Mother 3 was released in Japan on April 20, 2006. That means it’s been over ten years since the sequel to the cult classic Earthbound landed on Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. To this day, it’s never been officially released outside of Japan.

While a sizeable group of fans have gone to the trouble of obtaining a ROM of the game, patching it with Clyde Mandelin’s widely-respected fan translation, and playing it on a computer, flash cart or whatever, there are many more who are unable or unwilling to experience Mother 3 in that manner. Others are simply unaware of the game or their options in regards to playing it.

For years, the obscure Super NES RPG Earthbound was the only entry in the Mother series available to westerners. Its quirky take on a well-worn genre drew in a passionate fan community whose evangelization of the game’s unique charms has been tireless. The series’ influence has loomed ever larger over the years. Take a look at Fangamer or Undertale and you’ll see the kind of quality and dedication it inspires.

I think Nintendo has seen this, as well, which is why they’ve begun to acknowledge the Mother series more and more lately: finally putting Earthbound on the Virtual Console after it had been swept under the rug for so many years, releasing a completely unexpected localization of the original NES Mother as Earthbound Beginnings, making Ness and Lucas amiibo. They simply wouldn’t bother to do those things unless they were watching and acknowledging fans’ enthusiasm for these games. After all these years, hopefully that will culminate in the ultimate gesture toward series fans: an official localization of Mother’s final chapter, widely available to Nintendo fans.

The father of the Mother series, famed Japanese writer Shigesato Itoi, said, “The very lives you’re living now are Mother 4.” He seemed to mean that since he’s told the full Mother story in his three games, players now live infused with those works and all the feelings and thoughts they provoked within. Living that way, they carry on the story of Mother regardless of whether there is ever another sequel. However, some of us can’t move on to Mother 4 yet, and thus can’t move on to the rest of our lives. We still need Mother 3.

When it was coming out in Japan, ads for the game carried the slogan, “Strange, funny, and heartrending.” That phrase could also encapsulate the feeling of waiting so long for something this obscure, inconsequential, and yet ultimately meaningful. Hopefully the wait will be over soon.