"A story is a series of memories. Memories are remembered with other memories, and in turn become memories themselves. If you don't take care to preserve your memories, you'll forget them. So, please tell us frogs your memories of everything so far... That is what people refer to as 'saving'."

This isn't really a review, more of just some...thoughts on this game and my relationship to it. Fair warning, it's pretty navel-gazey and self-indulgent. You may not really get on with this one.

One of the all-time best Hard Drive headlines remains "Huge Earthbound Fan Excited To Play It For The First Time". It's a good gag, an playfully teasing dig that is funny because it's true, and could only come from a place of understanding of the EarthBound/Mother fandom. I know, because once upon a time, I was a Huge Mother 3 Fan Excited To Play It For The First Time.

It's hard to emphasize how much of a fetish object Mother 3 was for the western EarthBound fandom, even for the wider JRPG fandom. I became aware of EarthBound through Smash Bros, as I am sure most people my age did, and was immediately taken in by how out-of-a-piece it was with the rest of Nintendo's stable, and my interest only skyrocketed when I searched the internet and found out that EarthBound was super fucked up and weird and scary in a way only slightly off-beat Nintendo games hyped up by 14-year olds who don't really know anything else could be.

(See also: Majora's Mask, and endless features in Official Nintendo Magazine UK swearing that the ReDeads in Ocarina of Time were the scariest shit in the fucking world man you'd fuckin shit and piss your pants)

And then, of course, there was the sequel on the Game Boy Advance, that never left Japan and never would, implicitly because it would emotionally scar anyone who played it and was even more messed up than it's fuckin twisted predecessor. EarthBound has a habit of being slightly spoken over by many of its most ardent fans, certainly, those I was privy to in my days lurking on noted Haven for Absolute Unhinged Freaks Starmen.net, but Mother 3 was on a whole other level. Everything about this game was spoken of in terms of absurd religiosity, which was only heightened by its relative inaccessibility. Speaking about the game in hyperbolic terms practically became a core tenant of the EarthBound fandom, as if an official translation could be physically evoked out of the ether if enough people were enthusiastic enough for it. Entire swathes of the game were freely discussed, both before and after the (also given a kind of quasi-religious status by the fandom) fan translation were released, spoiling every single conceivable thing in the game in order to entice someone, anyone to give it a go and join the chorus, never quite seeming to realize that, mostly, they were was just talking to each other, and to impressionable 13-year-olds like me.

I swallowed all of this. It was hard not to. I remember one day, on what was probably at the time the most exciting website ever devised, the Smash Bros. Dojo, which contained daily updates for the sure-to-be greatest Smash Bros. ever made when Lucas and New Pork City were announced. To say I lost my shit was an understatement. I freaked out to just about any of my friends who would care to listen, performing the same role of Eulogist that all the people I saw online do for Mother 3, giving away every possible twist and reveal and plot point to people who, maybe might have actually played EarthBound on their own one day and liked it well enough. To say that I was a fan of Mother 3 at this point would be incorrect: I was a religious convert, a cultist, a Happy-Happyist passing down the teachings that I had taken in from sermons of the mount like "Blues Brothers Symbolism in EarthBound". Blue, blue.

I did play EarthBound, and really loved it, mostly because like 80% of the conversation around the game, when I was getting into it, was about how totally fucked up the final boss battle with Giygas is, and the remaining 20% was endless relitigating about why a game so impossibly magical and amazing didn't sell well enough, which carried the implicit conversation with the unreleased status of Mother 3. Because of this, I found so many surprises and things I found personally resonant, things that I had nothing to bring to other than myself. I didn't even have this feeling with the even-more over-discussed Final Fantasy VII because the things culture remembers of that game are bafflingly at odds with what it actually is and what I took away from it when I came to it.

But with Mother 3? I can't say the same thing. It's partly because it's a much shorter, more focused game than it's predecessor, it's partially because it stands alongside Far Cry 2 and Dark Souls as one of the most over-analyzed games in existence. But mostly, I think it's because the fandom conversation around this game warped my perception of it and turned every step on the Nowhere Islands into charted territory, where everyone had left their mark, and I had no space to make mine, no space to find myself beneath everyone else.

There are a huge amount of things that I love about Mother 3, so many things that I appreciate, and so many things that make me smile. But I've never been able to feel like my experiences of it were entirely mine. I've never been able to find the unique resonances with my own life or experiences that characterize all of my favorite games. Everywhere I look, every corner I turn on the Nowhere Islands, I see the words of others, the perspectives of others. I look at little elements like the doorknob, and instead of being able to turn it over in my head, and place it within the wider whole, all I can hear is a cacophony of voices echoing throughout the years, the interpretations of posters on Starmen.net, Itoi and Brownie Brown's own comments on the subject, drowning out any thoughts I might have.

Yes, I could definitely discuss my thoughts on the fact that the village of Tazmily was in some way doomed to it's fate from the very beginning because of it's pursuit of an idealized vision of a specifically American past draped in western imagery that conveniently ignores the great darkness of that time in material history...but even this thought echoes with perspectives I've read countless times before. Wess' abuse, the Magypsies as a deeply clumsy but earnest attempt to explore gender non-conformity as it relates to the social and "nature", the way forgetting haunts the entire game world, as if everyone else on the Islands knows what a terrible mistake has been made by choosing to move backwards rather than forwards and desperately wishes to avoid it by enshrining themselves in your memory...it's possible you've read stuff here and thought "oh, that's interesting!" But every time I go to speak, every time I open my mouth on these things the words of others spill out, so ingrained and intertwined that I don't know which thoughts are mine and which thoughts are creeping in from forum threads long, long ago. Playing this game is like playing with a director's commentary track inside my head that I cannot switch off, commenting on the meaning or intent behind every single pixel on the screen, and it's heartbreaking because I truly believe this kind of voracious all-consuming analysis is completely antithetical to why these games are good.

Mother/Earthbound games are free-wheeling, lackadaisical, and rarely concerned with all-consuming arcs and statements. Those things are there, but the real pleasure of playing one of these games is just meeting the weird and wonderful people of this odd and beautiful world. You can see it in the battle system, in how it is playfully carefree with it's rules and rhythms, with many boss battles being beaten after you have technically been dealt lethal damage, but the game is kinda taking it easy until it gets to you. You can see it in the, frankly, absolutely astonishing soundtrack that freely mixes and matches genres and tones and instruments all processed through the woeful GBA speakers. You can see it in how the MacGuffin that dominates the first half of the game's plot is basically forgotten about and never mentioned again afterwards, in the lack of interest in connecting the dots between EarthBound and this game, in how the same reverence that the fandom spaces I hung out in hold this game and EarthBound are viewed with huge scepticism via Porky's Museum of EarthBound ephemera.

Mother 3 is not a religious object of absurd fervour, it's not a mythical Dark Dragon waiting to be unleashed. It's a video game, one that is laid back, at ease and confident in itself. And I wish I could be the same with it, but I can't help but play this game with the same awkward, nervous, stammering energy that comes with meeting an internet acquaintance in person. I wish I could be normal here, I really could! But my brain is too filled with EarthBound fansite trivia, I'm so sorry. Did you know there's an unused sprite that depicts the creation of the Masked Man, but that it was never used because it's probably just too fucked up and scary f-

Boney attacks!

...yeah, ok, I deserved that.

