Mother, or Earthbound Beginnings, is a complicated game. I feel like the themes the story goes for, and the vibes it achieved, are much more interesting and impactful than Mother 3 in comparison. On the other hand, the battle system is extremely simplistic, fitting with its age, and the random encounter rate is way too high. This game also has a really high level of difficulty here and there. What I'm getting at is that this game has aged well when it comes to the narrative and atmosphere, but bad when it comes to the gameplay. Ultimately though this has my favorite story in the series and I genuinely think it has more heart than the sequels, so I have to give credit where credit is due. It's also not unfun, just very slow and challenging at times, so my two playthroughs were years apart.

Mastered shortly after launch before this game's community got annoying.

The game is incredibly short, as you might expect, and you'll be able to see absolutely everything in somewhere around 10 hours with little effort. It has an interesting premise with its battles but falls short with cringey dialogue, le quirky characters, a dumb plot, and annoyingly heavy handed fourth wall breaks. I can understand that many people may find all of these things enduring but its always just been kinda embarassing to me. It is clearly trying to appeal to people with a more immature sense of humor and I'm glad for all the people who like this kind of guilty pleasure, but I'm not gonna pretend this forgetful trash is a worthwhile game.