[Omniverse Audio Brand]

 

[90s phone ring and pick up]

 

CAT

Hey, this is Cat!

 

JESS

And Jess

 

CAT

You know, “MOTHER,” She Wrote is free to listen to, but it’s not free to make.

JESS

So please consider supporting our work on Patreon.

 

CATYou’ll get early, ad-free episodes of this show and all the storytelling podcasts we create. 

 

JESSHead to Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia to chip in and join our community of world-saving wunderkind.

 

CAT

Oh and - heads up: this episode contains brief mentions of death and gang-related gun violence.

 

JESS

Please use your best judgment when listening… and take care of yourself. 

 

CAT & JESS

Love youuuu.

[phone disconnect sound]

 

[Rural neighborhood night sounds, crickets, a passing car. Ominous music. Someone rides a bicycle past, rings their bell, a dog barks. Fades to indoors. Music continues, footsteps run upstairs. A TV is turned on and the station dial switches, the channels change.]

 

TV AUDIO - SINISTER BOY:

Welcome to Howling House! 

 

[Channel changes]

 

TV AUDIO - MAN:

Okay [Laughs] This is crazy, but you should do that.

 

[Channel changes]

 

TV AUDIO - A 1980S ANIMATED THEME SONG:

-Fighting for what is right! Here they come-

 

[Channel changes]

 

TV AUDIO - FATHER:

Sometimes that kid…

 

[Laugh track]

 

TV AUDIO - NEIGHBOR:

At the very least try being apathetic.

 

TV AUDIO - FATHER:

I don’t know how I feel about that.

 

[Laugh track]

 

TV AUDIO - NEIGHBOR:

See! You’ve already got the hang of it!

 

[Laugh track/ Channel changes to a synthy mysterious show intro.]

 

TV ANNOUNCER:

Tonight on Unresolved Mysteries, the story of George and Maria - a young married couple who disappeared mysteriously from their home in 1908.

 

Two years later, as suddenly as he left, George returned - alone. Once a renowned journalist, he became a recluse, and an inventor - studying strange energies.

 

He never told anyone where he had been, what he had done, or what became of his missing wife.

 

It happened in this house, in the quiet town of Podunk. George and Maria’s children returned home from school to find their house empty. Their parents vanished - without a trace. This was the last in a series of strange happenings preceded, they say, by a dark shadow hovering at the summit of distant Mt. Itoi-

 

[The TV is abruptly turned off]

 

MOM:

Ninten! What did I tell you!?

 

NINTEN:

Mom, I-

 

MOM:

I don’t want you watching our family be slandered on TV!

 

NINTEN:

But everyone else will. They’re going to be talking about us. 

 

MOM:

And like always you’re going to ignore them, young man.

 

NINTEN:

But- Mom. What happened with Great Grandpa? Why won’t you talk about it?

 

MOM:

[sighs]

…Because there’s nothing to say, Ninen. All you need to know is that he didn’t kill your great grandma.

 

[Soft music starts]

 

MOM:

 -And that it’s bedtime. Now come here and give me a hug.

 

[They hug]

 

MOM:

I love you, Ninten. Now… Scoot.

 

NINTEN:

But-

 

[Ninten is writing]

 

NINTEN:

Friday, April 1st, 198-[clears throat]

 

Dear diary… I don’t get it! Mom talks to me about everything, but she won’t talk to me about this. She’s been so weird lately. And it’s been worse ever since that TV crew tried to interview us. I’ve never seen her so mad or heard someone say “mind your own beeswax” so threateningly. It sounded like a cuss. 

 

All she’ll say is that Great Grandpa George didn’t kill Great Grandma Maria, but she won’t say a word about the other stuff people say. Like how he was investigating a bunch of disappearances and weird stuff happening around town when they both disappeared. How, when he came back, his hair was all white. And the cloud! 

 

I’ve seen her watching the cloud over Mt. Itoi. A big, dark cloud hovering at the top! -Just like people say happened back then before… everything. When I ask her about any of it she says I’m going to give myself an asthma attack - but I’m not scared, I just wanna know! I know she knows something. She looks really worried when she looks at the cloud-

 

[There’s a subtle movement behind him. Something twirling]

 

NINTEN

-but last time I asked about it she said it was probably the TV show using a smoke machine to spook peop-WOAH! HEY!

 

[There’s a commotion in the bedroom. Something breaks. Ninten yelps. Mysterious music plays and ambient police sirens and radio chatter follow. A weird low humming rises up and fades. Ninten runs into his room and starts writing again.]

 

NINTEN

Okay so- my lamp attacked me. It was hovering in the air. It unplugged itself and came at me! It wrapped its power cord around my wrist, but I grabbed the cord and smashed it up against the wall. Then everything in the house started vibrating and I heard Mimmie and Minnie screaming.

 

[An unnerving harsh tone rises up with strange droning sounds.]

 

NINTEN

I ran to help and they were being attacked too! The doll that belonged to Great Grandma Maria had Mimmie pressed against the wall. I pulled it off her and bashed it against the floor. And then this music box started playing inside the doll, that song mom hummed at bedtime… 

 

[A gentle piano song starts to play]

 

NINTEN:

And everything stopped moving. All the stuff that was floating fell on the ground.

 

Gosh, this is gonna be a lot for mom and the twins to clean up… I feel bad skipping out. But- well…This is going to be my last entry for a while. 

 

It’s all kind of a blur. Things happened pretty fast. Mom was freaked out. And then out of the blue dad called. It was like he knew we needed him. It would’ve been even better if he’d just shown up here, in person but - anyway, he called what happened a “poltergeist”. It’s like - a big paranormal disturbance where stuff moves around like it’s being controlled by something else - just like what Great Grandpa was investigating. But that’s the other thing - it’s all happening like it did back then. Mom had hoped it wouldn’t come to this but she and dad told me everything. 

