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Update [Sun 21st Apr, 2024 05:00 BST]:
As part of the Mother 3 18th anniversary celebrations this week, the Mother Project website has now confirmed these plushies will go on sale next week on 25th April 2024. Once again, the set includes Lucas, Claus, Duster and Kumatora.
Original article [Wed 21st Feb, 2024 22:00 GMT]:
The Mother Project is launching four brand new Mother 3 plush toys later this year to commemorate the GBA game's release on Nintendo Switch Online in Japan. (Thanks Wario64!)
Look, it's not the NSO localisation we wanted, but at least this is something we could import, love, and understand without needing a whole translation or an English script, right? Sigh.
The plush quartet features Lucas, his twin brother Claus, the thief Duster, and the princess of Osohe Castle Kumatora. They're all incredibly detailed — the twins both have pockets on their shorts with visible stitches and laces on their shoes, and we can't resist that, honestly.
Here are a few close-ups of the plush toys from The Mother Project's website:
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The plush toys are due to be released in May 2024, and prices will be revealed closer to that time. That should give everyone enough time to sort out a way of getting these delivered to our homes in the UK (or wherever you live).
Are you going to be picking up these lovely little plush toys later this year? Walk away from your Happy Box and let us know in the comments.
[source 1101.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 53
As far as I can tell, we don't know price yet right? These look great but maybe so great that they'll be something like 60$ per plush without shipping.
Also for anyone who's played the game, do you think it's worth it to replay Earthbound beforehand?
Man, I wish the Mother 2 protagonists got this treatment. I'd snag up plushies of the Chosen Four in a heartbeat! Never liked Mother 3 as much as the previous two games, so I'll be passing on these.
I have to say, these actually look really nice.
@chiiizu No, you don't need to. It has its own story, and I have enjoyed what I've played of 3 without having played much of earthbound.
Fine Nintendo! I'll hug ur dumb (but very adorable and cute) plushies, but lets go, gimme mother 3 already 😂😭💀
@chiiizu I played M3 before Earthbound and it was no problem for me whatsoever. Definitely some references or whatever from EB but it didn't matter.
Hopefully one day I’ll see Mother 3 be adorably ported to Switch & Switch 2..😌
they even speak when you squeeze their hand, with lines like "You'll never see a Mother 3 port in america"
I have the Earthbound set. I think I need this too.
@Eggolor
You can already grab the chosen four here lol
https://www.1101.com/mother_project/items/friends_en.html
@chiiizu It's kinda like TWEWY and NEO TWEWY. You can play the newest one without any kind of issue but you may miss out on some references, etc
There are a lot of ways to play Mother 3 translated. I have a gba repro cart that is translated...
@EarthboundBenjy Man, I don't know how I missed that. Those look great, but at that price?! Guess I'll just have to admire them over the internet.
@chiiizu I recommend that you play earthbound before playing mother 3 mainly because a character from earthbound appears in the game as the main antagonist.
C’mon Nintendo give us mother 3 already!
@chiiizu They are standalone stories, so you can play them individually BUT there is a pretty crucial central character in Mother 3 who was also a crucial character in Earthbound, so continuity wise it makes more sense to play Earthbound before Mother 3, but ultimately, the stories are pretty separate.
@EarthboundBenjy Yikes! Those are pretty cool... But 11,000 yen!? Although... Might be worth it. Thanks for highlighting this. I wasn't aware they had these out.
You can play Mother 3 with superior fan translation, free of localization cringe and censorship now. No reason to wait for censored inferior version.
It's never happening. Nintendo don't WANT it to happen. I've given up long ago.
@chiiizu You’ll definitely get a little more out of Mother 3 if you play EarthBound. There are a few references to the earlier game in it.
@Eggolor They did get this treatment, last year I believe.
Maybe Mother 3 was not released on Western NSO because Nintendo wants to sell us the game at a later time instead of allowing us to play for free on NSO as part of the subscription.
Hope Japan enjoys their mother 3 on Nintendo switch online that we in the states still can't get for some stupid flipping reason. Oh well got me a nice bootleg copy for real cheap. Suck it Nintendo. Piracy is sometimes the only option sadly.
Yayyy more merch we have to import because Nintendo doesn't give a crap about the west.
Kumatora is mine
Why not the dog as well! Have all the party members!
Absolutely in love with how cute the Kumatora plush is.
Couldn't you technically just download the Japanese GBA app and use one of those apps on your phone that use the camera to scan text and translate it to different languages? Wouldn't be ideal, but I mean... it's better than nothing, right?
@Porky Even though you're right, there's no point in saying this, because the people who still haven't played it are the people who think it's stealing or who need an "official version", even if they already pay for NSO.
Nintendo should just give fans a book version of the game (or just Mother 1 and 2 merch then 3 merch) at this point then merch to bait people. It's just silly.
Like these are cool but still.
