Mother 3 is a game that I have wanted to play for such a long time now. When I first played Earthbound back in 2016, I wanted to immediately jump into this game. However, with no official release and no way to smoothly emulate it back then, Mother 3 would sit on the back burner for a while. It's been 7 years since then and I now have finally sat down and played this game beginning to end. I have no idea what took me so long, I mean this game has been in my backlog before I even had an actual backlog that I kept track of, but I'll be honest. I am so glad I didn't play this until now. If it took me playing Earthbound again as an adult to truly understand it, I definitely would not have given Mother 3 the credit it deserves as a young teenager. That would have been a disservice, because Mother 3 is the most brilliant game I have ever played, no exaggeration.
Earthbound Beginnings was a dissection of the RPG genre. At the time it was something entirely new, taking the standard RPG but instead of the fantasy setting, it was in modern day, with the protagonists being kids exploring the world together. Earthbound was this same idea, just more fleshed out. It felt like what the team wanted to do with that original game, now fully realized. However, where do you go after that? Earthbound would be pretty difficult to top, and going for a similar setup again would be pretty redundant, wouldn't it?
I made comparisons to Super Metroid in my Earthbound review, but I think that still holds true here. Mother 3 is the Metroid Fusion to Earthbound's Super Metroid. It's a GBA followup to an SNES classic so highly regarded, that it only makes sense to go for something entirely different. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Metroid Fusion though, Mother 3 is a different story.
Rather than a dissection of the RPG genre, Mother 3 is a dissection of Earthbound. That's the best way I can describe it. You still have that comedic edge, funny characters to run into, and some very memorable and fun moments throughout the story, but Earthbound this is not. This game is a story about humanity and our role in the world. It's about how loving and caring we can be, coming together and forming communities, cultures, supporting one another, being at peace with the world around us. It's about how cruel we can be, how our greed and selfish desires can affect others and our world, how thirsting for power leads to destruction. It's about different types of people, how everyone, adults, children, parents, siblings, strong, weak, accepted, outcasted, able-bodied, disabled, male, female, or neither, everyone has their place. Everyone has their story. But at the end of the day, we have to make sure those stories live on, we have to do our part to keep our world thriving. A huge component of this game is a commentary on capitalism and its inevitable downfall. It's quite shocking to see how blunt the game is about this. Earthbound has jokes about this idea, sure, but Mother 3 doesn't hold anything back.
Unlike the previous games, Mother 3 doesn't immediately throw you into the action with minimal explanation of its story. Rather, the first several hours are spent fleshing out this world, the characters. When I finally did begin the adventure proper, I felt so much more invested than I did with the other games and it's not even a competition.
Its presentation is remarkable too. Just like Earthbound, characters don't talk or emote all that much once you begin the adventure proper. There is plenty of that in the beginning but once you're off, a lot is left open to interpretation. In fact, in the entirety of the game, the character in the lead of your party will never speak. This is something that bothered me a bit at first, but I grew to love this as it really lets me invest myself into a lot of the story's moments. How do these characters react? Well, how do I react? It's probably something along those lines.
However, when something happens that DOES cause a character to react, it's that much more powerful. The game is really good about using its presentation to its advantage. Compare this to Earthbound where party members just didn't emote or react to anything at all. Not even a little bit.
I won't talk about Mother 3's overarching story here as I want to avoid spoilers, but just know that it is fantastic across the board, one of the best narratives I have ever seen without a doubt.
On a gameplay front, Mother 3 is very similar to Earthbound, but more streamlined. There aren't any big cities or towns, so rather than having to run to shops, hospitals, and hotels, Mother 3 has everything laid out in a much more convenient way. There are plenty of hot springs on the map which will fully restore your party's HP and PP AND revive anyone who was knocked out, I very much like that.
There are also frogs scattered everywhere which act as both save points and ATMs, and the game tends to place these before boss encounters so you never have to worry about wasting PP on normal enemies, only to screw yourself over come time for a tough battle. Earthbound was pretty bad about this on a couple occasions.
Combat is much more strategic than before. Not only are buff and debuff abilities much more useful here, dare I say required for some encounters, but there is also a new rhythm mechanic here. When doing a standard attack, timing your button presses to the beat of the music will result in your character dealing extra damage on their turn. Combine this with the rolling HP mechanic returning from Earthbound and now you have to think carefully about how you go about your turn. If a party member takes mortal damage, do you risk trying to get in that extra bit of damage, or do you bypass that to try and heal them as quickly as possible? It's great stuff, and just like before, each party member has their strengths and you'll want to use those as optimally as possible. Lucas and Kumatora may be the only ones with PSI abilities but don't underestimate Boney's insane speed or Duster's ability to tank a lot of hits as well as his never ending supply of thief tools.
Honestly though, even with all that said, I don't think Mother 3 is the end all be all best Mother/Earthbound game. It all comes down to taste. Mother 3 is just the one I gravitate towards more. Earthbound is great if you prefer to just jump in and play and enjoy the comedic ride and fun environments. Earthbound also has a lot of charm in its world. I mentioned how not having big cities or towns makes Mother 3 more convenient, but exploring those areas was a big part of what made Earthbound so fun and memorable. Mother 3 is a more streamlined experience in a lot of ways but with the game taking a long time to get going as the first several hours are spent on mostly world building, as well as the game's more serious storytelling, I completely understand why some would prefer Earthbound over this. They're both fantastic games that achieve what they were going for amazingly well. As for me though, Mother 3 is now one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm so happy I finally played it after all these years.
