211-560: Mother , officially known outside of Japan as EarthBound Beginnings , is a role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and Nintendo and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer . It is the first entry in the Mother series and was first released in Japan on July 27, 1989. The game was re-released in Japan along with its sequel on the single-cartridge compilation Mother 1+2 for
422-448: A fan translation spearheaded by Clyde Mandelin was released and was lauded by fans and critics alike. Shigesato Itoi since stated that he had no plans to create a fourth series entry, effectively ending the franchise. On October 19, 2019, a fan-made documentary entitled Mother to Earth was released, developed by a film group known as 54&O Productions. The project was funded by Kickstarter , with 560 backers donating $ 37,000 to reach
633-520: A "slightly offbeat", late 20th-century United States as interpreted by Japanese author Shigesato Itoi . Throughout the game, the player fights hippies , undead zombies , mind-controlled humans, animate objects and vehicles , extraterrestrial life , robots and crazed animals. The world is composed mainly of towns , deserts , swamps , forests , and caves the player must venture through. The game deliberately avoids traits of its Japanese role-playing game contemporaries: it does not strictly adhere to
844-504: A Zombie (1943) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Frankenstein by Mary Shelley , while not a zombie novel per se , foreshadows many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. Frankenstein , published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore, whose tales of
1055-450: A big open world , and let you do whatever you like [which makes it] difficult to tell a compelling story." Hironobu Sakaguchi noted that "users like to categorise" WRPGs as "a sort of different style, born from first person shooters." In recent years, some have also criticized WRPGs for becoming less RPG-like, instead with further emphasis on action. Christian Nutt of GameSpy states that, in contrast to JRPGs, WRPGs' greater control over
1266-522: A button to have Ninten "check" or "talk" with nearby people, animals, and objects. The game shares similarities with its sequel, EarthBound : there is a game save option through using a phone to call Ninten's father, an option to store items with one of Ninten's twin sisters at home, and an automated teller machine for banking money (ATM). The members of Ninten's party are all visible on the overworld screen at once, and are analogous to EarthBound 's party members in style and function. Differing from
1477-430: A character's strength and defense. Items can be used for a multitude of purposes, such as healing, clearing obstacles, and unlocking doors. Towns also contain useful facilities such as hospitals, where players can be healed for a fee; in one town, it is half of whatever cash the player has on hand at that moment. In the early 1900s, a young, married couple mysteriously vanish from their rural American town. Two years later,
1688-457: A command, the party members attack in an order determined by a random number generator and the character's speed status. Critical hits register with the series' signature "SMAAAASH" text and sound. If the enemy or character's HP reaches 0, the battle is won and the opponent becomes unconscious; if a character or separate enemy becomes unconscious, it can only be reversed by using PSI on that character or enemy. If every character becomes unconscious,
1899-463: A dead person can be zombified by a small child. It is said that the spell can be broken by a powerful enough sangoma . It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that witches can zombify a person by killing and possessing the victim's body to force it into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories emerged about "witch trains". These trains appeared ordinary, but were staffed by zombified workers controlled by
2110-409: A finite number of points to the attributes of their choice. Gaining experience will also unlock new magic spells for characters that use magic. Some role-playing games also give the player specific skill points , which can be used to unlock a new skill or improve an existing one. This may sometimes be implemented as a skill tree. As with the technology trees seen in strategy video games , learning
2321-545: A gamemaster. Exploring the world is an important aspect of many RPGs. Players will walk through, talking to non-player characters , picking up objects, and avoiding traps. Some games such as NetHack , Diablo , and the FATE series randomize the structure of individual levels, increasing the game's variety and replay value. Role-playing games where players complete quests by exploring randomly generated dungeons and which include permadeath are called roguelikes , named after
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#17328840105752532-468: A girl and his love for human flesh, and Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the U.S.). In 1980s Hong Kong cinema , the Chinese jiangshi , a zombie-like creature dating back to Qing dynasty era jiangshi fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, were featured in a wave of jiangshi films , popularised by Mr. Vampire (1985). Hong Kong jiangshi films were popular in
2743-449: A greater degree in the early 1990s. As console RPGs became more heavily story-based than their computer counterparts, one of the major differences that emerged during this time was in the portrayal of the characters. Console RPGs often featured intricately related characters who had distinctive personalities and traits, with players assuming the roles of people who cared about each other, fell in love or even had families. Romance in particular
2954-589: A handheld format, Mother received numerous changes to its interface, graphical display, and soundtrack, which were all either compressed or altered to fit within the confines of the Game Boy Advance. Additionally, the game retained many of the changes present in the unreleased English version of Mother , including its altered enemy sprite and extended ending. Commenting on the changes to the Famicom original, Phil Sandhop stated in an interview with LostLevels.org that it
3165-626: A hold as they had in the West due to their cost; there was little market for Western-developed games and there were a few Japanese-developed games for personal computers during this time such as The Black Onyx (1984) which followed the Wizardry / Ultima format. With the release of the low-cost Famicom console (called the Nintendo Entertainment System overseas), a new opportunity arose to bring role-playing games to Japan. Dragon Quest (1986)
3376-805: A large number of Western indie games are modelled after JRPGs, especially those of the 16-bit era , partly due to the RPG Maker game development tools . Another oft-cited difference is the prominence or absence of kawaisa , or "cuteness", in Japanese culture, and different approaches with respect to character aesthetics. WRPGs tend to maintain a serious and gritty tone, whereas JRPG protagonists tend to be designed with an emphasis on aesthetic beauty, and even male characters are often young, androgynous , shōnen or bishōnen in appearance. JRPGs often have cute characters, juxtaposed with more mature themes and situations; and many modern JRPGs feature characters designed in
3587-634: A little box doesn't mean it belongs there." Nick Doerr of Joystiq criticizes the claim that JRPGs are "too linear", pointing out that non-linear JRPGs are not uncommon—for instance, the Romancing SaGa series. Likewise, Rowan Kaiser of Joystiq points out that linear WRPGs were common in the 1990s, and argues that many of the often mentioned differences between Eastern and Western games are stereotypes that are generally "not true" and "never was", pointing to classic examples like Lands of Lore and Betrayal at Krondor that were more narrative-focused than
3798-423: A major challenge in order to progress to the next area, and this structure can be compared to the boss characters at the end of levels in action games . The player typically must complete a linear sequence of certain quests in order to reach the end of the game's story. Many RPGs also often allow the player to seek out optional side-quests and character interactions. Quests of this sort can be found by talking to
4009-459: A mixed class, such as a fighter who can cast simple spells. Characters will also have a range of physical attributes such as dexterity and strength, which affect a player's performance in combat. Mental attributes such as intelligence may affect a player's ability to perform and learn spells, while social attributes such as charisma may limit the player's choices while conversing with non-player characters. These attribute systems often strongly resemble
4220-466: A modest success, nearly outstripping Romero's Day of the Dead for box office returns. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director Peter Jackson 's ultra-gory film Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the U.S.), Bob Balaban 's comic 1993 film My Boyfriend's Back , where a self-aware high-school boy returns to profess his love for
4431-415: A new item called the "Memory Chip", which can be collected after EVE self-destructs and enables the party to warp back to EVE's remains at any point. Since its release, Mother , alongside its sequels, EarthBound and Mother 3 , have been consistently lobbied for official commercial re-releases by fans, critics, and journalists of the gaming industry alike. Despite Nintendo Power readers ranking Mother
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#17328840105754642-419: A non-player character, and there may be no penalty for abandoning or ignoring these quests other than a missed opportunity or reward. Players can find loot (such as clothing, weapons, and armor) throughout the game world and collect it. Players can trade items for currency and better equipment. Trade takes place while interacting with certain friendly non-player characters, such as shopkeepers, and often uses
4853-466: A number of user-configurable settings. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura offered players the option to play in either turn-based or RTwP mode via a configuration setting. The latter also offered a "fast turn-based" mode, though all three of the game's modes were criticized for being poorly balanced and oversimplified. Early Ultima games featured timed turns: they were strictly turn-based, but if
5064-442: A particular action will increase. Many role-playing games allow players to play as an evil character. Although robbing and murdering indiscriminately may make it easier to get money, there are usually consequences in that other characters will become uncooperative or even hostile towards the player. Thus, these games allow players to make moral choices, but force players to live with the consequences of their actions. Games often let
5275-483: A particular skill in the tree will unlock more powerful skills deeper in the tree. Three different systems of rewarding the player characters for solving the tasks in the game can be set apart: the experience system (also known as the "level-based" system), the training system (also known as the "skill-based" system) and the skill-point system (also known as "level-free" system) Older games often separated combat into its own mode of gameplay, distinct from exploring
