1989 video game
 officially known outside of Japan as EarthBound Beginnings, is a 1989 role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and Nintendo and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer. It is the first entry in the "Mother" series and was first released in Japan on July 27, 1989. The game was re-released in Japan along with its sequel on the single-cartridge compilation "Mother 1+2" for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. The game follows a young American boy named Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on psychic powers to put an end to the paranormal phenomena spiraling the country into disarray.
Writer and director Shigesato Itoi pitched "Mother"'s concept to Shigeru Miyamoto while visiting Nintendo's headquarters for other business. Though Miyamoto rejected the proposal at first, he eventually gave Itoi a development team. Modeled after the gameplay of the "Dragon Quest" series, "Mother" subverted its fantasy genre contemporaries by being set in an offbeat parody of the late 20th-century United States. Itoi sought to incorporate standard RPG staples within the framework of a modern-day setting, parodying Western culture and Americana. As such, throughout the game, players use medication and hospitals to restore their health, utilize baseball bats and toy guns to fight enemies, and encounter aliens, robots, possessed objects, and brainwashed animals and humans. "Mother" uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system.
"Mother" sold around 400,000 copies upon its release, where it was praised for its similarities to the "Dragon Quest" series and its simultaneous parody of the genre's tropes, though its high difficulty level and balance issues polarized critics. A North American localization of "Mother" was completed and slated for release as "Earth Bound", but was abandoned as being commercially nonviable. A finished prototype was later found and publicly circulated on the Internet under the informal title EarthBound Zero. Though many critics considered "Mother"'s sequel to be similar and an overall better implementation of its gameplay ideas, Jeremy Parish of "1UP.com" wrote that "Mother" importantly generated interest in video game emulation and the historical preservation of unreleased games.
In 1994, "Mother"'s sequel, "Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū", was released in Japan for the Super Famicom, which was localized and released in America in 1995 under the name "EarthBound". "EarthBound" initially flopped in the U.S., but later gained a cult following and became retrospectively viewed as a cult classic. "EarthBound" was followed by the Japan-only sequel "Mother 3" for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of "EarthBound"'s U.S. release, "Mother" was released globally as "EarthBound Beginnings" for the Wii U Virtual Console in June 2015, and was released alongside "EarthBound" for Nintendo Switch Online in February 2022.
Gameplay.
"Mother" is a single-player, role-playing video game set in a "slightly offbeat", late 20th-century United States as interpreted by Japanese author Shigesato Itoi. Throughout the game, the player fights hippies, undead zombies, animate objects and vehicles, extraterrestrial life, robots and mind-controlled humans and animals. The world is composed mainly of towns, deserts, swamps, forests, and caves the player must venture through. The game deliberately avoids traits of its Japanese role-playing game contemporaries: it does not strictly adhere to the fantasy or science fiction genres, despite numerous instances of each occurring within the game. The player fights in warehouses and laboratories instead of in standard dungeons, and rather than trekking from to each town on foot, the player is able to take trains to travel from area to area. Instead of swords, assault weapons, and magic, the player uses baseball bats, toy guns, frying pans, knives, and inherent psychic abilities. The game's main protagonists, Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana, are roughly 11–12 years of age. Lloyd and the game's fourth party member, Teddy, lack inherent psychic powers, unlike Ninten and Ana. The player can press a button to have Ninten "check" or "talk" with nearby people, animals, and objects. The game shares similarities with its sequel, "EarthBound": there is a game save option through using a phone to call Ninten's father, an option to store items with one of Ninten's twin sisters at home, and an automated teller machine for banking money (ATM). The members of Ninten's party are all visible on the overworld screen at once, and are analogous to "EarthBound"'s party members in style and function. Differing from the "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" series, "Mother"'s world map does not keep locations separate, instead connecting all areas in one game world. The landscape's structures are portrayed with an oblique projection, requested by Itoi at a programmer's suggestion.
Like the "Dragon Quest" series, "Mother" uses a random encounter combat system. The player explores the overworld from a top-down perspective and occasionally enters a first-person perspective battle sequence where the player chooses attack options from a series of menus. On their turn, the player selects between options to fight, guard, check enemy attributes, run away, use items, or use offensive, defensive, or healing psychic powers. The player can also set the battle on autopilot with the "auto" option. Upon being assigned a command, the party members attack in an order determined by a random number generator and the character's speed status. Critical hits register with the series' signature "SMAAAASH" text and sound. If the enemy or character's HP reaches 0, the battle is won and the opponent becomes unconscious; if a character or separate enemy becomes unconscious, it can only be reversed by using PSI on that character or enemy. If every character becomes unconscious, the game transitions to a blank screen, where it asks the player if they want to continue; an affirmative response brings Ninten, conscious, back to the last save point, with half the money on his person at the time of his defeat. Upon winning the battle, the player may receive experience points, new psychic powers, and other points to improve their overall status. Enough experience points will increase the character's level, which somewhat determines the increase of the character's physical and psychic points. There is also a chance an item can be obtained after an enemy is defeated. Once the battle is won, Ninten's father deposits money into an account, which can be withdrawn from an ATM. In towns, players can purchase weapons, items, and food from fast food restaurants and department stores. Weapons and equipment, such as pendants, medallions, and bracelets, can be equipped to increase a character's strength and defense. Items can be used for a multitude of purposes, such as healing, clearing obstacles, and unlocking doors. Towns also contain useful facilities such as hospitals, where players can be healed for a fee; in one town, it is half of whatever cash the player has on hand at that moment.
