The most immediately apparent quality of the games in the Mother series is that they exist in conversation with the JRPG genre they belong to. The games are anti-RPGs as often as they are celebrations of RPGs. They break with undoubtable vision and conviction from the genre's most tired conventions while leaning into some of its worst tendencies. Shigesato Itoi triumphs in using the genre as a vehicle to communicate themes and humor and emotions which are nearly indescribable in their uniquely human character. The games also have the tendency to be opaque and inscrutable in their systems beyond what some of the more frustrating in the genre would even dare. They are soundly, squarely JRPGs, and yet unlike anything else.
The incredible production values and direction make this game a beautiful and compelling experience. The sound design and music are nothing short of the best of the best you'll find. The pixel art is incredibly crisp and beautiful, the animations meticulous and precise. There is a large variety of environments and locations that exhaust the color palette and make for an unpredictable and exciting experience just going through the story. Even the technical method used for displaying dialogue text contributes a ton in delivering memorable and impactful lines through otherwise simple plain text, namely in how parts of a sentence or whole lines can be doled out in a prescribed way for maximum effect.
The combat system is simplified and has other improvements over the one in Mother 2. A new addition is that using regular attacks is something of a rhythm mini-game where you can deal additional damage as long as you continue to press the A button on the beat. This is a genius and fun idea in theory, in practice there are long stretches of the game where I found myself (a hobbyist musician with some semblance of a sense of rhythm and timing) inexplicably unable to get the combo going for more than 3 or 4 hits on a lot of enemies. Putting enemies to sleep gives you the ability to hear the pulse you should be pressing the button to, but that never seemed to help the matter. Whatever the situation is, something about the mechanic seemed off, and I think simplifying it a bit more and being able to get the combo off easier would have done a world of good for that system.
One final note is that the very last thing you do in the game seems it can be easily missed, which is one of the aspects I mentioned earlier where these games tend to almost cruelly try to distance their most heartfelt secrets from the people who would clearly love them most. What is this fear of intimacy the creator has? Mother 2 notoriously has success in its incredible final battle hinge on a mechanic that anyone who hadn't bought the strategy guide could easily miss and give up on regardless of how fully sold on the game they are. I have nothing against quirks in design but sometimes these games take their games with the player a little too far.
Despite any criticism, Mother 3 is an unforgettable, singular experience. It's a game that delivers on the promise video games have to be art and culture, to tell stories which contain real human soul. You have to take these experiences where you can get them.
Thanks are of course always due to the fans who put an enormous effort into the translation that allows more people to experience this beautiful game.
The incredible production values and direction make this game a beautiful and compelling experience. The sound design and music are nothing short of the best of the best you'll find. The pixel art is incredibly crisp and beautiful, the animations meticulous and precise. There is a large variety of environments and locations that exhaust the color palette and make for an unpredictable and exciting experience just going through the story. Even the technical method used for displaying dialogue text contributes a ton in delivering memorable and impactful lines through otherwise simple plain text, namely in how parts of a sentence or whole lines can be doled out in a prescribed way for maximum effect.
The combat system is simplified and has other improvements over the one in Mother 2. A new addition is that using regular attacks is something of a rhythm mini-game where you can deal additional damage as long as you continue to press the A button on the beat. This is a genius and fun idea in theory, in practice there are long stretches of the game where I found myself (a hobbyist musician with some semblance of a sense of rhythm and timing) inexplicably unable to get the combo going for more than 3 or 4 hits on a lot of enemies. Putting enemies to sleep gives you the ability to hear the pulse you should be pressing the button to, but that never seemed to help the matter. Whatever the situation is, something about the mechanic seemed off, and I think simplifying it a bit more and being able to get the combo off easier would have done a world of good for that system.
One final note is that the very last thing you do in the game seems it can be easily missed, which is one of the aspects I mentioned earlier where these games tend to almost cruelly try to distance their most heartfelt secrets from the people who would clearly love them most. What is this fear of intimacy the creator has? Mother 2 notoriously has success in its incredible final battle hinge on a mechanic that anyone who hadn't bought the strategy guide could easily miss and give up on regardless of how fully sold on the game they are. I have nothing against quirks in design but sometimes these games take their games with the player a little too far.
Despite any criticism, Mother 3 is an unforgettable, singular experience. It's a game that delivers on the promise video games have to be art and culture, to tell stories which contain real human soul. You have to take these experiences where you can get them.
Thanks are of course always due to the fans who put an enormous effort into the translation that allows more people to experience this beautiful game.