5486-581: A positive-feedback cycle that is central to most role-playing games: The player grows in power, allowing them to overcome more difficult challenges, and gain even more power. This is part of the appeal of the genre, where players experience growing from an ordinary person into a superhero with amazing powers. Whereas other games give the player these powers immediately, the player in a role-playing game will choose their powers and skills as they gain experience. Role-playing games usually measure progress by counting experience points and character levels. Experience
5697-506: A powerful and frequently fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of deliriant drugs such as datura . Together these powders were said to induce a deathlike state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse , who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. The most ethically questioned and least scientifically explored ingredient of
5908-588: A preliminary English translation of Mother before the prototype was discovered. It had been sold earlier that year for $ 125 to an unknown buyer named "Kenny Brooks" by a game collector named Greg Mariotti, who had discovered the prototype several years earlier at a game retailer . Interested in acquiring the cartridge to publicly dump its ROM for preservation purposes , Steve Demeter, the head of Demiforce, "bullied" Mariotti to disclose Brooks' email address; Mariotti ultimately severed ties with Demiforce. A Mother fan named "EBounding" in contact with Brooks soon gave
6119-402: A result, Japanese-style role-playing games are held in disdain by some Western gamers, leading to the term "JRPG" being held in the pejorative. Some observers have also speculated that JRPGs are stagnating or declining in both quality and popularity, including remarks by BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk and writing director Daniel Erickson that JRPGs are stagnating—and that Final Fantasy XIII
6330-442: A side-scrolling view. Most notably since Ultima Underworld (1992), role-playing games started implementing true three-dimensional (3D) graphics, where players typically navigate the game world from a first or third-person perspective. However, an isometric or aerial top-down perspective is common in party-based RPGs, in order to give the player a clear view of their entire party and their surroundings. Role-playing games require
6541-490: A single paragraph) spread across 13 booklets, while the second contains 50,000 paragraphs spread across 14 booklets. Most of the games from this era are turn-based, although Dungeon Master and its imitators have real-time combat. Other classic titles from this era include The Bard's Tale (1985), Wasteland (1988), the start of the Might and Magic (1986–2014) series and the continuing Ultima (1981–1999) series. Later, in
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6752-427: A slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt . English professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of Zombies was strongly influenced by Haitian slavery . Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing suicide. While most scholars have associated
6963-409: A smaller set of possible actions, since computers can't engage in imaginative acting comparable to a skilled human gamemaster. In exchange, the typical role-playing video game may have storyline branches, user interfaces, and stylized cutscenes and gameplay to offer a more direct storytelling mechanism. Characterization of non-player characters in video games is often handled using a dialog tree . Saying
7174-415: A specialized trading screen. Purchased items go into the player's inventory. Some games turn inventory management into a logistical challenge by limiting the size of the player's inventory, thus forcing the player to decide what they must carry at the time. This can be done by limiting the maximum weight that a player can carry, by employing a system of arranging items in a virtual space, or by simply limiting
7385-463: A spell, as ammunition is consumed by a gun, most games offer players a finite amount of mana which can be spent on any spell. Mana is restored by resting or by consuming potions. Characters can also gain other non-magical skills, which stay with the character for as long as the character lives. Role-playing games may have the player focus only on a single character throughout the game; the character may be joined by computer-controlled allies outside of
7596-707: A state of catatonia . Roland Littlewood , professor of anthropology and psychiatry, published a study supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon in the medical journal The Lancet in 1997. The social explanation sees observed cases of people identified as zombies as a culture-bound syndrome , with a particular cultural form of adoption practiced in Haiti that unites the homeless and mentally ill with grieving families who see them as their "returned" lost loved ones, as Littlewood summarizes his findings in an article in Times Higher Education : I came to
7807-422: A state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis — particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm — unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to psychologist Terence Hines , the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of
8018-415: A top-down perspective and occasionally enters a first-person perspective battle sequence where the player chooses attack options from a series of menus. On their turn, the player selects between options to fight, guard, check enemy attributes , run away, use items, or use offensive, defensive, or healing psychic powers. The player can also set the battle on autopilot with the "auto" option. Upon being assigned
8229-529: A tribute by Demeter to Street Fighter Alpha ( Street Fighter Zero in Japan). On April 27, 1998, EarthBound Zero was released to the public, along with an original back-up of Earth Bound ' s code. In order for Earth Bound to work on one of the most proficient NES emulators at the time, NESticle , a single byte of code in the ROM was modified; however, this led to a checksum being triggered at various points in
8440-511: A vampire story, had a great impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero . The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth , which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero's own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film Night of the Living Dead , a work that was more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it. The monsters in
8651-517: A wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as the zombie comedy Bio Zombie (1998) and action film Versus (2000), and then a new wave of popular Western zombie films in the early 2000s, the Resident Evil and House of the Dead films, the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake , and the British zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). The " zombie apocalypse " concept, in which the civilized world
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8862-471: A witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night, and the person would then either be zombified or beaten and thrown from the train a distance away from the original location. Several decades after Hurston's work, Wade Davis , a Harvard ethnobotanist , presented a pharmacological case for zombies in a 1983 article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology , and later in two popular books: The Serpent and
9073-447: A zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity. The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism , a belief of Bakongo religion and Haitian voodoo . Each type of legendary zombie
9284-483: A zombie, since they "knew" that they were dead and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Societal reinforcement of the belief was hypothesized by Davis to confirm for the zombie individual the zombie state, and such individuals were known to hang around in graveyards, exhibiting attitudes of low affect . Davis's claim has been criticized, particularly the suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep "zombies" in
9495-402: Is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse . In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore , in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou . Modern media depictions of the reanimation of
9706-475: Is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft . The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader named Zumbi and the etymology of his name in "nzambi". The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to
9917-651: Is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since become a staple of modern zombie media, seen in such media as The Walking Dead franchise . The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of the zombie archetype , with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable examples of the latter include movies Warm Bodies and Zombies , novels American Gods by Neil Gaiman , Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, and Bone Song by John Meaney , animated movie Corpse Bride , TV series iZombie and Santa Clarita Diet , manga series Sankarea: Undying Love , and
10128-496: Is largely predefined for the sake of telling a specific story, many role-playing games make use of a character creation screen. This allows players to choose their character's sex, their race or species, and their character class. Although many of these traits are cosmetic, there are functional aspects as well. Character classes will have different abilities and strengths. Common classes include fighters, spellcasters, thieves with stealth abilities, and clerics with healing abilities, or
10339-485: Is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony." A Central African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postulated based on two etymologies in the Kongo language , nzambi ("god") and zumbi ("fetish"). This root helps form the names of several deities, including
10550-492: Is not even really an RPG; criticisms regarding seemingly nebulous justifications by some Japanese designers for newly changed (or, alternately, newly un-changed) features of recent titles; calls among some gaming journalists to "fix" JRPGs' problems; as well as claims that some recent titles such as Front Mission Evolved are beginning to attempt—and failing to—imitate Western titles. In an article for PSM3 , Brittany Vincent of RPGFan.com felt that "developers have mired
10761-491: Is not for its actual game but for the interest it generated in video game emulation and the preservation of unreleased games. Mother has become an established Nintendo franchise, consisting of three installments and a compilation port, and has appeared in several other media with its characters, such as the Super Smash Bros. series. A sequel entitled Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū was developed and released in Japan for
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#173288401057510972-484: Is notable for introducing automapping and in-game scrolls providing hints and background information. They also released Pool of Radiance in 1988, the first of several " Gold Box " CRPGs based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules . These games feature a first-person display for movement, combined with an overhead tactical display for combat. One common feature of RPGs from this era, which Matt Barton calls
