"Mother Forever" fangroup releases their "Mother Direct 2023", showcasing new fangames, romhacks and much more
The Mother/EarthBound franchise is celebrating its 34th anniversary this year, with the original Mother title releasing on the Famicom system on July 27th, 1989. The franchise wasn't quite popular compared to other RPG games of the time, and the original release overseas with the localization and marketing of the original EarthBound didn't help much either. However, that didn't stop many people from catching up to the elusive and quirky title way past its hayday, and the franchise has since created a blooming and avid fandom, with the most recognizable and longest ones being Starmen.net; which held a number of fan conventions titled "Camp Fangamer", and more recently, the group Mother Forever; which has made it a yearly event to showcase fangames and romhacks made by the community which are in some way related to Mother/EarthBound with a lengthy E3-like video titled "Mother Direct".
Today, the Mother Forever group has released their latest iteration of their Mother Direct, coinciding with the anniversary of the original Mother title, to bring news, trailers, music, videos, updates and more about projects related to the Mother franchise, or fangames inspired by it. The Direct is separated into Chapters, and we'll go through each one accordingly:
Chapter 1: Fan Projects
- We start off with "EarthBound Beginnings Remake" by Gabbi, a romhack using EarthBound for the SNES as the base, with the goal of attempting to remake the original Mother title from the NES with a full-on revamp based on the EarthBound engine. It will be completely compatible with original SNES hardware. This remake has been decades in production, with multiple rises and falls over the years with the last one being held by H.S. (who has been absent since 2020), and hopefully, this will be the one project to pull through and finally realize this decades long dream for the Mother fan community.
- Next up is a completely remade intro for EarthBound in a full 3D engine, EarthBound Dimensions, with a full demo "Early Onett" available right now.
- Following up is a completely revamped version of the Mother album soundtrack, with the title "Mother Deluxe Edition", with the tracks fully remastered in high quality sound.
- A nice 2D sprite-based cinematic focusing on Lucas from Mother 3 begins, it seems like Lucas encounters several other characters from other franchises... "Lucas VS Everything Collab - PSI Universe" coming soon on November, 2023.
- An interesting set of characters within an EarthBound setting appears next, with some flashbacks to what seems to be internet and dial connections from the early days of the web. "Mother Rebound", an EarthBound romhack by Team Psionics.
- User Remie jumps in to talk about his fairly recent "Mother 1 Iceberg" 1+ hours long video. They're also working on a Mother 1 Audiobook, with Chapter 1 being complete already.
- A call to all animators interested in a collaboration for the franchise's 36th Anniversary, to showcase a whole slew of different animations all based on Mother/EarthBound.
- Next up we have an original song, alongside a new cast of characters in what seems to be an original story... RootBound, with Chapter 1 being complete, Chapter 2 coming soon.
- "The Dark Aspects of Mother" by Thane Gaming, a video series inspired by musings from Shigesato Itoi. The series covers the entire trilogy of games, as well as other related media found regarding the Mother franchise. The videos are available in his YouTube channel for watching.
- "Mother, She Wrote", a podcast going through the Mother trilogy, with each episodes having audio drama intros to take the audience into the adventure, as well as talking about the lore, social commentary and pop culture impact that the series has obtained throughout the years. Available in Spotify, Apple Podcast and other podcasts players.
- Next we have "Mother 2 Deluxe", a romhack of the original EarthBound that's been in development for years, with new features to showcase like fully animated battle sprites, entire new areas and dungeons, new bosses and enemies, and a new difficulty selection.
- "Mother Funkin' " is the following project, a DDR-like game with new songs, original artwork and animations, made by Non-tendo. Coming 2023 on Gamebanana.
- Mother Forever is celebrating 15 years since the original Mother 3 translation was originally made, and they feature an online patcher for those wanting to patch their Mother 3 copy into the language of choice by the user, since many more languages have been done since the initial release of the English translation back in 2008.
Chapter 2: Mother-like Indie RPGs
- Athenian Rhapsody is a new RPG, in which the character develops its own story, with its own outcomes, promising a unique playthrough for each player. Each playthrough will be saved as an individual "Rhapsody" for the player to share. Coming Fall 2023 to mobile, consoles, Steam, GOG and Epic. A demo is out now.
- Cricket is another RPG, with battle mechanics reminiscent of those from the Mario & Luigi RPG titles, and an artstyle that reminds a bit of those Flash-era animations, really fluid and well done. Coming to Steam, can be wishlisted now.
