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[[quoteright:320: [[http://scribblecee.tumblr.com/post/30661778632 http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mother1anniv2012_134.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:320:''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 No crying until the end.]]'']]
->''Take a melody\\
Simple as can be\\
Give it some words and\\
Sweet harmony\\
Raise your voices\\
All day long now, love grows strong now,\\
Sing a melody of\\
Love, oh love''
In the late 1980s, ShigesatoItoi got ahold of ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', the first video game he ever played. Though he definitely enjoyed the game, as a professional writer, he couldn't help but be intrigued about the game's use of the unconventional medium to tell a story and say to himself, "I could do better". Several meetings with people from Creator/{{Nintendo}} and a [[Music/TheBeatles John-Lennon-inspired]] name later, that's exactly what he did.
'''Mother''', also known as '''Earth Bound''' in the unreleased NES prototype, '''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''' in its English Virtual Console release, and '''[=EarthBound=] Zero''' within the fandom, is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' trilogy, and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
Calling his dad after settling this, Ninten learns that psychic powers run in the family, and to learn more about it he has to get his great-grandfather's diary and discover what happened many years ago, including what happened to his great-grandmother Maria. Meanwhile, other strange phenomena are happening across the country, and it soon becomes apparent that an alien force is at work. Just what connection does Ninten's family have with the alien invasion?
In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version contains a mix of technical enhancements, {{bowdleri|se}}zation, modified maps to reduce difficulty, some altered graphics, and a significant lengthening of the rather abrupt ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorized to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as "''[[FanNickname Earthbound Zero]]''" to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', this game was re-released in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was again [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally.
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally gave the game an official English release as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the translation originally intended for the prototype English release, but there is no official confirmation as of yet.
-----
!!This game has examples of:
* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The max level cap is 99, but you're likely to be around the early thirties when you beat the game, possibly early forties with Ninten if you deliberately level grinded for Ana's PSI Fire Omega.
* AffectionateParody: As noted above, the game was inspired by ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''. Thing is, it's set in a (then-)modern {{Eagleland}} as opposed to a generic fantasy setting. Instead of magic, you have PsychicPowers. Instead of swords and bows you have bats and slingshots. Monsters are not killed but instead regain their senses, and said monsters include things like dogs and hippies. The juxtaposition of classical EasternRPG mechanics and tropes with the modern setting contributes to the surreal quality of the game.
* TheAllAmericanBoy: Ninten.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: [[spoiler:Giygas]] talks directly to Ninten's party when he appears. However, it makes sense in-universe because [[spoiler:Maria raised Giygas]], so it's likely [[spoiler:she]] taught [[spoiler:Giygas]] the human tongue.
* AllThereInTheManual: Not much about the character personalities are stated in-game, but in the supplemental "Mother Encyclopedia" it says many additional things about Ninten, Lloyd, Ana and Teddy that you could never find out just by playing the game. It is in Japanese, but was [[FanTranslation translated into English by a fan.]]
* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: If you're not Japanese and have heard of this game, you probably know that [[spoiler:Giygas is the main villain. It actually isn't revealed ''at all'' until you get the final MacGuffin at the end of the DiscOneFinalDungeon, and most of the plot is just you going around the world to learn a song for an ailing queen who you met after a bunch of weird stuff started happening in your hometown. Even the game guides have no information on Giygas, and he has no official art.]]
* AnachronismStew: The game supposedly takes place in TheEighties, and while there is some stuff that is relevant for the time such as pay phones, [=ATMs=], and transit trains, a lot of the setting is notably far more rural in many areas and certain house designs look very old, to the point it somehow feels more like a mishmash between TheEighties and TheGayNineties.
* AnimateInanimateObject: Your journey starts off with you being attacked by one of two moving lamps. Then you fight your first boss, a possessed doll, to get your first MacGuffin. The things you fight along the way just get stranger from here.
* AnotherDimension: [[WackyLand Magicant]] certainly counts as this.
* AntiPoopSocking: Whenever you save your game, your dad will urge you to turn off the game and go to sleep. If you play long enough in one sitting, he'll call you out of nowhere on some sort of telepathic phone to pester you about it some more. He will also allow you the opportunity to save and quit ''wherever you happen to be'' when he calls you this way.
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Once you show all eight melodies to Maria in Magicant, she disappears, taking the entirety of Magicant with her]].
* AwardBaitSong:
** "Pollyanna" in its full version (not the 8-bit theme, obviously), which later went on to become the BootstrappedTheme for the entire ''MOTHER'' series.
** The Eight Melodies. "[[ThePowerOfLove Take a melody, simple as can be, give it some words, and sweet harmony. Raise your voices, all day long now love grows strong now, sing a melody of, love ah love.]]" The vocal version even has a CherubicChoir!
** The entire soundtrack album for ''MOTHER'' is made of these.
* BadassAdorable: Let's just sum up the three main characters as this. Okay, Lloyd [[TookALevelInBadass took a while for it to shine through]], but still.
* BearsAreBadNews: The real-world bear enemy and its polar and grizzly derivatives. The latter variant can knock you out in one hit.
** If you use the Check command on them, you'll notice the localization team took a few pages from... um, {{Literature/Goldilocks}}...
* BeefGate:
** Once you unlock the Paradise Line, it's possible to go ''anywhere'' in the Overworld at that point. Heck, it's even possible to reach places before unlocking it by travelling the train tunnels. However, while this ''is'' possible, it's a very, ''very'' unwise thing to do. Doesn't stop most people from SequenceBreaking to get Ana earlier than they're suppose to.
** There's also a big difference between when you ''can'' wake the dragon in Magicant and when you ''should'' wake it. More experienced players know to wait until they have Teddy for his raw damage output before fighting it.
* BigBad: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: After a robot nearly defeats the party (and severely injures [[spoiler:Teddy]]), Lloyd shows up and destroys it. With a ''tank''.
* BittersweetEnding: [[RevisedEnding According to the ''Earth Bound'' prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'']], the strange happenings in the world are put to an immediate cease, things quickly return to normal, [[spoiler:and Teddy became a singer]]. However, [[spoiler:Magicant vanished, along with Maria, who never got a chance to reconcile with her adopted son. Not to mention that Giygas is still out there, somewhere...]]
* [[GirlOfMyDreams Boy of My Dreams]]: In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, Ana says that she fell in love with Ninten as soon as she started seeing him in her dreams. This line doesn't exist in ''MOTHER'' and ''MOTHER 1+2'', however.
* {{Bowdlerise}}: The English translation got quite a few changes as a result of Nintendo's censorship policies at the time. Infamously, blood was edited out of sprites, and cigarettes were removed from the battle sprites of the Crow and Bla-Bla Gang (and the knife Teddy was holding), the nipples on the female suit of armors' breasts were replaced with smooth shines, and crosses and religious text were also removed. Other changes were made to avoid lawsuits, such as some overworld characters lessening an unintentional resemblance to ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' and a mention of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' was changed to ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Super Mario Bros. 7]]''. Some stuff got past the radar, like the strip club in Thanksgiving and doctors saying "go off and ''die'' then" if you refuse their services. All of these changes were also in ''MOTHER 1+2'', with the strip club entirely removed in ''MOTHER 1+2'' and the ''Dragon Quest'' reference was further changed to "that game" as opposed to a fictional ''Mario'' title.
** It should be noted that Itoi was quite involved in the localization of this game and every {{Bowdleri|se}}zation and {{Woolseyism}} that occurred had to have his approval. This may also explain their use in ''MOTHER 1+2''.
* ChekhovsGun: There's a war veteran with a tank in Advent Desert. If you do a sidequest, you get to ride it, and he warns you to be careful with it because it's his most prized possession. [[TropeTelegraphing Inevitably]], it breaks, and when you get to Valentine you have to pay him to replace it. Also, in a sidequest that you can do later, Lloyd gets a BigDamnHeroes moment with a tank. What other tank could he possibly get access to? If you do both those sidequests, in order, it's ChekhovsBoomerang.
* CherubicChoir: The vocal version of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrtM4onLQ1I The Eight Melodies]]. Also used in the 1989 Japanese [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 commercial.]]
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: [[spoiler:Giygas is defeated by singing Queen Mary's Lullaby to him, similar to how he's finally defeated in ''VideoGame/EarthBound''.]]
* CreepyDoll: The possessed doll in your sister's room.
* CriticalHit: The SMASH attack ignores all physical defense of the target, and does a lot more damage. However, enemies can perform these criticals with roughly the same chance as you. Since your party is generally much better defended than them, and you have to fight a lot of them, the chance of a defense-piercing hit becomes bad news for you.
* CrutchCharacter: The enemies on Holy Loly Mountain are so dangerous that Eve the robot is the only character that's strong enough to take them out quickly. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Eve doesn't remain in your party for long.]]
* CurtainCall: Done at the end of the game, all the characters and [=NPCs=] running along the bottom of the screen and looking towards the player before running back off.
* CuteBruiser: Pippi may not have the typical personality of this trope as far as we can tell, but she has the same level growths as Teddy. Shame you can't keep her for long.
* DamselInDistress: [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Probably]] the only RPG in existence in which you have to rescue [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Pippi Longstocking]] from zombie gangsters.
* DanceOfRomance: An optional scene with Ninten and Ana alone inside the bedroom of a healer's house.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Though the fight ends before there's actually a winner, you can get Teddy to join this way.
* DefinitelyFinalDungeon: Holy Loly Mountain.
* {{Delinquent}}: Teddy, again.
* DifficultySpike: Advent Desert, and later Holy Loly Mountain, the latter of which is almost completely filled with DemonicSpiders.
** The Advent Desert enemies can actually be found even earlier in the game; in the train tunnels. This is to probably prevent you from going out to get Ana before Lloyd, but with luck (and more grinding), players can pass the tunnel alone, though this is very tough and time consuming.
* DrJerk: The doctors that restore your negative statuses... for a price.
-->'''Doctor (if you don't have enough money for his services)''': Fine, die all on your own. I'll phone a mortician.
* DubNameChange: The ''Earth Bound'' prototype changed many things, including most of the major locations: Mother's Day to Podunk, Choucream Zoo to City Zoo, Thanksgiving to Merrysville, Tinkle to Twinkle Elementary School, Santa Claus Station to Union Station, Halloween to Spookane, Advent Desert to Yucca Desert, Easter to Youngtown, Valentine to Ellay, and Holy Loly/Rolly Mountain to Mt./Mount Itoi. The reason for the holiday theme being removed was due to it being considered juvenile rather than welcoming. Some other changes were made to enemies, items, and weapons due to space constraints, censorship issues, or just plain preference. Since the sequel only had one returning translator in the localization team, most of these changes (like Giegue in favor of Gyiyg/Giygas) were dropped, but a few others (like Starman Junior over the Japanese original Son of Starman) were retained.
* DuelBoss: When you reach Valentine, you can do a dance show if you have a team of three (which you should by this point normally). Teddy will come onstage and demand to know who is beating up his gang, taking Ninten into a one-on-one fight with no PSI. It ends fairly quickly, to which he sends Lloyd off and [[DefeatMeansFriendship joins your team]].
* DummiedOut: Poison Needle and Stone of Origin were items that poisoned and stoned the enemy respectively, but in the final game they are just enemy attacks.
** There is another unused item called IC-Chip. It may or may not be related to the Memory Chip item which was added to ''Mother 1+2'', which is obtained after [[spoiler:Eve gets wrecked]]. The item is like a second Onyx Fish Hook, except that instead of Magicant, it transports you yo [[spoiler:Eve's wreckage]]. The IC-Chip is still in the GBA version, but DummiedOut.
** The item "Time Machine" was in the original Family Computer version of the game but DummiedOut of later versions. Just like the Real Rocket, which remained in later versions, it was an item for sale in the elementary school, but buying it triggered a humorous cutscene in which it is accidentally used to temporarily blow up the room.
* DungeonCrawling: Duncan Factory is an annoying large version of this that you are required to go in to continue the plot, although if you're lucky enough to find the right room you can find a second Franklin Badge.
* DungeonTown: Halloween, unlike other towns where enemy encounters stop upon entering, they can still happen even after entering the town limits.
* {{Eagleland}}: Although explicitly taking place in America, it clearly follows the trope, and is the predecessor to the {{Trope Namer|s}}.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This game is highly different from its two sequels due to having RandomEncounters, no rolling HP/PP meter, and generally different gameplay. Also, there are absolutely no Mr. Saturns, which went on to become the series mascot.
* EscapeBattleTechnique: The game has the 4-D Slip PSI, which allows a guaranteed escape from battle. Considering how brutal the late game enemies are, it's very helpful at times.
* EscapedAnimalRampage: This happened early in the game due to an alien invasion. It's your job to investigate and stop the aliens causing the trouble, all the while battling angry elephants and tigers.
* EscapeRope: The Bread Crumbs are used as this. You use Bread wherever you want to get back to, roam into a dungeon or elsewhere, then when you want to leave you follow the breadcrumbs all the way back where you placed them.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: It's [[spoiler:Giygas]]'s memories of his adoptive human mother, [[spoiler:Maria]], that end up defeating him.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: A singing monkey gives you a part of the MacGuffin. Later you get to go in a cave full of monkeys. A majority of them lie to you.
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: In the beginning of the game there is a zoo with a penguin pen. Later in the game you go in a cave full of monkeys (mentioned above) and there is a secret room with a single lost penguin in it. In addition, Ninten's favorite animal is said to be the penguin, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the encyclopedia]].
* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: Zombie mooks pop up in this game: in the early graveyard section, and in the Rosemary's house.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Your first enemies are two desk lamps and a baby doll. It just gets better from there.
* FanRemake:
** A [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-Remake/page/1/ remake of MOTHER]] is being developed as a GameMod for its [[VideoGame/EarthBound sequel]].
** There is a [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-25th-Anniversary-Edition/page/1 second, already complete Remake]] celebrating MOTHER's 25th anniversary, but unlike the first one, this is a remake redone in the original NES game, polishing sprites, the overworld, the script (using Tomato's newer translation) and enemies. It will also rebalance the enemies to tone down the game's difficulty, and make it less confusing to get around the swamp land and Duncan Factory.