11183-621: Is often rooted in speculative fiction (i.e. fantasy or science fiction ), which allows players to do things they cannot do in real life and helps players suspend their disbelief about the rapid character growth. To a lesser extent, settings closer to the present day or near future are possible. The story often provides much of the entertainment in the game. Because these games have strong storylines, they can often make effective use of recorded dialog and voiceover narration. Players of these games tend to appreciate long cutscenes more than players of faster action games . While most games advance
11394-534: Is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit). The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa (" Guinea "), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever
11605-406: Is usually divided so that each game location is an opportunity to reveal a new chapter in the story. Pen-and-paper role-playing games typically involve a player called the gamemaster (or GM for short) who can dynamically create the story, setting, and rules, and react to a player's choices. In role-playing video games, the computer performs the function of the gamemaster. This offers the player
11816-451: Is usually earned by defeating enemies in combat, with some games offering experience for completing certain quests or conversations. Experience becomes a form of score , and accumulating a certain amount of experience will cause the character's level to go up. This is called "levelling up", and gives the player an opportunity to raise their character(s)'s attributes. Many RPGs allow players to choose how to improve their character, by allocating
12027-469: The Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them", complained Ebert, "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately: The kids in the audience were stunned. There
12238-636: The Epic of Gilgamesh . One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The Magic Island (1929) by W. B. Seabrook . This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time commented that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech". Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of
12449-768: The Dragon Quest series and its simultaneous parody of the genre's tropes, though its high difficulty level and balance issues polarized critics. A North American localization of Mother was completed and slated for release as Earth Bound , but was abandoned as being commercially nonviable. A finished prototype was later found and publicly circulated on the Internet under the informal title EarthBound Zero . Though many critics considered Mother ' s sequel to be similar and an overall better implementation of its gameplay ideas, Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com wrote that Mother importantly generated interest in video game emulation and
12660-425: The Dragon Quest style: the windowed interface, first-person perspective in combat, and graphics, but differed in its contemporary setting and non-fantasy story. Parish commented that Atlus 's 1987 Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei was similarly set in the modern day, though it devolved into science fiction and fantasy in ways Mother did not. He added that the game has "a sense of wonder and magic realism ... in
12871-579: The Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. Some role-playing games make use of magical powers , or equivalents such as psychic powers or advanced technology. These abilities are confined to specific characters such as mages, spellcasters, or magic-users. In games where the player controls multiple characters, these magic-users usually complement the physical strength of other classes. Magic can be used to attack, defend, or temporarily change an enemy or ally's attributes. While some games allow players to gradually consume
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#173288401057513082-621: The English-speaking Caribbean , considered to be of the same etymology; in the French West Indies also, local "zombies" are recognized, but these are of a more general spirit nature. The idea of physical zombie-like creatures is present in some South African cultures, where they are called xidachane in Sotho / Tsonga and maduxwane in Venda . In some communities, it is believed that
13293-511: The Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, Mother 's world map does not keep locations separate, instead connecting all areas in one game world. The landscape's structures are portrayed with an oblique projection , requested by Itoi at a programmer's suggestion. Like the Dragon Quest series, Mother uses a random encounter combat system. The player explores the overworld from
13504-462: The Game Boy Advance in 2003. The game follows a young American boy named Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on psychic powers to put an end to the paranormal phenomena spiraling the country into disarray. Writer and director Shigesato Itoi pitched Mother ' s concept to Shigeru Miyamoto while visiting Nintendo's headquarters for other business. Though Miyamoto rejected
13715-417: The Kongo words " nzambi " (god) and " zumbi " (fetish). A Kimbundu -to-Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as soul, while a later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living". How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear. The film Night of
13926-594: The Mother port in Mother 1+2 , the international Virtual Console release utilized the same ROM as the unreleased NES localization of Mother , Earth Bound , with no inherent modifications. Like its successor, EarthBound , EarthBound Beginnings became one of the best selling titles for the service, particularly in North America and Europe; it ranked slightly less in Japan, behind the digital version of Splatoon . EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound were both released for
14137-588: The Nintendo 64 and its disk-based add-on in 1996, where it lasted for two years before switching to the system's standard cartridge format. It was cancelled in 2000, due to further development siphoning resources from the GameCube , but its development was restarted in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance and released to critical and commercial acclaim in Japan in 2006. It is the only game in the series to have not been officially localized by Nintendo, despite much demand; in 2008,
14348-537: The Nintendo DS have had more original and experimental Japanese RPGs released in recent years. Western RPGs have also received criticism in recent years. They remain less popular in Japan, where, until recently, Western games in general had a negative reputation. In Japan, where the vast majority of early console role-playing video games originate, Western RPGs remain largely unknown. The developer Motomu Toriyama criticized Western RPGs, stating that they "dump you in
14559-470: The Nintendo Switch Online service in North America on February 9 2022, and internationally the following day. Mother was the sixth best-selling game of 1989 in Japan, where it sold about 400,000 copies. Mother received a "Silver Hall of Fame" score of 31/40 from Japanese magazine Famitsu . Reviewers noted the game's similarities with the Dragon Quest series and its simultaneous "parody" of
14770-647: The Sharp X1 computer in 1983 and later ported to the MSX in 1984, the NES in 1985 and the Sharp X68000 as New Bokosuka Wars . The game laid the foundations for the tactical role-playing game genre, or "simulation RPG" genre as it is known in Japan. It was also an early example of a real-time , action role-playing game . In 1986, Chunsoft created the NES title Dragon Quest (called Dragon Warrior in North America until
14981-632: The Super Famicom in 1994, and was localized and released for the Super NES in 1995 as EarthBound . EarthBound was initially met with poor critical and commercial reception in the US, but has since garnered a dedicated fan community and has been retrospectively viewed as an influential cult classic . Development for the third game in the series, Mother 3 , began in 1994 for the Super Famicom before shifting to
15192-500: The Ultima series, employed duplicates of the miniatures combat system traditionally used in the early role-playing games . Representations of the player characters and monsters would move around an arena modeled after the surrounding terrain, attacking any enemies that are sufficiently close. Earlier role-playing video games used a two-dimensional top-down view or tile-based first-person view. Early action-based role-playing games often used
15403-476: The United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was William Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal code , which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This passage was later used in promotional materials for
15614-405: The artificial intelligence and scripted behavior of computer-controlled non-player characters . The premise of many role-playing games tasks the player with saving the world, or whichever level of society is threatened. There are often twists and turns as the story progresses, such as the surprise appearance of estranged relatives, or enemies who become friends or vice versa. The game world
15825-500: The eighth game ), which drew inspiration from computer RPGs Ultima and Wizardry and is regarded as the template for future Japanese role-playing video games released since then. Also in 1986 The Legend of Zelda was released for the NES , while not generally considered an RPG itself did inspire many aspects of future action-RPGs. In 1987, the genre came into its own with the release of several highly influential console RPGs distinguishing themselves from computer RPGs, including
16036-436: The " Golden Age " of computer RPGs, is the use of numbered "paragraphs" printed in the manual or adjunct booklets, containing the game's lengthier texts; the player can be directed to read a certain paragraph, instead of being shown the text on screen. The ultimate exemplar of this approach is Sir-Tech 's Star Saga trilogy (of which only two games were released); the first game contains 888 "textlets" (usually much longer than
16247-457: The "rolling HP counter" and non-random encounters for which later entries in the series were known. Parish also found the game's balance to be uneven, as the statistical character attributes and level of difficulty scaled incorrectly with the game's progression. Rose Colored Gaming, a company that made custom reproductions of the NES cartridge, noted that the Japanese release's was more challenging than
16458-453: The 1920s and early 1930s, Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. " Cool Air ", " In the Vault " and " The Outsider " all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft's " Herbert West–Reanimator " (1921) "helped define zombies in popular culture". This series of short stories featured Herbert West , a mad scientist , who attempts to revive human corpses, with mixed results. Notably,
16669-445: The 1932 film White Zombie . Also shall be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made by any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows. In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered
