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It took me about a month before I picked up Earthbound and played through it, after Mother 1. After Earthbound, I picked up Mother 3 the following day. And after starting it, I did almost nothing else but play it, for a full on week. Mother 3 is one of those… very special games, and I had never actually beaten it before. I HAD played it, and got to chapter 5. But, much like how it had been with Earthbound, I kind of bounced off of it. Years later now, I gave it another try. Andyeah. This game is amazing.

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Mother 3 is pretty much exactly what I wanted after Earthbound. It takes all of the improvements of Earthbound in the system, and SAYS something, and not only that, it says something new. As much as I like Mother 1 and 2, the characters aren’t really characters. And since the characters are the exact same from Mother 1 to Mother 2, that feels exhausting. Like, you’ve got baseball cap nice kid. Magic girl. Smart boy. These aren’t really characters. But the characters in Mother 3 are characters, and not only that, they are intentionally built to contrast with their previous counterparts. Ness was a baseball wielding tough but nice kid, a solid home life, and lots of friends. Lucas is a crybaby with a stick with a miserable home life, and is ostracized from his village. Paula is a sweet little demure magic girl with magic that can blast you into kingdom come, or gently smack you with a frying pan. Kumatora is a beartiger. She is a butch spellcaster who punches her enemies, and she cannot stop swearing. Jeff is a smart and competent nerd. Duster is a doofus with a limp who is here because it’s the right thing to do. And King, Ness’ dog, is a coward who refuses to join your party after the intro, while Boney is THE BEST BOY IN VIDEO GAMES, and will follow Lucas to the ends of the Earth. All of these characters are not only fun to play with, they’re fun to interact with, and they’re ACTUAL characters. They have goals, aspirations, emotions, and we see them, as opposed to in Mother 1 and 2, where they’re just implied.

The story of Mother 3 is rather simple, kind of. We start in an idyllic little village. They all live happily. There’s no one to even man the jail, because no one’s needed to be put in the jail. They have no concept of money, you just take what you need and leave what you don’t at the general store. They are at peace and one with the land. But then a strange force called the Pigmask army comes, starts changing animals into horrible mechanized hybrids, and lights the forest on fire. And after ruining Lucas’ life in chapter 1, we see them slowly and insideously corrupt the village in chapters 2 and 3 by introducing…. CAPITALISM.

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YES. This game has some messages and themes it wants to tell, and one of those themes is that CAPITALISM FUCKING BLOWS. It corrupts and twists everyone in the town from people who are rushing out to find Lucas, his brother Claus, and their mother in the middle of the night after they’ve gone missing, to people who ostracize them because they still refuse to get a happy box (a tv), and upgrade their lives to modern society. This theme is apparant RIGHT in the logo of the game, and it handles this theme very, very well. It’s maybe heavy handed, but it makes you ANGRY, seeing how this society is corrupted and shifts, getting worse and worse with each chapter, and you can barely hang on, with no change of stopping the downward spiral.

The other theme this game tackles is, of course, the usual Mother series theme of Love and Family. I’m a bit worried talking about all of this, because this game’s story and plot is quite powerful and emotional, and I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll just say, it handles this topic quite well. It could maybe tackle the found family trope too, because by the end, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, and Boney are BLOOD BROTHERS.

Also, the game improves on Earthbound’s actual gameplay in a lot of ways, which is impressive cause I only disliked a single thing about Earthbound’s gameplay, and that’s the damn item management. It’s still not perfect in this game, but it’s better. You’ve got item box guys all over the place, instead of having to call your sister and wait. That item box guy is the realest, btw. He’s just a hobo who believes in you. I love him. On top of that though, they did add in the rhythm mechanic. As you attack, you can tap A to the beat of the music to get up to 16 hits on an enemy. On emulator this is hard, but it’s a really cool extra little tihng, and it’s neat to get better at it and learn the songs. I don’t want to like, get 16 hits on every single song, cause some of them are fffffucked (some are very VERY fucked), but it’s still cool.

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I should also mention that this soundtrack is fucking fantastic. Probably the best in the series, And that’s impressive considering it’s on the GBA, which is NOT a good system for music. But damn, they made this fucking thing sing.

Mother 3 is utterly fantastic. If there’s ONE thing that fell flat to me though, it’s the ending. I… don’t really want to talk about it, cause spoilers, but it feels like an anti-climax after everything that precedes it, and it confounds me. I don’t know what it’s trying to say, or imply, or mean. I have my own interpretation of it though, which I like. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions though.

In the end, I think Mother 3 is by far the best of the trilogy. However, I might still love Mother 1 more, for the nostalgia factor, and also what it’s TRYING to say. It fails at it a bit, ngl, it’s a very old school game and is held back by that. Can’t wait for that Mother 1 remake fans are making!!