** There have been multiple attempts by fans to remake this game, but all of them eventually disappeared from the internet after a while. A rather notable one was one that remade it using the graphical and gameplay styles of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', ala what the ''VideoGame/{{Mother 4}}'' fangame is doing. Unfortunately though, all that ever really came of this was few sprites of the main characters in ''Mother 3'' style, some updated remixes of the songs from the game, and a few long deleted gameplay videos.
* FanSequel: ''[[VideoGame/CognitiveDissonance MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance]]''.
* FinalDeath: The Flying Men. If one of them runs out of HP and faints, unlike your other party members, he cannot be revived at all.
* ForcedLevelGrinding: The [[PerfectlyCromulentWord grindiest]] game in the whole series.
** You even have to grind at the very start of the game to avoid getting annihilated by enemies ''right outside your house.''
* AFriendInNeed: Ninten finds Lloyd cowering in a garbage can from some bullies, who then tells him that all he really would like is to fire a rocket. Ninten then goes and gets him one, and they are buddies from then on.
* GalacticConqueror: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* GhostTown: The town Halloween after it became infested with monsters and ghosts.
* GirlishPigtails: Ana has these.
* GlobalCurrency:
** Justified as being dollars, and the game mostly taking place entirely in America... though don't ask how Magicant ''also'' takes them.
** The shopkeeper claims to want them just for novelty's sake.
* GuestStarPartyMember: Several, including Eve and Flying Man.
* GuideDangIt: The effects of PSI attacks. The game itself doesn't give you any clues on what most of them do. This becomes crucial when you need to figure out which "Healing" skill to use, because unlike in its successors, each level cures only a specific ailment. Plus, Healing γ doesn't revive unconscious party members; rather, it cures petrification.
** It's also fairly easy to miss several parts of the Eight Melodies if you don't pay attention to the environment. Most notably is in the early parts of the game is you can get it even before you rescue Pippi, which requires you bring the baby canary to Canary Village. However you only get told where Canary Village is once, by a random NPC, and how they tell you where it is is vague at best. Even if you bought the baby canary you may end up dragging it around for half the game and not realize that it's the key to the second melody.
* HauntedHouse: Rosemary's house.
* HellHotel: The hotel at the abandoned GhostTown, Halloween. The clerk at the hotel is actually a Starman in disguise, who, after paying a much cheaper than normal lodging fee, attacks you immediately the next morning.
* HeroicAlbino: Lloyd, who, despite being a kid, has white hair. It is also noteworthy to mention that albinos have poor eyesight, and Lloyd wears glasses.
** Lloyd could be leucistic instead, as albinos are intolerant to the ultraviolet radiation of sunlight.
* HopelessBossFight: The three giant robots. The first two can be destroyed only by a tank (and, with a tank, the first one is hopeless for R•7037) but, as you are tankless then, R•7038 will destroy your party (along with your strongest controllable character - permanently), but Lloyd shows up in the nick of time to destroy it with a tank. [[spoiler:When you fight R•7038XX, even your new giant robot buddy deals only about 50 points of damage, and only when the robot explodes does R•7038XX die. Fortunately, it doesn't try to attack you, it only attacks Eve. So you win, but for Eve, it was hopeless.]]
* HumansAreBastards: Giygas's reason for invading Earth and abducting people. [[spoiler:His adoptive father and Ninten's biological great-grandfather, George, had stolen information that could be used against his own kind. It is not directly stated what exactly this information is, but it is suggested to be either the advanced technology used to create Eve or possibly awakening latent psychic potential in certain humans - or both.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Similar to the sequel, almost nobody uses a real weapon. Teddy, a leader of a gang, is an exception: he can use a knife, a sword, and eventually a {{katana|sAreJustBetter}}!
* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Boomerang. Not only can anyone equip it, outside of Teddy, it's ''three fourths of the party's'' second strongest weapon. It's a bit pricy, costing one thousand and one hundred dollars, but once you have one for everyone, it becomes an effective DiscOneNuke.
* InnSecurity: In Halloween. $18 for a single night is very inexpensive! [[spoiler:...[[OhCrap Starman drew near!]]]]
* InstantAwesomeJustAddMecha: Eve.
* InterspeciesRomance: One of the monkeys in the Monkey Cave flirts with Ana.
* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: The final battle is at the peak of Holy Loly Mountain.
* JokeItem: The Swear Words and Words O' Love, both of which require a small sidequest, only display the words "I hate you!" and "I love you!" respectively, when used in battle. The Last Weapon [[FridgeBrilliance tells you how to reset the game]]. As is the Last Weapon, the Real Rocket is expensively buyable in the Tinkle laboratory. From the name of it, it seems like it would be quite a cut above the Bottle Rocket item. But if you buy it... It never even goes into your inventory.
-->'''Scientist''': "Oops! It's gone into orbit. A success... sort of."
** The Time Machine was an item in the original Family Computer version that did something similar when you bought it, but it was removed from later versions.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: The Katana is Teddy's InfinityPlusOneSword. It's better than the Sword.
* LevelGrinding: The player is forced to do this after recruiting Lloyd and Ana. They come at a low level, and so one naturally goes to Magicant to train them.
* LostInTranslation: [[spoiler:After Lloyd has his BigDamnHeroes moment in the tank while Ninten, Ana and Teddy were getting their butts handed to them by R•7038, due to how his speech was translated, it seems as if [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Loid accidentally shot Teddy, and that it's actually his fault that Teddy is critically injured]]. Turns out that, as shown in the ''MOTHER 1+2'' FanTranslation, Lloyd was supposed to instead say that he was too late.]] Of course, there are more moments than this, but this is one of the most notable.
-->'''Lloyd (''Earth Bound'' Proto Translation)''': "Shoot! I missed!"
-->'''Lloyd (''Mother 1+2'' Fan Translation)''': "Oh no! I'm too late!"
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Queen Mary is actually Ninten's great-grandmother, Maria, who shut herself off in the realm of her own mind, Magicant.]]
* MacGuffin: The Eight Melodies.
* MagicalMysteryDoors: Rosemary's house.
* MarketBasedTitle: ''Earthbound Beginnings'' in the long-overdue English release.
* TheMaze: There are a quite few. Duncan Factory, the Swamp, Holy Loly Mountain caves...
* MentalWorld: [[spoiler:Actually Maria's, not Ninten's.]]
* MetalSlime: The Red Snake.
* MinimalisticCoverArt
* MomentKiller: Right after Ninten and Ana confess their feelings (maybe), Teddy barges in the room and asks the pair why they are blushing. To be fair he does apologize for interrupting but did so because he was hearing odd noises outside, [[FromBadToWorse and then a giant robot attacks them]], mortally wounding Teddy. Real moodkiller there.
* MrsRobinson: The Rosemary mother. Somehow this stayed in the English prototype.
* NeverSayDie: Similar to the sequel, enemies "become quiet", "don't move anymore", etc. {{Justified|Trope}} because you're not using real weapons (for the most part) and you're fighting possessed animals and humans, as well as supernatural beings.
* NeverTrustATrailer: The Japanese TV spot had Ninten and Ana defeat R•7037 or one of its upgraded model robots. This is impossible to do in-game, where all of those enemies need heavy weaponry to defeat.
* NintendoHard: Lots and lots of RandomEncounters, generally unbalanced enemies, a huge proliferation of OneHitKill moves, and too much ForcedLevelGrinding make this the hardest game in the whole series. Itoi even admitted to completely skipping over balancing it out because by the end, everyone was so tired.
* NoEnding: The original release ended with [[spoiler:Giygas, defeated, leaving in his spaceship, the party solemnly looking back at the player one by one, and the credits playing in the black sky. It didn't explicitly tie up any loose ends and left some FridgeHorror / NoEndorHolocaust. The prototype English version and later the GBA re-release significantly extended the ending, although it automatically assumes that the player recruited all characters. Given the game's non-linear structure, it's debatable if this is truly an improvement.]]
* NostalgicMusicbox: The ending tune starts and ends with a music box rendition of the Eight Melodies.
* NotDrawnToScale: If the surrounding panorama is to be believed, the rooftop of the Tinkle School is several hundred stories off the ground - [[FridgeBrilliance then again, maybe that's just what it looks like to Ninten...]]
* OminousMusicBoxTune: The first of the Eight Melodies is a music box hidden in Ninten's sister's formerly possessed naked doll.
* OneHitKill: PK Beam γ, a favorite PK attack of Starmen. Fortunately, the Franklin Badge just reflects the attack back at the attacker. Unfortunately, there's only two in the entire game, meaning that one party member will be vulnerable at all times. On the plus side, Ana's own PK Beam works frequently on late game enemies.
** PK Fire Ω destroys all enemies instantly.
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: In a convention to be continued throughout the series, the FinalBoss [[spoiler:Giygas]] cannot be defeated by ordinary methods. You must [[spoiler:sing Queen Mary's song eleven times to subdue him]].
* TheOverworld: One thing notable about this game is, for its day, [[http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/maps/eb0map_big.png its overworld was]] ''freaking massive'', and unlike VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda, it wasn't divided into separate squares. One could even argue it's bigger than ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'''s overworlds! It's pretty easy to get lost in it, but overall falls into somewhere around [[SlidingScaleOfLinearityVSOpenness scale four and five of openness.]]
* PaletteSwap: As an early RPG, nearly everywhere. Some palette swaps at least slightly modify the sprites by overlaying new graphics to make them seem different, such as adding a collar to the Wolf to make it a Stray Dog, or adding defects in the Old Robo to make it a Scrapper.
* PatchworkMap: This game is allegedly set in America, yet the desert is in the north and the arctic town is in the south -- the opposite of the real country's geography. The desert is also right next to the ocean, with nothing separating the two.
* ParentalAbandonment:
** Teddy is an orphan, and Ninten's father doesn't appear until the ending (and only in the unreleased English version and the CompilationRerelease).
** Also, all the missing parents of Easter.
** Also also, Lloyd's parents are essentially handwaved. His father shows up in/as a trashcan at a remote location in a swamp nowhere near where Lloyd goes to school, and all he does is ask the player's name - no story exposition of even a minor variety.
*** However, in the novel adaption, his father is said to be in the swamp because he is looking for a special plant to cure a fatal illness Lloyd's mother has, and that appears to be another reason Lloyd joins Ninten.
** And let's not forget [[spoiler: Queen Mary / Maria to Giegue / Giygas, which is what sets the plot of the game in motion. Needless to say, this is a [[TheFarmerAndTheViper far more]] [[SelfMadeOrphan complicated]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone example]] of this trope...]]
* PlotCoupon: The Eight Melodies.
* PlotlineDeath: [[spoiler:Eve. For players of the original Family Computer version, Teddy remains bedridden and silent after/if Lloyd returns, so the general assumption is that he didn't survive. However, in later versions of the game, they make it clear that Teddy lives regardless.]]
* {{Poltergeist}}: At the start of the game one of these attack your house.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: Like every game in the series.
* ThePowerOfLove[=/=]ThePowerOfRock:
** [[spoiler:Singing Maria's lullaby to Giygas is what defeats him. And it doesn't just defeat him: in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', it is found that it drove him absolutely insane.]]
** After reading a bit of description, it seems there's a bit more to it than that. [[spoiler:Giygas apparently still harbored affection toward Maria, but was basically forced to detach from her and invade the Earth as per his people's orders. Considering Maria basically raised the poor little guy since he was a baby, any reminders of her would create something of a conflict of interest, and make attacking her people (or more specifically, one of her descendants) quite a bit harder, don't you think?]]
* PuzzleBoss: The three giant robots are far too powerful for the party to beat on their own, so they have to acquire outside help.
* RandomEncounters: Good ''grief'', there's a lot of them! The world of ''MOTHER'' is massive and would be quite fun to explore if it weren't for these. Although you can't really blame it because it's a Family Computer game, so technical limitations at the time made PreexistingEncounters impossible. This gets less aggravating once you get access to Magicant, and more importantly, Repel Rings which prevent fights against weaker enemies.
* RecurringRiff: Several, including "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)", the battle theme for the [[NewAgeRetroHippie Hippie]], and "Eight Melodies (Queen Mary's Lullabye)", occur frequently and are used in the later games.
* RedShirt: The Flying Man
* SdrawkcabName: In the unproduced localization, the Raeb Yddet (and by extension, the Sky Yddet) in [[{{Wackyland}} Magicant]].
* SavageWolves: The Wolf, Silver Wolf and Lone Wolf enemies. Also, Stray Dog.
* SequelHook: In the English prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'', there is a PostCreditsScene of Ninten's father calling him, saying that 'something's come up'. It's an unusual example in that obviously [[VideoGame/EarthBound there]] [[{{VideoGame/Mother3}} were]] sequels, but neither followed up on this. It has been argued that the line was meant to refer to Ninten's father remaining physically absent in Ninten's life even after all is said and done, but it should be noted that this replaces the original game's "ToBeContinued..."
* SequenceBreaking: Besides generally grinding to do things out of order, you can completely skip the whole thing with Teddy if you don't really think about trying to meet him, and are just looking for the melodies without using the ticket. You can carry this out to such an extreme that you never even hear his name. The same goes for Ana.
** Alternatively, you can recruit him and leave Lloyd in the dust for the rest of the game with further sequence breaking, if you so choose.
** Via an exploit involving Bread Crumbs, it's shown that Pippi is the only mandatory recruit in the game (despite having a temporary slot); you don't even need Lloyd if you carefully glitch your way into Magican's farewell scene and open the final area with the Sing command, although he is necessary in normal gameplay to progress the story.
* ShoutOut:
** Ninten fights a Kewpie doll in the beginning of the game.
** Two of the towns in the prototype (Merrysville and Spookane) are named after cities in Washington State, where Nintendo of America is located (Marysville and Spokane, respectively.)
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: An interview with Shigesato Itoi confirmed that the last parts of the game, specifically Holy Loly Mountain, had not been tested sufficiently for balance issues.
