Thoughts on the Mother trilogy?

[newtmonkey]

Gastrick
What I meant by explore here is that it's fun to walk from place to place and see what crazy town, cave, whatever you next end up at. Even if the game is almost completely linear, it does give you a good feel of trekking all over a world, and each location is very unique. I mostly meant this in comparison with Mother 1, which has a larger and more "open" world that is unfortunately mostly empty.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Mother 2 is fun to explore (thanks to the varied locations and situations)

This puzzles me, how do you explore a game that is all linear? This contradicts what the words usually means.

It's a gayish way of saying play in this case. In a similar fashion you can say you are going to explore the works of George RR Martin. When all you really mean is you are going to read his books. Can be used for art, music etc. But you have to be feeling a little fruity to say it as such. I have a feeling you already knew this though.

 

[Gastrick]

Gastrick
What I meant by explore here is that it's fun to walk from place to place and see what crazy town, cave, whatever you next end up at. Even if the game is almost completely linear, it does give you a good feel of trekking all over a world, and each location is very unique. I mostly meant this in comparison with Mother 1, which has a larger and more "open" world that is unfortunately mostly empty.

I see what you mean now, the world sure felt alive enough as if it were an "explorable" game.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Mother 2 is fun to explore (thanks to the varied locations and situations)

This puzzles me, how do you explore a game that is all linear? This contradicts what the words usually means.

It's a gayish way of saying play in this case. In a similar fashion you can say you are going to explore the works of George RR Martin. When all you really mean is you are going to read his books. Can be used for art, music etc. But you have to be feeling a little fruity to say it as such. I have a feeling you already knew this though.

Pretty sure the fact that your registration date is 2022 and you have a Bethesda style avatar means you are a fucking faggot.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I played probably around 3/4 of Earthbound on ZSNES sometime around '97 or '98 (the only reason I know this is because it was one of the first games I played on ZSNES which, according to the internet released in late '97). That would mean I was 16 or 17 years old, and I remember really liking the first couple hours and thinking it was a cute and unique setting. And then I played for like 20 more hours and oh my god was it a slog. Linear gameplay, no meaningful character development, bizarre dissonance between characters/setting/dialogue and plot/themes. By the time I abandoned the game I had come to hate it.

Now, to be fair, that was 25 years ago and I certainly don't trust my 16 year old self to accurately review pretty much anything, but... yeah, it's not high on my "to-replay" list.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Mother 2 is fun to explore (thanks to the varied locations and situations)

This puzzles me, how do you explore a game that is all linear? This contradicts what the words usually means.

It's a gayish way of saying play in this case. In a similar fashion you can say you are going to explore the works of George RR Martin. When all you really mean is you are going to read his books. Can be used for art, music etc. But you have to be feeling a little fruity to say it as such. I have a feeling you already knew this though.

Pretty sure the fact that your registration date is 2022 and you have a Bethesda style avatar means you are a fucking faggot.

Says the guy who played Undertale and whos "friend" buy games like Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass as a gift

 

[Ivan]

we can't have a Mother thread without music

 

[Bigg Boss]

Mother 2 is fun to explore (thanks to the varied locations and situations)

This puzzles me, how do you explore a game that is all linear? This contradicts what the words usually means.

It's a gayish way of saying play in this case. In a similar fashion you can say you are going to explore the works of George RR Martin. When all you really mean is you are going to read his books. Can be used for art, music etc. But you have to be feeling a little fruity to say it as such. I have a feeling you already knew this though.

Pretty sure the fact that your registration date is 2022 and you have a Bethesda style avatar means you are a fucking faggot.

Says the guy who played Undertale and whos "friend" buy games like Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass as a gift

Yes the game which I went out of my way to disparage earlier. If Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is anywhere close to the Mother series it will be good but I have no idea I have not played it yet. It might not be mindless roaming around picking up randomly generated loot and freeing settlements from mirelurks but it seems like something different. I might not be able to give my companion teddy bears to unlock their friendship and spread their legs like virgins such as yourself get off on but it might have some good story beats.

 

[Tweed]

The only genuinely bad things about MOTHER are its obnoxious encounter rates

And the equally obnoxious fanbase

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

The only genuinely bad things about MOTHER are its obnoxious encounter rates

And the equally obnoxious fanbase

One of the reasons i voided it until now, "You won't belive what a hidden gem this is" kind of faggots.

