When a game becomes far more than just a game
With the Nintendo Switch Online release ofEarthBoundandEarthBound Beginnings, theMotherseries isfresh on fans’ minds— not that they ever stop playing, dreaming, and creating. Today, thanks to a fan-created trailer fromCuriomatic, we can peer into an alternate universe whereMother 3got a remake with stop-motion clay stylings.
It feels strange to even sum this project up as a “trailer” — so much work went into devising the visual identity of this (not actually playable)Mother 3remake.
“This video representsover two years of workon a scale many times larger than anything we’ve attempted in the past,” said Curiomatic. “It is quite possibly the largest fan production we will ever produce.”
So while it’s not going to be a playable fan game, it was still a capital-e Effort from this group. Sharing more behind-the-scenes context on theofficial websitefor this unofficial love letter, theMother 3: Tributeteam explained that they wanted to “freely explore the aesthetics of a hypothetical remake without the anxieties related to fan games.”
The creators also spoke about the clay style and why it fits:
“In many ways,MOTHER 3has always felt like a game that was never given the same presence as its predecessors. One particular shortcoming of the original game’s marketing was the lack of promotional imagery, especially when compared to the previous two games, which both came with a collection of charming clay model renderings.
In an effort to rectify this, many passionate fans in theMOTHER 3community have taken it upon themselves to create their own clay models, some of which have become ubiquitous among the fandom. In that tradition, we’ve produced our own key art to represent our vision for what aMOTHER 3remake could look like.
We’ve painstakingly created dozens upon dozens of assets, including character models, props, environments, and even typefaces and user interface elements, taking great care to capture the essence of the original game. Our hope is that any fan can look at the results of our work and feel that it authentically represents the world ofMOTHER 3.”
You can — and totally should —check out more of these character renders.
In a world where Square Enix is cool with bringing an obscure yet wildly interesting RPG likeLive A Liveto the West for the first time with apitch-perfect HD-2D art treatment, I can’t help but wish that Nintendo would do the same forMother 3. Given the “hand-crafted” feel of games likeKirby and the Rainbow Curse,Kirby’s Epic Yarn, andYoshi’s Woolly World, this aesthetic feels within reach. AndZeldaalreadyhad its turn!
Similar to how I can’t mentally separateEarthBoundthe game from thefan-made “Pollyanna” animated tribute, this mock remake trailer will pop into my mind wheneverMother3comes up. Fans will seemingly never stop pushing for an official localization (for good reason), and they have to get their creative energy out any way they can.
In turn, the least we can do is celebrate their passion.