 

It’s true that no one knows what happened to Great Grandma Maria, or where they disappeared to, but Great Grandpa spent the rest of his life studying something called psychokinetic energy. Dad called it PSI for short. All that stuff about me - that mom told me was special but I should keep to just the family - like being able to hear what animals are thinking, and sometimes people too, or that time all the silverware bent when I got angry at dinner… that’s these powers my great grandpa was studying! It has something to do with all of this. It’s like… a defense - something to make sure whatever happened before doesn’t happen again. 

 

So dad said: “It's time for you to go on a little adventure.” Mom’s worried, but… also she looked really proud - like she knew this would happen someday. The stuff that made me different from everyone else is why it’s gotta be me. Mom’s always told me to “trust my gut” and… she’s right. Sometimes I just know things. 

 

Like - I’m scared. I mean- I’m a kid about to leave my home to stop… I don’t even know what it is! But I know that I’m going to walk out the door, I’m gonna find what’s doing this, and I’m gonna stop it.

 

I have great grandpa’s diary now. It’s up to me to protect my family - and I’ll mess up any appliance that tries to stop me! Writing this took longer than I thought. I’ve gotta go but -

 

Mom, Mimmie, Minnie, Dad… if you’re reading this. I love you. I hope you’re okay. 

 

[Piano music ends. Bird chirps and light town noises. New, plucky music starts]

 

NINTEN

[formal]

Dear Mother…

 

Hopefully, by the time you receive this letter, Podunk will have been saved by yours truly. 

 

[suddenly informal]

But in the meantime, Mom - please don’t go outside. Things are… really weird out here. People’s brains are… messed up. Mr. Patchouli, the hippie who sells those bracelets at the farmer’s market? He attacked me! And the birds and stray dogs… 

 

I’ve had to fight some of them, but… Great Grandpa was right. The psychokinetic energy… I - I can feel it. When someone’s not right I can kinda… hypnotize them, make them fall asleep. When I get scraped up, I can make my wounds heal a bit! It’s like I’m talking to my body and asking it to stitch itself back together. 

 

And I think I’m a government employee now? I’m not sure. I met Mayor Goodman. I heard he was “looking for a brave man”. So, since I’m a professional adventurer now, I went to city hall. I leaned on my bat, looking real cool, and said, “Mr. Mayor, I’m your man.” I think he was really impressed. My friend from school, Pippi, you know - the tomboy with the braids - she’s missing. Mayor Goodman heard she was in the cemetery and told me I’d be a hero if I brought her back home. 

 

[Drum-heavy action music starts]

 

NINTEN:

By the time you get this letter, maybe I’ll be on TV for having saved her! 

 

The thing is though… Mom, I don’t want you to worry, but I’m pretty scared. I saw a dead person today and I… I know you told me not to talk to strangers - I just kinda need to now, you know - for clues. Well, there was this skinny guy who started talking to me, and before I knew it, he was clawing at me with these long nails. He was cold and he smelled like dirt. 

 

It was a zombie! I mean a real zombie! People were saying around town that the dead were coming back to life and I thought maybe they were a little loopy like everyone else. But it was real! I fought him and when my bat crashed into head it was all brittle and his whole body turned to dust.  

 

This didn’t happen when Great Grandpa and Grandma disappeared. Right?

 

I think it’s really serious this time. Like whatever happened before… that was just a test. And this… this is the beginning - of something really serious. But… I’ve got this feeling, like I’m not alone. I know you, and Mimmie, and Minnie, and Dad are here, but there’s other people too. Maybe other people like me out there. And I’m scared but… Great Grandpa sacrificed a lot so I could be here. I’m not going to let him down. I’m not gonna let you down. And I’m not gonna be like Great Grandpa. He pushed his family away. Me? I miss you already. I’m gonna write you every step of the way, Mom. I promise I’ll visit as often as I can. 

 

When things get tough I can hear you, like when you’re helping me with my homework but won’t give me the answer, or when you let go of my bike for the first time… I’m out there on my own, teetering, but you say, “you can do it, kiddo.” And I can. 

 

Love,

Ninten

 

[A letter is dropped in a mailbox. The music brightens and swells.]

 

CAT

Welcome to “Mother,” She Wrote - a travelog diary through the strangest, most thought-provoking, most heart-rending video games ever made - the Earthbound series - as it’s called in English speaking countries, and MOTHER as it’s called in Japan.  

 

This is the story of the first game in that series: Earthbound Beginnings.

I’m Cat Blackard - just a small town girl, fighting wildlife in a lonely world - and with me is my simply smashing co-host…

 

JESS

Jessica Mudd and by wild life I assume you mean the extremely dapper crows, bats, and other critters roaming around Podunk.

 

CAT 

Yeah, and Wally the farmer - that guy is a real animal on a Saturday night.

 

JESS

Or a Friday afternoon as it turns out. I mean seriously. One moment you’re just a kid relaxing in his bedroom and the next, your house is shaking, dolls and furniture are attacking you, and your neighbors are turning into zombies. School’s out for-ever!

 

CAT & JESS

[Laugh]

 

[Music stops]

 

CAT

If you haven't listened to “Episode Zero”, I'd highly recommend it. We discuss a broad overview of the series, the release dates, the fan culture behind it, as well as our own relationships with these games - which might help with the context of what Jess and I are about to discuss here. Maybe. Kind of. Sort of. Who knows. But it'll give you a full perspective behind the scenes, beyond just the story that appears in the game. 

 

The first thing that I'm very excited to address here, because we haven't talked about it yet, Jess, you've played EarthBound before, but now you've gone back and started playing EarthBound Beginnings. What do you think?

