EarthBound 64 (Japanese: 豚王の最期, Hepburn: MOTHER 3) is an incomplete and canceled role-playing video game which was in development by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Super Famicom, and then moved to Nintendo 64 with its 64DD peripheral. It was to be the third game in the EarthBound series which includes Mother and EarthBound for the NES and Super NES respectively. It was designed by series creator Shigesato Itoi and its art was done by Benimaru Itoh. The game suffered numerous delays due to the 64DD's failure and the designers' inexperience with 3D technology, leading to its cancellation. The project was revived for the Game Boy Advance under the name Mother 3 with assistance from developer Brownie Brown in 2006. It uses a 2D art style instead of this version’s 3D graphics.

The game features ten characters across twelve chapters including Lucas, Claus, Flint, Duster, Kumatora, Boney, and Salsa. The named characters would go on to be playable in the Game Boy Advance version. The main antagonist in both versions is Porky Minch and his Pigmask Army.

EarthBound 64 uses a fighting style similar to its predecessors. Enemies are encountered by interaction on the overworld where they would have an exchange with the player.^[2] Upon entering battle, players view the enemies from a first-person perspective and select which actions they wish to execute in order to initiate combat. Commands include Fight, Stand, Check, Strength, Goods, Magic, Speak, and Call (of which the latter four are not available in playable demos).^[3] The game was intended to use the Nintendo 64’s Rumble Pak; the designers worried however that it would interfere with the battles.^[4] Designers planned a timing-based mechanic for use in battle. They utilized a “3D stick” that players would strum like a guitar chord.^[2] Characters feature several abilities, including jumping and spin attacks.^[5] Developers stated that the game requires 40 to 60 hours for experienced gamers to finish it.^[5]

The designers wanted to make it a unique experience for every player. An example is that players may plant seeds to cause a tree to grow which players may climb to get up a cliff, while other players may find a way around the cliff instead.^[5] Another example is that players could drop food on the ground and attract hungry monsters.^[5]

After development was moved from Super Famicom to the Nintendo 64, the developers began work on an add-on disk for the 64DD that would allow players to continue playing the game after completion with new quests tentatively titled Mother 3.5.^[5][6] The designers wanted players to be able to use the 64DD’s software such as Mario Artist's face design, and its internal real-time clock.^[4][5]

EarthBound 64 is set on Nowhere Islands and takes place 200 years after the events of EarthBound.^{[citation needed]} It showed a ruined Onett, a town from ‘’EarthBound’’.^[7] The setting was described by IGN as futuristic and western.^[8] The plot of EarthBound 64 was written before development started. It featured twelve chapters spanning ten years.^[5][9][9] It follows a man named Flint, his wife Hinawa, his twin sons Lucas and Claus, and his dog Boney. Other named protagonists include the thief Duster, the princess Kumatora, and the monkey Salsa. The antagonist is Porky Minch who leads the Pigmask Army to enslave mankind.^[5] The main protagonist had not been chosen at the time; Itoi stated that he would have given Lucas that role.^[9][10] The first two chapters feature different heroes and ten main characters^[2][5] One of the character’s plots is that his 40-year-old father mysteriously disappears during the course of the game.^[11] The settings include fantasy, medieval, and futuristic worlds.^[5]

The game was designed by Shigesato Itoi and its art created by Benimaru Itoh. Development of the game began on the Super Famicom shortly after the Japanese release of Mother 2. Development shifted to the Nintendo 64DD and the game was initially titled Mother 3: Chimera no Mori in Japan.^[12][13] It was planned to be one of 64DD's four launch titles.^[14] The subtitle was dropped due to copyright issues over the word Chimera.^[15] The game's title was changed to Mother 3: Kikai Seibutsu no Mori.^[13] The final title was Mother 3: Butaō no Saigo.^[13] After the commercial failure of the 64DD peripheral, the project was migrated to the Nintendo 64 cartridge format alone.^[5][16] Nintendo Power expected it to be one of the first 100 video games released for the Nintendo 64.^[17] It was intended to use a 256 megabit cartridge similar to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.^[5]

Itoi's team ran into trouble while developing this game due to their inexperience with 3D game development with the Nintendo 64. They received assistance from the development tools and the Pokémon Stadium development team to improve its visuals. Itoi stated that a Super Famicom version would have released much sooner.^[9] It was playable at Spaceworld in 1999 but was later delayed to March 22, 2000.^[18] It was revealed that the game would not appear at the 2000 E3 convention.^[19]

