Mother 3
Encyclopedia
Mother 3 is a role-playing video game
developed by Nintendo
, Brownie Brown
and HAL Laboratory
, and published for the Game Boy Advance
handheld game console
. It has only been released in Japan, alongside a limited supply bundle. It is the third video game in the Mother series, following EarthBound
for the Super Nintendo
12 years earlier. It was written by Shigesato Itoi
, the creator of the series, and directed by Nobuyuki Inoue
. The music was composed by Shogo Sakai, whom Itoi chose to succeed long-time series composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka
; neither were available to work on the project.
Mother 3 is a loose sequel to EarthBound
. It takes place on the "Nowhere Islands", a series of islands on Earth
, and stars several characters, including Lucas, a young boy; Flint, a farmer and the father of Lucas and his older twin brother, Claus; Duster, a thief; Kumatora, a princess; Salsa, a monkey; and Boney, Flint's dog. The primary antagonist is the mysterious Pigmask Army, an army of people who wear pig-like uniforms, who suddenly invades the islands, subjugating its population. They create a variety of technologies, including Chimera
s, creatures that consist of either multiple animals or machine-animal hybrids. The game switches perspectives between the main characters during several chapters.
Mother 3 was originally developed for the Super Famicom
in 1994, but was moved to the Nintendo 64DD
; the English version was to be titled EarthBound 64. Owing in part to the failure of the Nintendo 64DD, the game was cancelled and moved to the Nintendo 64
, but the developers continued creating an expansion of it called Mother 3.5 for the 64DD. They experienced trouble with developing its 3D engine, and as a result, it was delayed several times and ultimately cancelled. It resurfaced in a 2003 television advertisement
for Mother 1 + 2, a compilation of its predecessors; a message announced the revival of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance. Famitsu
subsequently listed the title on its "most wanted games" feature where it stayed for weeks.
Although Nintendo of America have not announced plans to localize Mother 3 into another language, a fan translation group has released a patch to translate the game into English. Electronic Gaming Monthly
's rumor section mentioned a compilation of Mother
, Mother 2
, and Mother 3 titled Mother Compilation would be made for the Nintendo DS
, possibly with an international release. However, nothing has come of this. More recently, Brownie Brown, its developer, stated that if asked by Nintendo
, they would work on a DS remake. According to Itoi, there are no plans to create a fourth Mother game, but he has not completely dismissed the idea.
A returning feature from the original Mother
(though only made available in the leaked "Earth Bound" English version and MOTHER 1+2 compliation on GBA) is the ability to dash; by holding and releasing a button the player can move more quickly, ram into breakable objects, and stun or kill weak enemies. A player may enter a battle multiple ways. Their character may enter it normally, identified by the screen turning blue, by facing the enemy's back, causing the screen to turn green, or by the enemy attacking the player from behind, identified by the screen turning red. Mother 3 allows the player to save using creatures called "Save Frogs", which are abundant and appear at various areas in the game. Currency is not available early in the game, as Nowhere Islands features a communal gift-giving
system. Currency is introduced later in the game as "Dragon
Power" (DP), which is earned from battle, with different enemies giving different amounts based on difficulty. DP is stored away after battle, requiring the player access it from the Save Frogs.
The game retains the battle system found in Mother
and EarthBound
, characterized by non-animated enemy sprites and an animated background. The player may have up to four playable characters in their group at a given time, as well as additional non-playable character(s), or NPC, that help in battle or play a role in the game. There are several kinds of statistics, which include Heart Points
, the amount of health a character has; PSI Point
s, the psychic power a character has left; Offense, which determines a character's attack power; Defense, which determines a character's defensive ability; IQ, which determines a character's PSI power and status effect defense; and Speed, which determines which character acts first. The player may also equip various items, which range from weapons, body equipment, headgear, and other kinds of equipment. The game uses a rolling health and PSI points system. Instead of a character's health or PSI being immediately drained, the health of the character will roll down over time, allowing the character to perform actions until it hits zero, including recovering from the damage. If a battle ends while a characters' health is still counting down, it will stop decreasing.
There are four main options a character can use - Attack, which varies depending on the primary weapon the fighter uses; Goods, which is used to access the items held by that character; Guard, which lowers the damage taken and slows the speed of the character's HP drop; and Run Away, which gives the player a chance to escape from battle. Another option, called PSI, is an ability only two characters possess. There are three different kinds of PSI powers - Offensive PSI, which contains attack PSI abilities; Defensive PSI, which contains protective PSI abilities; and Assist PSI, which contains abilities such as shields. Each character has a unique ability exclusive to one or two characters. Mother 3 introduces a musical combo system not found in previous titles. To use this system, the player must hit the beat
of the background music during battle, with most enemies having their own beat and/or tempo
. The player can hear this tempo by putting an enemy to sleep, allowing the player to hear its beat in the form of its "heartbeat". Certain attacks strike only one enemy, while others strike multiple ones. Randomly, the player may inflict a critical hit
on an enemy.
and fauna
, and introducing new technology and infrastructure
to the islands. The various chapters culminate in Lucas's quest
to rid the Nowhere Islands of the Pigmask Army. 1UP.com
's Jeremy Parish noted that Mother 3 had themes such as American culture, psychedelia, and rock music
like previous entries in the series.
Itoi describes the world of Mother 3 as being "macho", saying that "the good guys are strong and fight, and so do the bad guys, set up to mean might equals right." Itoi had a difficult time creating another location called the Tanehineri Islands, which included a twisted, nightmarish world caused by the characters' consumption of psilocybin mushroom
s. It features a similar vibe to Moonside, a location from EarthBound
, and is like a mirror of the player's mind, reflecting the player's worst nightmares. The temporary dialogue Itoi used for Tanehineri Island was so unpleasant that he could not stand to look at it, and tried to tone it down by rewriting it, though commenting that he still found it unpleasant. Itoi stated his worst nightmare would be his friends and family being evil, which is a recurring theme in the hallucinations that Lucas and company suffer. He stated that Tanehineri Island features a similar flavor to shows such as Twin Peaks
and Lost
. While previous titles in the series required the player to call the protagonist's father to save their game, the player must save through "Save Frogs" scattered throughout the world. He anticipated that people would complain about the change and ask why it was done, explaining that "they are tiny, they seem like they could be anywhere, and they won't get in your way, yet they do stand out. A dog wouldn't really seem like a save point."
The first location observed is Tazmily Village, known as Tatsumairi Village in Japan. It is a rural village with a communal gift-giving system. Its English name was first shown in previews of EarthBound 64
, and was later used in the PAL
version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl
, though the North American version referred to it as "Tatsumari Village". A later location, the kingdom of Osohe, is an uninhabited castle whose princess is the girl Kumatora. It is the location of a mystical item called the Hummingbird Egg. Osohe Castle, a locale in the game, was created by Itoi as a time table of sorts. He commented that no matter how correctly you portray a time period, it's easy for it to appear to be shallow, but when you dig up a fossil, you realize that it inhabited this world at one time, using the Nazca Lines
as an example. New Pork City is the final location in the game, and was featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
.
