Editing EarthBound (section)

==Development==
{{Multiple image
| total_width       = 320
| image1            = Shigesato-Itoi-Meguro-September20-2015.jpg
| image2            = Satoru Iwata headshot square.jpg
| footer            = ''EarthBound'' designer Shigesato Itoi and producer Satoru Iwata
}}
The first ''Mother'' was released for the NES in 1989.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> Its sequel, ''Mother 2'', or ''EarthBound'', was developed over five years<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> by Ape and [[HAL Laboratory|HAL]], and published through [[Nintendo]].<ref name="IGN: top SNES"/> The game was written and designed by Japanese author, musician, and advertiser [[Shigesato Itoi]],<ref name="ONM review"/> and produced by [[Satoru Iwata]], who became Nintendo's president and CEO.<ref name="Polygon: Quash"/> ''Mother 2'' was made with a development team different from that of the original game,<ref name="1101: cancel"/> and most of its members were unmarried and willing to work all night on the project.<ref name="DREAM-07"/> ''Mother 2''{{'s}} development took much longer than planned and came under repeated threats of cancellation.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> Itoi has said that the project's dire straits were resolved when Iwata joined the team.<ref name="1101: cancel"/> Ape's programming team had more members than HAL on the project. The HAL team (led by lead programmer Iwata) worked on the game programming, while the Ape team (led by lead programmer Kouji Malta) worked on specific data, such as the text and maps. They spent biweekly retreats together at the HAL office in view of [[Mount Fuji]].<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 Sept 9"/>

The game continues ''Mother''{{'s}} story in that Giygas reappears as the antagonist (and thus did not die at the end of ''Mother'') and the player has the option of choosing whether to continue the protagonist's story by choosing whether to name their player-character the same as the original.<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 June"/> He considered interstellar and interplanetary space travel instead of the confines of a single planet in the new game. After four months, Itoi scrapped the idea as cliché. Itoi sought to make a game that would appeal to populations that were playing games less, such as girls.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/>

The [[Mother (video game series)|''Mother'']] series titles are built on what Itoi considered "reckless wildness", where he would offer ideas that encouraged his staff to contribute new ways of portraying scenes in the video game medium.<ref name="Kotaku: Trippiest"/> He saw the titles foremost as games and not "big scenario scripts".<ref name="Kotaku: Trippiest"/> Itoi has said that he wanted the player to feel emotions such as "distraught" when playing the game.<ref name="Kotaku: Trippiest"/> The game's writing was intentionally "quirky and goofy" in character,<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> and written in the Japanese [[kana]] script so as to give dialogue a conversational feel. Itoi thought of the default player-character names when he did not like his team's suggestions. Many of the characters were based on real-life personalities. For instance, the desert miners were modeled on specific executives from a Japanese construction company.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> The final battle dialogue with Giygas was based on Itoi's recollections of a traumatic scene from the [[Shintoho]] film ''[[Kenpei to barabara shibijin|The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty]]'' that he had accidentally seen in his childhood.<ref name="1101: trauma"/> Itoi referred to the battle background animations as a "video drug".<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> The same specialist made nearly 200 of these animations, working solely on backgrounds for two years.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/>

The idea for the rolling HP meter began with [[pachinko]] balls that would drop balls off the screen upon being hit. This did not work as well for characters with high health. Instead, around 1990, they chose an odometer-style hit points counter.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> The bicycle was one of the harder elements to implement<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 Sept 9"/>—it used controls similar to a tank before it was tweaked.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> Iwata felt that the Ape programmers were particularly willing to tackle such challenges. The programmers also found difficulty implementing the in-game delivery service, where the delivery person had to navigate around obstacles to reach the player. They thought it would be funny to have the delivery person run through obstacles in a hurry on his way off-screen.<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 Sept 9"/> The unusual maps laid out with diagonal streets in [[oblique projection]] required extra attention from the artists. Itoi specifically chose against having an overworld map, and didn't want to artificially distinguish between towns and other areas. Instead, he worked to make each town unique. His own favorite town was Threed, though it was Summers before then.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/>