I've read a lot on games I love, and games I don't, but never do I really feel like those perspectives take me over, leave me unable to see the game beneath them. Certainly, my perspective has been altered by the perspectives of others, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill but with no other game do I feel so wholly unable to find myself in, no other game has this opaque wall around it made of What Other People Thought About It. Not even EarthBound has this for me. And it makes me really sad. Mother 3 is a special game. A really great one. And I think I do love it but...it's a love with a lower-case L. Despite it's reputation as a merciless feels machine, my appreciation of Mother 3 is extremely emotionally detached in a way I find kind of upsetting. There are definitely things about it that I feel strongly about, things about it that provoke profound emotion in me, but I wish I had been able to find those things for myself, instead of my love for the game sold to me by overzealous fans.

No, that's wrong. It's not the fan's fault. Well, not entirely. I do think that a lot of the conversation with these games is kind of fundamentally opposed to what they actually are in a way that speaks to the relative immaturity of a lot (not all) of the people talking about them at the point in time where their critical reception was still cooling. But ultimately, It's not the fault of people just talking enthusiastically about a game they loved, or at least, wanted to love. Mother 3 is just...as a result of my interactions with it, how long its shadow is cast across my mind as a child...trying to find personal meaning in Mother 3 that relates personally to myself is like trying to find something new in Citizen Kane. When something is that storied, that discussed...what hope do I have?

When people who were there talk about their first interactions with EarthBound, it's so often framed as this unfolding flower of a work, that grew beyond whatever humble thoughts they may have derived from the game's legendarily misguided marketing campaign. They weren't expecting to find one of the best games of all time inside it, but they did. It's the same I feel about when I played my favourite game for the first time. I wasn't prepared for the things it would do and show me. This is not to say that novelty is an inherent facet of a game I love. But at the same time...I don't know how fully I can love something that falls into a dutiful checklist of the things I already expect to find there.

I think Mother 3 is a great game. But I think people should be allowed to find that for themselves, or not if that's how it goes. It is, ultimately, A Video Game, after all, a children's video game at that, the video equivalent of a Ghibli or Pixar film, and not a holy missive from on high. Because I don't know if I feel, in my heart, that Mother 3 is a great game, and I think that's terrible. I think fandom and conversation can be really special, and I hope this doesn't come off as a condemnation of the western Mother/EarthBound fandom. But I think sometimes, Fandom can do terrible things to work, warp it to fit their enthusiasm. I see it in games like Persona 5, Xenoblade, Dark Souls, games that become disseminated by voices that come to dictate the scope of their meaning.

Maybe you would find Mother 3 weird, funny, or heartrending. Maybe you would think of it as super fucked up and nasty and scary. Maybe it will be the saddest thing in the world for you. But I think, as with any game, you owe it to yourself to find out for yourself, rather than have some ageing boomer online tell you what it should be.

It's like the frog. You can dissect it forever, but nothing you learn or examine or analyse will change the fundamental fact that the frog is dead. Wouldn't you much rather meet it for the first time when it's still alive, while it can still save your game?

Dauntless and insurmountable feat would it be to fill in Earthbound's ridiculously sized shoes, but nonetheless not only does Mother 3 achieve such task, it charts its own course through one of the most unique and thoughful experiences the medium has ever seen.

In contrast to Earthbound's freeform and loose storytelling, Mother 3 opts instead for a much more laser focused narrative that has its characters witnessing the corruption of their idyllic reality, which destabilizes their community and family bonds in the process. This change of narrative structure translates to a reduction in off the beaten path detours and non sequiturs that decorate much of the diverse and out there adventure found in Earthbound, but Mother 3 more than makes up for it by utilizing the pre-established and beloved tone of the series to subvert it and twist it just enough to frame a much more personal and intimate experience, while still maintaining the foundation that defines the franchise.

Without sacrificing any of the strengths and characteristics that make videogames unique in the storytelling artform, Mother 3 manages to create a surprisingly emotional and meaningful story that contemplates the disruptive nature of time and progress on stagnated unrealistic ideals, the folly of a lack of introspection and hindsight in day to day life relationships, or the need for growth and maturity during the moments life beats you down , without ever having to condescend to the player or step outside its fun, joyful and charismatic universe. It uses the power of nostalgia and childhood, inside and outside the game, to construct a strong connection between the player and the screen, while also acknowledging the danger of said sentiment and even weaponizing it against you, cementing its antagonist as one of the greatest villains in fiction in the process.

As you watch your home town transform during the course of the game just by the act of walking by it and speaking to its neighbours, Mother 3's seemingly surface level anti-capitalism theme opens up to reveal a much more empathetic and understanding examination of the mundane and human misgivings and mistakes we all end up falling into once in a while, never fully condemning the characters that inhabit its world, unlike much more blatant and obvious recent titles aspiring to some artistic merit.

While there's a certain sadness in the inevitability of Itoi never again making a videogame, it is fitting that he would leave us on such a high note. Coming back to this series would in some way detract from the overall message these games have always strived to impart on the player, and trying to one up Mother 3 would be a massive mistake. As it stands, Mother 3 has the qualities of a great novel. You can pick apart its more obvious themes and messages and always find something else beneath it more interesting. I could go on about how engaging the rhythm combat is in contrast to other JRPGs. I could ramble on about the numerous NPCs that betray their 2D aesthetic with incredible one liners that destroy any pretentious triple A story driven shlock. I could fawn over the incredible execution of the final boss and how the game manages to poignantly break the 4th wall once again like its predecessor did.

But why bother? Discussing these aspects would be reducing the art, Mother 3 is meant to be played. Oh, wait. You can't play it. Add it to the ever increasing bucket of baffling and nonsensical Nintendo decisions.

obviously the surface elements - the basic look of the game, the cast (both your party and the extended populace), the core combat loop, the pathos of the anime melodrama, the music - all those things that everybody loves are excellent and rewarding and cute and funny and lived in, but i was just as struck by the nuances of the game's politics and changing relationship to its setting. the somewhat revanchist prelapsarian (and post-apocalyptic, post-scarcity) community of Tazmily eventually falling for the lure of capital's grotesquely preserved, nostalgic yet extratemporal spectre is so smart, there's a real tension between the progressive and regressive/bourgeois impulses of the text that's much more interesting than if it were "just" "anticapitalist"...not to mention the way the second half of the game is always tying narrative and ludic progress with some kind of loss, be it the dramatic hollowing-out of the heart and soul from your community or the very literal disappearance of characters.... had some wrinkles with it but the whole thing is so complete and singular despite its many imitators that it entirely won me over <333

I firmly believe that MOTHER 3 has, without a doubt, the best narrative out of any game that Nintendo has ever published. It is a deeply moving and meaningful experience. Considering Nintendo's preference towards a complete absence of narrative themes in games that they oversee, it's shocking to think that they had anything to do with this game at all. Whatever the case, Itoi and the development team were given a great deal of narrative freedom, and through the fires of hell that were this game's development, they created something truly unforgettable.
In terms of gameplay, I have no complaints. The battle system improves on Earthbound's mechanics in a great many ways: it's snappier, smoother, and much more balanced in terms of game progression. Although simple, the rhythm mechanic takes the typical bore out of watching your character's actions being executed. At the end of the day, though, the gameplay really is just complementary to the game's narrative, at least to me.
However, I can't give this game a perfect score for one particular reason: there is a lot of filler.
The game has a good few plot points that simply go nowhere in the scope of the entire story. In particular, chapter 2 gives pretty much nothing to the plot minus introducing Duster and Kumatora as characters, and chapter 7 is infamously drawn out. And while Itoi's creative direction gives us plenty of interesting experiences and wacky happenings during these sections, it still feels slightly disappointing and mildly boring to play through them.

All in all, it's a spectacular game. I don't know if I'd call it an absolute masterpiece, but as far as games from Nintendo go, it's easily one of the best.

