EarthBound/Regional Differences

This is a sub-page of EarthBound.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

Mother 2 is full of Japanese cultural references and seems to have a flagrant disregard for copyright law. That being the case, the differences between it and EarthBound are pretty vast. As little to no official information has ever been given from Nintendo of America for why the changes were made, the reasons listed here are largely educated guesses and should be taken as nothing more than conjecture.

To do: There's a lot more. See here.

Intro/Title Screen

Mother 2	EarthBound

The intro wording changed completely in localization to reflect new name changes and because Mother wasn't released outside Japan (although it was intended to, and eventually was), and it would be rather odd for a never-before-seen enemy to "strike back".

Also, if you press Start to skip this introduction in Mother 2, it takes you straight to the file selection screen. In EarthBound, it takes you to the title screen instead.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The title screen was completely altered to fit the new title. In Mother 2, the iconic Earth logo appears at its place, then the rest of the letters come together from both sides, and the background color turns red as it reveals the highlight effect, the "2", the phrase "Gyiyg Strikes Back", and the copyright text.

In EarthBound, the letter "B" gets into the center, the background color becomes purple, and an additional glowing effect was added to the title text. Also, the copyright text was updated to reflect the American release.

Overworld

Mother 2	EarthBound

Outside the name change, the portrait next to the signboard received additional detail in EarthBound. Also, the Runaway Brothers themselves wear different clothes between versions; more about that later.

Mother 2	EarthBound

Threek's name was changed to Threed, likely to avoid the possibility of misconstruing it as being a reference to the KKK (ThreeK, as in Three-K).

Mother 2	EarthBound

Nintendo of America's strict censorship policy resulted in changing Jackie's Bar to a café both in Fourside and Moonside, resulting in the removal of the tilted letters.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The "DRUG" signs in department stores were changed to read "SHOP". This isn't a case of censorshipː all other cases of "drugstore", including the signs in Threed and the Dusty Dunes Desert, were left intact, and the game's English script commonly refers to them as such.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The sign of the hospitals was changed to remove the Red Cross (as indicative use is reserved for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement). A bunch of illegible text was added in its place on the Onett hospital and the letters were re-organized on Twoson's, while it was just removed completely from the Threed hospital. Interestingly, the Red Cross symbol found inside Dungeon Man was left intact. In addition, one screenshot on the giant EarthBound game box shows the Red Cross symbol.

(Source: EarthBoundCentral.com)

Mother 2	EarthBound

The Monotoly Building's name was changed to "Monotoli". This may have been an effort to prevent similarity to the Hasbro game Monopoly (although the actual word "monopoly" isn't trademarked).

Mother 2	EarthBound

The Topollo Theater was changed to the Topolla Theater, likely to prevent conflict with New York's Apollo Theater.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The department store's sign in Fourside got a textual overhaul, probably to make clear that this is, in fact, a store.

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, the ATM in Magicant had a small moniker that read "CD", standing for "cash dispenser". That's not what it's called in America, so this was redrawn to look like a face in EarthBound.

Maps

Mother 2	EarthBound

As seen above, Threek's name was changed to Threed.

Mother 2	EarthBound

Scaraba is known as Scarabi in Japan.

Mother 2	EarthBound

All changes to the overworld were applied to the map logos as well. An oversight from this change is that the hospital sign gets hidden by the food store sign on Threed's map, which can be seen here.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The sign of the department store became a bit more descriptive in EarthBound.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The letter "O" got lengthened by one pixel.

People and Objects

Mother 2	EarthBound

When Pokey's pounding on Ness' door (or Picky in the post-credits scene), a little text bubble pops up. In Mother 2, it had "DON" written on it, which is Japanese onomatopoeia for loud pounding. EarthBound replaced it with an exclamation mark, though "BAM" could have also worked.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The Hint Shop's signboard was slightly altered to obscure its price, likely because the hint guy charges well above $5. It was likely also changed to lessen the overall similarity to the Psychiatric Help stand from Peanuts.

Mother 2	EarthBound

This truck sprite was changed to avoid possible connections with Coca-Cola.

(Source: Wired interview with Marcus Lindblom)

Mother 2	EarthBound

The Red Cross was removed from the nurse's hat as well.

Mother 2	EarthBound

Burglin Park is known as Nusutto Park in Japan.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The ATM machine in Saturn Valley originally had "CD" (cash dispenser) written on it. Since that term isn't used in America and the other acronym won't fit, it was redrawn to look like eyes.

Mother 2	EarthBound

Cultists of Happy Happyism have the letters "HH" on their forehead for "Happy Happyism". EarthBound added a pom pom to the end of their hoods to make them look less like members of the Ku Klux Klan, and removed the "HH" as it could be mistaken for "KK".

(Source: Wired interview with Marcus Lindblom)

Mother 2	EarthBound

The Tonzura Brothers became the Runaway Five. The name and colors of suits were changed to avoid connections with the Blues Brothers (which, incidentally, seems to have resulted in a subtle reference to Mario and Luigi), although "Runaway Five" is an odd name to pick considering that there are six people on stage (although the sixth person only ever appears on stage and can never be talked to).