16880-416: The 1980 video game Rogue . The game's story is often mapped onto exploration, where each chapter of the story is mapped onto a different location. RPGs usually allow players to return to previously visited locations. Usually, there is nothing left to do there, although some locations change throughout the story and offer the player new things to do in response. Players must acquire enough power to overcome
17091-422: The 1990s, and became known for being more heavily story and character-based, American computer RPGs began to face criticism for having characters devoid of personality or background, due to representing avatars which the player uses to interact with the world, in contrast to Japanese console RPGs which depicted characters with distinctive personalities. American computer RPGs were thus criticized for lacking "more of
17302-489: The Dead (1978) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as Michael Jackson 's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years. The mid-1990s saw the introduction of Resident Evil and The House of the Dead , two break-out successes of video games featuring zombie enemies which would later go on to become highly influential and well-known. These games were initially followed by
17513-607: The Dead (1978), including once in dialog. According to Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma . He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in White Zombie with Bela Lugosi . Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by
17724-525: The Dead films and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. These films also adopted an action approach to the zombie concept, which was also influenced by the Resident Evil and House of the Dead video games. Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. White Zombie (directed by Victor Halperin in 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (directed by Jacques Tourneur ; 1943) were early examples. With George A. Romero 's Night of
17935-500: The Far East from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Prior to the 1990s, there were not many Japanese films related to what may be considered in the West as a zombie film. Early films such as The Discarnates (1988) feature little gore and no cannibalism, but it is about the dead returning to life looking for love rather than a story of apocalyptic destruction. One of the earliest Japanese zombie films with considerable gore and violence
18146-464: The Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has also been suggested to the island's indigenous Taíno people , partly based on an early account of native shamanist practices written by Ramón Pané [ es ] , a monk of the Hieronymite religious order and companion of Christopher Columbus . The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during
18357-599: The Japan-only sequel Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of EarthBound ' s U.S. release, Mother was released globally as EarthBound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console in June 2015, and was released alongside EarthBound for Nintendo Switch Online in February 2022. Mother is a single-player , role-playing video game set in
18568-618: The Kongo creator deity Nzambi Mpungu and the Louisiana serpent deity Li Grand Zombi (a local version of the Haitian Damballa ), but it is in fact a generic word for a divine spirit. The common African conception of beings under these names is more similar to the incorporeal "zombie astral", as in the Kongo Nkisi spirits. A related, but also often incorporeal, undead being is the jumbee of
18779-412: The Living Dead (1968) made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as "zombies", describing them instead as " ghouls " (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George A. Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his script for his sequel Dawn of
18990-403: The Living Dead (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to consumerism and consumer culture. Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 50 films were released in 2014 alone) that they constitute a separate subgenre of horror film. Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in espionage or adventure-themed works outside the horror genre. For example,
19201-456: The Living Dead began the shift away from Haitian dark magic, though did not give scientific explanations for zombie origins. A more decisive shift towards scientific themes came with the Resident Evil video game series in the late 1990s, which gave more realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins while drawing on modern science and technology, such as biological weaponry , genetic manipulation , and parasitic symbiosis . This became
19412-448: The PCs enter these locations or perform certain actions. Combat options typically involve positioning characters, selecting which enemy to attack, and exercising special skills such as casting spells. In a classical turn-based system, only one character may act at a time; all other characters remain still, with a few exceptions that may involve the use of special abilities. The order in which
19623-508: The Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the bloodstream (usually through a wound). The first, French: coup de poudre ("powder strike"), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX),
19834-608: The Ravager and Menzoberranzan , transferred the AD&;D license to several different developers, and eventually gave it to BioWare , who used it in Baldur's Gate (1998) and several later games. By the 2000s, 3D engines had become dominant. The earliest RPG on a console was Dragonstomper on the Atari 2600 in 1982. Another early RPG on a console was Bokosuka Wars , originally released for
20045-591: The Zombies (1966). Romero was also inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954), along with its film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth (1964). The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero 's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead . In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster". This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies . Roger Ebert of
20256-582: The ability to pause the game and issue orders to all characters under his/her control; when the game is unpaused, all characters follow the orders they were given. This "real-time with pause" system ( RTwP ) has been particularly popular in games designed by BioWare . The most famous RTwP engine is the Infinity Engine . Other names for "real-time with pause" include "active pause" and "semi real-time". Tactical RPG maker Apeiron named their system Smart Pause Mode (SPM) because it would automatically pause based on
20467-421: The act of necromancy of a bokor , a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan (priest) and the mambo (priestess) of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own. The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral ", which is a part of the human soul . A bokor can capture
20678-437: The ambitious scope of Final Fantasy VII raised the possibilities for the genre, with its dozens of minigames and much higher production values. The latter includes innovations such as the use of 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds, battles viewed from multiple different angles rather than a single angle, and for the first time full-motion CGI video seamlessly blended into the gameplay, effectively integrated throughout
20889-517: The cartridge's likely authenticity and the changes in Earth Bound being present in Mother 1+2 . The prototype was later sold by Brooks for $ 1000 to a collector named Andrew DeRouin, who gave it to a friend that kept it for fourteen years; DeRouin would reacquire the cartridge from the friend for free. The cartridge, dubbed the "TK-69" prototype, was dumped once again in 2020, as Demiforce's original back-up had gone missing since its initial release. Since
21100-478: The case of a woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed that she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have had. Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug , but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What
21311-535: The category," pointing to Chrono Trigger (which he also worked on) and the Mana games. He further noted that there have been "other games similar to the style of Chrono Trigger ," but that "it's probably because the games weren't localised and didn't reach the Western audience." Xeno series director Tetsuya Takahashi , in reference to Xenoblade Chronicles , stated that "I don't know when exactly people started using
21522-448: The character at an effectiveness determined by that character's numeric attributes. Often these attributes increase each time a character gains a level , and a character's level goes up each time the player accumulates a certain amount of experience. Role-playing video games also typically attempt to offer more complex and dynamic character interaction than what is found in other video game genres. This usually involves additional focus on
21733-504: The character's level, which somewhat determines the increase of the character's physical and psychic points. There is also a chance an item can be obtained after an enemy is defeated. Once the battle is won, Ninten's father deposits money into an account, which can be withdrawn from an ATM. In towns, players can purchase weapons, items, and food from fast food restaurants and department stores . Weapons and equipment, such as pendants , medallions , and bracelets , can be equipped to increase
21944-643: The characters act is usually dependent on their attributes, such as speed or agility. This system rewards strategic planning more than quickness. It also points to the fact that realism in games is a means to the end of immersion in the game world, not an end in itself. A turn-based system makes it possible, for example, to run within range of an opponent and kill them before they get a chance to act, or duck out from behind hard cover, fire, and retreat back without an opponent being able to fire, which are of course both impossibilities. However, tactical possibilities have been created by this unreality that did not exist before;
22155-456: The characters within a tile-based graphics system . Dragon Quest was highly successful in Japan, leading to further entries in the series and other titles such as Final Fantasy that followed the same simplifications made in RPGs for Dragon Quest . Because of these differences, the role-playing genre began to be classified into two fairly distinct styles: computer RPG and console RPG . By
22366-459: The company's Shigeru Miyamoto . He thought the setting would be unique for its incongruence with role-playing genre norms, as daily life lacked the pretense for magic powers and they could not simply give the child characters firearms as weapons. Itoi's project proposal suggested how the natural limitations could be circumvented. Miyamoto met with him and praised the idea, though he was not sure whether Itoi "could pull it off". As an advertiser, Itoi
22577-505: The conclusion that although it is unlikely that there is a single explanation for all cases where zombies are recognised by locals in Haiti, the mistaken identification of a wandering mentally ill stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation in many cases. People with a chronic schizophrenic illness, brain damage or learning disability are not uncommon in rural Haiti, and they would be particularly likely to be identified as zombies. Pulliam and Fonseca (2014) and Walz (2006) trace
