The popular and much loved SNES game Earthbound has gained quite a cult following over the years and it seemed like it would never reach North American shores (legally that is). However, this past Thursday during a special 3DS edition of Nintendo Direct, it was announced that the game would be coming to the Wii U virtual console. Unfortunately, the date for when the game would be released was not given, leaving those who wished to be Earthbound crashing into the ground like a big flying meteorite.
The game was originally released back in June 1995 in North America and was called Mother 2 in Japan. Earthbound was popular because of the way it made fun of familiar things in pop culture and changed the way regular RPG’s were played. Most of the main characters can use silly weapons such as a yo-yo, baseball bat, and frying pans and like in most RPGs, the characters can use a form of magic, or in this case, they can use psychic attacks. In the world of fighting game Smash Bros., main character Ness and Lucas from Mother 3, were both featured as playable fighters carrying a yo-yo or baseball bat and both had the ability to use a lightning, ice, or psychic type attack.
A rumor flew around that soundtrack issues were delaying a North American re-release. To find out if that was true, Kotaku had spoken with Nintendo’s director of marketing Bill Trinen and he said that he was not aware of the music being an issue at all and that the original game with all of its music would be released untouched. Now the real wait begins and it shouldn’t be too long with the arrival of the Wii U virtual console next week.
