MOTHER (also known as EarthBound, EarthBound 0, or EarthBound Zero) is an original RPG that takes place in rural America in the 1980's. This RPG was groundbreaking in that it broke the mold of dungeons, swords, and dragons. Medieval weapons were replaced by yo-yo's and frying pans. The classic dragons, dark elves, and other demons were replaced with possessed cars, crazed hippies, and many other off-the-wall enemies.

The story, however, is a classic. When strange, ghostly things begin to happen, a boy named Ninten sets out to investigate. He quickly finds that he has psychic abilities and a mysterious past. He is joined by several friends who aid him in his final goal, which is to defeat the vengeful alien known as Giegue. However, to defeat Giegue and to discover an ancient family secret, he must recover eight mysterious melodies with superb power.

A few highlights from the game:

• being attacked by your own lamp
• fighting against an alien who controls zoo animals
• meeting a cat who swims on the ground
• finding one of your allies in a trash can
• having people sneeze on you to give you colds
• riding around in an army tank in the desert and destroying a giant robot to reach a cave full of monkeys

In Japan, where it was released in the late 1980's for the Nintendo Famicom system, MOTHER was hugely successful. It sold around 400,000 copies and has spawned dozens of strategy guides, comic books, soundtracks and more.

MOTHER has four main characters: Ninten, Lloyd, Ana, and Teddy. The first three resemble characters in MOTHER 2 (EarthBound) for the SNES, and lots of theories about the connection between the two games have been presented over the course of time.

The gameplay on the overworld is similar to that of Final Fantasy. However, rather than seeing only the first character in your party while exploring the overworld, you see every character in your party following the main character, even if they're dead. However, battle gameplay is similar to Dragon Quest, for you see the enemies from a first-person perspective.

While wandering around in the overworld, you will randomly be drawn into battles with enemies. The enemy encounter rate is extremely high and as such this is considered to be far more difficult than its sequel, EarthBound. When you are in the battle sequence, you can perform many actions, such as attacking your opponent, staying on guard, using a PSI power, and fleeing. Because the game's enemy encounter rate is very high, the probability of fleeing is higher than that of EarthBound.

Nintendo translated the game to English, but never released it. In 1998, a group of ROM translators discovered an auction of a prototype of the "EarthBound" cartridge. They contacted the individual who had acquired the game, and made an agreement to "borrow" the game for $400 so they could dump the cartridge to a ROM file. A ROM hacker/translator named demi performed the dump and subsequent hack, and edited the game's title screen to read "EarthBound Zero" (to avoid confusion with MOTHER 2, whose English name was "EarthBound").

Due to legal reasons, we do not have the EarthBound Zero ROM on Starmen.Net. However, we have a patch of the game that is helpful to those who are struggling.

Here are a few important links that MOTHER fans might find interesting and/or helpful.

• Shigesato Itoi interviews, etc. - TONS of info here if you can read Japanese.
• MOTHER / EarthBound Zero credits - Learn more about the people behind M2/EB!
• MOTHER / EarthBound Zero merchandise - All kinds of awesome here!
• Starmen.Net EarthBound Zero Walkthrough - The definitive EarthBound Zero walkthrough!
• Magicant - An extensive EarthBound Zero website.
• Lost Levels Online - The history of EarthBound Zero in the US.