These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: MOTHER 3
Accidental Innuendo: Lucas in the hot spring with Ionia, the Magypsy. Because it cuts to black, and Ionia says things like "Don't struggle" and "Just endure it for a little bit", it can be interpreted the wrong way.
Anvilicious/Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Mother 3 is many things, but one thing it is not is subtle. A lot of its fans will assert that the messages aren't bad or that the game would lose a lot of its charm without the overt morals, however.
Awesome Music: Many, many examples. Truly, it pushes the audio capabilities of the GBA to the limit. Keep in mind that the audio was a big criticism of the GBA.
Contested Sequel: This game caused a Broken Base in Japan considering how much it strayed from the first two games. On 2ch and elsewhere it is often said that They Changed It, Now It Sucks. It is often assumed by international fans that the game is popular in Japan, but either its fans are a majority or its haters are a Vocal Minority.
Draco in Leather Pants: Porky Minch is this all over, along with his chimeras. Good lord, the fangirls. Heck, some people make New Pork City look like a real utopia!
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: People at starmen.net are insane. The best one is "The doorknob is a metaphor for happiness". Funnily enough, it made sense.
In an interview shortly after the original Japanese release of the game, Itoi hinted that he included to doorknob to see all of the crazy interpretations people would invent. One in particular he liked was that the doorknob is meant to be the doorknob to the world of Mother 3, and you can use it to go back any time.
Fan Dumb: People really really like the series - so much that people joked that they would assault Itoi if they weren't making another Mother game.
"Thank you for taking the time to read this sign. This sign loves you."
When you find out the real difference between the green and regular trains: The green one gives you the the joy of riding a green-colored train. The other doesn't.
The random music and fireworks presents.
"Your friend smells like a dog..."
"It's perfectly safe! See? I can roll it like this!"
The Barrier Trio strikes one final Barrier Pose! —- It was spectacular.
Game Breaker: Kumatora's PK Ground, which dishes out several hits of 2-13% of an enemy's HP and can cause them to trip and a lose a couple turns. This attack works on bosses. She doesn't learn it until level 60, but once she does the rest of the game becomes pathetically easy.
It's easy to beat the game before Kumatora reaches level 60. It breaks the game, but it's still difficult to acquire. Even intentionally trying to get it, the player is unlikely to have much use for it in the final few dungeons, which are more lengthy than challenging.
There's a reason Salsa never returns to the party after his brief reappearance in Chapter 7: his Monkey Mimic ability becomes a little too effective the closer you get to the end.
Eggs, which you can buy from the start of Chapter 4 for only 40 DP, are this on two levels:
You can take them to the local Hot Spring and turn them into a Hot Spring Egg, which heals 100 HP and will never spoil. Repeat this enough, and you'll have more high-end healing items than you'll know what to do with.
You can keep them until they hatch into chicks and grow into chickens, then sell them for 200 DP (five times what an egg costs). Repeat this enough, and you can have more than enough money to last you through the entire game!
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Funnily enough, this game is far more universally praised internationally than in Japan. See the Contested Sequel entry above. Also, the international fanbase of the series in general is constantly growing with younger fans who weren't even alive when the first two games came out, in no small part due to Ness's and Lucas's inclusion in Super Smash Bros. games. By contrast, Japanese fans of the series aren't really united into a fanbase and mostly consists of people who remember the games from when they were originally released. International fans often assume that the series has a fanbase in Japan comparable to theirs, but this is not the case.
Goddamned Bats: The Cleocatras at the beginning of Chapter 7, especially when they attack in groups. They have an annoying tendency to use Lifeup both on themselves and each other to heal of any damage done to them at all, and they have the ability to cast Hypnosis.
During Chapter 3 Fassad is trying to get the people of the Tazmily Village to buy into the happiness boxes stating they are the best way to happiness. If you talk to Paul (one of the people who doesn't buy into the boxes), he'll remark he doesn't need happiness because it (meaning his wife Linda) is standing next to him. It's just a quick throwaway NPC line but seriously, aww.
Ho Yay: While underwater, you must fill up on oxygen by kissing robot O2 tanks who look like middle aged mermen wearing bright red lipstick. It makes Lucas, Kumatora, and Boney blush. Duster blushes too, but it's difficult to see due to his sprite's cheek marks being only a single pixel big. In the last level there's a similar looking centaur that offers oxygen above water for no reason.
