Earthbound Beginnings' weird version differences

hilda talks about that game she likes

links:

Music used (in order)
Snoopy Concert - Theme of Charlie Brown
Bomberman Hero - Dessert
Street Fighter III: Second Impact - Get on a Train (Necro's Stage)
Snoopy Concert - Theme of Peppermint Patty
Street Fighter III: Third Strike - Spunky (Makoto's Stage)

as the end of the video says i used the windows 10 video editor to make this whole thing and it was miserable. never doing that again lmao

[stoic_rose]

NEW INFO JUST DROPPED: The super bomb is in the FC version, but it only drops from the Star Miner. So i just was getting very unlucky!! oops

[DarkHeroAkutare]

Did Youtube add the chapter titles automatically? "holy lowly mountain" and "the gig fight" are amusing.

[GenericSeal]

cant believe they wouldn’t let the crow smoke

[livvy]

This is really comprehensive, thanks for making this!

[blazeknight]

The way crumbs work is that every character has coordinates stored for them (in RAM and SRAM). When you use crumbs as Ninten without him ever using the bread item, you can teleport to what I assume is 0 0 (out of bounds). This was fixed in later releases by just removing crumbs from the inventory any time inventories are passed (including Lloyd Teddy swaps).

The original Famicon release also has different shop items. Originally, the Beam items were not purchasable at all. They added them in he English release to the Reindeer shop, although this barely does anything to the balance of the game considering the items are a dark horse option, not to mention they didn't bother making them cheaper (the price for the item is the same across versions, and they are so high because it is useful as a sellable item if you get it as a drop).

The Flea Bag glitch is kind of a strange name, because it isn't actually a glitch, more like an unintended exploit. The item reduces Offense and Defense by 50%, and in the original Famicon release, it hits everything similar to PSI Block and Rope. In later releases, they made it so the bit that controls whether or not an enemy is immune to most status conditions (including Beam γ) also makes them immune to Offense and Defense lowering.

The actual "glitch" part is that the developers did not intend for you to win or draw out the Blue and Red robo fights. For the Blue Robo, your characters turn invisible permanently. For the Red Robo, EVE stays in the party. Although drawing out the Red Robo fight is unfeasible without save state abuse (you would need EVE to not die but there is no way to heal her, boost her Defense, or apply a Barrier), drawing out the Blue Robo fight is trivial for something that is supposed to be unwinnable. It only has 600 Offense for some reason; you can easily survive its attacks even without being anywhere near Lv99. You can't actually defeat either of them because the battles are scripted, meaning the enemies don't follow normal damage equations and don't even take HP damage to begin with.

The Grey Robo is fine because it doesn't do anything when you don't lose, and it remains as a trapped tile unless you defeat him while having the tank. Funnily enough, you can kill the Grey Robo while having the tank without ever using the tank (like blasting the Grey Robo with PK Fire Ω or a Super Bomb) and it will still destroy the tank. I guess the robo falls on the tank when it is defeated or something...

Another funny quirk is that the Grey Robo is scripted when you don't have the tank, meaning it doesn't take normal damage and is immune to Fire-type OHKOs and Freeze γ, but the moment you have the tank, the Grey Robo can suddenly be hit by all those moves. This wasn't changed in any release.

Apparently, the Friendship Ring does something. If you have it in the inventory and fail the Forgotten Man's dialogue, you get teleported to the Girl who gives you the Friendship Ring instead of the beginning of Magicant. I'm not sure on this one though, because I can't be bothered to test it out.

Text speed is also a misleading name. It only changes the number of frames of pause between battle messages, and does nothing in the overworld. All 5 numbers are present in both 8-bit releases of the game in the ROM, so it was probably a debug feature that was kept in for the English release. Thank god, because this feature, along with running and repels, makes Mother 1 very playable and I would definitely not be playing the game if the Famicon version was the only one. The default text speed makes you wait 33 frames between messages. That's mind boggling, over half a second between messages??

The dialogue box was also expanded in the NES version to 22 characters, unintentionally making it laggier because the text engine in this game prints spaces to fill out the text box. If you remove the space printing, the text flows way more smoothly (might make this a public patch someday). The placement of Level was also put on the far left instead of the far right so the names of the characters on NES could fit 1 more character, to 7 instead of 6. Level only takes up 2 digits (legitimately), unlike HP, which can (legitimately) only go to 3.

