the Saturn Bean!
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so i played this game first on a jailbroken ipod after downloading some set of roms all at once, and remember it actually taking quite a while to click that it was related to earthbound at all, though i did know about it from smash brothers
i played through a significant chunk of the early game without knowing you could withdraw money from the frogs (because money isnt introduced until some time into the game), but after you do the section in the clay mines you get handed cash directly, and i remember thinking that this was the genuine intent of the game because you were playing as a kid who didnt have access to money otherwise, and having to go through the rest of the chapter or so using only the band merch you could buy at the night club
anyways id spend a lot of time on starmen forums later on but id give a lot to have a chance to play a game with that little context ever again
i like how youāre reminded whenever not playing as lucas, that he actually can and does talk. theres something about the silent protagonists in the mother games that i think speaks directly to that disenfranchising feeling of being a kid. how often you have to deal with quite self absorbed adults who have just one thing to say, or are only interested in projecting onto you. it always came across to me as the protagonists actually having things to say but just not being heard. and as such youāre often aligned with adults who are themselves on those fringes of society that you can share a wavelength with (though yeah, the rep. is not greatā¦)
id probably have a lot more to say on the āfangamesā scene than the game itself, at least compared to what games crit has already said about it, but i do still find m3 quite special
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Little House on the Prairie ends with a capitalist buying walnut grove out from under the residents and even uses the us army like the pigmasks to try and intimidate them
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Please excuse my rough writing. I have not written critically in a decade so Im going to use simple sentences to chip away at bigger ideas in an artless fashion. Hopefully the shape of my meaning is more affective than the crudeness of my tools.
Top posts are a treat, thank you for writing that out.
Mother 3 is a heavy game and its got a meanness to it but Its also a world where cowboy has to contend with a T-Rex. Thats absurd sure, its also fun but taken in context its a horrifying situation. The whole game is a horrifying situation. It also contains many very real situations, very broadly resonant situations. The loss of a loved one, the encroachment of technology, money destroying a community. We have all seen this stuff in real life. We know what death isā¦ But heres a ghost party. Wine ghost? Rope snake?
To contrast EarthBoundās resonance is more specific and more pop culture. Dirty cops are real, cults are real, pollution is real, being trapped by debt is real, greed is real, absent dads are real. But it lacks resonance because the focus is always going past those things. They are bumps in the road. Nes never really losses his innocence even when he losses his body. We can tell things are bad at the core but the apple of eagleton never rots. Only ghosts can close the mall and the 711 never fails you. Kids growing up in harsh situations dont always really get that they are and I dont think Nes gets it exactly. He just SMAAASH!!es through it all. His pure heart destroys the darkness. Thematically EarthBound is throwing stuff at you, fun ideas, references, goofy goobers.*
Maybe its cliche but I think about Twin Peaks (90s tv) the chaos is out there the awfulness is lurking but damn if that isnt some great apple pie right? Pour me another coffee Dianne! black as the creeping horror in these pines on a moonless night. No one in twin peaks talks about watching television. The government isnt out to get Dale Cooper.
Lucas actually suffers, everyone suffers. In this world the corrupt cops donāt turn back to normal, you see them doing their thing and its who they are. Pigs from snout to tale. I still think this is also a game about pure hearts defeating darkness, specifically defeating darkness with music. So I donāt think its totally mean, the meanness is overcome. There is beauty even during all the bad times. But the focus becomes the bad things, the theme replays and you are reminded. The antagonist is not just an aura of evil its a force with a will and a name. The themes, the art, even the music are all focused on the central thesis. It is a better piece of āartā. BUT the reason the fandom isnāt as rabid is that its so focused and so tied up neatly and tightly that the imagination has little to run with. I believe this is on purpose and is actually a part of the anti-fandom theme.
Thematically continuing from *
EarthBound is going to teach you about the Beatles, Jazz, genre conventions and hint at the fall of capitalism without showing it. People want to visit this world. Where as it feels like we already live in Mother 3.
Gameplay wise I reaaly love Mother 3ās heart beat rhythm system. It is very worth your while to get a flash cart and a GBA or a GBA player. I played most of this game (as I do) on a CRT with my Gamecube controller. Actually you know what, flash carts are great but just get a pirate cart and leave the work to the Ebay seller. Handheld or on a TV knowing you have the real timing and you arenāt missing due to a hiccup in the emulator is gold. As much as I love EarthBoundās wacky unbalanced dragon quest fighting (especially the Jeff* tools) the battle tuning in Mother 3 is exceptional. Its was skin of the teeth for me over and over and I was really loving it.
