Nintendo Dream (ND): What thing left the greatest impression during the development of Mother 3?

Shigesato Itoi (SI): The moment when we had no choice but to quit development (on the Nintendo 64) was big. It’s not like it was anyone’s fault, but it was perhaps the results of the competence and various balances at that time. Only the vision kept getting bigger, and I felt that if everyone wanted to make what they wished for, it will never be finished.

ND: So Mother 3 ended up getting revived for the Game Boy Advance, but many features from development on the Nintendo 64 were still remaining, weren’t they?

SI: That’s right. There were also many new things added as well. I felt like the Mother 3 that had been inside me was wholly unleashed right at that time.

ND: If it were out for the Nintendo 64 it would have the graphics with 3D polygons, but the pixel art on Mother 3 [on GBA] still had the feeling of Mother.

SI: I think so too. I feel that the one which matches with Mother is pixel art after all.

ND: This notebook for Mother 2 also has a deep taste of pixel art. How did you imagine the graphics for the Mother series at that time?

SI: During the time of the first Mother, I gave out many instructions, but for Mother 2 I told Mr. Kouichi Ooyama to follow the designs from Mother 1. It was really helpful that I could leave most of the directions to Ooyama-san. Since Mother 3 was put together with a new production, at first the atmosphere was totally different.

ND: Itoi-san, what kind of thing was in your mind when you were thinking about the graphics in the Mother series?

SI: I felt like I’ve made a model template with Mother 2. The feel of characters put together by Ooyama-san and Mr. Toshinao Aoki, the latter of which participated in Mother 3 (N64 version), really matched with the Mother inside me.

ND: Were there any points you had problem with on the scenario?

SI: Regarding the scenario, the problems were also fun actually. They kept coming out while I was writing my homework, like what should I do right here. When I solved it, my feeling was like I found a light after wandering inside my own brain. However, when I found things that ‘might be boring’, that’s a different story. So regarding the scenario, I had 2 staff members type what I said orally, but the answer came out at that place.

ND: So you could understand whether it could be accepted or not with live sense.

SI: That was a rather cruel way of doing things. Since I was worried when I asked them they would say ‘It’s interesting’, but from their body languages I knew they actually meant ‘Ah, that’s not good!’ (laughs)

We did that all night while being lodged together for days, but it was really hectic. You can’t do things like that nowadays. And we also had debates.

ND: What do you mean by debates?

SI: When we speak about Mother 3, it’s about the main character’s father Flint who was always searching for his only child who had gone missing, but I was a bit worried that ‘wouldn’t this keep dragging on forever?’. So, when I talked with a staff member, he also just had a child at that time, and he said ‘If he were a father, I think normally he would search for them every day’. So then I thought to myself again ‘so that’s the correct thing for a human. I’m just a game creator after all’ (laughs). Flint became a father who continued searching for his child all time.

ND: I was a grade schooler at the time the first Mother was released, but I was surprised when my parents, who had no interest in games, read the Mother guide book at a bookstore, and then gave it to me as a present without saying anything. Many of the visitors who come to this event today are parents and children indeed.

SI: I’m really glad that this has become ‘a game that parents tell to their children’. By some possibility it might even get told to grandchildren too. There are also people who give it to their children, like ‘this is the game daddy was infatuated with a long time ago’. I’m glad that it can make communication between people better.

ND: Including those kinds of people, it gives an impression of a broad age range.

SI: There are so many young people that I feel a mystery like ‘Why would all of them know about this?’. There are also many people who know about the character from SSB (Super Smash Brothers For 3DS & Wii U). There are also so many fans of the Mother series outside Japan.

ND: I see. Even though Mother 3 hasn’t been released overseas yet, they know about Lucas from SSB…

SI: But recently when I heard from foreign fans, they said they all have played Mother 3. They also learned the Japanese language too.

ND: What enthusiasm! Just for an RPG with a lot of text…

SI: From the beginning Mother was not supposed to be a game with perfect reviews. So with that in mind, now I think ‘It’s really a good thing to make what you like, it’s a good thing that I don’t think to [make something] to get perfect reviews’ (laughs).

ND: Mother is a series that many of our readers have been wishing for a sequel even now. In a previous interview Itoi-san said ‘you will not create a Mother 4’, but you also said ‘if somebody else would make it…’

SI: If it goes like that I will look forward to it. I don’t want to say that I don’t like it. I want to say ‘that’s good!’. Mother is no longer my own possession anymore. I didn’t write it all by myself unlike a novel either. Mother has been always supported by customers unendingly, and even nowadays it still receives support after all.

ND: Is there any advice for ‘how to properly play this’ to the young readers who are going to touch Mother 3 for the first time with this digital release?

SI: I have… no advice for that (laughs).

ND: So there are all kinds of messages included inside the game.

SI: It’s really perhaps indeed like that. I might want to say things like ‘you shouldn’t play too hastily in this part, but you shouldn’t move too sluggishly in that part’, but no matter how they play it, each person should be able to find their own way to enjoy Mother 3.

ND: I see.

SI: However, I might be bothered if they don’t read the text (laughs). When the frog spoke about good-for-nothing things but people skipped it, [I feel like] ‘Hey I’ve wrote that after much trouble!’

(both people laugh)

SI: I think games are basically an interaction of numbers, but I want [people to] also enjoy the nuances of speeches. For example, things like people who said ‘I’m sorry the speech is getting long’ but then keep talking, or the mood of people who are mumbling after adding ‘Ah, wait a minute’. Let’s read the text, this is an important thing.

ND: Finally, would Itoi-san please leave a message you want to say to the fans right now.

SI: In this generation perhaps games like Mother, that has a lot of things people couldn’t care less about included in it, are difficult to make. Even among players it might be criticized as ‘It’s crappy!’, but Mother is the lump of things like that. However, even after a long time has passed this is still getting supported, so I would like to stand still and think about the reason [why people still support Mother to this day].

Source to original interview