Mother 3 Port Reportedly Cancelled Due to Controversial Content

Controversy over an in-game tribe may be keeping Nintendo from porting Mother 3.

It seems that a previously planned Western release of Mother 3 may have been canceled due to certain controversial elements in the game. This news comes from Game Informer editor Imran Khan who took to ResetEra to share some things he heard about the previously planned port of one of Nintendo’s most requested games. 

Mother 3 AFAIK is a dead end,” writes Khan. “It was full steam ahead for a while but upon re-evaluation there were aspects of the game that weren’t going to go without controversy.”

It’s been previously hinted that Mother 3 hasn’t been officially released outside of Japan due to some its in-game content and arguments over whether or not to alter it, but Nintendo has never officially stated whether that is the case or not. However, various sources who seem to be close to the situation have hinted at some of the problems that are keeping the game from finally coming to the West. 

The most notable of those problems seem to be the Magypsy tribe. This in-game tribe consists of comically burly men who all dress like and refer to themselves as women. It seems that there are some people within the company who worry that these characters represent a style of humor more common in Japan but that they might not translate well to other markets. 

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While it’s not clear at this time whether or not that’s the only thing preventing Nintendo from releasing the game in the West, it would be somewhat odd to learn that it is. We’ve seen many games over the years be altered slightly in order to accommodate the culture of the region they are released in. It’s certainly possible that the game’s creators are the ones putting their feet down in this instance regarding making any changes, but whatever the story is, it sounds like Nintendo has decided to cancel any plans of a port rather than risk controversy. 

This matter is surely complicated further by the fact that many Earthbound fans have played an import copy of Mother 3 thanks to a quite good fan translation that’s been floating around for years and would likely balk at the idea of the Western version of the game being modified in any way. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014