Mother 3
Mother 3 | |
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Single-player |
Mother 3
Like previous entries, Mother 3 focuses on exploring the game world from a
Mother 3 was never localized or released outside Japan, due to its release near the end of the Advance's lifespan and the company focusing on the Nintendo DS.[1] However, it was a critical and commercial success in the years that followed and has generated a cult following, in which it received praise for its character development, stylized graphics, music, and story, but was criticized for its lack of innovation in the role-playing genre. The game is noted for its themes of grief and rebellion against tyranny, and its progressively more mature and dramatic tone than its previous two installments.
An
Gameplay
Mother 3 is a single-player
Mother 3 retains the
Combat in Mother 3 includes a unique musical
Plot
Mother 3 is set in the fictional Nowhere Islands, an unknown length of time after the events of Mother 2.[6] The game begins with twins Lucas and Claus and their mother Hinawa preparing to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa's father, who lives in the northern reaches of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military force known as the Pigmask Army, who bomb the nearby forest and start a forest fire. Hinawa's husband, Flint, is alerted to the fire and sets out to rescue his family. He finds Lucas and Claus, but discovers that Hinawa was killed defending them from a hostile Drago, a normally peaceful lizard-like creature. Later, Claus leaves the village to take revenge on the Drago; Flint attempts to follow him and discovers and defeats the Drago, which has been turned into a cyborg, but fails to find Claus.
In response to the Pigmasks' invasion, neophyte thief Duster is sent by his father and teacher Wess to the abandoned Osohe Castle to retrieve the mysterious Egg of Light. While there he meets the spirited young Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are caught in a trap and vanish. At the same time a mysterious peddler known as Yokuba,[b] who works with the Pigmasks, introduces the concept of currency and sells television-like devices known as Happy Boxes to the townspeople, with the unwilling help of a monkey named Salsa who he abuses. Salsa escapes from Yokuba's control with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess.
Three years later, Tazmily Village has been taken over by the Pigmask Army, who have modernized it with railways, Happy Boxes, and other modern technology. Lucas hears rumours that Duster, who has been missing since leaving for Osohe Castle, is working as a bassist at the nearby Club Titiboo, and sets off with his dog Boney. While travelling there, he learns psychic powers from a superpowered, benevolent, androgynous creature known as a Magypsy. At the club, he finds Kumatora working as a waitress, as well as Duster, who has lost his memory. They join and recover the Egg and restore Duster's memory, but while attempting to board a flying Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man shakes them off and sends them flying to the ground, separating them.
Lucas and Boney land in a haystack back in Tazmily, and learn from the Magypsies that beneath the Islands is a massive dragon. The Magypsies' purpose is to guard seven Needles that were placed in the dragon to control its power; whoever pulls most of the Needles will be able to use the dragon's incredible power to completely reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas and Boney reunite with Duster and Kumatora and race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man, but only manage to pull three, with the Masked Man pulling another three.
The seventh and final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmasks. Lucas and company travel there and meet Leder, another villager, who reveals that the inhabitants of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global apocalypse, who travelled to the Nowhere Islands as they were protected by the dragon's power. To prevent a second apocalypse from reoccurring, the survivors sealed their previous memories in the Egg of Light; Leder was given the role of revealing the truth if the situation called for it. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmasks is Porky Minch (Known as Pokey Minch in Mother 2), who after the events of Mother 2 travelled in time to the Nowhere Islands and began building an empire there, kidnapping inhabitants from other time periods (including Dr. Andonuts from Mother 2) to populate it, as well as transforming the local wildlife into twisted new forms (including the Drago that killed Hinawa).
Lucas and company set out to confront Porky and pull the last needle. While fighting their way to him, they discover that Yokuba was the Magypsy responsible for protecting the seventh Needle, who betrayed them and started working for the Pigmasks. The heroes confront Porky deep beneath New Pork City, but he seals himself inside an "Absolutely Safe Capsule" built by Dr. Andonuts; unbeknownst to him, however, Andonuts has tricked him, as the Absolutely Safe Capsule also renders the outside world safe by permanently sealing Porky within it.
Lucas reaches the seventh needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Claus. During the battle between Claus and Lucas, Hinawa's spirit speaks to the boys and begs them not to fight. This eventually causes Claus to remove his mask and commit suicide by casting lightning at Lucas's magic-reflecting Franklin Badge. Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands.
In an epilogue set in pitch darkness, the game's cast reveals that they have survived and wish the player farewell.[7] After the credits, the Mother 3 logo is shown restored to being made completely of wood.[8]
Development
Development of Mother 3 began in 1994 for the
Nintendo showcased a demo of Mother 3 at the 1999 Nintendo Space World trade show. It was expected to be released in North America under the title EarthBound 64, on a 256-megabit cartridge, similar to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. IGN reacted favorably to the demo and compared the multi-character narrative to the Japan-only Super Famicom RPG Live A Live,[11] and Famitsu readers ranked the game as one of their top ten most anticipated towards the end of 1999.[12]
Shigesato Itoi announced in late August 2000 that Mother 3 had been cancelled following a number of delays.[13][14] Iwata and Miyamoto clarified in an interview that resources had been moved to the development of the GameCube, the next Nintendo console. Itoi stated that an additional two years would have been required to finish the game, which was 30% complete at the time of cancellation. Iwata stated retrospectively that the focus on 3D graphics made the project overcomplex. Miyamoto also stated that the Mother franchise had not been abandoned and that he was still interested in bringing the game to fruition.[9]
In 2003, in a Japanese commercial for the compilation game
Design
Itoi thought of the concept behind Mother 3 towards the end of Mother 2's production, a "detective story where the city was the main character".