- Hypersomnia is set in a mid-western like environment, with battle style similar to that of EarthBound but with a bit more flare. Demo will be coming soon.
- Momoinc is the next RPG indie title, with a really interesting artstyle, something in between 8 bit and 16 bit graphics, and some 8 bit SFX to pair the graphics with, giving it a strong NES-like RPG vibe. The characters are also quite unique themselves. The game can be wishlisted on Steam.
- Moonchild is another RPG set in a mid-western place, called Frankland. The visuals and battle style are really similar to those from EarthBound, even featuring those pseudo-dreamy moving backgrounds like EB had. Act 1 demo will be coming soon.
- FurQuest is, as the name implies, a game with anthropomorphic main characters, with really weird and strange enemies and design. It seems like the RPG will make use of mini-games instead of the usual battle systems seen in RPGs for progression, which is quite the interesting change of pace. Steam keys were released exclusive to the Direct.
- Nagayaml Nights has ghostly enemies that can ambush you while going through the open world, with a white-full environment, almost snowy or cloudy. Demo is available today, and the game can be wishlisted on Steam.
- Cairn: Mathair's Curse is an RPG with a spot-on style similar to that from Mother 3, it seems like the developers really took a lot of inspiration from said game for the style and tone of the game, looks really promising. Wishlist on Steam is available.
- Vagrant Shifter is an RPG were you take control of what seems to be an avatar of sorts, possibly a shape the character took after their alleged death, and in this form, you befriend a rather furry creature, a beaver? The battle sprites look well animated and colorful.
- Wholesome: Heart Drawn is a game whose first impression it leaves is a heavily focused game on the colour pink, taking control of characters Lyra, Reno and Emmy, with the battles looking very similar to those found in Mother 3, very colourful and with the moving backgrounds that Mother fans are familiar with.
- Catherine and the Spirit World is an 8bit joy to see. Every sprite and colour is properly design in a limitation mindset for sprites made in the 8bit era (being limited to only 3 colours each), and the world has a familiarity with the 8bit Zelda titles in structure and design. Coming soon.
- Tails from Alteria is a 2.5D adventure with a very enticing world, the style of the game sees the characters in a full 3D environment, and yet the characters themselves are flat in design, similar to Paper Mario (also in the battle style) or other games in the same vein. Coming to both Steam and Switch.
- Dreamed Away looks like a merge between Mother 3 and Undertale when it comes to both artstyle and battle mechanics, respectively. The sprites and world looks top notch and well drawn to give that Mother 3 vibe. Coming to Steam.
- A TV-like show begins, a skit to present the next game, looks very vibrant and almost oil like style and design. Astral Guard, with a demo being worked on for PC.
- Sorry, We're Open: No Returns, a game with quite the unique premise. You're a department store employee in a chaotic job day, with no stock, and you find yourself scouring the place to try to fulfill the order by a person in an intercom phone. The game is now available in Steam and itch.io
- She Dreams Elsewhere has a colour design choice that will surely be familiar to those who grew up with computers from the 80's, as it has that characteristic CGA colour palette that is sure to give some people throwbacks. The game seems to take place in a mall of sorts. Coming to Steam, Switch, Xbox Game Pass.
- Gnomonic: Half Past Ego carries over a colouring book feeling, with a lot of pastel colours, soft and touching.
Chapter 3: All Things...
- MOTHER2 (or Mother Squared) is a full on remake of the original Mother 2 / EarthBound made entirely from scratch in a new engine, with fully revamped graphics, sounds, animations, battle and menu mechanics, and much, much more.
- "The Impact of Iwata" is an upcoming book focused on Satoru Iwata (former president of Nintendo) and its life and work in many games in the industry, with a section specific to EarthBound / Mother.
- "Mother Encore" is a fully fledge remake of the first Mother game being developed in a new engine, with a design and style directly inspired by Mother 3. A demo of the remake is now available for download.
- The TK-69 unaltered beta ROM of the original Mother has been redumped by the Mother to Earth team.
- To close up the event, a trailer is shown...
Seems to be a documentary of sorts, with the history of what the fandom is and has become ever since the original games, and how the constant rejection by Nintendo has led the fandom into action of their own to continue the franchise. A new movie, EarthBound USA will be released on November 27th, 2023.
Be sure to follow the games and projects showcased here directly from the Mother Forever website, and until next year!
Mother Forever Starmen.net EarthBound USA Movie