When I wrote my Backloggd Review of EarthBound about a year ago, I tried to shave down my impressions and interpretations into something concise, digestible, and spoiler-free. I’m not going to do that with this one; I want to take this as an opportunity to speak freely and honestly about the MOTHER series and its genre cousins without worrying myself over the burden of design, if I can (already I’ve rewritten these three lines maybe six or seven times, but we’re loosening up). Let’s leave a little less on the cutting room floor this time, how ‘bout that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, we’re goin’ all the way in.

On MOTHER 3 (Or — "Ticket to Nowhere”)

If EarthBound feels like “hanging out” with a weird, kind, fascinating person, then MOTHER 3 is the story of her life. That’s the way it starts, anyway. It’s fantasized and spun out into a broader and heavier story than she ever intended, but it’s true to her lived experience nevertheless. She’s a liar, but only in the way my parents were liars when they told me that babies are made out of eggs and fish. MOTHER 3’s practical jokes are kinder, because its story and world are darker. She can still be funny about it, she still has excellent taste in music, but she has nothing to hide anymore. The end of our last conversation (EarthBound) saw her opening up about the sadness and trauma that lingers behind that smile, so there’s nothing left to give but the whole truth, and nothing but (and “truth” is not always synonymous with “fact”). We just had to wait twelve years before we were old enough to hear it.

We hunted for Melodies in MOTHER to sing to the ghost of our great-grandma (who babysat an alien) to fix her ghost amnesia. We acquired Melodies in MOTHER 2 as part of becoming a wiser, more thoughtful person. In MOTHER 3, the Melodies are people who die when we pull their needles. And we don’t pull all of them.

MOTHER wasn’t so much about Ninten himself as the lore surrounding his family and their association with extraterrestrial forces. There’s little reason to believe that Ninten is anything other than a vessel for the player’s personality, like his Dragon Quest forebears, and I think it’s as beautiful here as it is there. It isn’t visually a first-person perspective, but a first-person story stitched together through the player’s investigation, where Ninten is the player’s mind. It’s unique to videogames, and for a game whose world is already unique among videogames, I think it’s handled well. You are Ninten, plain and simple.

But MOTHER 2 plays around with that expectation; it’s very much about Ness’ relationship with the player. Yeah, Ness begins as maybe the most down to earth protagonist in the genre’s history — a silent avatar living in a modern suburb with his family — but he gradually develops and asserts his own identity as new experiences inspire deeper personal reflection. We first read flickers of his childhood memories in each Sanctuary location, then his thoughts written out in Lumine Hall, then his feelings and flashbacks visually represented in Magicant, until finally, he speaks. The game even seems to reinforce this initial link between Ness and the player by addressing him in the second person during both the Coffee and Tea Breaks. And all the while, it's chipping away at that connection by breaking the fourth wall, reaching out to the player and asking for their real name, and then pleading for their prayers at the end.

Unlike Ninten before him, Ness has a past separate from the player’s, and he remembers it. We’re simply here to guide him through that journey, give him strength, and share in that process of reflection and growth. In doing this, he loses the innocence he had at the start, and in the strangest way. As many do, he grew up believing that Evil was a corruptive force, separate from the world he knew. Evil radiated from Giygas, pulsed through the Mani-Mani statue, and swayed everyday objects and animals and people to violence. If there’s anything we learn about Ness in Magicant, it’s that he still views Pokey as a friend, even after everything they’ve been through. Surely, he’s just another one of Giygas’ innocent victims. Like Mr. Carpainter, like Monotoli, he’ll snap out of it as soon as Giygas is out of the picture. But Giygas dies, and Evil does not die with him. After the final battle, Pokey pops in to let us know that he hasn’t changed a bit, and winks off to spread his influence elsewhere, elsewhat. He even has the last word, after the credits have rolled. And so, Ness’ last discovery is that Evil is as human as Love. My favorite thing about EarthBound’s ending is that we still walk home together, with Paula, after learning this.

Lucas picks up where Ness left off. He discovers the dark side of humanity early on in life, and has no illusions about where it came from. We know that Lucas doesn’t blame the Dragos for his mother’s death. The only monsters in the UFOs circling over Tazmily village are people. We can put a face to Lucas’ absent father. We know why he’s gone all the time. We don’t call him for favors. Lucas speaks early on in the game, we see his reactions and his memories and his feelings all laid out in front of us. MOTHER 3’s “Shower Break” in Chapter 4 already addresses Lucas in the third person. We don’t even play as Lucas for an entire scene before switching over to another playable character. The game asks the player their name mere tens of minutes into the first chapter. The sight of the “Chapter 1” title card alone might already tell us all we need to know about the game’s structure and its priorities. It’s “Shigesato Itoi’s Dragon Quest IV” (just as MOTHER had been Itoi’s Dragon Quest II, and MOTHER 2 was analogous to DQIII). Right from the start, we aren’t invited to “live” in MOTHER 3 as we had in MOTHER 2, we’re invited to perform it. EarthBound was a mirror, a conversation. MOTHER 3 is a play. And what a production it is.

In plainer terms, what I’m saying here is that MOTHER 3 was and is the logical next step for this story. We can’t go back to what we had. We’ve already grown beyond our childhood, so Lucas doesn’t have one. Po(r)ky is knocking down his door, and this time, we’re all complicit. It no longer makes a secret of the fact that it knows we’re there, because it knows that we know that it knows we’re there. The question of which is the “better game” feels ugly to me, most of the changes to the series’ staples feel more like a result of the different intent of this game than linear “improvements” on the others, though they’re worth talking about anyway.

MOTHER 3 has far more animation, its art style smooths over EarthBound’s rougher edges, there’s a run button, full recovery stations are easier to come by, you can save and manage money with frogs, there’s a slot for key items, the menus have groovy music and so on and so forth, but more interesting to me are the considerations made to the battle system and enemy encounters. On the whole, enemies are more deliberately positioned and have more varied behaviors, so the ability to sneak up on them is easier to take advantage of. Duster acquires just about all of Jeff’s status-afflicting abilities immediately (alongside a few additions) and they occupy their own menu, meaning this game is more interested in battle turns as a resource than it is in inventory slots (one of the designers might’ve considered that, because you can only pick one per turn, and they don’t deal damage (progress toward victory), and you’re liable to take damage every turn, and most enemies are only susceptible to certain tools, the more interesting decision is simply the matter of using them, and deciding on the one for the job. Not a bad idea). Buffs and debuffs are more effective than ever, and there seems to have been a lot of attention given to the general turn order. Boney always going first (and having no special offensive or PSI abilities) means he’s best utilized as the “item guy,” Lucas’ status buffs and recovery spells have to be planned out in advance, since he’s usually going to go last. Kumatora's healing isn't quite as powerful as Lucas’, but she's much faster in a pinch. That’s important to take note of, because “Rolling Health” is given much more prominence in this one, it really comes into its own. Party members are afforded larger amounts of Hit Points to work with from the very start, and there’s a more gradual overall “roll” speed (it slows down to a crawl if you use the “defend” option, which is especially thoughtful), which, when coupled with the Rhythm Combo system, is nothing short of brilliant.