''Mother 2'' was designed to fit within an eight-megabit limit, but was expanded in size and scope twice: first to 12 megabits and second to 24 megabits.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> The game was originally scheduled for release in January 1993 on a 12 megabit cartridge.<ref name="SFM 1992"/> It was finished around May 1994<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 Sept 9"/> and the Japanese release was set for August 27.<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 July"/> With the extra few months, the team played the game and added small, personal touches.<ref name="Famitsu: 1994 Sept 9"/> Itoi told ''[[Weekly Famitsu]]'' that [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] liked the game and that it was the first role-playing game that Miyamoto had completed.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/> ''Mother 2'' would release in North America about a year later.<ref name="Shacknews: EarthBotched"/>

The game includes [[copy protection|anti-piracy measures]] that, when triggered, increases enemy counts to raise the difficulty level. Additionally, right before players reach the end of the pirated copy's story, their game resets and deletes its saved file in an act that IGN declared "arguably the most devious and notorious example of 'creative' copy protection".<ref name="IGN: anti-piracy"/>

===Music===
{{See also|Music of the Mother series#Mother 2/EarthBound}}
''Mother'' composers [[Keiichi Suzuki]] and [[Hirokazu Tanaka]] returned to make the ''EarthBound'' soundtrack, along with newcomers Hiroshi Kanazu and Toshiyuki Ueno.<ref>{{cite web | title=EarthBound Credits | url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/earthbound/credits | url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211111/http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/earthbound/credits | archive-date=2021-11-11 | website=Mobygames.com | publisher=Mobygames | access-date=August 8, 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name="RPGFan: soundtrack"/> In comparison with ''Mother'', Itoi said that ''EarthBound'' had more "jazzy" pieces.{{r|Famitsu: Itoi}} Suzuki told ''Weekly Famitsu'' that the Super NES afforded the team more creative freedom with its eight-channel [[ADPCM]] based [[SPC700]], as opposed to the old Nintendo Entertainment System's restriction of five channels of basic waveforms. This entailed higher sound quality and music that sounds closer to his regular compositions.<ref name="Famitsu: Suzuki"/> The soundtrack was released by [[Sony Records]] on November 2, 1994.<ref name="RPGFan: soundtrack"/>{{refn|group=nb|It was later reprinted by Sony Music Direct on February 18, 2004.<ref name="RPGFan: soundtrack"/>}}

In Suzuki's songwriting process, he would first compose on a synthesizer before working with programmers to get it in the game. His personal pieces play when the player is walking about the map, out of battle. Suzuki's favorite piece is the music that plays while the player is on a bicycle, which he composed in advance of this job but found appropriate to include. He wrote over 100 pieces, but much of it was not included in the game.<ref name="Famitsu: Suzuki"/> The team wrote enough music as to fill eight megabits of the 24 megabit cartridge—about two compact discs.<ref name="Famitsu: Itoi"/>

[[File:Beach Boys 1967 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[The Beach Boys]] were one of many Western artists Suzuki and Tanaka drew inspiration from while developing the game's soundtrack.]]
According to Tanaka, [[the Beach Boys]] were repeatedly referenced between him and Suzuki, and that he would often listen to co-founder [[Brian Wilson]]'s [[Brian Wilson (album)|1988 eponymous album]] while on the way to Suzuki's home.<ref name="1101: music"/> Suzuki has stated that the [[Percussion notation|percussive arranging]] in the game's soundtrack was based on the Beach Boys' albums ''[[Smile (Beach Boys album)|Smile]]'' (unreleased) and ''[[Smiley Smile]]'' (1967), which both contained American themes shared with [[Van Dyke Parks]]' ''[[Song Cycle (album)|Song Cycle]]'' (1968). To Suzuki, ''Smile'' evoked the bright and dark aspects of America, while ''Song Cycle'' displayed a hazy sound mixed with American humor and hints of [[Ray Bradbury]], a style that he considered essential to the soundtrack of ''Mother''.<ref name="1101: music"/>{{refn|group=nb|Within a year following the game's release, Keiichi Suzuki recorded a [[cover version]] of the Beach Boys' "[[Good Vibrations]]" (1966), a product of the band's ''Smile'' album where Parks served as a primary lyricist.<ref>{{cite web | title=Discography / Others | url=http://www.keiichisuzuki.com/discography/others/ | url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211111/http://www.keiichisuzuki.com/discography/others/ | archive-date=2021-11-11 | website=keiichisuzuki.com | access-date=July 21, 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref>}} Tanaka recalls [[Randy Newman]] being the first quintessentially American composer he could think of, and that his albums ''[[Little Criminals]]'' (1977) and ''[[Land of Dreams (Randy Newman album)|Land of Dreams]]'' (1988) were influential.<ref name="1101: music"/> While Suzuki corroborated with his own affinity for [[Harry Nilsson]]'s ''[[Nilsson Sings Newman]]'' (1970),<ref name="1101: music"/> he also cited [[John Lennon]] as a strong influence due to the common theme of love in his music, which was also a prominent theme in the game,<ref name="Famitsu: Suzuki"/> and that his album ''[[John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band]]'' (1970) helped him to avoid excessive instrumentation over the SNES's technical constraints.<ref name="1101: music"/>

