Whoa. I count Earthbound as my favorite game of all time and all, but I am no where near as big of a fan as these people. Neat!

just got my copy of Contact for the DS today, but it won't compair to Earthbound. I've already sent some letters (via starmen.net) that i printed out and included a pic of my slightly damaged Earthbound cart

How can i get a hold of one of these anthologies?

What sucks is the Mother Anthology will likely never be sold.

It's a shame that Nintendo can't make a deal with them to take a percent of the profits or something, because I would pay a lot of money for it.

If you have a wii, add starmen.net as your friend. wii@starmen.net

*drool* @___@

God I can't think of how much work has gone into one of these. I think through this aspect of their campaign especially they'll suceed in convincing Nintendo. This shows a HELL of a dedicated fanbase willing to put many hours and much money into getting their way. There is no way in hell Nintendo haven't noticed this. Expect an Earthbound announcement in the next 6 months imo.

If I could buy the book, I'd do it in an instant o.o

...although I'd prefer some more Mother.

How in the blue hell did I miss this thread until just now?

Here is my EarthBound story.

Back when I was 10-12 years old or so, I used to write letters to Nintendo all the time. Yes, I mean I would actually take out some notebook paper and a pencil and write physical letters to Nintendo. (As an aside, Redmond Washington seemed so far away back then that it might as well have been Japan or another planet. I never would have dreamed back then that I'd actually be living there some day, as I am now.) Most of these letters were about whatever game I was playing at the time. I actually remember writing them an excessively detailed letter about how I was stuck in Turtle Rock, the final dungeon of Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and then writing them another letter a few days later saying, basically, to never mind and that I had figured it out on my own. Give me a break, I was like 12 or something, okay?

Anyway, it was in one of their responses to these letters (yes, they actually responded to them, and it wasn't just a crappy form letter either, as astonishing as that is to look back on today) that they made mention of an upcoming game that they thought I would be interested in. Pure marketing on Nintendo's part, of course, but back then I only had the vaguest of impressions of what "marketing" meant, and to me it consisted only of commercials on TV or advertisements in magazines or newspapers. To me, back in the day, this was about the same as if one of my friends had said, "Hey, there's this cool game coming out that you might want to check out." All I can remember now of their description of the game in the letter was that it was a RPG set in modern times and that it let you actually use modern things like baseball bats and ATM cards and such. I didn't know what a RPG was at the time, but I was still totally amazed and couldn't wait for the game to be released.

Well, on the day of its release I got someone to take me to a little mom and pop video game shop/rental place that I used to frequent (yes, those did used to exist at one point in the ancient past), and they'd never even heard of the game, and obviously didn't have it for sale. I was shocked and dismayed. But then, my chauffeur for the time being (aka one of my sisters) took me to the mall, where they had an EB Games (it was still just called Electronics Boutique back in those days).

And there it was, in that ridiculously huge box that it came in with its strategy guide. Using money that I'd carefully saved up from an allowance, supplemented by money meant for school lunches that I sometimes surreptitiously skipped just for this purpose, I bought the game and then we went home.

To make a long story slightly less long, EarthBound was the first RPG I had ever played, and I have forever afterward judged every RPG that I have since played by the bar set by this game. Only a few of those later RPGs, in my opinion, have managed to scrape the bottom of that bar.

To conclude: Hot damn. Is this book, in any possible way, going to be available for public consumption, and if so how does one go about acquiring it? In any case, if nothing else will crack the stone that is around the heart of Nintendo when it comes to releasing new (and, for that matter, old) Mother games in countries that are not Japan, this will be the thing to do it. And if it fails, that will be a crying, stomping, hair-pulling, shrieking-with-rage shame.

I think I may just have to break out a pencil and some notebook paper and start writing letters to Nintendo again.

I am, of course, merely rambling at this point, so I will stop now.

I have music on those discs!

If anybody got one of those to sell, my money is all yours ! Earthbound is and for ever shall be my favorite RPG.