Rhythm Combos are perfect, and I want them in everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if Itoi wanted to put something like this in every MOTHER game, he probably tapped the ‘A’ button to the beat of Dragon Quest II’s battle theme in 1987 (it starts with this repetitive, percussive “boop,” so I can see it). It turns the music into an essential obstacle for the player; an active and skill-based, but not at all obtrusive addition to JRPG combat which strengthens the value of the standard physical “attack” option incredibly. It’s strict, but if you’re tuned all the way in and tap to the beat of the music, you can land more than double your normal damage. The songs themselves mess with this, having weirdo time signatures and skips to throw the player off and get them to choose their moments carefully. If your health is rolling down, you might still be tempted to squeeze in a few extra hits before the next turn, making for some excellent tension. It imbues so much personality into not just the enemies themselves, all of them having their own variants or entirely unique tracks, but the characters. When you get hit, a sound effect reflecting the enemy’s personality will play in sync with the backing track, but that goes for your party as well. It’s only fitting that a series so in love with music should allow the player to wield it. Master the rhythm battle system, and your crew becomes a band to rival the DCMC themselves (revealing that maybe every JRPG is far less about killing monsters than they are about people learning to work together). Funny though it may be to admit, it’s a key reason I’ve picked up the game as many times as I have, only to see it through to the end.

I always try to land a full sixteen hit combo as Claus at the beginning of the game, just to jam out to his sitar sound effect the only time you can.

But yes, that production. Replaying it now, after about a year away from it, I’m surprised all over again at how efficiently the game manages to convey this beautiful sense of community between the people of Tazmily. It isn’t long at all before it feels like it could be home, and it it isn’t long after that that it begins to fall apart. The careful attention to NPC placement and changing dialogue depending on the situation is nothing short of meticulous. I couldn’t help smiling at Mike’s “slightly unclean and not very tasty” cookies, Nichol’s “the Funshine Sorest is on tire!”, or Wess’ grumblings about how “nobody’s aware of how strong [he] really [is]” because he looks like an old, balding man (and he is). Everyone pitches in to help Flint out in some little way, and it’s devastating to watch — in the series’ most animated moment to this point — as he takes out the full force of his horrible grief on the people who care about him. This is one of those scenes everyone remembers and talks about when they talk about this game, and it’s a testament to the character writing that we feel it as much as we do. Flint himself is completely silent up until this point, but he never had to say anything for this moment to land. The game never has to tell us, in his words, why Lucas doesn’t want a Happy Box. It doesn’t have to tell us why Duster has a bum leg. We could control Flint before and now we can’t, because he can’t.

It’s incredible that the game never seems to let up in this regard, it’s as densely written at the beginning as the crushing finale, so rich and full of ideas that it has to provide designated pit stops between major sequences. It fills its presents with fireworks and reggae beats and spills over with sad beetles to whom we can offer dung in exchange for experience points, all in the name of encouraging us to smell the roses. And we should smell those roses while we can, because the world is changing. The people we love are changing. They’re coming to throw rocks at us, spit on us, and make our lives hell…or…is that the mushrooms talking…? The Nowhere Islands don’t give easy answers.

If MOTHER 2 is about a boy growing up and losing his innocence, 3 is about how a world can lose theirs. These are people who wanted so badly to return to a state of innocence after the End of the World that they had their memories trapped in an egg, and still they become corrupted by forces promising to bring them happiness and salvation from dangers they caused. Could the people of Tazmily have continued living peacefully in this Rousseauian society, or was it destined to come to an end? Porky seems to think that humanity will always fall victim to cruelty and evil, and though he's hardly the most trustworthy character in the story, he didn't invent any of the methods he's using against the Nowhere Islands. He's just taking them to their logical extreme. Not to absolve him of blame, of course, Porky is one of the most pitiful and terrifying characters in videogames. It’s quietly horrible to watch Isaac admit to Salsa in Chapter 3 that he just wants to see if happiness really is as easy as buying a Happy Box, too naive to recognize the happiness that’s available all around him. Because we’re duped all the time in that same way, riding the hype of new products and falling for advertisements, ever encouraged to wonder just how much happier we might be if only we had that one thing. If we’re lucky, those things come with genuine sincerity and authenticity. If we’re luckier, we can share them with people who love us. We’re rarely so lucky.

Not for nothin', but Dragon Quest V’s portrayal of slavery felt pretty toothless after MOTHER 3 made me push claymen around for a whole afternoon at the factory (I’m sorry Dragon Quest V, I still love you). It doesn’t take very long, but it feels humiliating and wrong to help the enemy in such a tedious exercise, knowing that some of the villagers do this all day, every day, for a pithy reward. Knowing that everyone in the village is being molded like these claymen. Some of them even become Pigmasks. To call out the absurdity of MOTHER 3 is to feel alienated by the absurdity of our everyday lives. If we’re already feeling that way, it’ll be an eerily validating experience.

But is it too much? Is it too heavy-handed? The MOTHER series had always been such an understated thing, and now we’re just saying the quiet parts out loud. But could it be any other way? Maybe I do have to listen to Samba de Combo while considering the ramifications of materialism on our fractured world and the meaning of happiness. Maybe I need to fire a pencil rocket at a bass guitar. It’s a game of so many paradoxes. It’s a game that loves being a game, yet is wary of its own place in the world. It has such a zest for life, but lingers on destruction. How are we supposed to feel about Wess, or Flint? The islands’ sworn protectors are selfless immortal nonbinary psychics who are frequently described as “strange,” but “good-natured,” and I’m frankly not one thousand percent sure how to feel about that portrayal. One of them betrays the rest and becomes an evil monkey-torturing mechanical chimera made out of brass instruments, but is still loved by a mouse. MOTHER 3 is two brothers wrestling friendly dinosaurs. It’s those same brothers breaking down in tears because everything they love is gone. I played this game for my brother once, performed it like a musical. He asked if I was crying during those final moments. I don’t remember if I was.

I always tell people to play MOTHER 3 on a DS Lite if they can (it’s two Happy Boxes for the price of one), or another portable console of their choice, because the game is designed to be the player’s companion. The plentiful save points and hot springs are part of that, but there’s something about having this world in your pocket, by your desk, on the train, in line at the airport, in your hands, which makes it feel so much more intimate. That’s ironic in its own way — the DS Lite was new when MOTHER 3 came out, a game that wanted us to think about the nature of technological progress, and now our “portable” consoles don’t even fit in our pockets anymore. Take it from me, you don’t want to play MOTHER 3 on your iPhone. The physicality of the buttons is necessary. The lack of notifications and other applications is especially necessary.

Both MOTHER 2 and 3 end by reaching out to the player. MOTHER 2 fills our screen with Giygas, so we’re face to face with the embodiment of Evil. MOTHER 3 fills our screen with Nothing, so we're face to face with our own reflection.

But why go to such pains to separate the Player and the Character? Why draw so much attention to us? Why did I waste so much breath emphasizing the importance of that growing divide throughout this series?

Because it doesn’t want us to think of this experience as an “escape.” It doesn't give us anywhere to run. It wants us to take it with us. It wants us to do something with these feelings and memories. These are games we play as ourselves, whoever we are.



...Wherever we are.

Mother 3: O que faz um JRpg bom?

É uma ótima pergunta, e eu não sei responder 😅

Queria começar dizendo que entrei no meu arco de JRpgs, depois de ter saído do arco de CRpgs, se você deu uma olhada no meu perfil talvez tenha notada que eu coloquei vários jogos do gênero nele... Mesmo que eu não tenha feito nenhuma review de fato, jogos como Pathfinder: Kingmaker e WotR, uma recomenda da @Halullat... Planescape: Torment, Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, as notas de jogos vide Wasteland 2 Director's cut, e 3 subiram bastante pois re-joguei esses títulos, entre outras coisas... Ainda assim faltou jogos como, Icewind Dale 1 e 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 e 2, Tyranny e etc... Talvez eu jogue eles em outro momento.

Mas o ponto é que saindo dessa "fase" eu queria finalmente jogar os JRpgs que são tão lembrados por aí... Eu realmente joguei alguns Final Fantasy, porém não todos, e pretendo conhecer a série por inteiro, minhas maiores espectativas são o VI e o VII, também vou passar pela série Persona e SMT, e talvez por outras pérolas que encontrar no caminho... Se quiser me recomendar alguns inclusive, fique a vontade 😁.

