[:plant:] Mother 3 (I Can Die Happy Now)

The three moments that sold me on Mother 3:

(spoiler from first five minutes):

Play-fighting with the Drago is SO ADORABLE ::falls over:: ::opens eye::

(minor detail from early in the first chapter that's not plotwise important at all):

The majorly tall guy who stands next to the bell tower and doesn't say anything. Why is he even there in the first place, OH RIGHT BECAUSE EARTHBOUND 2

Best part: he's so tall that when you try to talk to him he doesn't fit in the screen all at once, but sometimes if you try to talk to him and then immediately walk around him so you can see his top, a "..." bubble briefly appears over his head. It doesn't happen with all parties and it goes away really quickly so it's really easy to miss it.

(minor detail related to a plot point from like an hour/hour and a half into chapter one):

After you get covered in soot, you can go to the hot spring before heading back into town. Once you get out, the soot is cleaned from the part of you that was submerged, but your head is still covered.

I've heard a rumor that there's actual gameplay in there too that's pretty good, I'll investigate further and get back to you.

How ya doing, buddy?

Just finished the game. Play time, probably around 24 hours or so. You should probably avoid the spoilers in this post if you haven't beaten it yet.

GENERAL

Spoiler:

Wow is this game bitter, pretty much every aspect of modern society is bashed by the end of it.

The chapter 4 time skip was actually pretty good, though, mostly because of the introduction of the DP system. It's actually a really telling moment when you look back over the first part of the game and realize that there was no money; people just gave you things.

BATTLES/DIFFICULTY

Spoiler:

I really like the combo system. Completely unnecessary to playing the game, but given a full combo adds another 1.5x your normal damage or so, it's very handy. Especially excellent are the hard battle songs that try to trip you up by changing the tempo or using complicated rhythms, I would have been very disappointed if it were just metronoming through the entire game. The Battle Memory item was awesome, of course because the enemy descriptions are great, but also because you can practice fight the enemies with it to nail down the combo timing.

I only ended up grinding in two places, and both were more for the heck of it than actual need, because there were high-XP enemies near hot springs. You really don't have to, because there are save points and recovery areas everywhere, and the enemies aren't that hard, especially using the combo system. Some of the bosses were actually pretty challenging though, starting mainly with the final two from chapter 5 (Li'l Miss Marshmallow and Mr. Genetor). They actually require a little more strategy than BASH-HEAL-BASH-HEAL-BASH-HEAL, and I like that. Granted that strategy is SHIELD-OFFENSE DOWN-DEFENSE UP-BASH-HEAL-BASH-HEAL-BASH-HEAL, but still.

TRANSLATION

Spoiler:

I don't know the moonspeak, so I have no idea how faithful the translation is, but it seemed pretty decent quality overall. Especially good was some of the wordplay in names, I thought. You'd think some of the people and enemies were created by an English speaker: Fassad, Cattlesnake, Einswine, Navy SQUEAL, etc.

Humor was pretty spot on. It really does feel like Earthbound 2, which is probably the highest compliment that can be paid to these guys.

FLAMEBAIT

Spoiler:

I won't say the music for either game is better than the other, but Mother 3's soundtrack does compare very favorably. It sounds great, lots of excellent compositions around, good melodies, unholy , etc. I've never thought much of Shogo Sakai besides "one of those guys at HAL who isn't Jun Ishikawa," which is a big compliment in my book, but my respect is through the roof now from what he accomplished with this game.

FUCK YES DASHING SKIP SANDWICHES CAN GO TO HELL

Mother 3 feels a lot smaller than Earthbound. Granted, it's because you're on an island for most of the game, but there's a lot of revisiting areas, and it's shorter overall.

Then again, the game also feels a lot more focused than Earthbound. EB of course has the overarching THIS DUDE IS BAD WE MUST BE STOPPING OF HIM, but it does feel at time like you're just going to places and doing things, whereas Mother 3 piles on the emotional involvement in spades, whoa man I can't breathe here. But given both games happen in silly, silly places, Earthbound's approach to the story might have worked out better overall. I'm mixed about which one I like more.

24 hours is a bit short in this day and age. Exploring the world, talking with the people, and fighting the monsters, though, make it seem to last a lot longer than it does, because every hour is enjoyable (okay, the second to last chapter drags a bit). There's no filler, because everything that is filler just seems like another part of a damn enjoyable game. Awesome shit.

Most amazing jew boots

Also INTERESTING THING I found while playing but never actually went all the way with:

(chapter 7):

After you pick up the phone at the Osohe courtyard, you're supposed to go to the chimera lab/forest needle, then right after that there's Mole Cricket Hole/Snowtop Mountain/needle, and then you take the fridge to the graveyard, where the Mr. Saturn note leads to the underground highway and Saturn Valley/Fire Mountain/needle. Once you leave Osohe, though, you can go to the underground and Saturn Valley immediately, and so you can probably get Duster and pull the Fire Mountain needle before you find Kumatora (I wouldn't fight New Fassad without Kumatora, though, I'll be honest). I don't know if Mole Cricket Hole only opens up after you pull the forest needle or if you can do that out of order too.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.