Earthbound 64 - The Mother We Never Knew 

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The Mother 64 Commercial feels like a fever dream, or a glimpse into another universe

The day the dev cartridge is dumped online will be a legendary day for Mother fans.

honestly im not sure if mother 3 wouldve been my favorite game if it weren't what it is right now, the sprites are really charming- however i would love to try eb64 out sometime

Why am I so enthralled by a story about a game series I haven't even finished.

Its insane that this game still became a masterpiece despite its awful development

The dump of the Pokemon Gold and Silver beta in 2018 gives me hope that some beta or demo version of Earthbound 64 is stilly laying around in some programmer's basement, and that maybe one day it'll be dumped online and we'll see what the game was really like

Based on the fact that we had Ness and Lucas in Earthbound 64, it makes me wonder if Ness failed to stop Porky and that's how the Pig Army took over

Note on Agota Kristoff's work: as a non-native French author, her writing utilises a decidedly simplistic and-appropriately enough-somewhat childish/straight-forward language to explore the aforementioned themes of innocence, loss, and familial bonds in times of war and desolation. I can't speak to how well this translates over to English, but I feel words like 'stoic' and 'apathetic' are apt descriptors of her work. However, I also feel it's important (if nothing else, as an insight to Itoi's creative process/M3) to recognise the brutal nature ultimately stems from, like Mother itself, young children trying their best to survive, understand, and navigate horrible circumstances on their own. Depressing af, but not without a certain, unshakeable childlike optimism, if not endurance. tl ; dr - nihilism is to Kristoff's work as humour is to Itoi's + kids just be out here livin also, edit: excellent video, by the way!!

top ten reasons I cry myself to sleep at night

It was heartbreaking to hear Itoi's words on the cancellation :(

Man, this makes me hope we get the ROM of eb64 someday. Like how someone managed to get the dinosaur planet rom and we can play it on actual hardware.

Wow I literally just rewatched the mother 4/oddity video again and now you uploaded lol.

I wonder if that prototype will ever leak online somewhere?

Even if the traditional 2D sprites fit the Mother series best from an aesthetic perspective, I REALLY wanna see a game that captures the look and feel of Earthbound 64. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say I'd want it to look super polygonal too!!

Fun fact: a certain part of mother 2’s version of Pollyanna sounds like it was played by a otomotone

Honestly the version we got was a timeless and beautiful game. Ultimately I believe the 64 version would still have been beloved, much like Ocarina of Time still is, but the 2-D gameplay being a further refinement of the previous 2 helps to make it feel like a tighter trilogy and linked together more closely. This is a great video though, buddy! Good work!

Chances are, Flint would've been the Mother rep in Melee or Brawl had this version of the game released, given how much prevalence he got in the trailer it feels like he was supposed to be the protagonist.

Weirdly enough I think the N64 has one the most timeless libraries of any console. With infamous titles like Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Banjo Kazooie and many more that continue to stand the test of time, I'd say the only part that hasn't aged well is it's comparatively low polygon count, which I think gives it an incredibly distinct personality that harbors a sense of anemoia. I never grew up playing the N64, but I've certainly had a bunch of wonderful experiences with it and it's many games.

Love that every year it seems we get more and more info on the original Mother 3

Finally a video talking in depth about this game, I have been wanting this for a long time. Also wasn't another one of Earthbound 64's working titles "The Forest of Unusual Beasts"

The pod racing thing in the game looked pretty interesting. Seemed like a game with a lot of side content outside of the main game it's sad that they cancelled this because N64 is my system I'd have likely played this unlike the original SNES one.

Rhythm based battle? Sounds good until it takes you 40 minutes to beat a worm

This is such a good video! well researched, well produced and very entertaining. This is a very underrated channel, I hope the algorithm picks this video up!

I think the funniest thing about Mother 3 is that if the DD had been pushed to a later release and Mother 3 actually got released alongside the DD in 2000 I'm pretty sure that Mother 3 would've saved the DD. Its too bad what happened but at least we got a great game later on.

Dang,i was just checking your videos out then a video got released I guess i get bonus points for being early.

earthbound 64 was soo ambitious i saw that the game was supposed to be 40 hrs long. it couldve been one of the best rpgs for the n64. oh well i guess.

