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The
story behind EarthBound Zero |
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A
spoiler free summary of the plot |
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Major
and minor characters with pics and descriptions |
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A
complete guide to the enemies, with pictures, descriptions and
stats |
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A
guide on the psychic abilities of Ninten and Ana |
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A
quick guide on how and where to get all the melodies |
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Weapons,
food - If it's obtainable, it's here! |
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A
complete walkthrough with 100+ screenshots!
Warning: Major
Spoilers |
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Unexplainable
questions, game genie codes and secrets! |
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Some
helpful maps for the large world of EarthBound |
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Save
states, sound files and more! |
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Links
to great sites, Mother and Mother 2 alike |
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Home
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The actual prototype!
Click on the image to view a
larger one
Image credit: Starmen.net |
If
you have played EarthBound Zero, than you have most likely been
playing it through an emulator, or playing the actual Japanese
release. There is no US release of Mother, the prequel to the
super smash hit EarthBound on SNES, (well, to us fans maybe not to
Nintendo.) If you've played EarthBound for SNES, the game that
followed EB Zero, than you know the game is humorous, unique and
rich in plot. EB Zero is exactly the same, and you may find that
some of the plot explains a lot in the SNES game. So why didn't
Nintendo release EarthBound Zero? They had the Japanese version,
converted it to an English prototype (the status before marketing
and packaging) and then they just sort of gave up on the project.
Mother was extremely popular in Japan, and when it's sequel was
announced to be released, commercials were made and fans were
truly apprehensive. Magazines in the US even released exclusive
previews to the game, to quickly build up hype.
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insulting our intelligence by maybe thinking we couldn't except
such a unique game, or maybe Nintendo was just out of coffee that
day. The true reason may come down to politics, but it still
doesn't change the fact it wasn't released. One thing I'm starting
to assume, is that perhaps Nintendo of America (not Japan) was
just mass releasing games and Mother was just one of several that
were overlooked and ignored. As a matter of fact, Nintendo Power's
review not only barely brushed the surface of the game (leaving a
somewhat bland impression of it), but they even misspelled
Shigesato Itoi's name!
Image credit: Starmen.net
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So how is it then you can get the ROM but
not buy the game? I read this on an old Earthbound Zero site, belonging
to a fan (I don't know his name and I can't find the URL): Apparently he
was browsing eBay, when he by luck (or maybe heard about it) found the
Mother English prototype. The reserve price on the prototype was $1000,
and the seller wasn't going lower. Well, the fan made arrangements to
take the cart for $1000, but he had to break payments up over a long
period of time to pay it off. Luckily, the seller accepted! (eBay seller
policies aren't usually lenient about payments).
So, after paying it off, the fan now
owned one of the rarest pieces of Nintendo "merchandise" as
this could have only been acquired from the storage/office of Nintendo of
America itself. Shortly after, Demiforce (a much loved notorious ROM
hacker ^_^) would e-mail the fan in regards to borrowing the cart to dump
it. Instead of taking the Japanese cart and then translating it to English,
this was a better idea. Not only would there be no need for a translation
(as many things are changed besides the text), this would bring the ROM
as close as possible to the original intended release.
Understandably, the fan didn't really
want to just hand over his hard earned cart to Demi, in fear that dumping
the cart it would loose it's value or even worse - damage it. So Demi
offered to pay (I think it was $300-$500) to borrow it, and if something
went wrong, well, at least the fan was some what compensated. So the
exchange took place. Demi worked on the dump, and it was a complete
success! The cart was returned in it's original condition and now
everyone on the internet can enjoy playing one of the most unique RPG's
ever!
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If any information is sketchy or
incorrect, I apologize. This is straight from my memory of reading the
site years or so ago. Starmen.net
has an excellent summary that you might want to check into as well.
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