MOTHER 1+2

by: Echoes on 1/23/2020

The Famicom line of consoles were getting old as each new generation of Nintendo hardware passed. In the early to mid 2000s, Nintendo began porting many of their legacy titles to the Game Boy Advance, as the 32-bit hardware was capable of emulating the software in addition to being able to play these games portably for the first time. There had been much demand for a re-release of MOTHER on the Game Boy ever since the Colour, and Shigesato Itoi himself began to conjure some serious interest in a port after he no longer had any Famicom in his own household!

The snazzy-looking box for *MOTHER 1+2*.

“In this situation, someone who liked MOTHER would have to resort to playing on old or used hardware—which I would be very grateful for, but that still leaves me with the feeling that I’d be forcing people do weird things to play the games.”

On June 20, 2003, this restriction was redeemed when MOTHER 1+2 released on the GBA, a refreshed compilation of the first two games in the series. The port was developed by an unknown company under Itoi’s supervision. There was much debate as to if anything needed to be changed about the two games, but Itoi was adamant about keeping things faithful. When asked by Miyamoto on the subject of how the games should be on the Game Boy Advance, Itoi responded, “It wouldn’t need to be like anything, just the mere fact of it being released would make me happy. Plus, I’ve been wanting to play it myself.” Even details like MOTHER 2’s library map, which Ness is asked to return in the year 2001, was kept after much debate by the team, finding the things which now seemed “out-of-place” humorous in light of the new pre-modern subtext. Perhaps the most interesting fact about the port is that the version of MOTHER 1 in the game was based upon the North American version, EarthBound Beginnings, which at the time remained only as an unreleased prototype.

The storylines of MOTHER 1 and 2 follow the invasion of the cosmic overlord Giygas in his attempt to eradicate mankind through psychic manipulation. In his opposition are a band of children proficient in the fields of Giygas’ own PSI ability and science, united together through the fictional interpretation of America by Ninten and Ness, two seemingly average boys with an admiration for baseball. MOTHER 1 is a mostly grounded, character-driven experience with a youthful sense of nostalgia, while MOTHER 2 has a more surreal direction that pushes the narrative through endless quirky scenarios. The games may seem similar at a glance (despite their technical differences), but when packaged together in one cartridge, their variabilities truly shine.

The port received greatly positive reviews following its release; many were impressed with how well the games transitioned to the handheld hardware, especially under one package. To this day, the port of MOTHER on the system is still enjoyed by many fans through Clyde Mandelin’s faithful translation of the original Japanese text. However, the technical flaws have become a major criticism over time, many citing the poorly-programmed soundtrack as an insurmountable disappointment. While many bugs of the original games were fixed, such as the infamous Rock Candy exploit in MOTHER 2, new ones like being able to defeat Giygas without Praying came into being. Regardless of these shortcomings, MOTHER 1+2 is still a significant part of the series’ history; at the end of the television advertisement, MOTHER 3 was announced to be resuming development on the GBA, with everybody’s favorite, Mr. Saturn, proudly stating, “We’re making MOTHER 3 for the GBA too! d@kOt@!”. This signified the port as only the beginning of the series’ resurrection.