Encyclopedia Mother



Encyclopedia Mother (Japanese: エンサイクロペディア・マザー, stylized as ENCYCLOPEDIA ＭＯＴＨＥＲ) is a Japanese-exclusive supplementary guide for EarthBound Beginnings, roughly serving a similar purpose to the EarthBound Player's Guide. It contains expanded backstories for the game's events, exclusive character biographies for Ninten, Ana, Lloyd, and Teddy, alongside a player's guide with information on the game's locations, a list of items and PSI moves, a list of enemies, and developer interviews. Two versions of the book exist, with one being released in 1989 for the original launch of EarthBound Beginnings and the other in 2003 for the launch of Mother 1+2. Both versions are 166 pages long.

Content Summary
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Trivia

 * This book was published by Ape Inc., the same company who assisted the development team for EarthBound Beginnings towards the end of the game's production.
 * This book is notable for using real-life photographs of places, people, and objects and equating them to the fictional Mother universe. It is also notable for providing expanded backstories, detailed character information, and a list of the character's favorite things for each of the four main protagonists.
 * This book is one of the only official Mother sources from the game's release to refer to the main character by the name of Ninten.
 * It is unknown if this would have been published in the U.S. later on if the game's english localization, Earth Bound, did manage to be released in the fall of 1991 like originally intended.
 * In the book, each location is laid out and detailed like a mock travel brochure. This could have inspired the english localization team behind EarthBound when they were writing the Player's Guide for the game, as the guide/manual follows a similar framework.
 * Most of the book is Japanese only, but some pages such as the opening newspaper segment are completely in english, as well as the lyrics for the Mother songs laid out in various parts of the book.