Mother 3
Alternative title: EarthBound 2
Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Region: (Translated)
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Gameboy Advance
Genre: Role Playing Game
Gametype: Translated
Release Year: 2008
Translated by: Chewy, Jeffman, Tomato
Version: 1.1
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Mother 3 was one of those games that Id heard about on the internet but wasnt particularly keen to play. It was one of those games that I thought Well, I may as well at least give it a shot when Id ran out of other games to play. Then it became one of those games that I started to play just for a few minutes, to see how it plays but ended up playing for hours without realising that it had gone dark outside and that I hadnt eaten since midday.

The first thing that one notices is, of course, the graphics. It looks wonderful, rich in colour and with a charming style thats at once familiar and yet totally fresh. Now that Ive already used the adjective charming? its going to be hard to describe the rest of this game without repeating myself. It doesnt have the same Americana look as Earthbound, instead opting for a gentler, more natural appearance.

The music is memorable, evocative and very characterful. There is no single battle theme but rather a variety of different ones that play for different enemies. Its not just a superficial design choice, its actually a major part of the gameplay. More on that later.

The character design is of the sort of standard you see in games like The Legend of Zelda series. The NPCs are all different from each other, weird and wonderful in their own way, and yet all feel part of the same world. Theres a charisma to every character, NPCs included, and it extends into their dialogue too, something which the translation team have captured very well.

The plot, without giving away any spoilers, contains just about every emotion you can expect to experience from a game. It can be heart-warming or it can be heart-rending. It can be witty and it can be surreal. Its always interesting and is youll never really know whats going to happen next. Now thats rare for a JRPG, but then this game reminds me more of games like Monkey Island than it does Tales of Phantasia, or any other JRPG.

So Ive ignored gameplay until now, and theres a reason for that. This game is more like a book than a game in many ways. It has certain traits that make it sound like a typical JRPG but the traits manifest themselves and work in a totally different way. For one thing, its rather linear. For another, theres not an awful lot to the battle system and theres no real character customisation to speak of. Uh oh, sounds pretty bad, right? Thats why many modern JRPGs suck, isnt it?

Well usually, yes. But in this case the story is so beautifully crafted and lovingly told that linearity is both necessary and actually a blessing. Youll actually want to arrive at the next bit of plot exposition with the minimum amount of fuss. Dont get me wrong, theres a lot to do other than just be taken through dialogue scenes but the main distractions are things like talking to all the townsfolk to see what new funny things they have to say, or just checking if that guy has finally got to the top of cliff (see if you can find him). Back-tracking is often temporarily banned by the game and theres only a handful of times where it yields any sort of reward.

And the battle system? Well its what I shall lazily refer to as a Dragon Quest style battle system. First-person view, people move in order of speed, taking it in turns to do one action at a time. Abilities are learned at certain levels or at certain plot events and theres no way to change how your characters evolve. Apart from any equipment either of us may have missed, my level 20 Lucas will be the same as your level 20 Lucas, with the only possible variation I can imagine being the possibly slightly random stat points that one earns at level up (again, similar to Dragon Quest).

There is one quite unique battle system element that I should mention. I told you how theres a variety of different battle themes, that each enemy will have one of. Well theres a rhythm to each tune and if you tap the button to the correct rhythm (and some of them can be quite complex) youll perform up to a 16-hit combo on the enemy. Its a nice touch that makes the very old-school battle system more interesting but its very likely you wont do it an awful lot. Its far from necessary and can also be almost impossible if youre playing on an emulator, particularly if your computer is almost as old as Earthbound.

But I feel like Im ending on a low. Let me just bring to your attention the fact that not only would it have been accurate to just use words like charming?, unique? and beautiful? over and over again, its also accurate to say that while it might not have character customisation like Disgaea and it may not have a hardcore battle system like Shin Megami Tensei, looking back at certain parts of Mother 3 is like that feeling when you wake up in the morning and remember an amazing dream youve just had. It makes you happy just to think of it and maybe you think Why cant I experience things that interesting and unusual when Im awake?? Well Mother 3 is full of things like that, so now you can.

This is an unofficial English translation of Mother 3, a Japanese RPG released for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. Mother 3 is the sequel to the 1995 Super NES RPG, EarthBound.