 

JESS

Well, let me just start off by saying that I was very impressed by the level of complication and polish, I guess I can say, in this game. And how much it resembled EarthBound - how much of EarthBound came from EarthBound Beginnings. I was shocked to see that level of complexity in an NES RPG, just because the other games that I'm comparing it to are like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior - games that I played back on the NES. And to see something that very closely resembles a Super NES game was really - It caught me off guard. I was not expecting that. The overall level of presentation, the music, the graphics, the sound effects - everything. It seemed like it really kind of reached a level that was vastly superior to a lot of other NES games that came out around that same time. Now, I know that EarthBound Beginnings is sort of, they've refined it a little bit. They did a translation for it, an official translation, and they added some quality of life improvements to it as well. But I don't think they really changed any of the graphics for music or anything like that.

 

CAT:

Well, they did censor some of the graphics, but they didn't change the music. The game that you've played in 2022 is the game that was translated by Nintendo of America in the late eighties.

 

JESS:

That is just wild to me. It really is. Because EarthBound came out in the United States in 1995, and, the first MOTHER game came out in Japan in 1989. And there's so much that is advanced about EarthBound Beginnings that I just - I was really impressed by it. Which is kind of ironic because a lot of the criticisms that I had about EarthBound revolved around the user interface, and the gameplay, and some of the things that just sort of like seemed to bog it down at times. The amount of grinding that was required to sort of level your characters up, navigating through the menus -

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

-The limited inventory, and - it's like, here I am, like, "oh my gosh! It's all the exact same on the Nintendo!"

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

And this is fantastic.

 

CAT:

Uh-huh.

 

JESS:

How did they do this?

 

CAT:

All those things that you just said and worse in this game - but because of this historical context, you're applauding it. [Laughs]

 

JESS:

I know. It's bizarre.

 

CAT:

Here we are.

 

JESS:

But here we are. So maybe it's because I've played EarthBound already that I sort of intuitively understand how all this works in EarthBound Beginnings, and so I don't find it as daunting. The learning curve is not as steep, but just even some of the basic tropes of how you interact with the world, the fact that you talk to your dad through the telephone or that your mom - you come back and talk to her and you know, she makes you dinner and then sends you to bed, and that's how you restore your health. The fact that those sort of tropes were established in this game and carried through to EarthBound was really stunning to me.

 

CAT:

Yeah. And you know, the people who were localizing this game for English speaking audiences, they thought it was gonna be the next big thing because role playing games were huge hits in Japan. They didn't move the needle in the States. Nintendo of America, at the time, thought maybe EarthBound could do it, but then they lost interest. They decided it was like too much of an expensive risk to bother marketing it, or whatever, but they did already spend a lot of money on it. So it was a strange thing when they pulled the plug on it because, in that context, it either would've been another expensive flop for role playing games, or it could have changed everything.

 

JESS:

I mean, I guess it would've been an expensive flop. I mean, they already did all the work. The game was developed. They did the translation for it. All they had to do was just print the cartridges...

 

CAT:

Ah - they had to market it though, they didn't spend any marketing money yet.

 

JESS:

How much did they really market EarthBound?

 

CAT:

A lot. They spent so much money marketing EarthBound and done by a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing. They didn't know how to sell that game. I

 

JESS:

I mean, gosh, I was a gamer - I was a big gamer in the mid-nineties, a huge gamer. And the first that I ever learned about EarthBound was in Super Smash Brothers. So how do they spend that much marketing on it and not reach somebody like me?

 

CAT:

You don't remember opening Game Pro Magazine and seeing that scratch and sniff ad that said, like in big letters: "This game stinks."

 

JESS:

No, I don't remember that [laughs] and I read Game Pro religiously, so I don't know. Something about it just didn't land.

 

CAT:

Clearly. I mean, they spent a lot of money and you didn't know about it. So clearly they failed. And even if you had known about it, you might not have thought, "I wanna play this game," which is the case for other folks.

 

JESS:

I don't know, maybe I was just already inundated with other game media or something, because I can't really explain it. I was very in tune with gaming culture, and the Super Nintendo is my favorite console of all time. So it's like, how did I miss this? I don't know. 

 

[Transitional music starts]

 

JESS:

If they were spending a lot of money marketing that game. It was probably not well spent [laughs] or well done.

 

CAT:

It was tragic. It was truly tragic.

 

JESS:

But that's okay because now I can be dazzled 30 years later.

 

CAT:

[Laughs] Yeah!

 

[Musical transition fades under hosts]

 

CAT:

EarthBound Beginnings: we are gonna make a lot of comparisons to EarthBound because that is the game that, the world-over, more people have played. And here's a comparison I like to use a lot. An analogy: EarthBound Beginnings is to EarthBound as Starfox is to Starfox 64. That is: Starfox 64, beyond all the stuff about it that's new and flashy, is just a remake of Starfox. It's the same plot. There's just more stuff. And that is really similar with EarthBound Beginnings, except that it's not a remake. There's many things that are similar. There are many patterns to it, you know - like calling your dad on the phone to save the game, using an ATM to get cash, talking to your mom. There are many, many, many, many similarities. But the core plot is different. It is a standalone story that actually does inform and provide additional context for the events of EarthBound.

 

JESS:

Interesting.

 

CAT:

So this is very much the first game in the series. This is very much the beginning of a story.

 

JESS:

All right, so let's talk about what happened in the game. So it kind of opens up with this text intro that says, eighty years ago, there was a couple named George and Maria who suddenly disappeared for two years. George comes back, but Maria is still lost. And it says that George "began a private study" or, research or something like that. But it doesn't really expand on that. Eighty years later is the beginning of EarthBound Beginnings. That's kind of where we, we pick up. They don't like explicitly say it, but I'm guessing that the little boy, the main character that you play as, is the great grandson of George and Maria and the "private study" that George was engaging in, is the study of these psionic abilities that the child has.

