If you're looking for a copy of EarthBound, see here. Try to ignore the hype and go in with no expectations - you'll get the most enjoyment out of it that way.

Your safest bet is to start with EarthBound, as it has many improvements over the first game and has the added bonus of an official translation.

There are two main schools of thought for how newcomers should play the series, choose whichever one you think sounds better. The game was never released outside of Japan despite fervent demand, so some fellow fans and I released an unofficial translation patch.Įach of the Mother games is self-contained, so you can jump into any part of the series and have fun. This shares many things with the unreleased N64 version, but isn't exactly the same. The port of Mother 1 includes all the improvements found in the unreleased English-language NES version. The port of Mother 2 is especially known for its poor audio and extra bugs. Outside of a demo at Spaceworld '99, no one's ever played this game.Ī compilation of the first two games was released for the GBA in Japan only. Then it was canceled in 2000 after years of development. This third game in the series was designed for the N64 Disk Drive at first, then was later changed to be a standard N64 game. Mother 3 / EarthBound 64 (Nintendo 64 DD / Nintendo 64, canceled) Sales were poor and NOA has never released any other games in the series since. Nintendo of America gave this one a top-notch localization and released it in North America as 'EarthBound'. Mother 2 (Super Famicom, 1994) / EarthBound (Super NES, 1995 & Wii U, 2015)

This same English version eventually got an official release on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2015 as 'EarthBound Beginnings'. To avoid title confusion, fans called it 'EarthBound Zero'. Years later, a prototype copy surfaced and a ROM was dumped. Nintendo localized it into English in the early 1990s as 'Earth Bound', but never released it. Mother (Nintendo Famicom, 1989) / 'EarthBound Beginnings' (Wii U, 2015) Outside of Japan, the naming gets a little weird, kind of like how Final Fantasy titles had weird changes back in the early days.

There are basically three games in the Mother series: Mother, Mother 2, and Mother 3.

What do you recommend?' I've made this page to answer that question and give some suggestions to eager newcomers to the series. A question I often see is, 'I've never played anything in the EarthBound/Mother series but want to get into it.

Download earthbound beginnings guide