Itoi confirmed the cancellation of Mother 3 later that year.^[20][21] Itoi claimed that its delays and cancellation were because of his ambition in the project.^[22] Other reasons for its cancellation included high costs and the development staff having been placed on Nintendo GameCube projects.^{[citation needed]} After it was cancelled, the development team played through what was completed and gathered screenshots, and performed a roundtable discussion about the game's development and cancellation, for Itoi's website. In that discussion, co-contributors Miyamoto, Itoi, and Satoru Iwata each expressed great disappointment and remorse for themselves and for and the gamers who had been looking forward to Mother 3. People continued to ask Itoi when Mother 3 was going to be released even after its cancellation, to which Itoi stated that he expected it to be released someday.^[20]

The scenario for the final battle was written while Itoi was overseas in Saipan.^[23] The design of the battle pit Lucas against his brother Claus. It remained in the final GBA version but was much darker in the Nintendo 64 version.^[23][24] As other aspects of the game moved forward Itoi was unable to decide on aspects of the final battle. He compared this to anime director Hayao Miyazaki directs his films. He once considered omitting dialogue from the battle to make it more vague and allow players to use their imagination.^[24] He also wanted to make players feel betrayed and disappointed by the ending.^[23]

Mother 3 was originally developed for the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) beginning in 1994. Shigeru Miyamoto, head of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development and Mother 3 producer, said that Mother 3 was "a commercial decision", since Mother 2 (EarthBound) had sold well.^[25] By this point, Itoi had worked on other Mother games and Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No. 1 and was experienced at pitching video games, so Miyamoto provided a team willingly. The Mother 2 development team carried over to the new game's development, though several people left and the team grew in size. They forewent the usual prototyping phase and went straight into development expecting to create something unprecedented. Mother series creator Shigesato Itoi said he wanted to make the game like a Hollywood film.^[25] In September 1994, he predicted that Mother 3's development would end around 1996 with a release on Nintendo's then-upcoming console.^[26]The team was inspired by Super Mario 64 and felt that they too could creatively flourish by making a 3D world without restrictions. Their early technical specifications exceeded the capabilities and memory limits of the platform. About halfway through development, the team attempted to scale back its large scope and changed its development platform^[25] to the 64DD, a Nintendo 64 magneto-optical drive expansion peripheral.^[27] Mother 3 was expected to be a launch title for the 1998 Japan-only peripheral.

The EarthBound fan community anticipated a sequel, and a North American release of Mother 3 was announced as EarthBound 64.^[28] Nintendo displayed a playable version of the game at their 1999 Space World trade show, where IGN described the development's progress as "very far along"^[29] and half complete.^[1] In April 2000, IGN estimated the game's development as "safe to assume that the game is nearing its final stages of completion".^[29] The game struggled to find a firm release date,^[30] and was expected to release in Japan before a North American version would be considered.^[29] At the time, the 64DD was only released in Japan.^[27] Nintendo chose not to show the game at the 2000 Electronic Entertainment Expo, though IGN expected to see a finished version of the game at Nintendo's 2000 Space World.^[29] Mother producer Satoru Iwata cancelled the game prior to Space World,^[25] and Itoi announced the cancellation in late August 2000.^[31]

Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto, Mother 3 producers

Iwata clarified that the franchise was not abandoned but that the game would no longer be developed for the Nintendo 64, and Miyamoto added that it was not due to project complications or development hell, but to resources needed for Project Dolphin (the code name for the GameCube). Some of the artists had been on the project for over three years. They estimated the project to be about 60 percent complete at the time of cancellation—the basics were complete and only programming was left. About 30 percent of the final product was completed. Itoi felt that it would have taken an additional two years to finish properly, and Iwata said that the game might have been finished by 2000 had the scope been reduced two years earlier. Miyamoto was involved in other work and spent little time on-site with the project, and Iwata too was distracted by bankruptcy concerns at HAL Labs and was off-site in 1999 due to circumstances that required travel. Iwata was also hospitalized during production for stress-related reasons. The team intended to have the game finished by the end of 1999 and knew they had to reconsider their priorities when they missed the milestone. They said that the Mother 3 supervisors had wanted to cancel the project since 1999, but later changed sides and said that cancellation would be wasteful. They discussed bringing the game to their forthcoming GameCube, which Miyamoto felt would have solved some of the Nintendo 64's hardware issues. Miyamoto and Iwata also discussed releasing the game on the Game Boy Advance, but realized that it would take "just as much time" with 40 to 50 staff members to make such a game.^[25] In retrospect, Iwata wondered out loud in an interview why the game needed to be in 3D when Itoi's "greatest talent lies in words" and thought that the energy poured into making a 3D game might have been a poor choice.^[25] He said he felt "genuinely ashamed", and acknowledged that they were both "caught up in the 3D obsession and felt obligated" at the time.^[25] At the time of its cancellation, Itoi predicted that Mother 3 would remain a story that only the game's staff would know, but Miyamoto was still interested in bringing the game to fruition.^[25]

After multiple years and failed petitions, the game was repackaged and released in Japan as the 2006 Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance, whereupon it became a bestseller. It did not receive a North American release.^[27]

