Prerelease:Mother 3/2005

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Mother 3.

March 2005

Content Review Sheet

A content review schedule found in the Gigaleaks, dated March 2005 from Nintendo of Japan reveals "MOTHER 3: Fall of the Pig King" was scheculed for content review. A tenative release date is mentioned for late October 2005, with a possible delay happening.

Most interesting from this is the revelation MOTHER 3 still had the original N64 subtitle attached to it at this point in development. This would soon be dropped when marketing began at the end of the year.

September 2005

1101.com Blog Posts

Starting in September of 2005, Shigesato Itoi began blogging about a secret project he was working on in Kichijoji. Many quickly began to speculate this project known only as "it" was in fact MOTHER 3, with fans connecting the dots that Brownie Brown (whose offices are in Kichijoji) were involved.

September 22nd, 2005

"I'm going to be holing myself up in Kichijoji to get tons done on "it". "It" is progressing in secret. I'm keeping silent, that's just how it is. Everyone who's working on "it", let's make an announcement in the near future, ok?"

September 23rd, 2005

"We're doing one of those big group get-togethers. (note: this is where people working on something get together and stay at a hotel or a camp to get tons of work done) So I'm at a Kichijoji hotel again today."

Project B

A screenshot of Project B. N-Dude's pose resembles the Pigmask Colonel from the final game.

In late September 2005, a job posting for a video-game tester went up on Brownie Brown's site. This helped fuel rumors that Brownie Brown was behind MOTHER 3's development, following Itoi's vague blog posts. Shortly after, people caught wind of a flash game dubbed "Project B" (found in the file name), which was posted on a new fifth tab on Brownie Brown's website. It featured a MOTHER-styled battle system, starring four developers from the company fighting a masked Darth Vader-esque enemy named "N-Dude". The flash game quoted several memorable lines from battles in previous MOTHER games, with a game-over screen featuring a spotlight shining over one of the characters - very much reminiscent of the game over screen seen in the first two games.

This inspired further speculation both in Japan and overseas about Brownie Brown's possible connection to MOTHER 3, with journalists such as Edge Magazine even covering the event. On the matter, Edge said "Whether simply oddly timed coincidence or the first leaks of an official third volume in the series, it's too early to tell."

October 2005

1101.com Blog Posts

Things began to get even more suspicious when Itoi continued to post about his visits to Kichijoji frequently in October.

October 2nd, 2005

"Well, starting today is yet another big get-together for me in Kichijoji. I think maybe the password should be "dead tired". I'll do my best."

October 3rd, 2005

"I'm currently doing yet another get-together in Kichijoji. I find I'm working about 15 hours at a time on this. Figuring out when to take breaks and when to eat has suddenly become a lot more important. Hard work doesn't pay off if you can't rest well. I really think how you relax is a big part of creativity..."

October 4th, 2005

"I've returned from the get-together, but it seems like everyone at Hobonichi has been taking turns pulling all-nighters as of late. Whatever the case, everyone's heads are spinning everyday now."

October 14th, 2005

"There's one other thing I'd like to announce, but it'll be very soon so please wait just a little longer."

October 20th, 2005

"I'm off to do another big group get-together starting tomorrow."

October 22nd, 2005

"Anyways, I'm in the middle of yet another get-together at Kichijoji. I always return home extremely exhausted so I get a lot of sympathy from my family and the guys at work, but it's still fun despite the exhaustion. We're pulling all nighters, sometimes with lots of laughters, sometimes with intense silence. I'll be returning home again this evening..."

November 2005

1101.com Blog Posts

In November, Itoi (after some discussion with Nintendo) officially announced the project he had been working on was MOTHER 3 all along. This was followed by several more blogs throughout the month.

November 4th, 2005

"After some discussion with Nintendo, I've decided to make a slightly head-start announcement here on Hobonichi. I've worried people quite a bit this whole time, but I'm happy to report that Mother 3 for Game Boy Advance is nearing release.

I've thought to myself, "It should be all right now that it's this far along," on many occasions, but I always made sure not to announce anything until I could say that it was "ABSOLUTELY all right." At any rate, this time I've decided to try and be reserved about everything. It looks like its release date will be about one season away, and I'm in the middle of doing many work retreats to get it finished. I'm going to work especially hard for a short while longer to get everything done.

