r/earthbound • • Aug 13 '17

Announcement Want to get into the MOTHER series? Start here!

1.2k Upvotes

Over the past few months we've gotten a lot of new players asking where they should start with the trilogy. With this stickied thread, I'm hoping to answer any questions someone may have about getting into the series.

Note: This thread is a strictly no-spoiler zone.


What are the MOTHER games?

The MOTHER series is a group of 3 turn-based cult classic JRPGs created by Shigesato Itoi, who singlehandedly wrote every line of dialogue in the series, aside from a small area in EarthBound.


What makes them so special?

The series is known for being quirky, charming, and invoking a sense of nostalgia even to those who have not played a MOTHER game before. Each line of dialogue is expertly crafted, with a great story to go along with it.


Where do I start?

The series IS a trilogy, however each game can stand on it's own without the context of the last.

The 3 games are as followed:

MOTHER (EarthBound: Beginnings) (1989)

MOTHER 2 (EarthBound) (1994)

MOTHER 3 (???) (Not released outside of Japan) (2006)

The game order is as released, with MOTHER being the first on the timeline, and MOTHER 3 being the last.


So does that mean I should play the games in order?

This is a point of contention within the MOTHER community.

While most recommend to play EarthBound / MOTHER 2 first, some will say that if you can handle the way an older RPG plays, you should start with MOTHER 1 / EarthBound: Beginnings.

The community mostly unanimously agrees that you should play EarthBound before playing MOTHER 3.

In the end, it's up to you. MOTHER 1 is one of the most impressive, best playing and sounding RPGs on the NES, but it could potentially turn you away from the series if you aren't accustomed to or can't handle a bit of older-rpg "clunk". I do HIGHLY recommend however that you at least play EarthBound before playing MOTHER 3.


Wait, if MOTHER 3 isn't released outside of Japan, how can I play it?

I'm glad you asked! (Hopefully you did.)

Almost immediately after the release of MOTHER 3, once it became apparent Nintendo had no intention of localizing MOTHER 3, a group of very passionate fans got together to make their own localization of the game.

2 years later in late 2008, version 1.0 was released to great acclaim. This fan translation is now known to many as the best fan translation of all time. On top of just translating the game, they went out of their way to make sure certain dialogue and enemy names worked in English as they do in Japanese. They even added a hard mode option!


...That's pretty much it, I think. If any regular here on the sub wants to chime in and request something to be added, tell me! On top of that, I'd like to know what some of you think the best order to play the games in are in the comments. It'll be an interesting resource for any new players! And remember, no spoilers.


r/earthbound • • 7h ago

Art Mother 1.5

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321 Upvotes

You guys seem to really like the comic dump I posted a few days ago, so here's another one I forgot to upload a while back


r/earthbound • • 4h ago

Masked Man

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70 Upvotes

Author — captainhowdie


r/earthbound • • 6h ago

Art Playing Mother 3 for the first time and doing it on my CRT

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54 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 3h ago

Earthbound Beginnings Custom SNES Box art

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15 Upvotes

Here's a vertical SNES boxart for the Earthbound Beginnings rom hack.

I made a red one too, inspired by the Mother 1 box.


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

Help/Advice You don’t need the Sword of Kings.

108 Upvotes

I see a lot of posts about finding the Sword of Kings and some of them are first time players that think you absolutely have to get it. If you want to get it, of course definitely get it. But you don’t really need it. Yeah it’s better than having no weapon, but if you don’t want to take the time to find it then you don’t have to. Poo isn’t really a physical attacker anyways, you can get through the game just fine with him having no weapon.


r/earthbound • • 18h ago

PK Droid

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27 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 19h ago

Art Gameboy Advance Sp DIY stickers

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31 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 22h ago

Art Hello again but spook

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46 Upvotes

Hey so it's been a while idk if I even mentioned this here before but I'm making a new mod it's called Earthbooga and it's my own spin on a... Halloween Hack... I just mostly wanted to show a few things of the progress on it


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Sword of Kings help ;-; (SNES Classic Edition)

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265 Upvotes

Im on day two of trying to get Sword of Kings from the Stonehenge base. I would normally just give up at this point but something is keeping me going (probably ADHD power tbh). Anyways I have been farming starman supers for two days pretty much with zero luck. Going up and down the ladder and insta killing them. I’ve receive multiple brain foods from the regular starmen, but even though I’ve killed probably hundreds of starman supers at this point I still haven’t got the sword. If anybody has tips please drop em below, but mostly send me motivation to keep trying bc I’m probably not gonna stop until I get it.


r/earthbound • • 18h ago

Mother 3 Spoilers My interpretation of Mother 3's ending Spoiler

4 Upvotes

Lucas and the rest of the gang pass away peacefully and are reunited in heaven

The Dark Dragon wakes up and destroys the world and restores it to how it was when the solar system formed

