It’s giving Mother (3 to Japan, on Nintendo Switch Online)

For some of us, it’s a good day to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online as Mother 3 heads to the service for users in Japan.

As announced today in Japan’s Nintendo Direct Partnership Showcase, Mother 3 is now available to the online service as part of Nintendo’s Gameboy Advance collection. Of course, you can always buy the RPG outside of the region. That is if you don’t mind playing in Japanese and adding an additional NSO app to your Nintendo Switch.

Unfortunately, it’s not the best news for those of us itching to see the classic series completely localized. Mother 3 launched almost two decades ago, back in 2006, but never saw an official translation outside of Japan.

Those that came before, Mother and Mother 2, did, however, see international releases in one way or another. The second game, you may know as EarthBound, launched in North America in 1995, a year after its initial release in Japan. Eventually, the series debut game, just plain ole’ Mother, hit the North American Wii U Virtual Console service in 2015.

This is a lot to say, you’re still out of luck, for now, if you’re hoping for Mother 3 available outside of its original Japanese language script. However, you can still play EarthBound Beginnings (Mother) and EarthBound (Mother 2) via the Nintendo Switch Online service. That’s not confusing at all. I’m off to kick rocks.