Shigesato Itoi and Satoru Iwata chat about the making of Mother 2 (aka EarthBound)

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata and Hobo Nichi's Shigesato Itoi recently sat down--with Itoi's colleague, Nagata--to talk about the making of Mother 2 (EarthBound to those of us in North America).



This little tête-à-tête apes the format of Nintendo's wonderfully informative Iwata Asks interviews that I've written about here and there--which is a very good thing indeed.

Also a very good thing: for the last few days, the person behind the KameDaniRyuu tumblr has been publishing translated versions of the discussion between Itoi, Iwata and Nagata.

My favorite parts of this EarthBound-cenric Q&A include the revelation that Itoi and his team worked on the game for four years before Iwata, head of HAL Laboratory at the time, swooped in and whipped it into shape (it hit the streets a year later) and that Itoi wrote its script by hand with a pencil.



To read KameDaniRyuu's translations of this chat, check out the introduction here, part one here, part two here and part three here.

Additional evidence that Shigesato Itoi is an awesome guy

The main pieces of evidence that Shigesato Itoi is an awesome guy, of course, can be found in the trio of quirky-yet-poignant RPGs he made for Nintendo systems between 1989 and 2006 known as Mother, Mother 2 (aka EarthBound) and Mother 3.

Another such morsel of proof just popped into my conscience, though, thanks to the stellar Yomuka! blog--with that morsel being that Itoi and his colleagues at Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun (Almost Daily Itoi News) have a tradition of "celebrating the release of every Animal Crossing game by turning office-wide gameplay into an actual work project."



Not only that, but pretty much every employee at "Hobo Nichi," as Itoi's company is called, maintains a blog about their experiences. Check them out by visiting 1101.com and then clicking on the heads of each staffer (scroll down to the bottom of the page). If you only want to see Itoi's Animal Crossing: New Leaf blog, go here.

(Via yomuka.wordpress.com)