Holy! Earthbound 0 / Mother is OFFICIALLY RELEASED by Nintendo of America, Translated into English as "Earthbound Beginnings"

[Nz17]

Words can not begin to describe my surprise, but here is your videographic proof from Nintendo of America's official YouTube channel itself!



"Earthbound Zero," A.K.A. "Mother," has been officially translated into English and released into the West after decades of fans yearning for this very thing to happen. Yes, as a part of its Virtual Console offerings on Wii U, the NES/Famicom "Mother" game has been officially released here in America, Canada, Oceania, and Europe as "Earthbound Beginnings." It has been rated T for Teen.

...I guess the re-release of the SNES Earthbound game must have sold r-e-a-l-l-y well for this to have happened!

Can anyone attest to the differences between this official release and the unofficial fan translation from years ago, A.K.A. "Earthbound Zero?" Or is it indeed the case that "Earthbound Zero" has the same translation as "Earthbound Beginnings?" If so, this might bode well for future official releases of fan translations of games we didn't get the first time around!



Happy 20th anniversary, Earthbound!

[retroguy]

Very cool! I'd still like to pick up a repro cart to play on my NES, though. The one being sold various places is Nintendo's original official translation that was intended for release but cancelled before it went into production.

[Edmond Dantes]

Can anyone attest to the differences between this official release and the unofficial fan translation from years ago, A.K.A. "Earthbound Zero?" Or is it indeed the case that "Earthbound Zero" has the same translation as "Earthbound Beginnings?"

Correction:

Earthbound Zero was NOT a fan-translation, it was an unreleased prototype someone found and dumped the rom of. The official translator Nintendo hired confirmed that he authorized several of the changes (far more than just translation--some extra functions like a run button were added, and some of the dungeons were redesigned). The only thing fans had anything to do with was the "Zero" part--the actual game was just called "Earthbound," and they added the Zero to avoid confusion.

So I would expect Nintendo's translation to be exactly the same, seeing as Zero was their work in the first place.

[ccovell]

I think "fans" also removed crash/save erasing copy-protection that appeared deep into the EBZ game.

[PreZZ]

I dont get why people are excited for this, we've been able to play it for years for free, and now you can pay for it and play it only if you have a wii u? oh and its not good... just saying!! bring the hate!! Same goes for mother 3, its not bad but its OK, and even if its released you can play it already!!

[The Adventurer]

I dont get why people are excited for this, we've been able to play it for years for free, and now you can pay for it and play it only if you have a wii u? oh and its not good... just saying!! bring the hate!! Same goes for mother 3, its not bad but its OK, and even if its released you can play it already!!

It means we can pay for it, and show Nintendo that we care about Earthbound in the only way that actually matters. With our dollars.


PS: Mother 3 is a masterpiece.

[PizzaKat]

I gotta get a card. Get Ryu, Roy and this game. I really want to see how this is.

[Leo_A]

I don't care about this game, but it's still nice to see and gives hope for some further surprises.

Some easy projects that I'd love to see are Fatal Frame 2 from the Wii and F-Zero Climax for the GBA finally making their way out in North America via the Wii U's eShop.

[Aussie2B]

I dont get why people are excited for this, we've been able to play it for years for free, and now you can pay for it and play it only if you have a wii u? oh and its not good... just saying!! bring the hate!! Same goes for mother 3, its not bad but its OK, and even if its released you can play it already!!

For "free", AKA stealing it and playing it illegally. As far as Nintendo is concerned, that prototype never should've been leaked to the public. I'm not saying it was a completely bad thing because, as far as anyone outside of Nintendo knew, they could've just as well not retained anything from the project, so from a preservation standpoint, dumping the ROM could've prevented the localization from being lost to time. But a duck is a duck, and we have to call it for what it is. Earthbound Zero is no more "free" than if you walked into Nintendo of America right now, swiped a game off a desk, shoved it in your jacket, and nonchalantly walked out of there, none the wiser.

