Mother 3
is a 2006 role-playing video game developed by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is the third and final entry in the Mother series. The game follows Lucas, a young boy with psychic abilities, and a party of characters as they attempt to prevent a mysterious invading army from corrupting and destroying the world.
Like previous entries, Mother 3 focuses on exploring the game world from a top-down perspective and engaging in turn-based combat with enemies. Its development spanned twelve years and four consoles, beginning in 1994 for the Super Famicom and then transitioning to the Nintendo 64 and its 64DD add-on, when it was known as EarthBound 64. It was initially canceled in 2000, but development was restarted in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance. The game is noted for its significantly more mature and dramatic tone than its predecessors, exploring themes such as environmentalism, the destructive effects of technology, loss and grief, and rebellion against tyranny. However, it still retains much of the series' characteristic witty, idiosyncratic aesthetics and humor.
Mother 3 was never localized or released outside Japan, due to its release near the end of the Game Boy Advance's lifespan and the company focusing on the Nintendo DS. However, it was a critical and commercial success in the years that followed and has generated a cult following, in which it received praise for its character development, stylized graphics, music, and story, but was criticized for its lack of innovation in the role-playing genre.
An unofficial English fan translation was released by the Starmen.net internet community in 2008, and received over 100,000 downloads within a week. Mother 3 was re-released for the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan in 2015, and for the Nintendo Classics service exclusively in Japan in 2024.
Gameplay
Mother 3 is a single-player role-playing video game similar to previous games in the Mother series. The player controls a party of playable characters who explore the game's two-dimensional fictional world, primarily shown from a top-down perspective. While navigating the overworld, the player may converse with non-player characters, obtain items, or encounter enemies. Winning battles against enemies awards experience points to the party, which is required for leveling up. Leveling up a character permanently enhances its individual attributes such as maximum hit points, power points, offense, and defense. Weapons, armor, or accessories can be equipped on a character to increase certain attributes. The player can restore their characters' HP and PP or heal various status ailments by visiting hot springs which are abundant in the game world, and the player can save the game by talking to frogs. Currency is introduced in the later half of the game as Dragon Power, earned by winning battles and used to purchase items. The player can deposit or withdraw DP from frogs.File:Mother 3 battle.PNG|right|thumb|250px|In a battle sequence, the player can perform combo attacks by repeatedly striking to the beat of the background music.
Mother 3 retains the turn-based battle system featured in EarthBound. When the player comes into contact with an enemy in the overworld, the game transitions to a battle screen. Battles are viewed from a presumed first-person perspective, showing the enemies against a distorted, animated background. The player can assign each character in their party to perform an action, such as attacking an enemy or using items to restore HP or PP. Some characters can utilize psychic-based abilities referred to as PSI, which includes stronger attacks and healing abilities, but require PP to execute. Like EarthBound, combat uses a "rolling health" system: when one of the player's characters is injured, their HP will gradually "roll" down, similar to an odometer, rather than be immediately decremented. This allows a mortally wounded character to perform actions like attacking or healing themselves if the player acts quickly enough. If a character's HP reaches 0, they will fall unconscious and be unable to perform any actions until they are revived by another character. The player loses a battle if all characters become unconscious; the player will then be given the option to continue play from the nearest save point, but with half the DP on their person.
Combat in Mother 3 includes a unique musical combo system not seen in previous Mother games. When one of the player's characters directly attacks an enemy with a weapon, they can repeatedly attack the enemy by pressing the button in time with the beat of the background music, with each enemy possessing a musical theme with different rhythms. Using this system, the player can attack the enemy up to sixteen times in a row. When the correct beat is not apparent, the player can put the enemy to sleep to isolate the beat from the music.
Plot
Mother 3 is set in the fictional Nowhere Islands, an unknown length of time after the events of EarthBound. The game begins with twins Lucas and Claus and their mother Hinawa preparing to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa's father, Alec, who lives in the northern reaches of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military force known as the Pigmask Army, who bomb the nearby forest and start a forest fire. Hinawa's husband, Flint, is alerted to the fire and sets out to rescue his family. He finds Lucas and Claus, but discovers that Hinawa was killed defending them from a hostile Drago, a normally peaceful dinosaur-like creature. Later, Claus leaves the village to take revenge on the Drago; Flint attempts to follow him, discovering and defeating the Drago, which has been turned into a cyborg, but fails to find Claus.In response to the Pigmasks' invasion, novice thief Duster is sent by Wess, his father and teacher, to the abandoned Osohe Castle to retrieve the mysterious Egg of Light. While there he meets the spirited young Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are caught in a trap and vanish. At the same time a mysterious peddler known as Yokuba, who works with the Pigmasks, introduces the concept of currency and sells television-like devices known as Happy Boxes to the townspeople, with the unwilling help of a monkey named Salsa whom he abuses. Salsa escapes from Yokuba's control with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess.
Three years later, Tazmily Village has been taken over by the Pigmask Army, who have modernized it with railways, Happy Boxes, and other modern technology. Lucas hears rumours that Duster, who has been missing since leaving for Osohe Castle, is working as a bassist at the nearby Club Titiboo, and sets off with his dog Boney. While travelling there, he learns psychic powers from Ionia, who is a superpowered, benevolent, androgynous creature known as a Magypsy. At the club, he finds Kumatora working as a waitress, as well as Duster, who is suffering from amnesia. They join to recover the Egg and restore Duster's memory, but while attempting to board a flying Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man shakes them off and sends them flying to the ground, separating them.
Lucas and Boney land in a haystack back in Tazmily, and learn from the Magypsies that beneath the Islands is a massive, sleeping creature known as the Dark Dragon. The Magypsies' purpose is to guard seven Needles that were placed in the dragon to control its power; whoever pulls most of the Needles will be able to use the dragon's incredible power to completely reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas and Boney reunite with Duster and Kumatora and race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man, but only manage to pull three, with the Masked Man pulling another three.
The seventh and final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmask Army. Lucas and company travel there and meet Leder, another villager, who reveals that the inhabitants of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global apocalypse, who travelled to the Nowhere Islands as they were protected by the dragon's power. To prevent a second apocalypse from occurring, the survivors sealed their previous memories in the Egg of Light; Leder was given the role of revealing the truth if the situation called for it. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmasks is Porky Minch, who, after the events of Mother 2, travelled in time to the Nowhere Islands and began building an empire there, kidnapping inhabitants from other time periods to populate it, and transforming the local wildlife into twisted new forms.
Lucas and company set out to confront Porky and pull the last needle. While fighting their way to him, they discover that Yokuba was the Magypsy responsible for protecting the seventh Needle, who betrayed them and started working for the Pigmasks. The heroes finally meet Porky on the 100th floor of New Pork City's Empire Porky Building, where he taunts Lucas and company in a monologue. He sends them deep beneath New Pork City, where he meets them and they battle, but he seals himself inside an "Absolutely Safe Capsule" built by Dr. Andonuts; unbeknownst to him, however, Andonuts has tricked him, as the Absolutely Safe Capsule also renders the outside world safe by permanently sealing Porky within it.
Lucas reaches the seventh needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Claus. During the battle between Claus and Lucas, Hinawa's spirit speaks to the boys and begs them not to fight. This eventually causes Claus to remove his mask and commit suicide by casting lightning at Lucas's magic-reflecting Franklin Badge. Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands.
In an epilogue set in pitch darkness, the game's cast reveals that they have survived and wish the player farewell. After the credits, the Mother 3 logo is shown restored to being made completely of wood.