One of the Pigmasks comments that he kind of likes them, disturbing his comrade.
There's something fishy about how exactly Ionia showed Lucas how to use PSI, also.
There's also a Pigmask who nervously offers you an item when you're dressed as "the Commander" and insists it's just a friendly gift.
Strictly in a friend sense.
Flinty-poo ~<3 ...What? That was my Magypsy impression. Do you like it? ...Don't act so embarrassed!
Magnum Opus: This game is considered to be Shigesato Itoi's greatest work... outside of Japan. In Japan however, it's simply another thing he's done.
Mis-blamed: Nintendo often gets railed at by fans for not releasing this game in America and the rest of the world. Except the game is a landmine of licensing issues, from the direct AC-DC parody to riffs from popular shows. Additionally, it was released near the end of the Advance's lifespan, and sales in Japan were somewhat lacklustre.*
This game was released in 2006. The Nintendo DS was released in 2004, and by 2006 had already established itself on the international markets, with stores beginning to phase out Game Boy Advance titles as early as late 2005.
Not to mention the fact that EarthBound itself was a commercial failure at the time, which likely soured any attempt made. This doesn't stop the fans though, including one memorable instance where Yahtzee himself claimed it would sell better than Mario Kart.
Nightmare Fuel: Unused battle backgrounds found within the game's data revealed something.. well.. stuff like this. The Epileptic Trees went flying after this was uncovered. No matter what it is, though, it's disturbing as hell.
And then there's the Absolutely Safe Capsule. Itoi has stated in an interview that if the world ended 5.5 billion years later, Porky would still be alive.
There's also a little bit of recursive Nightmare Fuel later in the game. First you travel through the lab where the mechanical chimeras are made, complete with massive surgical saws and the like. Then you meet the Masked Man, who turns out to be a cyborg himself, and, without spoiling, you find out who he is. Once you find that out, you suddenly realize just what the Masked Man must have gone through when being Reconstructed. AUGH.
The jarring change from the sprawling natural expanses of Nowhere Island to the cramped, artificial blocks of New Pork City. It's so sudden and so huge of a change it's rather scary.
The Ultimate Chimera. A wild, unkillable beast the size of a lion. Four fifths of its body is composed of its jaw line. By "unkillable" we mean "touch it and YOU DIE INSTANTLY."
It appears twice in the game. The first time, its arrival is very loudly announced, and even the enemy warns you not to get near it. The second time, you stumble upon it in the bathroom. Whether this is a crowning moment of Funny or Horror is up to the player.
In the Chimera Lab, after you find out that the Ultimate Chimera has escaped. There's no music, and you frequently hear the distant roars of the Ultimate Chimera mixed with agonized screams and squeals. And the Chimera has free reign through the floors, so you can't just change floors to avoid it. Touching the beast gives you an instant game over, and it will chase you if it spots you.
The Chimera Lab/Chimeras in general, they even have A Drago cryogenically frozen in one room, various rooms with stuff that "give you the feeling staying here too long will make you lose your appetite", the aforementioned Ultimate Chimera etc.
They're all bad enough on their own, why did they have to make the ostrich-elephant hybrid charge at you trumpeting horribly?
Okay, so the regular female zombie sprites aren't too bad, despite having Hinawa's appearance. Except for if you go to Hinawa's grave right after being introduced to those and find out that very rarely there's one of the very same zombies standing right in front of her grave.
How about the zombies from the canceled Nintendo 64 version? Here's what they originally looked like.◊ Believe me: compare that to what we eventually got with the Game Boy Advance version and you'll agree they were toned down greatly.
Surprise Difficulty: EarthBound, for the most part, was Chrono Trigger-level easy, even without exploiting bugs. -MOTHER 3, while still not a particularly hard game, does make sure pretty much every boss is quite challenging.
Though the two most difficult bosses in the game become trivial once you reach 45 and 50 respectively.
That One Attack : Some of the battle songs are a pain in the ass to combo.
The Pork Tank, a nasty Wake Up Call Boss fought when you have two characters under your control.