; Duster, a thief; Boney, Flint's dog; and Salsa, a performing monkey. These characters have abilities unique to them. Flint has "full power attacks", including attack and defense buffs and an attack that strikes multiple enemies; Duster is capable of using several thief tools, including Wall Staples which subdue an enemy; Salsa's technique is Dance, where he does a dance to affect the enemy's disposition
; Lucas and Kumatora's special technique is PSI; and Boney's is Sniff, which is used to detect the details of an enemy. Mother 3 features few returning characters, including Dr. Andonuts and Porky Minch, as well as the Mr. Saturns, a race of small creatures who speak in a strange dialect.
Three years later, Tazmily has been transformed into a fiercely consumerist society, with a monetary system in place for the first time. There is a Happy Box in nearly every house. Wess asks Lucas to find Duster, and he goes with his dog Boney to Club Titiboo. Right after he leaves, he meets Ionia, a member of a group of beings who are thousands of years old, known as the Magypsies, who teaches Lucas how to use PSI, revealing he can use PSI Love, being one of only two people known who could even attempt it. Kumatora is working at the club, disguised as a waitress, and the three of them convince Duster to help them find the egg. They do so, and demolish a lightning generator tower that has been destroying the homes of villagers not willing to conform to the monetary system or buy Happy Boxes. They are chased to the top of the tower by Yokuba, who slips on one of his own banana peels and falls off. They try to escape by hanging from the ladder of a Pigmask ship, but are thrown off. Lucas and Boney awaken in a field of sunflowers, where they see Hinawa's ghost. Lucas runs after her, accidentally running off the side of a cliff and onto a haystack. They meet Ionia again, who tells Lucas about the Seven Needles which seal off the gigantic "Dark Dragon" hidden under the island. Whether the world would be destroyed or created anew upon the Dragon's release depends on whether the one who pulls them is good or evil. They set off to pull as many of the needles as they can before a mysterious Masked Man transfers his evil heart onto the dragon. On the way they reunite with Kumatora and Duster, and encounter Yokuba, who has been fitted with mechanical parts after his fall.
After Lucas and the Masked Man manage to pull three needles each, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster and Boney are invited to the neon superhaven New Pork City by Master Porky, leader of the Pigmasks. The city turns out to be mostly made out of crude, childish theme park attractions and fake cardboard buildings. They find an imprisoned Leder the village's bell-ringer who speaks for the first time. He tells Lucas that there once existed a world much different from Nowhere Islands. The world wound up being destroyed by the humans who inhabited it. Before the end of the world, a white ship came to the Nowhere Islands in order to create a utopia under the Dragon's protection. They replaced the memories of the old world with the new one of Nowhere Islands to prevent them from destroying the islands as well. The Hummingbird Egg was created to store the old memories. Leder watched over the village as the only one who retained his memories, ringing a bell to keep their memories from reverting. He reveals that Porky discovered the islands by traveling through space and time
, filling his city with people taken from other eras. He learned of the white ship and the Dragon from Locria, who betrayed the Magypsies. Since Porky could not pull the Needles, he took control of someone who could. Leder urges Lucas and co. to pull the seventh needle before the Masked Man does so that the world can have another chance. On the way, Yokuba later battles them, and is defeated for the last time. They later discover that Yokuba is the final Magypsy, Locria.
On the top floor of the "Empire Porky Building," they meet Master Porky, who turns out to be an old man with the mind of a child. Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, Boney, and Flint go down to the Needle and battle Porky, even though his extensive time traveling has rendered him unable to die. Porky's machine runs out of energy, though, and he decides to encases himself in a completely impenetrable capsule. However, the capsule cannot be reopened, trapping Porky inside for eternity
. As Lucas goes to fight the Masked Man, he discovers that the Masked Man is actually Claus. Lucas fights Claus one-on-one, but cannot bring himself to hurt his brother. Hinawa's ghost tries to end the fight, eventually leading Claus to regain his memories and kill himself
in order to free his soul. After Lucas says farewell to his brother, he pulls the final Needle. The islands and Pigmask Army are destroyed and the Dragon reawakens. If the player watches the credits and presses buttons at the game's "END?" screen, they learn that the world remained safe and that the inhabitants of the islands survived; at which point the real "END" screen shows.
Shigesato Itoi
was involved in the development of all versions of Mother 3. It was originally in development for the Super Famicom
shortly after the release of EarthBound
, and was later transferred to the Nintendo 64DD
. After the 64DD proved to be a failure, the developers moved it to the Nintendo 64
. Owing to difficulties in the development, it was delayed several times and ultimately cancelled until it was re-released for the Game Boy Advance
. Shigesato Itoi announced that he currently had no plans to make a Mother 4 because of how difficult making Mother 3 was. When asked about his thoughts on a Mother 4, Shigesato Itoi responded by stating that he had no plans to make such a game, and that "this time, I'd like to be the player." He also commented that if anyone said that they would like to make Mother 4, he would tell them to "go for it".
The logo for Mother 3 is its title composed of both wood and metal. Itoi states that when things that do not match at all are attached to one another, it is unsettling. In the only novel Itoi has written, Family Fall Out, he wrote about a hearse
, which contains a "casket of both metal and wood," a contrast between organic and inorganic that "makes you feel a little weird." He calls these feelings of uneasiness and discomfort "modern feelings", describing the logo as a symbol of that, and explains his desire "to incorporate these horribly unpleasant things from the beginning." The logo has remained the same since it was revealed. While the Nintendo 64 version featured several different subtitles attached to the title, Itoi chose not to use subtitles in the Game Boy Advance version, saying that he felt providing a subtitle was too strong a message that says "I want you to look at it this way." The official tagline for Mother 3 is "WELCOME TO MOTHER3 WORLD" [sic
].
decided to convert Mother
and EarthBound
to the Game Boy Advance
(GBA), he realized there would be pressure to revive Mother 3, which he was initially opposed to. Due to encouragement from fans, however, he decided to begin the development of it on the Game Boy Advance. At the end of several television advertisement
s for Mother 1 + 2, a compilation cartridge containing the predecessors of Mother 3, a creature called Mr. Saturn announces that "We're making Mother 3 for the GBA too! Dakota!" It was later announced on a release list by Nintendo
. The GBA version was developed by Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
and Brownie Brown
, the latter a wholly owned Nintendo subsidiary formed by ex Square
members. Itoi wrote the scenario and supervised the development. It was initially proposed to Itoi to adapt the cancelled Mother 3 to a book or film, but Itoi found them both implausible, saying that the scale did not feel right. Development of the GBA version began when someone came to Itoi, asking whether it can be made into a Game Boy Advance game. Itoi had not thought about it, so he merely told him "I don't know." Itoi thought it over, and realized that he was trapped in a mindset that everything he made had to be epic and grandiose. He commented that at the time, his attitude when approaching his work is "I want to shock the world!" and "I'm going to squeeze everything I can imagine, all of my creativity into this one project." as if he were working on his magnum opus
. He came to the realization that there's a different niche he can fill, which was one of the contributing factors to choosing the Game Boy Advance. Itoi chose to use pixelated visuals over CG, saying that "flashy CG is just not an option for me", commenting that CG looks too ordinary. Itoi chose to use hiragana
over kanji
after playing Dragon Quest
while sick in bed.
