Talk:Mother 3

GA Reassessment

Mother 3

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: keep. lettherebedarklight, 晚安, おやすみ, ping me when replying 10:45, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

This article gained GA status eight years ago. Since then, the page has changed quite a bit, including the plot section getting completely mangled, which meant I had to replaced it with a clunkily-written plot summary of my own (I am not the best at using words). In addition, there are claims on the talk page that the Development section is now severely outdated now that more sources have been found and translated into English. I'm not entirely sure whether or not it meets the criteria to be delisted from being a good article, but I feel it deserves being looked at again. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 17:45, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to vote Keep as GA. About the Development section, well, the section is a summary of Development of Mother 3, so people interested in seeing more details about the development can read that specific article. A GA needs to "[address] the main aspects of the topic", and this article does, in my understanding. The Plot may not be perfect, but I don't think the GA status should be removed only because of that Skyshifter ^talk 23:07, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• What exactly is the issue regarding the GA criteria? If the plot is a mess, feel free to revert back to what it was during the GA nom. Plot sections are a magnet for cruft across all video game articles (and the linked version was fully sourced!) Any "outdated" claims re: development are a matter for the talk page, not a GA reassessment. czar 19:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I prefer to see the Plot section as referenced as much as feasible, even if using the primary game as the source (i.e. via quotes; game guides can also suffice). The "Legacy" section could be cleaned up prose-wise, and some of the references need to be fixed, namely most of the Nintendo Dream references. I'm not 100% the issues are enough to delist as a GA, but my standards are a little higher than many GA reviewers. --MuZemike 03:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards keeping this as GA as well. The plot section has gotten a little messy, but not anything to demote. Agree that we can always just revert back to the plot version that was promoted, and there is another GA to pull from to improve this further (from Development of Mother 3). Shooterwalker (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lucas page?

Does Lucas deserve his own character page? He's got tons of info regarding his concept, creation, and appearances...not sure about the reception part, though... NintenBOUND (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

as per the discussion in talk:earthbound, the answer is yes... if you can meet the criteria for article creation. considering that it's lucas, i doubt he's lacking in the reception part, but it might take 3 or more seconds of looking around cogsan _{(nag me) (stalk me)} 17:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Development of Mother 3 into Mother 3

I believe that EarthBound 64 was boldly and improperly split off into this page in 2014 without discussion. The page on EarthBound 64 is independently notable, and its development is technically not part of the development of the game that would become Mother 3, but an entirely separate cancelled game with a story that was reused. As such, its page should be recreated, leaving the remainder of the information here too little to have a separate page. I am not sure if there is any new information here that is not in the history of EarthBound 64, but the page would certainly require a cleanup from being dormant for a decade. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:10, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

• Comment No opinion on the proposition here. It seems reasonable and I could maybe support it later on. But I want to point out that, should EarthBound 64's page be recreated as a result of discussion, it'd have to be made into a GA within three months or else Wikipedia:Good topics/Mother series would face demotion. I would normally argue that these kinds of articles would not fit into a standard series GT (since, obviously, the game was cancelled), but since articles that aren't exclusively the series games are included - specifically the fan translation, fandom, and the Development of Mother 3 article - are included, I see no reason to exclude EarthBound 64. λ NegativeMP1 18:18, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, I forgot to specify that it would also likely cause the Good Topic to be demoted if not improved. However, this is a fairly fundamental problem (EarthBound 64 is not the same Mother 3 that ended up being published, but its own thing) and that shouldn't be ignored solely to prop up a Good Topic, IMO. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:31, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

  Oh no, that wasn't what I was attempting to do. It's just an acknowledgement that, should this go through (which it probably should, based on what I'm seeing), extra effort than normal may be required. λ NegativeMP1 18:41, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

• Weak Support I think this is a fascinating proposal. The key issue is, a lot of the concepts for GBA M3 were conceived and iterated upon during the development of EB64. So if the topics were split, the reader is really not getting the full story of M3 without jumping between articles. So the development section of M3 would need to be expertly written to avoid duplicating information but still giving the reader enough background without requiring them to click to read about EB64. But I'm leaning support primarily because sources today talk about EB64 not so much as an early M3 but as a separate "lost game". I'm curious about @Czar:'s opinion. TarkusAB^talk/contrib 19:57, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. EarthBound 64 is the development of Mother 3. Indeed "EarthBound 64" was known as "Mother 3" in Japan, its primary release audience. The abandoned Nintendo 64 game is covered in sources as part of the GBA Mother 3's development, as while it had to be completely re-styled and programmed, the "Mother 3" story is the same. But while the Nintendo 64 version is part of Mother 3's history of development, it's covered in sources at such a level of detail that would be inappropriate in the main Mother 3 article, hence the summary style split. Enough sources clearly exist on this topic, so to the question of whether that topic should be called "EarthBound 64" or the "development of Mother 3", my take on the sourcing overall is the latter. I don't believe there is enough sourcing on the Nintendo 64 version that warrant covering it as a separate concept from the protracted development of Mother 3, since that's the context by which it's covered in sources and, if (arbitrarily) limited to just the Nintendo 64 version's development, it would be a complete duplicate in scope of what is already in this article. czar 11:34, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Partial Support per TarkusAB, with additional split for a new article about the cancelled game. A lot of this article is really about the development of a cancelled game, and I believe that game independently notable. I think we could write a full article about that cancelled Nintendo 64 game, and then have a healthy summary and "see also" section at the Mother 3 article about the GBA game. I respect Czar's work here and their opinion on the sources. I realize the cancelled Nintendo 64 game flows naturally into the history of the GBA game. But that historical flow is not unlike any series of games, even if one of those games was cancelled in this case. And as far as WP:GA quality is concerned, I can put my money where my mouth is and help with the editing, especially since we already have so many of the sources. The article might not necessarily be called Earthbound 64 considering the sources call the cancelled game by multiple names. Alternatively, we could rename the development article to WP:PRESERVE most of it, and copy/merge any relevant information to the main Mother 3 article. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:22, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support I believe that EarthBound 64 should be restored, and its development should be covered in the Mother 3 article in a limited capacity. I believe that EB64 is independently notable from Mother 3, including due to the sustained coverage of EB64 as an independent topic, as well as discussion of whether there exists a playable version of EB64 that could exist. That being said, I did create a draft with a ton of sources here: User:Cukie Gherkin/EarthBound 64 I haven't done anything with it because it's a ton of work, including tracking down superior sources to mother4ever's translations of the original sources. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 06:27, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

  @Cukie Gherkin: I should also bring to your attention that this revision of the article was a full article prior to it being merged. You certainly found far more sources than were in the article at that time, but it might help with content. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

  Oh true, that'll make the work a lot less laborious, thanks! Not sure why I didn't do this earlier. I think I was probably thinking I would write it from scratch to ensure it'd be up to modern quality standards. Cukie Gherkin (talk) 06:42, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Support restoring Earthbound 64, that deserves its own article. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 19:41, 31 July 2025 (UTC)