This video is extremely underrated and underviewed.

pretty good video! really makes me apreciate mother 3 more...

Imagine the gag if Nintendo suddenly released this game fully developed, and with updated, smoother graphics on the Switch online shop, with no press leading up to it...

Plot twist: the game never came out because the devs missed the opportunity to call it Mother 3D

I’d love to see someone re-create the n64 build

Now that Star Fox 2 is available perhaps Nintendo can make more unfinished games available.

Yeah, I read those books. They were depressing as hell.

I would pay so much for a Kickstarter or just to have the files dropped. It hurts me that a probably terrific game, may never be played or achieved ever.

Never knew the story was so inspired by a book. I wonder if they had adapted Mother 3 into a novel, would they have to change some elements and character names to distance themselves from the original book to avoid any kind of infringement.

While I'm not sure how the long development of Mother 3 impacted Nintendo's financials, its final release as a 2-D title on the GBA was the right choice, creatively speaking. 2-D pixel art has a certain warmth -- a fun, nostalgic aesthetic (at least for those of us who grew up with it) that fits perfectly with the feel of the Mother series. Seeing those 3-D renderings, as impressive as they were for the N64... I don't know, they left me cold. It just didn't feel like Mother to me.

It's development story like this that make a game great and impactful. The passion and energy they put on and pass through, we don't have this in modern gaming.

I just beat Mother 3 for the first time on my Switch. I really wasn't expecting it to be the intense emotional experience that it was and it's shot itself up to being one of my favorite games of all time. Honestly just wanna give Lucas a hug lol

I would love to see mother 3 be released in 3d on a modern console and have the original content that was planned for the 64 version. I love mother 3 as it is, but every time I read about the scope that was planned for the game originally, the gba version just seems very lacking and limited. And as much as I love sprites, I really think 3d would make the game stand out and compliment the darker tone of the game better. Never gonna happen, but one can dream.

Gba is great. If anything this is a story about the true greatness of 2d games and how we shouldnt give up on them.

The photo at 1:20 is genuinely haunting. I’m glad the game didn’t look like this.

Maybe the Earthbound 64 was the Mother 3s we made along the way

This has been a great recap and love the videos and pics

I would love a fan made n64 port of mother 3. Not even a restoration of the canceled version. A straight 3d port of the final product.

Traduced with Google Translator the video title to spanish RU-vid got: "Earthbound 64: La madre que nunca conocimos" Sounds very funny and ironic to a Mexican

Mother 3 localization at e3 2021 god I hope

If Mother 3 was released on 64 it would mean Lucas would be in Smash Melee instead of Ness

Game spent 6 years on the making and was not even close to be completed, it was the end of the N64 life and devs probably were sent to work on the GC.

Someone find the DEV cartridge NOW! COME ON LETS GET THIS THING COMPLETED OURSELVES, sounds like a majority of the game was done after 6 years this is good news.

I would love t osee a recreation of Eartbound 64, even though it might not be that good, i would like to see it, because, it's a piece of history, it's part of the MOTHER series, i dont care if its on the switch, or a n64 cartridge (even though n64's arent evenbeing prodused anymore) or even a rom, even if it's just a fan project, i would love to see one.

In another universe earthbound 3 saved the world

6:40 I think what he’s trying to say is that he hasn’t even started yet. =P

Neat video! Thanks for uploading!

It would be kinda funny if earthbound 64 gets an official release and then translated before mother 3

I feel like we just eulogized a dead child that never got a chance to grow up.

While I would like to see what could have been, I'm glad what happened happened. Sure Mother 3 would have likely been a good game on the N64 but it definitely would have been held back by being an early 3d game, the art style is charming but definitely weird/off-putting compared to what we're used to and from what we can see in the footage available the camera angles didn't seem amazing for visibility, plus having enemies in the overworld might not have been possible/easy to do on the N64 without a lot of slow down. TLDR I'm glad Mother 3 came out on the GBA since it got to be a really polished 2d game instead of a still good, but unrefined 3d game

I’m glad it never got finished, the 2D looks so much better than 3D, the trailers looked like shit and I couldn’t imagine sitting through an entire game of that.

boney looks like hes on something and i love that

Fantastic video :)

If Oddity ever comes out And is successful I hope they are able to make something like mother 64

I'd love to know this Mother

It sucks that EarthBound 64 had such troubled development. I guess that’s part of making games sometimes.

earthbound 64 probably would have released if it was on the ps1 lol

Lets be honest We’re lucky we got the gba version instead of this

I remember the 3D hype at the time of N64 so I agree that a 2D platformer would not have succeeded (although I love 2D/2.5D games)

Come On Nintendo, Give us MOTHER 3

If you look at the footage of mother 64/3, there would have been antoher kid protagonists with a blue and yellow shirt, with a red cap

I want to break into Nintendo HQ to steal the source code for this game.

