MOTHER / EarthBound

A series born when Shigesato Itoi, who had played Dragon Quest, envisioned "an RPG that walks through the present-day everyday" and brought it to Nintendo. The tagline was "Don't cry until the ending." A note on names here: EarthBound, released in North America in 1995 and later loved as a cult classic, is not the original game but the North American release of the sequel, MOTHER 2 (1994). The overseas version of the original MOTHER was canceled during development, and it did not reach the world until 2015, as EarthBound Beginnings. The commercial struggles in North America, the fervor of early internet fan communities, and the game Toby Fox of Undertale has publicly named as an influence — all of that belongs to this EarthBound, meaning MOTHER 2. Loved quietly and deeply overseas more than at home, its influence returning a quarter century later (see The Return Current).