[DrakeInferno]

Also worth mentioning, the localization to NES made some significant lore changes. Namely, in the original script, George is *never* said or implied to have stolen PSI, and the plan that Giegue's people had to take over the Earth was something already in motion before George entered the picture.

[captainniiue]

The color differences in the sprites don't actually exist. The NES uses a palette for its colors, and unfortunately different people use different palettes either due to different emulators or personal preference. So there are no color differences between the famicom and NES sprites, the people who ripped the sprites just used different palettes. Another small correction is that Teddy never died in the famicom version, it's left up to interpretation whether or not he recovered. This is a good video though! I learned some things I didn't know before, especially the status color part

[topazlight]

I just wanna issue a little correction here: Teddy doesn't die in the Famicom version; the game just never follows up after he's hospitalized by the R7038 fight, so his fate is left ambiguous. I can see how people would interpret that as him dying, but I kind of doubt he was intended to Definitely, Canonically Die there.

[sharpless]

I love this video so much! Another interesting fact about GBA's Breadcrumb glitch, along with being able to go to Mary, you could also go to the underwater base and recruit eve a second time. Doing this will actually have Eve be dead in the party, but if you take eve to the Healers house on Itoi you can revive her and walk throughout the world with Eve. This is the only way to bring Eve outside Mt. Itoi because like you said the flea bag glitch was patched in the GBA version

[mr.jrsy]

2:54 iirc the reason for this was to not encourage smoking, because Shigesatoi Itoi managed to kick his smoking habit.

Atleast for the characters that are smoking anyways.

[QxCooL]

youtube recommended me this at random and it's very informative and nicely done!

[superpsychic]

sweet video!! i always luv learning more abt MOTHER <33

[cynamin]

Awesome vid!! Always love such deep dives into things I otherwise have very little knowledge of - this sort of cataloging is historical!

[golderzoa]

This is one Mother of a video! Good Job!

[BrandonTheFanGuy]

It's funny, now if you look at the US NSO it tells you the game came out in 1985 for some reason
It's like some intern played the game saw 198X in the intro and swapped the date and nobody has corrected them since then lmao
I first noticed this change on July 31 (2023), and I screenshotted it so I could always remember lol

[ReeseyPuffy]

I’ve never actually seen anyone compile all the differences between the different versions of Mother in a video, so I’m glad a video like this exists. Even as someone who’s researched this stuff in the past, I actually learned quite a bit of new information from your video!

Also, I never thought I’d see a Mooksona, but I’m all for it.

[godofirrelevant]

Hearing someone say Mother 1 is their favorite game is honestly kinda refreshing. Keep loving Mother 1. I may not think much of it, but you deserve to enjoy whatever it is you like.

[dylanreed]

idk if youve heard this, but iirc in the famicom version teddy doesnt die, even though theres no post credit scene of him like in the NES version, if you use 'check' on him it will say hes very faintly breathing, but i could be getting information mixed up

[SiIverLeaf]

The run button was originally a debug feature but I believe Phil Sandhop wanted it added to the English release.

[napkin]

a few minor differences that really don't matter at all if you're playing the game as intended:

-the max party size in all versions is 4, but the fc/nes versions won't fully accommodate more than three of the playable characters in the party at the time, only displaying the first 3 party members in the status window. the 4th character's stats can still be checked in the state menu, but beyond that, you can't manage their items, revive them at hospitals or cure them at a doctor's office, or use any items or PSI on them at all outside of battle
however, despite it still not being possible in normal gameplay, in the gba version all 4 party members appear in the status window and function as normal, with the sole exception being that your dad doesn't list the exp requirement for the 4th party member (though in all versions the guy in magicant does???). this in particular makes the gba version my favorite of the bunch (though being the most polished version of the game certainly helps a lot)

-in the fc/nes versions, the game doesn't really care what order the party is in, so long as ninten is in the front when he's not unconscious or stony, but in the gba version the party order similar to earthbound, where if everyone's conscious the party order is always ninten<ana<lloyd<teddy<pippi etc. this doesn't have any actual ramifications in battle though like it would in the rest of the series

-in the nes version and probably the fc version, surprisingly enough, the Talk option works on your party members in the overworld!! ...though, the only thing they say is "What!?" it seems to just be a silly little easter egg

- (this one is actually kind of helpful) in the gba version, the check option will give you a different message that lets you know if you're standing in a place where encounters are enabled

uhhh that's about everything i can think of i wanted to mention :p