Tuesday, August 21, 2012

It's déjà vu all over again

I swear I've used this headline before (which would be rather appropriate, don't you think?), but I can't be bothered to search the archives at the moment. Anyway, my apologies if that's the case.

As for why I'm using it here: Well, it appears that someone is busy hacking EarthBound (aka Mother 2) in order to remake the first Mother game (EarthBound Zero to us savages in the States). Here's a "walkabout" video of said hack's currently unpopulated world:



Considering the number of similarities between EarthBound Zero and its officially-released-in-the-US sequel (or Mother and Mother 2, if you're a purist), I'm not entirely sure I understand the point of this project.

Still, I'm such a fan of Shigesato Itoi's series that I'll surely keep an eye on it until it sees the light of day. Who knows, I may even decide to play through it. Should I do that, though, I hope I'll make it further than I did when I tried to play through the original.

(Via gonintendo.com)

6 comments:

Viewtiful_Justin said...

This is neato! I'm all for remaking anything in the style of Earthbound!

Bryan Ochalla said...

Yes, the style of EarthBound is pretty darn awesome, Justin. Still, I thought the original was fine as is. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this project progresses all the same!

MogKnight said...

Not calling it a copy-pasta job... but something like this would be easy to implement I think if the similarities are that close.

Though I have never personally played the original EarthBound Zero, I think I would still seek down the original NES ROM and plat that instead.

Bryan Ochalla said...

Hey there, MogKnight! I haven't played enough of the first Mother/EarthBound Zero to know, first-hand, just how similar they are, but the portion I played last year definitely showcased a lot of similarities.

Still, it's interesting that someone is doing this, I guess. And anything that brings attention to EarthBound, EarthBound Zero, Mother and Mother 2 is a good things, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Just because a game is similar to another game is not a good enough reason to me to think "ehh....why bother remaking it" and in this case we're discussing a game from its own series anyway - ( yeah I say series even though there's really only like three games....I feel bad for all the games / manga ect. that only have like three games or three books or whatever....really need more for it to truly be a "series" but I digress ) - There's some differences in between "zero" and 2 that it is meaningful - ( especially to us "hardcore" mother / earthbound fans ) - for a remake to make sense and besides the graphic are old. Although I don't hate zero's graphics nearly half has much I do when it comes to various other games old graphics , I am happy to have stumbled across this site and to learn that a remake for this particular game is in progress. - Kara

Bryan Ochalla said...

Thanks for the comment, Kara! And, really, I shouldn't have suggested that there wasn't a point in remaking this game using its sequel's engine. I guess what I was trying to say was that I am not personally all that interested in it, in part because I rather like Zero's graphics and also because I like the difference in look and feel between Zero and its sequel. That said, I'm glad it's being made so folks like yourself can enjoy it. And like I said at the end of the post, I may enjoy it myself at some point, too :)