Development of Mother 3

Inspired by Super Mario 64, the team set out to create a 3D game that ultimately exceeded the capabilities of the platform.

A North American version was announced as EarthBound 64, but did not materialize when the 60 percent-complete Japanese release was canceled in August 2000 in reprioritization leading up to Project Dolphin (the code name of the GameCube).

The game kept its original story and received a graphical overhaul in a pixelated style similar to Mother 2.

About halfway through development, the team attempted to scale back its large scope and changed its target from cartridge[1] to the 64DD peripheral.

[7] Nintendo displayed a playable version of the game at its Space World 1999 trade show, where IGN described the development's progress as "very far along"[8] and half complete.

[8] Mother producer Satoru Iwata canceled the game altogether prior to Space World 2000,[1] as announced by Itoi on August 20.

Miyamoto was involved in other work and spent little time on-site with the project, and Iwata too was distracted by bankruptcy concerns at HAL Labs and was off-site in 1999 due to circumstances that required travel.

As development wore on, Itoi offered to compromise by replacing full chapters with sequences of still images and text.

[1] One of the game's themes was the reckless appearance and "uncomfortable beauty" of chimera—multiple creatures fused into one—which was the idea behind the metallic and wooden Mother 3 logo.

The Mother 3 logo was made from a fusion of metal and trees, which Itoi interpreted as an "uncomfortable beauty" from two materials that were impossible to fuse.

The player-character, Flint, was a cowboy in the vein of Clint Eastwood with two boys, Lucca and Klaus (later becoming Lucas and Claus), and a dog, Boney.

The game was to include over 10 playable characters and span 10 years in its story based around the Pig army, which attempts to use "primitive machinery ... to enslave mankind".

[9] At Space World 1999, IGN sampled environments including a hovercraft in a desert canyon, a snake dungeon, a cutscene with a bullet train, a town with non-player characters, and a mine cart scene, through themes including fantasy, the medieval, and science fiction.

Physical contact with an enemy in the overworld triggered a turn-based battle scene shown in the first-person (similar to EarthBound).

The battles had psychedelic backgrounds and a circular menu that included a command to "get up" if the player was knocked down in a real-time sequence.

The developers also planned multiple routes for advancing through the game and unforeseen complications from minor actions, such as a monster finding food dropped in the forest.

[9] In its review of the Space World 1999 demo, IGN found the mine cart scene—where Lucca and Klaus outrun a collapsing cave in a minecart—to be its "most impressive" sequence.

[9] IGN said that the controls were intuitive, the sound "well orchestrated and memorable",[9] the 3D game engine "strong", and the battle system "confusing".

[18] Itoi had earlier assumed that restarting the project was impossible, and said that his final effort to finish the game to be more like a "prayer" than like "vengeance".

[18] Brownie Brown staff assisted in the game's development, and Itoi worked with them on individual pacing issues.

[16] The series' games were written in the hiragana alphabet instead of in kanji (Chinese characters) so as to remain accessible to young children.

[21] Itoi compared how the characters come to realize their psychic powers with menstruation, and added that human physiology was "one of his themes".

[22] As such, players sweat when learning an ability, based on Itoi's belief of how physical struggle facilitates growth.

For example, Osohe Castle was meant to show the scale of time and Tantane Island was designed to reflect the player's worst nightmares as similar to Mother 2's "hallucinatory city", Moonside.

[19] Itoi always planned for the two brothers to fight each other, though he did not write the ending until after production had already begun, a process he compared with Hayao Miyazaki's.

While the ending was incomplete, Itoi planned to use the Pigmask theme, but they decided to add a new song to better reflect their intentions in December 2005.

Kyle Miller of RPGFan wrote that the game retained the quirkiness of the previous soundtracks in the series though switching composers.