EarthBound creator says Mother 3 is still a cutting-edge RPG, even as fans continue their 20-year wait for an official translation

EarthBound creator Shigesato Itoi has released a message to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his final game, the still-yet-to-be-translated Mother 3.

EarthBound is probably the only Nintendo franchise to really earn the "cult classic" moniker. The original game, known as Mother in Japan, localized for English but never actually released in its day. Mother 2 would eventually be released in the US as EarthBound in 1995, though it didn't see a European launch until 2013 on the Wii U.

But middling sales for EarthBound meant that Mother 3 was never localized by Nintendo. Ever since Mother 3's release in 2006, fans have been demanding an official translation, to the point where Nintendo was cracking jokes about it 12 years ago. While the canceled translation of Mother (which was dubbed EarthBound Beginnings) arrived in 2015, the game fans were hoping for remains untranslated (officially, that is) over 10 years later.

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And now here we are, 20 years after the official release of Mother 3 in Japan, and series creator Itoi has released a message to celebrate the anniversary of what would turn out to be his final game.

On the Hobonichi Mother Project website, Itoi said (via machine translation) that he believes "Mother 3 is still a cutting-edge game. This isn't just because it was the latest release in the series; it also means it feels brand-new, like it was just born." He adds, "it's strange, interesting, and poignant!"

I do feel like the time for Mother 3 to finally get the translation would've been in the mid '10s when Nintendo was cracking jokes about it and trying to win favor with Wii U-era re-releases of the first two games. But now I just don't really see it. Of course, fan translations of the game have existed for well over a decade now, so I imagine anyone who wanted to play Mother 3 already has, but it would be nice to see Nintendo finally pull the trigger, even if the series is never going to continue.

"I just want people to be able to enjoy the game": Earthbound legend Shigesato Itoi is "glad" the SNES JRPG got the English localization changes it did