The latest Nintendo Direct hit on plenty of unsurprising topics, like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp, and Splatoon 3, but it came packed with a couple surprises as well. Nintendo Switch Sports appeared as the successor to Nintendo's beloved Wii Sports franchise, and Mario Strikers fans have the new Mario Strikers: Battle League on the way. Perhaps most surprising of all, though, RPG fans learned that EarthBound and its predecessor EarthBound Beginnings are on their way to Nintendo Switch Online. As an acclaimed and influential member of the RPG genre, its no surprise to see EarthBound make its way to the NSO library.
Notably, though, Nintendo didn't announce that the full trilogy of Mother games would join NSO just yet. EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound, known as Mother and Mother 2 in Japan, won't be reunited with Mother 3 on the Nintendo Switch just yet. This is in spite of Mother fans spending years demanding an official English localization of Mother 3. Nintendo has missed a major opportunity to curry favor with the Mother community by leaving Mother 3 out of the conversation once again, rather than giving it the acknowledgement it deserves.
Primetime for a Mother Comeback
Getting the first two Mother games back right now is great. Some thirty years after it began, interest in the franchise remains high, thanks in part to recent indie RPGs like Undertale and OMORI that take inspiration from EarthBound. Since both EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings have had international releases in their time, it makes sense to simply bring them to NSO. Mother 3, however, has yet to leave Japan. Nintendo could've arranged a 2022 international release of Mother 3 as part of an event connected to the other Mother games joining NSO, but it doesn't seem to have planned anything like that.
To a certain extent, it's not surprising that Nintendo didn't opt to bring Mother 3 back immediately. It's historically proven averse to porting Mother 3 in spite of high fan demand, possibly due to long-term doubt caused by EarthBound's difficult launch in 1995. NSO also hasn't added Game Boy or Game Boy Advance games yet, so a digital version of Mother 3 might have to be integrated as an NSO expansion pack. Nevertheless, demand for Mother 3 is high, and fans would've been thrilled to see a physical release of the game, even if it didn't join its predecessors on NSO.
Rebuilding the Mother Brand
It's possible that Nintendo only put EarthBound and EarthBoundBeginnings on NSO as a way to gauge interest in the series. Maybe it's already discussing the possibility of a Mother 3 localization, and It's waiting to see how fans engage with the return of EarthBound before making a final decision. If that's the case, then hopefully Nintendo will announce a Mother 3 re-release later in 2022 after it gathers some new data on support for the greater Mother franchise. Considering how hyped fans are about EarthBound on NSO, it should be clear to Nintendo that a Mother 3 localization will succeed.
That type of data sourcing really doesn't seem necessary at this point. Fans of all kinds have spent years asking Nintendo to make an official localization, and some have even taken it on themselves to translate Mother 3 for fellow fans to enjoy. Still, a fan translation is completely different from official acknowledgement from Nintendo. If Mother 3 isn't going to join its peers on the Switch just yet, then hopefully Nintendo will at least take the positive response to EarthBound's return as a sign that the Mother franchise deserves a revival. The Switch already has its fair share of big games, but Mother 4 would be a true breakthrough for both the console and the Mother series.
EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings are available now on Nintendo Switch Online.
