After about a month of rumors,Nintendofinally dropped its first Direct of the year on Wednesday, and it was quite the showcase.An Epic Mickey remake,Endless Ocean revival, and confirmation of the first twoXboxgames coming toSwitchamong the highlights. However, as is often the case, the Japanese version of the Direct included something those of us in the West didn’t get. The reveal thatMother 3 is finally coming to Nintendo Switch Online, but only in Japan.
TheGBAgame that was never released outside of Japan continues that streak on the Switch, but there’s a silver lining. To celebrate Mother 3’s arrival onNSO, The Mother Project is releasing four plushes based on the game’s characters (thanks,Nintendo Life). Lucas, Klaus, Duster, and Kumatora have all been turned into plushes, and the quartet will be available to buy from May 2024.
Showing offthe first images of the plushes on its website, it’s evident a lot of care and attention has gone into this Mother merch. Each character is unmistakable, and even finer details like the stitching on their clothes has been included. The detail in their hair, particularly Lucas’s, is what stood out for me when I took a closer look at them. What we still don’t know is how much these plushes are going to cost, nor if they, unlikeMother 3, will be released outside of Japan.
The Japanese site on which the plush reveal was made coupled with the game the characters are from never getting an official release outside of Japan suggest they probably won’t. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to own them, though. There are ways to get your hands on Japan-only plushes and other video game merch, likeNintendo’s Elephant Mario plush, it’s just going to cost you a lot more than you usually pay for a toy thanks to the shipping costs.
More details about the plushes will be revealed soon, and hopefully they won’t be too expensive so those of us outside of Japan who have already decided we must have them won’t end up paying a small fortune for the set. Perhaps if enough of us buy them, Nintendo will get the hint and release Mother 3 on NSO outside of Japan. Sales numbers won’t matter, and it’s likely the effort of translating the game from Japanese into other languages that has Nintendo thinking it’s not worth it.
