With the number of fan projects sent to us, it’s difficult finding any worth spotlighting. Benjamin Friedrich’s 3-D recreation of the sleepy town of Onett is a big exception to that rule.
"I’m currently a 3D animation student and I needed to build up my demo reel, so I created the town of Onett from Earthbound in 3-D," Friedrich writes of the footage.
Earthbound — Mother, if you’re Japanese, or an import gamer — fans will instantly recognize the town from Nintendo’s famed roleplaying series. Not only because Friedrich filled his creation with an intense attention to detail, but also because he then coated the entire thing in gorgeous, cel-shaded graphics that almost perfectly replicate the aesthetics of the Super Nintendo game.
It may not be terribly pragmatic given Nintendo’s notorious antipathy toward gamers calling for an updated American release of the series, but it’s certainly something for those same fans to cling to while they type adamant letters of encouragement hoping to sway the publisher.
