Mother 3 Switch Port Announced, But It's Exclusive To Japan

After years of requests from fans, Mother 3 is finally getting ported to the Nintendo Switch Online catalogue, although it's seemingly exclusive to Japan.

Nintendo just dropped its first Direct of the year and, just as we all expected, it was a Partner Showcase that mostly focused on titles from third-party publishers, such as Grounded, Pentiment, Endless Ocean, and a remake of Epic Mickey. Although the games announced at the English release of the Partner Showcase all looked great, there was one massive surprise hiding in the Japanese Direct that made it a ton better.

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That surprise is something that Nintendo fans have been asking about for decades - a port of Mother 3 (also known as Earthbound 3). Originally released in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance to massive critical acclaim, Mother 3 was never officially translated and released outside of Japan, leaving fans of the original Earthbound waiting for a way to play it without fan-translated mods.

Well, it looks like that wait is going to continue unless you have a Japanese Nintendo account. One of the big reveals at the Partner Showcase was that Mother 3 is finally leaving the Game Boy Advance and being ported to the Switch via Nintendo Switch Online's Game Boy Advance library.

Seeing as how the announcement was only made in the Japanese version of the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, it seems very likely that it's just going to be released in Japan and won't be making its way over to the Nintendo Switch Online catalogue of other regions. That's a bit of a shame considering how much it's been requested, but it does make sense considering it'd need to be officially translated.

At the very least, Mother 3 finally coming to the Nintendo Switch does mean that there's an official way to play it without forking out hundreds for a Game Boy Advance copy. It's also possible that we'll eventually get an English release of the game after it's come to Japan, but considering how long we've all been waiting for that to happen, it's probably best not to be too hopeful.

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