The Jealous Bass, a Flunky Boss that gets a massive attack buff when you take out its flunkies.
New/Miracle Fassad, for being fond of status effects, having high-level PSI, and being able to heal 500+ HP seemingly at random.
The Barrier Trio, a group of PSI-immune golems.
The Steel Mechorilla, who Turns Red and becomes nigh-unstoppable if you hit him with electric attacks.
The Masked Man, who hits incredibly hard and has a ton of HP.
The Natural Killer Cyborg, who is huge and extremely tough.
Porky, who hits hard (surprised?) and has an attack that hits your entire party for massive attack and defense debuffs.
Tier Induced Scrappy: Possibly deconstructed with Salsa. Yeah, he's almost totally useless and needs a lot of Level Grinding to stand up to the weakest of enemies without a Crutch Character, but he's so adorable and Fassad puts him through so much that you can't help but want to hug him. Then, he manages to save Lucas and Boney from the Ultimate Chimera, so...
Boney and Duster are virtually superfluous and most players will end up using them simply for bashing the enemy. Duster's status moves are useful on occasion but not overly so.
Duster does have a useful trick or two up his sleeve, but the player can't control them. Sometimes, right at the start of a battle, Duster will react awith lightning reflexes to get a free attack in, or to leap behind the enemy to start the battle to the player's advantage. He even has a chance to reverse situations where enemies sneak up on the party. As mentioned, however, these are not consistent enough to bump Duster from out of this trope.
Tear Jerker: And HOW. The subtitle is "Strange, Funny, and Heartrending" for a reason.
Whether this should be considered a Tear Jerker or some kind of Nightmare Fuel is up for debate, but consider the following: Remember Negative Man? That random encounter who just sat there and let you beat on him, just crying and doing nothing while you mercilessly ended his life? Now compare that to the final boss...
The entire last hour of the game. Everything about it will pretty much leave you in tears up to and including the final shot.
The Woobie: Lucas. At the start of the game, he's pretty shy and quiet, already making him a bit of a woobie. But then, his mother is killed by a half-mechanical Drago that was acting against its own will, and then his brother Claus goes missing trying to avenge her. His father goes nearly insane with grief, trying to find Claus every single day for three years. But that's not it. After three years, the hometown he loved has now been developed into a modern city, and eventually is completely abandoned. Then, after learning that everything he knew about his beloved hometown is a lie, he learns that the mysterious Pigmask commander is Claus, who is now a Brainwashed and Crazy cyborg. Cue an incredibly tragic"I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, which ends with Claus dying in Lucas' arms, after returning to his senses.
Poor little Salsa. First, his girlfriend gets kidnapped by the Pigmasks, and they threaten to kill her if he doesn't go along with their plan. Then, he gets stuck with Fassad, an unrepentant Jerkass who insults, starves, and shocks him at every opportunity, even when Salsa does what Fassad told him to, all throughout Chapter 3. Thankfully, Salsa eventually takes a level in badass, while nearly all of Fassad's future appearances end with him getting maimed.
The Negative Man enemy. It's just absolutely pathetic, rattling off nihilistic quotes, and it barely makes an effort to attack you. It truly makes you feel sorry beating it up in its little cave.
Woolseyism: In the Fan Translation, Yokuba's name was changed to Fassad, possibly in reference to the facade he puts up around the public. Get it? It also happens to be Arabic for "corruption". Also, Kumatora's waitress alter-ego gets named Violet and Duster's name when he's with the DCMC isLucky. The latter, however, was purely due to the fact that in the original, they have different aliases when they are named their aliases, and to keep this in, their aliases were changed, because "Yoshikoshi" and "Tamekichi" were too long to enter into the naming screens.
Averted in the case of Hinawa's name. Tomato almost gave her the name "Amber," which would have fit very well considering she's married to Flint (in Japanese, their names reference "Hinawa-juu" and "Furinto-juu," meaning matchlock and flint guns) but decided to leave that one alone due to Super Smash Bros. Brawl' use of the name.
Similarly, other names like Kumatora are kept, avoiding this trope as well.
The mice in Club Titiboo's attic spoke in an incredibly difficult-to-understand dialect of Japanese in the original game. In the fan translation, it was changed to a similarly-impenetrable Cockney accent.