The soundtrack contains direct [[musical quotation]]s of some [[classical music|classical]] and [[folk music]]; the composers also derived a few [[sampling (music)|samples]] culled from other sources including commercial [[pop music|pop]] and [[rock music]].<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/>{{refn|group=nb|These quotations and samples are believed to include [[the Beach Boys]] ("[[Deirdre (song)|Deirdre]]"),<ref>{{cite web | title=The Beatles, Beach Boys and Monty Python really were in Earthbound | url=http://www.destructoid.com/the-beatles-beach-boys-and-monty-python-really-were-in-earthbound-277313.phtml | url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211111/http://www.destructoid.com/the-beatles-beach-boys-and-monty-python-really-were-in-earthbound-277313.phtml | archive-date=2021-11-11 | website=Destructoid | access-date=July 21, 2014 | date=June 28, 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref> [[the Beatles]] ("[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (song)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]"), [[the Who]] ("[[Won't Get Fooled Again]]"), [[Antonín Dvořák]] ([[Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák)|Symphony No. 9]]), [[Ric Ocasek]] ("[[This Side of Paradise (album)|This Side of Paradise]]"), [[the Doors]] ("[[L.A. Woman|The Changeling]]"), [[Bimbo Jet]] ("El Bimbo"), The Dallas String Band ("Dallas Rag"), "[[The Liberty Bell (march)|The Liberty Bell]]", "[[The Star-Spangled Banner]]", the ''[[Our Gang]]'' theme, "[[Tequila (Champs song)|Tequila]]", and [[Chuck Berry]] ("[[Johnny B. Goode]]").<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/>}} The texture of the work was partially influenced by some [[Salsa music|salsa]], [[reggae]], and [[dub music]].<ref name="1101: music"/>{{refn|group=nb|In these sectors, Tanaka cited influence from [[Andy Partridge]] of [[XTC]]'s ''[[Take Away / The Lure of Salvage]]'' (1980), [[Lalo Rodríguez]]'s ''[[Un Nuevo Despertar]]'' (1988) and ''Fireworks'' (1976), [[King Tubby]]/[[Yabby You]]'s ''King Tubby's Prophesy of Dub'' (1976), and [[the Flying Lizards]]' ''The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards'' (1995).<ref name="1101: music"/>}} Speaking about [[Frank Zappa]]'s ''[[Make a Jazz Noise Here]]'' (1991), Tanaka felt that Zappa would have been the best at creating a live performance of ''Mother'' music, but could not detail Zappa's specific influence on ''EarthBound''. Additionally, he felt that the mix tape ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired Magazine Presents: Music Futurists]]'' (1999) presented a particular selection of artists that embody the ethos of ''EarthBound'', running the gamut from [[Space age pop|space age]] composer [[Juan García Esquivel|Esquivel]] to [[Experimental music|avant-garde]] [[trumpet]]er [[Ben Neill]], along with innovators [[Sun Ra]], [[Steve Reich]], [[Todd Rundgren]], [[Brian Eno]], and [[Can (band)|Can]].<ref name="1101: music"/>{{refn|group=nb|The compilation operates under the premise of [[pop art]]ists "on the cutting edge of technology in music".<ref>{{cite web | last1=Pearson | first1=Paul | title=Wired Magazine Presents: Music Futurists | url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/wired-magazine-presents-music-futurists-mw0000048006 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211111/http://www.allmusic.com/album/wired-magazine-presents-music-futurists-mw0000048006 | archive-date=2021-11-11 | website=AllMusic | access-date=July 21, 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref>}} Tanaka also mentioned that he listened to the various artists compilation ''[[Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films]]'' (1988) heavily during ''EarthBound''{{'}}s development.<ref name="1101: music"/> Miscellaneous influences on Suzuki and Tanaka for ''EarthBound'' include the music of [[Michael Nyman]], [[Miklós Rózsa]]'s [[film score]] for ''[[The Lost Weekend (film)|The Lost Weekend]]'' (1945), and albums by various other pop/rock musicians.<ref name="1101: music"/>{{refn|group=nb|They include [[Prince (musician)|Prince]]'s ''[[Around the World in a Day]]'' (1985) and ''[[Sign o' the Times]]'' (1987), [[Godley & Creme]]'s ''[[Consequences (Godley & Creme album)|Consequences]]'' (1977), [[A Tribe Called Quest]]'s ''[[People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm]]'' (1990) and [[My Bloody Valentine (band)|My Bloody Valentine]]'s ''[[Loveless (My Bloody Valentine album)|Loveless]]'' (1991).<ref name="1101: music"/>}}

