Earthbound Toys Can Be Appreciated Without a Translation

Earthbound fans may want to prepare their latest petition now: A line of toys based on the series lands in Japanese arcades this August.

At an arcade event held last year, Japanese toy manufacturer Banpresto announced a line of figures based on the cult-favoriteMother series of games (known as Earthbound in the west). Today, the company revealed the first two sets of figurines and outlined a schedule of releases for the rest of the year.

The toys are based on the first two Mother games, and are modeled after the clay sculptures of the characters used in promotional artwork for the franchise. Both full-sized (12 cm/4.7 in) and miniature versions (8 cm/3.14 in) of fan-favorite characters like Ness, Jeff, and Paula will be released.

The bad news is that, like all great Japanese toys, these are only attainable from arcade crane machines. If you want a complete set, you may want to start saving your spare yen now.

Non-Japanese gamers will want to keep their eye on import sites. As much as fans would love to pick these up from a local store, Earthbound‘s spectacular history of commercial failures in western markets has ensured that you have a better chance of winning a lottery than finding merchandise outside of the series’ home country. Not even a massive fan campaign could convince Nintendo to release the most recent entry of the series, Mother 3, in western markets. Ultimately, that same fan community put hundreds of hours of work into translating the game itself.

On the bright side, toys need no fan translation.

Source: Earthbound Central, via Kotaku