The Mother Series

warelander

warelander

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Since I have now played the whole series I'm curious to hear who else here has had experiences with it.

My first encounter with the series was via a magazine article regarding games that never got an european release, with EarthBound being one of the games that were brought up. I don't have the magazine anymore, but a screenshot of Ness in Onett and the claymodel of Master Belch always remained in my memorys, which gave me a bit more context on who Ness is, prior to seeing him in Smash. For years the Mother series was always one that I wanted to get into, but never got around to trying out, that is until EarthBound got it's international Wii U VC release back in 2013 and boy, talk about a game that hits all of the right spots for me, from the simple, but likable artstyle, the music, the battlesystem, it's quirkyness and how, despite said being so quirky and even straight up bizzare at certain points, it still managed to make me feel very emotional at times (Smiles & Tears!), all of that really made me adore the game, to the point were I played trough it twice in a row, which is something that almost never happens for me (unless there are multiple endings).

After that and hearing how well the game's re release did I patiently waited for the other games to come out internationally and my patience was rewarded in the form of Mother 1/EarthBound Beginnings, a game that I have a huge soft spot for, thanks to the openess of it's world and how two of the party members are optional, allowing for several ways to play the game, the tight music and atmosphere for NES standards and the general charm of the series that is already present here. With that said I can't deny that the game does have some serious issues, being very unbalanced, very grindhappy and the extremly limited inventory space, which hold it back unfortunatly.

I have just beaten Mother 3 for the first time (yay for fan translations), having played it since Monday and I can safely say that it is the strongest of the trilogy in terms of characters and story (seriously, this game is freaking heart wrenching at times), I love the addition of rhythm elemnents in the battle system, graphis and soundtrack are stellar for the GBA and a number of things were improved from EarthBound. With that said there are some things that I still like more in that game and I do feel like I need to play Mother 3 a few more times, in order to compare the two games in every aspect (having played through EB so many times, while just coming from Mother 3 for the first time), but I can say that it was an incredible experiences and both games are ones that I can in good conscious put on any personal favorite games list and should Mother 3 ever get an international VC release it will be a day one purchase for me, just like the other two games.
 
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The Mother trilogy is made up of my three favorite games of all time. Its one of those things that's so hard to explain. Whenever I try to explain it to somebody they never really get it. All I can say is "go play it." I do get a lot of shit for loving EarthBound Beginnings as much as I do (its my favorite game), but it's a similar issue. I get this feeling when I play EBB, something I can't put my finger on. But there are still things I can put my finger on. A magnificent soundtrack (along with the vocal album), great graphics for a Famicom game, the modern setting of it all, and a wonderful story of love.

And that right there sums up the Mother series. Love. Love is what the series is all about. You don't even fight Giegue in EBB, you just sing him the Eight Melodies. You use the power of love. I KNOW ITS CORNY BUT I SWEAR ITS GOOD HUE
 
warelander said:
Since I have now played the whole series I'm curious to hear who else here has had experiences with it.
My first encounter with the series was via a magazine article regarding games that never got an european release, with EarthBound being one of the games that were brought up. I don't have the magazine anymore, but a screenshot of Ness in Onett and the claymodel of Master Belch always remained in my memorys, which gave me a bit more context on who Ness is, prior to seeing him in Smash. For years the Mother series was always one that I wanted to get into, but never got around to trying out.
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As a very fun little series that's where I first took issue on who or what the Mother series even was. Loved how smash introduced me to Ness. Back than I had no clue who this character even was and with a bit of just sleuthing around the net I've came across these same ads you've mentioned. The clay models reminded me so much of Wallace and Gromit. Memories a bit bad but after that I remember emulating Mother2/Earthbound and it's quite an endearing game. The only thing that bugged me was the menu mechanics of it and how you could only hold a certain amount of items in it. Other than that it was pretty solid. Also loved the whole 1950's family era vibe it had and even touched upon more sinister outlooks on things such as the happy happist and my fav part of the game as well.

Still never understood why in America the ads were filled like the game was " rotten " perhaps if they had advertised the game better it might have been a lot more known. As of now we do have forums and such just like here that attributes to spreading the words of series like Mother such as starmen.net/ which is actually one of the first places I got when googling Ness' years back about 7 year or so infact to finding out about this series since during the time of smash 64 didn't really have net to really browse.

