Mother/Earthbound Thread

Stop ruining my favorite game, fuck off user

Is this really what this thread needs?

Some faggots like to stir shit up, don't worry.

"Shigesato Itoi - Copywriter · Lyricist · essayist. In the era of Hosei University I belong to the core faction and participate in the Sasebo Enterprise Port of Prevention Struggle. One of the typical "slurp generation"."

This is just a rough Google Translate of the same phrase, so I can't just completely disagree, but I've got my doubts.
I'd find it weird for Mother and Earthbound to be consistent in their tone and theme, and then for Mother 3 to suddenly be propaganda.

Might as well ask here: I was playing some of Mother 1's GBA port a while back, and I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but even asking everyone I can find, it seems like often times I still don't know much about where I'm supposed to be going next. It makes me wonder if there's just some crucial NPCs I'm somehow not encountering, or if the differences in word-to-character-space between Japanese and English means some possibly useful text gets trimmed in translation, but I'm a few towns in and still just stuck with Ninten, which makes me wonder if I've somehow missed a party member (having only eight slots in your bag certainly doesn't make things that manageable either, as I'm guessing this is likely to be like Golden Sun in that every party member you get can hold things, or something).

That's pretty standard for Mother, and it's definitely not a translation issue. If you've saved Pippy and cleaned out the zoo, you should be on the right track, just keep exploring until you find your way to Magicant. You shouldn't be able to explore too much without doing that.

You can have three party members at a time, each of them can carry 8 items.

Mother 1's plot uses event flags sparsely and rarely gives instructions on where to go next or what to do/who to talk to. Mostly you just have to explore and hopefully stumble into the next plot development by chance.
Just use a guide when you get stuck. For the exact thing you probably need to do right now, since you mentioned not getting your next party member: Explore the graveyard near Podunk, or whatever that translation calls the first city you run into.

I think I was at the third town last I played, the one with the railway supposedly nearby. And yeah, I did have Pippi in the group for a little while, but I don't exactly consider guest characters proper party members, as compared to permanent ones you can gear up and depend on.

Favorite game is def Mother 3. I don't have a particular favorite character. Itoi made all the characters have some good traits in them or at least something to make them seem human. My favorite boss might be NKC. I don't wanna think about the final bosses since they're all generally stupidly feelsy. Favorite OST I'm not sure. All of the Mother games have amazing music.

Lads, let's be honest. He said that the reason they put the tranny magypsies, a dyke looking lass and a cripple in Mother 3 is because "muh inclusion" and "this is 2 represent da reality of lief xDD".
Also Mother 3 is shit regarding gameplay.

Cute tomboys are not the same as dykes. Also
It's a fucking japanese game mongoloid.

She still was raised by a bunch of space trannies.

Gonna hijack your thread.
What's the best Harvest Moon? I started playing the GBA version which I found out is the PS1 version but less features.

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Dude, his tickling and scaring was useless once the dyke got the spells to do it too.
He is only useful at the beginning.

one of my favorite undervainias.

earthound > mother

Kill yourself

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Specifically the wall staples break the game, giving you several free turns on any trivial encounter.
And once you're done doing your routine buffing/debuffing on each boss Duster and Boney do comparable if not higher damage than Lucas and Kumatora do.

Mother 2 for some reason.
That lil' bot guy Jeff and Ness fight that gets unplugged, or just simply Lloyd.
Gotcha covered. This, or porky before the capsule.
Mother 3's, the absolutely safe capsule had a great feeling of helplessness.

Only Mother 3 is worth playing.

S-she actually was.
Althoug I had the best gear for both the thief fag and the dog, their damage was shit. Sure, Lucas had better damage, but he was too foccused on healing and buffing defense and putting shields.

I actually really dislike Earthbound, it requires too much grinding and you constantly have to go back and heal your characters because you take a ton of damage.

Mother 3 does it slightly better and also has a more coherent artstyle

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Dude Duster is stronger than Lucas physically in hp and defense for the full game and attack for most of it cause he has that "criple power" and Alarm Beatle works on every normal foe in game. He is also faster than Kumatora and Lucas naturally enough to get the jump in on almost every enemy to abuse items as well.

Boney is the bad party member having less hp and far less defense than the black mage Kumatora (for one thing his equipment really can screw him over) but having less attack than the Paladin/sage Lucas and theif/ninja Duster as well (and only at the end game, til then attack wise he is trading with Kumatora) and only being saved by having a insane speed stat to abuse items with which Duster can do just fine cause of his type of character in the 1st place but still it is better than nothing. Salsa is worse.