* SoundtrackDissonance:
** Ninten and Ana have a dance near the end of the game, to relax (and to show them growing fond of each other). The tune that plays, "Fallin' Love", is ''extremely'' melancholy.
** The 8-bit version of the song is, but the soundtrack version has a typical romantic adult contemporary feel to it, but with no lyrics.
* SpellLevels: The tiers for PSI powers are given by the Greek letters α, β, γ, and Ω.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official romanization in Japan, the international fanbase used the second for quite a while, and ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' and the ''Earthbound Beginnings'' trailer use the third. While the middle spelling has been used the longest in the fanbase and is still the preference in certain circles, the last spelling is more likely since the term ''roido'' comes from silent film star Harold Lloyd (after his usual round glasses).
** Ana/Anna. Despite the name being closer in katakana spelling and pronunciation to the former, the latter was preferred in Japanese merchandise. However, ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' uses the former.
** Also shown by [[spoiler:the main villain - his name is written "giigu" in katakana, written as "Giegue" in the localization, and is finally shown to actually be "Gyiyg" in the sequel. Eventually, Nintendo just made up a new English name for him ("Giygas"). But before that, he was apparently going to be called ''The Geek''.]]
* SpinningOutOfHere: The Teleportation spell is executed by having the character move around while accelerating rapidly before zooming off; because colliding with anything stops the teleport, the better the player is at moving in a small circle, the more places he or she can teleport from.
* StandardStatusEffects: Subverted at one point, as Ninten has asthma and exhaust from the truck enemies can render him unable to act unless someone uses an inhaler on him.
* StuffBlowingUp: One of the first things that Loid does after joining your party is blow up the science lab.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: It's strongly implied that [[spoiler:Giygas]] and his kind are this. On top of being masters of psychic powers, they can hurt you in ways that can't be explained or understood by anyone, even other psychics, and are incapable of receiving physical damage. Emotional damage, on the other hand...
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Eve is no match for R•7038XX, but she explodes when defeated, instantly destroying the foe and leaving behind a MacGuffin.]]
* TankGoodness: A rental. Lloyd shows up in another tank to defeat the second giant robot.
* ATasteOfPower: The game does this ''twice'', both at the end of the game. Once with [[spoiler:Teddy]], who can actually defeat the DemonicSpiders on Holy Loly Mountain without much LevelGrinding, and [[spoiler:who goes away if you activate a certain cutscene.]] The second time is with [[spoiler:Eve, who joins you in the middle of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, is insanely powerful, and can defeat any of the RandomEncounters in one blow. But if you backtrack, or go forward past a certain point, you are forced to fight a robot that Eve sacrifices itself to defeat.]]
* ThemeNaming: Pretty much every location is named after a holiday. In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, {{Woolseyism}} changed these names because the translator thought they were silly names. When Tomato was doing the fan translation of the ''MOTHER 1+2'' version, he agreed with the sentiment but kept the holiday-themed names anyway.
* ThrivingGhostTown: Averted. This game's towns are the biggest in the whole series, and seem to extend past the cluster of houses into the vast rural areas. Most of the houses' doors are locked, however, preventing the KleptomaniacHero (or a thief) from getting in.
* TookALevelInBadass: You first find Lloyd in a trash can hiding from bullies. Later, he shows up in a tank to destroy a giant robot that your party could not hope to defeat otherwise.
* TouchedByVorlons: The details are left vague, but something definitely like this happened between George and the aliens, possibly opening the door to humankind getting technology and/or PSI. [[spoiler:And he did it completely without the aliens' permission.]]
* TrailOfBreadCrumbs: You can eat the Bread item to recover some HP. However, if you Use it instead, you get Crumbs, and by using Crumbs, you return to the spot you were at when you used the bread. Handy!
* TwelveBarBlues: The Hippie battle theme uses this chord progression.
* TwoPartTrilogy: Aside from PSI and [[spoiler:Giygas]], there is barely any evidence that the world of this game is the same world as ''VideoGame/EarthBound''. This game was hit especially hard, as despite the rerelease, it only had publicity back in its day. The CompilationRerelease's commercials focused mainly on the second game, showing only a very brief clip of this one, which, while this game got a significant update, the only thing that was changed from the second game, besides the inevitable quality drop in porting from SuperFamicom to GameBoyAdvance, was a few bug fixes and an incredibly minor rewrite.
* UpdatedRerelease[=/=]CompilationRerelease: This game and [[VideoGame/EarthBound its sequel]] have been compiled into a single cartridge and rereleased for the GameBoyAdvance under the title ''MOTHER 1+2'' ([[NoExportForYou only in Japan, of course]]).
* UselessUsefulSpell: Averted with PK Beam γ, which one-shots a majority of random encounters, and PK Fire Ω, which '''instantly nukes''' every single random encounter in the entire game. [[BraggingRightsReward You have to severely grind for the latter, however.]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Dear God, the Flying Men. Seeing the graves next to their former home is just heartbreaking when you realize that if you hadn't come along they would still be alive.
* {{Wackyland}}: Former {{Trope Namer|s}}, though the sequel's Magicant is most likely what was envisioned when it was named.
** Though technically they're not the same place; in this game it was [[spoiler:a manifestation of Maria's mind trying to regain her memories,]] while the one in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' was a representation of Ness's mind after completing the Sound Stone's melody.
* WeaponsGradeVocabulary: Enemies can "attack" with Threatening Words and Swear Words, both of which decrease someone's Fight stat. Your party can get some words of their own to "attack" with, but they do nothing.
* [[spoiler:WeCanRuleTogether: Giygas gives Ninten alone a chance to board his mothership, [[ButThouMust although the game never gives you a chance to accept or get a word in edgewise]].]]
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: [[MrsRobinson Mrs. Rosemary]] renames her son [[VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink Buggerror]] after Ninten. Evidently she likes his namesake better than her own son.
* WestminsterChimes: The basis for the background music of Tinkle Elementary School.
* WeWillMeetAgain: [[spoiler:Giygas promises to meet Ninten again before he leaves.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Accepting a drink from a woman in the Live House will cause a cop to show up, chastise Ninten for drinking under age, and arrest him and his friends. The cop also confiscates his weapon and you need to ''buy it back''.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Giygas, now that you know his backstory.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:As true of Giygas' attacks in this one as in the sequel, though at least he has a physical body here.]]
--> In the prototype: [[spoiler:"The form of Giegue's attack was inexplicable!"]]
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: In the GBA remake, when Teddy, Ninten and Ana hear a robot monster approaching, Teddy says, "You've got to be kidding me!", and a HopelessBossFight ensues.
* ZeroEffortBoss: Before entering Duncan Factory, you must defeat its guardian: a Stray Dog.
-----
->''No crying until the end.''
[[caption-width-right:320:''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 No crying until the end.]]'']]
->''Take a melody\\
Simple as can be\\
Give it some words and\\
Sweet harmony\\
Raise your voices\\
All day long now, love grows strong now,\\
Sing a melody of\\
Love, oh love''
In the late 1980s, ShigesatoItoi got ahold of ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', the first video game he ever played. Though he definitely enjoyed the game, as a professional writer, he couldn't help but be intrigued about the game's use of the unconventional medium to tell a story and say to himself, "I could do better". Several meetings with people from Creator/{{Nintendo}} and a [[Music/TheBeatles John-Lennon-inspired]] name later, that's exactly what he did.
'''Mother''', also known as '''Earth Bound''' in the unreleased NES prototype, '''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''' in its English Virtual Console release, and '''[=EarthBound=] Zero''' within the fandom, is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' trilogy, and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
Calling his dad after settling this, Ninten learns that psychic powers run in the family, and to learn more about it he has to get his great-grandfather's diary and discover what happened many years ago, including what happened to his great-grandmother Maria. Meanwhile, other strange phenomena are happening across the country, and it soon becomes apparent that an alien force is at work. Just what connection does Ninten's family have with the alien invasion?
In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version contains a mix of technical enhancements, {{bowdleri|se}}zation, modified maps to reduce difficulty, some altered graphics, and a significant lengthening of the rather abrupt ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorized to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as "''[[FanNickname Earthbound Zero]]''" to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', this game was re-released in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was again [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally.
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally gave the game an official English release as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the translation originally intended for the prototype English release, but there is no official confirmation as of yet.
-----
!!This game has examples of:
* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The max level cap is 99, but you're likely to be around the early thirties when you beat the game, possibly early forties with Ninten if you deliberately level grinded for Ana's PSI Fire Omega.
* AffectionateParody: As noted above, the game was inspired by ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''. Thing is, it's set in a (then-)modern {{Eagleland}} as opposed to a generic fantasy setting. Instead of magic, you have PsychicPowers. Instead of swords and bows you have bats and slingshots. Monsters are not killed but instead regain their senses, and said monsters include things like dogs and hippies. The juxtaposition of classical EasternRPG mechanics and tropes with the modern setting contributes to the surreal quality of the game.
* TheAllAmericanBoy: Ninten.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: [[spoiler:Giygas]] talks directly to Ninten's party when he appears. However, it makes sense in-universe because [[spoiler:Maria raised Giygas]], so it's likely [[spoiler:she]] taught [[spoiler:Giygas]] the human tongue.
* AllThereInTheManual: Not much about the character personalities are stated in-game, but in the supplemental "Mother Encyclopedia" it says many additional things about Ninten, Lloyd, Ana and Teddy that you could never find out just by playing the game. It is in Japanese, but was [[FanTranslation translated into English by a fan.]]
* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: If you're not Japanese and have heard of this game, you probably know that [[spoiler:Giygas is the main villain. It actually isn't revealed ''at all'' until you get the final MacGuffin at the end of the DiscOneFinalDungeon, and most of the plot is just you going around the world to learn a song for an ailing queen who you met after a bunch of weird stuff started happening in your hometown. Even the game guides have no information on Giygas, and he has no official art.]]
* AnachronismStew: The game supposedly takes place in TheEighties, and while there is some stuff that is relevant for the time such as pay phones, [=ATMs=], and transit trains, a lot of the setting is notably far more rural in many areas and certain house designs look very old, to the point it somehow feels more like a mishmash between TheEighties and TheGayNineties.
* AnimateInanimateObject: Your journey starts off with you being attacked by one of two moving lamps. Then you fight your first boss, a possessed doll, to get your first MacGuffin. The things you fight along the way just get stranger from here.
* AnotherDimension: [[WackyLand Magicant]] certainly counts as this.
* AntiPoopSocking: Whenever you save your game, your dad will urge you to turn off the game and go to sleep. If you play long enough in one sitting, he'll call you out of nowhere on some sort of telepathic phone to pester you about it some more. He will also allow you the opportunity to save and quit ''wherever you happen to be'' when he calls you this way.
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Once you show all eight melodies to Maria in Magicant, she disappears, taking the entirety of Magicant with her]].
* AwardBaitSong:
** "Pollyanna" in its full version (not the 8-bit theme, obviously), which later went on to become the BootstrappedTheme for the entire ''MOTHER'' series.
** The Eight Melodies. "[[ThePowerOfLove Take a melody, simple as can be, give it some words, and sweet harmony. Raise your voices, all day long now love grows strong now, sing a melody of, love ah love.]]" The vocal version even has a CherubicChoir!
** The entire soundtrack album for ''MOTHER'' is made of these.
* BadassAdorable: Let's just sum up the three main characters as this. Okay, Lloyd [[TookALevelInBadass took a while for it to shine through]], but still.
* BearsAreBadNews: The real-world bear enemy and its polar and grizzly derivatives. The latter variant can knock you out in one hit.
** If you use the Check command on them, you'll notice the localization team took a few pages from... um, {{Literature/Goldilocks}}...
* BeefGate:
** Once you unlock the Paradise Line, it's possible to go ''anywhere'' in the Overworld at that point. Heck, it's even possible to reach places before unlocking it by travelling the train tunnels. However, while this ''is'' possible, it's a very, ''very'' unwise thing to do. Doesn't stop most people from SequenceBreaking to get Ana earlier than they're suppose to.
** There's also a big difference between when you ''can'' wake the dragon in Magicant and when you ''should'' wake it. More experienced players know to wait until they have Teddy for his raw damage output before fighting it.
* BigBad: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: After a robot nearly defeats the party (and severely injures [[spoiler:Teddy]]), Lloyd shows up and destroys it. With a ''tank''.
* BittersweetEnding: [[RevisedEnding According to the ''Earth Bound'' prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'']], the strange happenings in the world are put to an immediate cease, things quickly return to normal, [[spoiler:and Teddy became a singer]]. However, [[spoiler:Magicant vanished, along with Maria, who never got a chance to reconcile with her adopted son. Not to mention that Giygas is still out there, somewhere...]]
* [[GirlOfMyDreams Boy of My Dreams]]: In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, Ana says that she fell in love with Ninten as soon as she started seeing him in her dreams. This line doesn't exist in ''MOTHER'' and ''MOTHER 1+2'', however.
* {{Bowdlerise}}: The English translation got quite a few changes as a result of Nintendo's censorship policies at the time. Infamously, blood was edited out of sprites, and cigarettes were removed from the battle sprites of the Crow and Bla-Bla Gang (and the knife Teddy was holding), the nipples on the female suit of armors' breasts were replaced with smooth shines, and crosses and religious text were also removed. Other changes were made to avoid lawsuits, such as some overworld characters lessening an unintentional resemblance to ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' and a mention of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' was changed to ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Super Mario Bros. 7]]''. Some stuff got past the radar, like the strip club in Thanksgiving and doctors saying "go off and ''die'' then" if you refuse their services. All of these changes were also in ''MOTHER 1+2'', with the strip club entirely removed in ''MOTHER 1+2'' and the ''Dragon Quest'' reference was further changed to "that game" as opposed to a fictional ''Mario'' title.
** It should be noted that Itoi was quite involved in the localization of this game and every {{Bowdleri|se}}zation and {{Woolseyism}} that occurred had to have his approval. This may also explain their use in ''MOTHER 1+2''.
