EarthBound Beginnings

Mother (Known by some as EarthBound Zero) is a role-playing game for the Nintendo Entertainment System developed by Ape Inc. and published by Nintendo. The game was released in Japan on July 27, 1989. Nintendo of America planned to release the game in 1991 as Earth Bound, but marketing delays prevented the game from ever seeing a North American release. Mother has spawned two sequels - EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother 2, and Mother 3. It also gained a remake of it and its sequel in Mother 1+2.

Plot
Mother begins by telling the story of a young married couple named George and Maria who disappeared in the early 20th century. The game starts 80 years later in 1988 in the town of Podunk. A 12 year-old boy named Ninten experiences a poltergeist in his home, taking control of inanimate objects and attacking him and his sisters. After getting rid of the poltergeist, Ninten's father calls and tells him that his great grandfather studied PSI. Ninten decides to go out and solve the mystery of the poltergeists invading homes in Podunk.

Eventually he finds a strange rock formation in a cave just outside his hometown. Using his power of Telepathy, he is warped to a mystical place called Magicant, where seashells are homes and people wear strange attire. After exploring a bit he finds a castle. Inside he meets the queen of Magicant, Mary. She asks him to find the Eight Melodies hidden throughout the land. Ninten finds his way out of Magicant through Crystal Cavern and begins his search.

Playable Characters
Ninten is the protagonist of Mother. He is sent by Queen Mary of Magicant to locate the Eight Melodies. Ninten uses PSI abilities and various baseball bats to attack opponents.

Lloyd is a boy from Thanksgiving. He joins Ninten's quest to locate the Eight Melodies. Although lacking PSI, Lloyd can attack enemies using various types of guns and explosives.

Ana is a girl from Snowman. Ana joins Ninten to look for her missing mother. She has powerful PSI powers. Additionally, Ana can use frying pans as weapons.

Teddy is a member of the Bla-Bla Gang. Teddy joins Ninten to avenge his parents. He is unable to perform PSI attacks. Teddy is able to attack using various swords and knives.

American Release
Mother was planned to be released in the United States under the title Earth Bound. It had been officially translated and edited by Nintendo of America. The localization was completed in 1990, but released was pushed to the Fall of 1991. Soon after, the game was canceled due to marketing expenses and t=due to the fact that whatever marketing the could due would've been hurt due to the SNES's release.

In 1998, Demiforce, a fan translation group found a beta copy of Earth Bound online and organized a project to get the money to buy it. They were able to earn enough money to buy it, and they dumped the game into a ROM and it circulated around he internet. Demiforce had to release modified versions of the game with copy protections disabled to work on emulators. They also added the "zero" to the title to avoid confusion with the game's 1995 sequel, EarthBound.

Trivia

 * Mother was named after the John Lennon song of the same name.