Mother 3
| Mother 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 "Strange, Funny and Heartrending"
| ||||||||||||||||||
|
Mother 3 is a role-playing game co-developed by HAL Laboratory and Brownie Brown and published by Nintendo on April 20, 2006 for the Game Boy Advance only in Japan. It is the third and final installment in the Mother/EarthBound series. It is the only game in the series to not be released outside of Japan, probably due to being released late in the GBA's lifespan and the Nintendo DS was already out, though some were saying that the reason for the game's lack of release outside of Japan is because of some of the game's offensive content.
Plot
The game is set over 100 years after the events of EarthBound.
At the Nowhere Islands, there is the Tazmily Village. The place where everybody is always with a smile in the face; the criminality is practically non-existing and the peace is "eternal". At the very north, there is the Mt. Oriander. A very clean and fresh place with many animals, this is where Lucas, Claus and Hinawa live.
However, a very strange group with pig masks appeared from nowhere. What they have done? They literally devastated the Sunshine Forest and attempted to destroy the whole fauna existing there! The dwellers of Tazmily became extremely shocked after that, being possibly the first ever disaster happened so far.
Many tragedies happened, but none of them are more outrageous and sadder than something that would change the village's fate forever, specially for the affected family. And so, a confusing novel has just begun...
Why It Pulls The Seven Needles
- The plot is very different compared to the previous games; due to the game taking place 100 years after the events of EarthBound, the game is different plot-wise, with Porky Minch returning as an antagonist, this time a main one. The game is also divided into 8 chapters, which is a very nice touch.
- It is also way more complex than the previous games and is more likely to touch in themes and subjects that are way too hard to discuss in an unbiased manner. Some of these include human physiology, renewal, moral fungibility, and dualisms such as nature and technology, and feudalism and capitalism.
- Very greatly revamped battle system; while it still follows the same design as the previous games where you only see the enemy, the battle system is different now; when you attack, you can press the A button to hit again. You can attack 16 times at once if you press the A button at the right time, though this requires a lot of timing to do so. Each song has a different heartbeat so you have to memorize them.
- You can even practice them in Battle Memory, instead of having to try to fight the same enemy over and over again.
- Awesome graphics that are a massive improvement over EarthBound (which in turn had great graphics). The animations are perhaps the most notable, as the characters' lips now move when talking, and the new walking animation is more smoother instead of simply rotating the sprite or using two sprites for an animation.
- Sound Battles! Enough said.
- Perform a (up to) 16-hit combo attack by following the music's beat! Requires some of trial-and-error, unfortunately.
- You can practice them at the Battle Memory. A section that can be unlocked by finding a key item inside the Osohe Castle.
- If a character takes damage, the HP number slowly scrolls down, rather than directly subtracting. That is good, because you have the opportunity of... for example, when a character takes mortal damage (damage higher than the current HP), you have to do something to recover your life very fast to avoid fainting.
- Tons of likeable characters as usual, such as Flint, Claus, Kumatora, Duster, Boney, and of course, Lucas.
- Very different tone from the previous games; while the game still has some dark tone in it, this time, the tone went for more of an emotional side, with some characters dying in a sad way, some characters' personalities becoming different (Lucas in chapter 1 is the most notable, whose personality has worsened when Hinawa died until the end of chapter 3), or characters not being able to spend time with their family (the most notable is Flint, who spent 3 years trying to find Claus).
- Gorgeous artstyle that is arguably even better; aside from the already awesome graphics, the backgrounds now have a different style, which look just wonderful to look at. Also, in some battles, the background actually changes, giving it a bit of a similar feeling that EarthBound had during the Giygas fight.
- Unlike many JRPGs and just like its predecessor, the enemies appears on the field, making the combat optional (but recommended). #*Rather than the annoying random encounter.
- You can get advantages by hitting the enemies' back, making them immobilized for one turn (green-color transition). The inverse can also happen (red-color transition).
- If you're leveled up enough, you can defeat the enemy without even entering into a battle by simply running (B button) over them!
- Unlike most RPGs, in order to run, you have to hold the B button for a bit, and then release. The character will still run, regardless of which button on the D-pad you press. In fact, you don't even need to hold the D-pad, as the character will still run.
- While it doesn't push the GBA's hardware to its limits, the cutscenes and feelings are pretty cinematic. It even occupies 32 MB, the GBA cartridge's maximum capacity. Yet, there are lots unused content hidden inside the game's files.
- Instead of directly learning a PSI by leveling up, Lucas and Kumatora starts to feel feverish for some time soon after a battle. After the "fever effect", the new PSI will be learned.
