Nachimir

Mother 3

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Has anyone else here heard of this?

Basically it was a JRPG that has been hacked and translated into English by fans :tup:

You can get details and the English patch here:

http://mother3.fobby.net/

I've played through the first chapter and it's pretty good so far. I'm looking forward to the rest of it, since this is what Anna Anthropy had to say about it:

lastly, not that this blog aspires to be any kind of news site, but these kids have finished hacking mother 3 into english and the release is imminent. i played mother 3 about a year ago, in the japanese; i think it’s one of the most important games to be made in a long while, and it’s fucking admirable of them to do for no compensation what nintendo refused to pay people to do to bring such an important game to english-speaking audiences. if you’re interested at all in video games telling stories, this game has a lot to say to you; if you happen to hold earthbound / mother 2 on a pedestal, this game has something to say to you in particular (and you might not like it).

(Her blog is, BTW, an absolute gold mine for obscure indie games and interesting prototypes that exist completely away from the commercial games industry. She also seems to have coined the terms masocore and demake).

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I've heard of it a bunch of times, but it always seemed like "yet another JRPG" to my narrow-minded, uh, mind. Maybe I'll give it a go, though.

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The Mother (Earthbound) games work pretty much just like any regular JRPG, but what makes them enticing is the humor, art direction, and story.

I haven't played the third one yet, but I will when I get a chance past the already huge backlog of games I have. The SNES one was great, and the NES one as well. Although almost the same game, the second one fixes a lot of the tediousness of the first game.

I don't like JRPGs, I can't stand the Phantasy Star/Final Fantasy anime folklore nor the game mechanics. I really only play ones that play like Zelda or the Mario and Luigi series, but I have enjoyed the first two Earthbound games despite the turn based, random encounter, and town/overworld setup that I find as the genre's shortcomings. Most of the fun lies in the weird dialog that goes between characters, sort of like the humor found in Link's Awakening but ramped up times 5. The locations and characters all have this 1980s United States suburban feel that juxtaposes weirdly with how dark the stories get (on the first two at least). Also the enemies might be the most prominent feature as they get increasingly more strange as you keep playing. Within the first 5 minutes of the original Mother I had fought a lamp, a doll, a rat, and then went outside and fought a hippie who's only major means of attack was calling me names.

But all that being said, I think if you want to get into Earthbound, you should start with the only legally released one stateside, the regular SNES Earthbound, as it's more balanced and fixes many of the flaws in the original Mother (Earthbound Zero). Earthbound Zero is available many places as a ROM since it was the English prototype, but I found some guy in Canada a couple of years ago who put the ROM on a cart I sent him and now I can play it on a physical NES. He also put a slick label on it, making it seem awesomely official.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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I actually own a copy of the Japanese version, but my grasp on the language was not nearly good enough to play it. As such, I downloaded this the second I saw it was available. So rad. Love Earthbound, and this is totally worth it.

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I think this game has single-handedly restored all faith I had in Nintendo games.

What's that? They're never bringing it outside of Japan? The only well-told story in Nintendo's recent lineup is too dark for their current family friendly market?

Characters that actually die? A surprisingly tasteful look at the grieving process? Fairies with even more overtly questionable sexuality than Tingle?

My faith has disappeared again.

But seriously, play this. For a JRPG, it has surprisingly little grinding. Combat is only with enemies you physically touch, and weak enemies can be easily brushed aside while running. The enemy design is fantastically absurd, and the rhythm-based combo system keeps the fights engaging. Plus, it has dancing monkeys.

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The website says the guide that the fans translated for this is on preorder, but I swear it was already done months ago... Did anyone happen to purchase or preorder it?

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Played the fan translation, and it was surprisingly good. Also, I enjoyed the game more than Earthbound. :eek:

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The website says the guide that the fans translated for this is on preorder, but I swear it was already done months ago... Did anyone happen to purchase or preorder it?

I preordered it back in December or something and got an email yesterday saying that it was shipping soon.

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I wanted to mention that the fan-made handbook for Mother 3 is really lovely work.

Also, did anyone else get round to playing the translation?

I just played through my first three hours and I'm enjoying it. It's too early to tell if this game is as true-to-formula it could well be, and maybe I'll never finish it if so.

Of course it has something close to the proper JRPG combat seen in Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, and I'll probably always feel like the Zelda school of real-time bashing (with puzzley twists for the boss fights) would have suited this game better. But there's enough polish and thoughtful storytelling and weirdness elsewhere, so far.

There is one particular key plot-point cutscene early on that is both absolutely hilarious and surprisingly tragic in the same moment. It's worth playing for that, probably. It's the bit with

the good news/bad news at the bonfire, and Flint's ensuing tantrum

...

Edited by Simon

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I think I'm getting the fan book for Christmas, but I have not played it yet.

I did download the translation and ROM, but today I was actually looking around to buying one of those flash carts so I could just play it in my actual Game Boy Advance.

I'm not exactly sure how they work though. I wish it wasn't $25 for a EZ Flash IV cart either. If anyone knows of a cheaper place, let me know.

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I wanted to mention that the fan-made handbook for Mother 3 is really lovely work.

Also, did anyone else get round to playing the translation?

I just played through my first three hours and I'm enjoying it. It's too early to tell if this game is as true-to-formula it could well be, and maybe I'll never finish it if so.

