Mother 3 Review

by Brandon Sultana

December 17th, 2015

GBA

 

 

Mother 3…the game almost feels like a myth. The sequel to the cult classic Earthbound has been talked about endlessly, generating tons of praise from the fairly small group of people who have played it. This is unfortunately due to the game only being released in Japan, with people hoping and praying for an English release in the future. I had resigned myself to just waiting for Nintendo to release it, but I recently decided to just play the amazing fan translation. If you want the long and short of it, I could just call Mother 3 a masterpiece (which it is), and be done with it. But what’s the fun in that? So I’m going to go in depth and talk about WHAT makes this game so dang amazing.

 

Story

The defining feature of Mother 3, what makes it so incredible, is its story. As opposed to Earthbound, which told a very static, non-dynamic story, Mother 3 has an evolving plot, and incredibly deep characters. The biggest difference between Earthbound and Mother 3 is the characters. Earthbound had characters designed to be a vessel for the player, while Mother 3 has real characters who regularly express themselves and have more complex personalities. This makes you far more attached to the characters, which only makes things harder when the heavy parts of the game hit. One thing I loved about this game, is rather than just throwing you into the action, the game’s opening chapters are spent giving you backstory on the characters, which makes you care about them so much more. In these chapters, you even play as characters that don’t become members of your final party, but when these characters appear later on, you care about them so much more because you know their story and you’ve played as them. The game does an excellent job of building up the narrative and the characters that occupy it before you get into the real meat of the story once the time skip happens. And trust me, this game is a thrill ride of emotions. The game has several absolutely heart-wrenching moments that, had I not spoiled myself on the game’s entire plot prior to my playthrough, would have likely made me cry. The game isn’t all doom and gloom, with many triumphant, happy, and even hilarious moments, but I think the more tragic moments were the most memorable ones. The game also has deep, complex themes that you are more likely to see in a work of literature, rather than a video game. If you look hard enough, there are layers upon layers of symbolism (you know, like an onion) just waiting for you to uncover. In short, this game’s story is phenomenal. From the constant highs and lows, to the amazing characters, and the really interesting themes that the game tackles, the game’s story succeeds in every way possible. I’m normally not much of a story buff when it comes to games, but Mother 3 enthralled me like no other game has. It had me invested every step of the way, but since I don’t want to spoil anything about this game, I have to leave it at that.

 

Presentation

Mother 3 has an excellent presentation. As one would expect from the Mother series, the music is incredible once again. Just like the story itself, the music reflects a wide range of emotion, and complements the gameplay and story beautifully. Since I beat the game around a week ago, I’ve already gone and listened to the soundtrack all over again. The game is littered with amazing songs, that are probably some of the best ever seen on the GBA. Along with the music, the visuals are also excellent. The spritework is wonderful, keeping most of the characters fairly basic, while still conveying a lot about the characters through animations. Overworld enemies are more varied, and their in-battle counterparts are incredibly detailed. The game also just feels more colorful than its predecessor. Lastly, we come to one of the best things about Mother 3, the writing. The team that did the fan-translation is simply incredible. No game has ever made me laugh as much as Mother 3 has, which is a huge task, considering that everything is conveyed through text, and how dark the game gets sometimes. From the constant breaking of the fourth wall, to the atrocious, dad-level puns, Mother 3 is one of the few games that made me want to talk to EVERYONE to see as much of the writing as possible. Humor in this game comes from some of the most unexpected places, mundane things like save spots and a key item become wonderfully quircky additions to the cast that steal the show at times. And those enemy names and designs? Fantastic. Clearly, the presentation of this game is fantastic. It's an excellent supplement to the story, that complements it in all the right ways.

 

Gameplay

The gameplay of Mother 3 falls very much in line with Earthbound. To be perfectly honest, it’s nothing to write home about. Don’t get me wrong, it is still very fun and engaging. But for an RPG, it’s pretty standard, and most people who tell you they love Earthbound, will probably not cite the gameplay as their favorite aspect of the game. The scrolling HP mechanic returns, bringing back the tense situations when your partner is about to die, and everything is just generally more refined from before. There are no more annoying trips to the hospital, and all the characters have tons of options in battle. A much needed dash command now lets you run outside of battle, which makes things a lot quicker. They also added a rhythm mechanic in battle, where the player can tap to the beat of the song to deal additional damage, which alleviates the classic RPG trope of becoming a “Mash A Fest”. If there is one flaw with the battle mechanics, it’s that the game often times doesn’t give you enough information in battle. There are two main instances of this. The first is that when selecting your items, moves, abilities, there is no description of them in battle. You can get info on them outside of battle, but there were several instances when in battle, I’d eat a piece of food, only to realize it only restored 20 HP because I didn’t know what it did. Similar to this, another issue is that the game doesn’t tell you whether or not your move failed due to immunity, or simple chance. Using status to weaken foes is a huge part of combat, but some bosses are immune to certain statuses. It’s pretty annoying that the game uses the same message for whether a move just missed, or if the enemy is actually unaffected by it. I shouldn’t have to use PK Flash like 4 times to determine that rather than just being unlucky, the boss is just immune to crying. Thankfully the online wiki exists to eliminate that trial and error, but I feel that when you have to look up stuff on the internet, that the game fails in giving you proper information. The inventory system is also a bit clunky at times, but so long as you don't hoard items like me it shouldn't be that bad. These issues are FAR from being a deal breaker, but they were the sources of occasional frustration, that can’t in good faith leave out of this review.

 

Conclusion

In short, Mother 3 is amazing. This is one of the few games that I feel everyone who considers themselves to be a passionate gamer should play. It’s a masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed by anyone. I worry that if we do get an official translation, that a lot of the more mature themes will be removed, so I implore everyone who has interest in this game to play the masterful fan translation. No game has ever made me feel so much emotion, and I know that I’ll look back on my experience with this game for years to come.

 

Excellent/10

 + Roller-Coaster of a Story

 + Memorable Characters

 + Exceptional Writing

 + Great Music

 + Solid Battle Mechanics

 - Lack of Information