For some time now, the Nintendo community has been waiting for Mother 3 to be added to the GameBoy Advance catalog on the Nintendo Switch Online service. After all, this is a cult video game that, despite its popularity, has never been officially released outside of Japan. Well, it has just been revealed that it will be added to the service, but it will be exclusively on the Japanese version of the service, which caused frustration among fans of the franchise.
Why is Mother 3 not officially localized by Nintendo?
Yesterday, the new Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase was released on YouTube, which was full of exciting announcements of video games coming soon to the Nintendo Switch. However, there was one announcement in particular that caught everyone’s attention and that was only present in the Japanese version of this event: Nintendo announced that Mother 3 will be added to the GameBoy Advance catalog on Nintendo Switch Online, but only on the Japanese version of the platform. This frustrated and disappointed all the people who thought that this new digital video game service would be the perfect opportunity for the rest of the world to finally get to try this RPG officially.
Mother 3 is the third installment of the Earthbound saga, created by Shigesato Itoi. Despite its exclusivity, the rest of the world was able to become familiar with this game when the protagonist, Lucas, was added to Super Smash Bros Brawl. This caused many players to decide to try its source game, through an excellent fan-made translation. With its touching story, charismatic characters and absurd world, Mother 3 became a critical success among those who were able to try it. Because of all that, the community has been asking Nintendo for years to localize and officially release it outside of Japan, but it seems that the company is not listening to their requests.
All this commotion prompted Shigesato Itoi himself to comment on the situation. On his official Twitter account, he said, “Please talk to Nintendo about it. Not with me.” This means that he is aware of the situation, but that, at the end of the day, Nintendo are the ones responsible for deciding whether they will localize Mother 3 or not. The strangest part of this story is that 4 plushies of the game’s characters (Lucas, Claus, Duster and Kumatora) were also announced to celebrate the release of its Nintendo Switch Online Japan version. Many fans are wondering if this new focus on the GameBoy Advance classic means they have something else planned for the near future.
It’s worth noting that any Nintendo Switch user can access Nintendo Switch Online’s Japanese catalog by changing their console’s region. However, Mother 3 is a dialogue-laden video game, so we don’t recommend experiencing it this way (Unless you know Japanese) Fans continue to express their sadness at not receiving an official port or remaster of this beloved video game. But you never know, maybe one day Nintendo will surprise everyone.
© Nintendo