Mas antes de passar por esses, uma saga que sempre me chamou atenção mas que eu nunca tinha tocado, foi a Trilogia Mother, clássica, antiga, e posso dizer também, espetacular... Mother, Earthbound e Mother 3 compunham juntos uma das mais brilhantes trilogias já feitas, e é extremamente interessante o que aqui foi criado.

Como disse antes, eu não sei responder o que torna um JRpg bom... Mas o que sei é que a trilogia Mother é brilhante, mesmo se distinguindo, em partes, das outras obras do gênero que visitei até então... Sua história consegue ser cripitica e sombria, ao mesmo tempo que é envolvente e criativa.

O fato de em todos os três jogos jogamos como um pequeno garoto, mesmo que distintos entre si, e ainda assim passam por tudo o que passaram... Sinceramente me dá calafrios. Mas não posso negar que todo o conjunto da obra é extremamente bem feito.

Porém, lembrar que, especificamente, Mother 3 nunca foi lançado oficialmente no ocidente me deixa triste... Pois olha, o jogo lançou para o gameboy então definitivamente com um emulador e com uma Hack Room com uma tradução, seja para o inglês ou português, é sim possível joga-lo sem muitas complicações... Mas ao mesmo tempo, é triste pensar que a experiência feita pelos próprios devs originais, nunca vai ser passada para nós por meio de uma tradução original... Mas é o que temos pra hoje, não sei se a Nintendo vai querer realmente reviver a franquia depois de anos.

Algo que eu posso dizer que consegue contrabalancear esse sentimento de tristeza, é algo que sempre me deixa muito feliz... Quando o terceiro jogo de uma trilogia é o melhor dos três... Pois isso dá a sensação de que toda a caminhada valeu a pena, e que o seu fim foi tão bom quanto todo o caminho... É fato de que trilogias onde o terceiro jogo não é o melhor ainda assim podem ser muito boas, isso eu não nego... Bons exemplos são a Trilogia Arkham, e a Trilogia The Banner Saga, que fecham suas histórias com jogos de muita qualidade, Banner 3 e Arkham Knight são muito bons... Tipo Banner 3 é fantástico... Mas isso abre a possibilidade de coisas como Mass Effect 3 acontecerem... Eu especificamente não me frustrei e achei o jogo ruim, pelo contrário, porém é notório a frustração de muitos fãs com esse jogo, o que em partes é compreensível pois ele está longe de ser tão bom quanto o segundo jogo.

Um bom exemplo de onde isso ocorreu para mim, foi em Bayonetta 3... Na qual irei me isentar de discutir sobre... Mas quando o contrário acontece, como aqui em Mother, ou na trilogia Baldur's Gate, e olha que BG II era quase insuperável, por exemplo a sensação é muito mais gratificante definitivamente.

No fim das contas, a Trilogia Mother é definitivamente um espetáculo, e eu não duvido que muitas pessoas tenham Earthbound e Mother 3 como seus jogos favoritos, pois são experiências únicas em seu próprio gênero, por consequência no mercado de jogos também... No final da História Mother 3 é um dos melhores jogos da história indiscutivelmente, e ao menos em minha opinião, deveria ser testado por qualquer pessoa que gosta do gênero.

Para Mother um 9.4/10 ou 4.5/5...
Pra Earthbound um 9.7/10 ou 5/5...
Ea Para Mother 3 um 9.8/10 ou 5/5...

Se você chegou aqui.... Por favor me recomende um JRpg que você goste...

Então Shigesato Itoi conta a sua ultima historia.

E que historia hein? Mother 3 começa como um jogo que tenta se desprender de Earthbound, mas mesmo tempo que encapsula a ideia do jogo anterior. Existe uma coisa muito impar nesses jogos que mesmo com suas narrativas mais sóbrias, deixam o coração aquecido.

E isso vem muito da ideia de que a serie mother são grandes fabulas que no fim querem te dizer algo além do que se é mostrado na superfície. E nesse ponto é bom eu começar a falar sobre as coisas que me acometeram no jogo: Mother 3 é sim uma fabula infantil, mas ainda é uma obra que trata e retrata comentários anti-capitalistas, o mal da militarização policial, uma falsa liberdade irrestrita, em resumo, um obra anti-fascista.

E aqui eu darei levíssimos pra elucidar os meus pontos, pois, em determinado momento da historia você vê que um grupo de personagens chegam na pacata vila de Tazmily (que nem sabia o que era dinheiro) com um item chamado "Caixa Feliz" que pode ser entendida como uma alusão a TV e com a chegada da TV, é propagada uma mudança do status quo dentro da vila que até o momento trabalhava em comunhão mas com a vinda do dinheiro houve uma ruptura e 3 anos depois do inicio do jogo a Vila de Tazmily estava totalmente diferente. E isso é confirmado pelo jogo, pois houve um progresso econômico na vila, mas isso veio em detrimento as relações interpessoais, algo crescia nas sombras.

Nesses 3 anos, um exercito composto por porcos (que usam da estética fascista, conveniente não?) oprime os opositores e os ridicularizam e ou presos com o uso de uma truculência policial (que já foi vista na serie quando Ness luta contra uma delegacia inteira em Earthbound). E aqui o ponto é trazer que a policial é um instrumento do estado que visa a manutenção do status quo da classe dominante, no jogo, a do vilão, no nosso mundo, a burguesia. (e guarde bem a informação "Nosso mundo" ela vai ser importante mais pra frente)

E sobre liberdade? bem, mais pra frente no jogo Tazmily estará abandonada, já que todos os habitantes se mudaram para a cidade grande, e na cidade grande aonde os prédios são de mentira, os trabalhadores são precarizados e principalmente, as pessoas acham que são livres, entre os NPCs você percebe todos reconhecendo o protagonista e nisso todos contam admirados como agora eles são realmente livres e que a cidade grande te proporciona isso.

Os porcos são os fascistas, obviamente, mesmo sendo retratados como um alivio cômico, nunca são subestimados, já que eles sempre conseguem alcançar seus objetivos, mesmo que isso custe vidas. Eles são movidos por uma uma fome insaciável de poder.

Bem, eu passei pelos temas de forma bem superficial, sendo algo que é permeável por todo o jogo é difícil falar diretamente as criticas sem grandes spoilers. Mas venho tentar demonstrar que Itoi tinha consciência de que você nunca está realmente livre dentro do sistema capitalista.

E isso nos leva pro pos credito do jogo, aonde pós eventos finais do jogo, em uma grande tela preta o jogo e personagens conversam com você, e nessa conversa o jogo vai falar sobre como aquela historia acabou e que aquele jogo acabou, mas que tudo vai ficar bem lá, e ele faz uma provocação: "Aqui vai ficar tudo bem, mas e ai no outro mundo?"

Mother 3 nos minutos finais subverte a mensagem de seu jogo pra dizer que não devemos nos esquecer daquele jogo e daqueles personagens, e eu entendo todo esse pós credito como uma grande provocação, mas também como um consolo. Entendo que não devemos esquecer aqueles que amamos mesmo sedo eles "meros" pixels em uma tela, já que eles foram peças importantes pra uma narrativa que te impactam de uma maneira

E devem permanecer com você, mesmo que numa cultura capitalista e de alto consumo você acabe passando pro próximo jogo sem refletir no que acabou de jogar, faça um esforço e considere levar essas historias no seu coração.

Eu entendo que Itoi vem falar sobre as relações cada vez mais liquidas que se tem com obras e com a mídia principalmente, e então voltamos pro "Aqui vai ficar tudo bem, mas e ai no outro mundo?"