22788-475: The context of childhood imagination", as Ninten can feel more like someone "pretending" to be a Dragon Quest -style hero than a hero in his own right. Parish said this makes the player wonder which game events are real and which are Ninten's imagination. Parish cited Itoi's interest in entering the games industry to make a "satirical" role-playing game as proof of the genre's swift five-year rise to widespread popularity in Japan. Cassandra Ramos of RPGamer praised
22999-417: The dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi , radiation , gases , diseases , plants , bacteria , viruses , etc. The English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi". Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of
23210-408: The development and customization of playable characters has come at the expense of plot and gameplay, resulting in what he felt was generic dialogue, lack of character development within the narrative and weaker battle systems. He also states that WRPGs tend to focus more on the underlying rules governing the battle system rather than on the experience itself. Tom Battey of Edge Magazine noted that
23421-451: The discovery of the "TK-69" cartridge, multiple prototype cartridges have surfaced outside of Nintendo, with one confirmed prototype residing within the headquarters of Nintendo of America. In 2003, as part of a promotion for Mother 3 , Nintendo released a Game Boy Advance compilation titled Mother 1+2 , which compiled Mother and its sequel, Mother 2 , into one combined cartridge presented only in Japanese. As part of its conversion to
23632-741: The documentation from a text adventure game and told Itoi that he would have to write similar documentation himself. Miyamoto said that he knew from his own experience that the game would only be as good as the effort Itoi invested, and that he knew Itoi could not invest the appropriate time with his full-time job. Itoi restated his interest and reduced his workload, so Miyamoto assembled a development team. Upon assessing for compatibility, they began production in Ichikawa, Chiba . Itoi had said earlier that he wanted his work environment to feel like an extracurricular club consisting of volunteers and working out of an apartment, which Miyamoto tried to accommodate. Itoi wrote
23843-520: The earliest role-playing video games on a microcomputer was Dungeon n Dragons , written by Peter Trefonas and published by CLOAD (1980). This early game, published for a TRS-80 Model 1, is just 16K long and includes a limited word parser command line, character generation, a store to purchase equipment, combat, traps to solve, and a dungeon to explore. Other contemporaneous CRPGs (Computer Role Playing Games) were Temple of Apshai , Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure and Akalabeth: World of Doom ,
24054-536: The early 1950s EC Comics , which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror and Weird Science , featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and "Herbert West–Reanimator". Richard Matheson 's 1954 novel I Am Legend , although classified as
24265-437: The early 2000s, the distinction between platforms became less pronounced as the same games appeared on both console and computer, but stylistic differences between Western role-playing games (WRPGs) and Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) remained, rooted in the earlier distinctions. Though sharing fundamental premises, WRPGs tend to feature darker graphics, older characters, and a greater focus on roaming freedom, realism, and
24476-404: The eighth and final melody and reminisces about an alien named Gyiyg that she had loved as her own child. Revealing that she is George's wife Maria, Queen Mary vanishes; Magicant, actually a mirage created by her consciousness, vanishes with her. The party is warped back to Holy Loly Mountain. Large rocks had blocked the mountain peak's entrance, but were cleared by Maria's consciousness. There,
24687-421: The familiar planet Earth. The game's soundtrack was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka . Tanaka was a video game composer working for Nintendo who had previously composed for games such as Super Mario Land and Metroid , while Suzuki was a composer and musician for bands of many different genres. The NES was only able to play three notes at a time, which Suzuki has noted greatly limited what he
24898-565: The fantasy or science fiction genres, despite numerous instances of each occurring within the game. The player fights in warehouses and laboratories instead of in standard dungeons, and rather than trekking from to each town on foot, the player is able to take trains to travel from area to area. Instead of swords , assault weapons, and magic , the player uses baseball bats , toy guns , frying pans , knives , and inherent psychic abilities . The game's main protagonists, Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana, are roughly 11–12 years of age. The player can press
25109-472: The film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), as well as the many zombie films it inspired, such as The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Zombi 2 (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although Return of the Living Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating human brains. There has been an evolution in the zombie archetype from supernatural to scientific themes. I Am Legend and Night of
25320-400: The first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of
25531-498: The fourth-highest most desired game for the Wii Virtual Console (with EarthBound as the most desired) in 2008, a release ultimately did not materialize. Starmen.net hosted a Mother 25th Anniversary Fanfest in 2014 with a livestream of the game and plans for a remixed soundtrack. Later that year, fans released a 25th Anniversary Edition ROM hack that updated the game's graphics, script, and gameplay balance. Inspired by
25742-404: The game for EarthBound fans. Parish credited Itoi for the game's vision and compared his ability and literary interests with American author Garrison Keillor . Parish felt that Itoi's pedigree as a writer and copywriter was well suited for the space-limited, 8-bit role-playing game medium, which privileged Mother ahead of other games written by non-writers. USgamer 's Parish noted how
25953-408: The game to appeal to American audiences; Nintendo of America trademarked a separate title, Space Bound , as a potential title for the game's sequel . Plans finalized for Earth Bound included an English release of the Mother album soundtrack , along with an 80-page instruction manual styled after a diary belonging to George, which would end on a ripped page after taking the player halfway through
26164-408: The game transitions to a blank screen, where it asks the player if they want to continue; an affirmative response brings Ninten, conscious, back to the last save point , with half the money on his person at the time of his defeat. Upon winning the battle, the player may receive experience points, new psychic powers, and other points to improve their overall status. Enough experience points will increase
26375-435: The game world. More recent games tend to maintain a consistent perspective for exploration and combat. Some games, especially earlier video games, generate battles from random encounters ; more modern RPGs are more likely to have persistent wandering monsters that move about the game world independently of the player. Most RPGs also use stationary boss monsters in key positions, and automatically trigger battles with them when
26586-432: The game's non-player characters would "contemplate the profound and trivial" instead of reciting the active plot. He added that the game's lack of an official North American release has bolstered the reputation and revere of its immediate sequel. While Parish said Mother 's script was "as sharp as EarthBound 's ", he felt that the original's game mechanics did not meet the same level of quality. Mother lacked
26797-477: The game's graphics and music, and considered it among the console's best, with "rich, ... nicely detailed" visuals, Peanuts -style characters, and "simple but effective" audio. In contrast, she found the battle sequences aesthetically "pretty bland" and, otherwise, the game's "least interesting" aspect. Overall, she found Mother "surprisingly complex ... for its time", and considered its story superior to (but less "wacky" than) its sequel. She especially recommended
27008-624: The game's planned release being late into the NES's life cycle in light of the impending US release of the Super NES . In 1994, efforts were renewed to release Earth Bound in the United States and in Canada, but were shuttered due to the endeavor's perceived costs. According to Phil Sandhop in an interview with LostLevels.org, "the Mother project and localizing it really opened up a few eyes at Nintendo. They began working closer with Nintendo of America and
27219-453: The game's script and commuted from Tokyo, a process he found "exhausting". Even with asking Itoi to prioritize the development process, Miyamoto received criticism of acquiescing to a celebrity and of hiring a copywriter not up for the task. Miyamoto said that his decision to pursue the project was based on his confidence in Itoi. According to Itoi in a 1989 Famitsu interview, the word "mothership"
27430-425: The game, players use medication and hospitals to restore their health, utilize baseball bats and toy guns to fight enemies, and encounter aliens , robots , possessed objects, and brainwashed animals and humans. Mother uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system. Mother sold around 400,000 copies upon its release, where it was praised for its similarities to
27641-505: The game, which would indefinitely lock the game on an anti-piracy screen . Another byte was modified to disable the screens entirely, and it was publicly distributed once again. Skepticism about the cartridge's authenticity soon arose from dubious members of the EarthBound fan community, initially positing alternative theories as to how the cartridge surfaced; they later came to regard the prototype as real, mainly due to Phil Sandhop confirming
27852-489: The game. Earth Bound was advertised and scheduled for a fall 1991 release, but was delayed and subsequently shelved. Earth Bound ' s cancellation has since been attributed to Nintendo of America's marketing division deeming the game unprofitable, due to the lack of market interest in the RPG genre, the cost of Earth Bound ' s added cartridge size and supplementary materials making it difficult to promote and manufacture, and
28063-518: The game. The game was soon ported to the PC and gained much success there, as did several other originally console RPGs, blurring the line between the console and computer platforms. Computer-driven role-playing games had their start in Western markets, with games generally geared to be played on home computers. By 1985, series like Wizardry and Ultima represented the state of the art in role-playing games. In Japan, home computers had yet to take as great
28274-448: The genre is that characters grow in power and abilities, and characters are typically designed by the player. RPGs rarely challenge a player's physical coordination or reaction time, with the exception of action role-playing games . Role-playing video games typically rely on a highly developed story and setting, which is divided into a number of quests. Players control one or several characters by issuing commands, which are performed by