===English localization===
{{See also|Marcus Lindblom}}
{{multiple image
| footer   = Screenshots from ''Mother 2'' (left) and ''EarthBound'' (right). In ''Mother 2'', Ness walks naked through his dream town Magicant. In the U.S. release, this was changed to him wearing his pajamas without his cap.
| align    = right
| image1   = Mother 2 Ness Magicant.png
| width1   = 200
| image2   = EarthBound Ness Magicant.png
| width2   = 200
}}

As was traditional for Nintendo, ''Mother 2'' was developed in Japan and [[Game localization|localized]] in the United States, a process in which the game is translated into English for Western audiences.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> As it was the only game in the ''Mother'' series to be released in North America at the time,<ref name="IGN: top SNES"/> its title "''Mother 2''" was changed to "''EarthBound''" to avoid confusion about what it was a sequel to.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/>

Nintendo of America's [[Dan Owsen]] began the English localization project and converted about ten percent of the script before moving to another project.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> [[Marcus Lindblom]] filled Owsen's position around January 1995.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> Lindblom credits Owsen with coining some of the game's "most iconic phrases", such as "[[Say cheese|say fuzzy pickles]]".<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> Lindblom himself was given liberties to make the script "as weird as [he] wanted", as Nintendo wanted the script to be more American than a direct translation would be.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> He worked alone and with great latitude due to no divisional hierarchies.<ref name="Polygon: Quash"/>{{refn|group=nb|While working alone was standard for localizers of the era, later localization efforts had full departments.<ref name="Polygon: Quash"/>}} Lindblom was aided by Japanese writer Masayuki Miura, who translated the Japanese script and contextualized its tone,<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> which Lindblom positively described as "a glass half full".<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/>

Lindblom was challenged by the task of culturally translating "an outsider's view of the U.S." for an American audience.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> He also sought to stay true to the original text, though he never met or spoke with Itoi.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> In addition to reworking the original puns and humor, Lindblom added private jokes and American cultural allusions to [[Bugs Bunny]], comedian [[Benny Hill]], and ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]''.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> Apart from the dialogue, he wrote the rest of the game's text, including combat, prompts and item names.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> As one of several Easter eggs, he named a non-player character for his daughter, Nico, who was born during development. While Lindblom took the day off for her birth,<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> he proceeded to work 14-hour days<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> without weekends for the next month.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/>

Under directives from Nintendo,<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> Lindblom worked with the Japanese artists and programmers<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> to remove references to intellectual property, religion, and alcohol from the American release, such as a truck's [[Coca-Cola]] logo, the red crosses on hospitals, and crosses on tombstones.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> Alcohol became coffee or cappuccinos, Ness was no longer nude in the Magicant area as seen in the image,<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> and the Happy Happyist blue cultists were made to look less like [[Ku Klux Klan]]smen.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/> The team was not concerned with music licensing issues and considered itself somewhat protected under the guise of parody.<ref name="Kotaku: Man Who Wrote"/> Lindblom recalled that the music did not need many changes. The graphical fixes were not finished until March 1995, and the game was not fully playable until May.<ref name="Wired: Lindblom"/>