Eu gostaria muito de dizer a Itoi que a unica coisa livre aqui são as minhas lagrimas, mas mesmo não vendo tanta esperança quanto ele (já que o o mundo nunca me tratou bem como ele pede no fim) eu ainda acho digno de lutar por uma superação desse sistema que nos levará a extinção, e no fim talvez essa seja a resposta das coisas, ter algum tipo de fé, né?

Eu acabei divagando demais sobre os temas que me apetecem no jogo que deixei de fora todo o resto, mas isso não é tão importante nessa review, é um jogo do itoi, se você jogou os anteriores, você sabe o que esperar (alias, importante jogar os outros já que é um jogo que se referencia a serie inteira e toda essa jornada ganha peso caso você tenha bagagem dos outros).

Mas acho que passei de forma resumida e sem spoilers o que eu senti e gostei enquanto jogava Mother 3, foi um jogo que me divertiu, me estressou, mas principalmente me fez amar ainda mais a franquia e videogames num geral, entrou facilmente entre os meus jogos favoritos.

Itoi nunca mais vai fazer outro jogo, e tudo bem, ele já contou as historias que ele queria e eu já ouvi o suficiente, eu só espero que o mundo daqui tenha sido gentil com ele.

Manly tears were shed.

What a great game. I'm just in love with it. This is a biased review.

Just play it.

Ha ha ha,
You've read the Player's review who most likes Mother3 of this site,
the second Player who likes Mother3 of this site,
the fourth Player who likes Mother3 of this site,
and the Player who most hates Mother3 of this site!
I'm truly the third Player who likes Mother3 of this site.
Now you see the true advantage of being third!
And, In my review of Mother2/EarthBound I'll write the third most detailed review of the MOTHER series on this site!

...It may be next year before I can up a review.
This is also the third strongest! Ha ha ha!

the suburban pastiche of earthbound (and mother) was comforting thanks to its familiarity. it's a game where you can point at the screen and say "look, that's like my life!" pulling money from an ATM, stopping by the mall to grab a burger, or wandering around the natural history museum, these aesthetic choices work precisely because of how the expected unreality of the game world becomes subverted into a representation of reality. it's novel in its presentation, and enhanced by the quirky charm of the townspeople along with the tangents into both goofy myth and unsettling sci-fi horror.

which makes your first moments walking into a similar world after a between-chapters skip of multiple years in mother 3 such a slap in the face. our protagonist lucas, one of the few remaining denizens attempting to reject a new capitalist order, now glumly walks through these same suburban streets. former stalwart geezers contributing to the town's safety have been all but locked away in a dilapitated nursing home, while lucas's peers scarcely older than he work for wages in the nearby clay mines. the cheerful dialogue from the townspeople now solely consists of those chiding lucas for not getting with the times in between questioning why virtually every other defector's house has gone up in flames. it's the same carefree music of adolescence, the same bright thin-line artstyle, the same casual strolls around town, but tainted by your knowledge of the utopia of the society that came before and the decadence of the modernization that has come in its wake. it is, in essence, a loss of innocence. the unfair and early death of lucas's mother at the start of the game shattered it, and post timeskip you get a close glimpse of its proverbial corpse.

it is indeed somewhat funny the lengths that itoi went to establish the despair of modern civilization; endearingly awkward as his writing is, occasionally it gets into simply awkward territory the more it moralizes. yes, there is a token native american stereotype, and yes, his tipi gets blown to smithereens by artificial lightning post-timeskip. the magypsies as well, in attempt to enforce their alien nature given their status as immortal standardbearers of the world as it stands, are othered via their gender representation... which ends up being rather distasteful "okama" cariactures. my reason for pointing these out is not to discredit the rest of the work, but more to note that itoi bit off more than he could chew with some of the themes. he really wanted to demonstrate how fucked modernization is, man! so in the process some of the imagery gets a little hamfisted or straight-up ???... but that first time you walk into the modernized tazmily it hit me so hard.

likewise when you finally arrive at new pork city late in the game, the ghoulish tackiness of it all is so evident. the bizarre international mishmashes and cardboard cutout buildings, like toy props in a set of figurines (or buildings without polygons in the rear like a video game with fixed perspective) they illustrate gestures towards culture generation with vapid facsimile in place of rich tradition. it's a childlike conception of urban life: video games in walking distance and 24/7 screenings of heroes from another world. the idyllic norman rockwell landscape of earthbound has been grafted onto the communal tazmily like metal plates welded to biological creatures. all of it enforced by heiling stormtroopers in sneering pig masks... ok again, the imagery is really hamfisted. let itoi cook!

somehow even with this ideological shift in the people of tazmily, itoi still goes out of his way to illustrate the cruelty that lurks under the otherwise flawless exterior of their transactionless lifestyle. duster's bum leg, a physical reminder of his abuse at the hands of wess, is openly acknowledged, and yet the weight is silently borne by duster himself. his plain looks and questionable hygiene belie his thief tool mastery and serious upright bass chops, regardless of the verbal degredatation his father puts him through. likewise flint, stoic in his initial voiceless protagonist role, suffers a truly heartbreaking outburst of rage late in his campaign, indicating the dam about to burst on the societal shift to come. even lucas and claus play-act fighting with the local dragos at the very beginning of the game; the language of violence is still engrained in the minds of those living outside of capitalism.

the first three chapters are dedicated primarily to this plot, with the old rpg elements streamlined and the party limited. admittedly I'm not a big fan of the parts of earthbound where you're limited to a one or two person party; I just don't think you can come up with strategies that interesting when there's only a couple of moves to work with each turn. likewise, mother 3 provides different perspectives across each chapter with small parties carefully paced around the relative strength of the bosses they'll face. each character at this point can use special attacks and debuffs for free, removing the resource-management usually inherent in jrpgs. this isn't entirely bad, as it allows the player to experiment with various special abilities, but it would've gotten rather tedious after the six or seven hours it lasted. the point at which I got tired of this setup was in the lucas/boney fight against the jealous bass, which virtually necessitates using explosive items in order to outpace the devastating jam sessions they lay on you.

thankfully after this mother 3 wants to remind you that it's a real-ass jrpg, and thus the party is assembled... lucas, black mage kumatora, duster with his thief tools, and boney the dog. out of these mechanically boney is unfortunately undercooked; his only special move is "sniff" which senses the enemy's weaknesses, and his stats are gimped by being unable to use most equipment. thus most of the interesting fighting relies on the other three characters. I love how the mother series crystallizes the heroism of their heroes through making them healing mages, and lucas is no exception. while he has excellent attack, he's also equipped with a bevy of abilities such as setting up shields, buffing stats, and giving full revives to anyone or everyone in the party. kumatora handles all of the debuffs and attack magic, while duster is able to also apply free debuffs in exchange for a middling activation rate.

in turn the bosses get significantly more powerful, especially in the lengthy chapter 7. this whole section serves as a truncated redo of the same kind of "find the macguffin in each area" structure from earthbound, and with each needle pulled at the end of each area comes a more fiendlishly difficult boss. high base defense, extremely strong full-party attacks, switching between physical and PSI attacks, and even being able to destroy your shields at will all make character death frequent, and without smart planning and exploitation of the series's distinctive health counter system, it will be difficult to overcome some of the late-game fights. to my surprise other than the infamous barrier trio fight I didn't find that most of the fights revolved around simple weakness matching either; there's legitimately challenging turn-based slugfests balanced just right not to require grinding as long as you don't mind taking detours for items here and there.

