Mother 3!

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Archmage
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Mother 3!

Unread postby Archmage » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:25 am

The fan translation patch was released last week. If you didn't know, get to it!

Warning: Some emulators are having trouble saving games (I use Visual Boy Advance and I encountered the problem myself). It's safer to rely on states than in-game saves.

I'd score it as an 8.5/10, but it would score slightly lower if it weren't for the nostalgia factor. The game is good on its own, but the extra +0.5 is mostly because of the Earthbound throwbacks. It's not exceptionally long (I took ~20 hours to complete it) but I enjoyed every minute. It's a must-play if you enjoyed Earthbound, and now you have a chance to play it in English if you can't read Japanese.

I can see why they didn't release it in America--some of the humor and plot elements are probably way too weird for American audiences. I think they knew that since Earthbound was essentially a cult favorite here nobody except the big EB fans were going to get what the hell was going on.

Also, if you're having problems with "step 1" I can help you out.
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Unread postby pd Rydia » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:58 am

I've been nosing around for a copy of the game, but Play-Asia's sold out. I saw it for $50 at another import site, and $horjillion on eBay.

Bleh. :[

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Unread postby glu-glu » Tue Nov 04, 2008 12:03 am

Raise your hand if you
Spoiler:
cried at the ending. I sure did ;___;
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Unread postby BrainWalker » Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:08 pm

I dunno. I think there's a reasonably sized market for a Mother 3 release. I think I can sum up the reason Mother 3 will probably never be released over here in one word: Magypsies. Sad, but true. Also, those oxygen machines, while hilarious, really don't help its case.

Anyway, it's been a really awesome game. I wasn't totally sold at first, but it's really grown on me over time. It's the little touches that really make it great. And the rhythm combos, those also make it pretty great. I'm all for making RPG combat less boring.
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Unread postby glu-glu » Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:39 pm

Yeah, Magypsies are the biggest hurdle for a world wide release, closely followed by mr. batty's theme.

So i realize im the only one who never got a hang on the rhythm system, never managed to pull combos intentionally.
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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:02 pm

Well, God Hand got a stateside release.

Also, this game is kind of freaking me out inasmuch as the extraordinary rarity of combat against more than one opponent.

Just started chapter 8...

Edit: And now I have finished it, thanks to a marathon late night session. I thought the ending
Spoiler:
was pretty lackluster, but then again I'm using Earthbound as a comparison, and Earthbound was fucking incredible. It certainly didn't help that it asked if I wanted to pull that last needle, and I said 'no' and it made me pull it anyway. Why did I have to? There was no reason to pull it. The only other person who could pull it was dead. The main antagonist was dealt with. Why did I have to rock the continent with cataclysms? The hell good did it do?

And come on, really. No pictures of the dark dragon? Laaame.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

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Unread postby Archmage » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:43 am

Priam: I don't know if you knew this, but when it says "THE END?" you can walk around and talk to invisible NPCs. I thought the ending was incredibly confusing until I heard about this and tried it.
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Unread postby BrainWalker » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:01 am

PriamNevhausten wrote:Well, God Hand got a stateside release.


Yea, but God Hand wasn't a Nintendo game.

Actually, I don't know enough about God Hand to know what would have been a barrier to stateside release, but I stand by my previous comment.

Also, I need to beat this game so I can continue to participate in this thread.
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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:15 am

Archmage wrote:Priam: I don't know if you knew this, but when it says "THE END?" you can walk around and talk to invisible NPCs. I thought the ending was incredibly confusing until I heard about this and tried it.


Well, it's still confusing afterwards,
Spoiler:
that bit doesn't really change anything or add to anything except that you know everyone survived. Probably. Oh, and it gets you to the credits. =/
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

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Unread postby Archmage » Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:54 pm

I personally think there's a pretty good explanation for
Spoiler:
why Lucas had to pull the final needle, or at least, I can rationalize it.

1) If Lucas hadn't pulled the needle, the sacrifices of the Magypsies would've been in vain--furthermore, they seemed to think the needles needed to be pulled. It's kind of implied that once the first needle was pulled that it was necessary to pull the rest of them because "it was time." Can't fight fate, or something.

2) On the odd chance that someone else came along who could pull the needle something terrible might've happened.

3) With the other needles already pulled, it's conceivable that the seal on the dragon had weakened considerably; perhaps this might've been a problem if they'd simply walked away from the whole mess.


