The calls for a localized Mother 3 port have been loud for years upon years and seem to pop up around every Nintendo Direct. Ex-President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé has often joked about the persistence of its vocal fan base. And now former professional football player and actor Terry Crews has joined that chorus asking for an English Mother 3 localization.
LOCALIZE MOTHER 3!
— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) April 30, 2021
Crews summed it up quickly in the above short, all-caps tweet. No one from Nintendo (or ex-Nintendo staff like Fils-Aimé) have responded to the tweet. Crews also did not elaborate on what spurred this succinct call to action.
The Brooklyn 99 star has been intertwined with the gaming world before. He voiced a character in Crackdown 3 and even starred in its live action ads. He’s spoken in the past (especially in this interview with PCGamer) about his love for building gaming PCs, Overwatch, PUBG, and the way in which gaming lets him bond with his son. But this is the first time he’s mentioned this old classic RPG.
Not mentioning it until now makes this whole story even more bizarre as it celebrated its 15th anniversary on April 20, 10 full days before this tweet. The calls for localization have been mounting in those years since when it came out on the Game Boy Advance in Japan. Some particularly desperate players have even offered to localize the game for Nintendo.
Mother 3 English version. Every time I think it’s time to play it, I get trolled and decide to put it off. Maybe I will fire it up this weekend. https://t.co/ocIKHaxUiK pic.twitter.com/zgUHomN5im
— Reggie Fils-Aimé (@Reggie) April 16, 2021
Nintendo has been quiet about the prospects of a Mother 3 port. According to Video Game Story Time, hopes for the localization died along with Satoru Iwata in 2015. Iwata was reportedly a “consistent advocate” for the project and told Nintendo of America to look into it. After his death, Nintendo no longer had anyone within the company cheering for the game. In 2016, Eurogamer reported that Nintendo was trying to translate it, but FanByte’s Imran Khan said work on it had halted. A portion of these problems seem to be centered around its dated and negative portrayal of transgender people. Terry Crews is a physically strong person, but it’s unlikely he can use his muscles to move this project into reality.
