Part 5 “MOTHER-like” Games | The Script of EarthBound – Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun | Marcus Lindblom

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 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: Let me ask a different question.
Were you disappointed when
EarthBound first came out in the United States and it sold poorly?

Itoi: No, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t even aware of it. (Laughs)

Marcus: That’s good. (Laughs)

Itoi: RPGs like that weren’t big in America at the time, anyway.

Marcus: The Super Nintendo was at its peak at the time,
and you had 3D games like Donkey Kong Country coming out.
3D rendered games like that were pretty popular then.

Itoi: But it sounds like there were a lot of kids out
there that had played EarthBound.
That ended up guiding the popularity of the game to what it is today,
so the game may have sold few copies, but it was certainly enough.

Marcus: That’s true. (Laughs)

Itoi: It’s so fascinating looking back on everything from the last thirty years.

Marcus: I’ve got my own story from it.
I mentioned that Miura was working closely alongside me on the
localization for a couple months in Seattle.
We didn’t take any breaks, and worked through all the weekends.
My daughter was born at that time,
on February 8th, and that was the only day I took off of work. (Laughs)
I talked with Miura and he suggested we put my daughter’s name, Nico,
in the script.

Itoi: Oh wow, I had no idea. Where did you fit it into the script?

Marcus: There’s a spot in Magicant where all these characters are lined up in
a row and you talk to them in order. It’s one of the characters in there.

──: We’ve got MOTHER: The Complete Scripts here. Let’s take a look.

Itoi: These books contain the scripts from the entire series.

Marcus: I know there was a snowman somewhere in this spot.
Oh, here’s the girl. I named her Nico.

Itoi: Oh yeah, this girl.
She doesn’t have a name in Japanese. She says “Lalala, let’s sing together!”

Marcus: In EarthBound she says,
“La lalala. My name’s Nico... Let’s run and sing and dance!”

Itoi: I see. That’s really cool.
It feels like everyone worked together to carve
the game into the big sculpture it came to be.

Marcus: I’m so honored to have been able to work on the EarthBound localization.
After I left Nintendo, I started working on game development.
I was on a team of about 300 people,
and there was a young intern at the time who
had the official EarthBound guide on her desk.
I told her, “I worked on that,” and she was so shocked.
She told me how much she loves that game.
There were a bunch of young people on the team that loved EarthBound,
so I could tell that the game really spoke to the young generation.

Itoi: There are some deep bonds there.
Our interpreter Lindsay also started working for
Hobonichi because she was a fan of EarthBound, and here she is today.

Lindsay: There are also people
who’ve gotten married after meeting through EarthBound fan events.

Itoi: I often think about how glad I am that I made MOTHER all those years ago.
I’ve been getting more interview requests from overseas lately, too.

Marcus: I was also approached for an interview about two months ago from
a gaming outlet in England.

Itoi: Wow, thirty years later and it’s still going strong.

Lindsay: I don’t think there are many games out there that are beloved for
so long as the MOTHER series.

Itoi: It might be a resurgence in popularity with retro games.

Lindsay: I think it’s more than just nostalgia, though.
There’s a huge market right now in the indie game scene for
pixellated RPGs inspired by MOTHER.
It’s basically its own genre at this point: “MOTHER-like” RPGs.

Itoi: Oh, I actually heard that term the other day.

Lindsay: MOTHER is such a highly respected series that
it has practically paved the way for its own genre.

Itoi: I heard UNDERTALE by Toby Fox was inspired by it, too.

Marcus: Yeah, that’s definitely a MOTHER-like game.

Itoi: So they don’t call it “EarthBound-like.”

Lindsay: No, they call it MOTHER-like. (Laughs)

Itoi: That’s interesting, too. So people understand that EarthBound is MOTHER.

Lindsay: If you mention the MOTHER series,
video game fans nowadays generally know what you’re referring to.
That wasn’t the case years ago.

Itoi: Yeah. Never did I think things would turn out this way.
Even this interview today,
I never thought we’d be sitting here talking about the game together.

Marcus: Oh, could I ask a small favor?
I’d love to get your autograph. I brought a copy of the game that
I got from Miura-san, before EarthBound came out.

Itoi: Of course. Oh, it’s the Japanese version. How do you spell your name?

Marcus: M-a-r-c-u-s.

Itoi: And I’ll write my name in kanji. Here you are.

Marcus: Thank you so much.

Itoi: No, thank you.

Lindsay: Now that’s a treasure. (Laughs)

Marcus: I’ve got one last question for you. Who’s your favorite Beatle?

Itoi: John, probably.

Marcus: John? I like George. (Laughs) Which album is your favorite?

Itoi: It changes sometimes, but right now it’s Hard Day’s Night.

Marcus: Hard Day’s Night, oh, that’s interesting. (Laughs) I like Revolver.
Thanks again for your time today.

Itoi: Thank you!

（And thank you for reading through to the end.）

2025-04-04-FRI