Earthbound Beginnings | Top Gaming Moments of 2015

5. Mother Finally Comes West as EarthBound Beginnings

This one was a long time coming.

Back in the early 90s, Phil Sandhop was leading a localization team to bring Shigesato Itoi’s NES game Mother over from Japan, titling the game Earth Bound. The localization would receive a big push, complete with maps and posters for all those buying the game. Unfortunately, by the time it would’ve released, it would’ve been 1994, which would’ve had it go up against Final Fantasy VI on the higher powered SNES. So instead, the game was set aside and they worked on Mother 2, a.k.a. EarthBound.

But while the game didn’t release, the game never went away.

As the internet started to get big, the cartridge for the game was found and the ROM set up for download, entitled Earth Bound Zero. And while there were skeptics, Phil Sandhop himself confirmed that it was the version that he worked in, complete with additions that he made for the localization such as a run button. So, while we didn’t have the official game, we could play it if we were willing to emulate the game.

Earthbound Beginnings | Top Gaming Moments of 2015

Well, as of E3 2015, that’s no longer the case. Nintendo released the game on Virtual Console for the entire world before the Nintendo World Championship, now going by the name EarthBound Beginnings. But is it worth buying? Well, the quality isn’t quite the same as EarthBound, but it’s an early RPG worth checking out. Heck, if you were hoping to get it, you’ve probably already bought the game by now.

Two down, one to go.

Super Smash Bros. Wii U and 3DS | Top Gaming Moments of 2015

4. The Great Super Smash Bros. Election

With the game pretty much finished, Sakurai and his team wanted to add more, focusing on characters that gamers wanted to see. They made a big splash with these with the announcement of Mewtwo, a popular Pokemon fighter from Melee that was cut out of Brawl. But that wasn’t all as Roy from Fire Emblem, Ryu from Street Fighter, and Lucas from Mother 3 were all added in as DLC characters, with Roy and Lucas returning from previous installments.

And then came the Great Super Smash Bros. Election. In this, Sakurai would leave it up to the gamers to decide who would be the final character added to the game. With that, gamers came up with our own ideas for who we wanted in the game. We certainly did, writing up our own list of potential fighters for the game here.

Cloud - Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS | Top Gaming Moments of 2015

Who wound up winning the vote? Well, people initially thought that it was Cloud when he was announced in November. However, Nintendo was quick to dismiss that, saying that the winner would be revealed this month. And with Cloud, Roy, Mewtwo, Lucas, and Ryu already coming to a game that featured over 50 fighters to begin with, everyone was wondering how the vote ended.

The winner, and the final character added to Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U is…

Bayonetta - Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS

BAYONETTA.

This was a surprise as people thought that the character was too… I guess the word would be “adult”… for a game generally viewed as for kids. But with the witch topping the list in Europe and coming in the Top 5 in North America, Bayonetta was the highest voted “most realizable” character in the election. And she looks like she’ll be as badass as she always is.

And if you didn’t like it… well, at least one internet personality liked it.

Pamela Horton as Bayonetta in Smash

More to come as we get closer to our top moment.

Jeff Neuenschwander
Jeff has been a supporter of the website and campaign since the beginning. Joining in for E3 2012, he worked his way up the ranks quickly, making it to the Editing Manager post at the beginning of 2013. Jeff has a wide variety of tastes when it comes to gaming and pretty much likes anything that is quirky, although his favorite genres are Action, Platforming, and RPG. Outside of gaming, Jeff is a musician, being trained as a trombonist for Jazz and Classical music, and holds a degree in Sound Recording.