Late last summer, Shigesato Itoi traveled to
Los Angeles to watch Shohei Otani play at
Dodger Stadium at the invitation of a friend.
But he had one more plan on that trip.
That was to meet with the EarthBound
localizer Marcus Lindblom, who helped bring MOTHER 2 to
English-speaking audiences 30 years ago.
Shigesato Itoi and Marcus Lindblom met for
the first time and talked about all kinds of things.
There were some things we hadn’t even realized!
Marcus Lindblom
Marcus began his 30+ year career in the video game industry at Nintendo, where his localization work on EarthBound is most well-known. He worked as a producer at a mix of publishers and developers. He co-owned a game consulting company named Partly Cloudy Games for 10 years, and is now considering his next gaming adventure.
- Marcus
- I never would have thought that people would be playing
the game thirty years later.
- Itoi
- Neither did I. (Laughs)
- Marcus
- So I don’t know why I paid such close attention to this at the time,
but I purposely made text that wouldn’t be tied to that time.
I didn’t use catch phrases that would date it
to when we were working on it in the 90’s,
even as I referenced things from popular culture.
- Itoi
- Ah, yes, that’s wonderful. I did the exact same thing.
- Marcus
- That’s good.
I could tell you were going for that from the way you’d written the script.
- Itoi
- Yeah, I was very careful about that.
It's similar with music, too.
Just like how good it feels to listen to old pop music,
things feel wonderful when they don’t specifically invoke current tastes.
- Marcus
- Yeah. But before EarthBound came out,
there were some pretty bad translations for games coming from Japan.
So by localizing it the way we did,
I could feel a lot of pressure. Thank goodness I didn’t mess it up.
- Itoi
- It turned out great. By the way,
were you the one that
translated the MOTHER 2 title into EarthBound?
- Marcus
- That wasn’t me.
- Itoi
- I see.
- Marcus
- You might know this, but even though the first title,
MOTHER, never made it to America,
it had been translated into English.
The title for that first game was EarthBound.
- Itoi
- Ohh, okay.
- Marcus
- So when MOTHER 2 was localized,
they kept the title EarthBound.
I don’t know who translated that, either.
- Itoi
- I see. It’s a good name, though.
- Marcus
- I agree.
- Itoi
- I have another question. When I was writing the game,
I was just coming up with random names for
the cities and made Onett, Twoson, Threek, and Fourside.
Japanese people can recognize it counting up from one to four,
but did that feel weird?
- Marcus
- Not at all.
So many things in the game were fun and quirky that it never felt weird.
- Itoi
- Oh, so it was fine?
- Marcus
- It fit right in.
- Itoi
- There were other strange names for the items and stuff, too.
Did you have a hard time translating those?
- Marcus
- The legal department had given us guidelines,
so we avoided copyrighted names and stuff like that.
- Itoi
- Ah, yeah I’m sure there were some strict legal standards.
- Marcus
- The yellow submarine was in the game, though.
I didn’t want to change that.
I mean, it’s literally a yellow submarine. (Laughs)
- Itoi
- Oh, thank you.
I paid homage to the Beatles a lot in the MOTHER series,
so I’m glad that stayed in.
Leaving little references to the Beatles hidden around the game
kind of felt like looking for friends.
- Marcus
- Looking for friends...?
- Itoi
- I want to meet other people who were excited when
they came across those references.
So I’d hide references within the script, or name something after them.
I’d be happy just to hear someone say
“Oh, is this a Beatles reference?”
- Marcus
- Yeah, it’s wonderful.
I was happy when I came across them, too.
- Itoi
- That’s good.
I know it’s unavoidable that there were changes in the series,
like a cigarette being edited out for a character or something.
- Marcus
- Yeah.
Any references to tobacco, alcohol, and religion needed to be edited out.
Did you know that the bar in Fourside was turned into a cafe?
- Itoi
- Borges Bar?
- Marcus
- Yeah, that became Jackie’s Cafe.
So you’ll see a red-faced drunk guy throwing back a coffee. (Laughs)
- Itoi
- (Laughs)
- Marcus
- The script was also edited so that
what the characters said made sense
if they were drinking coffee instead of liquor.
I was disappointed about the edit in Magicant, though.
I knew there was no way
Ness would stay naked when walking around Magicant.
- Itoi
- Ah, I see. How was he edited?
- Marcus
- They put pajamas on him.
- Itoi
- Ah, so the localization process was more than
just localizing the actual script.
- Marcus
- Yeah.
（To be continued）
2025-04-02-WED
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©SHIGESATO ITOI / Nintendo