Mother 3 was created with a different feel from its predecessors. When the character of Bronson is about to reveal Hinawa's death to Flint, he states "I have good news and I have bad news." Itoi stated that this uneasy line was necessary, as if the characters continued with this mood, he would not be able to introduce things such as the Oxygen Tanks, a light-hearted device. One of the themes incorporated into Mother 3 is representing the physiology of the human body, such as the Asthma Spray utilized to treat asthma attacks in Mother
. He compares the learning of PSI to menstruation
, and says that when Lucas or Kumatora, the two characters who can learn PSI, get feverish, they learn a new PSI power, which Itoi says is similar to real life, explaining that whenever he feels sluggish or exhausted, he is certain that good things will follow. A scene where Lucas learns how to use PSI from the Magypsy Ionia while in a hot springs features the character telling Lucas to "just deal with it", commenting that he approached it with an older man's perspective as opposed to a "child's heart". He also comments that children are good at picking up the general idea behind things, and that if he lives to be 90, he hopes one of those kids as a grownup comes to him and says "A long time ago, in third grade, I played MOTHER 3. I was really nervous and confused about what was going on in the hot spring in that tunnel... And that's what led me to the place I am today."
Before the release of Mother 3, Shigesato Itoi launched a section on his web site that would reveal content week-by-week, such as wallpaper, ringtones, and images of enemies featured in the game. Mother 3 was eventually released on April 20, 2006. A limited edition version of Mother 3 was sold in Japan in addition to the basic title. The "Deluxe Box" included a special edition Game Boy Micro
and a Franklin Badge.
. While the N64 version was "much, much darker", the Game Boy Advance version is more light-hearted, which Itoi attributes to becoming a good person and because he was not presented with as many confrontations back during the N64 version's development as he was during the GBA version's. Since the scenario for the final battle had been written, it had always been a confrontation between two brothers. Itoi had several choices for each line in the final battle, and had to digest each of them. He set choosing the dialogue aside until later, separating himself from his other jobs and isolating himself, concentrating on writing it. During the final battle, Hinawa's ghost appears, scolding the two boys and telling them to stop fighting, though she is harder on Lucas, because he is still alive. Itoi stated that the player feels very sorry for Claus, and that even more so than the good, the bad need to be rescued. He further states that "there's a deep meaning behind it, but they had to keep it simple because the game was written in Hiragana". He had to beg the developer Brownie Brown
to "add in the program the operations in the game perfectly enough to add the super subtle timing between lines."
and Super Smash Bros. Melee
. Shigesato Itoi stated that Sakai was given the position because he understood Mother 3 the most, given that he could not use Keiichi Suzuki or Hirokazu Tanaka, the composers for the first two games, as they were both busy with other projects. Itoi also said that given the massive amount of songs in the game, over 250, he needed someone who had a lot of time to dedicate to the project and who could focus exclusively on it. "Love Theme", the main theme of Mother 3, was composed late in the game's development; earlier in development Itoi intended to use the "Pigmask Army" theme as the main theme of the game. Itoi requested that "Love Theme" be playable on a piano with only one finger, as the "Eight Melodies" theme from Mother had gained popularity and been played in elementary schools due to its simplicity.
The MOTHER3+ soundtrack album was first released by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office on November 2, 2006, and then distributed through the iTunes Music Store on February 2, 2007, featuring an additional bonus track, "MOTHER3 – theme of LOVE". Another album of music from the game, MOTHER3i, was released on February 6, 2007 by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office in the iTunes store and other online music services. Each track of Mother3i is a combination of several tracks from the game itself, though it still does not cover all of the tracks from the game.
after it was announced. Writer Tim Rogers wrote that Mother 3 may "be the most important game of this year". It had great response from pre-orderers and was one of the top 20 best-selling games of the first half of 2006.
gave it a 10, 9, 8, and 8 out of 10. 1UP.com
's Jeremy Parish compared Mother 3 to the notoriously delayed Duke Nukem Forever
, but wrote that the delays were since Mother 3 became less technologically advanced was "deeply impressed" by its "involving, rhythm-based battle system, its charming visuals, and its moving storyline". Eurogamer
's Simon Parkin praised the storytelling; he wrote that while it "initially appears to be a straightforward tale told in primary colours", it "soon demonstrates a breadth and depth of quality that few titles many times its budget achieve". He added that its character designs, which he called "unusually Western in appearance", "communicate comedy and tragedy with unexpected impact". He compared the method of splitting chapters up between different main characters to Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, which also used this method. He felt that the gameplay was simple, but was "elegant in its simplicity" and was a "journey palatable even to genre detractors". GamerTell's Jenni Lada named it the "Second Runner-Up" for their list of must-import Game Boy Advance games. She explained that its low ranking on the list was due to it being hard to understand for those who cannot read hiragana. GamePro
s Kat Bailey attributed her continued use of her Game Boy Advance in part to Mother 3. She wrote that it "may be the GBA's best RPG". GameSpy
's Andrew Alfonso praised its "interesting and entertaining gameplay", "nice visuals", and "fast-paced gameplay", but felt that it did not "appear to be an incredibly deep game". GameSpot
's Greg Kasavin called it amusing, and wrote that it had a chance to be released in English considering Nintendo's English localizations of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
and Electroplankton
.
patch
that, when applied on a copy of the ROM image
, translates the game into English
. In an interview with UGO
.com, Reid Young, alias Reidman, co-founder of Starmen.net, stated that when they realized Nintendo was not going to localize Mother 3, they decided to undertake the task, for themselves and for fans of the game. The project took two years to complete, which included translating, writing, and revising the game text, as well as extensive hacking and testing to ensure that the game properly and correctly displays the translated text. The translation included minor deviations from the original, such as localization of place-names and puns. Few dramatic changes were made, but at least three characters were renamed: "Yokuba," loosely derived from the word "欲" (yoku), which is Japanese for "greed", was replaced with "Fassad", loosely derived from the French word "façade
" and, incidentally, the word "فساد" (fasād), which is Arabic for "corruption". Also, "Yoshi-Koshi" and "Tamekichi," Kumatora and Duster's aliases at Club Titiboo, were replaced with "Violet" and "Lucky," respectively. In Mother 3, if one names Kumatora and Duster "Yoshi-Koshi" and "Tamekichi," their aliases in Club Titiboo are different. At least two locations were renamed as well; the Telly Forest, renamed the Sunshine Forest, and Tanehineri Island, renamed Tanetane Island. The translation patch received over 100,000 downloads from the web site in the first week of its release. The lead translator, Clyde Mandelin
, alias "Tomato", expected that the patch would be downloaded a few thousand times, and called its reception a "pleasant surprise." He commented that one of the biggest hurdles in hacking the game was the "sprite text"-heavy naming screen. Owing to CPU problems, a split-second graphical glitch occurs after the player confirms his or her name choices and before the main gameplay begins. Mandelin worried about the impression this glitch would make on players, speculating that people playing for the first time would think that the glitch reflected on a poor overall hacking job for the game as a whole.
