VideoGame MOTHER - or, why actual writers shouldn't make video games
In 2010, Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, founders of an independent game company, said that not only are games "not art", they're, for the most part, "a waste of time". Naturally, I disagree. Games can be art. After all, they can move us. They can make us laugh. They can make us cry. Hell, this game's tagline is "No crying until the end". I seriously doubt that back in 1989, Itoi-sensei & co thought they weren't creating a work of art.
So, yes, MOTHER is a piece of art. An art piece painted with the wrong brush.
There's a reason why most video games fail at compelling narratives - it's hard to have good gameplay and a great story at the same time. Quality storytelling and interactivity do not mix well. Gay children on the playground, playing hide-and-seek, are not crafting art. Which is fine. The point of play, whether cordless or electronic, is to have fun, not win a Booker prize. Some of the most praised games - Tetris, Mario, Bejeweled - have practically zero story, while very story-centric games, like visual novels, are little more than illustrated audiobooks.
MOTHER, unfortunately, falls into this trap. The plot is bizarre, creepy, charming, and touching, but the play is a dull rip-off of Enix's Dragon Quest. Indeed, the JRPG format limits the game's attempts at narrative, constraining it to short text boxes which most players will likely skip through. The most interesting story elements, counterproductively, are the most scripted; e.g., the final Gyiyg fight. If the best plot points of your game are the ones where the player has no control whatsoever, then why make a game in the first place?
MOTHER was an attempt by a writer to create a well-written story in an alternative medium, a medium not exactly known for its quality stories. Unfortunately, it's a deeply flawed attempt. The strong story detracts from the tedious gameplay, and the boring gameplay detracts from the intriguing story. As a film, anime, or manga, it would've been amazing. Instead, it serves as an example as why some experiments really don't work too well. Overall score: 8.5/10.
VideoGame It’s a decent game.
I played the game in the Mother 1+2 version on a GBA emulator in Japanese, and found it to be pretty good, but not the amazing masterpiece people seem to think it is. First off, I found the game very hard to complete without a walkthrough, given the potential to miss a lot of important things (though this might just be me). Secondly, the ending comes out of nowhere, with little to no Foreshadowing. As for game mechanics, since I was using an emulator, I was able to speed up the game and grind a lot more easily, and even with Ninten at level 64 (the walkthrough I was using said he should be at least at level 38 when confronting the final boss) I had trouble with some of the enemies on Mt. Holy Loly/Itoi.
All in all it was a fun and somewhat addictive game, but I enjoyed the Pokémon games better.
VideoGame EarthBound's Long-Forgotten Big Brother
Most of us here on this website are, at some level, familiar with the games EarthBound and Mother 3 - cult classic RPG series, kooky, strange, adorable, scary, hilarious, heart-crushing, deep, thought-provoking, timeless - what more can be said about those games that hasn't already? However, for how much these two games have been lauded, there's still this one little game most people forget about - the underdog that most newcomers to the series skip over and usually only take a chance with once they've grown used to the glory of games two and three. That game is Mother, the often-overlooked predecessor to two gaming masterpieces.
In order to appreciate and critique this game for what it truly is, it is crucial to put it into perspective: this game came out in 1989, and on an inherently inferior system than the ones its sequels were released on. Without taking this into account, it is very easy to view MOTHER as a watered-down version of EarthBound: Many of the mechanics are similar, albeit with a less unique battle system and a teeth-grinding random encounter rate, a lot of the songs were reused from one game to the next, and the story follows a similar formula: a group of child psychics have travel around the map to collect eight musical melodies in order to stop an alien invasion, all the while beating the crap out of animate inanimate objects.
In my opinion, however, many of the games shortcomings can be traced back to the fact that it was on the NES - Itoi was working with less technology than he did when he made EarthBound, and with what he had to work with, he did an exceptional job. A small part of me almost wants to view Earthbound as Mother fully realized - what Itoi had in mind when he was making Mother, but was unable to create because of technical and time-based limitations. That being said, this game is not just a retroactive-rehash of Earthbound. It has its own identity, its own atmosphere, and its own sense of life
Is this game flawed? Yes. Is it as good as its sequels? Hardly. Will it be a turn-of to brand-new fans trying to get into the series? Potentially, for those people, I would recommend the fan-translated GBA port, as it softens the unrelenting difficulty and has better writing. However, with all things taken considered, this game truly is an underrated NES gem. I'd dare call it ahead of its time.
