Mother 3 Review

Okay, so I teased in my last blog post about a bunch of Mother 3 stuff. I have decided that since this review was starting to take a definite shape while I was typing the RPG list, I might as well start with the Mother 3 stuff.

Okay, first, about Mother 3

Mother 3 was released on the Game Boy Advance, and is the sequel to Earthbound, itself a sequel to the Japanese only Famicom RPG Mother. Mother 3 was not released in America for some reason, but honestly, I don't care why, I'm just angry that they didn't. I played the game using a fan translation patch applied to a ROM I got from an imported copy of the game, no pirating here.

Okay, so since I haven't done a review yet, here's how it's going to go. I will have no scores, instead a write up of various aspects of the game, which are:

Story: The quality of the writing, and the tell the game wants to tell, special mention to the use of interactivity to tell the story.
Gameplay: What kind of game and basically everything that yoru pressing buttons to do
Graphics: I really don't care much about whether a game has good graphics, but I know some people do, and they are an important part of a games atmosphere, so here they are
Sound: Voice acting, music, sound effects, etc.

These are the basics, so I'm only going ot be covering those. Just a quick note about this review, I will be doing story last, since that part will probably be too long for most people.

With that out of the way, here we go!


Gameplay:

Mother 3 is a traditional Dragon Quest style RPG, with a few twists. First, there are very few sidequests. I can remember one which was hidden and took about 30 minutes to complete, but other than that, there is nothing to do other than go to the next place the story dictates.

The other twist is the battle system. At first, the game seems like Earthbound redux in this regard, the scrolling health meuter is back, but now it scrolls slower so it can actually be planned around. Your party members have spells or special abilities, can use items, and do a basic attack, like most turn based RPGs.

The big twist is revealed around the start of the first chapter. Before then, you may have noticed your attacks comboing ofr no apparent reason, you may even realize that pressing the button will cause that second attack, though with maddening inconsistency. What is revealed via a simple message from a helpful ant is that tapping the A button in time with the background music is what causes the combos. Combos can get up to 16 hits long, and the music gets trickier as the game goes on, eventually getting into some insane songs that are incredibly hard to combo.

These two things work together to create a cool risk reward system. Here's an example. One of your party members just got hit, it was a mortal wound, if you don't heal him before his meter rolls down to zero, he faints, so the "game" is to maximize yoru damage output while still keeping your party alive.



The combination of these two systems along with the fairly strategic nature of the battle system makes Mother 3 a joy to play.


Graphics:

The game has a graphical style quite similar to earthbound, which gives it a unique, charming, atmosphere, along with letting you connect to the mostly blank characters by imagining yourself as one of them (at least for me anyways.)

Detail is clearly not the focus here so much as making these characters charming and meaningful. It's not that it looks bad, it's that a less detailed approach was taken as an artistic decision. There may not be a difference to you, but it is an important difference.

Sound:

The music in Mother 3 is simply incredible, here, have a listen




Sound is a key part of Mother 3, from the mournful love theme, to the more guitar centered f-f-fire! each piece does its part to add to the experience, and the soundtrack is uniformly excellent in that regard.

As I mentioned earlier, music also plays a key part in the battle system. To elaborate a bit further on my thoughts up on gameplay, comboing songs is like tapping your foot in time with the beat of you favorite music, you find the part to combo, and let your fingers do the rest.

I'm going to keep my favorite song a secret because it specifically relates to one of the major antagonists in the game, who I hope people haven't been spoiled as to who he is.

There are also a lot of musical references in the game, from classical mashups to Mega Man homages and a bunch of stuff in between. One little tidbit though, keep your ears open for Bat enemy's battle theme

Story:

Okay, be warned, here there be spoilers. If you have any inclination of playing Mother 3, then stop reading right now and play it, this review will still be here when you get done, and it is best to go into Mother 3 completely untouched by what other people think about it, or anything about the story in general.

Last chance:

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Mother 3 is, to date, the only video game that has made me cry. and when I say cry, I mean I completely broke down and had to pause the game while I got myself back together, but lets back up.

Mother 3 is best described as a tragic comedy. It has moments of lightheartedness that bring back memories of earthbound (my favorite of them being: Aren't you the guys who carry around a bunch of food and don't eat it until you get hurt, or something to that effect, tragically, I can't remember where that NPC is now.) The first chapter is light hearted up until the halfway point when the main character's mother dies.



I had been playing, as I always do, with stupid names for the characters up until this point. I then decided to go back and rename all the characters with their recommended names.

It gets darker from there, with the final boss battle being the scene that scarred me to the point where I can't stop thinking about it.

Mother 3 is primarily concerned with two families, Lucas' family, and the larger family of the people of Tazmily village. As the game goes on these families grow apart due to the forces of modernity taking their toll on the small town of Tazmily. Lucas' family is pulled apart by the death of his brother and mother.

After a time skip, Lucas finds that his destiny is to pull 7 needles keeping an ancient dragon asleep. When the dragon wakes up, it will either destroy the world or remake it, depending on the heart of the person who pulls the needles. Unfortunately, he has competition in the form of a mysterious masked man who doesn't seem to have a heart and the pigmask army who started off the whole shebang by setting fire to the forest of hope just north of Tazmily.

I know, it sounds corny, but you're gonna have to trust me that the execution makes it incredibly riveting.

As you pull the needles, the town of Tazmily is slowly dying, as more of the townspeople are moving to the big city you will recognize as New Pork City from Brawl.

As you get closer to the final needle, the leader of the Pigmask army that has been hounding is revealed ot be an ancient Pokey, you know, the fat kid from Earthbound. He's been hopping dimensions since the events of that game, and has decided to torment the residents of Tazmily, and the greater islands known as the Nowhere Islands because he is bored. Yes, because he is bored, it's wort

After following porky to the last needle, he blocks your path and sends the masked man to pull the last needle. You fight him in a battle reminiscent of the Gigyas fight from Earthbound, except this is a straightforward battle, no tricks here.

After the battle, Pokey gets into the Absolutely Safe Capsule, which has a small bug, it won't open after someone gets in. This is, once again, a better scene than it sounds, bordering on terrifying once you think of the implications.

Then, you go on to fight the masked man who is revealed to be Lucas' brother Claus, which leads to the heartrending final boss battle that I will be covering in my next full blog post.

End of the spoilers!

I should hate Mother 3's story because I have absolutely no influence on it and in an RPG, I would normally find that a huge fault. I don't hate it because it is so well told, and of such quality that it transcends its limitations to become something more.

Mother 3 is a fable, a poignant story told in broad strokes. It focuses on Lucas' family and the family of Tazmily to the exclusion of all else, including your party members. This makes it paradoxically both less and more personal. You won't have the kind of close connection you felt to your party members in Chrono Trigger, but the moments focusing on the families are some of the most powerful in any video game.

Just a special mention about the fan translation, it is top notch, with the only thing giving away that this isn't a Nintendo published translation is the very adult subject matter.

Overall:

Sorry about making you sit through that long stretch of text without pictures, but let me tell you that you need to play this game. The battle system is top notch, the story is one of the best in any video game, and can, in my opinion, stand toe to toe with most literature.