Tomato stated in an interview with Simon Parkin of Gamasutra
that he knew that this translation was not completely legal and that if Nintendo objected, he would have stopped the translation immediately. The team has also stated the same in their project FAQ. The industry response has been quite positive; Tomato has received e-mails from video game industry professionals expressing their gratitude for his efforts, sometimes even offering to buy him drinks. While Nintendo has not provided an official comment on the translation, employees of Nintendo and Square Enix
have expressed excitement for the project. Other localizations are currently in development by the translation team, including Spanish
, Portuguese
, French
, Italian
, Dutch
, German
, and Malay
.
Eurogamer's Simon Parkin wrote that the translation was full of "wit and vim". GamerTell's Jenni Lada called it "undoubtedly one of the best known fan translations in existance[sic]" She added that "it's one of the few translation projects where even people in the game industry were happy and didn’t object".
was also affected by this. GamesRadar
's David Houghton jokingly included Mother 3 in its list of the most "hideous mums" due to its lack of an English release. GamePro
s Jeremy Signor inluded it in his list of the 14 best Japanese role-playing games. He praised Brownie Brown for being "able to pack a lot of emotion and characterization into these simple-yet-detailed sprites". GameSpy's Jonti Davies included it in his list of video games that are "stuck in Japan".
for the Wii
. Players could control Lucas, who was originally going to be featured in Brawls predecessor Super Smash Bros. Melee
. It also featured a location from Mother 3, New Pork City, and its primary antagonist, Porky, as a boss. In the DSiWare game, A Kappa's Trail (developed by Brownie Brown), a Pigmask is playable, and there are many Mother 3 references.
was created by Enterbrain
called "Mother 3 Perfect Guide" on June 8, 2006. An unofficial Mother 3 strategy guide was created by the fan translation team that localized Mother 3 into English, illustrated using clay models and hand-drawn designs of characters, enemies, items, and other things found in Mother 3. It also included a fan-made Courage Badge key chain as a preorder bonus. The clay models were created by Camille Young, the wife of Fangamer head Reid Young. The book was well-received; UGO Networks' Russ Frushtick and Chris Plante listed it on their list of "things every gamer should own", and praised the creators for their devotion.
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
developed by Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, Brownie Brown
Brownie Brown
is a Japanese Nintendo-funded and owned video game development studio opened on June 30, 2000 and based in Tokyo, Japan.- History :The company consists of many ex-Square Co., Ltd. 2D artists. At least two of its founders had previously worked on the award-winning Mana series on the Game Boy and...
and HAL Laboratory
HAL Laboratory
is a Japanese video game developer that was founded on February 21, 1980. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its name comes from the HAL 9000 computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The company is most famous for its character Kirby, the protagonist of the eponymous game series, as well as...
, and published for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
handheld game console
Handheld game console
A handheld game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are run on machines of small size allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place...
. It has only been released in Japan, alongside a limited supply bundle. It is the third video game in the Mother series, following EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
for the Super Nintendo
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
12 years earlier. It was written by Shigesato Itoi
Shigesato Itoi
is one of the most influential cultural figures in Japan, known for his copywriting, essays, lyrics, Nintendo game creation, and as editor-in-chief of his popular website “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun.” He is best known outside of Japan as a game designer for his work on Nintendo's EarthBound...
, the creator of the series, and directed by Nobuyuki Inoue
Nobuyuki Inoue
is a video game developer, and the chief director of Brownie Brown. He first became a developer when he took a job with Square as a debugger on the Game Boy game Final Fantasy Legend II. He first did work as a scenario designer in the Super Famicom game Live a Live...
. The music was composed by Shogo Sakai, whom Itoi chose to succeed long-time series composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka
Hirokazu Tanaka
is a Japanese composer and musician, best known for his scores for various video games produced by Nintendo. He is also the current President of Creatures, Inc.-Video game soundtracks:*Radar Scope *Space Firebird...
; neither were available to work on the project.
Mother 3 is a loose sequel to EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
. It takes place on the "Nowhere Islands", a series of islands on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, and stars several characters, including Lucas, a young boy; Flint, a farmer and the father of Lucas and his older twin brother, Claus; Duster, a thief; Kumatora, a princess; Salsa, a monkey; and Boney, Flint's dog. The primary antagonist is the mysterious Pigmask Army, an army of people who wear pig-like uniforms, who suddenly invades the islands, subjugating its population. They create a variety of technologies, including Chimera
Chimera (genetics)
A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction. If the different cells have emerged from the same zygote, the organism is called a mosaic...
s, creatures that consist of either multiple animals or machine-animal hybrids. The game switches perspectives between the main characters during several chapters.
Mother 3 was originally developed for the Super Famicom
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
in 1994, but was moved to the Nintendo 64DD
Nintendo 64DD
The is a peripheral for the Nintendo 64 game console. It plugged into the N64 through the EXTension Port on the Nintendo 64's underside, and allowed the N64 to use proprietary 64 MB magneto-optical discs for expanded data storage...
; the English version was to be titled EarthBound 64. Owing in part to the failure of the Nintendo 64DD, the game was cancelled and moved to the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
, but the developers continued creating an expansion of it called Mother 3.5 for the 64DD. They experienced trouble with developing its 3D engine, and as a result, it was delayed several times and ultimately cancelled. It resurfaced in a 2003 television advertisement
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
for Mother 1 + 2, a compilation of its predecessors; a message announced the revival of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance. Famitsu
Famitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
subsequently listed the title on its "most wanted games" feature where it stayed for weeks.
Although Nintendo of America have not announced plans to localize Mother 3 into another language, a fan translation group has released a patch to translate the game into English. Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Electronic Gaming Monthly is a bimonthly American video game magazine. It has been published by EGM Media, LLC. since relaunching in April of 2010. Its previous run, which ended in January 2009, was published by Ziff Davis...
's rumor section mentioned a compilation of Mother
Mother (video game)
, planned to be released in English as Earth Bound , is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in...
, Mother 2
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
, and Mother 3 titled Mother Compilation would be made for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, possibly with an international release. However, nothing has come of this. More recently, Brownie Brown, its developer, stated that if asked by Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, they would work on a DS remake. According to Itoi, there are no plans to create a fourth Mother game, but he has not completely dismissed the idea.
Gameplay
Mother (video game)
, planned to be released in English as Earth Bound , is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in...
(though only made available in the leaked "Earth Bound" English version and MOTHER 1+2 compliation on GBA) is the ability to dash; by holding and releasing a button the player can move more quickly, ram into breakable objects, and stun or kill weak enemies. A player may enter a battle multiple ways. Their character may enter it normally, identified by the screen turning blue, by facing the enemy's back, causing the screen to turn green, or by the enemy attacking the player from behind, identified by the screen turning red. Mother 3 allows the player to save using creatures called "Save Frogs", which are abundant and appear at various areas in the game. Currency is not available early in the game, as Nowhere Islands features a communal gift-giving
Gift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
system. Currency is introduced later in the game as "Dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
Power" (DP), which is earned from battle, with different enemies giving different amounts based on difficulty. DP is stored away after battle, requiring the player access it from the Save Frogs.
The game retains the battle system found in Mother
Mother (video game)
, planned to be released in English as Earth Bound , is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in...
and EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
, characterized by non-animated enemy sprites and an animated background. The player may have up to four playable characters in their group at a given time, as well as additional non-playable character(s), or NPC, that help in battle or play a role in the game. There are several kinds of statistics, which include Heart Points
Health (gaming)
Health is a game mechanic used in role-playing, computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar....
