Mother 3 (as if you didn’t know!) is the sequel to the Super NES role-playing game EarthBound, originally released in 2006 for Game Boy Advance. Like its predecessor, it’s a charmingly-written, imaginative, quirky RPG with a heart of gold and a touching story of families and aliens. It’s got a wonderful turn-based battle system in which you can do more damage to enemies by tapping along to the rhythm of the music.

It was an exceptionally high-quality game, but its Western release opportunity was nixed thanks to the demise of the Game Boy Advance.

So a smash hit game (about 2.5 million copies on Steam so far) that explicitly referenced Mother 3 in its pitch is coming to Sony platforms, but the actual Mother 3 is MIA. Undertale is hardly the only game inspired by Nintendo’s classic. When asked in 2013 what games inspired South Park: The Stick of Truth, Trey Parker quickly name-checked EarthBound.

We’re living in an EarthBound world, and the only thing missing is the game’s actual sequel. It’s bizarre.