* ChekhovsGun: There's a war veteran with a tank in Advent Desert. If you do a sidequest, you get to ride it, and he warns you to be careful with it because it's his most prized possession. [[TropeTelegraphing Inevitably]], it breaks, and when you get to Valentine you have to pay him to replace it. Also, in a sidequest that you can do later, Lloyd gets a BigDamnHeroes moment with a tank. What other tank could he possibly get access to? If you do both those sidequests, in order, it's ChekhovsBoomerang.
* CherubicChoir: The vocal version of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrtM4onLQ1I The Eight Melodies]]. Also used in the 1989 Japanese [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 commercial.]]
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: [[spoiler:Giygas is defeated by singing Queen Mary's Lullaby to him, similar to how he's finally defeated in ''VideoGame/EarthBound''.]]
* CreepyDoll: The possessed doll in your sister's room.
* CriticalHit: The SMASH attack ignores all physical defense of the target, and does a lot more damage. However, enemies can perform these criticals with roughly the same chance as you. Since your party is generally much better defended than them, and you have to fight a lot of them, the chance of a defense-piercing hit becomes bad news for you.
* CrutchCharacter: The enemies on Holy Loly Mountain are so dangerous that Eve the robot is the only character that's strong enough to take them out quickly. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Eve doesn't remain in your party for long.]]
* CurtainCall: Done at the end of the game, all the characters and [=NPCs=] running along the bottom of the screen and looking towards the player before running back off.
* CuteBruiser: Pippi may not have the typical personality of this trope as far as we can tell, but she has the same level growths as Teddy. Shame you can't keep her for long.
* DamselInDistress: [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Probably]] the only RPG in existence in which you have to rescue [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Pippi Longstocking]] from zombie gangsters.
* DanceOfRomance: An optional scene with Ninten and Ana alone inside the bedroom of a healer's house.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Though the fight ends before there's actually a winner, you can get Teddy to join this way.
* DefinitelyFinalDungeon: Holy Loly Mountain.
* {{Delinquent}}: Teddy, again.
* DifficultySpike: Advent Desert, and later Holy Loly Mountain, the latter of which is almost completely filled with DemonicSpiders.
** The Advent Desert enemies can actually be found even earlier in the game; in the train tunnels. This is to probably prevent you from going out to get Ana before Lloyd, but with luck (and more grinding), players can pass the tunnel alone, though this is very tough and time consuming.
* DrJerk: The doctors that restore your negative statuses... for a price.
-->'''Doctor (if you don't have enough money for his services)''': Fine, die all on your own. I'll phone a mortician.
* DubNameChange: The ''Earth Bound'' prototype changed many things, including most of the major locations: Mother's Day to Podunk, Choucream Zoo to City Zoo, Thanksgiving to Merrysville, Tinkle to Twinkle Elementary School, Santa Claus Station to Union Station, Halloween to Spookane, Advent Desert to Yucca Desert, Easter to Youngtown, Valentine to Ellay, and Holy Loly/Rolly Mountain to Mt./Mount Itoi. The reason for the holiday theme being removed was due to it being considered juvenile rather than welcoming. Some other changes were made to enemies, items, and weapons due to space constraints, censorship issues, or just plain preference. Since the sequel only had one returning translator in the localization team, most of these changes (like Giegue in favor of Gyiyg/Giygas) were dropped, but a few others (like Starman Junior over the Japanese original Son of Starman) were retained.
* DuelBoss: When you reach Valentine, you can do a dance show if you have a team of three (which you should by this point normally). Teddy will come onstage and demand to know who is beating up his gang, taking Ninten into a one-on-one fight with no PSI. It ends fairly quickly, to which he sends Lloyd off and [[DefeatMeansFriendship joins your team]].
* DummiedOut: Poison Needle and Stone of Origin were items that poisoned and stoned the enemy respectively, but in the final game they are just enemy attacks.
** There is another unused item called IC-Chip. It may or may not be related to the Memory Chip item which was added to ''Mother 1+2'', which is obtained after [[spoiler:Eve gets wrecked]]. The item is like a second Onyx Fish Hook, except that instead of Magicant, it transports you yo [[spoiler:Eve's wreckage]]. The IC-Chip is still in the GBA version, but DummiedOut.
** The item "Time Machine" was in the original Family Computer version of the game but DummiedOut of later versions. Just like the Real Rocket, which remained in later versions, it was an item for sale in the elementary school, but buying it triggered a humorous cutscene in which it is accidentally used to temporarily blow up the room.
* DungeonCrawling: Duncan Factory is an annoying large version of this that you are required to go in to continue the plot, although if you're lucky enough to find the right room you can find a second Franklin Badge.
* DungeonTown: Halloween, unlike other towns where enemy encounters stop upon entering, they can still happen even after entering the town limits.
* {{Eagleland}}: Although explicitly taking place in America, it clearly follows the trope, and is the predecessor to the {{Trope Namer|s}}.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This game is highly different from its two sequels due to having RandomEncounters, no rolling HP/PP meter, and generally different gameplay. Also, there are absolutely no Mr. Saturns, which went on to become the series mascot.
* EscapeBattleTechnique: The game has the 4-D Slip PSI, which allows a guaranteed escape from battle. Considering how brutal the late game enemies are, it's very helpful at times.
* EscapedAnimalRampage: This happened early in the game due to an alien invasion. It's your job to investigate and stop the aliens causing the trouble, all the while battling angry elephants and tigers.
* EscapeRope: The Bread Crumbs are used as this. You use Bread wherever you want to get back to, roam into a dungeon or elsewhere, then when you want to leave you follow the breadcrumbs all the way back where you placed them.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: It's [[spoiler:Giygas]]'s memories of his adoptive human mother, [[spoiler:Maria]], that end up defeating him.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: A singing monkey gives you a part of the MacGuffin. Later you get to go in a cave full of monkeys. A majority of them lie to you.
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: In the beginning of the game there is a zoo with a penguin pen. Later in the game you go in a cave full of monkeys (mentioned above) and there is a secret room with a single lost penguin in it. In addition, Ninten's favorite animal is said to be the penguin, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the encyclopedia]].
* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: Zombie mooks pop up in this game: in the early graveyard section, and in the Rosemary's house.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Your first enemies are two desk lamps and a baby doll. It just gets better from there.
* FanRemake:
** A [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-Remake/page/1/ remake of MOTHER]] is being developed as a GameMod for its [[VideoGame/EarthBound sequel]].
** There is a [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-25th-Anniversary-Edition/page/1 second, already complete Remake]] celebrating MOTHER's 25th anniversary, but unlike the first one, this is a remake redone in the original NES game, polishing sprites, the overworld, the script (using Tomato's newer translation) and enemies. It will also rebalance the enemies to tone down the game's difficulty, and make it less confusing to get around the swamp land and Duncan Factory.
** There have been multiple attempts by fans to remake this game, but all of them eventually disappeared from the internet after a while. A rather notable one was one that remade it using the graphical and gameplay styles of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', ala what the ''VideoGame/{{Mother 4}}'' fangame is doing. Unfortunately though, all that ever really came of this was few sprites of the main characters in ''Mother 3'' style, some updated remixes of the songs from the game, and a few long deleted gameplay videos.
* FanSequel: ''[[VideoGame/CognitiveDissonance MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance]]''.
* FinalDeath: The Flying Men. If one of them runs out of HP and faints, unlike your other party members, he cannot be revived at all.
* ForcedLevelGrinding: The [[PerfectlyCromulentWord grindiest]] game in the whole series.
** You even have to grind at the very start of the game to avoid getting annihilated by enemies ''right outside your house.''
* AFriendInNeed: Ninten finds Lloyd cowering in a garbage can from some bullies, who then tells him that all he really would like is to fire a rocket. Ninten then goes and gets him one, and they are buddies from then on.
* GalacticConqueror: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* GhostTown: The town Halloween after it became infested with monsters and ghosts.
* GirlishPigtails: Ana has these.
* GlobalCurrency:
** Justified as being dollars, and the game mostly taking place entirely in America... though don't ask how Magicant ''also'' takes them.
** The shopkeeper claims to want them just for novelty's sake.
* GuestStarPartyMember: Several, including Eve and Flying Man.
* GuideDangIt: The effects of PSI attacks. The game itself doesn't give you any clues on what most of them do. This becomes crucial when you need to figure out which "Healing" skill to use, because unlike in its successors, each level cures only a specific ailment. Plus, Healing γ doesn't revive unconscious party members; rather, it cures petrification.
** It's also fairly easy to miss several parts of the Eight Melodies if you don't pay attention to the environment. Most notably is in the early parts of the game is you can get it even before you rescue Pippi, which requires you bring the baby canary to Canary Village. However you only get told where Canary Village is once, by a random NPC, and how they tell you where it is is vague at best. Even if you bought the baby canary you may end up dragging it around for half the game and not realize that it's the key to the second melody.
* HauntedHouse: Rosemary's house.
* HellHotel: The hotel at the abandoned GhostTown, Halloween. The clerk at the hotel is actually a Starman in disguise, who, after paying a much cheaper than normal lodging fee, attacks you immediately the next morning.
* HeroicAlbino: Lloyd, who, despite being a kid, has white hair. It is also noteworthy to mention that albinos have poor eyesight, and Lloyd wears glasses.
** Lloyd could be leucistic instead, as albinos are intolerant to the ultraviolet radiation of sunlight.
* HopelessBossFight: The three giant robots. The first two can be destroyed only by a tank (and, with a tank, the first one is hopeless for R•7037) but, as you are tankless then, R•7038 will destroy your party (along with your strongest controllable character - permanently), but Lloyd shows up in the nick of time to destroy it with a tank. [[spoiler:When you fight R•7038XX, even your new giant robot buddy deals only about 50 points of damage, and only when the robot explodes does R•7038XX die. Fortunately, it doesn't try to attack you, it only attacks Eve. So you win, but for Eve, it was hopeless.]]
* HumansAreBastards: Giygas's reason for invading Earth and abducting people. [[spoiler:His adoptive father and Ninten's biological great-grandfather, George, had stolen information that could be used against his own kind. It is not directly stated what exactly this information is, but it is suggested to be either the advanced technology used to create Eve or possibly awakening latent psychic potential in certain humans - or both.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Similar to the sequel, almost nobody uses a real weapon. Teddy, a leader of a gang, is an exception: he can use a knife, a sword, and eventually a {{katana|sAreJustBetter}}!
* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Boomerang. Not only can anyone equip it, outside of Teddy, it's ''three fourths of the party's'' second strongest weapon. It's a bit pricy, costing one thousand and one hundred dollars, but once you have one for everyone, it becomes an effective DiscOneNuke.
* InnSecurity: In Halloween. $18 for a single night is very inexpensive! [[spoiler:...[[OhCrap Starman drew near!]]]]
* InstantAwesomeJustAddMecha: Eve.
* InterspeciesRomance: One of the monkeys in the Monkey Cave flirts with Ana.
* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: The final battle is at the peak of Holy Loly Mountain.
* JokeItem: The Swear Words and Words O' Love, both of which require a small sidequest, only display the words "I hate you!" and "I love you!" respectively, when used in battle. The Last Weapon [[FridgeBrilliance tells you how to reset the game]]. As is the Last Weapon, the Real Rocket is expensively buyable in the Tinkle laboratory. From the name of it, it seems like it would be quite a cut above the Bottle Rocket item. But if you buy it... It never even goes into your inventory.
-->'''Scientist''': "Oops! It's gone into orbit. A success... sort of."
** The Time Machine was an item in the original Family Computer version that did something similar when you bought it, but it was removed from later versions.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: The Katana is Teddy's InfinityPlusOneSword. It's better than the Sword.
* LevelGrinding: The player is forced to do this after recruiting Lloyd and Ana. They come at a low level, and so one naturally goes to Magicant to train them.
* LostInTranslation: [[spoiler:After Lloyd has his BigDamnHeroes moment in the tank while Ninten, Ana and Teddy were getting their butts handed to them by R•7038, due to how his speech was translated, it seems as if [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Loid accidentally shot Teddy, and that it's actually his fault that Teddy is critically injured]]. Turns out that, as shown in the ''MOTHER 1+2'' FanTranslation, Lloyd was supposed to instead say that he was too late.]] Of course, there are more moments than this, but this is one of the most notable.
-->'''Lloyd (''Earth Bound'' Proto Translation)''': "Shoot! I missed!"
-->'''Lloyd (''Mother 1+2'' Fan Translation)''': "Oh no! I'm too late!"
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Queen Mary is actually Ninten's great-grandmother, Maria, who shut herself off in the realm of her own mind, Magicant.]]
* MacGuffin: The Eight Melodies.
* MagicalMysteryDoors: Rosemary's house.
* MarketBasedTitle: ''Earthbound Beginnings'' in the long-overdue English release.
* TheMaze: There are a quite few. Duncan Factory, the Swamp, Holy Loly Mountain caves...
* MentalWorld: [[spoiler:Actually Maria's, not Ninten's.]]
* MetalSlime: The Red Snake.
* MinimalisticCoverArt
* MomentKiller: Right after Ninten and Ana confess their feelings (maybe), Teddy barges in the room and asks the pair why they are blushing. To be fair he does apologize for interrupting but did so because he was hearing odd noises outside, [[FromBadToWorse and then a giant robot attacks them]], mortally wounding Teddy. Real moodkiller there.
* MrsRobinson: The Rosemary mother. Somehow this stayed in the English prototype.
* NeverSayDie: Similar to the sequel, enemies "become quiet", "don't move anymore", etc. {{Justified|Trope}} because you're not using real weapons (for the most part) and you're fighting possessed animals and humans, as well as supernatural beings.
* NeverTrustATrailer: The Japanese TV spot had Ninten and Ana defeat R•7037 or one of its upgraded model robots. This is impossible to do in-game, where all of those enemies need heavy weaponry to defeat.
* NintendoHard: Lots and lots of RandomEncounters, generally unbalanced enemies, a huge proliferation of OneHitKill moves, and too much ForcedLevelGrinding make this the hardest game in the whole series. Itoi even admitted to completely skipping over balancing it out because by the end, everyone was so tired.