, the amount of health a character has; PSI Point
Magic point
Magic points are units of magical power that are used in many role-playing, computer role-playing and similar games as an expendable resource that is needed to pay for magic spells and other abilities, such as special attacks...
s, the psychic power a character has left; Offense, which determines a character's attack power; Defense, which determines a character's defensive ability; IQ, which determines a character's PSI power and status effect defense; and Speed, which determines which character acts first. The player may also equip various items, which range from weapons, body equipment, headgear, and other kinds of equipment. The game uses a rolling health and PSI points system. Instead of a character's health or PSI being immediately drained, the health of the character will roll down over time, allowing the character to perform actions until it hits zero, including recovering from the damage. If a battle ends while a characters' health is still counting down, it will stop decreasing.
There are four main options a character can use - Attack, which varies depending on the primary weapon the fighter uses; Goods, which is used to access the items held by that character; Guard, which lowers the damage taken and slows the speed of the character's HP drop; and Run Away, which gives the player a chance to escape from battle. Another option, called PSI, is an ability only two characters possess. There are three different kinds of PSI powers - Offensive PSI, which contains attack PSI abilities; Defensive PSI, which contains protective PSI abilities; and Assist PSI, which contains abilities such as shields. Each character has a unique ability exclusive to one or two characters. Mother 3 introduces a musical combo system not found in previous titles. To use this system, the player must hit the beat
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
of the background music during battle, with most enemies having their own beat and/or tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
. The player can hear this tempo by putting an enemy to sleep, allowing the player to hear its beat in the form of its "heartbeat". Certain attacks strike only one enemy, while others strike multiple ones. Randomly, the player may inflict a critical hit
Critical hit
In many role-playing games and video games, a critical hit is a successful attack that deals more damage than a normal blow.-Origin:The 1975 role-playing game Empire of the Petal Throne introduced the concept of critical hits...
on an enemy.
Setting
Mother 3 is set in the Nowhere Islands, in an unknown time period. Chaos ensues after an invasion by the Pigmask Army, named after the uniforms, which resemble pigs, and its leader "King Porky" who came from a different timeline. They slowly construct a police state, while experimenting on the land's floraFlora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
and fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
, and introducing new technology and infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
to the islands. The various chapters culminate in Lucas's quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
to rid the Nowhere Islands of the Pigmask Army. 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
's Jeremy Parish noted that Mother 3 had themes such as American culture, psychedelia, and rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
like previous entries in the series.
Itoi describes the world of Mother 3 as being "macho", saying that "the good guys are strong and fight, and so do the bad guys, set up to mean might equals right." Itoi had a difficult time creating another location called the Tanehineri Islands, which included a twisted, nightmarish world caused by the characters' consumption of psilocybin mushroom
Psilocybin mushroom
Psilocybin mushrooms are fungi that contain the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and psilocin. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being shrooms or magic mushrooms....
s. It features a similar vibe to Moonside, a location from EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
, and is like a mirror of the player's mind, reflecting the player's worst nightmares. The temporary dialogue Itoi used for Tanehineri Island was so unpleasant that he could not stand to look at it, and tried to tone it down by rewriting it, though commenting that he still found it unpleasant. Itoi stated his worst nightmare would be his friends and family being evil, which is a recurring theme in the hallucinations that Lucas and company suffer. He stated that Tanehineri Island features a similar flavor to shows such as Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
and Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. While previous titles in the series required the player to call the protagonist's father to save their game, the player must save through "Save Frogs" scattered throughout the world. He anticipated that people would complain about the change and ask why it was done, explaining that "they are tiny, they seem like they could be anywhere, and they won't get in your way, yet they do stand out. A dog wouldn't really seem like a save point."
The first location observed is Tazmily Village, known as Tatsumairi Village in Japan. It is a rural village with a communal gift-giving system. Its English name was first shown in previews of EarthBound 64
EarthBound 64
EarthBound 64, officially known as Mother 3 , is a cancelled role-playing video game that was in development by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo 64DD. It was later transferred to the Nintendo 64 after the Nintendo 64DD proved to be unsuccessful. The game adopted several subtitles in...
, and was later used in the PAL
PAL region
The PAL region is a television publication territory which covers most of Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe...
version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBB or simply as Brawl, is the third installment in the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, developed by an ad hoc development team consisting of Sora, Game Arts and staff from other developers, and published by...
, though the North American version referred to it as "Tatsumari Village". A later location, the kingdom of Osohe, is an uninhabited castle whose princess is the girl Kumatora. It is the location of a mystical item called the Hummingbird Egg. Osohe Castle, a locale in the game, was created by Itoi as a time table of sorts. He commented that no matter how correctly you portray a time period, it's easy for it to appear to be shallow, but when you dig up a fossil, you realize that it inhabited this world at one time, using the Nazca Lines
Nazca Lines
The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima...
as an example. New Pork City is the final location in the game, and was featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBB or simply as Brawl, is the third installment in the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, developed by an ad hoc development team consisting of Sora, Game Arts and staff from other developers, and published by...
.
Characters
There are six main characters in Mother 3, which often switches perspectives between them. The characters include Lucas, a young boy; Flint, a livestock farmer and father of Lucas and his brother Claus; Kumatora, a PrincessPrincess
Princess is the feminine form of prince . Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or his daughters....
; Duster, a thief; Boney, Flint's dog; and Salsa, a performing monkey. These characters have abilities unique to them. Flint has "full power attacks", including attack and defense buffs and an attack that strikes multiple enemies; Duster is capable of using several thief tools, including Wall Staples which subdue an enemy; Salsa's technique is Dance, where he does a dance to affect the enemy's disposition
Disposition
A disposition is a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind but not currently being considered, and in the latter case, to a belief that is...
; Lucas and Kumatora's special technique is PSI; and Boney's is Sniff, which is used to detect the details of an enemy. Mother 3 features few returning characters, including Dr. Andonuts and Porky Minch, as well as the Mr. Saturns, a race of small creatures who speak in a strange dialect.
