EarthBound, also known as Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushū (MOTHER2ギーグの逆襲 Mazā Tsū Gīgu no Gyakushū?, "Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back"), is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super NES video game console. It was designed by Shigesato Itoi, who also developed its predecessor, Mother, which was released only in Japan. EarthBound was released in Japan (as Mother 2 which is a sequel to Mother) on August 27, 1994, and in North America on June 5, 1995 as a stand-alone title. Despite being successful in Japan, the North American version was released to poor commercial response. Despite the poor sales figures, the game has been lauded by gamers for its humorous depictions of American culture and parody of the RPG genre, and has since become a cult classic.
A sequel to EarthBound for the Nintendo 64DD, titled EarthBound 64, was in development for many years before finally being cancelled. This project eventually resurfaced as a Game Boy Advance title called Mother 3 and was released only in Japan. Like Mother, Mother 3 has only a loose connection to EarthBound, starring new characters, though it does include several returning characters. A collection of Mother and EarthBound was released in Japan under the title Mother 1 + 2.