It was on a pretty old message board post here, I don’t know if anything more came of it, but I salute shawnachu just the same!

I don’t really follow Minecraft stuff as much as I should, are there any other EarthBound-y locations and stuff that fans have made? I get submissions about people making sprites from the games regularly, but what about actual places?

I’ve been looking around for the past year or so for EarthBound or Mother related backgrounds and have only come across 5 or 6 at the most, some of which aren’t the greatest but still it’s Earthbound. The attached file is what I currently use now but I just wish there were more. Do you know of any place where I could look, or anywhere that people would be interested in making some for the community. I understand it’s not that big of an issue, just something that would be nice around to have around.

(click for full size)

I’ve actually wondered this for a while too. I know there’s a Desktop section on Starmen.Net that’s woefully neglected, but are there any other EarthBound/MOTHER desktop depositories out there? If you know of any, share them here!

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Back in 2000 when EarthBound 64 was canceled, everyone on Starmen.Net was like, “OMG! Onett’s in EarthBound 64!”

But only now do I finally realize that this screenshot is of Tazmily when it gets modernized! Man, I’m slow, it took me twelve years to figure that out

Which got me to wondering, are there any things in the series that took you a really long time to finally figure out?

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Blue Disk Saga is Very Over (31) Read More >>>

Hello, Mr. Itoi!

My name is Melanie Slater and I am a mentor for a 12 year old boy named Julian Griffith, who is a student at Quincy Junior high School.

His literacy class required that a business letter be written to someone whom he didn’t know, but admired. He picked you (after some investigation), because he loves the game EARTHBOUND so much. Since we could not find an address for you, we opted to send his letter via e-mail, which was okayed by his teacher.

Thank you for taking the time to read the folowing letter, and, hopefully, you can find time to answer him. He needs all the positive reinforcement he can get! He comes from a near-poverty situation, with a single-parent mother who works two jobs.

Thanks again,
Melanie Slater

---

Dear Mr. Itoi:

My name is Julian and I really love the game you made, EARTHBOUND. I rented it from Frese’s Videos, and right now I have late charges on it, so I have to take it back. I like the characters like the Bubble Monkey, Alex, Holly, Rover, John and Kato. Hey, you’re really cool, too!

Are you coming out with a new game? If you are, I would like to buy it, but I would have to rent it because our Nintendo factory got burned down.

If you can, please e-mail Mrs. Slater, my mentor, and tell her about any new game you might be making.

Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Julian Griffith

You can see the post here if you’re interested. Right after the post, the mailbag person is like (paraphrased), “Whoa, an all-English message. If anyone knows how we can contact whoever sent this, please let us know. It sounds like they’re calling Itoi cool!”

Anyway, I wonder whatever happened to Julian and if someone ever put them in contact with each other. I really hope so

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EarthBound 64 Cancellation Pt. 2 (17) Read More >>>

I want to get into the Mother / EarthBound games but don’t know where to start. What do you recommend?

So I thought it’d be nice to make a short page about the topic to make everything nice and clear. I present to you The Newcomer’s Guide to the EarthBound / Mother series!

Now I know a lot of people will disagree with where I put MOTHER 1. I spent a lot of time trying to decide where to put MOTHER 1, and in the end that seemed the best place to me, but at the very least I want to bring this point across:

I feel like I’ve left some stuff out of that page, so let me know if you think I should add anything else. And if you disagree with my suggestions, please feel free to chime in with your own order of games!

Basically, I want to try to share the series with more people, so send this suggestion page far and wide! If you ever see anyone ask which game they should start with, give them this handy link for reference

EDIT: I’ve since updated the page to incorporate some of the readers’ suggestions. Keep ‘em coming!

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MOTHER 2 vs. EarthBound, Last Call (43) Read More >>>

Hey, thought this might be of interest, It’s an EarthBound Feature length Fan-Film!

My buddy and I are currently trying to fund it (we’re going to shoot it regardless of if we hit the goal but it never hurts, am I right? haha) We have an IndieGoGo set up (http://www.indiegogo.com/EarthBound-Fan-Film) and I was hoping you guys could post about it? We want this to be really community based. There is a video on the page showing that we’re not just come dudes but pretty capable of doing this haha.

Anyways, hope you find this rad and post worthy!

The description for their EarthBound film is:

The film is titled “I Believe in Make Believe: The untold conclusion to EarthBound” The film takes place between EarthBound and Mother 3 as we follow Ness, Jeff, Paula, and Poo whom are now grown up.

