Difference between revisions of "EarthBound (series)"

The series was created by an influential Japanese copywriter, actor, and minor television celebrity named [[Shigesato Itoi]], who took part in Nintendo's video game industry in the late 1980s. After forming his own subsidiary [[Ape Inc.]] with then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, he began working on the franchise starting with ''{{vg|Mother}}'', later released internationally as ''[[EarthBound Beginnings]]''. Released in July of 1989, the game took on a different theme opposed to the medieval sword-and-sorcery theme found in most RPG games at the time. Instead, the game was set in modern-day [[America]] with the cast consisting of average children with [[PSI|psychic powers]], using average everyday items such as [[baseball bat]]s and [[frying pan]]s as weapons. ''Mother'' was a commercial success in Japan, and so the game was then planned to be translated and released internationally with the title '''Earth Bound'''. Though the English localization was fully completed in 1990 and was scheduled to release in the fall of 1991, <ref>http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/200407-earthbound2.shtml</ref> <ref>https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/XYRPYQfZ7HRZGgu1xA1iOeCMVeMzLVTrfdqreV5BI4PsQb6DHFoUI_pMno8l39fj1KxsMfAZWzQKsGhczkt2qjsQhJOxfwORKN8ZhtPEMn_d7MfkFzOVNZvyB1zeRmzk6VgrBWXz</ref> it was cancelled for a multitude of reasons, the largest one being the upcoming [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]], which was thought to overshadow the English release of the game. Thus, the game was decided too costly to market and produce (despite all of the packaging materials for the game being finalized and ready for production <ref>https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mothertoearth</ref>) and was indefinitely shelved with no plans for a future release, with a {{wp|Canada}}-only release being briefly considered in 1994. <ref>http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/200407-earthbound2.shtml</ref>

On June 15th, 2015, the game was released for the first time internationally to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series in North America, the game was given the official title ''EarthBound Beginnings''. Similar to Japan, the game received positive reception, with critics praising its originality story, and its music. However, the game did receive criticism for its difficulty and balance issues.

With the success of ''Mother'', Shigesato Itoi began to work on a sequel for the Super Famicom, ''Mother 2''. However the game featured numerous delays with development taking 5 years, with the game nearly facing cancellation.