Story
The game starts with Hinawa leaving her home in Tazmily Village to visit her father Alec, along with her two children Lucas and Claus. After a few days Hinawa and her children start their walk back home just as a mysterious group of uniformed men wearing pig masks invade the forest nearby. On the trip home, the trees of the forest suddenly set off in a fury of flames. Hinawa is killed by a mecha version of a friendly reptilian creature called a Drago as she boldly protects the lives of her sons. The Pigmasks have cruelly used the once-friendly creature as a guinea pig for cybernetic tests, warping it into a mindless killing machine. When Hinawa's husband, Flint, finds out, he becomes consumed with rage and sadness, taking out his anger out by attacking the other villagers. He is knocked unconscious and arrested. The next day, Claus goes to Flint in jail, giving him a tool to escape and promising he will avenge his mother's death. Flint finds out from Lucas that Claus plans to keep true to his words and has indeed gone after the Mecha-Drago. Flint, determined to save his son, goes to the peak where the Dragos live. Along the way, he encounters a baby Drago, and realizes that killing its parent will orphan it. Flint spares its life, but fails to find Claus. Soon after, thief-in-training Duster goes with his father, Wess, to retrieve the Hummingbird's Egg from Osohe Castle. They meet Kumatora, the princess of Osohe Castle, and find the egg. However, it is booby trapped, and the trio are sent into the castle's sewer system. Kumatora and Wess wash up on a sandbank, but Duster goes missing, losing his memory and eventually becoming the bass player for a popular band that performs at the nearby Club Titiboo. He hides the egg in the process, not knowing what it is. Meanwhile, a banana-loving man named Yokuba starts to sell enigmatic "Happy Boxes" to the villagers.Three years later, Tazmily has been transformed into a fiercely consumerist society, with a monetary system in place for the first time. There is a Happy Box in nearly every house. Wess asks Lucas to find Duster, and he goes with his dog Boney to Club Titiboo. Right after he leaves, he meets Ionia, a member of a group of beings who are thousands of years old, known as the Magypsies, who teaches Lucas how to use PSI, revealing he can use PSI Love, being one of only two people known who could even attempt it. Kumatora is working at the club, disguised as a waitress, and the three of them convince Duster to help them find the egg. They do so, and demolish a lightning generator tower that has been destroying the homes of villagers not willing to conform to the monetary system or buy Happy Boxes. They are chased to the top of the tower by Yokuba, who slips on one of his own banana peels and falls off. They try to escape by hanging from the ladder of a Pigmask ship, but are thrown off. Lucas and Boney awaken in a field of sunflowers, where they see Hinawa's ghost. Lucas runs after her, accidentally running off the side of a cliff and onto a haystack. They meet Ionia again, who tells Lucas about the Seven Needles which seal off the gigantic "Dark Dragon" hidden under the island. Whether the world would be destroyed or created anew upon the Dragon's release depends on whether the one who pulls them is good or evil. They set off to pull as many of the needles as they can before a mysterious Masked Man transfers his evil heart onto the dragon. On the way they reunite with Kumatora and Duster, and encounter Yokuba, who has been fitted with mechanical parts after his fall.
After Lucas and the Masked Man manage to pull three needles each, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster and Boney are invited to the neon superhaven New Pork City by Master Porky, leader of the Pigmasks. The city turns out to be mostly made out of crude, childish theme park attractions and fake cardboard buildings. They find an imprisoned Leder the village's bell-ringer who speaks for the first time. He tells Lucas that there once existed a world much different from Nowhere Islands. The world wound up being destroyed by the humans who inhabited it. Before the end of the world, a white ship came to the Nowhere Islands in order to create a utopia under the Dragon's protection. They replaced the memories of the old world with the new one of Nowhere Islands to prevent them from destroying the islands as well. The Hummingbird Egg was created to store the old memories. Leder watched over the village as the only one who retained his memories, ringing a bell to keep their memories from reverting. He reveals that Porky discovered the islands by traveling through space and time
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
, filling his city with people taken from other eras. He learned of the white ship and the Dragon from Locria, who betrayed the Magypsies. Since Porky could not pull the Needles, he took control of someone who could. Leder urges Lucas and co. to pull the seventh needle before the Masked Man does so that the world can have another chance. On the way, Yokuba later battles them, and is defeated for the last time. They later discover that Yokuba is the final Magypsy, Locria.
On the top floor of the "Empire Porky Building," they meet Master Porky, who turns out to be an old man with the mind of a child. Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, Boney, and Flint go down to the Needle and battle Porky, even though his extensive time traveling has rendered him unable to die. Porky's machine runs out of energy, though, and he decides to encases himself in a completely impenetrable capsule. However, the capsule cannot be reopened, trapping Porky inside for eternity
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
. As Lucas goes to fight the Masked Man, he discovers that the Masked Man is actually Claus. Lucas fights Claus one-on-one, but cannot bring himself to hurt his brother. Hinawa's ghost tries to end the fight, eventually leading Claus to regain his memories and kill himself
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in order to free his soul. After Lucas says farewell to his brother, he pulls the final Needle. The islands and Pigmask Army are destroyed and the Dragon reawakens. If the player watches the credits and presses buttons at the game's "END?" screen, they learn that the world remained safe and that the inhabitants of the islands survived; at which point the real "END" screen shows.
Development
Shigesato Itoi
is one of the most influential cultural figures in Japan, known for his copywriting, essays, lyrics, Nintendo game creation, and as editor-in-chief of his popular website “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun.” He is best known outside of Japan as a game designer for his work on Nintendo's EarthBound...
was involved in the development of all versions of Mother 3. It was originally in development for the Super Famicom
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
shortly after the release of EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
, and was later transferred to the Nintendo 64DD
Nintendo 64DD
The is a peripheral for the Nintendo 64 game console. It plugged into the N64 through the EXTension Port on the Nintendo 64's underside, and allowed the N64 to use proprietary 64 MB magneto-optical discs for expanded data storage...
. After the 64DD proved to be a failure, the developers moved it to the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
. Owing to difficulties in the development, it was delayed several times and ultimately cancelled until it was re-released for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
. Shigesato Itoi announced that he currently had no plans to make a Mother 4 because of how difficult making Mother 3 was. When asked about his thoughts on a Mother 4, Shigesato Itoi responded by stating that he had no plans to make such a game, and that "this time, I'd like to be the player." He also commented that if anyone said that they would like to make Mother 4, he would tell them to "go for it".
The logo for Mother 3 is its title composed of both wood and metal. Itoi states that when things that do not match at all are attached to one another, it is unsettling. In the only novel Itoi has written, Family Fall Out, he wrote about a hearse
Hearse
A hearse is a funerary vehicle used to carry a coffin from a church or funeral home to a cemetery. In the funeral trade, hearses are often called funeral coaches.-History:...
, which contains a "casket of both metal and wood," a contrast between organic and inorganic that "makes you feel a little weird." He calls these feelings of uneasiness and discomfort "modern feelings", describing the logo as a symbol of that, and explains his desire "to incorporate these horribly unpleasant things from the beginning." The logo has remained the same since it was revealed. While the Nintendo 64 version featured several different subtitles attached to the title, Itoi chose not to use subtitles in the Game Boy Advance version, saying that he felt providing a subtitle was too strong a message that says "I want you to look at it this way." The official tagline for Mother 3 is "WELCOME TO MOTHER3 WORLD" [sic
Sic
Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...
].
Game Boy Advance version
When Shigesato ItoiShigesato Itoi
is one of the most influential cultural figures in Japan, known for his copywriting, essays, lyrics, Nintendo game creation, and as editor-in-chief of his popular website “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun.” He is best known outside of Japan as a game designer for his work on Nintendo's EarthBound...
decided to convert Mother
Mother (video game)
, planned to be released in English as Earth Bound , is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in...
and EarthBound
EarthBound
EarthBound, also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! and released as in Japan, is a role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console...
to the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
(GBA), he realized there would be pressure to revive Mother 3, which he was initially opposed to. Due to encouragement from fans, however, he decided to begin the development of it on the Game Boy Advance. At the end of several television advertisement
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
s for Mother 1 + 2, a compilation cartridge containing the predecessors of Mother 3, a creature called Mr. Saturn announces that "We're making Mother 3 for the GBA too! Dakota!" It was later announced on a release list by Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
. The GBA version was developed by Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
HAL Laboratory
is a Japanese video game developer that was founded on February 21, 1980. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its name comes from the HAL 9000 computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The company is most famous for its character Kirby, the protagonist of the eponymous game series, as well as...
and Brownie Brown
Brownie Brown
is a Japanese Nintendo-funded and owned video game development studio opened on June 30, 2000 and based in Tokyo, Japan.- History :The company consists of many ex-Square Co., Ltd. 2D artists. At least two of its founders had previously worked on the award-winning Mana series on the Game Boy and...
