Ive been watching allot of this guys videos when I found a video of him showing off his prototype copy of earth bound for the NES. I found it interesting and thought some of you guys would enjoy it as well.

First, a little back story on the prototype. Most of us are likely familiar with earthbound for the SNES, it's a pretty rare game and if you'd want to pick up a copy online, you'd be lucky to find it loose for under $200. Most of you probably also know that earthbound is known as Mother 2 in Japan. What you may not know is that before mother 2 was translated for north America, the original Mother for the NES was also fully translated and ready for American audiences. The game would have 2 maps and a full game guide which were both also fully translated and ready for release but for one reason or another, Nintendo of America decided not to release it, likely because the game was very large, needed a battery for saving and would have came with those maps and guide, all making it very expensive to produce. This mixed with the fact that RPGs were still very much a niche genre in America and that by the time the time the translation was finished, the NES was at the end of its life meant that America didn't get an official earth bound release until earthbound (aka mother 2) was released for the SNES. However, there are several prototypes of the game in the wild, all fully translated into English and fully playable. The video talks about these prototypes as well as exploring the cartridges innards and show some gameplay footage. The creator of this video also has several other earthbound related videos out like a 3 part history on the earthbound trilogy and a full review of earthbound for the SNES. They're really good, I highly recommend them.

Part 1: http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=HOqnD5WyQ5c

Part 2: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=fvwrel&v=6j8NWSrNTJ4

It's so sad how Nintendo Japan thinks America doesn't like the Mother games. 🙁 I seriously wish they'd have released Mother 1 and 3 in English.