Probably the most obvious choice for the list, especially given who we are. But it’s not without merit, or even without potential of releasing in the West.
Remember, this was a title that released only Japan. However, that hasn’t stopped fans of the series from importing the game, or, in the case of Clyde Mandelin, creating a translated patch for the game. If you remember back to last year, Mandelin offered his work on the patch to Nintendo for FREE. All Nintendo would have to do is do some quick quality assurance, send the game to the ESRB, and release it. No need to have an entire team of translators tirelessly working on the game when someone already did the hard part.
But would it be worth it? Well, yeah. To some fans, Mother 3 is even better than the SNES cult classic EarthBound. It introduces many excellent characters, finished the villainous arc of Pokey… or Porky… or… whatever, he was a coward… and keeps the humor that the series is known for coming from start to finish.
Just thinking about this series brings a joyous rush of emotions. And in a bizarre way, it kind of reminds me of the Back to the Future movies. You start out with the first part, introducing characters and concepts (the movie: the time machine, the McFlys and Dr. Brown; Mother: Giygas, the parody of western culture). Then, you bring in even more characters as well as defeating the bad guy in the past and leave on a cliff hanger (the movie: the Future McFlys, getting the Sports Almanac back from Past Biff, and Doc getting stuck in 1885; EarthBound: Ness and company, they defeat Giygas in the past, and Pokey leaves a note that taunts the player into coming after him). Finally, they go to an Old West setting to set things right but pay rather hefty consequences for it (the movie: Marty defeats Buford Tannen and saves Doc but the Time Machine gets destroyed, trapping Doc in the past; Mother 3: they defeat Porky and Claus comes to his sense but they cause a cataclysm, destroying the Nowhere Islands). It’s just something I noticed.
Anyways, Nintendo, if you’re reading this, please take Clyde Mandelin up on his offer and give us this game.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, are the 10 Game Boy Advance games we’d like to see come to the Virtual Console. Agree? Disagree? Think we left something off that should’ve made the list? Let us know in the comments.
Special thanks to Brodie Dayton-Mills for the awesome GBA-Wii U hybrid image.
