Mother 3.


Part 1: introduction
Mother 3 is my favorite thing ever. I love it more than any book I’ve ever read, every show or movie I’ve ever watched, every song I’ve listened to. I love this game admittedly more than I love most things. I know it’s not good, but I just can’t help it. This game, no, this experience is better than anything I’ve seen before, and it will never be replicated. The crazy thing is, I don’t have any distinct memories with it. I have 0 nostalgia for this game, yet I love it. I started playing it in March 2019, and then finished it in February 2020. I was in my worst physical and emotional state when I played it, and to be honest it ruined me. This game is so incredibly depressing it’s insane, yet it’s somehow extremely joyful and happy. It’s the evangelion of jrpgs, it can either be the most depressing thing ever, or the most uplifting thing, and that’s what makes it beautiful. I have to admit something. I hated this game at first. I spent 40 dollars on a gba, and 20 dollars on the actual game, and I was just disappointed at first. I just wasn’t engaged enough to complete chapter 2. But enough with my experience, I’ll explain that later. Onto the stuff you came for, the actual game.

Part 2: The message
“Some stories would only work in a certain media.” That is something that is easily explainable, yet so complex. Why do only some stories work in movies or books. But more importantly, why do some stories only work in games. Mother 3 has a very straight forward story. There are no branching paths, or a good/bad ending. Every person sees that same exact story. So why does it only work in a game? It only works in a game because when mother 3 started development a lot of people thought of games as only Mario or Pokémon, games with little to no story, even when there are stories they are stories so simple that even a newborn baby could understand them. The difference with mother 3 is the message. Some people when they play mother 3 they think the message is pro communism. They aren’t wrong, but they aren’t right. The message in mother 3 is about life vs. death, nature vs. technology. But to look deeper into mother 3 we have to go back to earthbound.

Part 3: Evil incarnate
In earthbound you’re a little 11 year old going on a whimsical journey to stop an evil alien from the future. Giygas is the reason everything is evil in earthbound. Not humans, giygas. He is the reason why people die, he is the reason why your father doesn’t see you, he is the reason why your friends are jealous of you. Mother 3 does not do that. Mother 3 just simply says “humans can be really evil sometimes.” The reason for the evil in mother 3 isn’t an alien from the future. The evil in mother 3 is from humans. Mother 3 is a more mature story about growing up. Earthbound is about being a kid, and mother 3 is about finally growing up, realizing that people aren’t perfect. they are evil too.

Part 4: the pigmasks/Porky
The main evil in mother 3 is the pigmask army. Everyone knows that. But the Pigmasks are what I like to call “Idiotic evil”. They aren’t necessarily evil, they just want to give the people of Tazmily a push to the future. Tell me, if you were raised and brainwashed into thinking that everything had to be modern and futuristic, no matter the consequences, you would do it too. To them, they aren’t doing anything evil, they are just doing what they think is the best for the citizens of Tazmily. Yeah, there were a few inherently evil pigmasks like Fassad, but for all we knew, the other areas of the world already embraced modernity, and were living happy lives. But once we hit chapter 8, we know that it’s not true.

Part 5: The white ship
For the first 7 chapters of mother 3 it’s never stated where or when the story takes place. All we knew was that we were on the Nowhere islands. We were supposed to believe that we were at around the same time as Earthbound. We weren’t. Mother 3 takes place thousands of years after earthbound and mother 1. After a while humans destroyed the entire planet a group of around 20 survivors went to the last safe place on earth and tried to start a new civilization. They hid all of their memories in a hummingbird egg and acted if this was how life always was. The introduction of Porky and the pigmasks is the one thing the people of Tazmily didn’t need. The most evil thing they ever did was bring back what ruined humanity to the last survivors. And, guess what, it killed them all a second time. The final area of the game is new pork city. In new pork city everyone is saying “happy new year” for some reason. We learn from porky himself that the world is going to end when the masked man pulls the final needle, therefore killing the dragon.

Part 6: The Dark Dragon
Before any humans knew of the nowhere islands a group of 7 mythical beings known as the Magypsies. They made 7 needles to put a giant Dragon to sleep. They made them so their soul was powering the needles, so if the needle was pulled they would also die. They made it so that only the people with the incredibly strong “PK Love” ability could pull the needles. Once all 7 needles were pulled the dragon would awaken once again. The dragon would not be inherently good or evil, but it would pass on the will of the person who pulled the needles. It was intended for only 1 person to have the ability of PK Love, but the twin brothers, Lucas and Claus both learned it. After the death of their mother Hinawa Claus decided to try to kill the Drago that killed her. Lucas, instead of running at it decided to stay home and cry at his mother’s grave. Claus dies after falling off of a clif. The pigmask army notice him and save him. He of course wasn’t alive anymore, so they made the first human and machine chimera. This brought Claus back to life, but with none of his previous memories. He was a machine working for the pigmasks. Porky’s intention was for Claus to pull the needles to end the world entirely, because if someone with no heart at all pulled the needles, the dragon would die and the world would end. Lucas and Claus end up pulling 3 needles each, and they had to duel one last time to pull the final needle.

Part 7: The final duel.
The final duel between Lucas and Claus is beautiful. But before we get to that we have to talk about before the fight. We start with Flint (The twin’s father) telling Lucas that his suspicions were correct, Claus is the masked man. We then fight against the main evil in the story, Porky Minch himself. The thing about Porky is that he is hanging by a single string of life. If he was normal he would be dying any minute now, but he’s not. Porky is immortal, but he still ages. After using the Machine that giygas made for him so much he eventually lost any track of age or time. That is why he is still alive. He cannot die in any way. He can be injured until he would be dead, but he has to endure the pain. The fight with porky goes pretty normally until the end. He eventually goes into his “Absolutely Safe Capsule” (asc for short). The ASC is a small pod that nobody can get in or out of once it is closed. Nobody can do anything to it, not even the person inside. Porky is trapped in there for the rest of eternity. He will not die, he’ll just slowly and slowly lose his already little sanity. Lucas defeats(?) him, and moves on to the Final needle. Claus stands there, blocking the path with his lighting bolt that hits everyone except Lucas. Lucas will not fight back for the life of him, because he knows that his brother is the one underneath the robotic mask. The fight plays out with Claus showing no mercy onto Lucas. Both of the twins slowly get messages from their mother telling them to stop fighting, and them getting memories from when they were younger. Claus slowly comes to his senses as his attacks get weaker and weaker. He eventually can’t take it anymore, and fires one last bolt of lightning at Lucas. He did this knowing that it would be deflected off of Lucas and straight back at him. Claus is dead. Lucas goes up to the final needle and pulls it.
The end...?

Part 8: My Personal Experience
Mother 3 is what kept me going. Without this masterpiece I wouldn’t be here now. In January of 2020 I joined an earthbound group called “The Earthbound Amino”(Eba for short). I have met some of my closest friends there, and almost all of us still talk to this day. Without them, I literally would have no friends. The reason why I’m bringing them up is because they are what got me to start doing art and music. I’ve only been doing both of those things for a year now, and I’m proud of myself. I know that I’m not always the best, but eba taught me to be more myself, and I cannot thank them enough for making me well, me. So if you guys are reading this all the way through, thank you. It really means a lot to me. I honestly love you all so incredibly much.

The end.