If this sounds rad to you, please spread the word and donate if you can! We’ll constantly be updating our youtube, Facebook, and website with stuff as we get em!

And here’s a demo reel showcasing stuff from previous projects, so you can see they aren’t just some guys with a $10 webcam

For even more reference, one of the past projects was this popular Left 4 Dead film.

All in all, it sounds like this could be a pretty cool project If you have a few dollars to spare, you can donate to their fundraiser here and get some cool perks doing so, like early downloads of stuff, a DVD copy, a signed poster, and more!

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Rare MOTHER 2 Phone Card (27) Read More >>>

MOTHER 1+2 Set Signed by Shigesato Itoi

I posted about this last week, but the auction ends tonight if you’re interested!

MOTHER 1+2 Mr. Saturn Art Book with Unopened Mr. Saturn Plush

The Mr. Saturn art books tend to go for a crazy amount, this one’s actually up for auction so it’s possible you can get a good deal on one for once It’s a Japanese auction, so you might have to use a deputy service like Celga unless you have superpowers.

But it’s still sad to see Mr. Saturn so horribly treated:

Save Mr. Saturn!

Neat EarthBound/MOTHER series charms and prints by OMOCAT

I like seeing fan-made goodies, yet I’ve been slacking off showcasing a lot of Etsy shops and such. I’m going to try to fix that from now on, so check out these really nice-looking keychain charms and art prints. If you’re interested, check out more of her art here!

And if you or someone you know has a shop selling hand-made EarthBound/MOTHER goods, let me know! I’ll probably make a section on the site for them – I did that some years ago but I’d like to revive it. So lemme know!

Swag Watch for Jan. 22, 2012 (8) Read More >>>	Swag Watch: June 20, 2010 (18) Read More >>>
Swag Watch for Nov. 13, 2011 (25) Read More >>>

Given the sheer amount of Western pop culture references in MOTHER 2/EarthBound (reference 1, reference 2, reference 3) it doesn’t seem too farfetched. What do you guys think?

Thanks to yp95 for the tip!

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Shigesato Itoi, Giygas, and Boobies (23) Read More >>>

Average Prices:

• EarthBound cart: $138 (down from $149 now that the holidays are over)
• EarthBound guide: $77 (previous average was $77 as well)
• EarthBound complete set: $493 (up from $398)

That complete set average doesn’t include the new copy that sold for a zillion dollars last week. That one wound up selling for a lot less than the final bid (and was sold off of eBay as well), but factoring in the price there, the average for a complete set is bumped up to $629.

While computing the info above, I also took some notes about which ones sold for more and sold for less. So if you’re hoping to buy a copy of EarthBound for as little as possible, follow the tips here as well as these new tips for auctions (as opposed to buy-it-nows):

Helpful Tips!

• If the title has the word “rare” in it, forget about it – the final price will almost ALWAYS be higher than the average
• Similarly, words like “mint” will usually result in a final price higher than the average
• If the title uses the stock title of something like “EarthBound (1995, Super NES)”, then the final price is slightly more likely to be below average
• If the thumbnail image used is the stock image, then the final price is slightly more likely to be below average
• If words like “used” or “only” or “just” (as in “cart only” or “just cart”) are used, the final price is more likely to be below average

Of course, if you’re selling your copy, then use those tips to your advantage too

Pay attention to this stuff and the tips on buyearthound.com to get the best deal possible. You can save a LOT of money if you know what you’re doing – some cart copies of EarthBound went for $100, and a complete set even went for $273. So there are deals (relatively speaking…) to be had if you’re attentive!

EarthBound Cart Prices (28) Read More >>>	Buy EarthBound For Less (26) Read More >>>
Amazon & EarthBound Trade-Ins (14) Read More >>>

Anyway, in some recent comments, EarthBound Central reader west_haven posted this:

I work at Best Buy and I’ve been meaning to look in our inventory program and see if I can find our listing for Pokemon Red, so I bet it’s in there somewhere.

…

Found it and printed out sale tags for it!! The price listed is $5.99, a price we all wish we could get it for now. It’s listed as SN-Earthbound, where SN must stand for SNES. The SKU number is 2375272, which sadly doesn’t mean much since if you search for that on Bestbuy.com, it doesn’t yield a result. The many little tags are peg label stickers; I printed out eight of ‘em just cuz I can

I asked if there might be some secret stash tucked away in a warehouse somewhere, but it sounds like that’s not likely at all Oh well, someday someone’s going to find a stash of new EarthBounds and then buy a solid gold car.

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