* NoEnding: The original release ended with [[spoiler:Giygas, defeated, leaving in his spaceship, the party solemnly looking back at the player one by one, and the credits playing in the black sky. It didn't explicitly tie up any loose ends and left some FridgeHorror / NoEndorHolocaust. The prototype English version and later the GBA re-release significantly extended the ending, although it automatically assumes that the player recruited all characters. Given the game's non-linear structure, it's debatable if this is truly an improvement.]]
* NostalgicMusicbox: The ending tune starts and ends with a music box rendition of the Eight Melodies.
* NotDrawnToScale: If the surrounding panorama is to be believed, the rooftop of the Tinkle School is several hundred stories off the ground - [[FridgeBrilliance then again, maybe that's just what it looks like to Ninten...]]
* OminousMusicBoxTune: The first of the Eight Melodies is a music box hidden in Ninten's sister's formerly possessed naked doll.
* OneHitKill: PK Beam γ, a favorite PK attack of Starmen. Fortunately, the Franklin Badge just reflects the attack back at the attacker. Unfortunately, there's only two in the entire game, meaning that one party member will be vulnerable at all times. On the plus side, Ana's own PK Beam works frequently on late game enemies.
** PK Fire Ω destroys all enemies instantly.
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: In a convention to be continued throughout the series, the FinalBoss [[spoiler:Giygas]] cannot be defeated by ordinary methods. You must [[spoiler:sing Queen Mary's song eleven times to subdue him]].
* TheOverworld: One thing notable about this game is, for its day, [[http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/maps/eb0map_big.png its overworld was]] ''freaking massive'', and unlike VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda, it wasn't divided into separate squares. One could even argue it's bigger than ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'''s overworlds! It's pretty easy to get lost in it, but overall falls into somewhere around [[SlidingScaleOfLinearityVSOpenness scale four and five of openness.]]
* PaletteSwap: As an early RPG, nearly everywhere. Some palette swaps at least slightly modify the sprites by overlaying new graphics to make them seem different, such as adding a collar to the Wolf to make it a Stray Dog, or adding defects in the Old Robo to make it a Scrapper.
* PatchworkMap: This game is allegedly set in America, yet the desert is in the north and the arctic town is in the south -- the opposite of the real country's geography. The desert is also right next to the ocean, with nothing separating the two.
* ParentalAbandonment:
** Teddy is an orphan, and Ninten's father doesn't appear until the ending (and only in the unreleased English version and the CompilationRerelease).
** Also, all the missing parents of Easter.
** Also also, Lloyd's parents are essentially handwaved. His father shows up in/as a trashcan at a remote location in a swamp nowhere near where Lloyd goes to school, and all he does is ask the player's name - no story exposition of even a minor variety.
*** However, in the novel adaption, his father is said to be in the swamp because he is looking for a special plant to cure a fatal illness Lloyd's mother has, and that appears to be another reason Lloyd joins Ninten.
** And let's not forget [[spoiler: Queen Mary / Maria to Giegue / Giygas, which is what sets the plot of the game in motion. Needless to say, this is a [[TheFarmerAndTheViper far more]] [[SelfMadeOrphan complicated]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone example]] of this trope...]]
* PlotCoupon: The Eight Melodies.
* PlotlineDeath: [[spoiler:Eve. For players of the original Family Computer version, Teddy remains bedridden and silent after/if Lloyd returns, so the general assumption is that he didn't survive. However, in later versions of the game, they make it clear that Teddy lives regardless.]]
* {{Poltergeist}}: At the start of the game one of these attack your house.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: Like every game in the series.
* ThePowerOfLove[=/=]ThePowerOfRock:
** [[spoiler:Singing Maria's lullaby to Giygas is what defeats him. And it doesn't just defeat him: in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', it is found that it drove him absolutely insane.]]
** After reading a bit of description, it seems there's a bit more to it than that. [[spoiler:Giygas apparently still harbored affection toward Maria, but was basically forced to detach from her and invade the Earth as per his people's orders. Considering Maria basically raised the poor little guy since he was a baby, any reminders of her would create something of a conflict of interest, and make attacking her people (or more specifically, one of her descendants) quite a bit harder, don't you think?]]
* PuzzleBoss: The three giant robots are far too powerful for the party to beat on their own, so they have to acquire outside help.
* RandomEncounters: Good ''grief'', there's a lot of them! The world of ''MOTHER'' is massive and would be quite fun to explore if it weren't for these. Although you can't really blame it because it's a Family Computer game, so technical limitations at the time made PreexistingEncounters impossible. This gets less aggravating once you get access to Magicant, and more importantly, Repel Rings which prevent fights against weaker enemies.
* RecurringRiff: Several, including "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)", the battle theme for the [[NewAgeRetroHippie Hippie]], and "Eight Melodies (Queen Mary's Lullabye)", occur frequently and are used in the later games.
* RedShirt: The Flying Man
* SdrawkcabName: In the unproduced localization, the Raeb Yddet (and by extension, the Sky Yddet) in [[{{Wackyland}} Magicant]].
* SavageWolves: The Wolf, Silver Wolf and Lone Wolf enemies. Also, Stray Dog.
* SequelHook: In the English prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'', there is a PostCreditsScene of Ninten's father calling him, saying that 'something's come up'. It's an unusual example in that obviously [[VideoGame/EarthBound there]] [[{{VideoGame/Mother3}} were]] sequels, but neither followed up on this. It has been argued that the line was meant to refer to Ninten's father remaining physically absent in Ninten's life even after all is said and done, but it should be noted that this replaces the original game's "ToBeContinued..."
* SequenceBreaking: Besides generally grinding to do things out of order, you can completely skip the whole thing with Teddy if you don't really think about trying to meet him, and are just looking for the melodies without using the ticket. You can carry this out to such an extreme that you never even hear his name. The same goes for Ana.
** Alternatively, you can recruit him and leave Lloyd in the dust for the rest of the game with further sequence breaking, if you so choose.
** Via an exploit involving Bread Crumbs, it's shown that Pippi is the only mandatory recruit in the game (despite having a temporary slot); you don't even need Lloyd if you carefully glitch your way into Magican's farewell scene and open the final area with the Sing command, although he is necessary in normal gameplay to progress the story.
* ShoutOut:
** Ninten fights a Kewpie doll in the beginning of the game.
** Two of the towns in the prototype (Merrysville and Spookane) are named after cities in Washington State, where Nintendo of America is located (Marysville and Spokane, respectively.)
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: An interview with Shigesato Itoi confirmed that the last parts of the game, specifically Holy Loly Mountain, had not been tested sufficiently for balance issues.
* SoundtrackDissonance:
** Ninten and Ana have a dance near the end of the game, to relax (and to show them growing fond of each other). The tune that plays, "Fallin' Love", is ''extremely'' melancholy.
** The 8-bit version of the song is, but the soundtrack version has a typical romantic adult contemporary feel to it, but with no lyrics.
* SpellLevels: The tiers for PSI powers are given by the Greek letters α, β, γ, and Ω.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official romanization in Japan, the international fanbase used the second for quite a while, and ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' and the ''Earthbound Beginnings'' trailer use the third. While the middle spelling has been used the longest in the fanbase and is still the preference in certain circles, the last spelling is more likely since the term ''roido'' comes from silent film star Harold Lloyd (after his usual round glasses).
** Ana/Anna. Despite the name being closer in katakana spelling and pronunciation to the former, the latter was preferred in Japanese merchandise. However, ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' uses the former.
** Also shown by [[spoiler:the main villain - his name is written "giigu" in katakana, written as "Giegue" in the localization, and is finally shown to actually be "Gyiyg" in the sequel. Eventually, Nintendo just made up a new English name for him ("Giygas"). But before that, he was apparently going to be called ''The Geek''.]]
* SpinningOutOfHere: The Teleportation spell is executed by having the character move around while accelerating rapidly before zooming off; because colliding with anything stops the teleport, the better the player is at moving in a small circle, the more places he or she can teleport from.
* StandardStatusEffects: Subverted at one point, as Ninten has asthma and exhaust from the truck enemies can render him unable to act unless someone uses an inhaler on him.
* StuffBlowingUp: One of the first things that Loid does after joining your party is blow up the science lab.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: It's strongly implied that [[spoiler:Giygas]] and his kind are this. On top of being masters of psychic powers, they can hurt you in ways that can't be explained or understood by anyone, even other psychics, and are incapable of receiving physical damage. Emotional damage, on the other hand...
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Eve is no match for R•7038XX, but she explodes when defeated, instantly destroying the foe and leaving behind a MacGuffin.]]
* TankGoodness: A rental. Lloyd shows up in another tank to defeat the second giant robot.
* ATasteOfPower: The game does this ''twice'', both at the end of the game. Once with [[spoiler:Teddy]], who can actually defeat the DemonicSpiders on Holy Loly Mountain without much LevelGrinding, and [[spoiler:who goes away if you activate a certain cutscene.]] The second time is with [[spoiler:Eve, who joins you in the middle of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, is insanely powerful, and can defeat any of the RandomEncounters in one blow. But if you backtrack, or go forward past a certain point, you are forced to fight a robot that Eve sacrifices itself to defeat.]]
* ThemeNaming: Pretty much every location is named after a holiday. In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, {{Woolseyism}} changed these names because the translator thought they were silly names. When Tomato was doing the fan translation of the ''MOTHER 1+2'' version, he agreed with the sentiment but kept the holiday-themed names anyway.
* ThrivingGhostTown: Averted. This game's towns are the biggest in the whole series, and seem to extend past the cluster of houses into the vast rural areas. Most of the houses' doors are locked, however, preventing the KleptomaniacHero (or a thief) from getting in.
* TookALevelInBadass: You first find Lloyd in a trash can hiding from bullies. Later, he shows up in a tank to destroy a giant robot that your party could not hope to defeat otherwise.
* TouchedByVorlons: The details are left vague, but something definitely like this happened between George and the aliens, possibly opening the door to humankind getting technology and/or PSI. [[spoiler:And he did it completely without the aliens' permission.]]
* TrailOfBreadCrumbs: You can eat the Bread item to recover some HP. However, if you Use it instead, you get Crumbs, and by using Crumbs, you return to the spot you were at when you used the bread. Handy!
* TwelveBarBlues: The Hippie battle theme uses this chord progression.
* TwoPartTrilogy: Aside from PSI and [[spoiler:Giygas]], there is barely any evidence that the world of this game is the same world as ''VideoGame/EarthBound''. This game was hit especially hard, as despite the rerelease, it only had publicity back in its day. The CompilationRerelease's commercials focused mainly on the second game, showing only a very brief clip of this one, which, while this game got a significant update, the only thing that was changed from the second game, besides the inevitable quality drop in porting from SuperFamicom to GameBoyAdvance, was a few bug fixes and an incredibly minor rewrite.
* UpdatedRerelease[=/=]CompilationRerelease: This game and [[VideoGame/EarthBound its sequel]] have been compiled into a single cartridge and rereleased for the GameBoyAdvance under the title ''MOTHER 1+2'' ([[NoExportForYou only in Japan, of course]]).
* UselessUsefulSpell: Averted with PK Beam γ, which one-shots a majority of random encounters, and PK Fire Ω, which '''instantly nukes''' every single random encounter in the entire game. [[BraggingRightsReward You have to severely grind for the latter, however.]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Dear God, the Flying Men. Seeing the graves next to their former home is just heartbreaking when you realize that if you hadn't come along they would still be alive.
* {{Wackyland}}: Former {{Trope Namer|s}}, though the sequel's Magicant is most likely what was envisioned when it was named.
** Though technically they're not the same place; in this game it was [[spoiler:a manifestation of Maria's mind trying to regain her memories,]] while the one in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' was a representation of Ness's mind after completing the Sound Stone's melody.
* WeaponsGradeVocabulary: Enemies can "attack" with Threatening Words and Swear Words, both of which decrease someone's Fight stat. Your party can get some words of their own to "attack" with, but they do nothing.
* [[spoiler:WeCanRuleTogether: Giygas gives Ninten alone a chance to board his mothership, [[ButThouMust although the game never gives you a chance to accept or get a word in edgewise]].]]
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: [[MrsRobinson Mrs. Rosemary]] renames her son [[VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink Buggerror]] after Ninten. Evidently she likes his namesake better than her own son.
* WestminsterChimes: The basis for the background music of Tinkle Elementary School.
* WeWillMeetAgain: [[spoiler:Giygas promises to meet Ninten again before he leaves.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Accepting a drink from a woman in the Live House will cause a cop to show up, chastise Ninten for drinking under age, and arrest him and his friends. The cop also confiscates his weapon and you need to ''buy it back''.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Giygas, now that you know his backstory.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:As true of Giygas' attacks in this one as in the sequel, though at least he has a physical body here.]]
--> In the prototype: [[spoiler:"The form of Giegue's attack was inexplicable!"]]
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: In the GBA remake, when Teddy, Ninten and Ana hear a robot monster approaching, Teddy says, "You've got to be kidding me!", and a HopelessBossFight ensues.
* ZeroEffortBoss: Before entering Duncan Factory, you must defeat its guardian: a Stray Dog.
-----
->''No crying until the end.''
to:
[[caption-width-right:320:''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 No crying until the end.]]'']]
->''Take a melody\\
Simple as can be\\
Give it some words and\\
Sweet harmony\\
Raise your voices\\
All day long now, love grows strong now,\\
Sing a melody of\\
Love, oh love''
In the late 1980s, ShigesatoItoi got ahold of ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', the first video game he ever played. Though he definitely enjoyed the game, as a professional writer, he couldn't help but be intrigued about the game's use of the unconventional medium to tell a story and say to himself, "I could do better". Several meetings with people from Creator/{{Nintendo}} and a [[Music/TheBeatles John-Lennon-inspired]] name later, that's exactly what he did.
