This review contains spoilers
I’m honestly shocked that Nintendo approved this game’s release, with all of the incredibly obvious anti-consumerism, anti-capitalism, and anti-technology messaging. Although I will say, I don’t think the game is actively saying that modern technology is bad. After all, it is a video game that is played on modern technology. I think the game more so uses modern technology as a way to show how consumerism affects the mind in negative ways and pushes you away from your local community, forcing you to rely on companies selling you things to experience any amount of happiness in your life.
I would also like to touch on how the game discusses the art of video game making in an extremely meta way. When Leder tells Lucas the story of how Tazmily Village came to be, he says things like the village has no history past 100 years because of rushed storytellers and the characters having staunchly defined roles, when in reality, people are more three-dimensional than that. I view this as a metaphor on the art of making games, specifically story-based rpgs like Mother 3. They want to add as much lore and depth to the characters as they can, but they can only do so much with the hardware’s and their own time limits. Not to mention, the very end of the game literally features a bunch of characters all addressing and thanking you, the player, for saving them.
In case you can’t tell, I fucking love this game. Before I played Mother 3, I believed that Earthbound was the best rpg of all time, enjoying how it masterfully balanced humor with insightful commentary, and enjoyed its battle mechanics a lot. However, Mother 3 is able to balance not just humor and insightful commentary, but sadness and tragedy as well. The beginning and the end of the game are perfect representations of this.
Chapter 1 features Flint losing his wife and one of his children going missing. This causes him to go into a blind fit of rage, something the townspeople are obviously not used to. This shows very early on how Porky and his promotion of capitalism are already changing the village for the worst. But besides that, it is a deeply sad moment that the game handles with gracious care.
Chapter 8 ends with Claus, Lucas’s long lost brother and the child that Flint had been searching for, killing himself so that he could be with his mother, hating himself for all of the things that Porky made him do while he was his slave.
The gameplay in this game is just as fun as Earthbound, with the odometer-based HP mechanics making healing your team an actually exciting and stress-inducing thing. The musical combat system is also very fun, trying to time the hits to the beat of the song playing is satisfying.
Overall, this game is one of the best ever made, and Nintendo never releasing this game in North America is a crime against humanity.
I would also like to touch on how the game discusses the art of video game making in an extremely meta way. When Leder tells Lucas the story of how Tazmily Village came to be, he says things like the village has no history past 100 years because of rushed storytellers and the characters having staunchly defined roles, when in reality, people are more three-dimensional than that. I view this as a metaphor on the art of making games, specifically story-based rpgs like Mother 3. They want to add as much lore and depth to the characters as they can, but they can only do so much with the hardware’s and their own time limits. Not to mention, the very end of the game literally features a bunch of characters all addressing and thanking you, the player, for saving them.
In case you can’t tell, I fucking love this game. Before I played Mother 3, I believed that Earthbound was the best rpg of all time, enjoying how it masterfully balanced humor with insightful commentary, and enjoyed its battle mechanics a lot. However, Mother 3 is able to balance not just humor and insightful commentary, but sadness and tragedy as well. The beginning and the end of the game are perfect representations of this.
Chapter 1 features Flint losing his wife and one of his children going missing. This causes him to go into a blind fit of rage, something the townspeople are obviously not used to. This shows very early on how Porky and his promotion of capitalism are already changing the village for the worst. But besides that, it is a deeply sad moment that the game handles with gracious care.
Chapter 8 ends with Claus, Lucas’s long lost brother and the child that Flint had been searching for, killing himself so that he could be with his mother, hating himself for all of the things that Porky made him do while he was his slave.
The gameplay in this game is just as fun as Earthbound, with the odometer-based HP mechanics making healing your team an actually exciting and stress-inducing thing. The musical combat system is also very fun, trying to time the hits to the beat of the song playing is satisfying.
Overall, this game is one of the best ever made, and Nintendo never releasing this game in North America is a crime against humanity.