Mother is def the neglected step-child of the series. It was passed over to release and it's the roughest of the three games, mechanically, since its from an age of gaming where it's RPG elements seem archaic and tedious. I played the 25th anniversary rom-hack WITH a patch that kept the original sprites intact, and it lessened the tedium. The writing is still so charming and hilarious. The game seems more like a satire on RPGs of the time and it has a lot of fun with the genres tropes. I found it unique and fascinating to play, especially for the Famicom. Not as necessary as Earthbound--I still really enjoyed playing this.