28485-477: The genre's tropes. They thought the game's sequel, EarthBound , to be very similar and a better implementation of Mother 's gameplay ideas. Critics also disliked the game's high difficulty level and balance issues. Jeremy Parish of USgamer described the game as a mild-mannered parody ("between satire and pastiche") of the role-playing game genre, specifically the Dragon Quest series. He noted that Mother , like many Japanese role-playing games, emulated
28696-521: The genre-defining Phantasy Star , released for the Master System . Shigeru Miyamoto 's Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the Famicom Disk System was one of the earliest action role-playing games , combining the action-adventure game framework of its predecessor The Legend of Zelda with the statistical elements of turn-based RPGs . Most RPGs at this time were turn-based. Faxanadu
28907-399: The group, with Lloyd arriving in a tank to destroy the robot; the robot escapes by ripping a hole in space, leaving the party burned, Teddy critically wounded, and allowing Lloyd to rejoin the party. They take a boat out on a nearby lake, and a whirlpool pulls them into an underwater laboratory; in it, they find a robot named EVE, which claims to have been built by George to protect Ninten. When
29118-460: The historical preservation of unreleased games. In 1994, Mother ' s sequel, Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū , was released in Japan for the Super Famicom , which was localized and released in America in 1995 under the name " EarthBound ". EarthBound initially flopped in the U.S., but later gained a cult following and became retrospectively viewed as a cult classic . EarthBound was followed by
29329-441: The husband, George, inexplicably returns and begins a strange study in complete seclusion. His wife, Maria, is never heard from again. In 1988, the home of a young boy named Ninten is attacked by a poltergeist . After Ninten fends it off, his father tells him that his great-grandfather studied psychic powers, and asks him to investigate crises occurring across the world. Resolving some in his hometown of Mother's Day, Ninten travels to
29540-459: The information to Demiforce, desiring to play the game himself. Demiforce then entered into negotiations with Brooks, and as part of them, the EarthBound fan community would donate $ 400 for Demiforce to temporarily obtain the cartridge from Brooks in order to dump its ROM. To distinguish Earth Bound from EarthBound , the prototype's title screen was altered to display the name "EarthBound Zero" ,
29751-539: The key features of RPGs were developed in this early period, prior to the release of Ultima III: Exodus , one of the prime influences on both computer and console RPG development. For example, Wizardry features menu-driven combat, Tunnels of Doom features tactical combat on a special "combat screen", and Dungeons of Daggorath features real-time combat which takes place on the main dungeon map. Starting in 1984 with Questron and 50 Mission Crush , SSI produced many series of CRPGs. Their 1985 game Phantasie
29962-520: The label "JRPG" is most commonly used to refer to RPGs "whose presentation mimics the design sensibilities" of anime and manga, that it's "typically the presentation and character archetypes" that signal "this is a JRPG." Modern JRPGs are more likely to feature turn-based battles; while modern WRPGs are more likely to feature real-time combat. In the past, the reverse was often true: real-time action role-playing games were far more common among Japanese console RPGs than Western computer RPGs up until
30173-406: The laboratory floods and they are sucked back out into the lake, they leave for the mountain's peak. After the escaped robot returns with an upgrade, it attacks them, and EVE self-destructs to destroy it, leaving behind the seventh part of Queen Mary's song. The party then warps to Magicant, where Ninten plays the collected melodies to Queen Mary. Upon recalling the rest of the song, she teaches Ninten
30384-407: The land of Magicant, where its monarch, Queen Mary, asks Ninten to collect the parts of a song that appears in her dreams to play them for her. Ninten returns to Earth and befriends Lloyd, a child prodigy who is bullied at Tinkle Elementary School . The two travel to the town of Snowman to deliver a lost hat to Ana, a young girl with psychic powers. Ana tells Ninten she saw him in a vision, and joins
30595-504: The late 1970s. The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the Evil Dead trilogy, while highly influential, are not technically zombie films, but films about demonic possession , despite the presence of the undead. 1985's Re-Animator , loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim and becoming
30806-437: The late 1990s had become more cinematic in style (e.g. Final Fantasy series). At the same time, WRPGs started becoming more novelistic in style (e.g. Planescape: Torment ), but by the late 2000s had also adopted a more cinematic style (e.g. Mass Effect ). One reason given for these differences is that many early Japanese console RPGs can be seen as forms of interactive manga or anime wrapped around Western rule systems at
31017-415: The late 1990s have had a stronger focus on extensive dialog tree systems (e.g. Planescape: Torment ). On the other hand, JRPGs tend to limit players to developing pre-defined player characters , and often do not allow the option to create or choose one's own playable characters or make decisions that alter the plot. In the early 1990s, JRPGs were seen as being much closer to fantasy novels , but by
31228-919: The late 1990s, due to gamepads usually being better suited to real-time action than the keyboard and mouse. Some journalists and video game designers have questioned this cultural classification, arguing that the differences between Eastern and Western games have been exaggerated. In an interview held at the American Electronic Entertainment Expo , Japanese video game developer Tetsuya Nomura (who worked on Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts ) emphasized that RPGs should not be classified by country-of-origin, but rather described simply for what they are: role-playing games. Hironobu Sakaguchi , creator of Final Fantasy and The Last Story , noted that, while "users like to categorise" JRPGs as "turn-based, traditional styles" and WRPGs as "born from first-person shooters ," there "are titles that don't fit
31439-428: The late 1990s, which saw the rise of optical disks in fifth generation consoles. The implications for RPGs were enormous—longer, more involved quests, better audio, and full-motion video . This was first clearly demonstrated in 1997 by the phenomenal success of Final Fantasy VII , which is considered one of the most influential games of all time. With a record-breaking production budget of around $ 45 million,
31650-436: The light novel Is This a Zombie? In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human–zombie romantic relationship is interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are subject to wild desires and free from social conventions). In Haitian folklore , a zombie ( Haitian French : zombi , Haitian Creole : zonbi )
31861-399: The lyrics "cheesy and trite" but appreciated the "simple statements" in "Eight Melodies" and the "quirky and wonderful" "Magicant". Only the last song on the album is in chiptune . Gann ultimately recommended the 2003 remastered release over this version. The game's soundtrack contains several tracks later used in subsequent series games. An English localization began for Mother in 1990 and
32072-461: The mid-1970s, as an offshoot of early university mainframe text-based RPGs on PDP-10 and Unix -based computers, such as Dungeon , pedit5 and dnd . In 1980 , a very popular dungeon crawler , Rogue , was released. Featuring ASCII graphics where the setting, monsters and items were represented by letters and a deep system of gameplay, it inspired a whole genre of similar clones on mainframe and home computers called " roguelikes ". One of
32283-591: The middle to late 1990s, isometric, sprite-based RPGs became commonplace, with video game publishers Interplay Entertainment and Blizzard North playing a lead role with such titles as the Baldur's Gate , Icewind Dale and the action-RPG Diablo series, as well as the dialogue-heavy Planescape: Torment and cult classics Fallout and Fallout 2 . This era also saw a move toward 3D game engines with such games as Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven and The Elder Scrolls: Arena . TSR , dissatisfied with SSI's later products, such as Dark Sun: Wake of
32494-399: The minimum $ 35,000 needed for the documentary's production. The documentary focuses on the road to Mother' s localization and eventual release as EarthBound Beginnings in North America, and includes interviews with key people behind the process, as well as notable figures within the gaming community. Additionally, merchandise and psychical media centered around the documentary is available on
32705-576: The modern JRPG in unoriginality", citing Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada who stated that "they're strictly catering to a particular audience", the article noting the difference in game sales between Japan and North America before going on to suggest JRPGs may need to "move forward". This criticism has also occurred in the wider media with an advertisement for Fallout: New Vegas ( Obsidian Entertainment ) in Japan openly mocked Japanese RPGs' traditional characteristics in favor of their own title. Nick Doerr of Joystiq noted that Bethesda felt that JRPGs "are all
32916-421: The more fantasy novel approach of Squaresoft console RPGs such as Final Fantasy IV . However in 1994, game designer Sandy Petersen noted that, among computer gamers, there was criticism against cartridge-based console JRPGs being "not role-playing at all" due to popular examples such as Secret of Mana and especially The Legend of Zelda using "direct" arcade-style action combat systems instead of
33127-644: The more "abstract" turn-based battle systems associated with computer RPGs. In response, he pointed out that not all console RPGs are action-based, pointing to Final Fantasy and Lufia . Another early criticism, dating back to the Phantasy Star games in the late 1980s, was the frequent use of defined player characters , in contrast to the Wizardry and Gold Box games where the player's avatars (such as knights, clerics, or thieves) were blank slates. As Japanese console RPGs became increasingly more dominant in
33338-415: The nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Particularly, this suggests cases where schizophrenia manifests
33549-459: The number of items that can be held. Most of the actions in an RPG are performed indirectly, with the player selecting an action and the character performing it by their own accord. Success at that action depends on the character's numeric attributes. Role-playing video games often simulate dice-rolling mechanics from non-electronic role-playing games to determine success or failure. As a character's attributes improve, their chances of succeeding at
33760-537: The original Jonny Quest series (1964) and the James Bond novel Live and Let Die as well as its film adaptation both feature Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification to keep others in fear of them. Romero's modern zombie archetype in Night of the Living Dead was influenced by several earlier zombie-themed films, including White Zombie , Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and The Plague of