Of course it has something close to the proper JRPG combat seen in Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, and I'll probably always feel like the Zelda school of real-time bashing (with puzzley twists for the boss fights) would have suited this game better. But there's enough polish and thoughtful storytelling and weirdness elsewhere, so far.

There is one particular key plot-point cutscene early on that is both absolutely hilarious and surprisingly tragic in the same moment. It's worth playing for that, probably. It's the bit with

the good news/bad news at the bonfire, and Flint's ensuing tantrum

...

Downloading now...I can't wait! I beat Earthbound maybe 20 times as a kid. I didn't have many games :(

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I think I got rather far, and then kept getting killed by some yetis and lost interest.

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I'd hate to resurrect such an old thread but I've recently started to play this game and wow, it does not disappoint!

 

It's already been mentioned in this thread why Nintendo of America will never release this game and the more I play the more obvious it becomes.

 

A scene with someone from another species that is probably female but looks male takes a bath with a minor and... gives him a back rub with some innuendo?

 

In a way this game is making me a bit angry, seeing how cut and paste Nintendo games are becoming lately, if not AAA gaming in general and yet this gem is left aside. It's also distressing than this JRPG is better paced than most modern AAA games.

 

It has such great minor touches that nobody would bother to do today, like when I fought a bat monster, the theme sounded like the 60's Batman show for a second or two, even the funkadelic background shapes seem to have some theme with the enemy you're fighting sometimes.

 

Is it me or does each enemy seem to have their own theme and background? It's brilliant! :3

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Is it me or does each enemy seem to have their own theme and background? It's brilliant! :3

 

They do! Most of them, anyway. It's so that the rhythm-based part of the battle system doesn't get trivially easy.

 

I actually bought a GP2X Wiz years ago specifically so I could play this on a handheld, but never actually finished the game. I really ought to get back to it.

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Oh man, I need to put this game on my list of SNES games.  After I finish A Link to the Past I will play A Link Between Worlds.  Then it'll have to be Earthbound/Mother 3.

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I always wanted one of those GPX systems, but since I can plug a controller into my Droid, it's just as good.

 

I'm half expecting some super depressing and tragic story behind Dusty's limp.

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Well, I finally beat the game, I think it has better story than Mother 2, but a smaller world and less to do in it.

 

It really sucks that after chasing the Egg of Light you don't really get to use it because it's too late.

I really loved the ending, it was pretty moving, I knew Claus was the masked man pretty early on, but the fight with him was grueling, you could tell it was tearing Lucas apart. At the same time, it's like the boss in Mother 2/Earthbound where it's just an endurance battle until the ending comes, you can't fight at all.

As much as I liked the ending, I do feel cheated that we just get some text, so the world didn't end and everybody is OK, but their world was in shambles, did the dragon just fix everything? I don't like the "everything is OK, we just won't tell you how" part of the ending. Was it just that if a good person awakens him, the world is reborn and if not it's destroyed? I thought they just got it's power?

 

It's a tough choice, but I still think I'd pick Mother 3 over Earthbound, also...

 

PORKY? He's the main bad guy? It makes sense and it's hilarious and I'm surprised I didn't see this coming... Maybe because it would be too obvious if you did? Oh yeah, the fact that you indirectly kill your brother in the end, or that he kinda kills himself depending on how you view it, really seals the fate of this game. I don't know if Nintendo of America is homophobic or they think the audience is, but I don't see them ever publishing a game where you kill your brother EVER, specially since we're talking about little kids!

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I don't think you meant to use the word homophobic, Tanu. U: I'm not sure what you meant to use, to be honest.

 

Anyway, I doubt that has anything to do with why Nintendo didn't publish Mother 3 in America. And make no mistake, NOA had nothing to do with the decision. They have no power, these days.

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I don't think you meant to use the word homophobic, Tanu. U: I'm not sure what you meant to use, to be honest.

 

He was referring to his earlier comment about the Magypsies.

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Yeah, if they don't approve of the Magypsies, which is likely since America never got the Tingle games, that makes them a bit homophobic, or it could just be they think we can't handle or understand them, which is just as bad.

 

Which reminds me: 

SCREW YOU Nintendo for the fuzzy pickles thing! You knew that fuzzy pickles meant something to the fans, so obviously you had to tie it to the death of the last Magypsy, the one we knew better and cared more about, making the word a total downer now!

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Oh my bad. You said it right next to a completely different thing so I was confused. MY BAAAAD.

 

And again, NOA has jack shit to do with anything. They have no power at this point. They are a PR figurehead. It's NCL who decides what gets localized, and they, for whatever reason (horrible Earthbound sales on SNES), don't think the game would sell in America.

 

I wonder how Earthbound's doing on VC.

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I'm guessing a pretty high attach rate for Wii U owners (anyone here with a Wii U NOT own it?) but whether the raw numbers are enough is a different matter, given the relatively low number of Wii U's in the wild.

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Considering that they'd have to release the game as a download only for the Virtual Console and that the game has already been translated, would it really be a risk money-wise? Didn't they translate Sin&Punishment for it's Virtual Console release?

 

If find it hard to believe sales is the reason they wouldn't release it, since they are releasing every Game Boy game they ever made, do you really think Mother 3 would sell less than Alleyway?

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