complimenting the basics here are rhythm game elements which require the player to click the attack button in time with the backing beat to create a combo of up to 16 attacks in a row for a notable damage increase. while conceptually simple, the expansively eclectic soundtrack makes following the rhythm often require a significant amount of concentration. beats are dropped occasionally or sections will have tempos that vary, forcing the player to keep track of when they start attacking to ensure they don't get interrupted and lose valuable damage. following the beat itself rarely varies outside of simply tapping the backbeat however, which is a bit disappointing outside of a couple outliers like the 15/8 timpani-led Strong One. other songs occasionally try off-beat rhythms or more complex bass patterns, but unfortunately all of this is held back by the game's inconsistent timing windows. I played this on 3ds through rom injection which is generally considered to be extremely close to hardware-accurate, and yet I consistently noticed that the windows on certain songs required me to be a touch late. anything with eighth notes is a total crapshoot unfortunately, and thus I can see why they limited the songs that contained these pretty significantly. surprisingly enough the final chapter of the game features few difficult songs, making most of the encounters relatively easy to finish with only regular attacks, and I was hoping to hear the really bizarre tunes come out during the final mobs and bosses. however it's obvious the system was meant to be more of a bonus damage system, and thankfully the whole game can be managed without it if you're crafty enough with your PSI and thieves tool use.

without a doubt when compared to its meandering predecessor mother 3 focuses its satire on actually tearing apart the origins of the americana it draws from. at the same time it's a perfectly enjoyable jrpg with a neat rhythm mechanic and the same counter mechanism from earthbound to make timing your actions carefully utterly important; a rarity for turn-based games. as the game comes to a close those who played earthbound will receive an unsettling reminder of the artifacts from those games and the influence they played upon the creation of the world our heroes exist in, and the ending is cataclysmic and only partially resolved. for a game infused with so much levity, it's remarkably grim at the same time. I can only assume this juxtaposition of tones is what itoi was trying to summon all along.

Shigesato Itoi's ending to the Mother series leaves off on its strongest messages to take home. I'm of a family of brothers and sisters, but most importantly I have a twin brother of my own. That made the story around Lucas and Claus that much stronger and poignant to me, not to discredit that the writing in general isn't already incredible.

From the slow corruption of Tazmily village as it conforms into a capitalist society that comes with less pros than it does take away familial strengths and bonds within the community, to the surrealist hero's journey of the seven needles, Mother 3 fantastically paces itself out and keeps the core message of family ever so strung through the whole thing.

The characters, while not so much riveting examples of three dimensional characterization, each found their way into my heart as I played through. This is a game where, though it has its lows, had a profound effect on my life for a very long time. Even when you dig to its core, to where you find that it's simple in scope and works off of a fine tightrope of emotional beats, I still think it's a shining example of video games I've ever played. I can hum most of the soundtrack to this day.

The combat may not be riveting, it taking up a huge percentage of the time playing the game and just barely good enough thanks to some great boss design, some solid enemy encounters, and the cohesive rhythm system. But still, I never lost my engagement for a single moment. I was gripped until the credits rolled and the game came up and told me that it wants the very best of my life as I did the characters at the end. And I think, I wish everyone here the best too, and that maybe if these words find you that you also play Mother 3. (10/10)

It's been a while since I've written a truly blasphemous review on this site, so I'll be blunt. I think Mother 3 is fundamentally the least interesting game of the trilogy, which breaks my heart more than any part of its story. Opening your inventory and seeing that key items are separate from regular ones is all it takes to realize that you're now playing through the type of RPG that Mother 1 & 2 were parodying. I've long theorized that nearly every game that claims to be inspired by Earthbound is actually inspired by Mother 3. Humor that stems from out-of-place characters or moments and occasionally produces laughs, but never ends up being broadly funny in the sense that Earthbound is. An unwillingness to inconvenience the player so as to not detract from its grand message, which never ends up feeling as worthwhile as Earthbound's ruminations on memory, connections, and life experiences. I won't deny that Mother 3's story is unique or well put together, or that it ends on the perfect note, but I will say that I'm rarely ever moved by traditional narratives in video games. The deliberate non-stories of the first two games, in my opinion, are what made the series special. It's admirable that Mother 3 rejects so much of its predecessor, considering Earthbound was pretty much a remake of Mother, but I question what it takes and what it leaves behind. Ditching the formula means that the sequence of events didn't have to revolve around collecting MacGuffins, again. Six fully playable characters means that they could've been grouped up into unique combinations throughout the course of the game, instead we spend the bulk of it with the same four. Only having two PSI users means the rest of the party could've grown in interesting ways through battle, instead Duster and Boney never gain any abilities besides the hardly ever useful ones they start with. The game's one mechanical bullseye is the music battle system, which is nothing short of miraculous. It combines with the rolling health meter to add another layer of decision making, it lets you blast through early encounters on a replay, and it cleverly ties difficulty into presentation. Structure-wise, the buildup to New Poke City remains the game's highlight, partially because of the final characterization of the man himself. As Lucas's thematic parallel, Pokey is unwilling to let go of either his childhood or his meta-status as the guy from Earthbound. I can take a hint, Itoi, but, what am I supposed to say? Without the help of any dead moms, fascist regimes, or unstoppable forces of industrialization, I get more emotional at Earthbound's credits than I do at Mother 3's. And that was sort of the point, wasn't it?

Truly genius work of 21st century art, succeeding with modern and postmodern paradigms both. Dense like a book, yet never a slog. Has the most balls of any Nintendo game.

Unlike with EarthBound, Mother 3's sense of humor runs in conscious opposition to its darker, more grueling storyline. There's a notable instance where the once cute and silly save frogs turn up after a monkey has been tortured, and the nearby creature drops his act to tell you to hang in there, a bizarre but necessary empathetic moment. The world is changing, and every aspect of Mother 3's design forces you to reckon with those changes, almost as if you were watching a time lapse of America over its past 200 years. It's frightening but no excuse to give up hope. After all, traces of the world long forgotten can still be found. Some characters even recall the way things once were. The future isn't only something to fear, but we must proceed with understanding of what we may leave behind.

Worthy of note is that this game is only about capitalism when looked at on a surface level. Its greatest commentary is on the devaluation of beauty and empathy in our society, symbolized through the disconnection of two children from their mother.

Also, behold, the ending to end all endings. Itoi's Mother trilogy is life-changing right up to its final moments. It's the last thing I'd ever dare spoil, so you'll have to trust me on it.

Mother 3 é uma anomalia para o modus operandi da Nintendo: sua tonalidade multifacetada, seu levantamento de temas *sérios* e sua mensagem anti-capitalista e profundamente simpatética da natureza humana são os tipos de problemas cujo quais a empresa gostaria de se afastar - irônico e profético por parte da obra de Shigesato Itoi.

De cara, já se nota que o tempo, tecnologia e maturidade fizeram muito bem à série: Mother 3 é maior e melhor que Earthbound em todos os aspectos, e carrega uma gravidade muito mais intensa ao redor de tudo que tem pra falar - é impressionante como que uma história que em quase todos os momentos está trilhando (isso implicaria cautela, está mais para sambando) uma linha tênue entre o nonsense engraçado e um desespero crescente e infreável consegue rapidamente se organizar em momentos de verdadeira intensidade dramática. Infelizmente, muitas vezes não consegui pegar o ritmo desse vai-e-volta tão bem quanto o jogo tenta te guiar, e acabei achando que algumas vezes estava não me importando muito com o que o jogo julgava importante comunicar porque não fui efetivamente fisgado. Muita gente fala dos personagens, e de como eles são um grupo que fica no seu coração mesmo não sendo muito comunicativos, e infelizmente não senti isso. Lucas não pareceu muito diferente de Ness para mim, e a parte que de longe mais me engajou em relação aos personagens foi o começo fantástico com apenas Flint e Boney (que chamei de Charlie, em homenagem ao meu cachorro visualmente bem similar e tão capaz de violência quanto seu sósia digital). A urgência narrativa e a aura de mistério e agonia que permeia o primeiro capítulo, misturadas pela dinâmica - cliché, porém interessante - de um pai de família e seu fiel cachorro, culminando na tragédia final, foi um baque de qualidade de narrativa e apresentação que não estava preparado ao vir de Earthbound. Em geral, diria que gostei mais dos capítulos que brincam com a dinâmica do grupo, misturando perspectivas e personagens diferentes, e sinto que faltou mais disso no fim do jogo - embora entendo que alguma hora queriam o grupo todo junto para a aventura mais “clássica” de buscar as Sete Agulhas.

