EarthBound 30th Anniversary music livestream announced, with overseas tickets available 

Cult classic RPG EarthBound (aka Mother 2) will get a special music livestream on June 22 to celebrate its 30^th anniversary. As announced on series creator Shigesato Itoi’s “Almost Daily Itoi Newspaper” website, the event will consist of live performances of music from the Mother series by composers Hirokazu Tanaka and Keiichi Suzuki. There will also be a roundtable discussion between Itoi, Tanaka and Suzuki.  

Mother 2 was originally released in Japan in 1994 on the Super Famicom (SNES). It made its way to the North American market the following year as EarthBound. The game is part of the Mother trilogy of RPGs created by the multitalented Shigesato Itoi. Although only the first two games have been released outside of Japan (with 1989’s Mother 1 finally being released in the US as EarthBound Beginnings in 2015), EarthBound has amassed a cult following overseas. The quirky enemies you encounter (including “Abstract Art,” “Scalding Coffee Cup” and “New Age Retro Hippie”) and their equally bizarre and humorous attacks, not to mention the combination of lighthearted and darker elements in the story and settings, have inspired other games since, such as Toby Fox’s Undertale. 

The “Mother 2 30^th Anniversary Live: The Music of Mother” event will be held on Saturday June 22 from 8pm to 10pm (JST). Tickets will be required to watch the livestream- those located in Japan can opt for either a regular ticket (3,300yen) or a special ticket (4,950yen) that includes a paper ticket, a ticket holder shaped like The Runaway 5 Bus and a backstage pass. It seems that only the regular ticket will be available for those watching from outside Japan. 

Tickets go on sale on June 4 at 11am (JST) and are due to be sold on Stagecrowd pages for those in Japan and overseas. More information in English can be found here.