 

CAT:

Correct. It's weird how they both say it in a lot of different ways, but they also don't explicitly put that together for you, even while providing all this information. The game gives you an opening crawl with this story that is really, really, really important to the plot of the game.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

But then it doesn't come back into the story again until much later. And as it's being seeded, it's only when you're really, really paying attention to it. You have to do a lot of legwork to put it together. And this is important to exploring EarthBound Beginnings, because EarthBound Beginnings as a game is impressionistic. It is as big a game as EarthBound, in terms of the scope of what it was trying to say and do, but because of the technological limits of the game itself, you only get fragments of it. It implies a great deal, but there's two pieces of media that exist outside of it that help give it the full expansive nature that EarthBound has - and that's a book that was published by Ape, Shigesato Itoi's company that produced EarthBound, called the MOTHER Encyclopedia. And then also there's a musical album that a lot of the songs from this game have lyrics, have full orchestral treatment, and those two things together explain the scope of what this game was in the minds of its creators, and also possibly in the minds of the Japanese audience that received it. It was a hit.

 

JESS:

And you happen to have a copy of that book, right?

 

CAT:

I do indeed. Yes. This book is in Japanese, with one notable exception, but it does have a lot of pictures - which are photographs - that really help ground the way you're meant to perceive what's happening in the game.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

But also the Encyclopedia has been, or is in the process of being, translated currently. There's a website where someone named kenisu is translating the MOTHER Encyclopedia. We'll link to it on the show's page and it's been really invaluable. We'll be reading from it in this episode.

 

JESS:

Alright. So one of the first questions that I have was, after we did this sort of like intro story thing, it has, you go through and name the characters.

 

CAT:

Mm-hmm.

 

JESS:

And I, I usually like to just accept the default names for characters in RPGs, so that when I'm discussing them with other people, I can just use the names of, you know, what they're normally called in the story. I tried to just like accept, you know, the default or whatever, just do whatever it wanted. It didn't seem to let me do that. So I ended up putting in my own character names.

 

CAT:

There are default names, but they don't exist within the game itself. Maybe they're in the instruction booklet or something. 

 

JESS:

So the the little boy's name is canonically Ninten, right?

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

Okay. But I would have no way of knowing that playing the game.

 

CAT:

Right.

 

JESS:

So how do you know that the character's name is Ninten?

 

CAT:

Because of all the material surrounding it. For example, in the [MOTHER] Encyclopedia, it says like, "your name is Ninten," but then it also says, "or you could choose another name, that's fine too."

 

JESS:

Alright. So I named the main character "Tom".

 

CAT:

Which is a great name.

 

JESS:

I know it will get confusing if I'm referring to "Tom" while we're talking about this. So I feel like I should probably just refer to him as Ninten going forward?

 

CAT:

That's the least confusing path forward for us. Yes.

 

JESS:

Alright. The next character that I named was the girl character, and I named her "Rachel".

 

CAT:

Her name's Ana.

 

JESS:

Ana, okay. And I swear I'm literally thinking about just going back and replaying the first section of this game-

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

-Just so I can name them properly, because otherwise it's really gonna get confusing. Alright. The other little boy that I named, uh, I named him "Stanley". So what's his actual name?

 

CAT:

Lloyd.

 

JESS:

Lloy- Okay. I'm sticking with "Stanley".

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

Lloyd. Okay. And then finally the big muscle bound dude with the sunglasses. I named him "Bruce".

 

CAT:

Your name selections are impeccable. I love them. His name's Teddy.

 

JESS:

Teddy, okay. Yeah. Maybe I'm just gonna stick with my own character names.

 

CAT:

I mean, you did a great job.

 

JESS:

[Laughs] Thank you.

 

CAT:

But what was your favorite food?

 

JESS:

My favorite food? Oh, yes, of course. 'Cause you gotta put food. Well, my favorite food is pizza. So that is, you know, what I put in.

 

CAT:

Well, my favorite food, as we discussed in Episode Zero, is also pizza. However, I was so charmed by how many letter slots you get to- I mean, 'cause like, you know, Nintendo games, older NES games are notorious for like, not giving you long spaces to like, you know, insert in names and stuff. But they gave you so many characters and I was like, "wow, this is so much real estate. I know... I wonder if I could fit in 'okonomiyaki' or, as they would call it in Ranma 1/2: 'Japanese pizza.'"

 

JESS:

Fantastic. [Laughs]

 

CAT:

And it fit. Exactly.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

But the default favorite food is prime rib.

 

JESS:

Prime rib. Okay. But you wouldn't know that unless you read the supplemental material.

 

CAT:

Exactly. So, you know, is that flawed? Yes, it is flawed, but, I'm not sure that there's another video game from this era that does this - another video game that has so much supplemental material that expands canonically what is in the game and helps ground it. That's highly unusual.

 

JESS:

Alright. So after I named these characters, I started off in my bedroom, like I said, and I just kind of experimented around a little bit, kind of learning the controls. So you're telling me that the “run” button was not in the original version of this game?

 

CAT:

Nope.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

Can you imagine?

 

JESS:

And you know what? I never used it again after that moment, after discovering it.

 

CAT:

Really?

 

JESS:

I remembered. Yeah.

 

CAT:

Wow.

 

JESS:

I don't know. I guess I was just taking in all the scenery, but, um-

 

CAT:

You are pretty chill. I also noticed that you didn't set your battle screen text speed in the options menu.

 

JESS:

Wait, there's a, oh, you can do that?

 

CAT:

You can make it go much faster.

 

JESS:

Oh my gosh, yes. I need to turn that on. Okay. Thank you for telling me that.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

That's very good to know. The moment I tried to step out of my bedroom door, the first thing that happens is my lamp jumps off [laugh], and attacks me - like, okay, this is a way to start a game. And, and so I had to, I had to... Defeat my lamp to walk out the door.

