Topic: Mother 3 - RetroActive #13 Discussion Thread

[MegaByte]

Pollyanna from Mother 1 is one of my favorite video game songs ever, but most of the Mother series tracks have too much dissonance and cacophony for my liking.  I do give Mother 3 major points for integrating the battle music into the gameplay, however.

[Mop it up]

I had to look up which tune was "Pollyanna" as I don't know them by name, and I totally agree that it is great. The rendition of it in Super Smash Brothers Melee (which is strangely titled "Mother 2" despite that it is more prominently featured in Mother 1) is quite possibly the single greatest piece of music ever composed. It's too bad the theme soon gets replaced when you get another party member, though fortunately I like that one as well (It's called Bein' Friends apparently). Though the music does seem a bit happy-go-lucky for a game where you get attacked by mob zombies and killer animals with every step.

As a whole, I don't think the Mother series soundtrack is anything spectacular, though Mother 1 has some pretty amazing compositions in it, it is by far the best of the three. There are some good tunes in the other two games but there's a lot of plain or atmospheric stuff too. Nothing really jumps out at me from Mother 3, and a couple I liked from 2 include the Onett and Fourside themes.

[sambskn]

Hi. This is my first post here but I've been listening to RFN for years. Anyway, I just finished Mother 3 (though I feel like I'm missing out, I still need to play Earthbound). Here's what I thought of the game:
     I understand that I needed to pull the needles to save the world, but why did I need to pull the last needle? Didn't the one other person who could pull the needle just die? I'm also going to have to agree with most others that Leder's speech was boring and the worst way that the loose ends could have been tied in the story. I probably should have played Earthbound before playing this game, being that it is a sequel, but everything concerning Porky was somewhat confusing. Did he travel through time? Is this game supposed to be set in the same world as Earthbound? Having Claus as the final bad guy would have been satisfying for me. I don't think Porky was really necessary. Chapter 8 seems to be the main problem and the point where things went downhill. My brother, who has been watching me play the game, said what I had been thinking at the whole darkness scene at the end, "This is stupid."
     Though I had problems with the end of the game, I enjoyed most all of the rest . . . excluding Duster's chapter and the volcano portion where everything destroyed me until I saw that you could buy an item for fire protection. Some parts of the game were hilarious. Like when Boney walks on two legs and everyone comments how he smells like a dog. The Pigmasks were awesome, and enemy design in general was great. The battle music was better than most games (ugh, Golden Sun) and I found myself whisting along to some of it. On a side note, I read on Starmen.net that the soundtrack for one of the Mother games is on the US iTunes. I found that combos in battle became easier when I used a wired 360 gamepad to play. Anyway, I really enjoyed the 30 hours I spent playing Mother 3.

[Jonnyboy117]

My goal is to finish Mother 3 in the next week. A friend is going to be in town visiting, so it will be a challenge finding the time. But with so many competing RPGs on my plate, I want to finish it now before it gets buried.

[MegaByte]

http://earthboundcentral.com/2010/08/mother-3-hard-mode/

[vudu]

I finished Mother 3 last night and I have to agree with most everyone that the game starts to fall apart after Chapter 8.  Story-wise it isn't connected to the rest of the game at all.  It's also way too slow paced and much too much fighting, which has always been the weakest part of the series.

Also, nuts to Flint jumping in front of Lucas during the final battle--I was equipped with a PSI Shield, upped defense and a Counter.  Claus was toast!

Speaking of which, is it possible to defeat Claus in that battle?  You can't attack him directly, but you can use items and Counters to hurt him.

[Mop it up]

Speaking of which, is it possible to defeat Claus in that battle?  You can't attack him directly, but you can use items and Counters to hurt him.

A quick search brings up an answer: no. Although he does apparently have HP, it seems to work similar to Giygas in Earthbaound, in that the HP will replenish after every turn.

Also, I kept trying to attack him directly, but it rarely worked. It usually said things like "Lucas closed his eyes" *miss*, "Lucas doesn't know what to do anymore," etc. When it was successful, it said "Lucas felt heartbroken." Hinawa also said to stop attacking, I don't know if she says that normally.

By the way, did anyone else notice that "Claus" is an anagram of "Lucas"?

[Jonnyboy117]

I'm still playing Mother 3 and have put in quite a lot of time into it these past few days. I finally finished Chapter 7, which felt extremely long, and am now in New Pork City. No idea how much is left, but I have an open reservation with Neal to discuss the end-game stuff and bring in some of the spoiler comments from this thread on an upcoming RFN segment. The only obstacle right now is finishing the game!

[vudu]

If you just got to chapter 8, you probably have another 2 to 3 hours left in the game.  Honestly, it was probably my least favorite chapter.  The end of the game is very battle-heavy which I feel makes it drag considerably.  Combined with the fact that the story suddenly gets a whole lot less interesting, I pretty much had to force myself to push through to the end.  It's not that there aren't funny parts in the last chapter--there are quite a few, in fact--but they're just spread so thin amongst the parts of the game that I never really liked all that much.

[Mop it up]

I liked parts of chapters 1, 3, 4, and 5. 2, 6, and 8 were tedious. 7 was just okay.

[vudu]

Which was the one with the monkey?  I liked that one.  Duster was pretty rad, too.

[Mop it up]

The monkey was 3. The battles in it were very tedious, but most everything else was good. 2 was the one with Duster, and aside from one particular scene with his father, it was a tedious grind.

[Sundoulos]

The monkey was 3. The battles in it were very tedious, but most everything else was good. 2 was the one with Duster, and aside from one particular scene with his father, it was a tedious grind.

I felt the same way about chapter 2.  I never saw the point in playing through most of a chapter using a single character whose special attacks consisted entirely of status effects that only lasted one or two turns.  If you don't have another character in your party that can take advantage of it, what's the point?  I really only found Duster's attacks to be useful with Mr. Passion.   Granted, I never made it past chapter 5.