By announcing this, I'm sure I'll receive all sorts of questions, but I'm probably going to stay quiet about Mother 3 until just before its release. I know the importance of publicity, but what I feel is that I want players to REALLY enjoy Mother 3. So until just before the game comes out, I'm going to remain as quiet as possible.

In any case, we're working on Mother 3. I'm happy as well that it's reached the point where we can make an announcement. Thank you to all who have waited patiently. Please forget about it again for a short while."

November 5th, 2005

"Anyways, I'm off to Kichijoji to do another work retreat, but Hobonichi (his online newspaper site) is going well. Each and every person is working very diligently."

November 8th, 2005

"I write this during a quick break during my work retreat. Lately, all I'm ever doing is looking at a computer screen, saying something, or eating something..."

November 9th, 2005

"On a personal note, I'm back from Work Retreat Number Whatever. If you compared me to soybeans, I would be dried-out bean curd refuse. (That last sentence would make sense to Japanese people, but we don't really talk about soybeans or "okara" soybean refuse here in the west, so yeah.)"

November 13th, 2005

"I'm still in the middle of a work retreat."

MOTHER 3 Website

On November 7th, 2005, Nintendo officially announced MOTHER 3 for a spring 2006 release. The official website was opened, featuring basic information about the game (such as it's 4,571 yen price tag.)

December 2005

1101.com Blog Post

On the last day of December, Itoi made one final post about MOTHER 3 on his blog.

December 31st, 2005

"As it currently stands, at the very least, it's fun to me. That I can honestly say for a fact. Plus I did do twice as much scenario work on it than the previous two games. So everyone else is like, "I hope it gets an 85." (Note: I assume this is a Famitsu score or something)

After having given the above information during this year (2005), I'm going to return to being quiet for a while. I apologize. I've decided to publicize it a very tiny bit at a time. I do have a previous offense, so I can't really make a big scene this time around. Thank you for your understanding.

In a 2005 announcement, I asked people to forget about something for a while. I'm referring to the game, Mother 3. I've decided to announce what I can say with certainty here before the new year is upon us. First, it looks like the game will make the Spring 2006 release. It'll still be a while until it has a specific release date, but there will be no cancellations or huge delays for it... hopefully. As I announced before, it is being released as a Game Boy Advance game. So you can play it on the currently-mega-popular DS, the Micro, AND the SP. There will be no changes to the above information.

Production-wise, we're crossing the very last mountain. To be honest, my New Year's is filled with winter break work retreats. Though since I can't just come out and shout, "It's totally awesome!" apparently some are whispering, "He doesn't seem so confident." It's sad that they're saying that, but this time I'm going to refrain from shouting from the rooftops and work on it as a artisan and release it as an artisan."

Love Theme

As revealed in a July 2006 interview with Nintendo Dream, the MOTHER 3 "Love Theme" was first created at this time. Up until this point, the unused "Sad Pigmask Theme" was in it's place.

The Original "Love Theme" pre-December 2005

Here is the snippet from Nintendo Dream, detailing how the final Love Theme was created:

After finishing the game, the “Love Theme” is a real tear-jerker.

Itoi: Actually, that song was made specially, later on. Actually, we didn’t even have that song until far into the game’s development. When the ending was still unfinished, we were considering just using the Pigmask theme. (sings tune) Dadan-dan-daan, dadan-dan-daan; for our main song. Personally, at the time, I was perfectly content with using the Pigmask song as the main theme.

Oh, really?

Itoi: But during an extremely important scene, we decided it was necessary to have a new song created that would have the greater impact regarding what we wanted most to portray.

And when did that come up?

Itoi: It was December of last year [2005]. When I announced on Hobonichi, “It’s almost finished!”, the “Love Theme” didn’t even exist. But it added a sense of emotion that practically changed some of the actual story.

Mr. Sakai sure produced a fantastic piece in a short amount of time.

Itoi: Essentially, Mr. Sakai was waiting for the order. He said, “Oh, that’s going to be tough,” with a big smile on his face. Then he completed the piece almost immediately, brought it to me and asked, “How’s that?”. (laughs)