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

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Well, I've pre-ordered the guide and downloaded the patch. Now waiting impatiently for the Mother 1 + 2 patch.

That will probably take 3 years again, like with Mother 3.
Oh wait, that's two games. Shit

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Hmm, then that means I need to get an M3 or R4 or whatever new one is out now. How much do those usually go for?

Just be sure to get one with GBA Compatibility. The R4 does not support GBA-games. When looking at M3, have a look at M3 Real. It does both NDS and GBA thanks to the extra GBA-cart that's included.

Not sure how much they fetch nowadays. Around $50-$60?

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

I'm not going to play this right away, maybe in a couple of weeks. I need to thoroughly complete Earthbound first. Huge thanks to the Mother 3 translation team!

Also, that handbook looks absolutely awesome. I might preorder one myself.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Just be sure to get one with GBA Compatibility. The R4 does not support GBA-games. When looking at M3, have a look at M3 Real. It does both NDS and GBA thanks to the extra GBA-cart that's included.

Not sure how much they fetch nowadays. Around $50-$60?

Ahh, thanks for the info. I figured it'd be around $50. I was lucky to find one for sale on Amazon, just under $40 (A little over after S&H), so I'll be going with that, and of course scrapping through Brady's thread about it later.

By the way, what did they mean exactly by the 'secret project'? Earthbound on the GBA I'm guessing?

I was speaking idiomatically.

They were referring to a translation project of the Mother 1+2 cart, DN.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Leprenigger

They were referring to a translation project of the Mother 1+2 cart, DN.

I see, I was in the ballpark at least. That would probably take a while.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Syndrome

That will probably take 3 years again, like with Mother 3.
Oh wait, that's two games. Shit

Actually, there is a patch that is half-completed already. forgot if it was Mother 1 or 2 though.

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Is it that big of a difference between the gba versions to Nes and Snes Mothers? O.O'

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't GBA stunt the quality of music, at least for 1 + 2?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm only about an hour into Mother 3 but I love it. I was kind of worried that I wouldn't like it as much as Earthbound, or that I would be unfairly comparing the two games. Mother 3 has charm in spades. It's so awesome.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Meia

Is it that big of a difference between the gba versions to Nes and Snes Mothers? O.O'

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't GBA stunt the quality of music, at least for 1 + 2?

The GBA version of Mother 1 fixes a few bugs from the original game making it a lot harder if I remember correctly.

I think the main reason they want to translate the cart besides deep-rooted obsession is that the translation for "Earthbound Zero" is from the official translated prototype cart and there was probably a lot of localization/simplication involved.

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

Originally Posted by mortis

Actually, there is a patch that is half-completed already. forgot if it was Mother 1 or 2 though.

Really? Made by whom?
Honestly, could anyone be more sophisticated with a translation than the guys who brought us Mother 3? Jesus, all the work they've done. With the guide and everything.

Going back to the topic of the game in question, am I the only one finding it pretty challenging? I'm at the part when

Nearly 2 hours of playtime:

You get the Dinosaur Fang and need to get to Alec's cabin. I have only Flint in my party, and not only is there a bunch of enemies roaming the forests, but they dish out a good deal of damage too. Not to forget the snakes with their poison (and the lack of being able to carry more than like 2 items ).

I'm really enjoying it though. The translation feels very well made, and it's given me a couple of laughs already.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

RPGOne "translated" the first game. By translated, they dumped the script for EB0 and put it in there. They also translated the menus of EB1/Mother 2.

Romhacking.net

Unfortunately, it seems that after the owner of the site passed away, updates have been infrequent. Understandable so.

I'd wait for Tomato and the rest to translate Mother 1 and 2...

Most amazing jew boots

So, for those of us without any flash thingies for a GBA/DS, what would any of y'all recommend?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening 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?

Yeaaahhhh! It has been too long. Hope it works on my wii. That way it feels more nostolgic to that of Earthbound. Ahh memories.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by CHz

(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

I don't understand, plz to be explaining. That guy is my second favorite NPC though, the first being Thomas cuz he runs like a cartoon character.

