PixlBit

`I have the English translation of Mother 3 on cartridge. I am in fact playing it on a GameCube Game Boy Player. I, too, wish that Nintendo would localize Mother 3. They could package it on a cartridge and hype it up., and one oft the biggest disappointments I can think of in gaming is that they couldn't finish the N64 version, especially given that they were very, very close to completing it. They tried enlisting the people who did Pokemon Stadium for the project. 

I don't think it's going to happen. There is no way to bring over the game without one aspect of it or another being problematic to people on all sides of the aisle. Nintendo's 1990s-era censorship doesn't really fly in this day and age. The memories of the outcry over censorship in the US versions of FE Fates, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Xenoblade Chronicles X are no doubt still strong at NoA. Nintendo's legal counsel was likely concerned that some aspects of the game might attract unwanted attention from certain members of Congress, and Nintendo definitely has bitter experience with Congressional hearings. The Magypsies, which are a core element of the story, would be difficult to localize no matter how Nintendo tried to approach it. Even the name "Magypsy" is problematic these days due to the negative connotations of "gypsy." Nintendo doesn't seem to have problems with third party games being risque anymore. South Park made its video game debut on N64, both South Park RPGs are on Switch, and Trey and Matt even mentioned Earthbound as a direct inspiration for Stick of Truth. Switch has Witcher 3 in all of its naked glory, but they're still reluctant to release such content themselves. I guess that's for the same reason that Disney doesn't release R-rated movies under its own label. 

Plus, the localization would be a huge, expensive effort and Nintendo isn't sure they'd get a good ROI given how weak sales of Earthbound games have traditionally been. The fan-translators did try to donate any legal rights to the fan-translation to Nintendo if it meant Mother 3 would get an official release, but Nintendo didn't bite.

It's kind of telling that Nintendo, which is infamous for swinging the C&D hammer around iike a madman, has never made any attempt to stop the Mother 3 fan translation from being distributed even though they know it exists.  They've pretty much given tacit approval of the fan translation through their silence on the matter. (Fun side fact: making inadequate attempts to defend a trademark can be seen as approval in the eyes of judges in our precedent-driven common law court system, which is part of why Nintendo is so aggressive about its trademarked products.)

But hey, Nintendo has surprised me before. Maybe when the Switch hits its end-of-life slump while Nintendo is getting its successor ready, Nintendo will make a surprise release of Mother 3. 

What is in Mother 3 that would trigger Congress?

The place where Lucas receives his PSI powers is a bit on the oof side. I can easily see someone freaking out and Congress going apeshit in this day and age. I'm pretty sure Nintendo's lawyers could see that scenario. There was some to-do over Tomodachi Life a few years ago. Maybe it's just the way Tomato translated the scene. 

Stage Select

There's a certain button in Fallout 3 that, if you press it, causes a lot of awesome fireworks. And a little bit of ghoulification. It's going to be hard to top a button like that. No failsafes, no long codes from a suitcase, just a simple button. 

I like the big green A button on the Gamecube controller. It's the primary button for controlling in-game action, so it's naturally more prominent. 

Remote detonation car bombs in the GTA series. Open-world games have made numerous advances over the past 20 years in terms of graphics and interactivity, but sometimes you just want to rig up a car bomb and cause some random chaos. It's a fast way to get you up to the vaunted 6-star wanted level where the military gets called in.

Cage Match:

Giving it to Turok Evolution. How bad... ass is Turok Evolution? It had an award named after it: EGM's Tobias Bruckner Memorial Award for Excellence in the Field of Crapulence. Serious Sam has no such honor. I rest my case.

I didn't go anywhere, shut up.  Seriously though it was mostly just actually doing things for Halloween and my podcast reader breaking.  Oops!

STAGE SELECT:
I love a good, mushy L3 or "stick click" button.  The more unsure if you pressed it the better.  Does it perform an important function?  Probably!  Did you actually press it?  Who knows!  Did you press it accidentally?  All the freaking time.

Just kidding, Halloween is over, so no more horror.  Here's my list:

#4: I like a good backdash.  Whether it's Mega Man, Castlevania, or any number of fighting games, nothing is funnier than a quick, "Yoink!  Ya missed me!"  And moonwalking, that's great too.

#3: Kirby's "Suppin Beam".  What the heck is that?  It's one name of many for the ability Kirby has to turn his power into a Helper, and it also looks pretty funny when you do it as a little taunt.  On top of that, in games where you can get a star from it, it's actually useful sometimes to do so you can stack inhalable objects together to increase the damage of a star bullet.

#2: I was thinking about old Stage Selects recently and remembered about Secret of Evermore, which has 2 really solid actions.  I'm mentioned that there's a button almost solely for having the dog sniff out alchemy ingredients, but it's also good to pin your dog to a certain spot if you need him there.  The dash in Secret of Evermore is very good too, not the least because it has a very satisfyingly stylized look to it.

#1:  Mario?  Mario.  Mario!  Mario.  Mar-i-o?  MARIOOOO!

CAGE MATCH:
Is your name Turok 1?  Is your name Joshua Fireseed?  No?  Then go hop on a triceratops with cannons mounted to its back and get outta here!  Turok 1 is pretty great in a Quake-kinda way, no modifiers here.  Turok 2 has problems (most due to the limited ammo and save system, especially on anything harder than Normal) but I enjoyed my time with the remake and the original's multiplayer was heavily praised.  I've never played the rest but they are anywhere from "eh" to "horrible Halo copy, seriously, why did every FPS during that time have to be a horrible Halo copy".  So in my mind Turok Evolution is well passed the expiration date of the Turok franchise, and maybe even a part of why it died.

Serious Sam, the original, on the other hand?  Scrappy as hell.  A weird late 90s Croatian success story.  Also, it was apparently pretty poor but, hey, they just released one a new one last year!  And the first one or the second one are like the best in that series.  They just somewhat recently patched them, in 2021, to add rocket jumps if I'm remembering right.  So when you're comparing a game so successful it had serious progeny, to an aging dinosaur?  I gotta go with Sam.  Plus I think it's canon that dinosaurs hate explosions or something.