MOTHER

MOTHER / EarthBound
Source	Shigesato Itoi HAL Laboratory Nintendo
Era	Season 1
First appearance	As a joke: "Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans (Alternate Mix) - Undertale" (May 8, 2016) As a rip: "Name These Children - MOTHER 3" (March 1, 2016)

MOTHER, localized as EarthBound, is a game series developed by HAL Laboratory and released by Nintendo. It is also a meme on the SiIvaGunner channel.

Summary

Game series

MOTHER is an RPG series created by Shigesato Itoi. It was developed by HAL Laboratory with help of Ape (now known as Creatures Inc.) and Brownie Brown (now known as 1-Up Studio), and published by Nintendo. The first game of the series, titled MOTHER, was released in July 27, 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a Japan exclusive. The game would later get a localized international release for the for Wii U's Virtual Console in June 14, 2015, under the title EarthBound Beginnings. It would also be rereleased For Nintendo Switch Online on February 9th, 2022 with the same title.

After the first game in the series, future games would release years later, those being MOTHER 2 (titled EarthBound in North America) in August 27, 1994 for Japan and June 5, 1995 for North America, and MOTHER 3 exclusively in Japan on April 20, 2006. The series also recieved a single remake release, being MOTHER 1+2, released as a Japan excluse on Game Boy Advance in June 20, 2003.

The series is known for its sense of humor and frequent parody of United States culture. It is also known for featuring darker and more emotional themes not usually seen in other Nintendo franchies, specially in the third game. The first two games are composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, while the third game was composed by Shogo Sakai.

Reception

The game series became an enormous success over in Japan, resulting in it gaining merchandise and album releases, as well as it later being represented in the Super Smash Bros. series.

The series however, received a poor reception over in North American intially, mainly due to the second game receiving poor advertising at release. However, due to popularity of Ness and Lucas' appearances in Super Smash Bros., as well as the first two games being frequently re-released on Nintendo's digital storefronts over the years, it has gradually recivied a dedicated cult following internationally.

The series has received various fan games and ROM hacks over the years, with some notable ones being the EarthBound Halloween Hack by Toby Fox, MOTHER 4 (now known as Oddity), MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance by otherhands, among many others. Several fan albums also exist, such as I Miss You - EarthBound 2012, a collaborative album released by sleepytimejesse featuring several original songs using the second game's instruments.

Uploads on GilvaSunner

On the GilvaSunner channel, the soundtracks for EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER 1 and MOTHER 3 were uploaded around 2012-2013, with the EarthBound/MOTHER 2 soundtrack not being uploaded for unknown reasons. The channel's uploads would later suffer with copyright problems, with almost all the playlists and the videos being taken down completely shortly before the channel's deletion.

The MOTHER soundtrack was uploaded under the said title until the game's Wii U Virtual Console release, in which it was changed to MOTHER / Earthbound Beginnings. It was credited and named after the official album release of the game, while the MOTHER 3 playlists' tracks are named after the fan-translation of the game by Tomato, alongside the nicknames given by fans for the unused tracks that weren't given official titles.

Due to MOTHER 3's large soundtrack and YouTube's limit on the amount of videos that could be stored into a playlist at that time, it was divided into two playlists on the channel.

Rips

See also: Category:Rips featuring MOTHER, Category:EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER, Category:EarthBound, and Category:MOTHER 3

The first ever rip of the series was a MOTHER 3 rip, "Name These Children - MOTHER 3" on March 1, 2016. EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings/Mother would later recieve their first rips during the same month:

• EarthBound Beginnings/Mother: "Pollyanna (I Believe In You) - EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER" on March 8, 2016.
• EarthBound: "Pokey Means Business! - Earthbound" on March 5, 2016.

The first rip to feature a track from the series as a joke was "Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans (Alternate Mix) - Undertale" on May 8, 2016, a medley mashup based on "Earthbound" from Super Smash Bros. Melee, referencing the "Sans is Ness" meme. The series would also receive an event in the form of Mother's Day, debuting on May 8, 2016; alongside with the release of the album 7 GRAND MOTHER a day later. By that time, the first meme related to the series was "Sans is Ness", a meme referencing the Game Theory's "Game Theory: UNDERTALE - Sans's SECRET Identity!" video.

Since March 2016, the series has recieved a large amount of rips, with MOTHER 3 being the third-most-ripped game on the channel, behind Undertale and SiIvaGunner: King for Another Day Tournament. The only meme from the main series is "Unfounded Revenge" from MOTHER 3. The series has also recieved a few other events relating to it over the years, such as Satoru Iwata Memorial Day and MOTHER 3 14th Anniversary.

External Links

• "Mother (video game series)" and "Music of the Mother series" on Wikipedia.
• EarthBound Wiki and WikiBound - Wikis focused on the MOTHER series.
• "EarthBound / Mother" on KnownYourMeme.

See also

• Undertale - A game that was inspired by the MOTHER series.