One thing I thought was major-league awesome, a lot of the people in town have sprites ripped suggested strongly from Earthbound townspeople. It's like OH HEY LOOK A CRANKY LADY I MISSED YOU~

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Spoiler:

He's there for the lulz

That's why LOL EARTHBOUND 2.

How ya doing, buddy?

On Chapter 7 and loving every minute so far. I really like how the game feels like it's taken some steps forward, rather than just being a rehash (the dash ability is terrific since movement was such a crawl in Earthbound).

Best of all, even though references to Earthbound were a little thin on the ground, early on (save for the general look and feel), the fanservice comes hot and heavy later on, with:

Late Ch. 6 spoiler

Spoiler:

A roomful of stuff from the prequel: a bike, a Decoy Teddy, a jukebox that plays classic themes, and Ness's yo-yo in a case guarded by a robomaid. Wonder who put it there...?

and
Early Ch. 7 spoiler

Spoiler:

Dr. Andronuts cameo! He's as misanthropic as always.

and best of all...
Mid Ch. 7 Spoiler

Spoiler:

SATURN VALLEY REDUX! The pigs complaining about the place being nonsensical followed by the farting presents...bliss

Incidentally, if anyone can't find a ROM or has patching difficulties...get it here.

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

Holy shit totally fucking gasped in horror at chapter 1, check out why and see if you agree with me.

yes spoilers, about 2 hours into it:

Holy crap what a fucking terrible way to deliver news.

Dude comes rushing in and I'll paraphrase but this is pretty close to what he says to Flint.

"Oh man I just got back from over yonder and holy crap do I've got news for you. Okay do you want the good news or bad news first? No screw that I'll go with the good news first. Listen up I found this freaking sweet Drago tooth and I'm totally going to carve it into an uber weapon. Here take a look at it. Cool huh? Oh man but total bummer, Flint, I found it pierced through your wife's heart! Yeah she's pretty dead."

*Flint goes fucking beserk*

Seriously, I totally understand why Flint goes nuts after hearing THAT. Worst way to deliver the death of a family member EVER.

The game is pretty sweet so far.


I had a hard time getting it to work on my EZFlash V 3-in-1 slot 2 device. See the way playing Mother 3 works on that device is that it uses NOR mode because the PSRAM mode isn't big enough to handle the mighty 32 mb of Mother 3. Problem with NOR mode is that it takes a while to copy it over. That isn't terrible but what it does is basically store the entire GBA rom in there. Just to make sure Mother 3 would work on the device I had tried it out before the patch came out. So later I kept trying to run the patched version and it kept popping up in Japanese. It still had the unpatched version stuck inside the device and it thought the patched version I was trying to run from my Cyclo DS was the same rom (it technically is as far as the device is concerned) so it didn't bother transferring it over. So I had to start an application (GBA ExpLoader) and clear the NOR and transfer the patched version of Mother 3 over.

One more tip is that once you've put Mother 3 on a EZFlash V 3-in-1 you have to keep using that cartridge to load your save data. I put Mother 3 on another EZFlash V 3-in-1 I had and it couldn't load the save data without corrupting the data. I doubt this would affect many people but it's just one of the things I found out and should the situation come up that two people live in the same place they need to keep their EZFlash V 3-in-1 paired to their Cyclo DS or whatever slot 1 cartridge they use or they forfeit all their precious progress in the game.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

Holy shit totally fucking gasped in horror at chapter 1, check out why and see if you agree with me.

Tell me about it. I went all .

I was speaking idiomatically.

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.

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Don't forget New Game + kidlets.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by CHz

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.

Damn, CHz, you're a machine. I've been playing every free hour and still only Ch.7.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Hey, another RPG that does not have a main character.

How ya doing, buddy?

Taking it slow bro. Just made it to Fun with Cripple Man sequel to What A Downer.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Oh, I forgot to mention Hard Mode.

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