Mother 3. Take a look at the comments section of any Nintendo video released in the last ten years and you’ll probably see this name pop up. The supposedly acclaimed follow-up to critical darling Earthbound, it was never released outside Japan. And people have been asking for it. Constantly, the masses call for a localization effort from Nintendo. And despite rumbling from the rumor mills, thus far, they’ve only walked away from the table with the inclusion of Lucas in Smash Bros. But the fact that this title even exists in the first place is a small miracle unto itself.
Lightly put, Mother 3 had a troubled upbringing. Creator Shigesato Itoi, along with HAL Laboratory, was initially trying to develop the game for the Nintendo 64. Eventually, that version was scrapped, with the game being far too ambitious for the hardware. However, over the next twelve years, with development being an on-again-off-again situation, the team came through. They had managed to cobble together ideas from past development and reformat them for the Gameboy Advance for a 2006 release. And looking back at the N64 screenshots that were released, it’s hard to be mad the game skipped over that system. It was released to critical praise and relative success. And everyone lived happily ever after. In Japan at least.
Try to hold onto your pants for this one, but I speak English primarily. So Mother 3 only being released commercially in Japanese presented a bit of a problem for me. Thankfully, an online group made up of devoted fans and industry professionals known as Tomato took up the task that Nintendo was too scared to do: they translated the entire game into English. I used this translation to play through Mother 3 and it’s well-regarded as a great way to experience the game. According to my research, the translation is actually fairly true to the Japanese text, opting to retain the tone and voice of Mother without localizing any elements for Western sensibilities. Whether or not any part of the script needed a second pass, we’ll get to later. But this group deserves all the props in the world for even letting non-Japanese speakers enjoy this journey. So here’s my heart-felt thanks to this team. I truly appreciate what you’ve allowed so many others and myself to experience.
Watch For Crossing Mole Crickets
Mother 3 begins with an idyllic village family going off into the mountains to visit grandpa. Brothers Lucas and Claus head off with their doting mother Hinawa while Flint, the stoic yet caring father, watches the house. All is going well until one day, a group of invaders known as Pigmasks come down and start ravaging the area. They start setting off bombs in the wilderness, they litter, it’s just the worst. They also start splicing animals together with machinery, creating dangerous creatures. There’s a townwide panic, as people scramble to keep each other safe and to put out forest fires. Flint goes out to help the people of the village and also to try and make sure his family is safe, wherever they are. And although that’s where the story starts, the twists that it takes and the different tones it tries on are too numerous to count.
Summing up Mother 3‘s story is a little difficult. Your motivations and objectives change pretty quickly, you swap between so many different character perspectives, and on top of all that, there’s a time skip. Mother 3 is more concerned with narrative than its predecessors. It offers a more guided tour through the world and way more plot-relevant dialogue. The story is broken up into chapters, with transitions usually coming right after a large reveal or picking up from a cliff-hanger. This added focus on narrative is a huge plus for Lucas and company, who get plenty of moments to reflect on the journey and explore real human emotions. Themes of personal connections and the dangers of industrialization are consistent throughout. But not everything is as smooth. Sometimes, Mother 3 feels like it has more ideas than it has time for. Oftentimes, massive plots points are dumped on you all at once, with little lead-up. In the most egregious example, a character that you meet within the last two hours of the game gives you a plot synopsis. It’s the mother of all exposition dumps. He essentially explains everything you would ever want to know and a few things that you wouldn’t even have a reason to ask about. This summary ends up being so long that he also gives you an item that you can use to go back and read through different sections of his explanation. It’s absolutely bonkers. But I can’t really bring myself to be too upset by it. I would probably be harsher if I felt that the core experience of the game depended on lore plot points. But it doesn’t. The way that I see it, the long explanation the game dumps in your lap just lubricates the wheels so we can get to the juicy stuff: the interpersonal drama of Lucas and his family. That family dynamic is the heartbeat of this game and every scene that explores it is a stand-out moment. Everything else, I filed away as something that the wiki writers can have fun with. So overall, although Mother 3 has the scars from development hell, most of it is compelling enough that it’s easy to gloss over rough patches.
We’re Not in Onett Anymore
Mother 3 is an RPG, same as its predecessors. In fact, it’s a fairly simple one, having you run around the world, running into enemies where you then get thrown into turn-based battles. Mother 3 opts for the old-school Dragon Quest approach where battles take place in a pseudo-first-person viewpoint. You only see the sprites of your enemies set to a psychedelic backdrop of shifting colors and patterns. The whole thing is pretty basic. So why does this game have such a massive fanbase? Why is it that Nintendo can’t go through one Direct without a flood of “Mother 3 When”s in the chat? Everything around that basic foundation is why. There is something absolutely enthralling about the world of Mother 3. There are plenty of good RPGs out there that just got lost to time. But the ones that stick around in peoples’ minds are the ones that really take you to a new and interesting place, whether that be through world-building or tone. It turns out, this game does both.