Itoi chose to use the pixelated style of Mother 2 for the Game Boy Advance Mother 3 because he was uninterested in computer graphics trends.
Another of his themes was the duality of the seriousness and lightheartedness of games, which is why he added a serious death scene to the first chapter.[25] Itoi's Nintendo 64 version of the final battle was darker, "dirtier", and more upsetting, though the final version changed little in concept.[22] Itoi attributed the change in tone to his own growth and the character composition of the new development team. Itoi later reflected on the ending's lesson on the virtue of helping bad people.[22] Itoi felt that the ending's renewal theme reflected his worldview of appreciating our time on Earth in light of the planet's inevitable end.[8] Much of the rest of the script was written after-hours at a local hotel where they would continue their work.[22]
Music
Shogo Sakai, a
"Love Theme", the main theme of Mother 3, was composed late in the game's development; earlier in development Itoi intended to use the "Pigmask Army" theme as the main theme of the game. During the creation of an important scene in the game, however, Sakai was asked to create a song that would have a greater impact than the Pigmask theme; upon its creation, it was chosen to be used as the main theme instead of the "Pigmask Army" song. Itoi claims that, given how quickly Sakai composed the song, that he had been "waiting for the order" to make a song like "Love Theme". Itoi requested that "Love Theme" be playable on a piano with only one finger, as the "Eight Melodies" theme from Mother had gained popularity and been played in elementary schools due to its simplicity.[28] The "OK desu ka?" that plays after the player chooses the character's name was recorded without Itoi's knowledge by Hirokazu Tanaka more than a decade before the release of Mother 3.[28]
Release
Mother 3 was released in Japan on April 20, 2006, where it became a bestseller.
Fan translation
Mother 3 did not receive an official release outside Japan. On October 17, 2008,
The project included translating, writing, and revising about 1,000 pages of the game script in addition to extensive ROM hacking and testing to ensure that the game properly displays the translated text. The translation included minor deviations from the original, such as localization of place names and puns. The few dramatic changes included renaming some characters and locations. For example, the character "Yokuba", loosely derived from yokubō (欲望, "greed"), was renamed "Fassad", loosely derived from the French word façade and, incidentally, the Arabic word fasād (فساد, "corruption"). The ROM hacking entailed assembly-level changes to the game code to support features such as variable width fonts.[43]
The team reported that "the highest levels" of Nintendo of America knew about their project, though they did not intervene.
Reception
Publication | Score |
---|---|
Eurogamer | 7/10[2] |
Famitsu | 35/40[49] |
NGC Magazine | 77/100[50] |
RPGamer | 4/5[4][5] |
Mother 3 received critical acclaim, it sold around 200,000 copies in its first week of sales in Japan and despite not having an English localization, critics imported it for reception and gave it mostly positive reviews.
Famitsu's reviewers noted the level of detail from the game's direction, accessibility and wit of the story, unconventional art style, and conventional game mechanics. They considered the timed battles to be both useful and difficult.[49] Eurogamer's Simon Parkin detailed the 12-year development, the series' legacy as both "one of Japan's most beloved" and the video game cognoscenti's "sacred cow", and the endurance of its fan community.[32] He was impressed by the quality of the fan translation and described Itoi as a "storyteller" who chose the Japanese role-playing game medium to tell his story.[32] Parkin noted how the "excellent" script unfurled from a "straightforward tale" into "breadth and depth of quality that few titles many times its budget achieve" with "affecting scenes" and "unexpected impact".[32] He compared the chapter approach with the method of Dragon Quest IV.[2] Parkin wrote that the script allowed for the somewhat "heavy-handed" juxtaposition of "nature and technology, feudalism and capitalism, individuals and community",[2] and that what he first considers a name customization "trick" becomes useful later in the game.[32] NGC Magazine's Mark Green wrote that the game felt like Mother 2.5 in its look and feel, which he did not consider negative, albeit somewhat antiquated.[50] Lada of TechnologyTell said Mother 3 was surprisingly "darker" than its forebears.[53]
Few pregnancies have been as painful and protracted as Mother 3's.
Simon Parkin of Eurogamer, Mother 3 review, 2008[32]
Eurogamer's Parkin wrote that the "childlike" and "unusually Western" graphics were similar to EarthBound's in "flat pastel textures devoid of shading" as juxtaposed with background art that "fizzes with life and character".
Legacy
Multiple critics wrote that Mother 3 was one of the best role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance.
Nintendo has been heavily criticized for Mother 3's lack of an international release.
Although acclaimed, Mother series writer and creator Shigesato Itoi has stated that he does not have any plans to create a fourth installment in the series.[51]
The Super Smash Bros. series features Lucas as a playable fighter, as well as minor characters as collectibles, items, or stage hazards.[62][63][64]
During Nintendo's digital event at
Notes
- ^ Japanese: マザースリー, Hepburn: Mazā Surī
- ^ Renamed Fassad in the fan translation.
- ^ This revolving player-character mechanic was first attempted in Mother 2.[9]
- ^ The Mother 3 logo was made from a fusion of metal and trees, which Itoi interpreted as the discomfort of two materials that were impossible to fuse.[9] The chimeras theme informed the game's original subtitle: "Forest of the Chimeras",[9] which eventually became "The End of the Pig King" before the game was cancelled.[11] The final release had no subtitle because Itoi did not want to lead the player's interpretation.[20]
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Frog: From this day forth, you'll be rewarded for your hard work. It'll be given in units called DP (Dragon Power). You can use DP in shops and other places in exchange for good and services. [...] You can save and withdraw DP anytime by talking to nearby frogs.
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External links
- Official website (in Japanese)