I get Mother/Earthbound of the other entry/ies is on NSO but 3 isn't. For Japan sure but like 3 isn't going to be on NSO unless they work around it or they take the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered warning prompt route and that won't work for most people with Mother 3 will it.
Altering would be tough and loose a lot of what relevance it has to the game too. Even if a no 'this and that' probably of dialogue maybe? Then altering the character modes as that's a bit far I think. Like Gears/COD had gore and swear settings for 360 era games then stopped doing that for some reason.
I mean Neptunia is getting altered versions for Xbox/Switch.
Is copium a dead meme yet?
@Don maybe in GBA Classic Mini
@chiiizu there is very little reference to Earthbound in Mother 3. Having played it once, even if a long time ago, you should remember all that really matters
Lovely plush set but where’s the frog in a car!
Really quite good at absorbing tears!
@Bobb I think you might be the only person who read closely enough to realize that I said replay instead of play, so thank you for your attention to detail and helpful response.
@Eggolor Do I have good news for you, then!
https://www.1101.com/mother_project/items/friends_en.html
@JB2448 I used all my Yen upgrading weapons and buying Soul Drops.
@Eggolor good news, theres been a set of the chosen 4 for awhile on the mother shop on the hobonichi store online. They're 11,000 yen roughly 70$.
These are adorable. But, i have to be really selective with my plushies now.
I hope one day nintendo does a port or a remake and puts it in a collection so I can just own all three. Because it’s a series I really want to do a whole play through of.
None of the toys matter to me. It needs and official English release. And, really, at this point, a remaster along this lines of this or something:
https://youtu.be/1OGSXeko-iY?si=ReuNlaqL69Bb76_o
Mother 3 is one of thee most profound video games I have ever played, and it's just bonkers to me that it's trapped behind multiple barriers for most people.
Also, I'll just post this link here, since it details at least one way to actually play the game for English speakers:
https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/mother-3-is-brilliant/
@Don
TBH for me that would be a better outcome.
as mentioned before this game is considered one of the holy grails of unlocalized games in the west and if the only official western release required an online service to play it would feel like a massive monkeys paw moment.
would be kind of like how the english version of the original fire emblem was pulled from the eshop a few months after release only with that people who bought it still got to keep it.
for me a dream situation would be something like @Snatcher mentioned and have a collection released (even better if its physical) or even something like a high quality remake/remaster as detailed in the previous post
I need the Kumatora plush! I love Lucas in Smash, and when I found out who the girl in his FS was, I immediately said to myself "Ohhhh that's why people want a remake "
And nothing in the way of a game or such. They looks to be milking this for what it's worth and give no games for anyone to game on.
@Mgalens
A physical release of all three games would be great. They localized Trials of Mana for Collection of Mana so there’s always a (slim) possibility.
damn, I can't really justify buying it right now, but I'm soooo tempted to import Lucas, since it is an anniversary product
Never forget, especially now that we've just seen it strike again, that we have to blame censorship at least to an extent if not completely for never getting a localization of Mother 3 during the Wii U days when it was in the works and had a chance in terms of covering its costs:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/02/nintendo_allegedly_cancelled_localisation_of_mother_3_due_to_its_controversial_aspects
Mother 3 is never ever getting translated in the west.
It's the maggypsies (magical characters that resemble drag queens). Those characters would set off a social media meltdown from every side. Conservative parents, woke people who might view those depictions as problematic, etc. would all draw the wrong sort of attention towards Nintendo.
Mother 3 has been noted by Nintendo as a game that is suitable exclusively for Japanese sensibilities for that reason. Unfortunately, that is not going to change because the West is getting even more shrill on the culture war front with no signs of slowing down.
Boggles my mind how people are 'waiting' for something that's been readily available for years due to some misguided loyalty to a souless company that is actively against their consumers.
@jmvalone What are you even on about? Have you seen the news on the last 4 years? Leftists are actively pushing drag queen trans people to be around their kids, as weird and wrong as it is. Yes, us with morals are still pushing against it, and it will end sooner than later as more of us join, but acting like a drag queen in a game would get anything but applause from outlets pushing that agenda is laughable.
Where's ma table?
@dodgeskill100 It's more the tone of the depiction than the fact they are similar in appearance to drag queens. Some who are in favor of normalizing drag could view the maggypsies, who are depicted as quite silly and strange, as a demeaning and offensive stereotype. I don't doubt that some would also applaud the maggypsies, but as we all know it only takes 10-15 terminally online Twitter users to create a bunch of headlines claiming Nintendo trades in harmful anti-LGBTQ tropes.
My point is simply that Nintendo could potentially catch crap from both sides. Those against drag in general, and also those who are all for it but on their specific terms (so, not treated as strange or a joke). That is why they are avoiding localization of Mother 3 entirely and likely always will.
I love when NintendoLife engages in torture journalism, I just have to laugh!
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