I've run out of optimism honestly. Between Nintendo completely blowing off an American/international release of Mother 1+2 despite loud and obvious demand, and then teasing Americans by dropping the Mother 3 name in speeches and ultimately never doing anything with it, I've lost faith in localization. Starmen.net has worked so long and so hard to get something in the pipeline but so far all that American Mother fans have gotten are half hearted promises that Earthbound will be out on the VC "eventually" (the original promise was last summer, then before '08, now all we have to go by is some second hand news that "all that's left to do is write the online instruction manual." Which seems to be an arcane art that involves gently boiling it in a cauldron over three astrological ages while cooing softly to it in The Old Tongue).
At this point I've resorted to playing Mother 3 with a translation guide and the Fan Translation Team's lovely menu patch. The GBA era is over, so seeing Mother 1+2 or Mother 3 in their current formats is unlikely. They'll probably release Earthbound on the VC eventually despite my pessimism, but I doubt Nintendo would release GBA games on the service when the system is still selling in a steady trickle and is hardly "retro". Not to mention the extensive localization it would require, which would be unprecedented in a VC release, an effort they weren't willing to put in when the GBA market was still on fire (none of the recent VC releases that were previously released in the American store required nearly as much localization effort, most were puzzle/action games with very little text and Sin and Punishment's Japanese release had English voice overs anyway). Maybe it's my inner kicked puppy talking, but I'm putting my faith in the fan translation, which is looking excellent.
