Welcome to the World of Mother 3

[Fish and Chips]

"Strange, funny, and heartrending."

In the Nowhere Islands, a young boy named Lucas and his family discover that their lives are changing. A mysterious man from a far off country is promising to fix the village's problems, bizarre new creatures roam the forests, ominous ships in the evening sky, and strange and dangerous circumstances are slowly tearing family and friends apart.

Lucas the younger twin brother. A gentle boy.
Claus the older twin brother. An energetic boy.
Flint the strong, kind, and dependable father.
Hinawa the beloved mother.
Boney the brave and smart dog.
Duster, a strange but nice guy with unexpected skills.
Kumatora a strong, wise, and rather boyish girl.
Salsa, a monkey who must endure everything.

This is Mother 3, sequel to the popular underground RPG that Nintendo Pretends Doesn't Exist, Earthbound, finally patched in English October 17, 2008 by the tireless efforts of Fobby.Net and the boys at Do-It-Yourself Devotion. Enjoy the game and discuss it here. DO USE SPOILER TAGS.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I love Tomato and Jeffman. =)

[MasterDias]

I've started on it. I'm a little ways into Chapter 1. So far, it's pretty neat. Pity this didn't get brought to North America.

I maintain that Mother 3 was a victim of unfortunate timing. It came out at a time when the GBA was basically dead and Nintendo was hyping the DS.

[Bobtheduck]

Victim of timing... Like SD3 was for the US, and Mario RPG was for Europe... Here's looking forward to GBA being on the Virtual console and NOA giving up their stance about not releasing good games (ok, so Mario RPG finally got released... That was more about Squ'eenix than Nintendo, anyhow) NOA is sort of like SCEE... They treat their audience pretty badly and they're loved for it...

I'm on chapter 4 at the moment... Man I cried like crazy when [spoiler]Hinawa died, and Flint starting beating everyone up...[/spoiler] This so doesn't feel like Earthbound... Granted, neither did Mother 1, but it shared 3 of the characters (or their dopplegangers, anyhow... Ninten for Ness, Pollyanna for Paula, Jeff for... Um... Jeff) and many enemies. I think the only things I truly see in common among all the games is the emphasis on music, the limited inventories, and I guess the Psi. The music thing in turn reminds me of Macross... The Songs you collect in Mother 1, the "My point" songs in Mother 2, and so far, the beat in mother 3.

I'm just waiting for the game to centralize... I don't know why, but the constant shift from character to character is a bit frustrating...

Oh, and I named my "favorite thing" as "Reggie." It surprised me when I found out the guy in the Tepee was named Reggie... I thought he may be named after whatever your favorite thing was, but apparently that's actually his name. I used "Reggie" as a joke, but I wonder if the character "Reggie" was named that by Translators as a joke, too... One I haven't gotten yet.

Oh, and the timing thing sucks... I can never do it if I try, because the timing is always off on the emulator

[Kankokujin]

Ooh this is cool. Two characters from this game were in the Smash Bros. game as well right? So what platform did Mother 1 and 2 come out in?

[MasterDias]

Ooh this is cool. Two characters from this game were in the Smash Bros. game as well right? So what platform did Mother 1 and 2 come out in?

Mother(NES)
Mother 2(SNES, released in North America as Earthbound)
Mother 1+2(remake of first two games for GBA)
Mother 3(GBA)

Oh, and the timing thing sucks... I can never do it if I try, because the timing is always off on the emulator

Yeah, I haven't had very much success with this either. Although, the Battle Memory thing from Osohe Castle is supposed to help with this.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Oh, and I named my "favorite thing" as "Reggie." It surprised me when I found out the guy in the Tepee was named Reggie... I thought he may be named after whatever your favorite thing was, but apparently that's actually his name. I used "Reggie" as a joke, but I wonder if the character "Reggie" was named that by Translators as a joke, too... One I haven't gotten yet.

I could ask. XD

Oh, and check this out:
http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Mother/3/Remember-how-Tomato-said-that-the-translation-team-added-another-secret-Here-it-is-gameplay-spoilers-but-no-plot-spoilers-inside/first

[Kankokujin]

Mother(NES)
Mother 2(SNES, released in North America as Earthbound)
Mother 1+2(remake of first two games for GBA)
Mother 3(GBA)


Yeah, I haven't had very much success with this either. Although, the Battle Memory thing from Osohe Castle is supposed to help with this.

So are the GBA versions of Mother 1 and 2 English patched as well?

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Nope, nor do I expect them to ever be.