I've just started playing Mother 3 after I dropped Earthbound, atmosphere is nice in both games but the pseudo rhythm game in M3's combat really sets it apart, the psychedelic backgrounds and music really bring it all together, EB is just a normal JRPG with a contemporary American setting, the battle system in M3 is what makes it that much better IMO

Having played Earthbound again recently, I've gotta say, the game captures a sort of atmosphere that no other game has managed to replicate. It's nostalgic and charming and that's probably why it's held firmly in the minds of fans for so long, despite being a pretty easy and mechanically bland game.

Favorite Title?
I only played 2 and 3, and I'd rather go back and play 3, so I guess 3
Favorite Character?
Lucas
Favorite Boss?
Lucas
Favorite OST?
embed related

This is my biggest problem with Mother 3. The characters aren't generic enough. It's hard to describe what I mean, but it has had negative implications for me overall.

The resulting episodic structure and linear objectives for the plot felt claustrophobic after the last two games, hub-world and all. The first game is definitely low-key the best if you're considering atmosphere. The second comes close but doesn't have as much of a "far-out" feeling due to different priorities with how someone typically presents a game for the SNES. It was still very well done though and its own game. But things start getting a little too modern and familiar to capture the same spirit the series had by the third. It seemed like it was subtly falling into a trap of becoming a generic quirky "indie" game. Although I think it's great they took risks and didn't just rehash the old formula, it just didn't pay out in the end unfortunately.

Over time there is too much going on with the plot and it's not your grand adventure across America anymore. It's gone from a "road novel" format to more of a drama about various characters. I never truly felt the sense of freedom I had before. It had lost its identity. Also some of the more cynical appeals to nostalgia for the last two games in the end really rubbed me the wrong way. But then considering how they were presented, maybe that was intentional.

Onetts theme is still my favorite for how comfy it is

Ingame I think it's mentioned how Papyrus is simply wearing a costume from Halloween still, doesn't mean sans is Ness

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no run button

Reminder the mother 4 team is cancer and toby banks is the true one chosen by Itoi Shigesato

The only grinding Earthbound requires is right in the beginning and that's only if you're bad.

Oh but Mother 3 is still better for sure, don't get me wrong.

Good points

A tie between 1 and 3 simply because 1's gameplay and random encounters are ridiculous, but I like the mystery of the world. Meanwhile, 3 has a lot of Pokey and probably has the best story.
Friendly reminder that Giegue did literally nothing wrong
The Barrier Trio was pretty silly. Giygas from 2 would've been better if they didn't do a repeat of the gimmick from 1and gave him even weirder attacks.
Embed related. Wish they used the notes from 0:35 in the Sanctuary Guardian theme.

Why do normalfags like Earthbound so much? When are we going to see "is Earthbound the bestest game ever made?" Kotaku articles?

Pretty sure EB is not a normalfag game considering how most people who know about Ness just know him as that kid in SSB and I'm pretty sure that a good chunk of those people who like him in Smash still might have not played EB despite it being out on VC finally.

Granted yeah this game is known now compared to other RPGs like Lufia, Breath of Fire, and the Soul Series because of SSB of course. The normalfag status RPGs for the SNES era are Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, and Mario RPG. Funny how those hit the lists of best games ever far more often than EB as well. EB even has a love it or hate it trait to it that people sometimes have trouble with still as well.

Also, the starmen of mother 2 spoke in all caps like robots, at least in the japanese version. They added Clicks and Whirrs to their dialogue in Earthbound, too. The Starmen of Earthbound were Robots, and sans and Papyrus were two of the livelyest characters in undertale.

I can apreciate why you feel that way, but Mother 3's more staid linearity worked for me. I always read Mother 1 as kids trying to act out a dragon quest or final fantasy story without really understanding what it meant and why, with the awkward romance scenes and Pippi longstocking being just being another person in their world all. When that final boss required you to sing to it, to create an emotional connection despite the trappings of an Rpg around it, it also meant that the little kids understood why somebody's memories could mean something, that there's a method to the grown-ups madness . It was ultimately about kids trying to understand the world of grownups.

Earthbound treaded a lot of that same ground, but from the perspective of kids trying to understand the world of kids. Other people have made the same point, about how the characters of Earthbound change the way the world is seen, that fantasies and stories are made up and dropped out as different playmates play along with our heroes. The whole thing was about kids trying to understand the world of kids.