Como não estava muito investido no grupo, não esperava que o final seria para mim o estrondo que foi para a maioria das pessoas que falam dele. Estava parcialmente certo, porém admito que a situação vai apelando tanto pra situações desastrosas que pegam qualquer um com um coração (tragédia; tragédia envolvendo criança; drama familiar; exaustão; desespero diante da impotência) que acabei me emocionando bem mais que eu esperava - acho que se a relação entre os irmãos tivesse sido melhor explorada no começo (e.g. se tivessem um capítulo dos dois juntos tão bom quanto o de Flint e Boney) eu teria caído em prantos no final.

No fim, não fui fisgado emocionalmente como muita gente foi, e isso me entristece um pouco. Ainda assim, consigo apreciar suas qualidades, e vejo aqui uma obra de calibre grosso, que sabe como pouquíssimos jogos ser engraçada (quiçá o jogo que mais me provocou risinhos), triste, cheia de coração e originalidade, sem precisar esconder os dentes diante de uma mensagem política que pouquíssimos jogos tem coragem de contar, muito menos com tanto tato. É tragicamente lindo que este seja o último jogo de Itoi.

Eu não consegui um combo maior do que 6, mas é culpa do emulador, eu juro.

It's impressive the way Shigesato Itoi utilizes the Mother series to critique the day-to-day aspects we take for granted within our lives, while also not hesitating in drenching said aspects in both naturalistic and pop culture-infused aesthetic pleasures to demonstrate both the moral ambiguity and the inherent beauty of the mundane. Outside of the distinctive pseudo-modern sci-fi fantasy settings the games are set within and the earnestly and meaningfully sentimental tone they're garnished by, I find that it's the little things in the Mother series that really draw me in. The atypical verbiage in the battle dialogue, the bespoke sound design, or how every NPC manages to say something meaningful; not necessarily always meaningful to the story or plot, but in what it conveys to the player about the game's world or even the real world -- and often without utilizing more than one or two textboxes. Some of that could be attributed to the various localization both official and unofficial, but when looking at all three games with a wider lense, it's clear Itoi didn't want to settle for what was easy when it came to writing the scripts and scenarios for the Mother trilogy. There's a self-evident wisdom pocketed into each slice of text, in all three Mother titles, but especially within Mother 3.

And that isn't to say Itoi's writing is flawless; he has some clear cultural and experiential blindspots, but at least he never stumbles into anything truly condemnable. Towards the beginning of Mother 3 there is a joke that could easily be construed as a some sort of blackface "gag", but like many of the "big swings" Itoi takes in Mother 3: it could definitely be worse, and it's arguably "benign". Of course, I'm a white woman, so you can easily take my opinion there with a grain of salt. But I do happen to be queer and trans, so I can speak about on probably the most controversial aspect of Mother 3's cast in recent years: the Magypsies.

The name alone should probably raise some eyebrows since it's a portmanteau that appears to contain a historically pejorative term for a real world ethnic group; again, I can't really speak on that aspect personally, but I feel it remains part of the discussion. And boy is that a discussion, especially when you get into how the characters fit into queer representation. Aesthetically, they're pretty explicitly just stereotypical depictions of the "okama" trope, but I find it difficult to not love them as individual characters textually despite that. They're morally complex, they're fun, and even if I wish they'd been implemented with more tact they're one of the only depictions of (technically speaking) nonbinary characters within an officially published Nintendo title before the modern era.

Of course, that leads to another problematic element, specifically how depictions of nonbinary people in media leave them often relegated to god-like entities, and the Magypsies unfortunately fall into that trope. Though personally, I feel like it ends up working in service to the game's theme of duality. The razor and lipstick combination used to represent them could be taken as an intentional absurdity (deprecating humor), and perhaps it was meant that way at one point, but I find it difficult to not see it as a deliberate celebration of both masculinity and femininity as forces of identity and expression. Really, it's difficult not to be left with a positive takeaway from the characters on some level, to make queer people have such an important role within the game's world, to make their razor and lipstick items be the best healing/revival items in the game. They're far from perfect, but in that sense they fit well into the game's themes of "impurity" or moral fluidity.

That late game NPC that proclaims a softer side to one of the primary antagonists that the player never sees, multiple characters who are ostensibly on the "good side" who are explicitly abusive to their children, optional text that suggests Lucas himself has potentially bullied animals for fun; none of it is in your face, and none of it is directly excused, but it feels relevant to Itoi's building of a world that doesn't attempt to wash away the imperfections of our own. Even when demonstrating the positives and negatives of both pre-industrial and post-industrial life, it doesn't attempt to obfuscate the highs and lows of either condition.

I say pre and post-industrial instead of pre and post-capitalism because I don't feel like capitalism is really what Mother 3 is trying to tackle. Like, I won't say Mother 3 isn't not explicitly anti-capitalist, but I don't think it does the game justice to summarize up the game's themes as "capitalism is evil" or even just strictly within that very narrow framing. I think there's a very explicit critique of market capitalization, but it's entrenched within the game's exploration of the natural state vs technological growth. Specifically, technological growth in the context of commercialization, and what that does to people and their relationships with others. Without spoiling, I can't help but feel this core theme is shown most explicitly towards the end of the game; and it can be a gut punch to fans of EarthBound/Mother 2 if they haven't yet come to terms with it at that point.

And even then, you probably couldn't reduce Mother 3 down to simply "consumer culture is bad" either, but I think it is most explicitly critiquing consumerism/industrialization and the sometimes deceptively dangerous artificiality of the products we consume. Even if it lacks the cerebral and more actively intellectual commentary of something like Disco Elysium or Pentiment, Mother 3 has that shared interest in showing the world for the complex mess that it is while also being quite honest in the side that it's chosen within its internal debate.

Mother 3 is a game of a lot of themes and concepts, but the most obvious one in the end is "love". Whether that's romantic, familial, humanistic, or just simply not being an asshole to the people around you. That's what I love about the Mother series in the end, how despite it having a mostly critical tone, it effortlessly circles back into sincere sentimentality. Mother 3 is the only piece of media to manage to make me uncontrollably sob (even if EarthBound gives me the biggest lump in my throat overall). I don't really know how Itoi and his teams did it multiple times, but in an age where media seems so keen on empty oversentimentality, each replay of the Mother trilogy still manages to make me feel all these things again and more, even after all these years (couldn't figure out an elegant way to slot this in, but I've been playing/replaying these games for a decade and a half at this point).

Mother 3 is Itoi at his rawest, or at least as raw as he could be within the confines of development for the Game Boy Advance, and for all the games that have been inspired by his series (bad, medium, or good) none of them have really managed to recapture that exact acute sagaciousness in tone and presentation. Perhaps what people should takeaway from these games isn't something literal, but something more epistemological? Regardless, the Mother series -- especially Mother 3 -- feels like Itoi's truth, and I'm so grateful that these games even exist in the first place.