About Mother

"MOTHER" is in fact the name on the Japanese packaging. But the letter "O" is replace with a picture of the earth. Often referred to often as "マザー", though this title is not on the box. "Earthbound Zero" is a fan title for the finished version of an unreleased English prototype. This title was was used because MOTHER 2 was titled "EarthBound" when published in North America.

The official North American English version was completed September, 1990 in the USA. The plans included 2 posters, detailed maps, an enemy chart, a players starting guide (Great-Grandfather's Diary), and an enhanced 80 page instruction manual similar to the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior packages Nintendo had previously published in the USA. Uniquely the last page of the guide book was torn out but the reader was informed that this was intentional and half the diary was missing. Technical specifications called for a 4 Meg ROM (2 program/2 character), and 64K SRAM (equivalent to the Dragon Warrior IV cartridge). Mother never did get an official cancellation. Rather Nintendo of America was waiting for just the right time to get the maximum return of their RPG sales. The best selling RPGs around that time had sold ten times less copies than other games types. It was assumed the game would not sell without extensive marketing plus the cart and package itself was more expensive. Simple improving/maintain quality of the Nintendo brand was apparently not an issue even though it was known the the game would have made a profit. It just wouldn't have made a 'big enough' profit, according to their research. What was an issue was the fact that people in North America were buying other RPGs, including the older ones, the marketing department apparently wanted a clean window where no other RPGs would be competing with Mother, at least for the first month. The perfect time did not come before Nintendo of America switched priority to marketing the Super Nintendo. (I spoke with a representative at this time who was dumbfounded when I assumed that manufacture of the NES, NES games, and new NES games would persist for many years to come. "But, we're releasing the Super Nintendo next month!". They officially persisted for another 3 to 4 years.) By the time they realized there was still a market for an NES RPG, it was rapidly vanishing. Apparently the decision was made to save money by publishing the game with minimal marketing. Thus further narrowing ideal conditions under which the RPG could make any profit at all They continued to hold on to the game for better release conditions and its marketing potential vanished about the same time Earthbound (Mother 2) was being readied for the Super Nintendo. A release of the game's soundtrack on CD was also scheduled. None of these materials or the official final version of the game have yet been 100% confirmed to have been found. Phil Sandhop says he's almost 100% sure the found prototype is legit and based on his final version.

Phil Sandhop received and actual printed sheet of Nintendo's censorship policy. A copy of the text of this policy, likely the one Phil Sandhop was given, or very similar to it, can been seen here

An Earth Bound prototype created (loaded with the final or nearly game data) by Nintendo of Canada is owned by Andrew DeRouin
An earlier Earth Bound prototype with a much poorer quality translation is owned by a former Nintendo employee who wishes to remain anonymous but goes by 'Mega' (as in Megaman).

Kana spelling for those who can't read English, so I don't see how it's less official. These are commonly in very small letters below or somewhere around the official title in the game boxes and any other more or less official documentation. Not sure if they did it back in the early days, though, but this is the current practice.