/vr/ - Retro Games

Even if the games are loosely connected I still wonder when itoi was making the sequel why Ninten wasn't reused as the mc in mother 2/earthbound instead of creating an entirely new character. Was it because itoi wanted to start fresh since EB is basically a reskin of mother 1 (with some tweaks of course) and dumped the MCs of the latter? I don't see what was necessarily wrong with Ninten as a character, and of course there's little to no mention of him in the sequels, even though giegue said he and Ninten would meet again in the first game. Maybe I'm overthinking it but it always puzzled me.