MOTHER/EarthBound series

Discuss anything about Itoi's cult RPG trilogy, the Mother series.

I haven't really been able to get too much into these games. I think the main reason is that I'm playing them on emulators and it's hard to concentrate on just one thing when playing the game on the computer as opposed to on a console or handheld.

I've only played Mother 3. It lives up to its tagline.

I want to play 3 so baaaad... Alas, I cannot, as me no speaky Nippon.

There's a very well made translation patch, if you want to take that route.

And was the Battle Memory in the original? I think I read that that was actually an addition to the English version.

edited 6th Oct '12 9:14:42 PM by hnd03

I think the Battle Memory was in M3 from the get-go.

What the translation patch added to it, I think, was a star that appears when you see every enemy, as well as the enemies' behinds, where applicable (can't make bosses turn around, natch, and some Mooks, such as the Pseudoor, do not have a rear sprite).

There's a fantastic fan translation available here.

It was in from the get-go.

edited 6th Oct '12 9:32:26 PM by Marioguy128

I think I'm in love with the phasing synth riff from "Kraken of the Sea".

I'm in love with all the music from this series, but my favorite is probably "Snowman."

Snowman is nice.

-Applies patch-

Wow, that was like half as painful as applying the Der Langrisser patch. Probably only got like half as many viruses in the process too.

Thanks for the link, Marioguy.

I really love the song that plays in the Cave of The Past.

Eerie, but powerful.

How about giving a listen to the song it samples.

I need to replay Earthbound. I started up an alternate file a while ago, with all the main characters named after Psychonauts characters and references ( still want to draw a sweet crossover fanart piece between the two), but never got too far into it.

Earthbound's one of those games I like for the atmosphere. Even in Winters, something about Earthbound has always felt "quintessentially Summer" to me. It feels like a game meant to be played during the lazy days of Summer, preferrably with some of your friends around to cheer you on and offer advice while you play.

I still can't decide if I like Earthbound or Mother 3 better. My heart, she cannot choose!

I've only ever played Earth Bound, but I loved it. One of my favourite games. So weird, but so fun.

@shirow: ... Er... You're welcome...? The patch shouldn't have been that hard to apply.

I didn't realize it was that easy to get. I thought I'd have to surf the pirate bay or something to get it, since whenever people talked about the translation patch they just called it "The translation patch" they never mentioned the team, or the site, or anything...

Speaking of patches, I found this curious patch that makes Earth Bound more in line with the original Japanese release. For example, it replaces all instances of "Pokey" with "Porky", adds red crosses to all the hospitals, and averts Never Say "Die".

I'd probably blame Fan Myopia for that. When it first came out a couple years ago, it was pretty well-publicized even on some of the bigger gaming news sites, so most people probably assume that when they talk about "the" translation patch, everyone knows exactly what they're talking about and where to get it.

It's kind of interesting, actually. It's so well-known that Nintendo can't not know about it, but they quietly let it be.

Nintendo can't actually acknowledge that, or it'll cause like a law and copyright related ruckus. Same goes for all game devs acknowledging fan stuff like rom hacks or fan translations. They could know about them, but they can't say a single word about them.

I shoved my patched Mother 3 onto one of those EZ cartridges so I can play it on my GBA or old DS. Best investment ever.

I ended up using a PSP-based GBA emulator for it. Even after absorbing years' worth of casual spoilers, the ending still provoked a ridiculously over-the-top emotional response. 16-bit sprites shouldn't be this heartrending...

Played through M3 twice. Once legit, once using a patched ROM. I have an ongoing Earthbound run, but have been kinda sidetracked from that by other games.

Also, a little bit of advice for anyone looking to get into the series: Don't start with MOTHER 3. It's got a lot of useful and fun mechanics that are absent in the first 2 entries that you will miss once you're exposed to them and will more likely than not cut into your enjoyment of the other two games' narrative to some extent. Which makes me a little worried about how I'm going to take MOTHER 1 what with its insane encounter rate and barebones battle system.

There's a patch for Mother 1 that reduces the encounter rate and boosts EXP gain to be more in line with Earthbound somewhere.

Is MOTHER 1 really difficult? I thought only the last level was that difficult, and that was due to lack of playtesting on that part.