Plot.
In the early 1900s, a young, married couple mysteriously vanish from their rural American town. Two years later, the husband, George, inexplicably returns and begins a strange study in complete seclusion. His wife, Maria, is never heard from again. In 1988, the home of a young boy named Ninten is attacked by a poltergeist. After Ninten fends it off, his father tells him that his great-grandfather studied psychic powers, and asks him to investigate crises occurring across the world. Resolving some in his hometown of Mother's Day, Ninten travels to the land of Magicant, where its monarch, Queen Mary, asks Ninten to collect the parts of a song that appears in her dreams to play them for her. Ninten returns to Earth and befriends Lloyd, a child prodigy who is bullied at Tinkle Elementary School. The two travel to the town of Snowman to deliver a lost hat to Ana, a young girl with psychic powers. Ana tells Ninten she saw him in a vision, and joins the party in hopes of finding her missing mother.
Finding multiple parts of Queen Mary's song, Ninten is harassed at a live house in the town of Valentine by a gang leader named Teddy. Surrendering after a fistfight, Teddy joins Ninten's party to avenge the deaths of his parents, who were killed at Holy Loly Mountain; Teddy forces Lloyd to stay behind. In a cabin at the mountain's base, Ana pulls Ninten aside and asks him to always be by her side. The two dance and profess their mutual love. A giant robot then attacks the group, with Lloyd arriving in a tank to destroy the robot; the robot escapes by ripping a hole in space, leaving the party burned, Teddy critically wounded, and allowing Lloyd to rejoin the party. They take a boat out on a nearby lake, and a whirlpool pulls them into an underwater laboratory; in it, they find a robot named EVE, which claims to have been built by George to protect Ninten. When the laboratory floods and they are sucked back out into the lake, they leave for the mountain's peak. After the escaped robot returns with an upgrade, it attacks them, and EVE self-destructs to destroy it, leaving behind the seventh part of Queen Mary's song. The party then warps to Magicant, where Ninten plays the collected melodies to Queen Mary. Upon recalling the rest of the song, she teaches Ninten the eighth and final melody and reminisces about an alien named Gyiyg that she had loved as her own child. Revealing that she is George's wife Maria, Queen Mary vanishes; Magicant, actually a mirage created by her consciousness, vanishes with her.
The party is warped back to Holy Loly Mountain. Large rocks had blocked the mountain peak's entrance, but were cleared by Maria's consciousness. There, the party encounters the mother ship that the fully-grown Gyiyg is on. While attacking them, the alien expresses its gratitude to Ninten's family for Maria having raising him, but explains that George stole vital information from its people that could have been used to betray them, proceeding to accuse Ninten of interfering with their plans. Gyiyg offers to save Ninten alone if he boards the mother ship, only for Ninten to decline. The party then begins to sing Maria's lullaby, while Gyiyg tries to quiet them through its attacks; they persist and finish the song, causing Gyiyg to be emotionally overwhelmed at the memory of Maria's motherly love. Gyiyg swears they will meet again and flies off in the mother ship; the party then faces the player as the credits roll behind them.
Development.
"Mother" was developed by Ape and published by Nintendo. In 1987, copywriter Shigesato Itoi became interested in role-playing games after a colleague of his introduced him to the "Dragon Quest" series. While playing "Dragon Quest II" on his Famicom, Itoi conceived of a role-playing game set in contemporary times, as he did not have much knowledge of medieval times (which the "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" series were based on) and found the former setting to be more interesting. Having no prior experience in the gaming industry, Itoi hoped a company would produce his idea for him; after he publicly defended video games on a , Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi became interested in his work and ordered project manager Yoshio Sakamoto to invite Itoi to work on advertising for Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School for the Famicom Disk System.
While there, Itoi set up a meeting and pitched his idea, then titled "ESP1", to the company's Shigeru Miyamoto. He thought the setting would be unique for its incongruence with role-playing genre norms, as daily life lacked the pretense for magic powers and they could not simply give the child characters firearms as weapons. Itoi's project proposal suggested how the natural limitations could be circumvented. While Miyamoto liked Itoi's ideas, he reacted to the proposal with indifference, as opposed to the praise Itoi was expecting. He was not sure whether Itoi "could pull it off", and explained that video game concepts needed people who signed on to "make" the product, rather than in the advertising industry where concept proposals preceded the staffing process. Miyamoto stressed the amount of personal work the project would require, and asked Itoi if he could start over and "make it simpler". Itoi was overcome with "powerlessness", though he kept his composure; he would later cry from helplessness on his bullet train ride home. Itoi pondered how to make his game something that would impress people; afterwards, he would receive a phone call from Miyamoto, stating that he had found a development team for the project.
Miyamoto was also