Mother 3 is a game that is at both times a parody and sincere. The game wants you to know it cares. But it also wants to have a good time while it’s here. Aside from the main cast, almost every character is two-dimensional, moreso being extensions of the world than developed characters unto themselves. The characters exist to either highlight the themes of the game, yell non-sequiturs, or tell you a fart joke. It feels like the game just wants to kick back with the player from time to time. Segments of gameplay are interrupted by one-off minigames where you need to play whack-a-mole or search for a lost jar of pickles. But when the game wants to be serious with the player, it absolutely does not hold back anything.
Mother 3 was advertised with a video of Japanese actress Kō Shibasaki talking about her experience with the game, crying during filming. That commercial excapsulates much of what the game is all about, mostly smiles and laughs but absolutely real human tears when the game starts to take things seriously. Shigesato Itoi’s sensitive yet irreverent writing serves as the heartbeat of Mother 3 and it has the power to make you care just as much as you laugh. Many of the real heartfelt moments come when the game discusses Lucas’s family and the connections they share. A lot of the heavier stuff comes towards the tail-end of the game but one early-game spoiler is when Hinawa, Lucas’s mother is killed tragically. The way that Flint reacts to his wife’s death is ugly and humanizing and powerful. The beautiful sprite-work squeezes so much emotion from simple, small motions and the dialogue does not shy away from the reality of the situation. Even with such the small amount of time that you’ve spent with the family, you care that they’ve suffered such a huge loss. It’s devastating. The game shows this scene through a lens of compassion, not shying away from what Flint is feeling but also not condemning him for his honest feelings. There are moments sprinkled through the 20-ish hour adventure that remind you of the humanity fueling your adventure. The last few hours especially are incredibly affecting. Seeing many of the threads concerning Lucas’s family culminate the way that they did absolutely wrecked me. And it’s these moments, placed between treasure chests that only play mamba music when you open them, that make this game so memorable. Not many games can get away with having characters like Mr. Saturn and Hinawa exist in the same world and make it work so well.
Smells Like a Dog and a Kid
So, let’s talk gameplay. Like I said before, a lot of the elements are basic but there are a few clever twists that add some additional complexity. Throughout the game, you’ll get to control a wide swath of characters who all excell in different areas. Lucas is an incredible support, eventually being able to massively heal and buff his teammates. Hot-headed Kumatora is your offensive magic-caster. Amateur thief Duster has an arsenal of tools that he can use to debuff or give enemies status effects. Salsa honestly sucks but he can dance, so that’s something. The point being that no character feels redundant in Mother 3. Due to the jumping narrative of the game, it will take a while for you to actually get a consistent party. The early chapters have you jumping between protagonists, sometimes making you take control of characters that you’ll never be able to control again. Narratively, it works, but gameplay-wise, it feels pretty unfulfilling putting effort into one-off characters. This is sort of frustrating but the early game is easy enough that you won’t have to grind with any one character.
Difficulty, in general, is pretty well-paced across the board with a few sparce examples. Aside from a grind session that saw me needing to go up around seven or so levels near the fifteen-hour mark, most battles won’t give you a problem. There’s a Sound Battle system in place where you can time your hits to the beat of the battle theme to eke out a little bit more damage. It’s not really necessary, but it helps, especially in the early parts of the game. There’s also a rolling health system that you end up using constantly. If you get hit with an attack, your health count will tick down constantly. The trick is that you can interrupt the damage with a heal before it finishes ticking down. The count goes down in real time, which really adds tension to battles. You have to have a pretty good grasp of where specific items are in your commands list so you can be as quick and efficient as possible. With some of the longer end-game bosses, you’ll be dealt a killing blow almost every other turn, putting you on the back foot to constantly be managing your team’s health while also doing damage. It’s a pretty dynamic system. But as long as you utilize your tools to set up before an attack, you’ll usually be fine. Boss battles sometimes have a gimmick to them but most are straightforward enough that you just need to hold out. If you try to lay into a big enemy before buffing youself and putting up barriers against psi attacks, you only have yourself to blame when you get sent to the game-over screen. But even dying isn’t a setback; you have the option to return to your last save point and keep all your experience points from any battles you might have had along the way. Honestly though, save points themselves are so frequent, that simply reloading a save might mean you need to make up five minutes of progress, tops. Overall, Mother 3 does take its time in becoming compelling in a gameplay sense. But if you’ve got the patience to get there, the later parts of the game have some really good ideas, and when the combat clicks, the wait feels worth it.
Fishing For Birdie
I’m going to be honest here. I like the soundtrack of Mother 3. But it took me a second to come around on it. While playing the game, I enjoyed some of the soundtrack, but I didn’t think that it was anything too special. There were some good tunes, but it seemed much more simple, especially compared to Earthbound’s collection series of eclectic tunes. However, I’ve gone back and listened to the soundtrack through Youtube, and I came away much more positively. I think I’ve pinned down what the main difference was: the sound was coming through my headphones instead of the GBA’s speakers. I was playing a cartridge slotted into original Gameboy SP hardware and unfortunately, I think this is the worst way to experience the soundscape. The GBA’s crappy, tinny speakers do no favors to what is on display here. So keep that in mind if you choose to play this title. Though, beyond the sound quality, there is still a definite shift in the soundscape from what’s been available in the series beforehand.
