The Franklin Badge is a useful item in the MOTHER games that deflects lighting and in some cases, PSI attacks such as PK Beam.

When MOTHER3 was released in Japan, there was a special release in a deluxe box that came with a MOTHER3 edition GameBoy Micro as well as a replica Franklin Badge.

What a lot of people don’t know is that back in 1989 when MOTHER was released in Japan, there was a contest where 200 lucky people could win a replica Franklin Badge.  The badge, shown above, is now one of the rarest (if not the rarest) piece of MOTHER merchandise in existence.  Only two have shown up for sale online, with a price tag of $9000 for the pair!  Neither sold, and one hasn’t shown up since.

The only difference between the rare MOTHER1 Franklin Badge replica and the MOTHER3 Deluxe Box Franklin Badge replica is the MOTHER1 badge has a yellow background and the MOTHER3 one has a white background.  The exact shade of yellow is unknown since no current or high quality pictures have surfaced.  Some pics of the MOTHER1 badge show a deep greenish yellow while some show an off-whitish yellow.   Either way, if one of these badges were to show up at auction nowadays, it would be worth a pretty penny!

When EarthBound was released in North America in 1995, it came packaged with a player’s guide.  This guide was unique in that it had fake newspaper clippings, vacation photos, and tourist attraction info that made it feel more like a travel guide instead of a player’s guide. 

What many don’t know, though, is that there was supposed to be a “collector’s edition” type package for EarthBound.  The original plan was to package the game in a Mach Pizza styled box, packaged with the game, guide, EarthBound ruler, and physical newspaper clippings similar to the ones found in the guide.  This plan fell through, and it’s rumored that the rulers and newspaper clippings were given to employees.  Sadly, pictures of the Mach Pizza box have not been found.

Last year one of these newspaper clippings found it’s way onto eBay in an auction alongside a boxed copy of EarthBound.  The auction was won by famed EarthBound/MOTHER merchandise collector, LucasTizma.  I contacted LucasTizma shortly after the auction ended, and I was able to get some scans of the newspaper.  Enjoy this rare piece of EarthBound merchandise.

If you’ve played a MOTHER game, you know what PSI is. If you haven’t then here’s a little info on it. PSI is Psionics, while PK is Psychokinesis, both referring to a powerful psychic attack, defense or other move that select characters can use in the MOTHER series. There’s many different kinds.

There’s something interesting about how the terms are used though. The four types of PSI in the MOTHER series are: Assist, Offensive, Defensive and Other (Other PSI is not used in MOTHER 3 though).

Assist, Defensive and Other all kept the basic PSI in their respective moves. However, there was a translation error from MOTHER 2 to EarthBound. PSI Fire, Freeze, Rockin’, Thunder, Flash and Starstorm are all incorrect. In every other MOTHER game, EVEN the unreleased translated MOTHER 1, all Offensive PSI moves were titled with “PK” (example = PK Fire, PK Beam, PK Ice, etc).

This means, that “PSI Rockin’ ” should’ve been “PK Rockin’ “. The PK for Offensive moves follows every single MOTHER game, but EarthBound was just a mistake, making every move use PSI. Either it was SOMEHOW mistranslated, or the staff for EarthBound were just being lazy.

The “Bound Together” Theories

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With any video game series, there’s going to be things that are put out for the gamer to put together, or there’s going to be things that are left up to the imagination. Many games such as say Zelda, have a timeline that just isn’t concrete, leaving much to theorize about. The MOTHER series is no exception, and quite a few theories about how Ninten, Ness and Lucas are related have been created over the years.

1. The “Father Son” Theory

There has never been a real timeline between the MOTHER series. However, fans just love putting together theories. One such, was the theory that Ninten is actually Ness’ dad. Of course, this sounds great right? He COULD be, perhaps? Then that also could mean that your mom is actually Ana yeah? And that Dr. Andonuts is Loid?! Of course they’re all crazy to think about, but let’s get this straight. There’s just no way Ninten could be Ness’ dad.

Why? It’s simple really. The time frames between the games don’t make any sense. If memory serves, Ninten is a 13 year old boy in 1989 when the game takes place (when creepy things begin to happen). But Ness is 13 in the year 199X (which is anywhere from 1990-1999). See what I mean about it being impossible? Still, it’s fun to think about.

2. Ness is Lucas’ Ancestor

This one is a little more believable, in terms of ages at least. A few rumors have been going around that as you (Lucas) travel in MOTHER 3, you come across various items that link from Porky back to Ness. These items would then be anything with the word “Friend’s” in them, such as the Friend’s Yo-yo. Many people like to guess that Old Man Wess is ACTUALLY Ness, and in some way related to Lucas. Of course this definitely isn’t proven (or is it? I never thought it was).

