It’s not every day you wake up and new MOTHER 64 footage is found! Today, the video-game community was blessed by previously lost footage of the canceled N64 iteration of MOTHER 3 that was featured at Spaceworld 1997. As detailed on our site, the game was intended to be playable at the exhibition, but was pulled last minute and instead displayed in a sizzle reel of upcoming games.

Prior to the finding of this footage, only a few brief seconds of it existed from a similar sizzle reel that was shown at E3 1998 (unearthed by Echoes of MOTHER FOREVER in 2011). Ten years later, we can finally see that same footage and far more in higher quality! But, how did this manage to resurface over two decades later, and now? Let’s take a look!

The Spaceworld 1997 video was included on a CD featured in an internal Nintendo Company Report from 1998, which was sent to investors. The clip, dated January 12th, 1998 was featured in a preview of future games on the CD itself! Members of the EarthBound 64 Discord were made aware of MOTHER 64 footage being in this report in the summer of 2019 when Natsumi Takagi, a Japanese VR developer showed it off to famed MOTHER collector, Koala.

However, she stated the footage on the disc was “the same video you can find on YouTube.” Thus, the footage itself for the time being didn’t make it’s way on to the internet.

Miraculously, two years later on July 4th, 2021 the same report was put up for auction on Yahoo Japan. Site staff member Katie posted the report, and another fellow staff member Echoes recognized it was the same one from Takagi-san containing MOTHER 64. From there, he contacted Tony Hard4Games about it so they could coordinate on acquiring the report.

On the final hours of the auction, a bidding war happened. When it seemed like all hope was lost, community member Zen64 stepped in last minute and won the item for $357.

Because of Takagi-san’s statement of it being the same video, many of us believed it would contain the Spaceworld 1999 trailer. Luckily, that was not the case, and instead the report contained even earlier footage from the Nintendo 64DD iteration from 1997!

Our site video editor SnowWood happily colour-corrected the footage, and the scenes within it display:

• Pigmask Sergeants, Pig Z’s, and Pigmask Lieutenants in Pork Beans marching through the desert.
• Flint walking through a residential area within Tazmily Village.
• The Kraken emerging from some brown substance with Fuel in his jaws. Lighter can be see watching this occur just to the left.
• Original “MOTHER 3: Forest of Strange Creatures” logo.
• Lucas twirling into a Pork Bean, and driving it. With a funky squash-and-stretch animation!
• The Pigmask Army overworking the Claymen in the factory. One Pigmask rides a lift above.
• Lucas walking on the rafters high above the Claymen Factory, with the lift lowering to his right.
• A cinematic of the Pigmask Army marching in the desert. Each of the soldiers have their own unique walking animations!
• Flint selecting lightning magic in the battle menus. The battle background has an arena of animated flames.
• A Pigmask and Capybara switch places in battle. The screen dims and flashes as he summons a bolt of lightning.
• Flint performs a three hit combo on the Pigmask. He’s wearing nothing but grey underwear underneath his tunic!
• Flint tumbles off a grassy hill, displaying the physics in the game.

As for the text in the battle menus themselves, Lone provided translations for them below. Check out Flint’s magic abilities!

The story was covered on numerous journalist sites, such as Kotaku, Destructoid, Nintendo Wire and Hard4Games of course! Monumental thanks to Takagi-san for making us aware of the report in the first place, Katie for sharing the auction, and Zen64 for acquiring it! Hopefully, in the future we can find even more lost footage on this canceled gem.