The game is essentially one for Giegue. In EarthBound Beginnings, he is a ruthless alien commander who seeks to invade Earth, only intending to spare Ninten out of obligation towards a descendant of his adoptive mother, Maria. Cognitive Dissonance fleshes him out and depicts him as an extremely tormented being whose internal conflict became so unbearable that he psychically forced out all his positive feelings and memories to avoid the pain, creating Niiue. When Niiue finds him and tries to make him remember who he once was, Giegue responds by snapping and descending further into madness. This leads to his own psychic power tearing his body apart and merging him with the fabric of Magicant, creating the babbling horror Gigyas.
The Apple of Enlightenment likewise gets fleshed out from its "mysterious prophetic MacGuffin" portrayal in EarthBound (1994) to "slightly less mysterious MacGuffin that talks to you." Pretty much, the Apple seems to be the game's closest analogue to a benevolent theistic deity, created by the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens of Eris. It wants the cosmos to be saved from Giygas and will uplift ordinary people to heroic status in order to do so.
The characterization of Buzz Buzz in EarthBound (1994) takes on a different tone if one accepts CogDis as headcanon. A scene in CogDis implies that Zarbol's (a.k.a. Buzz Buzz's) decision to call the Apple's prophecy "a well-known legend that has been handed down from ancient times" is a theatrical tactic, intended to help "win over the Earth children" to heed the Call to Adventure. He's putting his skills as a performer to use, both to inspire Ness and to cover up the fear and loss he no doubt feels at being sent back in time and away from his friends.
Awesome Music: All MOTHER games have it, and this is no exception.
The very first song heard in the game, at the title screen, is Ghosts, a beautiful piano tune with a rather creepy otherworldly accompaniment.
Among the game's many battle themes is the incredibly funky and catchy Forgotten Warriors.
Alinivar's theme, A Guitar for Tentacles, is a groovy, calming theme that resonates with his humble desire to become a musician and form his own band.
Once the protagonists have come together, they form a band and play "To the Future", an incredible remix of Guitar for Tentacles.
Towards the end of the game, the protagonists once again come together to play music. This time, it's "Speak", with vocals by Niiue of all people.
Towards the end of the game, the protagonists get to fight Giegue once more and this starts to play making it a kickass battle and fitting for the sudden appearance of two Niiues!.
"Ghosts in Flight", the credits theme, combines elements of themes heard throughout the game and the main series for a memorable finish to the game. Once again, it's sung by Niiue.
Base-Breaking Character: Niiue. Mostly in his character design. He is the anthropomorphic personification of Giegue's feelings of fondness for Earth and his adopted family that was forcefully ripped out of him. Depending on who you ask, his design is a brilliant way to foreshadow this, or goes way too overboard on trying to foreshadow this to the point he looks like a bad fan character of Giegue's species.
Broken Base: Generally, opinions on this game tend to vary a lot from person to person. Either you think it's an interesting take to bridge the gap between EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound (1994) with unique mechanics, or a bad fanfic that plays like a bad RPG Maker game.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The main reservations people have about CogDis is the fact that it lacks the Mother series iconic scrolling HP odometer mechanics, instead replacing it with an active time battle system, not unlike that of earlier Final Fantasy games. While this was because of the limitations of RPG Maker 2003, most people who don't want to give the game a chance cite that the lack of that mechanic makes it just not feel like a Mother game.
Demonic Spiders: If playing on Hard Mode, a single-character interlude between chapters 4 and 5 will feature encounters with monsters from Chapter 8 that are tuned to be faced by a party of four. Granted, the character facing this predicament is Niiue, but it's still quite possible to get a few jarring Game Overs while wandering through.
Difficulty Spike: Chapter 7 is a very notable step up compared to everything that came before it. Not only is the game completely open-ended at this point, but the new optional side areas that open up also have some really brutal normal enemy encounters, with enemy HP averaging in the upper 1000s to the lower 2000s while the party is still likely hitting for around one hundred to two hundred HP per-attack. Another thing is that if you haven't done the sanctuary bosses at this point, they get a massive buff and can very likely two-shot most characters in the party when fought.
Giegue's character arc is a very literal example. Giegue turns his Magicant into his own personal hell, and then shares that ruin with the universe outside thanks to his immense psychic powers. Yet, in the process of descending into this madness, he forks his self in two and creates the redemptive alter-ego Niiue, who does everything in his power to save not only the universe but also his tormented other half. How successful this effort is depends on the player's thoroughness and choices, but in the arguable "best" ending, the childlike core of Giegue's personality is pulled out of the insanity and saved, along with Niiue.
Tail imagery and references are sprinkled in all over the place, even in the cute wall lamps in the playroom the aliens set up for Maria to raise Giegue. "Who has lost his tail?"
There are various possible instances of eye symbolism, from the natures of the 4th and 5th points of power, to the disembodied eye enemies from MOTHER who reprise their appearance in Magicant.