33971-629: The original, including a run button, several in-game options, and an expanded ending. Holiday-based town names were renamed to appeal more to mature audiences, while some maps and graphics were redesigned for difficulty or aesthetic purposes. These changes were implemented by Sandhop, who rewrote the game's script himself, and it was then sent to Nintendo Co., Ltd. , where it was approved by Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Mother ' s development team before being programmed and sent back to Nintendo of America for further testing. Phil Sandhop also coined Mother ' s English title as Earth Bound for
34182-471: The other subsidiaries to produce artwork for games that would be appropriately received anywhere in the world and not need localization". The name Earth Bound would later be carried over as the English title of Mother 2 , EarthBound , with minor changes. In 1998, a completed prototype cartridge of Earth Bound was found by a fan translation group named Neo Demiforce (or just Demiforce), who had been working on
34393-561: The party encounters the mother ship that the fully-grown Gyiyg is on. While attacking them, the alien expresses its gratitude to Ninten's family for Maria having raising him, but explains that George stole vital information from its people that could have been used to betray them, proceeding to accuse Ninten of interfering with their plans. Gyiyg offers to save Ninten alone if he boards the mother ship, only for Ninten to decline. The party then begins to sing Maria's lullaby, while Gyiyg tries to quiet them through its attacks; they persist and finish
34604-528: The party in hopes of finding her missing mother. Finding multiple parts of Queen Mary's song, Ninten is harassed at a karaoke bar in the town of Valentine by a gang leader named Teddy. Surrendering after a fistfight, Teddy joins Ninten's party to avenge the deaths of his parents, who were killed at Holy Loly Mountain; Teddy forces Lloyd to stay behind. In a cabin at the mountain's base, Ana pulls Ninten aside and asks him to always be by her side. The two dance and profess their mutual love. A giant robot then attacks
34815-554: The platform divide between consoles and computers , respectively. Finally, while the first RPGs offered strictly a single player experience, the popularity of multiplayer modes rose sharply during the early to mid-1990s with action role-playing games such as Secret of Mana and Diablo . With the advent of the Internet, multiplayer games have grown to become massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), including Lineage , Final Fantasy XI , and World of Warcraft . The role-playing video game genre began in
35026-424: The player control an entire party of characters. However, if winning is contingent upon the survival of a single character, then that character effectively becomes the player's avatar . An example of this would be in Baldur's Gate , where if the character created by the player dies, the game ends and a previous save needs to be loaded. Although some single-player role-playing games give the player an avatar that
35237-601: The player determines whether the loss of immersion in the reality of the game is worth the satisfaction gained from the development of the tactic and its successful execution. Fallout has been cited as being a good example of such a system. Real-time combat can import features from action games , creating a hybrid action RPG game genre. But other RPG battle systems such as the Final Fantasy battle systems have imported real-time choices without emphasizing coordination or reflexes. Other systems combine real-time combat with
35448-544: The player to change the party's character classes during the course of the game. Another "major innovation was the introduction of day/night cycles; certain items, characters, and quests are only accessible at certain times of day." In 1989, Phantasy Star II for the Genesis established many conventions of the genre, including an epic , dramatic, character-driven storyline dealing with serious themes and subject matter. Console RPGs distinguished themselves from computer RPGs to
35659-896: The player to manage a large amount of information and frequently make use of a windowed interface. For example, spell-casting characters will often have a menu of spells they can use. On the PC, players typically use the mouse to click on icons and menu options, while console games have the player navigate through menus using a game controller. The role-playing video game genre began in the mid-1970s on mainframe computers , inspired by pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons . Several other sources of inspiration for early role-playing video games also included tabletop wargames , sports simulation games, adventure games such as Colossal Cave Adventure , fantasy writings by authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien , traditional strategy games such as chess , and ancient epic literature dating back to Epic of Gilgamesh which followed
35870-435: The player waited more than a second or so to issue a command, the game would automatically issue a pass command, allowing the monsters to take a turn while the PCs did nothing. There is a further subdivision by the structure of the battle system; in many early games, such as Wizardry , monsters and the party are arrayed into ranks, and can only attack enemies in the front rank with melee weapons. Other games, such as most of
36081-406: The player's control. Other games feature a party that the player can create at the start or gather from non-player characters in the game, coming into partial or full control of the player during the game. Although the characterization of the game's avatar will develop through storytelling, characters may also become more functionally powerful by gaining new skills, weapons, and magic. This creates
36292-485: The player. Later the same year, Sega 's arcade shooter The House of the Dead introduced running human zombies, who run towards the player and can also jump and swim. The running human zombies introduced in The House of the Dead video games became the basis for the "fast zombies" that became popular in zombie films during the early 21st century, starting with 28 Days Later (2002), the Resident Evil and House of
36503-461: The players, to be as exciting as the Japanese imports", and lacked the arcade and action-adventure elements commonly found in Japanese console RPGs at the time. In the early 1990s, American computer RPGs also began facing criticism for their plots, where "the party sticks together through thick and thin" and always "act together as a group" rather than as individuals, and where non-player characters are "one-dimensional characters", in comparison to
36714-410: The plot when the player defeats an enemy or completes a level, role-playing games often progress the plot based on other important decisions. For example, a player may make the decision to join a guild, thus triggering a progression in the storyline that is usually irreversible. New elements in the story may also be triggered by mere arrival in an area, rather than completing a specific challenge. The plot
36925-441: The powders is part of a recently buried child's brain. The process described by Davis was an initial state of deathlike suspended animation , followed by re-awakening — typically after being buried — into a psychotic state. The psychosis induced by the drug and psychological trauma was hypothesised by Davis to reinforce culturally learned beliefs and to cause the individual to reconstruct their identity as that of
37136-437: The precursor to Ultima . Some early microcomputer RPGs (such as Telengard (1982) or Sword of Fargoal ) were based on their mainframe counterparts, while others (such as Ultima or Wizardry , the most successful of the early CRPGs) were loose adaptations of D&D . They also include both first-person displays and overhead views, sometimes in the same game ( Akalabeth , for example, uses both perspectives). Most of
37347-512: The problems often cited against JRPGs also often apply to many WRPGs as well as games outside of the RPG genre. BioWare games have been criticized for "lack of innovation, repetitive structure and lack of real choice." WRPGs, such as Bethesda games, have also been criticized for lacking in "narrative strength" or "mechanical intricacy" due to the open-ended, sandbox structure of their games. Zombies A zombie ( Haitian French : zombi ; Haitian Creole : zonbi ; Kikongo : zumbi )
37558-475: The project's website. Role-playing video game A role-playing video game , role-playing game ( RPG ) or computer role-playing game ( CRPG ) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world, usually involving some form of character development by way of recording statistics. Many role-playing video games have origins in tabletop role-playing games and use much of
37769-410: The proposal at first, he eventually gave Itoi a development team. Modeled after the gameplay of the Dragon Quest series, Mother subverted its fantasy genre contemporaries by being set in an offbeat parody of the late 20th-century United States. Itoi sought to incorporate standard RPG staples within the framework of a modern-day setting, parodying Western culture and Americana . As such, throughout
37980-430: The resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades. Edgar Rice Burroughs similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his Venus series , again without using the terms "zombie" or "undead". Avenging zombies would feature prominently in
38191-409: The right things to the right non-player characters will elicit useful information for the player, and may even result in other rewards such as items or experience, as well as opening up possible storyline branches. Multiplayer online role-playing games can offer an exception to this contrast by allowing human interaction among multiple players and in some cases enabling a player to perform the role of
38402-488: The same terminology , settings , and game mechanics . Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements, player character development, complexity, as well as replay value and immersion. The electronic medium removes the necessity for a gamemaster and increases combat resolution speed. RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences. Role-playing video games use much of
38613-436: The same basic structure of setting off in various quests in order to accomplish goals. After the success of role-playing video games such as Ultima and Wizardry , which in turn served as the blueprint for Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy , the role-playing genre eventually diverged into two styles, Eastern role-playing games and Western role-playing games , due to cultural differences , though roughly mirroring
38824-492: The same style as those in manga and anime . The stylistic differences are often due to differing target audiences: Western RPGs are usually geared primarily towards teenage to adult males, whereas Japanese RPGs are usually intended for a much larger demographic, including female audiences , who, for example, accounted for nearly a third of Final Fantasy XIII 's playerbase. In 2015, IGN noted in an interview with Xenoblade Chronicles X 's development team that
