At first glance, MOTHER appears as not much more than a parody of the Dragon Quests and Final Fantasies of the time, opting for or a modern setting in lieu of a medieval one - substituting inns for hotels, armories for department stores, and swords for baseball bats.

I do not believe this is what makes MOTHER a parody, however.

What truly makes MOTHER a parody, to me, is how much beauty it hides within its subtext, supplementary material, and the inferences you can make about the characters and world, especially given the time it released. It's a Famicom RPG, so naturally, not much is going to be spelled out directly. A lot of things that managed to hit me as hard as they did only hit because I bothered to talk to npcs, because I listened to the vocal album, and because I made up theories in my head about the characters' personalities based on the groundwork the game provided me.

Take Lloyd, for example. He's an evidently bullied, socially anxious, but incredibly intelligent kid with a love for explosives - just going off of NPC dialogue in Twinkle Elementary. Hell, he isn't just bullied by the other students, the game bullies him. Practically all of the flavour text relating to weapons refers to him as "puny", "weak", "nerdy" or some other synonym. So you find him in a trash can that he's voluntarily hid himself in, go to the sweet's factory to the south, get some bottle rockets for him in what is probably the single act of kindness anyone has ever given him, and he decides to join you. This is going to sound really corny, but I immediately saw him as neurodivergent. He's a smart, socially anxious kid who latches onto Ninten as soon as he does something nice for him, and has a hyperfixation on explosives, going as far as to immediately show them off to Ninten by dragging him to the science lab. I say all this because quite frankly I immediately saw myself in him (minus the intelligent part, I'm not that smart lol), and if I were in his shoes I'd probably want to be friends with Ninten too. Lloyd may be the only mandatory party member to beat the game, and despite that, this whole sequence of events comes across as the forming of a genuine friendship between two kids. If you're not sold on the two becoming genuine friends yet, the overworld music literally changes to "Bein' friends". This all culminates in Lloyd coming to the group's rescue on Mt. Itoi, in a bid to prove his bravery.

"Now it's the weakling's turn. You stay here and wait!"

Ana and Teddy have similar circumstances. You deliver Ana her lost hat and joins having developed feelings for Ninten from seeing him in her visions (which concludes with a really cute scene where the two dance together and confess their love). You get in a fistfight with Teddy, who recognises his strength and decides that the group (save for Lloyd) are strong enough to brave Mt. Itoi and avenge his parents. It was a rarity for party members i RPGs from this time to have nearly this level of character, let alone feel like they joined the party because they simply wanted to and not because the story demanded it, and it plays a huge part in one of MOTHER's core themes.

From the very beginning, MOTHER is a game about family. The found family of the party, the legacy of Ninten's great grandfather's research, his great grandmother's dissapearance, and how this all relates to the game's main protagonist: Gyigue.

There's so much I want to talk about regarding this game, from how much you can really feel Itoi just wanted to roam and explore the countryside as a kid, the heartfelt soundtrack, and my defence of the core game actually being that it's fine and not grindy or obtuse (because it isn't. Duncan's factory and Mt itoi are far from the worst RPG dungeons, and I actually quite the latter, which I'll get to). What I want to talk about the most, though, is MOTHER's fantastic, emotionally charged endgame. This gets pretty in depth and over analytical(even by the standards of this review so far), so I'm going to clearly distinguish where that begins and where the the point where I actually talk about the ending comes up, which you can read from if you want to skip this. It's basically a plot summary with my ramblings, inferences and thoughts on things that happen.

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You're going through the cave leading to Mt Itoi. The enemies are some of the toughest yet (though very manageable assuming you don't get too unlucky with PK beam from the blue starmen), but after not too long, you're able to make it through to Mt Itoi itself. From the very first measure of music, Mt Itoi is a complete tonal shift. It gives off an incredibly foreboding atmosphere that really pairs well with just how much more difficult the encounters have become. They're somehow even tougher (and should still be manageable without grinding. you have buffs and powerful psi. use them.). It's a very clear indicator that you're nearing the end of the game, and I honestly think the area not being playtested was to its benefit?? I do genuinely feel toning down the difficulty here would take away from the game's ludonarrative consistency. You know that Teddy's parents were killed here, you know that nobody dares go near the place, and most importantly; it serves as Gyigue's base of operations - it would naturally be guarded his elite and wildlife driven mad by his very presence. If it was made easier, it just wouldn't make much sense, at least for me.

Anyway, you're able to make it to yet another healer's house and effectively another checkpoint. Unless you missed any melodies before this point, and save for coming back later with Lloyd, this is practically the point of no return. Ninten and Ana have their previously mentioned dance here, and while it does feel like they went from nothing to confessing love, I do want to note the poignancy this scene just has in general. "Fallin' love" only plays here, and having a character directly confess their love to the protagonist like this, as far as I know, wasn't really heard of until Final Fantasy IV, a good few years later. It's interrupted with Teddy barging in to check on the two, and the group then getting ambushed with an unwinnable encounter that leaves Lloyd arriving just in time tp save the group. Teddy is presumably dead after this, though, which I see as the game's way of saying "he was injured protecting Ninten and Ana". I don't think it'd make sense if "the three were all equally wounded but the two kids made it out alive because psychic abilities". Regardless, Lloyd rejoins, has his quick character arc, and you quickly find a boat that he's able to get working, in turn having EVE join you.

EVE is the primary reason why I really don't think Mt Itoi is as impossibly difficult as many seem to describe it as. You're given an invincible robot designed by Ninten's great grandfather specifically with the intent on protecting him, should she ever be found, that oneshots every enemy in the area. You could keep her around for grinding, but by now you should have 4th D slip. Want my advice for getting to the top of Mt Itoi? Just run from every encounter. You really won't need those levels for the final boss. Either way, EVE quickly dies protecting the group in another scripted boss fight, and investigating her remains gives you the seventh melody. There's something bittersweet about a living organism, whether biological or artificial, having their flame finally go out with a tune. I think it just attests to music's beauty and its ability to illicit emotions in us.