To be honest, I think I would prefer the Mother 3 we got rather than EB64 based solely based on the fact that the games visuals wouldn't have held up nearly as well if it was released on the N64.

Earthbound 64 just reminds of starwars

When you gonna do a Mother 3 video man

That isn’t Ness, that is Claus’ 1996 Build Beta Design. Itoi was interviewed in a famitsu during Mother 64 development and he stated Ness was never even planned to be in Mother 64 at all. You can tell it’s claus due him having a similar appearance to Ninten/Ness even in the gba version

Since you're talking about Mother 3, which graphics were "prerendered" in Final Fantasy 3 for the SNES? I know they were for the PS, but the SNES?!

Maybe I have serious nostalgia goggles, but I don't agree about N64 having aged badly.

That’s too sad!

I feel like someone who can speak or translate Japanese well, would be greatly appreciated to help reach out to some of the developers.

15:29 so... this is just ripped from Stephenvlog without credit? And you expected nobody to notice?

Lets pray that the game gets leaked some day

12 playable characters? Where did this come from? I can only think of 11 at most, and some of them are longshots at best.

Such a great video but such a depressing outcome....bitter sweet......I was hoping someone would release whatever they had completed on Earthbound 64 with the last Nintendo hack...Would be cool if someone were to complete the game and release it to the public 20 years late....Id buy it :)

Came here from Justin whangs tweet

i wonder if the tone of the game, and some of the plot points also had something to do with it's cancellation?

Due to technical limitations, a fully 2-D Earthbound 64 wasn't going to happen anyway. Paper Mario was created to use story to explain the problems they were having with the 2-D animations. I don't think the N64 could have done a 2-D Earthbound/Mother. I think, when they made the N64, they were working on a 32-bit console, when they invented a 64 bit processor and just kind of put it in what was otherwise 32-bit hardware, which resulted in huge pixels that made it look ugly. The N64 was made for a very specific purpose and was not very versatile. The camera issues built into the hardware. The Mario 64 camera issues, constantly drifting to the worst angle so you couldn't see where you were going. Zelda: Ocarina of Time invented that targeting button feature to work around the issue. Keep in mind, they had accidentally created their competition from the Sony Playstation when the Nintendo Playstation deal fell through, then there was the failed Philips CD-I deal, so by the time they fell back on cartridge technology to start from scratch making a new console, Sony had a headstart and Nintendo had to rush to cobble something together before the Playstation could beat them too bad. And they still made something great, despite its problems.

We've not seen this bc the fans who dropped this -_-"

what if they made Mother 3 into a movie?

Manage if mother 64 got leaked in the Nintendo gigaleak

Earthbound 64 was ahead of its time in that it wasn't finished but it's release date was announced and also that expansions and changes would come later...at more cost. Sounds like *many* games today, yeah?

So are there 5 games to this series? 29.12.2021

Cool

2d games on the 64 aged far far better lol

wouldn't it be cool if nintendo decided to finish it and add it to the n64 emulator?

funny how of all games you show megaman & bass a pretty bad port of the snes game

the N64 didn't age THAT badly... maybe you're confusing the N64 with the PS1

The video background gave ma headache

Holy shit that's disgusting

Thanks Myamoto for cancelling EB64 and Dinosaur Planet on the 64. Oh yeah and Starfox 2 on the SNES, i never had one myself but Myamoto was not always the wisest man. Could've also supported RARE a bit more when they where bought by Microsoft one of the greatest deves ever got assimilateed

So in other words the creator of Mother is incompetent….its why the 1st game was almost not made…the concept was interesting so he was given a chance and he had help to make the first two but with less help his individual value showed to not be as much as some others in the team.

Something makes me doubt that North American gamers were all that excited for EB64 lol

Earthbound is mids