Weirdly now that I think about it I first beat EarthBound on a DS emulator in bed and I first beat Mother 3 on a TV on my futon.
As for a game being less serious because it has play. I disagree. I dont think there is anything immature about it. You know what I did when my grandfather died? The first BIG death of my life and first big one in the immediate family unit? The cousins all sat down and played DND while the adults played canasta. While my sister got her brain tumor operated on (it went fine) I was rewiring the soundboard at the college radio station. When I had my first big breakup two ducks having sex fell out of the sky in front of us. I did things while I had emotions. I processed shit while having fun. I broke out in confused laughter with someone as we broke each others hearts. I think this is something that games get right that walking sims dont. Excessive thematic consistency in presentation is not life. I think games having a fun abstracted action or puzzle while you feel something rather than alternating between moments with moods is something a game can do that other mediums donāt.
* I always name Jeff Bill so this is confusing for me. I think hes going to be CJ next time actuallyā¦ anyway!
I suspect that for some, probably younger people EarthBound is more effective art if the goal of art is broadening your horizons. Its more subtle and there is more thematic candy. The long stretches of walking and fighting give you time to reflect. It teaches through vibes rather than beautifully scripted scenes, bypassing reflexive critical responses. Mother 3 is more mature, more jaded and more nuanced but also more direct and meaner. Its also a finer piece of work; its a beautiful garden rather than a treefort. I donāt love either game more. I think they do their own things in beautiful and affecting ways.
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iāve got the soft cover version of that guide
I played through it once, in Japanese, understanding maybe every 3rd word.
Iāve tried several subsquential plays in the intervening 20 years, and stalled out at the end of Chapter 1. I think I would like to play again, but would like to skip chapter 1.
I would say the game didnāt have a huge effect on me, but thenā¦I can remember the exact posture of my body the first time I saw Flint flail, the dandelions, and reaching to turn the game off after the ending.
But also feel I owe it to myself to read a book in Japanese, any book, before I play Mother 3 again. Mr Itoi would certainly prefer I do.
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weighed against the hype, and even confining that (okay) to whatās already been said in this thread, itās still one of the biggest disappointments in the ic/sb/abdn canon
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i saw the hater latest post in the mother 3 thread, braced myself, and still wasnāt prepared
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Iāve still never finished it. I probably should. Last time I played it was on a GBA Player on a tiny CRT, which did rule a lot.
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I put my Mother 3 cartridge in my Analogue Pocket because of this thread and even turned it on yesterday. I might finally play it for real.
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canāt imagine why- seems fairly average for one of my posts
did the ic/sb/abdn canon bit really floor you that much?
Analogue Pocket
how comfortable are those, by the way? seems like the edges would really dig into oneās hands
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oh no just whenever you donāt like one of my favorite games Iām not emotionally ready to accept the information
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i definitely want to know why it didnāt hit, mo3 is one of the jrpgs i unreservedly recommend to anyone
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donāt finish this game at 2 am on the couch wearing headphones
or do?
you wonāt get to sleep easily!
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not really as comfortable as a DMG
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MOTHER 3 things i like and am thinking about
-hot springs becoming the main way you heal over hotels. good, cool. each one unique, with so many variations on the theme music. the scene of my least favorite scene in the series. but they also did a redux of the coffee break, my favorite scene in the series, so
-running is so unique. you donāt hold a button or double tap a direction. you hold for a sec, then let go and your character just barrels forward and you steer them
-love that when Kumatora or Lucas learn new PSI itās a sweaty uncomfortable experience for them and the whole party has to slow down to accommodate them having a little Galerians-ass ESPer moment. thatās sick lol
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i guess my relationship to these games has been changed by my decade of dragon quest scholarship. canāt deny theyāre some of yuji horiiās greatest inventions though. my feeling is mother 2 is almost obviously the superior mother work these days, but i admit i aināt played 3 for a long time
does it run properly if i put it on a 3ds these days. hm
edit edited for clarity
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much as iād like to provide a full dissertation on Why Mother 3 is Not Good along the lines of timās old review of Kingdom Hearts that heās since tried to claim wasnāt serious, i think we all know iād only embarrass myself (moreso) if i tried
my feeling is mother 2 is almost obviously a superior work these days, but i admit i aināt played 3 for a long time
wait, iām unsure how to read this- is it M2 > DQ or M2 > M3?
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Mother 1ās pretty good.
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