- One of the very few games with a "food spoiling" system, which is a very good detail. For example:
- When you get a Fresh Milk from the cow, it will eventually become Rotten Milk and then Yogurt after 30 minutes.
- When you get an Egg from the chicken, it will eventually hatch and become a Chick.
- If you enter Hot Springs with an Egg in your Goods, it will suddenly become a Boiled Egg.
- A very emotional final boss and ending. Said final boss has a completely way of defeating; instead of having to use an ability several times, you have to wait until the Masked Man gets his memories back.
- When a character and enemy attack, musical instruments sound effects will play. Which is part of the game's humour and add to some happy feeling.
Bad Qualities
WARNING: You're not allowed to add a bad quality saying that there's no official English translation, as there are good reasons why the game never saw a release outside of Japan. Anyone who adds such bad quality will have their edit(s) automatically reverted. If this is repeated, expect a dealing with.
- While there are tons of likeable characters, there are also some unlikeable characters surprisingly.
- Fassad is extremely unlikeable, even for a villain, as he always tortures Salsa when he doesn't do the task right and if he goes to the wrong way.
- Wess, while not really bad at the beginning, isn't really likeable from chapter 2, as he almost always calls Duster a moron and is one of the reasons why the latter has a handicap. Despite this, he's not as bad as Fassad and is likeable sometimes, with him being very useful in battles.
- Unlike the previous entries, if the enemy in-battle dies and your character reaches 0 HP, this does not count as a victory, meaning that if you die when the boss dies, you have to redo the fight again, which can be a problem if you're fighting against a tough boss that requires a lot of healing.
- Severe lack of replay value. There's no Post-Game Scenario, New Game Plus or Alternate Endings.
- By noticing some coincidences, it's pretty easy to know who the Masked Man is before he revealing himself.
- The third chapter, The Suspicious Peddler, mainly consists of torture/animal abuse, and can anger some people very easy.
- The sound battle feature is very hard if you play the game via emulator due to input lag.
- While the soundtrack is good, there are some issues:
- It mostly consists of the segments seen in His Highness's Theme, which can end up being repetitive.
- Most of the soundtrack (almost all of the battle themes) are in the C note, which can also end up being repetitive.
Reception
Mother 3 was a critical and commercial success upon release. Critics generally praised the game's graphics, music, and story.
The game also received a "Platinum Hall of Fame" score of 35/40 from Japanese reviewer Weekly Famitsu. Famitsu's reviewers noted the level of detail from the game's direction, accessibility and wit of the story, unconventional art style, and conventional game mechanics. They considered the timed battles to be both useful and difficult.
Fan Translation
As said above, Mother 3 did not receive an official release outside Japan. On October 17, 2008, Starmen.net released a fan translation patch that, when applied on a copy of the Mother 3 ROM image, translates all the game's text into English.
Take a look at it here.
Videos
Trivia
- Mother 3 is notable for being one of the longest games in terms of development to be published by Nintendo. The game originally started development in 1994 for the Super Famicom (known outside of Japan as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System), before being moved onto the Nintendo 64DD. Due to the add-on's failure, development switched to the N64, but then the game was cancelled in 2000. Three years later, Mother 1+2 was released, and the commercials revealed that Mother 3's development has been restarted. On April 20, 2006, the game finally did see the light of day, but only in Japan. Overall, it took 12 years for the game to be developed and released.
- The Pigmasks are actually based on right-wing militants (fascists), as they never distribute money to literally anyone. Yet, they want to start the called "money" era (they succeeded as seen at the start of Chapter 4) starting with the devastation of Sunshine Forest.
- This is the only game in the series to not be directed and/or produced by the series' creator, Shigesato Itoi. However, he was still involved in the game as the writer.
- While the game was never officially released outside Japan, Lucas still managed to appear in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Non-Japanese players reacted in the same way as when Marth of Fire Emblem fame appeared in Melee: "Huh? Who is he? Where did he come from? Never heard of him..."
- Fenomeno, one of the enemies inside of the Empire Porky Building's underground, has a very strong resemblance to Giygas.
- Speaking of Giygas, the final boss' experience and sensation was allegedly planned to be the same to the predecessor, but wound up scrapped. The "planned but scrapped" content can be found on the game's files.
- Shigesato Itoi (the writer) has officially confirmed that there are no plans for Mother 4. There was going to be a fan sequel because of this, but it was later rebranded as a totally new indie game (Oddity), likely to avoid falling victim to Nintendo's recent DMCA take downs of fan games like Pokémon Uranium, AM2R, Ocarina of Time 2D, Zelda 30 Year Tribute and a Commodore 64 port of Super Mario Bros..