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Pigmask Colonel said:
Its one of those things that's so hard to explain. Whenever I try to explain it to somebody they never really get it. All I can say is "go play it." I do get a lot of shit for loving EarthBound Beginnings as much as I do (its my favorite game), but it's a similar issue. I get this feeling when I play EBB, something I can't put my finger on. But there are still things I can put my finger on. A magnificent soundtrack (along with the vocal album), great graphics for a Famicom game, the modern setting of it all, and a wonderful story of love.
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Quite interesting I felt EBB/Mother 1 was sort of hard to get into. Everything felt so limited it could be compared if you played F-zero GX and then start to go back to play F-zero on the SNES. So it is interesting to see people really like EBB, perhaps I didn't grow with it I don't appreciate it as much as Mother 2 and 3. Still happy they decided to give us this on the virtual console so people would have a chance to play it but it just feels dated compared to it's sequels in the series, might need to get around to Mother 1 again. Still that doesn't mean it didn't have anything less than amazing the soundtrack definitely is good and so are the characters, especially Teddy.
Such a tough but good natured guy! Definitely wish more RPG characters were like Teddy.
 
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I didn't "grow up" with it, I just played it for the first time last year when it was finally released for the VC. Became my new favorite game. Sure, Mt. Itoi has severe balancing issues, but I think that everything else about the game is simply amazing. I'm also a sucker for old games, so Mother 1 really appeals to me.
 
Pigmask Colonel said:
I didn't "grow up" with it, I just played it for the first time last year when it was finally released for the VC. Became my new favorite game. Sure, Mt. Itoi has severe balancing issues, but I think that everything else about the game is simply amazing. I'm also a sucker for old games, so Mother 1 really appeals to me.
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By " growing up " I meant had the game been out in America and I'd get a chance to play it I would be much less strict. Maybe I'm just more of a critic on first set series of a game much like megaman 1 and mm2-6 in that comparison. Last year on it's VC release was when I too played it, though because I played Mother 2 and 3 before it I guess just don't feel the same. That doesn't stop me from not liking it, it did have amazing characters and music sure.
 
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To be honest, I feel that a lot of how much one will enjoy Mother 1 depends on how willing you are to deal with the 80s RPG design mentalitys of the time, because all things considert, outside of the uneven difficulty almost none of the things that could possibly turn one off from the game are a result of bad design, it's just how these kind of games were back in the day (althought Duncan's Factory can still suck it). The grinding issue is particulary good example, because kids back in the day would spend a lot more time on exploration and would naturally be stuck fighting a lot more, with guides and similar things being limited to magazines or dedicated booklets, unlike today were we are activly seeking progression on a much steadier pace, which means that stopping and leveling up feels more like chore to many,this is much like how Zelda 1 back in the day could get away with many design choices that just straight up don't work nowadys.

What I do find very notable about Mother thought, is that it gives you a lot of crutches to lean on, in order to make the grinding and difficulty spikes more doable, such as Pippi, who can really help you on leveling before you enter the Podunk Zoo, being able to buy extremly good equipment in Magicant very early on (at the cost of grinding for money), Lloyd''s Plasma Beams, which you can buy a lot of, Ana's PK Freeze Gamma, which may as well be an istant kill attack and Teddy and EVE for Mount Itoi, that't not to say that the grinding won't get tiring or that the game isn't unbalanced, but I do find it commendable on how much it tries to give you something to work off of.

With that said I don't blame anyone who doesn't like it, even outside of the things I mentioned it is a very outdated game, with a largely bare overworld (save for towns), high encounter rates and a very limited combat system, but ya know, I'm the kind of guy who is willing to play the MSX2 versions Madou Monogatari, so those factors don't face me all that much personally and the game has enough good points for me to still love it, even if not on the same level as EarthBound and Mother 3.


WHY IS THIS SO GOOD!?!
 
With the recent Mother 1 talk I got into the mood to try out Tomato's GBA Mother 1 translation patch, mainly because of the Easy Ring, but also because I wanted to see if there were any other changes that were made during the transition from NES to GBA and there was actually quite a bit there.

