'Mother 3' US release date: Wii U localization rumored

Mother 3Nintendo

Back in February, rumors began spreading that an English port of "Mother 3," a Gameboy Advance RPG that only saw a Japanese release, will be coming to the West through the Wii U virtual console. Although Nintendo has been silent regarding the news, a report from My Nintendo News points out that the port is still happening.

According to the report, insider Emily Rogers confirmed from an unidentified inside source that Nintendo of America is indeed working on bringing the game to the US via the Wii-U virtual console. Rogers is known as a Nintendo insider and has a good reputation of confirming rumors circling around Nintendo consoles and video games. 

Rogers stated on her Twitter post that the game is likely going to be announced and released during this year's E3 event. However, it is widely speculated that Nintendo is only going to focus on "The Legend of Zelda" for Wii-U and NX during E3 although this does not mean they will not have a brevy of other titles to launch or preview at the same time.

"Mother 3" has been teased for the Western market before. The game's main character, Lucas, has been made available for "Super Smash Bros." for the Wii-U and 3DS and the character has popped up in numerous Nintendo marketing materials over the past year.

The game is the third and currently the last entry in the "Mother" series. "Earthbound," which is known as "Mother 2" in Japan, was the only game released in the US until Nintendo of America also released "Earthbound Beginnings," the first game in the series, for the Wii-U virtual console. 

With both the first and second game already available for the English-speaking market, it is very likely that the third game will indeed launch for the Wii U virtual console soon. This is also backed by the fact that a fan translation for the Gameboy Advance game already exists, allowing gamers using emulators to play the game.