 

CAT:

It immediately makes a statement. It says like, "hey, this game takes place in modern times. Now you're fighting a lamp." And like, and it doesn't explain why until the event is over.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

And your dad, over the phone, posits that it maybe was a poltergeist. When you defeat two lamps and a child's doll, it says, "the phenomenon has stopped for the moment."

 

JESS:

And there was a melody that was inside of the doll as well.

 

CAT:

And Ninten remembered that.

 

JESS:

That's right. He did. Which I'm glad he did, because I didn't.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

Even though I listened to it twice. But - this also brings me to my favorite song of this first session of playing through. And that is the music while the house is shaking, that was a banger.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

That was some rockin' music. And, you know, talking about the musical capabilities of the NES, I was like - this is fantastic. There was a lot of great music in this first session of playing through the game, but that one was really like - I was like, you know, I was rocking out there for a bit.

 

CAT:

The music in EarthBound, or the first two EarthBound games, is by Keiichi Suzuki and Hip Tanaka. And they are really amazing composers. Keiichi Suzuki is in a band called Moon Riders and... Weirdos made this music.

 

JESS:

[Laughs].

 

CAT:

And it shows. Really all of EarthBound is kind of like outsider art in a kind of weird way. These are all people who are professional artists outside the medium of video games, figuring out how to do video games. And it shows. Like, nothing about this is normal.

 

JESS:

Fantastically absurd.

 

CAT:

Yeah. It's so much cooler for it.

 

JESS:

Alright, so after expunging the poltergeist from the house, I guess, I walked downstairs and- does Ninten have two sisters?

 

CAT:

Yeah. He has two twin sisters.

 

JESS:

Two twin sisters. Okay. So his other twin sister was downstairs and his mom was downstairs, kind of guarding the door, because I guess she didn't want you to walk outside until you had talked to dad on the phone. And this was when my favorite moment of dialogue happened during this first playthrough. And that was when mom said, "I wish your dad were here now… maybe."

 

CAT:

Right! Like, what does that mean?

 

JESS:

Yes! And you know, it's like, “okay, well maybe I wish your dad were here, but I, you know, I don't know, maybe not. Not sure about it.” It's like he might just make the situation worse. [Laughs]

 

CAT:

I have so many questions about that translation. I don't know what the answer to it is, because they could be two unrelated lines. It could be like, "I wish your dad was here." And then like she starts having a thought like, "...maybe... He'll come back!" Or, "maybe it was a poltergeist!" You know, like yeah, "maybe" could mean a lot of things. But according to this book, Ninten's dad left when he was five years old on what he assumes is like a business trip or something. So the twins were born, Ninten's five, "immediately following that father would end up going to some far away place, probably job related." Like that's all, you know.

 

JESS:

Probably job related.

 

CAT:

You know, he still calls.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

He still, like, has a regular relationship there. But your dad's a phone. Like, that's dad.

 

JESS:

And that stays consistent through EarthBound as well.

 

CAT:

Yeah. And what that means, and what it says, and what it is talking about is the subject of constant fan discourse.

 

JESS:

Constant fan discourse?

 

CAT:

Yeah. I mean like, the mystery of Ninten and Ness' dads and like - who they are, what them being gone all the time means, what their relationship is, what it is they're doing? That is a source of speculation. Like what does it mean meta contextually? What might it mean actually in the plot of the game?

 

JESS:

Got it. I see. So dad tells me that there are some items in the basement that could be beneficial to me, but he doesn't remember where he left the key. So that's the first thing that I need to do is to find that key. And it just so happened to be on the collar of the dog who was outside that I went up and said hello to. And I misread the text when I was playing through the game because I thought it was saying that you can't talk to animals. And I was like, there's this dog that's walking around on two legs. You’re seriously telling me that, you know, I can't talk to this dog or whatever?

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

But anyway, I understand now that you actually can talk to animals and the dog seems very friendly and he had the key around his collar so...

 

CAT:

There's a lot of interesting things about Ninten. It explicitly states essentially that Ninten is telepathic. The only psychokinetic ability that you have early on in the game is "telepathy". And you can talk to different species. So you can talk to your pet dog, Mick, and he tells you where the key is. And I really, I love that. Something about Ninten having that power makes me think about "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys. And I feel like even though it's not explicitly stated - The Beach Boys do have a presence in the MOTHER series - and I feel like this idea of a psychic child talking to his household dog feels like maybe from that same cultural fabric as "Good Vibrations".

 

JESS:

So then I took the key inside, I unlocked the basement door and I went down there and I found a plastic bat, "GGF's diary", which I assume was "great-grandfather's diary".

 

CAT:

Correct.

 

JESS:

And then also some bread, uh-

 

CAT:

Basement bread.

 

JESS:

Which, if it's been down there for five years, you know, 'cause if dad didn't remember where he left the key and he's been gone for five years... Then that bread's been down there for a while.

 

CAT:

Well, I'll tell you what, as soon as I left my house, that bread was gone because I, uh... I fought a crow. First thing that crow did was took my damn bread.

 

JESS:

[Laughs] Oh, those thieving crows! Well, you know what? He can have the basement bread.

 

CAT:

I wanna do an aside about the bread. 'Cause the bread is an interesting item. It is both a life recovery item. You can "eat" it, but you can also "use" it.

 

JESS:

What?

 

JESS:

You can leave a trail of breadcrumbs and then return to where you came from using the bread.

 

JESS:

What?! Really?!

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

So what, like, you like create a set point with the bread and then, like, you go somewhere else and then you "use" it again and it's like, you just like zip back to it.

 

CAT:

Well, it's been a long time since I've played the game and I'd love to tell you how the bread works, but unfortunately the crow took it, so I haven't used it again.

 

JESS:

Well, that'll be an experiment for a future game session. So I'm looking forward to figuring out how bread works. Although I don't know - the crow may have taken mine as well. The crow stole something from me.