Earthbound Beginnings was a dissection of the RPG genre. At the time it was something entirely new, taking the standard RPG but instead of the fantasy setting, it was in modern day, with the protagonists being kids exploring the world together. Earthbound was this same idea, just more fleshed out. It felt like what the team wanted to do with that original game, now fully realized. However, where do you go after that? Earthbound would be pretty difficult to top, and going for a similar setup again would be pretty redundant, wouldn't it?
I made comparisons to Super Metroid in my Earthbound review, but I think that still holds true here. Mother 3 is the Metroid Fusion to Earthbound's Super Metroid. It's a GBA followup to an SNES classic so highly regarded, that it only makes sense to go for something entirely different. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Metroid Fusion though, Mother 3 is a different story.
Rather than a dissection of the RPG genre, Mother 3 is a dissection of Earthbound. That's the best way I can describe it. You still have that comedic edge, funny characters to run into, and some very memorable and fun moments throughout the story, but Earthbound this is not. This game is a story about humanity and our role in the world. It's about how loving and caring we can be, coming together and forming communities, cultures, supporting one another, being at peace with the world around us. It's about how cruel we can be, how our greed and selfish desires can affect others and our world, how thirsting for power leads to destruction. It's about different types of people, how everyone, adults, children, parents, siblings, strong, weak, accepted, outcasted, able-bodied, disabled, male, female, or neither, everyone has their place. Everyone has their story. But at the end of the day, we have to make sure those stories live on, we have to do our part to keep our world thriving. A huge component of this game is a commentary on capitalism and its inevitable downfall. It's quite shocking to see how blunt the game is about this. Earthbound has jokes about this idea, sure, but Mother 3 doesn't hold anything back.
Unlike the previous games, Mother 3 doesn't immediately throw you into the action with minimal explanation of its story. Rather, the first several hours are spent fleshing out this world, the characters. When I finally did begin the adventure proper, I felt so much more invested than I did with the other games and it's not even a competition.
Its presentation is remarkable too. Just like Earthbound, characters don't talk or emote all that much once you begin the adventure proper. There is plenty of that in the beginning but once you're off, a lot is left open to interpretation. In fact, in the entirety of the game, the character in the lead of your party will never speak. This is something that bothered me a bit at first, but I grew to love this as it really lets me invest myself into a lot of the story's moments. How do these characters react? Well, how do I react? It's probably something along those lines.
However, when something happens that DOES cause a character to react, it's that much more powerful. The game is really good about using its presentation to its advantage. Compare this to Earthbound where party members just didn't emote or react to anything at all. Not even a little bit.
I won't talk about Mother 3's overarching story here as I want to avoid spoilers, but just know that it is fantastic across the board, one of the best narratives I have ever seen without a doubt.
On a gameplay front, Mother 3 is very similar to Earthbound, but more streamlined. There aren't any big cities or towns, so rather than having to run to shops, hospitals, and hotels, Mother 3 has everything laid out in a much more convenient way. There are plenty of hot springs on the map which will fully restore your party's HP and PP AND revive anyone who was knocked out, I very much like that.
There are also frogs scattered everywhere which act as both save points and ATMs, and the game tends to place these before boss encounters so you never have to worry about wasting PP on normal enemies, only to screw yourself over come time for a tough battle. Earthbound was pretty bad about this on a couple occasions.
Combat is much more strategic than before. Not only are buff and debuff abilities much more useful here, dare I say required for some encounters, but there is also a new rhythm mechanic here. When doing a standard attack, timing your button presses to the beat of the music will result in your character dealing extra damage on their turn. Combine this with the rolling HP mechanic returning from Earthbound and now you have to think carefully about how you go about your turn. If a party member takes mortal damage, do you risk trying to get in that extra bit of damage, or do you bypass that to try and heal them as quickly as possible? It's great stuff, and just like before, each party member has their strengths and you'll want to use those as optimally as possible. Lucas and Kumatora may be the only ones with PSI abilities but don't underestimate Boney's insane speed or Duster's ability to tank a lot of hits as well as his never ending supply of thief tools.
Honestly though, even with all that said, I don't think Mother 3 is the end all be all best Mother/Earthbound game. It all comes down to taste. Mother 3 is just the one I gravitate towards more. Earthbound is great if you prefer to just jump in and play and enjoy the comedic ride and fun environments. Earthbound also has a lot of charm in its world. I mentioned how not having big cities or towns makes Mother 3 more convenient, but exploring those areas was a big part of what made Earthbound so fun and memorable. Mother 3 is a more streamlined experience in a lot of ways but with the game taking a long time to get going as the first several hours are spent on mostly world building, as well as the game's more serious storytelling, I completely understand why some would prefer Earthbound over this. They're both fantastic games that achieve what they were going for amazingly well. As for me though, Mother 3 is now one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm so happy I finally played it after all these years.