I’m sure there are more theories, but these are just some of the better known ones, but the second one is so farfetched.

Most fans know this little known fact already. Mr. Saturn has always seemed childlike and comedic.

Thus, Itoi created the font himself, but based off of his daughter’s handwriting. This was one of the first times a game actually changed font to match the nature of the character.

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And now, a big thank you to all people following us. 50 followers already! We hope to keep up the facts and insights as frequently as possible. We also take suggestions, and will give individual credit! Boing!

With the cancellation of Earthbound 64 (MOTHER 3), MOTHER fans all over America were heartbroken. Starmen.net pulled together over 10,000 signatures and sent them off to Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan, begging them to not give up. Nintendo, gave them silence.

This wasn’t the end however. Starmen.net was determined to have MOTHER 3 released in some way, shape or form. They went all out. It took 11 months time, but during that, they got over 31,000 signatures for MOTHER 3. With these 31,000, they sent them off to Nintendo of Japan, Nintendo of America, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Itoi. This wasn’t the only thing they sent however. They sent each an exclusive art book, full of over 100+ pages of fan-art, and two Rock Candy albums to go with it. These packages were sent on the same day as a special MOTHER 1+2 commercial (which also hinted at MOTHER 3 being created) was aired in Japan.

Was this a coincidence? Who knows, but it did show that MOTHER 3 was then back in production, and that our friend Mr. Miyamoto himself, spoke to Itoi asking him if it was possible to put MOTHER 3 on the Game Boy Advance.

Guess what happened next.

Some people might not remember, but APE (the company working with the MOTHER series) was also accompanied by none other than HAL Laboratories. One of the PSI boys was going to be included into the Super Smash Bros. franchise. When SSB64 came out, it was a shock to most people to see this boy named Ness, for most had no idea he even existed over in America. But overall, this wasn’t as big a shock to some who knew of HAL working with Itoi.

Thanks to the success and popularity of SSB, a sequel was in demand. Masahiro Sakurai was doing his best to make his new game, Super Smash Bros. Melee, a huge hit, bigger than the 64 version! But did you know, Lucas was to REPLACE Ness in SSBM? The reason this didn’t happen, was simply because of the cancellation of Earthbound 64. Ness was spared and reused for SSBM.

Of course, Lucas finally got his spotlight in Super Smash Bros. Brawl right alongside Ness.






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They even included some fun outfits, such as Lucas looking like Claus, and Ness wearing MOTHER 3’s Fuel outfit. The boys have never looked better.

The Oddball ~ A closer look at the change between MOTHER 1/2 to MOTHER 3

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The MOTHER community is very used to the apparel of the main protagonists. From one game to the next, it’s fairly obvious to tell who’s going to be important. The second you saw those striped shirts you were pumped to see what happened next. However, small things made a big difference in MOTHER 3. There are many things noticeable to even a novice fan.

Taking a look at appearance in general, you see that Ninten and Ness both respectively have themselves named after a Nintendo product. They wear almost identical shirts, have hats, fight with bats, have a sister, same age, the list goes on. Lucas is different.

Lucas is the only protagonist in the MOTHER series to: have a brother instead of a sister, actually have dialogue, show age change, wear completely different striped clothing, has no hat, does not fight with bats (but sticks), the list goes on.

So you’re thinking…what does this have to do with anything? To some, it shows the obvious gap between games and a different approach to the series after being quiet for oh so long. Of course even personality-wise, Lucas is a different approach as well, in fact, Claus is more like Ninten and Ness in terms of appearence and personality. Fans appreciated Itoi’s new view on this strange new environment, cast and protagonist.

Hope you enjoyed a little insight.

This theme in MOTHER 3 which plays whenever you fight with Mr. Batty and similar enemies was influenced by the 1960’s Batman live action show (and by influenced, we mean it was borrowed). The song is titled Mr. Batty Twist.

By Shogo Sakai.

As many knowledgeable fans know, MOTHER 2 had many questionable moments in it. While Japan originally didn’t give copyrights or really seem to care about what they put in it, when it was finally shipped to America, EarthBound was to see many different changes from the original MOTHER 2. There were many things that drove Nintendo of America (NoA) over the top:

• Nudity
• Sexual Slang
• Alcohol References
• Drug References
• Countless licensed copyrights
• Child Abuse
• Religious References
• A KKK Reference

These were of course, on NoA’s censorship list. This sheds much light on why EarthBound will probably never be re-released on the Virtual Console. Though, if you check the ESRB Rating System, you’ll notice something a little interesting: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/search.jsp?title=Earthbound

If you notice, there’s the regular Super Nintendo rating of E (at the time), but…there’s also EarthBound for the Wii…and better yet, it’s STILL rated E! Come on, Nintendo, bring it back like we want you to (at the cost of many legal issues and lawsuits).