VideoGame Approach with the right mindset
Ah, Earth Bound Beginning's. EarthBound's big brother. I feel like this game gets a bad rap primarily because of the fact that EarthBound was most people's introduction to the series, and appearing on a much more powerful system comparatively, it had a lot of features that simply weren't possible at the time on the NES. I feel like it's unfair to judge a game because it has a sequel and not on its own merit. As such, I'll be approaching this game for what it is and how people would have approached it back in the day, and not what it's a part of. An NES game first, an Earth Bound game second.
The gameplay is largely reminiscent of that of Dragon Quest II Although there are five party members in total, only three are active in the party at any given moment and will swap out at certain points in the story. Instead of Magic, the game uses PSI; something that was unique back in the day. It can be a bit hard to figure out what each ability does at first, but each PSI usually ranges from straight damage to status buffs and debuffs. One thing I really like compared to other RPGs at the time is that the Useless Useful Spells actually do work on most enemies in the game, bosses included. While it by no means makes the game easy, it's nice to see the devs have confidence in their design to let these would be Game-Breaker abilities actually be Game Breakers when it matters.
As for the difficulty... I honestly feel like it's something that has been greatly exaggerated by the EarthBound fanbase over the years. There are only a few points where I feel the difficulty really swings hard, but for the most part, so long as you're not skipping battles, you'll roughly be able to deal with most enemies you come across.
The encounter rate is the most criticized aspect of Beginnings but, really, I find it comparable to that of Final Fantasy IV. It seems to operate on a 'seed' system if I'd hazard to guess. There are moments where I can breeze through the overworld for a good bit of time without much issue, but there are also those unfortunate times where it seems like you can only take two steps before getting into a battle. It's not nearly as common as the EarthBound fanbase would lead you to believe, but it does happen and it can be rather annoying when it does.
As for the grinding, I feel like this is another thing the EarthBound fanbase tends to greatly exaggerate. There are only three real major grinding points throughout the game; and there was only one that felt like it took longer than it should have. (When you first get Lloyd.) Getting Ninten up to level 12 in Podunk and getting Ana to a point where she can survive after getting her shouldn't take any longer than thirty minutes at most, and you by no means need to reach the insane levels most guides would recommend to beat the game if you know what you're doing. (In my most recent playthrough, I managed to beat it with Ninten around 26-27-ish in levels and Lloyd and Ana in the lower 20s, compared to Starmen.net's walkthrough which had him approaching the lower 40s and Lloyd and Ana in the mid-30s.)
I have to give major praise to the plot, especially. What it was able to accomplish on the limited hardware is quite impressive; the fact that it gets you to feel bad for the Final Boss, let alone envoke any emotion out of the player is a serious feat. And then there's the climax moment in Magicant, which is still the most hauntingly beautiful scene in the entire NES library to me.
The overworld itself is a mixed bag. It's a technological marvel that the game is able to display the entire world of Beginnings on a single map, but it also feels seriously lacking when it comes to noticeable landmarks to help orient yourself because of the simplistic graphics needed to render it all. This can make getting lost rather common, and the only thing I'd really say is a major true flaw with the game.
Overall, I feel like Beginnings is honestly a great game in its own right for the era it was made, and that if it had gotten its release in America back in the day, it would likely be considered a classic on the line of Super Mario Bros., The Legend Of Zelda 1 and Metroid 1. It just had the unfortunate circumstance of only really coming to the US after it's sequels were more widely known, and often unfairly gets that held against it.
tl;dr version: If you approach it with the mindset of treating it as an NES Era RPG, you'll likely have a surprising amount of fun. The world and characters are really charming, there is a lot of challenge that feels relatively fair compared to the likes of early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy NES era games, and the story genuinely manages to get the player to feel when it reaches its climax moments. However, if you approach it with the mindset of 'I'd rather be playing EarthBound', you're only setting yourself up for disappointment. Treat it as its own thing, and it may just surprise you.
8/10