What is Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back?

In Japan, EarthBound is Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back (MOTHER 2 ギーグの逆襲), released for the Super Famicom on August 27, 1994, developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and written by Shigesato Itoi. The subtitle names the returning villain of the first game, Giygas (Gyiyg in the Japanese spelling), and frames the sequel as his counterattack.

The Japanese release was a mainstream one. It sold about 518,000 copies in Japan, the tenth best-selling game of 1994 there, priced at ¥9,800 (about $99 at the time), and it shipped in a standard Super Famicom box: deep red, with the series' Earth-and-logo mark, nothing like the oversized American package built to hold a strategy guide.

The two releases of the same game therefore sit on a shelf as different species of object. The Japanese box is the compact original, the form the game took in the country where it was a hit; the American big box is the rarity, produced for one market, one year, and a famously unsuccessful launch.

For a collector the Japanese copy is also the practical one: it is the version supported by the Shogakukan official guidebook and the clay-model art program, and the version whose text is Itoi's original, before the American localization's documented changes.