 

CAT:

Ninte's twelve, by the way. So his dad's been gone for seven years at this point.

 

JESS:

Okay. Wow. All right. Seven year-old basement bread. We can do better. And we do do better.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

But don't ever say our dad didn't give us anything. So I set out and then immediately got attacked by a hippie, which also had some really good music. That hippie was rockin' - and he tried to use a bullhorn to trick me into thinking that my mother was calling for me. This is one of the things that I love about the MOTHER games is that the enemies that you fight, sometimes they'll just do nothing. Sometimes they will take an action that hurts themselves. It's really kind of random and it always has like very interesting flavor associated with it. Like the hippie's bullhorn.

 

CAT:

The battles are text-based, but they're all really character-driven.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

Like none of these creatures exist in a vacuum just to be a punching bag exactly. Like the Mr. Battys, who you encounter later on, Mr. Batty gets confused when Mr. Batty gets confused, Mr. Batty can hit himself.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

And that's so strange. You have to deal with these like, eccentric entities that don't behave in ways that you can necessarily anticipate unless you figure it out.

 

JESS:

And Mr. Batty insists on an honorific.

 

CAT:

Yeah. [Laughs] That's true. The hippie is my favorite enemy of this section of the game, for the reason specifically of the bullhorn saying that your mother's calling you.

 

JESS:

[Laughs]

 

CAT:

But a runner up is the crow and the zombie gangster. But the thing about both those characters is both those characters were censored in the US release. So they're much cooler enemy designs. In Japan, the zombie gangster is covered in bullet holes, like bloody bullet holes.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

And the crow - first of all, the crow's wearing high heels, the crow's wearing pumps.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

And has like a feathered wing, you know, like extended towards you.

 

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

 

CAT:

...That crow's smoking a cigarette.

 

JESS:

Oh... I see.

 

CAT:

That's a cigarette smoking crow wearing pumps. That's a street walking crow in your neighborhood.

 

JESS:

[Laughs]

 

CAT:

Stealing my bread.

 

JESS:

That's a working crow.

 

CAT:

Yeah. [Laughs] Basically this poltergeist thing happens, and a state of mass hysteria descends across the countryside. Things are not right. This poltergeist event was not just Ninten's house, you know, like a lot of people are affected by this. And you get this in dialogue from the game and the fact that you're fighting farmers like Wally and the hippies and so forth, and that when you beat them in battle, it says that they "return to their senses". Like, these are people who... Maybe they're being perceived by the game as like weaker minded people or something? People who have fallen under the influence of whatever's going on here. And when they talk about the zombies- there's a woman in town that implies that like, maybe someone or something is controlling them. The zombies themselves, they're not mindless like speechless zombies. They talk, they antagonize you, they pretend to be normal people and attack you. One of them gets into a conversation with you.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

And it’s easy to mistake a zombie for a normal person around town. And it’s not just Ninten who mistakes zombies for townfolks, there’s a normal human in town who can mistake you for a zombie. He asks, "be honest, you're a zombie, aren't you?" And if you say "yes," he says, "oh, there's no cure for being a zombie," and he runs away. If you say "no," he asks you, like-

 

JESS:

"Are you human?"

 

CAT:

Yeah. And then he says something that's like, really, this would've been so revolutionary in 1990 when this game would've come out in the States. He says, "you see, don't tell anybody, but I'm so scared I wet my pants."

 

JESS:

Hmm.

 

CAT:

Which is my favorite line of dialogue in there.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

Body humor. Like that was unheard of in video games. Like it's all over EarthBound, but it would've been nutzo if that would've happened in 1990.

 

JESS:

You mentioned Wally a little bit ago. Wally is actually my favorite enemy of this section of the game. Because it's just, I don't know, it was like so random. It's like you're out walking around and like, here's this dude with overalls and a pitchfork. And he is just like, "I don't like kids. We're gonna fight now." And you're just like, wallop the crap out of him.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

Then he comes back later and it's like, you do it again. And it's like, you know, "well, I just got beat up by a twelve year-old, I guess. Uh, I guess I'll go back to work in the fields now."

 

CAT:

Wally was probably already adversarial. And the fact that like something is going on screwing with people's brains is just exacerbating what was already there.

 

JESS:

But we showed him.

 

[AD BREAK]

 

CAT:

The first point of conflict, once you, you get out in the world - your dad says that, that like, something's going on, you gotta get your Great Grandfather's diary and so on and so forth. But like the first point of conflict is a little girl's missing: Pippi.

 

JESS:

Right. Yeah.

 

CAT:

So, as part of the MOTHER Encyclopedia, there is a fold out newspaper that happens to be in English. It's the only part of the thing that's in English, and it's called the Mother's Day Times because all of the town names are changed between the English and the Japanese versions. Podunk is called Mother's Day.

 

JESS:

Hmm.

 

CAT:

All the towns are named after holidays.

 

JESS:

Really?

 

New Speaker:

American holidays specifically. And I love this and I'm really bummed out that they changed it in the English version. I think that it's much more interesting as Mother's Day.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

You can't win 'em all. But there's a thing here. It's an article on the front page of the newspaper. "Little Pippi missing. A seven year-old girl, Pippi, living in the suburb of Mother's Day, has not returned home since last Wednesday. And her parents have asked police to search for her. According to her mother, Lindgren, little Pippi was wearing a pink one-piece dress, and yellow socks, and tying her hair with a yellow ribbon when she left her house. The investigation has been progressing slowly, partly because Mrs. Lindgren has been quite upset, repeating, "what shall we do?" two hundred and fifty-six times in response to the police inquiry. The only helpful clue so far is the report by a man who saw a little girl like Pippi at a South Cemetery." You can tell that this is not particularly ironclad English... "Yellow socks found near the Choux Cream Zoo yesterday were not long and have since proved not to be hers-" because of course Pippi is a reference to Pippi Longstocking. So if the socks aren't long, then they ain't Pippi socks.