Mother 3 is about Adults trying to understand the world of adults. From it's very first scene to the last, the fears and worries of adults is constantly on your mind, with the fear of the mechanical controlling nature and science playing god with the natural order of things. The whole Nature is good and science is bad is something a little kid literally never thinks about, or thinks of as being important, and for a series literally called mother, The mother is dead for almost the entire game. I think you're right in that the road novel feeling of freedom and wanderlust is completely gone, and i think that was the point. All of the islands are quirky and wierd but it's all the same kind of quirk and wierdness, it's all one-note on a hundred different instruments. When you're taken to new pork city, you're literally blocked off from ever going back to where you've been to before, and you're trapped in what's basically another note of samey quirky madness as before, just with the main villain's face stamped onto it.

It's all ultimately the same, and it shows just how trapping and unfulfilling life can be as an adult, and that you can't ever go back to how things were before without destroying everything.

Sage for blogpost

You should know by now that normalfags don't need to have played a game to claim they like it.

It's a game hipsters use as "GAYMER CRED"

and they lost it when it became easily available in the west in playable form.
Rather comedically too, because it was too hard, despite being the easiest of the 3

I'm tempted to do a self-imposed challenge run of the game. Off the top of my head, I could try to beat Mondo Mole without using Paralysis, or all 5 Guardian Diggers without exiting the cave or using Freeze.

Use a debug mode code to do single character challenges.

From easiest to hardest:
-Ness
-Poo
-Paula
-Jeff

Mildly implied to be a magypsy depending on how you interpret that mother and daughter mistaking Kuma for a man, then a "very pretty" girl. The only other characters referred to in such a fashion are the space trannies themselves.

Up until you buff Lucas at which point he becomes an unstoppable engine of sexual destruction only limited by his PP. Duster's definitely your main attacker if Lucas is preoccupied or somehow got KO'd though.

Game's pretty much over as soon as you get Rockin' alpha.

Japanese doesn't have capital letters. They spoke in katakana.
Only for the Starman Deluxe. It wasn't consistent.

I never actually played through the japanese version, but did all the starmen with speaking roles speak in katakana in the japanese version?

Yes, at least in Mother 2. Here are the comparison shots from Legends of Localization.

why was mother 3's ending so shitty?

the journey was so good but the ending was a blow up, it just finished badly before i got to fight the dragon it threw in my face all game, ending on a gimmick fight and a bad one at that

honestly if it ended like earthbound with allowing you to travel the game world it woulda been so much better

You were never once intended to fight the Dark Dragon mate, the whole game it was telling you that it wasn't so much a creature as it was a force and that it'd reshape the world according to the desires of whoever pulled the Needles. Hence Porky being absolutely all over Claus the very moment he realized he was capable of doing so, ridding Claus of emotions and having him pull the Needles would transfer "nothing" to the Dark Dragon and would probably result in the world just fading out. Porky's a nihilistic little edgelord who never once learned anything after having his ass kicked.

I do agree having a little postgame would've done the game some favors though, and could've fit the "say goodbye" theme they had at the end. Out with the old and in with the new.

She's definitely female though, confirmed by Nintendo as well as her design being contrast to a more feminine one due to the Magypsys confusion of how to raise a female. If Kumatora was a male she'd have been quite a bit more "girly".

i'm just miffed i never got a chance to actually use the battle mechanics for anything challenging as they were fun and real good

i think the story was mad out of priority too I ended up caring about the random awkward NPCs that fall for eachother gettin together more than the brother thing

any game where an immortal faces a fate worse than death gets points tho

Like I said, depends on how you interpret her being mistaken for a dude. Context-clues given are her hair-color, inability of villagers to make up their minds about what she is at first glance, being psychic at all, and easily passing as a very pretty woman when disguised as a waitress. But ultimately the game doesn't actually say anything on the subject and treats her as a girl.

I hear you about the battle mechanics, M3 has a phenomenal take on the dog-tired Dragon Quest formula that it and its predecessors went with.
Might be intentional. Lucas is just one of the many villagers to have true tragedy befall him in their idyllic life, and even though he's the first the consequences of that tragedy are the most indirectly referred to. Lucas seems sociable enough going by what the villagers talk to him about, even if he sticks out like a sore thumb still being a farmer and hard worker in that "day and age" (which had his house lined up for a lightning strike as you find out later), so you have to infer based on what the game tells you that his home-life is bad and has been bad after since he lost his mom and brother. Compare to everyone else more directly telling you about their problems or having more immediately-interesting things to talk about.

I thought the magypsies were pretty funny when I played it. Their theme was pretty good, too

The magypsies are fucking funny as hell as one massive tranny joke from start to finish. Good taste Satan.

It also took me a while to realize their names were named after musical modes. Very cool.

Glad I'm not the only one that figured out the power of the Dark Dragon was really just the power Ness absorbed into himself in Mother 2.

Boring overrated shit bag with vaguely funny writing and an even funnier battle system.