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Hello. My purpose for this page is to get you acquainted with Earthbound Zero, as well as this Earthbound Zero Shrine. By the time you get through here, the mystery surrounding this game should (could) be cleared...possibly...

I'M NEW HERE, WHAT EXACTLY IS EARTHBOUND ZERO???

-Earthbound Zero (as the name suggests) is the prequel to the Snes game, Earthbound. Back in Japan, this is known as the Mother series.
-If you're wondering why you've never heard of it, that is simple. The game was translated by Nintendo, and was all set to be released to America as Earthbound, but for whatever reason, the game never made it. What was left was a few preliminary copies of the game, and that's it.
-Anyway, eventually one of these copies was sold on an online auction, and Demi, of New Demiforce (with the help of these people), paid the winner $400 for the opportunity to dump the game (The remaining money donated helped dump Final Fantasy 1+2 (both games in one cart) and a re-dump of Lennus 2). This was done, but when the game was emulated, a screen would come up saying how it's an illegal copy, stolen from Nintendo, blah, blah, blah...
-Anywho, they patched the game to get past the screen, and they had a working ROM. Since Earthbound had already been released, they added 'Zero' to the title, and released the ROM to the public. And that's why we have it today.

WHAT'S UP WITH THE CHARACTER NAMES?

I'm glad you (you being me, who is simply talking to himself) asked that question. The game does not "have" names for the characters in the game. Since there were no official American publications on the subject, in a way, they don't have names. But in a different, more accurate way, they do.
Each main character (except one) is pretty much a carbon copy of their counterpart in the Snes version of Earthbound. So, most Americans are more familiar with that name. But their "official" names are different.

We know him and love him as Ness, but in this game, his actual name is "Ninten" (you can see where the "Ness" came from, huh?)
She's known to Americans as Paula, but her original name is Ana
We love this nerd as Jeff, but he was first known as Loid
This is Teddy's cameo appearance in our lives (he was not in the Snes Earthbound), so he's only known as Teddy