 

JESS:

[Laughs]

 

CAT:

Here's something I think is interesting about Podunk. It seems like it's a slightly more metropolitan town than Onett is in EarthBound. It has a department store, for example. Like, maybe they're comparable in size? According to the Encyclopedia, it's still kind of a small town. It was developed as a commuter town for people who work in the neighboring town of Thanksgiving and now it's a popular tourist city where the main industries are agriculture and sightseeing. The town's slogan is, "let's make this a town that makes you want to whistle." And the town symbol is a red carnation, which are in the beds all throughout the town. And your grandfather was a newspaper man in Mother's Day.

 

JESS:

And like the department store, like it's a tall building too. It's like, there's like five levels to that thing. So yeah, this, this appears to be a larger town than I would've assumed from the name Podunk.

 

CAT:

But the government is a mess. The mayor is crooked. He wants you to find the little girl, so he'll look good for reelection.

 

JESS:

Yeah. So he sends a twelve year-old to go to the cemetery where one child has already been presumed missing.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

What does he think's gonna happen?

 

CAT:

I guess he's less worried about the PR of another child missing. I don't know.

 

JESS:

"Hey kid! You've got a plastic bat, and you look like you know how to use it, and you're the hero of this game, so go solve this problem."

 

CAT:

But if it does work, you know, he's gonna take the credit for it.

 

JESS:

That's true.

 

CAT:

The citizenry are not big fans of him though. According to the Encyclopedia, the citizens often say, "our taxes are so that our mayor can buy, over and over, replacement high class pillows for his afternoon nap.

 

JESS:

I guess, uh, you know, the question is, who is his opponent? And maybe we should be supporting them instead.

 

CAT:

Hopefully there's some cool upstart out there. Like maybe like, oh, I don't know. Ninten's mom.

 

JESS:

Yeah. She can run on a pizza platform. She's got my vote.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

So one thing that I noticed too is I was defeated a couple of times by the monsters and it did this thing where the sort of game over screen was Ninten sitting in the center of the screen. There was a spotlight shining down on him, and it was basically asking like, "well, you got defeated. Are you gonna get back up and start fighting again? Or do you want to give up?" And it's a very interesting game over screen. Very similar to the one that's in EarthBound.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

I never really kind of understood what to make of it. It's like, is this supposed to be literally like you've been defeated by this creature, you're sort of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, facing death, and you're clawing your way back to life to continue the journey or giving up? So what's this screen all about?

 

CAT:

I think that is more or less it: it's like a space inside your mind, maybe on the verge of death, maybe just like as you're, like, you're blacking out or you're tired. It's an internal space where there's a force that, like, is one of the many fourth wall breaking forces of the game asking you from beyond, like, "hey kid, you're tired. Like, do you wanna quit? Or do you wanna keep going?" And you know, if you say yes, it says, "Ninten returned to the fighting scene."

 

JESS:

Pretty soon after that, I made it to the graveyard, which is where I stopped because that's where you told me to stop. So- [Laughs]

 

CAT:

The graveyard where Pippi, is that's, according to the Encyclopedia: "more than half buried are soldiers killed in action, but among them are also graves of martyred gangsters."

 

JESS:

Oh, that explains the gangster zombies.

 

CAT:

Yeah. And also suggests like, you know, maybe because Podunk is more metropolitan, maybe Podunk or maybe, or maybe the next town over, I don't remember what it's called in English, but let's say then Mother's Day and Thanksgiving - maybe there's like a kind of like a Chicago-like kind of vibe.

 

JESS:

Oh yes. The Thanksgiving outfit.

 

CAT:

[Laughs]

 

JESS:

Watch out for them.

 

CAT:

Yeah. They're gonna put you to sleep with a Thanksgiving typewriter.

 

JESS:

Give you some gravy boat shoes.

 

CAT:

[Laughs] The first time I got killed was the first time I was fighting a zombie. And I was like, "oh, okay. I've gotta get back to leveling." There are times in EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings where you do have to like actively grind. But I think if you're committed to exploring the region and you walk around, generally I've found that if you just do a good job of staying alive and fighting the enemies, you will just naturally get where you need to go in terms of trajectory.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

I did start working towards a goal though, because there was a wooden bat at the department store and I was like, "I wanna upgrade my weapon."

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

So I fought until I got that $500 that I needed to get there, which didn't take too much. So I entered the graveyard at level six with a wooden bat.

 

JESS:

Wow. I thought about going for the wooden bat, but I was in a hurry to get to the graveyard.

 

CAT:

My favorite piece of music, which I'll say in closing, is the overall music, which is called "Pollyanna (I Believe in You)". It's a really fun jaunty tune. And on the MOTHER album it has vocals sung by Catherine Warwick. I think when you listen to the album version, it really gives a sense of like... Shigesato Itoi wrote a movie. EarthBound is a movie or a television series in the form of a Nintendo role playing game, and it has a book's worth of background material, and it has a soundtrack that's professionally produced - and that wasn't uncommon at the time, like doing like special versions of soundtracks in Japan for video games. But there's a scope here, there's a scope and a gravity here that is what happens when you give a creator carte blanche to create a world. 

 

It's probably a good thing for us to close out on, here in this first episode - explaining a little bit more about who Shigesato Itoi is. He's a guy who, at the time that he first ended up talking to Shigeru Miyamoto at Nintendo, he was a famous copywriter - that is someone who writes text on like posters. He was an actual celebrity in Japan for his use of words. So he was the guy who wrote the slogans on the posters for the Studio Ghibli movies. He also played the dad in My Neighbor Totoro. He's not normally an actor, but every now and then he does acting. And these slogans, the way that they were regarded, it's like he's a poet. It's like they're haiku. He had the capacity to, like, create these simple statements that people found to be quite powerful. So much so that he got well known for it. The most screen time that he's received in America is on Iron Chef. He was a reoccurring judge. 