It's kind of a But Thou Must! situation, I have to admit, in the sense that you can't say no and have it change the ending, but I think that given all the buildup to that point saying no would arguably have ruined a lot of stuff.

You are right, however, in that comparing Mother 3's ending to EB's ending EB wins by a landslide. That game has one of my favorite video game endings of all time, and I really think it would be extremely difficult to top that conclusion. I mean, you can walk around the entire world freely and find out what effect your actions have had on everyone you've ever met--and many of the characters, even relatively minor ones, have new dialogue!
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Unread postby BrainWalker » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:36 am

So, I just beat the game. Couple twists, one I saw coming, the other I absolutely did not. But I'm too tired and congested to philosophize about the ending. FOR ANOTHER TIME!
Anime is kind of like fish in that it is better the less "fishy" it is.

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Unread postby glu-glu » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:28 pm

But, what about the final battle bit?
Spoiler:
It was the bit when Claus finally removes his mask and his suicide what really got to me. There was something on the way it was described and the whole "im going to where mommy is now" thing that really warmed my insides.
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Unread postby Archmage » Sun Nov 09, 2008 10:56 pm

I personally though that this interview with Itoi was incredibly awesome to read after finishing the game.
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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:03 am

glu-glu wrote:But, what about the final battle bit?
Spoiler:
It was the bit when Claus finally removes his mask and his suicide what really got to me. There was something on the way it was described and the whole "im going to where mommy is now" thing that really warmed my insides.


I dunno, I think it might have been
Spoiler:
more impactful if Claus was actually completely dehumanized, remorseless, and converted. And Lucas had to do him in, by his own hand. THAT would have given me pause. This other stuff, I mean, that wasn't a big deal--I saw it coming, since the first time the lightning attack did damage to him I actually thought of it as a viable combat strategy. The game prepared me for Claus to die from his own attack. Never before would Healing γ have been considered an offensive technique!

That's really my main problem with the main story. Suspense! Somebody else is out there who can use PK Love! WHO CAN IT BE? Sure, we saw Claus 'dead' at the end of chapter 1, but everybody kept looking for him and talking about him like he was just 'missing,' despite a good chunk of evidence supporting the idea that he had been eaten--that dropped a super big hint that Claus was still alive and active. So, you know. No big surprise when he showed up. Even Kumatora knew from relatively early on that it was him--since the Thunder Tower went down, in fact. But did she ever say it? Heavens no, we have to save that 'surprise' for the final battle--a move which, ironically, diluted its effect significantly.


All in all, it was fun. A little uncomplicated systemwise, and could have been scripted better for what it was, but it was not by any means a bad RPG experience. Three stars.

Spoiler:
I hear he has horns.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

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Archmage
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Unread postby Archmage » Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:36 pm

Half the fun of M3 for me was the NPC dialogue, a lot of the good bits of which had nothing to do with the main plot and relied on you exploring the game thoroughly and talking to everyone. Dialogue changed frequently, even within the same chapter for some characters.

The pigs in Tazmily come to mind as particularly amusing for fans of dry humor.
Spoiler:
Recursing pigs! "(I wanna see the ocean)." Pig two feet away: "(I wanna see a pig seeing the ocean)."
Some of the ghosts in the castle had entertaining dialogue as well. And
Spoiler:
poor Rope Snake! Mr. Saturn "in disguise!"


Also, the entire 7th chapter is way fucked up. Reportedly it was considerably scarier, but they toned it down a bit.
Spoiler:
There's nothing in this mailbox. Except the one-thousand rat corpses.


The final battle was also originally much different, as well, though there are all kinds of rumors and hypotheses as to exactly how different based on data-hacking and unused content in the game.
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Unread postby Ganonfro » Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:29 pm

I actually own the gba cart. Stumbling around that when there wasn't a walkthrough was rough... I still never got past like... an hour or so.

...*goes back to playing the translation*

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Unread postby BrainWalker » Thu May 07, 2009 9:41 am

So, apparently there is a fan-created handbook that is totally awesome. I am seriously considering dropping some scratch on this.
Anime is kind of like fish in that it is better the less "fishy" it is.

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Unread postby pd Rydia » Fri May 08, 2009 10:44 am

Yeah, I found that out just the other day, too, and ordered a copy. Now I just need to get a copy of the game. So expensive...


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