Mother 3 will likely NEVER come out in North America, and here's why...

[PedroSteckecilo]

We also probably won't ever seen Earthbound on the Virtual Console either, why? Because The Beatles, Pink Floyd and other bands with massive legal teams at their backs would notice that some of their music was sampled for the games soundtrack. It would cost Nintendo WAY more than those games are worth in sales to pay off the artists necessary...

It would also either not pay off, or irreversibly damage the game for them to change the audio and references to less legally damaging ones.

 

[PureChaos]

shame that, would like to of played Mother 3

 

[Hazy]

As much as it pains me, you're probably right. But I think, given the chance, it would totally pay off.

EDIT: Just imported it, and GOD is it a fantastic game.

 

[Vlane]

Isn't there a patch that translates the game?

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Yes there is, but you need a japanese copy of it, ROMS are impossible to find for some reason.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Maybe there is a rom-translated version of the game. Who knows?


Edit: Didn't answer fast enough.

 

[Retrofraction]

you can find Mother 3 roms quite easily, just google it and look around.

It only took me 15 mins to find one.

the English patch is easy to find, just google mother 3 english patch.

It works!!!!

 

[xpacerx]

That's not a reason, they would just change the music. The real reason is that there is only a small fan base for the series in North America.

 

[Sir_Montague]

I would for sure play it.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Um, I have the ROM which is english patched from starman.net.

Also I don't know which music in the game your talking about, I didn't notice any.

 

[scotth266]

Yes there is, but you need a japanese copy of it, ROMS are impossible to find for some reason.

A person in my dorm has one, or had Like others have said, it may take a bit of time to find, but it's out there all right.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

That's not a reason, they would just change the music. The real reason is that there is only a small fan base for the series in North America.

Too small a fanbase to warrant the expense of the music change.

 

[Xvito]

I think the main reason would be the small fanbase, not the copyrighted work.

And if they took legal action against Nintendo for that... That would just be sad.

People have taken legal action against others for way sillier things than that...

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Tch, they're only throwing away money. It's a good game and people will play it on their own thanks to the translation patch. I did a review on it a while back.

 

[SickCuchulainn]

There's no sampling in Mother 3's soundtrack from what I could tell - there might be issues with a couple of the tunes using elements from other peoples' work (e.g. one of the battle tunes incorporates the old Batman theme), although as it's just a reused ostinato and not an outright sample it's not copyright violation.

I suspect the real reasons for it not getting released outside of Japan are a lot simpler: it's a GBA game that came out when the GBA was already old, much like the situation with the first game in the series. It wouldn't sell well because the successor was already available.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I was going to make a thread about this but I found this instead.

Is this really the reason that Mother 3 will never come to America? It seems like a simple fix. All you would need to do is change some of the music.

 

[black lincon]

Yes there is, but you need a japanese copy of it, ROMS are impossible to find for some reason.

My friend has found, and played through, a rom of mother 3. He got a patch that translated it all and said it was a really good game, although he's as much of an earthbound fanboy as I am a Tales of Symphonia fanboy so his opinion might have been skewed.

And yes he did really have it, unless the game I saw him playing, with my own eyes, that had Lucas in it, wasn't mother 3.

 

[SickCuchulainn]

There's no sampling in Mother 3's soundtrack from what I could tell - there might be issues with a couple of the tunes using elements from other peoples' work (e.g. one of the battle tunes incorporates the old Batman theme), although as it's just a reused ostinato and not an outright sample it's not copyright violation.

I suspect the real reasons for it not getting released outside of Japan are a lot simpler: it's a GBA game that came out when the GBA was already old, much like the situation with the first game in the series. It wouldn't sell well because the successor was already available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo8rU7VjJ9Y

It sounds like the song "Johnny C. Bad".

That's Mother 2 though. In any case, "sounds like" =/= sampled.

 

[yourbeliefs]

First off, for all the "Get the Rom then English Patch it" people, not everyone wants to go through downloading pirated software and playing a console game on their computer. Yes that is a simple and convenient solution, but I think a good percentage of users would like a legitimate, Virtual Console style solution to playing Mother 3.

If it's just a music issue, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to take that main code, modify the music involved, and then release it via VC. The main problem probably lies in that Mother 3 seems to be more of a "cult" game. The work involved with getting the game up and ready for sale may not be justified by lackluster sales stemming from a few cult fans.