'''Mother''', also known as '''Earth Bound''' in the unreleased NES prototype, '''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''' in its English Virtual Console release, and '''[=EarthBound=] Zero''' within the fandom, is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' trilogy, and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
Calling his dad after settling this, Ninten learns that psychic powers run in the family, and to learn more about it he has to get his great-grandfather's diary and discover what happened many years ago, including what happened to his great-grandmother Maria. Meanwhile, other strange phenomena are happening across the country, and it soon becomes apparent that an alien force is at work. Just what connection does Ninten's family have with the alien invasion?
In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version contains a mix of technical enhancements, {{bowdleri|se}}zation, modified maps to reduce difficulty, some altered graphics, and a significant lengthening of the rather abrupt ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorized to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as "''[[FanNickname Earthbound Zero]]''" to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', this game was re-released in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was again [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally.
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally gave the game an official English release as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the translation originally intended for the prototype English release, but there is no official confirmation as of yet.
-----
!!This game has examples of:
* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The max level cap is 99, but you're likely to be around the early thirties when you beat the game, possibly early forties with Ninten if you deliberately level grinded for Ana's PSI Fire Omega.
* AffectionateParody: As noted above, the game was inspired by ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''. Thing is, it's set in a (then-)modern {{Eagleland}} as opposed to a generic fantasy setting. Instead of magic, you have PsychicPowers. Instead of swords and bows you have bats and slingshots. Monsters are not killed but instead regain their senses, and said monsters include things like dogs and hippies. The juxtaposition of classical EasternRPG mechanics and tropes with the modern setting contributes to the surreal quality of the game.
* TheAllAmericanBoy: Ninten.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: [[spoiler:Giygas]] talks directly to Ninten's party when he appears. However, it makes sense in-universe because [[spoiler:Maria raised Giygas]], so it's likely [[spoiler:she]] taught [[spoiler:Giygas]] the human tongue.
* AllThereInTheManual: Not much about the character personalities are stated in-game, but in the supplemental "Mother Encyclopedia" it says many additional things about Ninten, Lloyd, Ana and Teddy that you could never find out just by playing the game. It is in Japanese, but was [[FanTranslation translated into English by a fan.]]
* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: If you're not Japanese and have heard of this game, you probably know that [[spoiler:Giygas is the main villain. It actually isn't revealed ''at all'' until you get the final MacGuffin at the end of the DiscOneFinalDungeon, and most of the plot is just you going around the world to learn a song for an ailing queen who you met after a bunch of weird stuff started happening in your hometown. Even the game guides have no information on Giygas, and he has no official art.]]
* AnachronismStew: The game supposedly takes place in TheEighties, and while there is some stuff that is relevant for the time such as pay phones, [=ATMs=], and transit trains, a lot of the setting is notably far more rural in many areas and certain house designs look very old, to the point it somehow feels more like a mishmash between TheEighties and TheGayNineties.
* AnimateInanimateObject: Your journey starts off with you being attacked by one of two moving lamps. Then you fight your first boss, a possessed doll, to get your first MacGuffin. The things you fight along the way just get stranger from here.
* AnotherDimension: [[WackyLand Magicant]] certainly counts as this.
* AntiPoopSocking: Whenever you save your game, your dad will urge you to turn off the game and go to sleep. If you play long enough in one sitting, he'll call you out of nowhere on some sort of telepathic phone to pester you about it some more. He will also allow you the opportunity to save and quit ''wherever you happen to be'' when he calls you this way.
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Once you show all eight melodies to Maria in Magicant, she disappears, taking the entirety of Magicant with her]].
* AwardBaitSong:
** "Pollyanna" in its full version (not the 8-bit theme, obviously), which later went on to become the BootstrappedTheme for the entire ''MOTHER'' series.
** The Eight Melodies. "[[ThePowerOfLove Take a melody, simple as can be, give it some words, and sweet harmony. Raise your voices, all day long now love grows strong now, sing a melody of, love ah love.]]" The vocal version even has a CherubicChoir!
** The entire soundtrack album for ''MOTHER'' is made of these.
* BadassAdorable: Let's just sum up the three main characters as this. Okay, Lloyd [[TookALevelInBadass took a while for it to shine through]], but still.
* BearsAreBadNews: The real-world bear enemy and its polar and grizzly derivatives. The latter variant can knock you out in one hit.
** If you use the Check command on them, you'll notice the localization team took a few pages from... um, {{Literature/Goldilocks}}...
* BeefGate:
** Once you unlock the Paradise Line, it's possible to go ''anywhere'' in the Overworld at that point. Heck, it's even possible to reach places before unlocking it by travelling the train tunnels. However, while this ''is'' possible, it's a very, ''very'' unwise thing to do. Doesn't stop most people from SequenceBreaking to get Ana earlier than they're suppose to.
** There's also a big difference between when you ''can'' wake the dragon in Magicant and when you ''should'' wake it. More experienced players know to wait until they have Teddy for his raw damage output before fighting it.
* BigBad: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: After a robot nearly defeats the party (and severely injures [[spoiler:Teddy]]), Lloyd shows up and destroys it. With a ''tank''.
* BittersweetEnding: [[RevisedEnding According to the ''Earth Bound'' prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'']], the strange happenings in the world are put to an immediate cease, things quickly return to normal, [[spoiler:and Teddy became a singer]]. However, [[spoiler:Magicant vanished, along with Maria, who never got a chance to reconcile with her adopted son. Not to mention that Giygas is still out there, somewhere...]]
* [[GirlOfMyDreams Boy of My Dreams]]: In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, Ana says that she fell in love with Ninten as soon as she started seeing him in her dreams. This line doesn't exist in ''MOTHER'' and ''MOTHER 1+2'', however.
* {{Bowdlerise}}: The English translation got quite a few changes as a result of Nintendo's censorship policies at the time. Infamously, blood was edited out of sprites, and cigarettes were removed from the battle sprites of the Crow and Bla-Bla Gang (and the knife Teddy was holding), the nipples on the female suit of armors' breasts were replaced with smooth shines, and crosses and religious text were also removed. Other changes were made to avoid lawsuits, such as some overworld characters lessening an unintentional resemblance to ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' and a mention of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' was changed to ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Super Mario Bros. 7]]''. Some stuff got past the radar, like the strip club in Thanksgiving and doctors saying "go off and ''die'' then" if you refuse their services. All of these changes were also in ''MOTHER 1+2'', with the strip club entirely removed in ''MOTHER 1+2'' and the ''Dragon Quest'' reference was further changed to "that game" as opposed to a fictional ''Mario'' title.
** It should be noted that Itoi was quite involved in the localization of this game and every {{Bowdleri|se}}zation and {{Woolseyism}} that occurred had to have his approval. This may also explain their use in ''MOTHER 1+2''.
* ChekhovsGun: There's a war veteran with a tank in Advent Desert. If you do a sidequest, you get to ride it, and he warns you to be careful with it because it's his most prized possession. [[TropeTelegraphing Inevitably]], it breaks, and when you get to Valentine you have to pay him to replace it. Also, in a sidequest that you can do later, Lloyd gets a BigDamnHeroes moment with a tank. What other tank could he possibly get access to? If you do both those sidequests, in order, it's ChekhovsBoomerang.
* CherubicChoir: The vocal version of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrtM4onLQ1I The Eight Melodies]]. Also used in the 1989 Japanese [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUN7QAnMp0 commercial.]]
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: [[spoiler:Giygas is defeated by singing Queen Mary's Lullaby to him, similar to how he's finally defeated in ''VideoGame/EarthBound''.]]
* CreepyDoll: The possessed doll in your sister's room.
* CriticalHit: The SMASH attack ignores all physical defense of the target, and does a lot more damage. However, enemies can perform these criticals with roughly the same chance as you. Since your party is generally much better defended than them, and you have to fight a lot of them, the chance of a defense-piercing hit becomes bad news for you.
* CrutchCharacter: The enemies on Holy Loly Mountain are so dangerous that Eve the robot is the only character that's strong enough to take them out quickly. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Eve doesn't remain in your party for long.]]
* CurtainCall: Done at the end of the game, all the characters and [=NPCs=] running along the bottom of the screen and looking towards the player before running back off.
* CuteBruiser: Pippi may not have the typical personality of this trope as far as we can tell, but she has the same level growths as Teddy. Shame you can't keep her for long.
* DamselInDistress: [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Probably]] the only RPG in existence in which you have to rescue [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Pippi Longstocking]] from zombie gangsters.
* DanceOfRomance: An optional scene with Ninten and Ana alone inside the bedroom of a healer's house.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Though the fight ends before there's actually a winner, you can get Teddy to join this way.
* DefinitelyFinalDungeon: Holy Loly Mountain.
* {{Delinquent}}: Teddy, again.
* DifficultySpike: Advent Desert, and later Holy Loly Mountain, the latter of which is almost completely filled with DemonicSpiders.
** The Advent Desert enemies can actually be found even earlier in the game; in the train tunnels. This is to probably prevent you from going out to get Ana before Lloyd, but with luck (and more grinding), players can pass the tunnel alone, though this is very tough and time consuming.
* DrJerk: The doctors that restore your negative statuses... for a price.
-->'''Doctor (if you don't have enough money for his services)''': Fine, die all on your own. I'll phone a mortician.
* DubNameChange: The ''Earth Bound'' prototype changed many things, including most of the major locations: Mother's Day to Podunk, Choucream Zoo to City Zoo, Thanksgiving to Merrysville, Tinkle to Twinkle Elementary School, Santa Claus Station to Union Station, Halloween to Spookane, Advent Desert to Yucca Desert, Easter to Youngtown, Valentine to Ellay, and Holy Loly/Rolly Mountain to Mt./Mount Itoi. The reason for the holiday theme being removed was due to it being considered juvenile rather than welcoming. Some other changes were made to enemies, items, and weapons due to space constraints, censorship issues, or just plain preference. Since the sequel only had one returning translator in the localization team, most of these changes (like Giegue in favor of Gyiyg/Giygas) were dropped, but a few others (like Starman Junior over the Japanese original Son of Starman) were retained.
* DuelBoss: When you reach Valentine, you can do a dance show if you have a team of three (which you should by this point normally). Teddy will come onstage and demand to know who is beating up his gang, taking Ninten into a one-on-one fight with no PSI. It ends fairly quickly, to which he sends Lloyd off and [[DefeatMeansFriendship joins your team]].
* DummiedOut: Poison Needle and Stone of Origin were items that poisoned and stoned the enemy respectively, but in the final game they are just enemy attacks.
** There is another unused item called IC-Chip. It may or may not be related to the Memory Chip item which was added to ''Mother 1+2'', which is obtained after [[spoiler:Eve gets wrecked]]. The item is like a second Onyx Fish Hook, except that instead of Magicant, it transports you yo [[spoiler:Eve's wreckage]]. The IC-Chip is still in the GBA version, but DummiedOut.
** The item "Time Machine" was in the original Family Computer version of the game but DummiedOut of later versions. Just like the Real Rocket, which remained in later versions, it was an item for sale in the elementary school, but buying it triggered a humorous cutscene in which it is accidentally used to temporarily blow up the room.
* DungeonCrawling: Duncan Factory is an annoying large version of this that you are required to go in to continue the plot, although if you're lucky enough to find the right room you can find a second Franklin Badge.
* DungeonTown: Halloween, unlike other towns where enemy encounters stop upon entering, they can still happen even after entering the town limits.
* {{Eagleland}}: Although explicitly taking place in America, it clearly follows the trope, and is the predecessor to the {{Trope Namer|s}}.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This game is highly different from its two sequels due to having RandomEncounters, no rolling HP/PP meter, and generally different gameplay. Also, there are absolutely no Mr. Saturns, which went on to become the series mascot.
* EscapeBattleTechnique: The game has the 4-D Slip PSI, which allows a guaranteed escape from battle. Considering how brutal the late game enemies are, it's very helpful at times.
* EscapedAnimalRampage: This happened early in the game due to an alien invasion. It's your job to investigate and stop the aliens causing the trouble, all the while battling angry elephants and tigers.
* EscapeRope: The Bread Crumbs are used as this. You use Bread wherever you want to get back to, roam into a dungeon or elsewhere, then when you want to leave you follow the breadcrumbs all the way back where you placed them.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: It's [[spoiler:Giygas]]'s memories of his adoptive human mother, [[spoiler:Maria]], that end up defeating him.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: A singing monkey gives you a part of the MacGuffin. Later you get to go in a cave full of monkeys. A majority of them lie to you.
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: In the beginning of the game there is a zoo with a penguin pen. Later in the game you go in a cave full of monkeys (mentioned above) and there is a secret room with a single lost penguin in it. In addition, Ninten's favorite animal is said to be the penguin, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the encyclopedia]].
* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: Zombie mooks pop up in this game: in the early graveyard section, and in the Rosemary's house.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Your first enemies are two desk lamps and a baby doll. It just gets better from there.
* FanRemake:
** A [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-Remake/page/1/ remake of MOTHER]] is being developed as a GameMod for its [[VideoGame/EarthBound sequel]].
** There is a [[http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/Mother-25th-Anniversary-Edition/page/1 second, already complete Remake]] celebrating MOTHER's 25th anniversary, but unlike the first one, this is a remake redone in the original NES game, polishing sprites, the overworld, the script (using Tomato's newer translation) and enemies. It will also rebalance the enemies to tone down the game's difficulty, and make it less confusing to get around the swamp land and Duncan Factory.
** There have been multiple attempts by fans to remake this game, but all of them eventually disappeared from the internet after a while. A rather notable one was one that remade it using the graphical and gameplay styles of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', ala what the ''VideoGame/{{Mother 4}}'' fangame is doing. Unfortunately though, all that ever really came of this was few sprites of the main characters in ''Mother 3'' style, some updated remixes of the songs from the game, and a few long deleted gameplay videos.
* FanSequel: ''[[VideoGame/CognitiveDissonance MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance]]''.
* FinalDeath: The Flying Men. If one of them runs out of HP and faints, unlike your other party members, he cannot be revived at all.
* ForcedLevelGrinding: The [[PerfectlyCromulentWord grindiest]] game in the whole series.
