EarthBound / MOTHER 2 Translation Comparison: New Game

Window Flavors

When you start a new game in MOTHER 2, you first get to choose how fast the text will display. Next, you choose Stereo or Mono sound. After this, you get to choose the window type. Here is a list of the types to choose from:

Note that MOTHER 2 doesn’t mention the idea of a window “flavor”.

Naming Screen Alphabets

You then get to choose your characters’ names. In MOTHER 2, you’re allowed to use 3 different character sets: hiragana, katakana, and the roman alphabet:

In EarthBound, the Japanese characters sets were removed, and an uppercase and lowercase English character set were implemented. Some small punctuation and miscellaneous characters were changed around too.

Default Names for Ness

Both MOTHER 2 and EarthBound ask you to name various people and things before the adventure begins. Both games feature multiple default names to choose from if you don’t want to personally customize your game.

Default Names for Paula

Default Names for Jeff

Default Names for Poo

Default Names for Ness’ Dog

Default Names for Ness’ Favorite Food

Default Names for Ness’ Favorite Thing

Interesting default names. I wonder why EarthBound didn’t have all those Super Mario characters.

Anyway, you’ll notice several things about the sets of names. One set contains Beatles-related stuff. For some interesting info on that, see this video.

Another set of names is commands you say to dogs.

Another set has ape-related names, because APE was involved in the game’s creation.

Another set contains the names of members from SMAP, a mega-popular Japanese boy band. SMAP is really hard to describe, but basically, if you ever so much as step foot in Japan, you’ll have already encountered them in some form. Even just looking in Japan’s direction, you’ll probably see them. They’re EVERYWHERE, even a decade and a half later.

Incidentally, Kimura Takuya of SMAP played the older brother in the MOTHER 2 commercials. Here are some videos and images for reference:

MOTHER 2 magazine ad

MOTHER 2 in-store poster