with no changes. Like EarthBound, EarthBound Beginnings became one of the best-selling titles on the service, especially in North America and Europe. It ranked slightly lower in Japan compared to the digital version of Splatoon. In 2022, EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound were released on the Nintendo Classics service in North America on February 9 and internationally the next day.
The Mother series includes recurring elements from the first game, such as Giygas, the main antagonist, and music tracks like “Snowman,” “Pollyanna (I Believe in You),” and “Humoresque of a Little Dog.” These elements have also appeared in the Super Smash Bros. series. Remixed music from Mother was used in the Onett and New Pork City stages in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The Franklin Badge, an item that helps block lightning attacks, appears as an item and trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Ninten also appears as a collectible sticker in the same game. In the Magicant stage of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, clips from Mother play in the background. Hobonichi, a company founded by Mother creator Shigesato Itoi, has produced merchandise based on the series since 2020, including plushes and badges inspired by the first Mother game. In 2022, Nintendo released a Mother notebook based on the Eight Melodies from the game for the My Nintendo service and a luggage tag based on the Phase Distorter from EarthBound. After the Japan-only release of Mother 3 on the Nintendo Classics service, Nintendo released limited-time icons for the service based on Mother on February 21, 2024.