Earthbound Zero's New Name
As everybody visiting Starmen.net and reading this article knows(or should know)by now, Mother 1 and 2 are being released on the Game Boy Advance, along with Mother 3. No kidding? Anyway, one thing that some visitors may NOT know is that the name "Earthbound Zero" almost certainly cannot be used for Mother 1, granted it is released in the United States of America. While the first game in our favorite series was simply known as "Mother" in Japan, it was never released over here in the states, so therefore, it never received a name. In fact, the Earthbound we know is thought of as the sequel in Japan. The first game in the series was christened "Earthbound Zero" by the folks at Neo Demiforce, the ones who dumped the existing translated Mother cartridge onto a ROM. As ROFISH said in his thought-provoking topic on the Earthbound/EB Zero Starmen.net message forum, "If Nintendo calls it EB0, then they are officially are recognizing ROM hackers and legal stuffage like that." Very well said, ROFISH. So, EB0 is practically eliminated. Exactly what else could they call it?
Well, the first option is a prequel-type name. Something to the effect of "Earthbound: The Lost Tale". While this definitely could work, this would also mean a completely different approach to the series anywhere outside Japan. We must remember, the game is not thought of as a prequel in Japan. Since the U.S. and Japan are the areas with the largest Nintendo fanbase, we could say that it may be a tad difficult to market the game separately as an NES remake in Japan and a whole new prequel in the U.S. Now, this may not matter at all, but it is still a matter to be considered.
The second option is to ditch the prequel idea and call Mother 1 "Earthbound" and the second game a different name, since one of them obviously needs to come first. The Big N could easily call the SNES Earthbound game "Earthbound 2" on the GBA. This would definitely cause some confusion in the U.S. since it is almost like switching the names of the games, although it wouldn't really matter in the end, considering the fact that you cannot buy the games separately, and most people could hopefully figure out which game is which after two minutes of playing. I honestly don't see this happening, but you never know. At this point, we don't even know if we'll see the games over here.
The third option, my favorite, is to keep the names "Mother" and Mother 2" for the games in the U.S. This was the intended name for the series, and it would be easy to just call them by the same name. I really don't know why they even changed it, although maybe they thought that "Mother" wasn't as attractive to U.S. gamers. Shigesato Itoi would probably opt for this name, when you think about it. This seems to be a very important game to him, so he should be allowed to make name the decision. The fourth, and like I said earlier, the most unlikely, is to keep "Earthbound Zero" as the name. This is what most Earthbound fans in the United States know the game as. This would be like supporting the ROM-makers, although not everyone would know about the ROMs. If Nintendo wants to sell a large number of games in the U.S., they will probably target other audiences than just Earthbound fans, so, when you think about it, a majority of game-buyers wouldn't even know that Earthbound Zero was never released in the U.S. Still, this name was used by the ROM-makers, and it may even have copyrights on it, though I haven't looked into it.
If Nintendo ever plans to release this anthology of sorts(an anthology of just two games)in the United States, then they will have to consider the name somewhere along the road ahead. These are all possibilities, and we won't know until we hear an official announcement from Nintendo of America. We're all hoping. So, along with other EB fans, I am looking forward to seeing what Nintendo chooses to name this game. If you have any ideas for names(serious or funny, but please keep it clean), just e-mail me to the address in the link, and I'll put together a list of the ones I receive in a future article or a post on the Earthbound/EB Zero message forum. This is EB 4 GBA, signing off.
As everybody visiting Starmen.net and reading this article knows(or should know)by now, Mother 1 and 2 are being released on the Game Boy Advance, along with Mother 3. No kidding? Anyway, one thing that some visitors may NOT know is that the name "Earthbound Zero" almost certainly cannot be used for Mother 1, granted it is released in the United States of America. While the first game in our favorite series was simply known as "Mother" in Japan, it was never released over here in the states, so therefore, it never received a name. In fact, the Earthbound we know is thought of as the sequel in Japan. The first game in the series was christened "Earthbound Zero" by the folks at Neo Demiforce, the ones who dumped the existing translated Mother cartridge onto a ROM. As ROFISH said in his thought-provoking topic on the Earthbound/EB Zero Starmen.net message forum, "If Nintendo calls it EB0, then they are officially are recognizing ROM hackers and legal stuffage like that." Very well said, ROFISH. So, EB0 is practically eliminated. Exactly what else could they call it?
Well, the first option is a prequel-type name. Something to the effect of "Earthbound: The Lost Tale". While this definitely could work, this would also mean a completely different approach to the series anywhere outside Japan. We must remember, the game is not thought of as a prequel in Japan. Since the U.S. and Japan are the areas with the largest Nintendo fanbase, we could say that it may be a tad difficult to market the game separately as an NES remake in Japan and a whole new prequel in the U.S. Now, this may not matter at all, but it is still a matter to be considered.
The second option is to ditch the prequel idea and call Mother 1 "Earthbound" and the second game a different name, since one of them obviously needs to come first. The Big N could easily call the SNES Earthbound game "Earthbound 2" on the GBA. This would definitely cause some confusion in the U.S. since it is almost like switching the names of the games, although it wouldn't really matter in the end, considering the fact that you cannot buy the games separately, and most people could hopefully figure out which game is which after two minutes of playing. I honestly don't see this happening, but you never know. At this point, we don't even know if we'll see the games over here.
The third option, my favorite, is to keep the names "Mother" and Mother 2" for the games in the U.S. This was the intended name for the series, and it would be easy to just call them by the same name. I really don't know why they even changed it, although maybe they thought that "Mother" wasn't as attractive to U.S. gamers. Shigesato Itoi would probably opt for this name, when you think about it. This seems to be a very important game to him, so he should be allowed to make name the decision. The fourth, and like I said earlier, the most unlikely, is to keep "Earthbound Zero" as the name. This is what most Earthbound fans in the United States know the game as. This would be like supporting the ROM-makers, although not everyone would know about the ROMs. If Nintendo wants to sell a large number of games in the U.S., they will probably target other audiences than just Earthbound fans, so, when you think about it, a majority of game-buyers wouldn't even know that Earthbound Zero was never released in the U.S. Still, this name was used by the ROM-makers, and it may even have copyrights on it, though I haven't looked into it.
If Nintendo ever plans to release this anthology of sorts(an anthology of just two games)in the United States, then they will have to consider the name somewhere along the road ahead. These are all possibilities, and we won't know until we hear an official announcement from Nintendo of America. We're all hoping. So, along with other EB fans, I am looking forward to seeing what Nintendo chooses to name this game. If you have any ideas for names(serious or funny, but please keep it clean), just e-mail me to the address in the link, and I'll put together a list of the ones I receive in a future article or a post on the Earthbound/EB Zero message forum. This is EB 4 GBA, signing off.