, the latter a wholly owned Nintendo subsidiary formed by ex Square
Square (company)
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
members. Itoi wrote the scenario and supervised the development. It was initially proposed to Itoi to adapt the cancelled Mother 3 to a book or film, but Itoi found them both implausible, saying that the scale did not feel right. Development of the GBA version began when someone came to Itoi, asking whether it can be made into a Game Boy Advance game. Itoi had not thought about it, so he merely told him "I don't know." Itoi thought it over, and realized that he was trapped in a mindset that everything he made had to be epic and grandiose. He commented that at the time, his attitude when approaching his work is "I want to shock the world!" and "I'm going to squeeze everything I can imagine, all of my creativity into this one project." as if he were working on his magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
. He came to the realization that there's a different niche he can fill, which was one of the contributing factors to choosing the Game Boy Advance. Itoi chose to use pixelated visuals over CG, saying that "flashy CG is just not an option for me", commenting that CG looks too ordinary. Itoi chose to use hiragana
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
over kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
after playing Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest
, published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005,Due to the inconsistent usage by sources since Square Enix obtained the naming rights to Dragon Quest in North America. Dragon Quest has been used by sources to refer to games released solely under the Dragon Warrior titles...
while sick in bed.
Mother 3 was created with a different feel from its predecessors. When the character of Bronson is about to reveal Hinawa's death to Flint, he states "I have good news and I have bad news." Itoi stated that this uneasy line was necessary, as if the characters continued with this mood, he would not be able to introduce things such as the Oxygen Tanks, a light-hearted device. One of the themes incorporated into Mother 3 is representing the physiology of the human body, such as the Asthma Spray utilized to treat asthma attacks in Mother
Mother (video game)
, planned to be released in English as Earth Bound , is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in...
. He compares the learning of PSI to menstruation
Menstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
, and says that when Lucas or Kumatora, the two characters who can learn PSI, get feverish, they learn a new PSI power, which Itoi says is similar to real life, explaining that whenever he feels sluggish or exhausted, he is certain that good things will follow. A scene where Lucas learns how to use PSI from the Magypsy Ionia while in a hot springs features the character telling Lucas to "just deal with it", commenting that he approached it with an older man's perspective as opposed to a "child's heart". He also comments that children are good at picking up the general idea behind things, and that if he lives to be 90, he hopes one of those kids as a grownup comes to him and says "A long time ago, in third grade, I played MOTHER 3. I was really nervous and confused about what was going on in the hot spring in that tunnel... And that's what led me to the place I am today."
Before the release of Mother 3, Shigesato Itoi launched a section on his web site that would reveal content week-by-week, such as wallpaper, ringtones, and images of enemies featured in the game. Mother 3 was eventually released on April 20, 2006. A limited edition version of Mother 3 was sold in Japan in addition to the basic title. The "Deluxe Box" included a special edition Game Boy Micro
Game Boy Micro
is a handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in September 2005 in the market. The system is the last console of the Game Boy line...
and a Franklin Badge.
Final battle
The scenario between Lucas and Claus was written for the Nintendo 64 version while Itoi was in SaipanSaipan
Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...
. While the N64 version was "much, much darker", the Game Boy Advance version is more light-hearted, which Itoi attributes to becoming a good person and because he was not presented with as many confrontations back during the N64 version's development as he was during the GBA version's. Since the scenario for the final battle had been written, it had always been a confrontation between two brothers. Itoi had several choices for each line in the final battle, and had to digest each of them. He set choosing the dialogue aside until later, separating himself from his other jobs and isolating himself, concentrating on writing it. During the final battle, Hinawa's ghost appears, scolding the two boys and telling them to stop fighting, though she is harder on Lucas, because he is still alive. Itoi stated that the player feels very sorry for Claus, and that even more so than the good, the bad need to be rescued. He further states that "there's a deep meaning behind it, but they had to keep it simple because the game was written in Hiragana". He had to beg the developer Brownie Brown
Brownie Brown
is a Japanese Nintendo-funded and owned video game development studio opened on June 30, 2000 and based in Tokyo, Japan.- History :The company consists of many ex-Square Co., Ltd. 2D artists. At least two of its founders had previously worked on the award-winning Mana series on the Game Boy and...
to "add in the program the operations in the game perfectly enough to add the super subtle timing between lines."
Soundtrack
The music for the game was composed exclusively by Shogo Sakai; he had previously composed music for several games such as Virtua Fighter 2Virtua Fighter 2
is a fighting game developed by Sega. It is the sequel to Virtua Fighter and the second game in the Virtua Fighter series. It was created by the Sega's Yu Suzuki-headed AM2 and was released in the arcade in 1994. It was subsequently ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Microsoft Windows in 1997...
and Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Melee, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBM or simply as Melee, is a crossover fighting game released for the Nintendo GameCube shortly after its launch in . It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 game Super Smash Bros., and the predecessor to the Wii game Super Smash...
. Shigesato Itoi stated that Sakai was given the position because he understood Mother 3 the most, given that he could not use Keiichi Suzuki or Hirokazu Tanaka, the composers for the first two games, as they were both busy with other projects. Itoi also said that given the massive amount of songs in the game, over 250, he needed someone who had a lot of time to dedicate to the project and who could focus exclusively on it. "Love Theme", the main theme of Mother 3, was composed late in the game's development; earlier in development Itoi intended to use the "Pigmask Army" theme as the main theme of the game. Itoi requested that "Love Theme" be playable on a piano with only one finger, as the "Eight Melodies" theme from Mother had gained popularity and been played in elementary schools due to its simplicity.
The MOTHER3+ soundtrack album was first released by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office on November 2, 2006, and then distributed through the iTunes Music Store on February 2, 2007, featuring an additional bonus track, "MOTHER3 – theme of LOVE". Another album of music from the game, MOTHER3i, was released on February 6, 2007 by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office in the iTunes store and other online music services. Each track of Mother3i is a combination of several tracks from the game itself, though it still does not cover all of the tracks from the game.
Pre-release and release
It appeared on the top five most-wanted list in FamitsuFamitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
after it was announced. Writer Tim Rogers wrote that Mother 3 may "be the most important game of this year". It had great response from pre-orderers and was one of the top 20 best-selling games of the first half of 2006.
Critical response
Four editors for FamitsuFamitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
gave it a 10, 9, 8, and 8 out of 10. 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
's Jeremy Parish compared Mother 3 to the notoriously delayed Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by 3D Realms and Triptych Games and finished by Gearbox Software and Piranha Games...