It's pretty sad that since the cancellation of its US release until now, the only people making money off the localization were thieves selling repros, not the actual people who put in the work. If I was one of the localizers involved, I'd be peeved about that. Granted, I'm sure they got paid for their hours, but Nintendo of America as a whole lost money on the project, so I hope those who have played "Earthbound Zero" over the years since it was dumped will actually send some money Nintendo's way, whether they liked the game or not. It's just a fraction of what it would've cost as a retail NES release anyway, so think of it like a rental fee.

[Gameguy]

Correction:

Earthbound Zero was NOT a fan-translation, it was an unreleased prototype someone found and dumped the rom of. The official translator Nintendo hired confirmed that he authorized several of the changes (far more than just translation--some extra functions like a run button were added, and some of the dungeons were redesigned). The only thing fans had anything to do with was the "Zero" part--the actual game was just called "Earthbound," and they added the Zero to avoid confusion.

So I would expect Nintendo's translation to be exactly the same, seeing as Zero was their work in the first place.

I thought fans translated the game from Japanese into English, and then the North American English prototype was found after that. Maybe I'm thinking of some other game but I thought it was this one. There should be two different English translations floating around.


It's good that the game is finally out officially, but it's about 25 years too late. Most people who care about the game already played it in some form, legal or not. Maybe if Nintendo released it on a cartridge or disc of some type I'd be more interested, ideally a limited edition NES version with printed maps as they originally intended would be fun. You can't tell me that wouldn't sell out immediately even if it were priced high like $100 a copy. Digital distribution isn't my thing, I don't see a reason to support this model. Release it physically or don't bother.

[Aussie2B]

"Earthbound Zero", that is, the dumped localized prototype (which is actually just called "Earthbound"; but those who dumped it hacked the title screen to add "Zero" in order to eliminate confusion with the SNES game), has been available publicly online since the late 90s. I would be amazed if someone had patched Mother 1 prior to that. Maybe in more recent years somebody re-translated the game, I dunno, but Nintendo's localization has been available for a long, long time.

[sfchakan]

I think it's nice it's finally out, but can't help but feel incredibly disappointed Nintendo didn't put it out years ago. They could have easily put it out on GBA or the original Virtual Console. There really was no legitimate reason to sit on the finished product for so many years when there was an obvious audience for it.


Don't worry, guys, we'll get Mother 3 in another 15 years...

[Aussie2B]

I don't know if there really was an obvious audience, considering the SNES game didn't exactly sell that great. I think Nintendo is still dubious about how well anything Earthbound can sell in the US. Cult status doesn't necessarily equal particularly good sales, and it doesn't help when you're also battling the sentiments seen above like "I already played the ROM, so why should I pay for the game?"

That said, when you've already got a fully localized and completed game, it's not exactly much effort or risk to throw it on VC. There really is no good reason I'm aware of that Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings weren't on VC much earlier. Of course, even if Earthbound Beginnings had been on there since the launch of the VC service, that'd still be many years since the prototype was dumped and shared.

[Gameguy]

"Earthbound Zero", that is, the dumped localized prototype (which is actually just called "Earthbound"; but those who dumped it hacked the title screen to add "Zero" in order to eliminate confusion with the SNES game), has been available publicly online since the late 90s. I would be amazed if someone had patched Mother 1 prior to that. Maybe in more recent years somebody re-translated the game, I dunno, but Nintendo's localization has been available for a long, long time.

Looking more into it, there was another fan translation being produced when the prototype was discovered, so work on the fan translation was stopped as it was unneeded. I remembered that a bit wrong for some reason.

That said there was a new fan translation produced for the GBA version of the game, which a lot of people like better as it's closer to the original version of the game. Another option to play the game.

[sfchakan]

I don't know if there really was an obvious audience, considering the SNES game didn't exactly sell that great. I think Nintendo is still dubious about how well anything Earthbound can sell in the US. Cult status doesn't necessarily equal particularly good sales, and it doesn't help when you're also battling the sentiments seen above like "I already played the ROM, so why should I pay for the game?"

