Mother is arguably one of the most fascinating series from Nintendo’s long and iconic catalogue. When I say this, I’m not only referring to the games themselves but how they came to life. It was born out of the mind of Shigesato Itoi, a multi-talented Japanese celebrity who wanted to create an RPG based on a contemporary setting, unlike anything else that existed until that point, in the late 1980s. After some reluctance, he was able to convince Nintendo to work on his game. Mother, as it was named by Itoi himself, was released in Japan in 1989, being a success of sales and critics. However, it was its sequel that solidified the series’ cult status.
Released five long years later, due to a complex development cycle salvaged by the then Nintendo’s future president Satoru Iwata, Mother 2 was also positively received by Japanese audiences. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about its international release, renamed as EarthBound. By 1995 standards, the game was perceived as outdated due to its simplistic and somewhat childish pixel-art style, resulting in mixed reviews and really poor sales outside its origin country. However, not many years later, with the advent of the internet and emulation, as well as a cameo in the Super Smash Bros. series, EarthBound gained a second life. People started to properly appreciate it outside the biased conventions of the media outlets at the time, to the point that it is nowadays considered one of the very best games ever made.
This leads us to Mother 3, which had an even more troubled development. It was initially conceived as a Nintendo 64 title with a 3D engine, but the scale and complexity of the project caused multiple delays, until it was officially canceled in 2000. But all hope wasn’t lost, because a few years later the development was rebooted for the Gameboy Advance, with visuals more in line with its predecessor, being finally released in 2006… exclusively in Japan.
Luckily for those who can’t read Japanese, a group of dedicated fans created an English translation. It was precisely thanks to this translation that I was able to play this incredible game.
Family matters
Mother 3 is focused around a young boy named Lucas and his family, who live in a small rural town named Tazmily, where everyone is friendly and respectful to each other. Everything is good until the day the village is invaded by some mysterious and hostile military forces. Amidst all the chaos caused by them, something terrible happens to Hinawa and Claus, the mother and twin brother of Lucas respectively. The story then jumps to a period three years after that tragic event. By then, the depth of the writing, scenario, and character development becomes evident. We still find most of the people we met during the epilogue, but their lives changed drastically since then, as did the village itself. Tazmily became much more industrialized and its people more individualistic.
Tazmily is just the tip of the iceberg on everything Mother 3 has to offer in terms of narrative. There are a lot of smaller stories within the village itself, but me writing about all of them not only would make this review unbearably huge, as it wouldn’t do them justice. Actually, there is a particular aspect in this game that is quite unusual for a story-driven RPG - During most of it, we don’t have even the slightest clue about our end goal, we are just following a succession of random events, but damn, the journey is so gripping. Most of the merit is on the brilliant writing for the small moments, being them happy, sad, or plain funny, especially when they come at the most unexpected times. How a simple game can convey such strong emotions is something that I can’t quite explain, but even Nintendo’s marketing team knew it was Mother 3’s secret sauce.
A world of quirkiness
Although this review has been focused exclusively on storytelling so far, Mother 3 has more to offer than that. In terms of gameplay, it’s a traditional RPG, but with a few twists:
- The party: Instead of a consistent group of characters, our party changes constantly according to the story progress. We only get the “definitive” party by the penultimate chapter. That chapter is also by far the longest one, taking almost half of the game’s runtime.
- The combat: For the most part, it follows the traditional turn-based system, where each character can attack physically or psychically (the equivalent of a magic power), defend, or use items. The first twist comes in the way the HP counter works. When an enemy attacks, instead of dealing all the damage at once to a character, their HP starts to roll down gradually, like a car odometer, but in reverse. By acting fast it’s possible to avoid what would be otherwise a certain death, by healing before the counter reaches zero. If we choose to defend, the counter also rolls slower than usual. The other interesting twist in the game’s combat is the timed attack mechanic. By timing the attacks to the beat of the background music, our characters can deal extra hits (and do a jamming session as a bonus). Mastering this technique is fundamental to beat certain bosses, as some of them can be really challenging.
- The enemies: While not all enemies are super weird, many of them are. A perfect example is Negative Man, a rectangular creature that seems to be incredibly depressed and implores us to kill it. Although, what’s even more captivating than the characters themselves, is how they are presented - as a static image over a psychedelic background animation. All their interactions are conveyed through visual effects and micro-interactions in the HUD. Conceptually it may look like a terrible idea, but the execution was inexplicably flawless.
- The items: There are no swords or guns in Mother 3. Most items found in the game are mundane objects. Yo-Yos, sticks, and even rolled pamphlets serve as weapons, for example. This gives an overall sense of groundedness to the game, even when it goes to places way far detached from reality.
All this beautiful weirdness is amplified by an equally beautiful and weird soundtrack, comprised of more than 200 unique songs! From happy to sad themes, and something in between, the musical variety present here is impressive.
When I decided to play this game my expectations were already high, even so, it was able to surprise me in a positive way many times during my journey with it. I couldn’t ask for more. Mother 3 is brilliant in its uniqueness.
Pros
- Quirky sense of humor
- Simple and yet very emotional story
- Expect the unexpected all the time
- Beautiful and expansive soundtrack
- Superb fan translation
Cons
- A few unbalanced difficulty spikes
- Clunky item management
Masterpiece✦✦✦✦✦
I can’t describe Mother 3 in one sentence, there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. If your thing is story-driven games, just do a favor to yourself and play it. It’s all I can say.
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