When you fall, you get back up again even stronger than before. That’s one of the major themes in MOTHER 3, and a philosophy Shigesato Itoi himself lives by. 

The disappointment behind MOTHER 64’s cancellation is something that can’t be conveyed in words alone. Although the fans over in Japan certainly had a lot to say – from tears of confusion, to resentful theories of it being a marketing strategy to sell the N64, it was perhaps Shigesato Itoi himself that hurt the most.

From the moment it was announced to the world that a third MOTHER game was nothing more than a pipe dream, Itoi swore his entire creative career on reviving the project somehow…

But not for the Game Boy Advance. 

The idea of transitioning it to the small screen was something Shigeru Miyamoto was fascinated by. During a meeting, he even pitched the prospect to MOTHER 64 producer Satoru Iwata. However, when speaking with Yomirui News, Itoi was adamant his grand vision could not be realized on such hardware:

“…when I reflected upon my initial feelings of “wanting to create a game that will always be remembered”, I felt that it wasn’t the right choice to help realize those feelings.” 

Instead, Itoi wanted to perhaps bring the story to light as a novel or film. Over the course of the next few years, he left the idea sitting on the back burner. A good production plan had to come first before anything. After failing to stick the landing on the N64, Itoi knew that he and his team would have to take great caution in reviving the game.

In typical MOTHER and Itoi fashion, things instead happened on a whim. Upon entering a car ride to Kyoto with his old friends in 2002, Itoi was asked by Miyamoto, “Please make MOTHER 3 for the Game Boy Advance.” Even going so far to plead, “We could pull it off through pixel art, if you’re okay with that!

Itoi was caught off guard, and even questioned if it could be possible. He was aware he’d have to scrap the “blockbuster movie” approach he took on the N64, but it was then he realized something: all that matters is the script, not the size of the movie theatre.

It was at that moment MOTHER 3 was wholly unleashed, and reborn anew. After meeting with the original team at HAL once again, development transferred over to Brownie Brown per Nintendo’s recommendation. Itoi was a bit wary at first, viewing their introduction as an “awkward form of matchmaking,” admitting, “…it took us a while to start communicating to each other just as friends.”

And indeed it took a good while. During the first year or so of production, things did not exactly progress smoothly. With Itoi communicating remotely, the staff at Brownie continued to create. During the course of 2002, MOTHER 3 producer Shinichi Kameoka created rough designs and mockups for how the characters and game might look. Upon being presented a prototype in 2003, Itoi exclaimed, “I knew it, this isn’t it…”

Re-imagining the game from the ground up in 2D was one of the greatest challenges, something which Super Smash Bros. producer Masahiro Sakurai took note of himself. After much trial and error, Itoi decided it was best to follow the groundwork of the previous games:

“It was then I realized, “Let’s just follow the tone of the MOTHER series.” After I made it clear we were going to follow the tone of the previous games, it was only a matter of making adjustments to the art. In other words, it was like we finally had a ruler for our drawings.”

And thus MOTHER 3 began to take flight. Itoi started to get into and enjoy the production process as the art style was decided on. With development going full steam ahead, it was officially announced to the world by Mr. Saturn in a MOTHER 1 + 2 commercial that, “We’re making MOTHER 3 for the GBA too! Dakota!”

Fans overseas were ecstatic by the news, eating up every development update on Itoi’s site. Upon the release of a flash game named “Project B” on Brownie Brown’s site, they were even able to determine the company’s involvement due to the eerily similar art and gameplay style. Alas, there were challenges behind the scenes in MOTHER 3’s development right until the very end – after all, the script still had to be written!

As per fashion for a MOTHER game, Itoi wrote all the text in the game himself. Encouraged by the words of Iwata, Itoi “enrolled himself” in a “writing training camp” with Nintendo supervisor Kazuyuki Gofuku and MOTHER 2 scenario writer Akihito Toda. Every day they’d spend 15 hours in Brownie Brown or Hobonichi’s offices, listening to Itoi’s words as Gofuku himself would enter them into spreadsheets. 

At the end of the training camp, Itoi had rewrote about 90% of the text. Concerning the 10% he hadn’t changed, he told Nagata of the Hobonichi, “I guess I wasn’t able to finish it all in one month.”

Leading up to the release of MOTHER 3, Itoi started drip feeding news on the official site which opened on February 7th, 2006. Slowly but surely, the fans were reintroduced to Lucas and Claus, as well as friends new and old. On the night before release, Itoi published a letter to the fans:

“MOTHER 3 is a playground with plenty of room for your imagination to run free. The more you think about it, the greater MOTHER 3 will become. The more you feel it, the deeper it will become. The more fun you have, the more you’ll grow”. 

And on April 20th, 2006, the game was finally released after over a decade of development hell. Itoi held a livestream discussion with comedian Hikaru Ijuin, in which he denounced the possibility of a MOTHER 4. While the game fared well with critics (with Famitsu awarding it a 35/40), fan response over in Japan was mixed due to its “sentimental tone” among other criticisms. The game sold moderately well nonetheless, especially for a title released late in the Game Boy Advance lifespan. It sold 200,000 copies within the first week, finishing at the 36th highest selling game at the end of the year with 368,000 copies sold. 

A year later, Itoi reflected on his thoughts making the game with Nintendo Dream, in volume 159:

“A game isn’t something that can be made by one person alone. Well, it’s possible that a really hard-working game creator could finish a game all alone, but even then he would still need a player.

Games grow and mature when they’re created, played, and conveyed over and over. In that sense, I feel the MOTHER games have been truly blessed and joyful.

You’ve all mixed a lot of your own personal time in with MOTHER 3 as well. I’m sure people will continue to play it even after this, but for now, I am thankful for the year or so of companionship that you have given it.

The truth is, in the end, the player is the one who completes a game’s creation. I’m very happy that this feeling of mine has gotten through somewhat. To everyone who is reading this, and to everyone in the (Nintendo Dream) editing department who put up with me, I thank you very much. Thank you!”

To this day, MOTHER 3 remains a Japan-only title. Yet its power has engrossed far beyond even most titles released internationally. Not only for its infamous lack of localization: but its bold storytelling, captivating characters, and timeless themes. It’s a game that could only be crafted by experiencing such creative hardship, and despite its compact presentation – to many, it remains Shigesato Itoi’s magnum opus. There is no world, like that of MOTHER 3.