Even after this, Mt Itoi has quite a ways to go. It genuinely is this long trek up a perilous mountain, and it becomes ever more rewarding when you reach the final melody at the top. George, Ninten's grandfather, even in death, is able to communicate with the group and bestow to them the final piece of Magicant's puzzle, before presumably finally moving on to the afterlife. The fact that his soul has lingered here for decades, him having created EVE, his diary - it's clear he died with many regrets, and as to why is quickly revealed when Queen Mary finally hears the full song. The game left many bread crumbs, but it's finally revealed Mary is Maria: Ninten's missing great grandmother, that the combined melodies are a lullaby that she sung to an adopted Gyigue as a baby. She cries out to her husband before joining him in the afterlife.

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I struggle to articulate as to why, but there's something especially poignant about someone dying with regrets so extreme, that they essentially create an alternate dimension/dream world that they can live on in, with the only thing that perpetuates their continued existence being relegated to their subconsciousness. NPCs talk about how Queen Mary "sounds as if she is scoling a child" or "singing a lullaby to a child" in her sleep, which gave some clues towards her being Gyigue's adoptive mother well in advance when coupled with the riddles George's diary had in order to access Magicant to begin with. It's a testament to just how good the game's subtext is, and how much better it gets when given closer inspection.

Something I think I can articulate, is just how good MOTHER's final boss is. With the completed song, MOTHER, a game about family and the beauty and power of music, naturally tasks the player to beat the final boss using music. Music that the final boss is all too familar with. A mother's song. There's something so visceral, so evokative of having the final boss of a 1989 famicom RPG be defeated by merely having them crumble under their own guilt from hearing the selfsame tune that helped them to sleep as a baby. I guess even a universal cosmic destroyer can still love their mother, even if they're of the same species they seek to destroy. And I think I love my mother too, despite it all.

That is the unshakable bond that family can provide. This is what MOTHER, and by extension, the mother series, stands for.

When my backlog wheel landed on this for me to play, I was beyond hyped. This game, after all, jumpstarted one of Nintendo's most unusual and influential franchises, and would go on to inspire masterpieces of its own. Hell, freaking Yume Nikki has a whole world referencing bits of Mother 1, and that's easily one of the most original and experimental titles ever conceived. So it paying homage to this game must mean a lot.

Well, I'm just going to say straight off the bat: this game induces suffering. Every cool mechanic you know and love about the MOTHER series, this one does not have. That means no rolling HP, no psychedelic background, and random encounters. On top of that, I found the game had a ton of balancing issues. On a whim, the right enemies can bind you into a lock, with hardly a chance of breaking free from it. The cherry on top has to be Mt. Itoi, which is from what I've heard never playtested 💀 Nintendo really smoked crack on their part. I thank myself that I had a guide and an emulator to speed up the battles when I needed to.

All the little gameplay quirks really got to me at first with the inventory management and shops but once I started to view everything from the perspective of real life, it made sense. Of course you're not going to be able to hold a whole lot, and you're going to have to swap around goods so that it can be usable. Of course you're being charged an egregious sum just to see your friends revived. Of course, instead of simply interacting with the ATM, you have to open your inventory, scroll to the Cash Card, and hit use. It makes so much sense. That also goes for having the train animation play whenever you use it, and your dad blabbing on and on before you get to the point.

I think the smartest I ever felt when viewing this game through that lens would be when Lloyd joins your party. The game tells you that he's a weakling, and he has the low stats to back that up. The most useful he gets is using gadgets that break often. I asked myself, "why would the game deliberately give you a weak party member?" Then it hit me. Of course, if you were to go on an adventure with your friends chances are you're going to have drag the dorky kid along with you. They're not all combat ready. I love how the game then ties up Lloyd's character with the typical "I'm going to prove myself" arc.

But, those quirks didn't make me fall in love with the game though. After all, this game had indeed made me ragequit, to the point where I would take weeklong breaks from the game when it's not even that long. As I mentioned to my friends, it's art in the same way that a bully beats you up and your mom gives you grilled cheese and apple slices to help make you feel better.

It was the end that the game really got to me. Out of nowhere, I started crying after Ninten sang the Eight Melodies to Queen Maria. She started talking about Geigue and how he was when she raised him, and how his tail would always wag like a dog except for when she sang that lullaby. I was seriously fighting back tears (which I was told NOT to cry about yet, thanks Mother fandom) because the way she talked about him sounded exactly like a loving grandmother on her deathbed, recalling all the fun little memories she had with her grandchildren before passing away peacefully. And then Magicant disappearing, a place that said to always have a loving home for Ninten, felt like the emptiness I felt when my grandmother passed away. I haven't actually properly cried for her passing away, and I haven't done so for over 10 years now. But now I definitely feel like I've let out some of the deep-seeded pain. Even while writing this review, tears are dripping down my face.

So yeah, the ending manages to pick everything back up all at once. It's really not fair of me to attach a score to this game because of how deep the emotions run with it. I feel the same about this game as I do with my own life. It sucks a lot. I've been through a lot of mental pain. But there are just those tender moments, like dancing on the stage, or walking around the elementary school, or sharing a close bond with Ana, that really just make it charming. And then sometimes, it really turns out for the better.

In short, if you're able to love a piece of art, thorns and all, then I definitely recommend it provided you promise me you won't get hurt too much by it. Because this game hurts a lot but man I'm glad to have gone through it.