The roles of Maria and George aboard the alien Mothership can easily be analyzed into mythological territory. As in MOTHER, Maria's role in raising Giegue can be interpreted both literally as a human woman giving love to her child and symbolically as the nurturing love of the entire Earth, our "mother of all," showing compassion to a stranger in the cosmos. Thinking about it this way adds some extra layers to the scenes of Maria raising the little guy while being observed closely by the aliens. Meanwhile, George is totally a Prometheus figure, though it ends up being his wife who gets most of the punishment on his behalf. It's easy to draw parallels to the Garden of Eden here too.
Game-Breaker: Step 1: Give Larice the Borange Beam. Step 2: Use Knowledge Stone to have Larice learn berserker mode. Step 3: Watch as Larice proceeds to nuke all enemies with an average of 2000 damage each of his turns. Notably, this is one of the few viable strategies to get the joke ending if you miss the item that's normally needed to obtain it.
Game-Breaking Bug: There's a nasty one if you reflect Flash Omega or Brain Cyclone back at an enemy; it's got a chance to crash your game. This becomes a problem in the late game, on hard mode especially, when very tough bosses love to throw these attacks out among other hard party-hitting attacks and Reflect practically becomes a crutch.
Moe: Giegue in Ninten/Ness' baseball cap is oddly adorable.
Moral Event Horizon: Even notwithstanding Porky's actions in the canon games, the Greyface crosses it when he brainwashes Larice into fighting you on Mars. This is after Larice has already suffered through remembering he was once a Martian and was forcibly turned into a Starman.
Nightmare Fuel: Chapters 7 and 8 somehow make MOTHER 2 look like a chump, with creepy enemies, Giygas' Lair BUT AS A WHOLE DUNGEON, and the obvious case of the final boss him/itself. As if Giygas wasn't creepy enough, you're forced to watch Giegue TURN INTO Giygas, which invokes even more horror tropes than the fight against him/it in MOTHER 2. Imagine being torn apart mentally by your own psychic powers, turning you into an unspeakable horror resulting in your old self possibly being lost forever. Sounds like hell, huh?
Player Punch: The twist on Mars in which your pieces of the Apple are stolen, Porky reprograms Larice to turn him against the team, and you're forced to fight your friend until his systems break down. It's bad enough that you just learned the Starmen are conscripted, forcibly chimerized Martians, it's bad enough that you just suffered the annoyance of having your pieces of the MacGuffin stolen… but when the story brings poor Larice into it too? Once that happens, the player is likely to want some revenge for personal reasons.
Quick Sandbox: Once you leave Saturn, figuring out where you need to go can be overwhelming. The galaxy is absolutely HUGE◊, and a surprising number of events are optional and non-sequential.
Scrappy Mechanic: The lack of a run button, next to the opening chapters, is one of the most criticized aspects of the game, as the default walking speed for everyone is incredibly slow. This was another case of technical limitations hampering the game, as the creator wanted to add a run feature and diagonal movement, but RPG Maker had so much trouble simply getting four characters to move together in four directions that any attempt at adding either feature in caused massive unresolvable pathing issues.
Slow-Paced Beginning: Some criticism of the game is leveled at Saturn, the starting planet, due to the planet's very bright blue palette, slow travel speed (as you do not acquire unlimited fast travel until after finishing the planet), lack of PSI, and overall slow pace. Many people have had to tell others that both the game's story and overall gameplay improves significantly after Saturn and they should tough it out until then.
That One Boss: If the player waits until Chapter 7 to take on the bosses of the Points of Power, they'll become much more powerful. However, the boss's powers and abilities aren't toned down to compensate, resulting in a few bosses being downright nightmarish if you put them off for too long.
That One Level: The first visit to Earth. Enemies are stronger than expected, and previous areas can't be revisited until you're done.
The Moon base. Accessing it requires finding four gems which are hidden very carefully on various planets, which are often difficult to find without a guide. The level itself contains many difficult enemies, and the boss at the end is the aforementioned Dr. Destructo.
Revisiting Giegue's spaceship. A very long dungeon with a confusing layout, difficult enemies, and a difficult boss. Fully completing it involves finding Reboot Orbs which are scattered throughout the cosmos, often as rewards for smaller sidequests in themselves. Like the above example, it can be hard to find all of them without already knowing where to look. Then, after using all the Reboot Orbs and beating the boss, it's possible to unlock a sequence where the player plays as Niiue alone and fights even tougher enemies.
The Woobie: Niiue and Giegue; being two sides of the same coin. Giegue just desperately wants to forget all the pain his conflicting feelings to Earth and his adopted parents have caused, so much so he forcefully extracted all the love he had for Maria out of himself with his PSI and made an Anthropomorphic Personification of it; a process that's clearly caused him to become even more unhinged as the game goes on. Niiue, said personification, desperately wants Giegue to return back to how he was before the event that tore him apart happened and remember how much he loved Maria and humanity. Depending on which ending you get, they both could potentially get a happy, bittersweet, or downright depressing ending to their arcs.
, a beautiful piano tune with a rather creepy otherworldly accompaniment.