** You even have to grind at the very start of the game to avoid getting annihilated by enemies ''right outside your house.''
* AFriendInNeed: Ninten finds Lloyd cowering in a garbage can from some bullies, who then tells him that all he really would like is to fire a rocket. Ninten then goes and gets him one, and they are buddies from then on.
* GalacticConqueror: [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
* GhostTown: The town Halloween after it became infested with monsters and ghosts.
* GirlishPigtails: Ana has these.
* GlobalCurrency:
** Justified as being dollars, and the game mostly taking place entirely in America... though don't ask how Magicant ''also'' takes them.
** The shopkeeper claims to want them just for novelty's sake.
* GuestStarPartyMember: Several, including Eve and Flying Man.
* GuideDangIt: The effects of PSI attacks. The game itself doesn't give you any clues on what most of them do. This becomes crucial when you need to figure out which "Healing" skill to use, because unlike in its successors, each level cures only a specific ailment. Plus, Healing γ doesn't revive unconscious party members; rather, it cures petrification.
** It's also fairly easy to miss several parts of the Eight Melodies if you don't pay attention to the environment. Most notably is in the early parts of the game is you can get it even before you rescue Pippi, which requires you bring the baby canary to Canary Village. However you only get told where Canary Village is once, by a random NPC, and how they tell you where it is is vague at best. Even if you bought the baby canary you may end up dragging it around for half the game and not realize that it's the key to the second melody.
* HauntedHouse: Rosemary's house.
* HellHotel: The hotel at the abandoned GhostTown, Halloween. The clerk at the hotel is actually a Starman in disguise, who, after paying a much cheaper than normal lodging fee, attacks you immediately the next morning.
* HeroicAlbino: Lloyd, who, despite being a kid, has white hair. It is also noteworthy to mention that albinos have poor eyesight, and Lloyd wears glasses.
** Lloyd could be leucistic instead, as albinos are intolerant to the ultraviolet radiation of sunlight.
* HopelessBossFight: The three giant robots. The first two can be destroyed only by a tank (and, with a tank, the first one is hopeless for R•7037) but, as you are tankless then, R•7038 will destroy your party (along with your strongest controllable character - permanently), but Lloyd shows up in the nick of time to destroy it with a tank. [[spoiler:When you fight R•7038XX, even your new giant robot buddy deals only about 50 points of damage, and only when the robot explodes does R•7038XX die. Fortunately, it doesn't try to attack you, it only attacks Eve. So you win, but for Eve, it was hopeless.]]
* HumansAreBastards: Giygas's reason for invading Earth and abducting people. [[spoiler:His adoptive father and Ninten's biological great-grandfather, George, had stolen information that could be used against his own kind. It is not directly stated what exactly this information is, but it is suggested to be either the advanced technology used to create Eve or possibly awakening latent psychic potential in certain humans - or both.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Similar to the sequel, almost nobody uses a real weapon. Teddy, a leader of a gang, is an exception: he can use a knife, a sword, and eventually a {{katana|sAreJustBetter}}!
* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Boomerang. Not only can anyone equip it, outside of Teddy, it's ''three fourths of the party's'' second strongest weapon. It's a bit pricy, costing one thousand and one hundred dollars, but once you have one for everyone, it becomes an effective DiscOneNuke.
* InnSecurity: In Halloween. $18 for a single night is very inexpensive! [[spoiler:...[[OhCrap Starman drew near!]]]]
* InstantAwesomeJustAddMecha: Eve.
* InterspeciesRomance: One of the monkeys in the Monkey Cave flirts with Ana.
* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: The final battle is at the peak of Holy Loly Mountain.
* JokeItem: The Swear Words and Words O' Love, both of which require a small sidequest, only display the words "I hate you!" and "I love you!" respectively, when used in battle. The Last Weapon [[FridgeBrilliance tells you how to reset the game]]. As is the Last Weapon, the Real Rocket is expensively buyable in the Tinkle laboratory. From the name of it, it seems like it would be quite a cut above the Bottle Rocket item. But if you buy it... It never even goes into your inventory.
-->'''Scientist''': "Oops! It's gone into orbit. A success... sort of."
** The Time Machine was an item in the original Family Computer version that did something similar when you bought it, but it was removed from later versions.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: The Katana is Teddy's InfinityPlusOneSword. It's better than the Sword.
* LevelGrinding: The player is forced to do this after recruiting Lloyd and Ana. They come at a low level, and so one naturally goes to Magicant to train them.
* LostInTranslation: [[spoiler:After Lloyd has his BigDamnHeroes moment in the tank while Ninten, Ana and Teddy were getting their butts handed to them by R•7038, due to how his speech was translated, it seems as if [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Loid accidentally shot Teddy, and that it's actually his fault that Teddy is critically injured]]. Turns out that, as shown in the ''MOTHER 1+2'' FanTranslation, Lloyd was supposed to instead say that he was too late.]] Of course, there are more moments than this, but this is one of the most notable.
-->'''Lloyd (''Earth Bound'' Proto Translation)''': "Shoot! I missed!"
-->'''Lloyd (''Mother 1+2'' Fan Translation)''': "Oh no! I'm too late!"
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Queen Mary is actually Ninten's great-grandmother, Maria, who shut herself off in the realm of her own mind, Magicant.]]
* MacGuffin: The Eight Melodies.
* MagicalMysteryDoors: Rosemary's house.
* MarketBasedTitle: ''Earthbound Beginnings'' in the long-overdue English release.
* TheMaze: There are a quite few. Duncan Factory, the Swamp, Holy Loly Mountain caves...
* MentalWorld: [[spoiler:Actually Maria's, not Ninten's.]]
* MetalSlime: The Red Snake.
* MinimalisticCoverArt
* MomentKiller: Right after Ninten and Ana confess their feelings (maybe), Teddy barges in the room and asks the pair why they are blushing. To be fair he does apologize for interrupting but did so because he was hearing odd noises outside, [[FromBadToWorse and then a giant robot attacks them]], mortally wounding Teddy. Real moodkiller there.
* MrsRobinson: The Rosemary mother. Somehow this stayed in the English prototype.
* NeverSayDie: Similar to the sequel, enemies "become quiet", "don't move anymore", etc. {{Justified|Trope}} because you're not using real weapons (for the most part) and you're fighting possessed animals and humans, as well as supernatural beings.
* NeverTrustATrailer: The Japanese TV spot had Ninten and Ana defeat R•7037 or one of its upgraded model robots. This is impossible to do in-game, where all of those enemies need heavy weaponry to defeat.
* NintendoHard: Lots and lots of RandomEncounters, generally unbalanced enemies, a huge proliferation of OneHitKill moves, and too much ForcedLevelGrinding make this the hardest game in the whole series. Itoi even admitted to completely skipping over balancing it out because by the end, everyone was so tired.
* NoEnding: The original release ended with [[spoiler:Giygas, defeated, leaving in his spaceship, the party solemnly looking back at the player one by one, and the credits playing in the black sky. It didn't explicitly tie up any loose ends and left some FridgeHorror / NoEndorHolocaust. The prototype English version and later the GBA re-release significantly extended the ending, although it automatically assumes that the player recruited all characters. Given the game's non-linear structure, it's debatable if this is truly an improvement.]]
* NostalgicMusicbox: The ending tune starts and ends with a music box rendition of the Eight Melodies.
* NotDrawnToScale: If the surrounding panorama is to be believed, the rooftop of the Tinkle School is several hundred stories off the ground - [[FridgeBrilliance then again, maybe that's just what it looks like to Ninten...]]
* OminousMusicBoxTune: The first of the Eight Melodies is a music box hidden in Ninten's sister's formerly possessed naked doll.
* OneHitKill: PK Beam γ, a favorite PK attack of Starmen. Fortunately, the Franklin Badge just reflects the attack back at the attacker. Unfortunately, there's only two in the entire game, meaning that one party member will be vulnerable at all times. On the plus side, Ana's own PK Beam works frequently on late game enemies.
** PK Fire Ω destroys all enemies instantly.
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: In a convention to be continued throughout the series, the FinalBoss [[spoiler:Giygas]] cannot be defeated by ordinary methods. You must [[spoiler:sing Queen Mary's song eleven times to subdue him]].
* TheOverworld: One thing notable about this game is, for its day, [[http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/maps/eb0map_big.png its overworld was]] ''freaking massive'', and unlike VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda, it wasn't divided into separate squares. One could even argue it's bigger than ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'''s overworlds! It's pretty easy to get lost in it, but overall falls into somewhere around [[SlidingScaleOfLinearityVSOpenness scale four and five of openness.]]
* PaletteSwap: As an early RPG, nearly everywhere. Some palette swaps at least slightly modify the sprites by overlaying new graphics to make them seem different, such as adding a collar to the Wolf to make it a Stray Dog, or adding defects in the Old Robo to make it a Scrapper.
* PatchworkMap: This game is allegedly set in America, yet the desert is in the north and the arctic town is in the south -- the opposite of the real country's geography. The desert is also right next to the ocean, with nothing separating the two.
* ParentalAbandonment:
** Teddy is an orphan, and Ninten's father doesn't appear until the ending (and only in the unreleased English version and the CompilationRerelease).
** Also, all the missing parents of Easter.
** Also also, Lloyd's parents are essentially handwaved. His father shows up in/as a trashcan at a remote location in a swamp nowhere near where Lloyd goes to school, and all he does is ask the player's name - no story exposition of even a minor variety.
*** However, in the novel adaption, his father is said to be in the swamp because he is looking for a special plant to cure a fatal illness Lloyd's mother has, and that appears to be another reason Lloyd joins Ninten.
** And let's not forget [[spoiler: Queen Mary / Maria to Giegue / Giygas, which is what sets the plot of the game in motion. Needless to say, this is a [[TheFarmerAndTheViper far more]] [[SelfMadeOrphan complicated]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone example]] of this trope...]]
* PlotCoupon: The Eight Melodies.
* PlotlineDeath: [[spoiler:Eve. For players of the original Family Computer version, Teddy remains bedridden and silent after/if Lloyd returns, so the general assumption is that he didn't survive. However, in later versions of the game, they make it clear that Teddy lives regardless.]]
* {{Poltergeist}}: At the start of the game one of these attack your house.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: Like every game in the series.
* ThePowerOfLove[=/=]ThePowerOfRock:
** [[spoiler:Singing Maria's lullaby to Giygas is what defeats him. And it doesn't just defeat him: in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', it is found that it drove him absolutely insane.]]
** After reading a bit of description, it seems there's a bit more to it than that. [[spoiler:Giygas apparently still harbored affection toward Maria, but was basically forced to detach from her and invade the Earth as per his people's orders. Considering Maria basically raised the poor little guy since he was a baby, any reminders of her would create something of a conflict of interest, and make attacking her people (or more specifically, one of her descendants) quite a bit harder, don't you think?]]
* PuzzleBoss: The three giant robots are far too powerful for the party to beat on their own, so they have to acquire outside help.
* RandomEncounters: Good ''grief'', there's a lot of them! The world of ''MOTHER'' is massive and would be quite fun to explore if it weren't for these. Although you can't really blame it because it's a Family Computer game, so technical limitations at the time made PreexistingEncounters impossible. This gets less aggravating once you get access to Magicant, and more importantly, Repel Rings which prevent fights against weaker enemies.
* RecurringRiff: Several, including "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)", the battle theme for the [[NewAgeRetroHippie Hippie]], and "Eight Melodies (Queen Mary's Lullabye)", occur frequently and are used in the later games.
* RedShirt: The Flying Man
* SdrawkcabName: In the unproduced localization, the Raeb Yddet (and by extension, the Sky Yddet) in [[{{Wackyland}} Magicant]].
* SavageWolves: The Wolf, Silver Wolf and Lone Wolf enemies. Also, Stray Dog.
* SequelHook: In the English prototype and ''MOTHER 1+2'', there is a PostCreditsScene of Ninten's father calling him, saying that 'something's come up'. It's an unusual example in that obviously [[VideoGame/EarthBound there]] [[{{VideoGame/Mother3}} were]] sequels, but neither followed up on this. It has been argued that the line was meant to refer to Ninten's father remaining physically absent in Ninten's life even after all is said and done, but it should be noted that this replaces the original game's "ToBeContinued..."
* SequenceBreaking: Besides generally grinding to do things out of order, you can completely skip the whole thing with Teddy if you don't really think about trying to meet him, and are just looking for the melodies without using the ticket. You can carry this out to such an extreme that you never even hear his name. The same goes for Ana.
** Alternatively, you can recruit him and leave Lloyd in the dust for the rest of the game with further sequence breaking, if you so choose.
** Via an exploit involving Bread Crumbs, it's shown that Pippi is the only mandatory recruit in the game (despite having a temporary slot); you don't even need Lloyd if you carefully glitch your way into Magican's farewell scene and open the final area with the Sing command, although he is necessary in normal gameplay to progress the story.
* ShoutOut:
** Ninten fights a Kewpie doll in the beginning of the game.
** Two of the towns in the prototype (Merrysville and Spookane) are named after cities in Washington State, where Nintendo of America is located (Marysville and Spokane, respectively.)
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: An interview with Shigesato Itoi confirmed that the last parts of the game, specifically Holy Loly Mountain, had not been tested sufficiently for balance issues.
* SoundtrackDissonance:
** Ninten and Ana have a dance near the end of the game, to relax (and to show them growing fond of each other). The tune that plays, "Fallin' Love", is ''extremely'' melancholy.
** The 8-bit version of the song is, but the soundtrack version has a typical romantic adult contemporary feel to it, but with no lyrics.
* SpellLevels: The tiers for PSI powers are given by the Greek letters α, β, γ, and Ω.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official romanization in Japan, the international fanbase used the second for quite a while, and ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' and the ''Earthbound Beginnings'' trailer use the third. While the middle spelling has been used the longest in the fanbase and is still the preference in certain circles, the last spelling is more likely since the term ''roido'' comes from silent film star Harold Lloyd (after his usual round glasses).