39035-424: The same terminology, settings and game mechanics as early tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons . Players control a central game character, or multiple game characters, usually called a party , and attain victory by completing a series of quests or reaching the conclusion of a central storyline. Players explore a game world, while solving puzzles and engaging in combat. A key feature of
39246-598: The same" and "too linear", to which he responded that "[f]or the most part, it's true" but noted there are also non-linear JRPGs such as the Romancing SaGa series. Such criticisms have produced responses such as ones by Japanese video game developers , Shinji Mikami and Yuji Horii , to the effect that JRPGs were never as popular in the West to begin with, and that Western reviewers are biased against turn-based systems. Jeff Fleming of Gamasutra also states that Japanese RPGs on home consoles are generally showing signs of staleness, but notes that handheld consoles such as
39457-429: The song, causing Gyiyg to be emotionally overwhelmed at the memory of Maria's motherly love. Gyiyg swears they will meet again and flies off in the mother ship; the party then faces the player as the credits roll behind them. Mother was developed by Ape and published by Nintendo . While visiting Nintendo for other work, copywriter Shigesato Itoi pitched his idea for a role-playing game set in contemporary times to
39668-555: The standard approach for explaining zombie origins in popular fiction that followed Resident Evil . There has also been shift towards an action approach, which has led to another evolution of the zombie archietype, the "fast zombie" or running zombie. In contrast to Romero's classic slow zombies, "fast zombies" can run, are more aggressive and are often more intelligent. This type of zombie has origins in 1990s Japanese horror video games. In 1996, Capcom 's survival horror video game Resident Evil featured zombie dogs that run towards
39879-469: The success of EarthBound ' s Virtual Console release and to commemorate the 20th anniversary of EarthBound ' s release in the US, Nintendo would rerelease Mother on the Wii U 's Virtual Console service in Japan on June 14, 2015, and internationally the same day as EarthBound Beginnings . While the Japanese Virtual Console release of Mother retained many of the changes enacted from
40090-496: The term 'JRPG,' but if this game makes people rethink the meaning of this term, I'll be satisfied." The writer Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com states that " Xenoblade throws into high relief the sheer artificiality of the gaming community's obsession over the differences between" Western and Japanese RPGs, pointing out that it "does things that don't really fit into either genre. Gamers do love their boundaries and barriers and neat little rules, I know, but just because you cram something into
40301-503: The time, in addition to the influence of visual novel adventure games . As a result, Japanese console RPGs differentiated themselves with a stronger focus on scripted narratives and character drama, alongside streamlined gameplay. In recent years, these trends have in turn been adopted by WRPGs, which have begun moving more towards tightly structured narratives, in addition to moving away from "numbers and rules" in favor of streamlined combat systems similar to action games. In addition,
40512-583: The traditional role-playing " offered by Japanese console RPGs, which instead emphasized character interactions. In response, North American computer RPGs began making a comeback towards the end of the 1990s with interactive choice-filled adventures. Several writers have criticized JRPGs as not being "true" RPGs, for heavy usage of scripted cutscenes and dialogue, and a frequent lack of branching outcomes. Japanese RPGs are also sometimes criticized for having relatively simple battle systems in which players are able to win by repetitively mashing buttons. As
40723-509: The typical Western-style RPGs of the time. Due to the cultural differences between Western and Japanese variations of role-playing games, both have often been compared and critiqued by those within the video games industry and press. In the late 1980s, when traditional American computer RPGs such as Ultima and Defender of the Crown were ported to consoles, they received mixed reviews from console gamers, as they were "not perceived, by many of
40934-405: The undead. Victor Halperin directed White Zombie (1932), a horror film starring Bela Lugosi . Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including I Walked with
41145-448: The underlying game mechanics (e.g. "rules-based" or "system-based" ); whereas JRPGs tend to feature brighter, anime -like or chibi graphics, younger characters, turn-based or faster-paced action gameplay, and a greater focus on tightly-orchestrated, linear storylines with intricate plots (e.g. "action-based" or "story-based" ). Further, WRPGs are more likely to allow players to create and customize characters from scratch, and since
41356-429: The unreleased English localization. RPGamer 's Ramos similarly found balance issues, with a high number of battles, difficult enemies, reliance on grinding , and some oversized levels. Parish wrote earlier for 1UP.com that in comparison to EarthBound , Mother is "worse in just about every way", a clone where its sequel was "a satirical deconstruction of RPGs". He wrote that the game's historical significance
41567-535: The vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of the vampire . Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce 's " The Death of Halpin Frayser " and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe . Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft , by Lovecraft's own admission. In
41778-474: The zombie lineage back to ancient Mesopotamia . In the Descent of Ishtar , the goddess Ishtar threatens: If you do not open the gate for me to come in, I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt, I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors, I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living: And the dead shall outnumber the living! She repeats this same threat in a slightly modified form in
41989-448: The zombie revival of the 2000s. The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O'Bannon 's 1985 film Return of the Living Dead . Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for human brains. Zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s were not as commercially successful as Dawn of the Dead in
42200-400: The zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero 's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954). The word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead , but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such zombie films as Dawn of
42411-492: Was Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991). According to Kim Newman in the book Nightmare Movies (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996: Capcom 's Resident Evil , which started the Resident Evil video game series that went on to sell 24 million copies worldwide by 2006, and Sega 's arcade shooter House of
42622-446: Was a theme that was common in most console RPGs at the time but absent from most computer RPGs. During the 1990s, console RPGs had become increasingly dominant, exerting a greater influence on computer RPGs than the other way around. Console RPGs had eclipsed computer RPGs for some time, though computer RPGs began making a comeback towards the end of the decade with interactive choice-filled adventures. The next major revolution came in
42833-523: Was able to produce, as he could not create some of the sounds he wanted. An eleven-track album of songs inspired by the game's soundtrack was recorded in Tokyo, London, and Bath and released by CBS/Sony Records on August 21, 1989. The album contained mostly vocal arrangements in English and was likened by RPGFan reviewer Patrick Gann to compositions by the Beatles and for children's television shows . He found
43044-568: Was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying. Romero's reinvention of zombies is notable in terms of its thematics; he used zombies not just for their own sake, but as a vehicle "to criticize real-world social ills—such as government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed and exploitation—while indulging our post-apocalyptic fantasies". Night
43255-402: Was another early action RPG for the NES, released as a side-story to the computer action RPG Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu . Square 's Final Fantasy for the NES introduced side-view battles, with the player characters on the right and the enemies on the left, which soon became the norm for numerous console RPGs. In 1988, Dragon Warrior III introduced a character progression system allowing
43466-544: Was completed in September of that year. The localization was headed by Phil Sandhop, who had previously worked on the English version of Final Fantasy . In accordance with Nintendo of America's content policies , all religious iconography, blood, breast nipples , cigarettes, and references to violence and alcohol were removed. Additionally, NPCs similar to Peanuts characters were altered to avoid potential legal prosecution. Several features and enhancements were added to
43677-415: Was most likely due to convenience: "In software development, each subsequent version is usually derivative of prior versions. Once the program was changed, they would have continued to use the revised program and plugged in their old text modules." The Game Boy Advance version of Mother also contains its own alterations from the original, including revised text, tile-based movement similar to Mother 2 , and
43888-449: Was the first of six films in Romero's Living Dead series . Its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead , was released in 1978. Lucio Fulci 's Zombi 2 was released just months after Dawn of the Dead as an ersatz sequel ( Dawn of the Dead was released in several other countries as Zombi or Zombie ). Dawn of the Dead was the most commercially successful zombie film for decades, up until
44099-426: Was the first such attempt to recreate a role-playing game for a console, and requires several simplifications to fit within the more limited memory and capabilities of the Famicom compared to computers; players in Dragon Quest controlled only a single character, the amount of control over this character limited due to the simplicity of the Famicom controller, and a less-realistic art style was chosen to better visualize
44310-539: Was the influence for the game's title, although he states the title had other meanings too; in particular, Mother was released in Japan on July 27, 1989, for the Famicom (known as the Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). The logo design was inspired by that of the Elvis Costello record Blood & Chocolate . The design of the planet representing the letter O was drawn to appear as an unrecognisable version of
44521-411: Was used to concept proposals preceding the staffing process, but Miyamoto explained that video game concepts needed people who signed on to "make" the product. Itoi was overcome with "powerlessness". Miyamoto was also hesitant to work with Itoi at a time when companies were pushing major celebrity product endorsements, as Itoi's involvement would be for such a game. When the two met next, Miyamoto brought
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