EarthBound on Wii is about to be a reality, as the ESRB has officially rated the SNES classic with an “E for Everyone” rating via it’s web-site, which means that it’s release on the Wii Virtual Console can’t be far away. ESRB also marked the publisher as Nintendo of America, which all but assures that the game is coming, and likely coming soon. Let’s hope we get it this month!
Fans of EarthBound have been long left standing in the rain holding their Mr. Saturn plushies and crying their eyes out over the fact that Nintendo has all but ignored the extremely large cult-following that the Super NES RPG has managed to gain since it’s release in America on June 1st, 1995.
Known as the Mother series in Japan, the original Mother (prequel to EarthBound) was released in Japan on the original Famicon yet never saw the light of day in the U.S. (or anywhere outside of Japan for that matter), despite being fully translated and set for release by Nintendo before being scrapped. This gave rise to the popular “EarthBound Zero” ROM of the game that can be found via the Internet.
Then of course, Nintendo finally released a sequel to EarthBound called Mother 3 on the Game Boy Advance on April 20th 2006 . . . . only in Japan (natch). To add insult to injury, Nintendo even released a Game Boy Advance compilation of the first two games called Mother I&II in Japan, and never brought it to the U.S., then proceeded to not only put Ness (the star of EarthBound) in Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee, but had the gall to actually include Lucas (one of the main characters in Mother 3) as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl . . . in both the U.S. and Japanese versions.
Talk about a suckerpunch right to the face of U.S. fans!
BUT ALAS! It looks as if Nintendo may FINALLY be coming around. We’ll keep our eye on an official release date or announcement from Nintendo on EarthBound for the Wii VC.
And let’s hope that the Starmen don’t let up in their vocal support of the series! Nintendo needs to hear from as many of us EarthBound fans as possible so that they CONTINUE to release the rest of the EarthBound franchise, Mother 1 and Mother 3, outside of Japan. — via Kotaku
UPDATE February 2009: Here’s why you haven’t seen EarthBound on the Wii Virtual Console yet. It turns out EarthBound has a lot of pop culture references, for example to bands like The Beatles. It’s being withheld because of legal issues, Nintendo’s lawyers seem to be uneasy with what’s copyright law and what’s fair use. Starmet.net claim “As long as [Nintendo of Japan] remains unwilling to approve changes to the game, EarthBound will stay buried.”