Itoi thought of the concept behind Mother 3 towards the end of Mother 2's production. He called another person on the project to describe a "detective story where the city was the main character".^[25] He thought of a hack, small-time, womanizing private investigator who would become engrossed in a big murder case, and the story would unfold from a young female clerk at a flower shop who would slowly recall parts of a story consequential to the plot. Thus, the city would appear to grow. This idea of a "single place changing over time" was central to Mother 3.^[25] He saw previous RPGs as "road movies" with little reason for the hero to backtrack to previous areas, and instead wanted the player to see the town gossip grow dynamically.^[25] Miyamoto and Itoi compared the this type of progression to the story of Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The game was enough of a departure from the series that the development team questioned whether fans would consider it part of the series.^[25]

Itoi originally intended the game to have twelve chapters with varied game mechanics, e.g., one with classic role-playing game mechanics and another as just cutscenes. He conceptualized the process as designing 3D "puppets" that could then be easily moved around the "stage".^[25] In actuality, each custom scene required special programming. The player-character changed between each chapter—a concept they first attempted in their previous game—so as to see multiple characters grow. As development wore on, Itoi offered to compromise by replacing full chapters with sequences of still images and text. They cut the total chapters to seven or nine by the time it was canceled. Itoi described the story as "normal" for its first half, leading up to a "triple-play twist".^[25] One of the game's themes was the reckless appearance and "uncomfortable beauty" of chimera—multiple creatures fused into one—which was the idea behind the metallic and wooden Mother 3 logo.^[25] Itoi has said of his role in the Mother series that he wanted to be more of a team member and scriptwriter and less of a manager in Mother 3's development. He saw himself as simultaneously making the game he wanted to play and setting traps for the player, and as making a game Nintendo could not.^[25]

The game is set to continue ten years after the first Mother. The player-character, Flint, is a cowboy in the vein of Clint Eastwood with two boys, Lucca and Klaus, and a dog, Boney. At the 1999 Space World, IGN sampled environments including a hovercraft in a desert canyon, a snake dungeon, a cutscene with a bullet train, a town with non-player characters, and a mine cart scene. Physical contact with an enemy in the overworld triggers a turn-based battle scene shown in the first-person (similar to EarthBound). The battles have psychedelic backgrounds and a circular menu that includes a command to "get up" if the player was knocked down in a real-time sequence.^[1] Attacks could be timed with the in-game music for stronger effects.^[1]

Early in its development for the Nintendo 64DD, IGN editors referred to EarthBound 64 as stunning, comparing it to the PlayStation blockbuster Final Fantasy VII, though they remained skeptical that it could carry the 64DD.^[32] In response to short footage shown at Spaceworld 96, they called it a step up from EarthBound for the Super Nintendo, comparing some of the scenes to renders due to the high quality of the animation.^[33] EarthBound 64 made Famitsu's Most Wanted list in September 1999, ranking in the 10th spot.^[34] EarthBound 64 was fairly popular amongst Nintendo Power readers, making the top ten most wanted list multiple times.^[35]

It was well received by IGN, who referred to it as being more than a "cookie-cutter dungeon exploration fare" that most RPGs were. They called its controls intuitive and easy to master, and found the sound well-orchestrated and memorable.^[5] They specifically praised a scene included in the trailer and demo, the mine cart scene, proclaiming it one of the most impressive Nintendo 64 cutscenes yet due to its "silky smooth graphics" and "perfectly orchestrated music".^[5] They added that it may prove to be one of the most important launch titles of the often-delayed Nintendo 64DD.^[5] Yahoo! commented that it was a little too off-the-wall to appeal to everyone, but was confident that the wait was worth it for the most part. They praised its game engine cutscenes, calling them better looking than any other game on the Nintendo 64. They added that the only problem with the game was its battle system, which they considered "more confusing than anything else."^[36] Despite the title being only about 50% done at the time, IGN editors called EarthBound 64 promising at Spaceworld '99. They closed their impressions by calling it an unusual RPG quest, and that gamers should save their money for this.^[5] In later impressions, they compared the developer's intentions to not have one set main character to the Super Famicom Live a Live.^[5]

IGN later described the series as neglected in North America by Nintendo for not receiving any title of the Mother series other than EarthBound.^[28]

• SpaceWorld 1999: Mother 3 Template:Ja icon

v t e Mother series
Nintendo Ape HAL Laboratory
Games	Mother (EarthBound Beginnings) Mother 2 (EarthBound) Mother 3 development fan translation
People	Shigesato Itoi Satoru Iwata Keiichi Suzuki Hirokazu Tanaka Nobuyuki Inoue Marcus Lindblom
Characters	Giygas Porky Minch
Related	Fandom Megalovania Music Super Smash Bros.
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