EarthBound’s combination of JRPG and weird elements make it stand out in the Super Nintendo era of gaming. Whether it was the journey Ness and the party took to save the world, or the odd-looking enemies and allies,EarthBoundwas a phenomenon that has continued to grow in popularity as time passes. Unlocking the history behind the game has also become a part of the fascination.

EarthBound’s quirkinessled to some interesting decisions when it came to being brought over for development. When these processes for a game occurs, especially in older games, certain artifacts are created that can be preserved and sometimes disseminated. This appears to be the case with the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) and a floppy disk.

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In a blog post, VGHF disclosed that they had received an old floppy disk from Marcus Lindblom, a former Nintendo of America employee who was set to the task of localizingEarthBound(Mother 2). Lindblom had thought that the files on the floppy disk had been deleted, but as VGHF discussed, deleting doesn’t actually remove files. When anyone deletes a file on any system using the typical methods, the files aren’t removed; the system simply sees the space as useable and will eventually overwrite them (which would cause permanent deletion). However, using some digital forensic techniques, all of thefiles that had been on the floppy diskwere able to be recovered, displaying all of the script files.

Contained in these files was a plethora of information that had not existed beforehand, such as developer notes, dialogue that had been dismissed, and other items that would have been lost to history. The authors of the blog post, Frank Cifaldi and Clyde Mandelin, document what had been unearthed from the floppy disk, even after writing a book that compared the differences betweenMother 2andEarthBound.

EarthBounddid not have the immediate success thatMother 2enjoyed but has gained traction as time has marched on. Gamers that have gone back have found favor with the game, andmany have demanded the localization ofMother 3. Characters like Ness have found their way to theSmash Bros.franchise, and love for the game continues to swell within fan communities. The files found on this floppy disk create another instance of magic found within the game.

The discovery of the script files on the floppy disk provides the public with a lot of new information that came with the localization ofMother 2toEarthBoundand gives the VGHF an excellent artifact to keep on display.EarthBound’s history continues to growand show off what differences lay in the difference between the two versions.

EarthBoundis available now on the Game Boy Advance and SNES.