 

He's an incredible writer, a creator who's never been limited by any kind of medium. He's still working today and has a really interesting place in a lot of different, you know, arts communities, and the MOTHER series is the biggest, weirdest project he's ever been a part of. But he was famous before it happened, and it was like having a celebrity game writer. They said, "okay, uh, cool, you can do that." At the time the president of Nintendo was Hiroshi Yamauchi and he wanted to support new talent and game design. So he was like, "hey, uh, what if you made a company and I'll back it, and you can make a game for Nintendo?" And that's how Ape, the company that put out the first two games, was created. Ape got dismantled after EarthBound and became Creatures Incorporated who co-developed Pokemon.

 

JESS:

Wowza

 

CAT:

Hip Tanaka, who co-wrote the music, is currently the CEO of Creatures Incorporated.

 

JESS:

That's quite a link.

 

CAT:

[Laughs] It's a link to the past, which is another game... and another show. There's a lot of interesting connections throughout all of EarthBound and, but all of it spirals back to the incredible creativity of Shigesato Itoi and his collaborators, all of whom pull from the media that they love to create something truly unique in the form of this trilogy of games.

 

JESS:

Something else that I noticed too is that in, you know, most RPGs when you defeat an enemy, you collect gold off of them or loot or money or whatever. But EarthBound Beginnings does this a little bit differently. You don't really sort of accumulate money from defeating enemies, but rather you have an ATM card and your father puts money into your account that is based on the enemies that you're defeating or how much progress that you're making.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

And so, you know, before you can get that money, you have to go find an ATM machine and withdraw it and then you can go spend it... You know, what's Dad doing here?

 

CAT:

In the Encyclopedia he says, "the Earth's crisis will take money." I guess that's just his perspective on it. You know, he's there for you whenever you need him.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

He wants to make sure that you've got the funds you need, but, uh, you know, dad wants to see you kicks ass and if you kick some ass, then he gives you money. So, sure.

 

JESS:

Okay. Well, who am I to argue? [Laughs]

 

CAT:

It is strange though. Like where is he? What is he doing?

 

JESS:

Yeah. How's he keeping track of how many neighbors you're beating up?

 

CAT:

Yeah, I think it's 'cause you're telling him.

 

JESS:

Oh.

 

CAT:

You call him on the phone and you tell him.

 

JESS:

Ohhh. You tell him about what you did. Okay.

 

CAT:

Yeah, I mean, it's weird because, you know, obviously we're doing this podcast, "MOTHER," She Wrote, but the one character that we can confirm that you're talking to all the time and literally telling them about what you're doing is calling your dad on the phone. But the game's called MOTHER, and like the biggest on-screen relationship that you have on an emotional level is with your mom because your dad is just like, I don't know. It's weird. It's a weird relationship.

 

JESS:

Well, that brings up a good point. Why is it called MOTHER?

 

[Music begins to play under hosts]

 

CAT:

It's called MOTHER in that it's about the planet, the world we live in, and it's a sci-fi story, so the perspective of the planet itself is a rather important one. You know, when you zoom out to an astro level, then saving the world and seeing our world as it is, is rather important. But the core reason, and I don't have this quote in front of me right now, so I'm gonna paraphrase is, there's a John Lennon song called "Mother" with the lyrics, "mother, you had me. But I didn't have you." And Shigesato Itoi said that he wanted to name the game MOTHER because he loved the heartache of John Lennon singing about the mom he never knew. The way he screams the word "mother." He thought that word in isolation was extremely powerful. And that's what he wanted to evoke with the title of his game.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

And that's the kind of depth that this series is about. That's the kind of cultural references and passion that are baked into even the most unassuming aspects of it.

 

JESS:

There's so much more than just what is presented on the surface level of this game.

 

CAT:

Like any good piece of art, learning more about it and discovering where it came from is also part of the art. And that's why we're doing this show. I'm Cat.

 

JESS:

I'm Jess

 

CAT:

And that's all she wrote.

 

[Music ends and transitions to upbeat music]

 

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon Producers: Becky Scott Fairley, Bob Hogan, C B, Joe “Tank” Ricciardelli, Josh King, McDibble Deluxe, MjolnirMK86, Patrick Webster, Sean Hutchinson, Sean T. Redd - And our Super-Deluxe Executive Patreon Producers: BigBadShadowMan, Marcus Larsson, and Jaimeson LaLone

 

JESS

You can join the team at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia! And if you think “MOTHER,” She Wrote is simply smashing, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser  - and be sure to subscribe via your favorite podcast player.

 

CAT

This series is recorded and produced in Orlando, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky on lands stolen from their Indigenous people: the Timucua and Seminole, and Shawnee, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca-Iroquois, Miami, Hopewell and Adena.

 

JESS

Acknowledgement of the first peoples of these lands, and the lasting repercussions of colonization is just the beginning of the restorative work that is necessary. Through awareness, we can prompt allyship, action, and ultimately decolonization. 

 

CAT

For links to aid Indigenous efforts and to learn more about the first nations of the land where you live: visit omniverse.media/landback

 

JESS

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is written, produced, and performed by me: Jessica Mudd.

 

CAT

And me: Cat Blackard. Our original score is composed and performed by Jess and this episode features additional voices by Doug Banks and Charlie Honderick.

 

JESS

Special thanks to Kenisu for his invaluable work translating the MOTHER Encyclopedia. Find a link to his translation, other media we’ve referenced, and full episode transcripts at mothershewrote.earth

 

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is not affiliated with Nintendo, Shigesato Itoi, or any rights holders of the MOTHER and EarthBound intellectual properties. Please play the games' official Nintendo releases.

 

[Omniverse Audio Brand]