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The Tower of Love and Peace: Mother 3 - Chapter 5

by Nate Andrews - October 17, 2011, 7:12 pm EDT
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The time is right for a crescendo.

…a threat rising dozens upon dozens of feet high, towering over what remains of the tree line. Innocuous enough, apart from a skeletal structure of steel beams skirting its base. A bulbous dome of fluorescent yellow adorning the tip. An intensely conspicuous, comically oversized gun spitting death and destruction down upon the noncompliant.

A behemoth of a misnomer.

As far as the known segments of Mother 3 go, this chapter would sit cleanly along the graph of a generic RPG, clinging to the basic peaks and valleys normally associated with that kind of game. Fresh off a flamboyant combination of characters and environments, a full party (a significant first) makes its way through a series of grind-heavy courses, on a fetch quest for a powerful item and en route to combat a powerful evil. 

As training course-like as it may be, there’s a freeing catharsis that goes hand-in-hand with tackling enemy after enemy with a host of reunited characters. Duster himself, finally bereft of his amnesia and filled with a mutually shared joy, might’ve encapsulated it best. Nothing can be expected to last, perhaps, but to journey again as this odd and lovable family of misfits, grievers, princesses, and dogs is deeply comforting.

When the moment finally comes to enter the body of the beast, as it does in the form of a foreboding ascent through the spinal cylinder of the tower’s elevator shaft, the energy in the air is literally audible, if not fully palpable. All of the supposed accidents, atrocities, and convenient acts of a higher power seen thus far sprang from the robot-filled heart of the monstrosity, and it’s an unnerving place to be.

After a satisfying, if predictable encounter atop the tower, and after hints as to the whereabouts of a certain missing brother are disclosed, a shift is made into what is likely my personal favorite moment in a video game, or any other medium, which I’ll gladly leave…

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