, released outside Japan as
EarthBound Beginnings, is a 1989
Japanese role-playing video game developed by
Ape and published by
Nintendo for the
Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System). The game is modeled on the gameplay of the
Dragon Quest series, but is set in the late 20th century United States, unlike its fantasy genre contemporaries.
Mother follows the young Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on
psychic powers to fight hostile, formerly inanimate objects and other enemies. The game uses
random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system. It is the first game in the
Mother series and was followed by two sequels,
EarthBound in 1994 and
Mother 3 in 2006.