EarthBound / MOTHER 2 Translation Comparison: Fourside 2

Montague Brothers’ Names

In EarthBound, the Montague brothers are the guys who give you a giant diamond after you get rid of all the giant moles in the Dusty Dunes gold mine. Their names are George and Gerardo Montague.

In MOTHER 2, their names are Shouji Mochii and Chuuji Mochii. The whole Dusty Dunes gold mine thing is a reference to Itoi’s own gold mining escapades in real life, and his main partner then was Shouji Mochizuki.

Final Performance Intro

In EarthBound, when you see the final Runaway Five concert at the Topolla Theater, the announcer says, “Welcome to the final Runaway Five performance at the Topolla Theater! Thank you It’s going to be a great show! We’re so good it makes me think that those kids by the exit will wet their pants! Those kids are hip, baby!”

In MOTHER 2, he talks in English a bit using katakana, so if a Japanese person read the text aloud, it’d sound like English. This was to make the announcer seem hip and gives the place a more “big city” feel I feel.

Anyway, he says, “Welcome to the last Tonzura Brothers concert at the Topollo! This performance is going to rock so much you might just wet your pants a little! This one’s dedicated to the little runts over by the entrance!”

Sign Change

Just like with the Twoson department store, the word “DRUG” in the Fourside department store was replaced with “SHOP”.

Department Store Spook Speaks

In MOTHER 2, the Department Store Spook says the following before you fight him: “Gwehehehe! I’m impressed you actually made it here. This department store is going to be your grave! Gwehehe! Die and go to hell– No, to heaven!”

In EarthBound, they didn’t want to mention death and hell, so some rewriting was done: “Gwaaagh, Gwarrrgh!. You finally made it. This department store is gonna be your grave! Gwaaagh. You will be gone, and you’ll be burning in… Well, you’ll go to heaven!”

One thing that’s always bugged me as a professional translator is that a lot of text in EarthBound has very bizarre punctuation and capitalization. I could make a list out of it, but I’m not THAT crazed. Yet. But we see one example of it here, with “Gwaaagh, Gwarrrgh!.” The second word is capitalized even though the punctuation before is only a comma, and for some reason there’s a period after the exclamation mark. I’m sure most people don’t notice or care about this stuff, but since I do this kind of stuff for a living, it really stands out for me. Try and see how many other instances of weird punctuation and capitalization you can find in the game!

Sixth Sense Mouse

In the Fourside department store, a mouse tells you that he has a feeling that there’s going to be a blackout. He also says something slightly different afterward.

In MOTHER 2, before the blackout, he says, “For some reason, I get the feeling there will be a blackout. Call it a mouse’s sixth sense.” After the blackout, what he says varies ever-so-slightly from the original line, which is supposed to be a tiny bit of humor. He says, “For some reason, I got the feeling there was a blackout in this department store. Call it a mouse’s memory.”

Because the two lines are so similar, the localizers in EarthBound were probably rushing through and didn’t notice that these two lines were slightly different. So the before line is, “(Somehow, I feel like the lights will get turned off in the department store. I guess it’s just a mouse’s sixth sense…)” and the after line is, “(Somehow, I felt like the lights would get turned off in the department store. I guess it’s just a mouse’s sixth sense…)”

I can understand this mistake though, because I almost did it myself with the mole cricket shopkeepers when I did the MOTHER 3 translation. Many of their lines were so similar that I thought they were 100% similar, but upon closer look during the second draft I saw my assumption was wrong. I’m guessing that’s what happened here, too, except they didn’t catch it. It’s not a big deal anyway, though.

Speaking of which, a mouse in MOTHER 3 was planned to reference this thing. He was supposed to be at the garbage dump and also talked about his mouse’s sixth sense. But the mouse was removed from the game at some point.

Baseball Reference

In EarthBound, this lady in Jackie’s Cafe says, “There’s a loud noise outside. Must be the seventh inning stretch, and the fans are singing ‘Take me out to the ballgame’ at the stadium.”

In MOTHER 2, she says, “There seems to be a real commotion outside. I wonder if Swallows fans are singing ‘Tokyo Ondo’ or something…”

The Swallows are a Japanese baseball team, and as a tradition, fans sing Tokyo Ondo after every run or after every good play. Japanese baseball is highly organized, even the cheering is organized, so it’s like a massive shared performance for everyone present.

Dying Becomes Lying

In MOTHER 2, this person says, “Someone’s lying on the ground here. You don’t suppose he’s dead, do you?”

To avoid talking about death, the EarthBound localizers changed it to, “There’s a person lying on the ground. I wonder if he’s… he’s…”

Dancing Around Death

In MOTHER 2, this lady says something like, “Yick, I can’t believe someone’s died in a place like this…”

In EarthBound, her text was changed around to avoid “death”. The answer: just use the word “corpse” instead! “Oooo… I don’t like seeing a corpse around here.”

Everdred Speaks More

Everdred’s little speech demonstrates a whole bunch of localization changes.

There are so many little differences in there that I won’t bother mentioning them all. This scene is like a huge blob of tiny localization changes that we’ve noticed throughout the game so far. For some reason, Everdred’s lines in this game had a lot of editing and tiny mistakes.

It’s also important to note that this is supposed to be the first time we officially hear the statue’s name (he mentioned the name in passing in Twoson but he wasn’t sure of the name), but the EarthBound localizers were weird and referred to it by name back in Happy Happy Village.

Everdred Leaves

Again, death is written out of this line. In MOTHER 2, this person says, “I guess he wasn’t dead after all, huh? …But he sure looked like he was about to die.”

In EarthBound, it got dumbed down to, “He’s not dead… I thought he may have passed on.”

Dying Becomes Implied

In MOTHER 2, this lady says, “Do you suppose that man’s going to die?”

In EarthBound, she says, “Is that man going to… to…?”