In order to accommodate the Sound Battle system, a lot of the compositions in Mother 3 are more structured than what you can find in Earthbound. You need a more steady beat to try and time those extra hits. There are a good handful of songs that deliberately try to add beats in the measure and scramble things around, but this ends up sounding more like awkward meddling in how the songs are “supposed” to sound. And I get that some people like a more structured sound. But for me, one of the most stand-out aspects of Earthbound was its absolutely off-kilter soundscape. It was as crooked as the world it lived in, shifting time signatures and going into completely disparete styles on a dime. There was something very punk about the whole thing. Comparatively, Mother 3 has much tighter compositions, but they’re almost too tight for the kind of game that this is. And don’t get me wrong, Mother 3 has some absolutely wonderful tunes, both sad and invigorating. But its world is always just that little bit more chaotic, that little bit more interesting than its music. And I enjoyed it when the world and the music played off each other’s energies more.
Isn’t This Such a Utopia?!
So with that all said, why hasn’t this game been brought over offically for non-Japanese speakers? Well, to be perfectly frank, the scenarios and script are pretty risque for a first-party Nintendo game. The script is usually pretty light-hearted but it can really go to some dark places when it wants to. Characters can say some messed-up, creepy, and straight-up nihilistic stuff if the tone is set for it. Death and separation are adventure-wide themes. And the story pulls no punches to really sift through how these mammoth events affect the people who are left behind. Beyond that, there are some situations the gang finds themselves in that Nintendo might raise an eyebrow at if they tried to swing it in today’s climate. One stand-out section involves Lucas and friends getting high off foraged mushrooms. Dazed and high, they go wandering around the jungle, seeing manifestations of their friends and family. These manifestations then tell Lucas that everyone hates him and that they want him to go to hell to be with his dead mother. I mean, Kirby it ain’t.
But let’s not be naive here. All those things can get ironed over in localization if Nintendo put their mind towards it. Those mushrooms could have gotten 4Kids-ed into stomach-hurty cookies that end up giving Lucas and his gang tummy owwies. No, there’s another reason that Mother 3 is still kept locked away from the rest of the world. Anyone who knows anything about this game already has a pretty good idea. Surprise surprise, it’s the Magypsies. These characters are sewn into the plot in a huge way and they stay around for most of the adventure. They’re also… look, they’re either charmingly tone-deaf or a harmful stereotype. Stated to be neither male nor female, these characters are a supernatural race above humans, guiding and supporting Lucas and company through their adventure. They also all look like a mix between Liberace and Rob Halford. Think glamour and dresses with five-o’clock shadows. Which would be fine, all people are different after all. The problem comes when every single one of them looks like this. They’re all clocked as gay men in drag. And not any sort of drag you would see in contemporary shows. To be serious for a second, these designs end up drawing on bad faith interpretations of gay and gender-nonconforming people. Shigesato Itoi himself said that his aim was to make players emphasize more with people like this in real life through positive interactions in this game. And while I can’t agree more with the idea behind these characters, the results are, at best, a mixed bag. For every scene where the Magypsies are shown as confident, positive entities, there’s another scene where they’re the butt of the joke. There’s also an incredibly unfortunate scene involving a hot spring that Nintendo really should have come down on. So while the Magypsies may have been an attempt to endear this type of person to the player, I think that the script could probably have used at least one pair of queer eyes on it before print.
“You’ll Forgive Your Hasty Brother, Won’t You?”
Mother 3 will probably forever be a hidden gem. A casualty to the sands of localization and a far-off pipedream for fans worldwide. It will probably never have the audience that it could have and that’s a shame. Because beyond its faults, Mother 3 is an experience. This game reminds me of that quote about Velvet Underground. The story goes that barely anyone bought Velvet Underground’s debut album but everyone who did went off and made a band. And after playing through this title, I saw so many elements that others took and ran with. Without Mother 3‘s heady mix of irreverence and compassion, we wouldn’t have games like Undertale or Lisa. A whole genre of works spurred from this one title and its predecessors. And for all of the grand acclaim and the intense theming, there’s something very humble about this game. Mother 3 used the medium to tell a story that only it could but it never comes off as pretentious. This game tells the story of a boy learning to deal with the changing world around him. Despite everything potentially becoming too much to bear, it tells a story of mental strength. And Mother 3 never forgets about the person behind the screen. It was made for you. It lays itself bare in front of its players and asks if they’re feeling okay today. There’s a vulnerability in its words. And I feel like I can only show the same courtesy back. I am okay today. And despite the work that needs to be done, I’ll walk forward through the rest of my days. I’ll try to make sure I’m okay then too.
If you want to stop and smell the sunflowers, definitely give this game a try. It’s, uh, out there. No links this time though. Google is your friend. Here’s the link to the translator’s page though, they give you all the steps to enjoy this game once you have a copy of the file to translate.