Although the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive accessory was not shown at the last E3, it was certainly on everyone’s mind. Many of the questions in the Nintendo hosted Q&A sessions focused on this much-anticipated accessory. While exact marketing plans are still being kept under wraps, it was confirmed that Mother 3, the latest installment in the Japanese role playing game series that was previously released as Super NES Earthbound in the United States, will be one of the launch titles for the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive in Japan. Luckily, Mr. Benimaru Itoh, the art director for Mother 3, was at the show. He answered a few questions on the game in the Q&A sessions, but Nintendo Power Source was fortunate enough to have a chance to sit down with Mr. Itoh and find out even more about Mother 3. We’re happy to be able to present this exclusive update and the accompanying development storyboards!

Mother 3 is shaping up to be Nintendo’s first real role-playing game for the Nintendo 64. During one of the E3 Q&A sessions, Mr. Itoh talked about how Mother 3 will use the processing power of the 64-bit Nintendo 64. “Mother 3 is going to be for 64DD, and it will make maximum use of the writable feature of this accessory. Many things that the player does will be written to the disk and this will affect the future course of the game. This will make everyone’s course different.”

Although it’s difficult for him to reveal too many details about what the development team is planning, Mr. Itoh gave us a few simple examples of how the writable features of the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive might be used. “For example, your character might drop some of their food somewhere. This food might attract a hungry monster to that location. Your game would have a monster in that place, while another player’s game wouldn’t. You might also plant a seed somewhere, and it would grow into a tree. Something like this might help you get up a cliff…” He went on to explain how the real-time clock in the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive might be used to determine how much time passed in the game world, even while you were not playing.

Mr. Itoh relates that the team has epic goals for the Mother 3. For example, Mr. Iwata of HAL Labs (who is one of Mother 3’s project leaders), wants to make every player’s game a different experience. “In the case of Final Fantasy VII, there are a million people playing exactly the same game. If we sell a million copies of Mother 3, Mr. Iwata wants there to be a million different games out there!” says Mr. Itoh. “I’m not sure if we will be able to make everyone’s game that different, but Mother 3 will surely be a step in this direction.”

Another goal of the Mother 3 team is to create a truly epic 3-D computer graphics game. Mr. Itoh relates that he and Mr. Miyamoto once watched Disney’s Toy Story together. Afterward, they discussed the impact of this movie together. “Toy Story is an epic movie with 3-D graphics,” Mr. Itoh said. “This movie established a style for creating feature animation using computer graphics to tell a story. But there is no standard for 3-D movie games. We need to establish a different way for games.”

When Mr. Itoh says epic, he means it. He estimates Mother 3 will provide 40-60 hours of play time to get through. But because Mother 3 will have many different paths you can take, it will have more replay value than other RPGs. “Most RPGs have a straight path that takes a short time to get through. In this game we will make players spend time off of the main street. This will make it feel more like the real world.”

“While the original series was set in ‘America,’ the world of Mother 3 will be a mixture of worlds,’ he continued. “It will feature a world with fantasy, medieval and science fiction technology. It’s like the mythical beast, the Chimera, which had different heads.”

Though set in a slightly different world, the grand story line of Mother 3 will be connected to the previous games in the series. “You can get a clue about the story line through Pokey’s final words in Mother 2 (SNES Earthbound).” says Mr. Itoh. “Pokey didn’t die at the end… he escaped to a different ‘era’ or ‘age’. Part of Mother 3 is about him getting older in this ‘era’ that he hastily escaped to.”

Mother 3’s story will span about a 10 year period, with the actual game play picking up during key events in that time period. “The game is currently planned to have twelve different Chapters, but the time line isn’t quite linear,” explained Mr. Itoh. “For example, Chapter 5 may take place before Chapter 3. And you may have a different main character in some of the Chapters. Altogether there will be 10 possible player characters, and the different characters will have different roles in different Chapters. The main character in Chapter 2 might be a supporting character in Chapter 3.”

With all these different characters, the team briefly considered making Mother 3 a multi-player game, but the game design difficulties were insurmountable. Different players would go in different directions and cause chaos, and it was hard to make monsters react properly to multiple characters controlled by different players. Therefore, the game will be single player, but you will control teams of up to three characters.

Mr. Itoh couldn’t get in to too much detail about the battle system, but he did say it would be completely different from previous RPGs. “As is found in any RPG, when you encounter enemies, the screen will change to the battle mode. However, you will be able to see the monsters on the map view.” When asked what he thought about some RPGs which have many repetitive battles, Mr. Itoh replied: “There will be fewer battles, but they will be of higher quality. Of course, many important battles will take place. We have some great ideas but unfortunately, I am always scolded by the team for saying too much about this subject!”

The many development sketches that accompany this article are used by Mr. Itoh to pitch ideas for the game to Mr. Itoi, the story writer, and other team members. Therefore they do not exactly represent what will appear in the game. Nevertheless, they give us a tantalizing glimpse of the world of Mother 3. When we asked Mr. Itoh what he liked most about working on Mother 3, he said: “It’s my own world. If American players like it, that would make me very happy!” We’re sure that this science fantasy epic game will make American RPG fans very happy indeed!

During one of the E3 Q&A sessions, Mr. Itoh promised to keep Nintendo Power Source up to date on the latest information on Mother 3. We will continue to provide you with the best insider coverage on the development of this game.

Source to original interview