[Bobtheduck]

So, in my uber slow playthrough, I'm in, er, "Master P"'s room and just beat the maid. [spoiler]The yo-yo is called "friend's Yo-yo"? Does that mean Pokey still considered Ness his friend, even though they both tried to kill each other? And, yeah, it's pretty obvious Master P is Pokey. Leader of the Pig army, spoiled brat signs everywhere... Master P for Pokey. When I saw what the yo-yo was called, my mouth dropped. This game has a bit more narrative depth than mother 2[/spoiler]

[Bobtheduck]

k, so I'm stuck. I'm on mecha-gorilla, and I spent an hour (on fast forward, no less) grinding by fighting the Yetis... Besides that, the Yetis kill me about a third of the time, and kill the dog about half the time... So, I get desperate and look up the gorilla fight and it tells me to use something Kumatora or whatever has (she's the only one who's name I changed... Named her "Cherie" after a friend of mine) Thing is, I never got her back on my party after chapter 5... Did I just go the wrong way in the field of flowers or something... I'm stuck with that absolutely worthless dog... Yay, I can sniff and the dog tells me it's weak against lightning... Which I don't have.

EDIT: Just so people know, i'm way past that... I'm on chapter 8, and... [spoiler]THe huge explanation from Leder... Firstly, I kind of know how people feel that don't like Chrono Cross, now... What the crap, how did the world just get destroyed... Of course, since Pokey (porkey) got there via the time machine, I guess this could really be millennia in the future, or maybe even takes place long before Mother 1 and 2, since no Year is given... ever... Mother 1 is in the 80's and mother 2 is in the early 21st century, but no even approximation is given for this game, so it could logically be ANYWHERE. But, yeah, I'm just ready to finish this game. I can't believe I never picked up on "Fassad"... Just like I never got "Lier X. Agerate" in earthbound. [/spoiler]

EDIT 2: Just beat it... [spoiler]HOLY CRAP... SO FREAKING SAD... For a game that relies on humor, it starts and ends with a freaking tragedy... Only the Japanese. I loved going through the mother 1 music, then going through the Earthbound room... But, I didn't think they'd kill Claus off at the end... In fact, while reading the FAQ, I got a false spoiler, thought it said Lucas and Claus would pull the last needle together... Now, none of this really explains what Leder talked about, so I'm still not satisfied with that ending, but... Wow... What an experience.[/spoiler]

[Kankokujin]

Success! I got all three of them to work on my DS. Thanks guys!

[uc pseudonym]

Despite myself, I ended up getting this. I thought I'd play the intro to get a feel for the game (figuring it would be similar to the openings of Mother 1 or 2). But the story kept going without really explaining much of anything, so I ended up playing all of Chapter 1. Other things are higher priority, but I will return to this and complete it eventually.

Can anyone tell me which characters end up in your final party, though? Because if someone is just a temporary character for one chapter, I'm tempted to low level game those parts to save time.

[Fish and Chips]

Right now I'm somewhere near the Tower of Love and Peace in Chapter 5. May tinker around with that tonight.

Chapter 2 is probably my favorite gameplay-wise. Duster is an incredibly useful character to have in your party and I enjoyed playing as him, and throwing Kumatora into the mix was just good clean fun.

Can anyone tell me which characters end up in your final party, though? Because if someone is just a temporary character for one chapter, I'm tempted to low level game those parts to save time.

[SPOILER]Lucas, Duster, Kumatora, and Boney.

Flint and Salsa you don't have again, though Flint isn't too much trouble save for the Mecha Drago boss. Low leveling Salsa is easy, just stock up on lots and lots of bombs and make that his job in any major battle. There is also a beetle early in his adventure that will help you get levels quickly.[/SPOILER]

[uc pseudonym]

Thank you kindly. I'm glad I didn't waste any more time with Flint, but I definitely would have tried to level Salsa (the beetle + luck manipulation makes it too easy).

One thing I have to say: I'm actually glad circumstances forced me to play this via emulator instead of normally. I had forgotten just how slow even the fastest text speed is - I held down the acceleration space bar through most of the cutscenes and all of the scrolling text parts. It also makes repetitive enemies too quick to be boring.

Anyway, I found the game fun, very much the spiritual successor to the other two games (not to mention the obvious plot connections). But evaluating the game critically, I think it is worse than Mother 2.

It's possible that some of the areas were so small and straightforward due to hardware limitations, but I don't see how that can excuse party imbalance. Duster has a few useful turns with free debuffing, after which he's as useless as Boney (who I was honestly expecting to change at some point). You can give them items to act as healers, but unlike in Mother 2 the best offensive items fall far behind even normal combo attacks.

As far as the story and particularly the ending,
[spoiler]I felt more than a little unfulfilled. While I think it is nice that the series has unorthodox final battles, the one against Claus is simply boring. I think having it as gameplay instead of a scene is pointless, because you're completely restricted in taking action anyway.

That isn't to say that I disliked everything. I thought they did a good job with Porky and a variety of things related to that. But I really felt as though the game imparted very little meaning to most of the characters and locations (there weren't even nods to characterization for many of them). Things progress on a simple track until there is an infodump that changes next to nothing, after which everything is destroyed.

Also, the ending itself... I was getting impatient with all the panning over destruction, waiting for it to get to the significant part. You can imagine how I felt about that.[/spoiler]