In Ness's congratulations screen in Super Smash Bros. and in Super Smash Bros. Melee's intro video, the Tonzura Brothers retain their Japanese appearance in all versions.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The band's name on the van was changed accordingly. Luckily, the new name seems to just about fit on the sprite.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The octopus statue was changed to a pencil in localization, as the "Pencil Eraser" gag would be easier to understand to a Western audience. Notably, this change was made later in localization, as this prerelease screenshot has Ness using the "Octo-Eraser" on the Japanese statue.

The Super Smash Bros. series' Magicant stage uses the octopus statue in all versions.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The eraser statue was originally a limbless Japanese statue called Kokeshi. This change was also to localize a gag: the Japanese word for "eraser" is "keshi", so Apple Kid's invention to remove the statue is called "Kokeshi Keshi". The "Eraser Eraser" joke was a simple alternative.

Cutscenes

Mr. Minch's Beating
After Ness brings them back home, Pokey and Picky get rebuked by their father Aloysius for being out late. In EarthBound, the sound of his punishment sounds like a short cartoonish bonk implying angry yelling. In Mother 2, the sound effect is lengthier and closer to actual spanking.

Your Name, Please

Mother 2	EarthBound

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, the game asks you for your name twice: in Summers, after getting the phone number for the Stoic Club, Tony calls you and asks you to type your name in English. Later, in Tenda Village, after the Tenda overcome their shyness the Village Chief asks you to register your name again, this time in hiragana/katakana. During this, it displays the English name you entered so that you can compare it to what you write now. These two names end up used in different places near the end of the game (the hiragana/katakana name for dialogues in the final battle against Giygas, and the English name for the credits where the game thanks the player).

This doesn't really make sense in EarthBound since the game is already in English anyway, hence the request in Tenda Village was altered to allow you to change your name if you want to, and the game will use this re-confirmed name for the Giygas battle and credits.

Naked Ness

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, Ness is naked in Magicant, reflecting a common trope in Japan to depict a character as naked when in a metaphysical or otherwise "unreal" location. This was changed outside Japan to him looking as he did in the opening scene.

Battle

Mother 2	EarthBound

The win quote was changed from present tense to past tense and uses a different, thinner font.

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, the prefix for all offensive psychic powers is PK ("psychokinesis"), whereas in EarthBound it's PSI ("psionics"). The Super Smash Bros. series uses the Japanese variant, so Ness shouts out lines such as "PK Fire!" in all versions. (The usage of "PSI" still exists in Mother 2 for other moves, such as the status move PSI Magnet, which is retained in EarthBound and the Smash Bros. games.) Additionally, the Greek letters used for the differing levels of the moves were redrawn to look more consistent with the English font.

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, the status icon when you're poisoned is literally どく or "poison". Since there's no way you can cram any alphabet into that window, it was changed to a skull and crossbones in EarthBound.

Mother 2	EarthBound

Likewise, when one of your party members catches a cold, Mother 2 displays it as かぜ ("cold") while EarthBound switched it to an image.

Mother 2	EarthBound

The status icon for uncontrollable crying became a bit more elaborate in EarthBound. Probably because the original one wasn't clear enough?

Ending

Mother 2	EarthBound

The "Cast" heading has different colors between versions.

Mother 2	EarthBound

In Mother 2, after the post-credits scene, the screen fades out and shows this. In EarthBound, this was touched up a little bit: "THE END..." appears, then the question mark pops up a second later.

The decision to change the graphic was, in hindsight, probably for the best, as Mother 3 has not yet been officially released outside of Japan (though many elements have been used in the Smash Bros. series).

Credits

The localization of EarthBound was a huge deal to Nintendo at the time, and the credits of the American version were heavily updated.

• Many new names who participated in English localization were newly added in the credits of EarthBound. This includes:
  • Translation Directors: Marcus Lindblom & Masayuki Miura
  • English Text Writers: Marcus Lindblom & Dan Owsen
  • Translators: Keiko Tamura & Yuka Nakata
  • NOA Debug Coordinators: Sean O'Connor & Michael Kelbaugh
  • NOA Producer: Mike Fukuda
• Second Director Kouji Malta was promoted to U.S. Conversion Director.
• In Mother 2, Yasuo Futatsugi and Hiroyuki Sakiyama were credited as Font Designers. In EarthBound, they're replaced with Akihiko Miura and Kouichi Ooyama.
• In Mother 2, it read "Dosei Font Designed by Shigesato Itoi". In EarthBound, this was changed to "Concept of Saturn Font by Shigesato Itoi".
• "Graphic Data Supervisor" and "Message Data Supervisor" were changed to "Graphics Data Manager" and "Message Data Manager", respectively.
• A whole bunch of names under Debuggers and Programmers were added and removed, probably due to extra programming to accommodate English text in the game.
• Nancy Yoshitake was given a Special Thanks credit in EarthBound.