The most beautiful game ever conceived. A deep look into capital and its structures; the systems we live in bleeding together in ways unprecedented in fiction. Opposing Force does what MOTHER 3 doesn't -- it depicts the harsh material conditions and daily life of capital. It is the ultimate in Sisyphean suffering.

In MOTHER 3, we see the way the world changes from a weak and naïve anarchist commune to a fascist nightmare resurrected from the ashes of memory. We see the slow decline brought on by the people's lack of Marxist-Leninist thought; what forgetting the horrors of capital and acting as if they can never resurge leads to. And while that is a harrowing examination, what Opposing Force does with this setup is absolutely special.

I grew up in a capitalist regime. I grew up believing in its systems, in not questioning the ways they operated. It took until I was 17 for me to find a way through them -- and it's due to this that I can relate strongly to the struggles of Legs and Teppa. I've been Legs, blaming myself for my limp as it didn't serve the interest of capital. I've been Teppa, woefully understated to hide from the maws of the systems of abuse I was raised in. Opposing Force depicts all walks of life in its tale, weaving in-between them deftly.

The most notable is the party member who arrives in the eleventh hour; the Masked Man. In the original MOTHER 3, we learn that this is the main protagonist's brother who has been brainwashed by the main antagonist, Porky. Here we get to see his story, representative of all those who are raised within capital. There are traces of who he once was left behind. His father's homemade knife rests in his inventory. He acknowledges he no longer recognizes himself in the mirror. He holds the same PSI that Lucas has. But simultaneously, he has been deformed by fascism to become unrecognizable to those ideas. He is the machine. He is the cycles of oppression. He is the undying spectre that haunts every corner of the world, no matter how peaceful so long as they do not watch out for him.

The disjointed way of loading saves lends to these melancholic, personal tragedies. You experience shattered memories, fragmented portions of a larger story. Art under capital is limited, it's restricted in the forms it can exist. In a metatextual route to take the commentary, this work of art is restricted, its ideas so radical that it's been cut into pieces by whoever is presenting it to us. Fascist governments cannot totally destroy radical art, only hold it back. It still finds a way to seep through the cracks, to plant the seeds of revolution within our minds.

The strange progression of the characters is also a factor here. Nothing in Opposing Force stays for long, any progress made into making your party stronger is transient in nature. There is no reward for working harder, only more work for you to do. Labor under capital is inherently exploitative, and there is no reward in the game found for fetishizing it to any degree. It's simply a vapid aesthetic exercise -- perpetuating violence against the self because it's all you know.

There's nothing truly like Opposing Force out there. Nothing as daunting, nothing as challenging, nothing as thought-provoking. Play the first three MOTHER games, internalize their prattling about the nature of the human condition and what it means to be a Marxist-Leninist, and understand them through and through. Then apply those learnings to Opposing Force -- the experience is more than worth it. The final chapter of the MOTHER saga is one of the most incredible works of fiction that's possible to experience.

Stories should mean something. They should say something. MOTHER 3 is a great example of this - it's a pretty simple story about how capitalism causes the apocalypse. Depressingly realistic, beautifully charming, and utterly desperate, it's a rollercoaster of emotions that resonates with people due to its messaging even when they don't realize it. I've met tons of MOTHER 3 fans who don't even understand that it's about capitalism... somehow. It's always immensely disappointing for me. How could you miss the point so badly?

Then you play MOTHER 3: Opposing Force.

MOTHER 3: Opposing Force came out just a bit ago, and initially, I was pretty excited for it. In a fanservice-y kind of way, it would be neat to see what the villains' side of things was, particularly Claus - we didn't get a lot of time with him in the main game, so getting to see further the horrible things he was subject to while under the control of Porky would be very interesting. There's potential there for a plot with a lot of pathos and a deeper exploration of the suffering induced by capital. What kind of atrocities are committed in the name of profit motive?

What does Opposing Force say to this?

"I don't know, just run around in circles for a few hours."

Opposing Force is a game without substance. Though technically impressive for a ROM hack in a lot of ways, like the new spritework done for it (when there is new spritework done for it, that is) the game does not introduce anything meaningful within its entire run. The game is constantly ping-ponging you from idea to idea with no sense to it; as soon as you get accustomed to one, it's onto the next. Much of the game isn't even modified, and a lot of what happens is just what happens in base MOTHER 3 - including the game's finisher, the raid on Osohe Castle by the Masked Man. Why even bother adapting this is if it doesn't tell us anything meaningful? What is the point of any of this? If it's trying to be faithful to the original work, then why? Give me something to work off of here.

A ridiculous example is that there's just a bald-faced reuse of the Leo-Leo gag from the original MOTHER 3, but with a slightly different sprite and a different name. What's the point of this? Seriously, why? Was the interaction really that funny that you felt the need to include it again? In a game like MOTHER 3 which prides itself on these bespoke little nooks and crannies of the world you can find, why would you just recreate one of them verbatim?

The only vaguely interesting part of the game is when you have to put down a rebel faction of the Pigmasks that are trying to take over the Claymen Factory. This is something for me to latch onto! This might be something good! But it ends up just being nothing: the leader of the rebellion escapes, and there is no reflection on why he might have rebelled. The game thinks it's enough to insinuate that some Pigmasks don't agree with Porky but then not actually examine that in a meaningful capacity. You don't even get to meet the guy, he disappears offscreen - it's just a thoughtless stamping out of his forces.

MOTHER 3: Opposing Force is all the worst aspects of fanwork. It's faithful to a fault. It's obsessed with the original's games what instead of the why to the point of being meaningless. Its production value isn't even that high. It is not the exploration into the Pigmasks that its trailers frame it to be: it's just generic, vapid fluff.