We'll probably never know sales numbers for the games on Virtual Console, which is unfortunate.

I think Ness' inclusion in the Smash Bros. series helped give the games exposure to a new audience of people who otherwise were oblivious to it. You have all of us somewhat older farts who knew what was up telling them "hey, this is neat, check it out." Then you have this quirky character is one of the most popular fighting game franchises out there. I think the interest in the games has really gone up since the early 2000s.

My pre-teen kids recently sat down and started playing it. They ate it up.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, definitely, the Smash Bros. effect is significant. Who knows if we would've ever seen the Fire Emblem series take off outside of Japan if not for Smash Bros.

[Tanooki]

I got tired of reading the back and forward so if I'm repeating sorry, it's getting kind of late.

Earthbound(NES) aka "Zero" has a known story more or less about how it got out there and what is it. The game came from the NOA grounds, it got somehow or another snuck off the property and sometime down the line was put up for sale through a usenet newsgroup back in the 90s. It was discovered and deals were attempted, eventually one was made. The game had a deal for X amount of funds to be mailed to a person, that person would dump and verify said dump, then mail the game back to the owner -- it was a fee for copy deal. Demi of NeoDemiForce did this and I was at that time an acquaintence of his and we would bs on efnet back in the day. He got a bunch of backers if fairly short order given the year this was to get the cash and on faith alone send it so it could be bundled up so the game could be mailed, copied and returned. Once they got it, they say that Nintendo had finished the game as history was assumed at that rate. When it was played though people eventually after it was thrown online that it had pre-programmed crash bugs in there to screw with thieves. Those bombs were removed, hence now it being called Earthbound Zero with the hacked title to differentiate from the pure game and the hack so copiers and emulators could play it.

They never hacked anyhting else I'm recalling, and they did not re-translate it as it was already a finished product Nintendo just tanked like fools (like Starfox 2 a few years later and even Sim City NES at that time too.)

All that said Nintendo, ahem, screw you. WiiU only eh? Again they're trying to blackmail fans into buying their floundering system with fan bait of the highest rabid fanbase order. I get the first one, there is NO super nes emulator for 3DS then or now, but the NES was/is part of the ambassador program for the 3DS. There's no excuse other than to troll people into buying the system. Even they know it's failing when they go in with tecmo-koei to take the so-so (due to user base of the WiiU) age/interest group and throw HYRULE WARRIORS on the greatly more well sold 3DS out in the fairly near future. I can only hope they wise up and put Earthbound on the 3Ds and once hte Starfox game doesnt' sell well enough either that gets on 3DS too. I'd buy them all.

[Leo_A]

It's called Earthbound Zero by fans, because the SuperNes sequel was titled Earthbound by Nintendo of America and other Western arms of Nintendo.

It's not done to differentiate it from the unmodified source code. It's called that to simply differentiate it from its sequel.

Nintendo themselves have done something very similar. I'm pretty sure I saw it called Earthbound: Beginnings on the Wii U eShop earlier.

[Tanooki]

Yes it is called Earthbound Beginnings, but the Zero bit was done by Demiforce. They're the group that collaborated getting the stolen prototype and having it made public through a copying of the cart.

[Edmond Dantes]

That said there was a new fan translation produced for the GBA version of the game, which a lot of people like better as it's closer to the original version of the game. Another option to play the game.

I remember reading about that (on Starmen.net maybe?), and while the fan translation may textually be more accurate, Mother 1 on GBA actually uses the new dungeons and some redrawn monster sprites from Earthbound Zero.

Apparently, the reason for this is that Nintendo's people see each subsequent version of a game as a patch, and as EBZ was the latest at the time version of the game, that's what they used, minus the English text. Sounds a bit stupid and ass-backwards to me, but whatever.

Just struck me how much the initials EBZ looks like DBZ. If Ness went Super Saiyan and had the Gutsy Bat, how screwed would the universe be?