 

[Bigg Boss]

The only genuinely bad things about MOTHER are its obnoxious encounter rates

And the equally obnoxious fanbase

You mean you do not like this forum? Lol.

https://starmen.net/

 

[lightbane]

Man, how did I miss this thread? Earthbound and Mother 3 are two of my favorite JRPGs. Not so much the first one though. I tried again and again to play that one, but it just didn't click for me. Even with the mod that makes encounter rate less inane. On the other hand, there's at least one remake of the first game being done and another that will be a "reinterpretation", so probably new stuff of variable quality.
Speaking of, hacks of Mother 1 seem to be somewhat cursed. I remember something about a port of Mother 1 to the Mother 2 engine, and I believe I tried a demo at some point, but the project mysteriously stopped. There was a second attempt at it, but the main director disappeared from the 'net and with him most of the development code, kek.

Mother 3 was heart-breaking but awesome. It's waay more interesting the history behind these games, especially Mother 3, and their inspirations. The Notebook is a mindfucky and bleak read that M3 pretty much mirrors a lot. Shame we will never know how EB 64 was meant to be, it had some differences form the GBA title, which feels rushed at the end and has some plot-holes like the Egg of Memory thing being forgotten about during the ending, or no mention of the White Bird after its mention during the first chapter.
Itoi apparently read a lot of American classic sci-fi stories which explains why the plot of the first two games is so different compared with the usual JRPG clichés. The Sirens of Titan obviously had an influence for some of Earthbound's sequences.
The Mr. Saturns that had been copied to death by Mother clones were inspired by one of these books too.

The games are really odd and i never managed to play them, getting bored relatively fast.

I think they work best if you play them the first time as a teenager and later because of nostalgia. If you approach them as an adult without having been exposed to them previously I can easily imagine them not working for you.

This. That's probably why I can't get Mother 1. EB and M3 I got them back when I was looking for something to lift my spirits.

So obviously there should be some romhacks that fix some of the flaws mentioned, right? The Peanuts gang/ Goonies theme is a winner, fertile soil for all sorts of improvements and iterations.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2211/

There are submods of that one if you don't like the new designs.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2211/

Cool. Can you recommend one for Mother 2?

I believe there was one called "Mother 2 Ultimate Edition" somewhere that seemed cool. I however DO NOT recommend the Deluxe hack, that one adds new content of dubious quality, breaks the game balance by making the level progression more linear, which sucks because the game was meant for you to grind at the start until Ness was strong enough to complete the first dungeons, then keep going grinding only the minimum. Imagine doing the Onett Police Force's gauntlet with a fixed low level and all cops having new moves designed to fuck you up. There's also a new final dungeon after the credits that's just obnoxious and pointless.

Either way, look for mods that add a running feature or QoL features, or failing that make it less grindy.

Check Starmen's Mother 2 forum section for more info.

The only genuinely bad things about MOTHER are its obnoxious encounter rates

And the equally obnoxious fanbase

You mean you do not like this forum? Lol.

https://starmen.net/

That site is falling to pieces, it's a shame really. They were really active decades ago, but the last years they simply dried up. I guess the Mother4ever webpage absorbed most of their users (and that one has no forum but Discord instead, which is absolute decline). It's also a shame that Tomato, the owner of EBCentral, simply disappeared one day.
EBCentral had tons of fun trivia and I think it was the one that introduced me to Mother 2, but the webpage is decaying too.

By the way, speaking of Mother clones and games inspired by Mother, this video is quite interesting.

Spoiler

Undertale is overrated and steals a lot from M2 and 3, sometimes word for word, but the worst part of it is how the themes sometimes clash with each other, and the terrible fanbase. The Deltarune sequel is better on this regard, if only because knocking out enemies in self-defense is more of an accepted strategy, rather than punishing you for daring to defend yourself from murderous monsters. It still has a terrible fanbase though.

I wish I had discovered EB earlier in my life, but that was not meant to be.

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass seems quite close to Mother from what I read so far, but the plot twist is easy to predict if you pay attention. Speaking of, ever since M3, all Mother-like games have to have a plot-twist of some sort, even when it's not really necessary. Omori had strong visuals but shit gameplay, and the plot-twist is edgy for the sake of edgy dumb shit that made me impossible to take it seriously.

 

[Tweed]

Undertale actually has more in common with Shin Megami Tensei than it does with Earthbound.

 

[lightbane]

Undertale actually has more in common with Shin Megami Tensei than it does with Earthbound.

Only mechanics-wise. Thematically and art-style wise? Hell no, it would have been much cooler if there were law vs chaos themes, instead of the fixation on pacifism against monsters that literally want to exterminate humans.