** Ana/Anna. Despite the name being closer in katakana spelling and pronunciation to the former, the latter was preferred in Japanese merchandise. However, ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' uses the former.
** Also shown by [[spoiler:the main villain - his name is written "giigu" in katakana, written as "Giegue" in the localization, and is finally shown to actually be "Gyiyg" in the sequel. Eventually, Nintendo just made up a new English name for him ("Giygas"). But before that, he was apparently going to be called ''The Geek''.]]
* SpinningOutOfHere: The Teleportation spell is executed by having the character move around while accelerating rapidly before zooming off; because colliding with anything stops the teleport, the better the player is at moving in a small circle, the more places he or she can teleport from.
* StandardStatusEffects: Subverted at one point, as Ninten has asthma and exhaust from the truck enemies can render him unable to act unless someone uses an inhaler on him.
* StuffBlowingUp: One of the first things that Loid does after joining your party is blow up the science lab.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: It's strongly implied that [[spoiler:Giygas]] and his kind are this. On top of being masters of psychic powers, they can hurt you in ways that can't be explained or understood by anyone, even other psychics, and are incapable of receiving physical damage. Emotional damage, on the other hand...
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Eve is no match for R•7038XX, but she explodes when defeated, instantly destroying the foe and leaving behind a MacGuffin.]]
* TankGoodness: A rental. Lloyd shows up in another tank to defeat the second giant robot.
* ATasteOfPower: The game does this ''twice'', both at the end of the game. Once with [[spoiler:Teddy]], who can actually defeat the DemonicSpiders on Holy Loly Mountain without much LevelGrinding, and [[spoiler:who goes away if you activate a certain cutscene.]] The second time is with [[spoiler:Eve, who joins you in the middle of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, is insanely powerful, and can defeat any of the RandomEncounters in one blow. But if you backtrack, or go forward past a certain point, you are forced to fight a robot that Eve sacrifices itself to defeat.]]
* ThemeNaming: Pretty much every location is named after a holiday. In the ''Earth Bound'' prototype, {{Woolseyism}} changed these names because the translator thought they were silly names. When Tomato was doing the fan translation of the ''MOTHER 1+2'' version, he agreed with the sentiment but kept the holiday-themed names anyway.
* ThrivingGhostTown: Averted. This game's towns are the biggest in the whole series, and seem to extend past the cluster of houses into the vast rural areas. Most of the houses' doors are locked, however, preventing the KleptomaniacHero (or a thief) from getting in.
* TookALevelInBadass: You first find Lloyd in a trash can hiding from bullies. Later, he shows up in a tank to destroy a giant robot that your party could not hope to defeat otherwise.
* TouchedByVorlons: The details are left vague, but something definitely like this happened between George and the aliens, possibly opening the door to humankind getting technology and/or PSI. [[spoiler:And he did it completely without the aliens' permission.]]
* TrailOfBreadCrumbs: You can eat the Bread item to recover some HP. However, if you Use it instead, you get Crumbs, and by using Crumbs, you return to the spot you were at when you used the bread. Handy!
* TwelveBarBlues: The Hippie battle theme uses this chord progression.
* TwoPartTrilogy: Aside from PSI and [[spoiler:Giygas]], there is barely any evidence that the world of this game is the same world as ''VideoGame/EarthBound''. This game was hit especially hard, as despite the rerelease, it only had publicity back in its day. The CompilationRerelease's commercials focused mainly on the second game, showing only a very brief clip of this one, which, while this game got a significant update, the only thing that was changed from the second game, besides the inevitable quality drop in porting from SuperFamicom to GameBoyAdvance, was a few bug fixes and an incredibly minor rewrite.
* UpdatedRerelease[=/=]CompilationRerelease: This game and [[VideoGame/EarthBound its sequel]] have been compiled into a single cartridge and rereleased for the GameBoyAdvance under the title ''MOTHER 1+2'' ([[NoExportForYou only in Japan, of course]]).
* UselessUsefulSpell: Averted with PK Beam γ, which one-shots a majority of random encounters, and PK Fire Ω, which '''instantly nukes''' every single random encounter in the entire game. [[BraggingRightsReward You have to severely grind for the latter, however.]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Dear God, the Flying Men. Seeing the graves next to their former home is just heartbreaking when you realize that if you hadn't come along they would still be alive.
* {{Wackyland}}: Former {{Trope Namer|s}}, though the sequel's Magicant is most likely what was envisioned when it was named.
** Though technically they're not the same place; in this game it was [[spoiler:a manifestation of Maria's mind trying to regain her memories,]] while the one in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' was a representation of Ness's mind after completing the Sound Stone's melody.
* WeaponsGradeVocabulary: Enemies can "attack" with Threatening Words and Swear Words, both of which decrease someone's Fight stat. Your party can get some words of their own to "attack" with, but they do nothing.
* [[spoiler:WeCanRuleTogether: Giygas gives Ninten alone a chance to board his mothership, [[ButThouMust although the game never gives you a chance to accept or get a word in edgewise]].]]
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: [[MrsRobinson Mrs. Rosemary]] renames her son [[VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink Buggerror]] after Ninten. Evidently she likes his namesake better than her own son.
* WestminsterChimes: The basis for the background music of Tinkle Elementary School.
* WeWillMeetAgain: [[spoiler:Giygas promises to meet Ninten again before he leaves.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Accepting a drink from a woman in the Live House will cause a cop to show up, chastise Ninten for drinking under age, and arrest him and his friends. The cop also confiscates his weapon and you need to ''buy it back''.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Giygas, now that you know his backstory.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:As true of Giygas' attacks in this one as in the sequel, though at least he has a physical body here.]]
--> In the prototype: [[spoiler:"The form of Giegue's attack was inexplicable!"]]
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: In the GBA remake, when Teddy, Ninten and Ana hear a robot monster approaching, Teddy says, "You've got to be kidding me!", and a HopelessBossFight ensues.
* ZeroEffortBoss: Before entering Duncan Factory, you must defeat its guardian: a Stray Dog.
-----
->''No crying until the end.''
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* MarketBasedTitle: ''Earthbound Beginnings'' in the long-overdue English release.
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Rewriting the opening to list all four titles the name is known by.
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''MOTHER'' (Called "Earthbound Beginnings" in its English Virtual Console release) is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of [[VideoGame/{{MOTHER}} a series]] and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''{{VideoGame/MOTHER 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
to:
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In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version, named ''Earth Bound'' (with a space, unlike [[VideoGame/EarthBound the more famous bearer of the name]]), contains a mix of technical enhancements, {{bowdleri|se}}zation, modified maps to reduce difficulty, some altered graphics, and a significant lengthening of the rather abrupt ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorized to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as "''[[FanNickname Earthbound Zero]]''" to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel (and because the Japanese title was deemed "boring" by the hacker). This page was located at the name "''[=EarthBound=] [[SequelNumberSnarl Zero]]''" for years, but was eventually moved to its current location.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER 3}}'', this game was rereleased in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally. In 2011, the ''MOTHER 1'' portion of the game received [[http://mother12.earthboundcentral.com/ a fan translation]] from the same team behind the ''MOTHER 3'' translation, providing a much more polished take on the script than the rather barebones and dry ''"Earth Bound"'' translation. [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/some-mother-1-and-earthbound-zero-text-differences/ A small comparison of these translations can be viewed here.]]
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''Earthbound Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the prototype translation originally intended for it's English release, but no official confirmation as of yet.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER 3}}'', this game was rereleased in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally. In 2011, the ''MOTHER 1'' portion of the game received [[http://mother12.earthboundcentral.com/ a fan translation]] from the same team behind the ''MOTHER 3'' translation, providing a much more polished take on the script than the rather barebones and dry ''"Earth Bound"'' translation. [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/some-mother-1-and-earthbound-zero-text-differences/ A small comparison of these translations can be viewed here.]]
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''Earthbound Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the prototype translation originally intended for it's English release, but no official confirmation as of yet.
to:
In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version, named ''Earth Bound'' (with a space, unlike [[VideoGame/EarthBound the more famous bearer of the name]]), version contains a mix of technical enhancements, {{bowdleri|se}}zation, modified maps to reduce difficulty, some altered graphics, and a significant lengthening of the rather abrupt ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorized to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as "''[[FanNickname Earthbound Zero]]''" to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel (and because the Japanese title was deemed "boring" by the hacker). This page was located at the name "''[=EarthBound=] [[SequelNumberSnarl Zero]]''" for years, but was eventually moved to its current location.
sequel.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of''VideoGame/{{MOTHER ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', this game was rereleased re-released in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[CompilationRerelease MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the GameBoyAdvance; it contained almost all of the modifications of the NES ''"Earth Bound"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal and that not all the work had gone to waste. The port was again [[NoExportForYou only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally. In 2011, the ''MOTHER 1'' portion of the game received [[http://mother12.earthboundcentral.com/ a fan translation]] from the same team behind the ''MOTHER 3'' translation, providing a much more polished take on the script than the rather barebones and dry ''"Earth Bound"'' translation. [[http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/03/some-mother-1-and-earthbound-zero-text-differences/ A small comparison of these translations can be viewed here.]]
internationally.
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finallyreleased ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories gave the game an official English release as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''Earthbound ''[=EarthBound=] Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the prototype translation originally intended for it's the prototype English release, but there is no official confirmation as of yet.
In the lead-up to the [[DevelopmentHell long-awaited]] release of
On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally
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* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The max level cap is ninety nine, but you're likely to be around the early thirties when you beat the game, possibly early forties with Ninten if you deliberately level grinded for Ana's PSI Fire Omega.
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* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The max level cap is ninety nine, 99, but you're likely to be around the early thirties when you beat the game, possibly early forties with Ninten if you deliberately level grinded for Ana's PSI Fire Omega.
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No Mother isn\'t a prequel, it\'s the first game of the series and Earthbound is the second so Start Of Darkness doesn\'t apply. Also sinkhole and Example Indentation
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* [[AliensSpeakingEnglish Aliens Speaking Japanese]]: [[spoiler:Giygas]] talks directly to Ninten's party when he appears. However, it makes sense in-universe because [[spoiler:Maria raised Giygas]], so it's likely [[spoiler:she]] taught [[spoiler:Giygas]] the human tongue.
to:
* [[AliensSpeakingEnglish Aliens Speaking Japanese]]: AliensSpeakingEnglish: [[spoiler:Giygas]] talks directly to Ninten's party when he appears. However, it makes sense in-universe because [[spoiler:Maria raised Giygas]], so it's likely [[spoiler:she]] taught [[spoiler:Giygas]] the human tongue.
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* [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas Even Bad Aliens Love Their Mamas]]: It's [[spoiler:Giygas]]'s memories of his adoptive human mother, [[spoiler:Maria]], that end up defeating him.
to:
* [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas Even Bad Aliens Love Their Mamas]]: EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: It's [[spoiler:Giygas]]'s memories of his adoptive human mother, [[spoiler:Maria]], that end up defeating him.
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** SchizophrenicDifficulty: An interview with Shigesato Itoi confirmed that the last parts of the game, specifically Holy Loly Mountain, had not been tested sufficiently for balance issues.
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: An interview with Shigesato Itoi confirmed that the last parts of the game, specifically Holy Loly Mountain, had not been tested sufficiently for balance issues.
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* StartOfDarkness: The game is one for [[spoiler:Giygas.]]
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* [[WhatTheHellHero What the Hell, Hero?]]: Accepting a drink from a woman in the Live House will cause a cop to show up, chastise Ninten for drinking under age, and arrest him and his friends. The cop also confiscates his weapon and you need to ''buy it back''.
to:
* [[WhatTheHellHero What the Hell, Hero?]]: WhatTheHellHero: Accepting a drink from a woman in the Live House will cause a cop to show up, chastise Ninten for drinking under age, and arrest him and his friends. The cop also confiscates his weapon and you need to ''buy it back''.
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** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official romanization in Japan, the international fanbase used the second for quite a while, and ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' uses the third. While the middle spelling has been used the longest in the fanbase and is still the preference in certain circles, the last spelling is more likely since the term ''roido'' comes from silent film star Harold Lloyd (after his usual round glasses).
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** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official romanization in Japan, the international fanbase used the second for quite a while, and ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' uses and the ''Earthbound Beginnings'' trailer use the third. While the middle spelling has been used the longest in the fanbase and is still the preference in certain circles, the last spelling is more likely since the term ''roido'' comes from silent film star Harold Lloyd (after his usual round glasses).
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Eh, I know it\'s on the Franchise page, but it bears some in-depth discussion
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* AffectionateParody: As noted above, the game was inspired by ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''. Thing is, it's set in a (then-)modern {{Eagleland}} as opposed to a generic fantasy setting. Instead of magic, you have PsychicPowers. Instead of swords and bows you have bats and slingshots. Monsters are not killed but instead regain their senses, and said monsters include things like dogs and hippies. The juxtaposition of classical EasternRPG mechanics and tropes with the modern setting contributes to the surreal quality of the game.
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On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''Earthbound Beginnings''.
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On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title ''Earthbound Beginnings''.
Beginnings''. From what early video is shown, it seems to be using the prototype translation originally intended for it's English release, but no official confirmation as of yet.
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None
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''MOTHER''(Called "Earthbound Beginnings" in its English Virtual Console release) is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of [[VideoGame/{{MOTHER}} a series]] and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''{{VideoGame/MOTHER 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
to:
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''MOTHER'' is a 1989 {{Famicom}} EasternRPG, the first installment of [[VideoGame/{{MOTHER}} a series]] and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and ''{{VideoGame/MOTHER 3}}''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, twin kid sisters, and a pet dog. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[EverythingTryingToKillYou his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks one of his sisters and a doll starts attacking his other sister.
to:
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On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title '''Earthbound Beginnings'''.
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On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title '''Earthbound Beginnings'''.
''Earthbound Beginnings''.
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On June 14, 2015, Nintendo finally released ''MOTHER 1'' to non-Japanese territories as a Virtual Console title on the Wii U, under the title '''Earthbound Beginnings'''.