, but wrote that the delays were since Mother 3 became less technologically advanced was "deeply impressed" by its "involving, rhythm-based battle system, its charming visuals, and its moving storyline". Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
's Simon Parkin praised the storytelling; he wrote that while it "initially appears to be a straightforward tale told in primary colours", it "soon demonstrates a breadth and depth of quality that few titles many times its budget achieve". He added that its character designs, which he called "unusually Western in appearance", "communicate comedy and tragedy with unexpected impact". He compared the method of splitting chapters up between different main characters to Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, which also used this method. He felt that the gameplay was simple, but was "elegant in its simplicity" and was a "journey palatable even to genre detractors". GamerTell's Jenni Lada named it the "Second Runner-Up" for their list of must-import Game Boy Advance games. She explained that its low ranking on the list was due to it being hard to understand for those who cannot read hiragana. GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
s Kat Bailey attributed her continued use of her Game Boy Advance in part to Mother 3. She wrote that it "may be the GBA's best RPG". GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
's Andrew Alfonso praised its "interesting and entertaining gameplay", "nice visuals", and "fast-paced gameplay", but felt that it did not "appear to be an incredibly deep game". GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's Greg Kasavin called it amusing, and wrote that it had a chance to be released in English considering Nintendo's English localizations of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, also known as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? in PAL regions, is an entertainment video game that employs puzzles. It was developed and published by the video gaming company Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console...
and Electroplankton
Electroplankton
Electroplankton is an interactive music video game developed by Toshio Iwai and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North America and Europe. This game allows the player to interact with animated plankton...
.
Fan translation
On October 17, 2008, Starmen.net released a fan translationFan translation
A fan translation, in video gaming, refers to an unofficial translation of a computer game or video game.The fan translation practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s. A community of people developed that were interested in replaying and modifying the games they...
patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
that, when applied on a copy of the ROM image
ROM image
A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's main board...
, translates the game into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. In an interview with UGO
UGO
UGO Entertainment, Inc. is a website providing coverage of online media in entertainment targeting males age 18–34. The company is currently based in New York, New York, United States. On July 24, 2007 it was announced that Hearst Corporation would acquire UGO Entertainment...
.com, Reid Young, alias Reidman, co-founder of Starmen.net, stated that when they realized Nintendo was not going to localize Mother 3, they decided to undertake the task, for themselves and for fans of the game. The project took two years to complete, which included translating, writing, and revising the game text, as well as extensive hacking and testing to ensure that the game properly and correctly displays the translated text. The translation included minor deviations from the original, such as localization of place-names and puns. Few dramatic changes were made, but at least three characters were renamed: "Yokuba," loosely derived from the word "欲" (yoku), which is Japanese for "greed", was replaced with "Fassad", loosely derived from the French word "façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
" and, incidentally, the word "فساد" (fasād), which is Arabic for "corruption". Also, "Yoshi-Koshi" and "Tamekichi," Kumatora and Duster's aliases at Club Titiboo, were replaced with "Violet" and "Lucky," respectively. In Mother 3, if one names Kumatora and Duster "Yoshi-Koshi" and "Tamekichi," their aliases in Club Titiboo are different. At least two locations were renamed as well; the Telly Forest, renamed the Sunshine Forest, and Tanehineri Island, renamed Tanetane Island. The translation patch received over 100,000 downloads from the web site in the first week of its release. The lead translator, Clyde Mandelin
Clyde Mandelin
Clyde D. Mandelin is a professional Japanese-to-English translator. He works for the anime distributor Funimation Entertainment and the video game localization agency Babel Media...
, alias "Tomato", expected that the patch would be downloaded a few thousand times, and called its reception a "pleasant surprise." He commented that one of the biggest hurdles in hacking the game was the "sprite text"-heavy naming screen. Owing to CPU problems, a split-second graphical glitch occurs after the player confirms his or her name choices and before the main gameplay begins. Mandelin worried about the impression this glitch would make on players, speculating that people playing for the first time would think that the glitch reflected on a poor overall hacking job for the game as a whole.
Tomato stated in an interview with Simon Parkin of Gamasutra
Gamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
that he knew that this translation was not completely legal and that if Nintendo objected, he would have stopped the translation immediately. The team has also stated the same in their project FAQ. The industry response has been quite positive; Tomato has received e-mails from video game industry professionals expressing their gratitude for his efforts, sometimes even offering to buy him drinks. While Nintendo has not provided an official comment on the translation, employees of Nintendo and Square Enix
Square Enix
is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...
have expressed excitement for the project. Other localizations are currently in development by the translation team, including Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
.
Eurogamer's Simon Parkin wrote that the translation was full of "wit and vim". GamerTell's Jenni Lada called it "undoubtedly one of the best known fan translations in existance[sic]" She added that "it's one of the few translation projects where even people in the game industry were happy and didn’t object".
Demand for an international release
1UP.com's Jeremy Parish wrote that the lack of an international release was due to the poor timing of its release at the end of the Game Boy Advance's life and that Rhythm TengokuRhythm Tengoku
is a music video game developed by Nintendo SPD. It was released in Japan on August 3, 2006, and was the last game developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. The game received an Excellence Prize for Entertainment at the 10th annual Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006...
was also affected by this. GamesRadar
GamesRadar
GamesRadar is a multi-format video game website featuring regular news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides. It is owned and operated simultaneously in the UK and US by worldwide publisher Future Publishing...
's David Houghton jokingly included Mother 3 in its list of the most "hideous mums" due to its lack of an English release. GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
s Jeremy Signor inluded it in his list of the 14 best Japanese role-playing games. He praised Brownie Brown for being "able to pack a lot of emotion and characterization into these simple-yet-detailed sprites". GameSpy's Jonti Davies included it in his list of video games that are "stuck in Japan".
In other media
Several elements from Mother 3 were featured in Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBB or simply as Brawl, is the third installment in the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, developed by an ad hoc development team consisting of Sora, Game Arts and staff from other developers, and published by...
for the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
. Players could control Lucas, who was originally going to be featured in Brawls predecessor Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Melee, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBM or simply as Melee, is a crossover fighting game released for the Nintendo GameCube shortly after its launch in . It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 game Super Smash Bros., and the predecessor to the Wii game Super Smash...
. It also featured a location from Mother 3, New Pork City, and its primary antagonist, Porky, as a boss. In the DSiWare game, A Kappa's Trail (developed by Brownie Brown), a Pigmask is playable, and there are many Mother 3 references.
Merchandise
Since the announcement of EarthBound 64, Nintendo and other organizations have produced pieces of Mother 3 merchandise. A strategy guideStrategy guide
Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games. The line between strategy guides and walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in...
was created by Enterbrain
Enterbrain
is a Japanese magazine publisher established on April 1, 2000. Enterbrain magazines are generally focused on video games and computer entertainment as well as video game and strategy guides. In addition, the company publishes a small selection of anime artbooks. Enterbrain is based in Tokyo, Japan...
called "Mother 3 Perfect Guide" on June 8, 2006. An unofficial Mother 3 strategy guide was created by the fan translation team that localized Mother 3 into English, illustrated using clay models and hand-drawn designs of characters, enemies, items, and other things found in Mother 3. It also included a fan-made Courage Badge key chain as a preorder bonus. The clay models were created by Camille Young, the wife of Fangamer head Reid Young. The book was well-received; UGO Networks' Russ Frushtick and Chris Plante listed it on their list of "things every gamer should own", and praised the creators for their devotion.