UT steals everything else from EB, going as far aso to copy word for word a generic message used when an enemy encounter called for reinforcements ("but no-one came!") and use it as a plot-point, kek. Or the laboratory level being reminiscent of the Chimera Labs. Or the Barrier having a sound-effect stolen from Gygas' breathing but altered to avoid suing. Or one of the bosses being pretty much identical to Gygas in concept.

 

[Rocket-Propelled Game]

I tried playing Earthbound/Mother 2 when it finally came out on virtual console but found the difficulty to be too brutally oldschool for me to perservere. Yet somehow I could stomach the insanely high encounter rates in Skies of Arcadia. Go figure.

 

[Falksi]

Earthbound is a proper hit & miss game IMO. Awesome vibe, very interesting and original, somewhat endearing, and when the humour lands it's brilliant.

But it's practically pretty shit. The inventory system is a nightmare and, as part of the game is built around collecting none-standard items and experimenting with them, said bad inventory puts a real crimp in the play.

Battles are very imbalanced and often boil down to what the computer decides to do. There's often an enemy attack which can pretty much decimate your party unless you grind a bit, so if the AI decides to use that a few times on the spin your battle choices & build means little.

And even though the humour is brilliant when it lands it's also shit when it doesn't. Its misses are ones which miss miles wide of the mark, and it definitely feels as if it's trying too hard at times.

Overall, I'd have it as an average game, and I had to really push to finish it as I'd grown long bored by the games quirky gimmickyness by the end. I can see why people warm to it, but I can't see why people hail it as one of the best JRPGs ever. I think you've got to have a very gay streak in you to like this as much as much better constructed, balanced and epic JRPGs tbh.

 

[Ryan muller]

Mother 1 is charming but its not well made

Dungeon design is barebones even compared to final fantasy which was already lackluster in this department, songs feels random and they are scattered around the world without care or any resemblance of quality control, encounter design is okay as mobs have cool formations and some challenging patterns, but they are quite simplistic and the game strongly encourage grinding, new party members come at level 1. To seal the final nail on the coffin, it has a very weak narrative that waste its concept, theres barely any urgency, tension or cool worldbuilding to add to it.

Mother 2 is much of the same, just with better QoL improvements and better dungeons (with more logical positions for the songs) still, encounter design is even worse than before, spells arent cool, party members still come at l1 and story is weak

Mother 3 is the only real stand out as a true classic and great title on its own

 

[orcinator]

Mother 3 is the only real stand out as a true classic and great title on its own

Mother 3 is just the least painful of the trilogy but it's still incredibly bland in the gameplay department to the point I'm having trouble remembering whether I watched the final part on youtube or not.

 

[†††]

2 > 3

 

[lightbane]

But it's practically pretty shit. The inventory system is a nightmare and, as part of the game is built around collecting none-standard items and experimenting with them, said bad inventory puts a real crimp in the play.

It used the system of Dragon Quest, which is annoying when the party member can't use items for whatever reason.

There's often an enemy attack which can pretty much decimate your party unless you grind a bit, so if the AI decides to use that a few times on the spin your battle choices & build means little.

That's why the rolling meters were a thing. It didn't help if the enemy used status-altering effects, but the game was one of these meant to be played with a guide (and came with one IIRC).

think you've got to have a very gay streak in you to like this as much as much better constructed, balanced and epic JRPGs tbh.

Examples?

Also, I like how Mother 3's Magypsies perfectly depicted how the Internet community was at the time. Before 2010 they were a "lol gay" joke, especially that scene where Lucas is seemingly abused but is played for laughs. After 2010 Mother 3 became "trans-friendly" from the wokes' insane perspective, until they reach that infamous scene, moment in which they turn back and denounce the game as transphobic, kek.

 

[Derringer]

2 is the better game, 3 has a bit of dumb edgy shit and the troon shit with the elder masters or whatever isn't funny enough to justify it being in the game. I can't really say if 1 is better than 3 though beyond being more archaic.

 

[lightbane]

he troon shit with the elder masters or whatever isn't funny enough to justify it being in the game.

The Magypsies being trannies was a huge joke that woketards don't get (plus they're sexless and possibly shapeshifters). They're meant to be fairies, in all meanings of said word, and they do their gay antics because they want to, as you find ingame a Magypsy that looks like a regular man during the game. They're supposed to be immortals that have gone a bit crazy after millennia of boredom and they don't really care about humanity to boot.

In Japan gays are meant to be a joke and not to be taken seriously, unlike the West of today.