-First off the movement is a lot smoother now, it's pretty much like EarthBound.

-The screen is a bit more zoomed in, which is par of the norm for GBA ports.

-The B Button brings up the status screen, you can't select it from the menu at all.

-The menus and text speed are a lot faster, which is especially handy when you have to use Lifeup or Healing on multiple party members.

-The R Button is now the run Button and it's a proper one, unlike the one in the english prototype/Beginnings, which was esentially just a speed up Button, meaning that NPCs and automatic walking scenes won't speed up.

-Pippi gives you the Franklin Badge right after you rescue her, which means that you never have to go to her house.

-The Dialogue after the Ninten/Ana dance scene is shorter and simply has Ana ask Ninten if he likes her,with only a single short sentence response. I did hear that there was a minor rewrite at some point in the game beforehand, so I'm assuming this is it.


Those are all of the ones that come to mind, the patch itself adds the L Button functionality from EarthBound and uses a more literal translation from the japanese script, which helps to make some of the text more natural, but it's not all that major, except for the town names, which are named after holidays, to be honest I actually prefer the official english names.

As for the Easy Ring, it's an item that you can collect and equip in Ninten's room, it reduces the encounter rat, rebalances the enemy's damage output and gives you more EXP, in fact I got two level ups from defeating the doll in the beginning of the game and ended up with Ninten on level 30, before even entering Mount Itoi. I do feel like it tries a bit too hard at times to make the game easier, because it took me until the zoo for enemys to do more damage, but overall it is much better balanced, Mount Itoi is still very Mount Itoi thought, so beware of that.


Generally speaking it's a cool way to play the game, I would still play the NES version first, because the GBA versions of the music aren't as good, but those who can't get into that version might find what they are looking for here, for anyone who is interested here is the patch:
http://mother12.earthboundcentral.com/
 
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Since I talked about the Mother 1+2 patch I may as well bring this up as well :
2211titlescreen.gif


You may have already heard about this one, it's a hack of Mother 1, that does a multitude of things :

First off, it rebalances the game, meaning quicker level ups and better balanced damage output, it's challenging , but you don't have to worry about certain monstrous difficulty spikes of the original game, party members also join you at a higher level, (Lloyd is LV15, Ana is LV20 and Teddy is LV25 when you get them), further doing away with the grinding.

The graphics were given an overhaul, while staying true to NES limitations and I do think they look great :
2211screenshot1.png


Lastly it uses Tomato's more a literal translation from the 1+2 patch,.


I played this soon after the 1+2 patch and I do think that this is the best way to play Mother 1, you don't have to deal with the screen crunch and worse sound quality of the GBA port and the two big issues I had with the game (balance and grinding) are fixed, so I really do recommend it from my personal experience, especially if you liked Mother 1 to begin with.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2211/
 
I'll just put my history with the series.
So i saw Ness in Smash 64 and my cousin said he was from "EarthBound". Didn't know, didn't care. However when Melee came out i felt somewhat enamored with the quirkiness of Onett, So i looked up Earthbound and i thought it was weird that there was just one game. I found out it was a trilogy and its history along both Tomato and Itoi translations. (I'm not familiar with Itoi translations)
Too much to type so this is the first part of multiple posts, i'll continue tomorrow.
 
Currently replaying EarthBound on my Snes Classic Mini and yeah, it's just a novelty that only a nerd would care about, but being able to play this game that I have known of since childhood, but could not play until the Wii U since it didn't come out here, with an authentic SNES contoller is pretty nifty.
 
I didn't learn until recently that many SNES RPGs didn't make it to Europe which is really insane to me.
 
So I learned about Ness from Melee and I wasn't that interested in the series but in Brawl I really preferred Lucas over Ness and he was one of my favorite characters to play so I decided to play Mother 3. Probably my favorite RPG not gonna lie but I'm iffy on playing the other two unless EBB is on the NES lineup for Switch in the future (which is possible because they are constantly updating it). Playing the one Lucas is in is enough for me. I kinda spoiled myself on the story of the other games too so maybe I should try more strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem or even Golden Sun.
 
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