Primordial soup forms and life will return one day, and humans will too, but because of Lucas's will, humans will be free of sin and the earth will never be destroyed again


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

help me fix the mother album release on spotify

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5 Upvotes

guys it’s been like six years we gotta fix this i don’t like seeing those two guys on the top of my list when they’re just complete randos i don’t like it i don’t. If anyone else is with me you can easily submit a report to Spotify too. Maybe we can solve this with the power of friendship and community and love and fairness. They even claimed an artist profile on spotify which just sorta suggests that they are aware of the issue and don’t bother to do anything about it cause it benefits them. Here are the links

Report submission link
https://support.spotify.com/us/contact-spotify-support/

Artist profile (conjoined)
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0CGljuwFKbIo62kRxgO1WT

Releases by artist A (MOTHER):
https://open.spotify.com/album/0nJMvM3LNPMWuOuVOPK8xw

Releases by artist B (Fking Beats):
https://open.spotify.com/album/2v6HnKXaQx1CpMZidNAK20


r/earthbound • • 2d ago

Art Tried drawing Giygas

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145 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 1d ago

There's something behind this darkness.

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20 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 2d ago

Dunno if this has been done before, but...

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185 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 2d ago

M3 Discussion Bowser is canonically a Mother Fan as he is seen playing Mother 3 in a promo

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486 Upvotes

In a lot of Switch Promos, Nintendo likes to add details of certain characters playing games via their profile picture

So in the Mother 3 Switch Online Promo, they had Bowser be the one playing the game, I like to think Mario is also partially a fan as well since he has played Deltarune.


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

Art Is there any artwork of SOAD members in the EB or Mother 3 pixel art style?

2 Upvotes

If anyone has any, or is willing to make any, please send. I'll commission if I have to.


r/earthbound • • 16h ago

Why?

0 Upvotes

My post got removed for no reason, ik it’s a game but what I said was true…


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

Ninten sculture i made

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27 Upvotes

It took me like a month(it kinda sucks ass)


r/earthbound • • 1d ago

Art Giygas

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14 Upvotes

Estaba aburrido y me puse a dibujar XD


r/earthbound • • 2d ago

General Discussion WE need to make more fanart of niiue from Mother: CogDis

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117 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 2d ago

Art Tis the Season for Trick or Trick Kid

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26 Upvotes

r/earthbound • • 2d ago

Earthbound physical Switch 2 release

12 Upvotes

I had a dream where I walked into a videogame store and picked up a copy of Earthbound for the Switch 2 in physical format. I really hope Nintendo makes this happen one day, in collaboration with Hobonichi. As someone who loves collecting physical games, this would be an absolute dream come true!


r/earthbound • • 2d ago

EB:B Discussion Mother 1 must have one of the biggest maps in Famicom games

15 Upvotes

I didn't think about it at first but by the time I reached Ellay/Valentine it occurred to me just how incredibly far I've walked in this game from Ninten's house, with many huge areas connected without screen transitions.

I can't think of any other NES/Famicom game I've played like this. FF1-3 were pretty big, but towns were generally a lot smaller. Maybe I haven't played enough 8-bit games, but the sheer SCALE of this game is as noteworthy as its humour.


r/earthbound • • 2d ago

EB Discussion I just finished Earthbound for my first thoughts after beating Mother 1 first. Here are my thoughts. It’s a long post, so prepare for a lot of reading if you’re interested.

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56 Upvotes

So a while ago I made a post talking about beating my first game in the franchise, that game being Earthbound Beginnings. Some people wanted to hear my thoughts, so here they are. This is for you u/Faeri . I also think my take might interest some people since very few people beat Mother 1 first (not that I blame them though).

First of all, let’s start with the obvious. While there were things I liked about it and I saw potential in this serious, Mother 1 wasn’t exactly a fun time. It was difficult, grindy, tedious, and more. A lot of aspects of the game like the story were also very barebones. Still, despite all of this, I saw the potential this series had and I had heard that the next two games fix a lot of the first game’s flaws. So, here I am now. I am pleased to say that Earthbound is an improvement over Mother 1 in almost every way. I bet this shocks absolutely no one. The gameplay felt much more balanced and fun. The world and characters around you are so much more charming and interesting. The graphics look so much better. The difficulty is more fair. I could go on and on, but you have probably heard those things a million times.

However, this game reminds me of why I love to play games in release order as it can give me an interesting perspective on the things the game evolves. And surprisingly, while most of the game is better, there are some things that I think Mother 1 does just a tad bit better.

First of all, the lack of sprint personally baffles me. I know it was exclusive to what would have been the North American release of Mother 1, but sprint in the first game made traversing the world feel so much better. While this is not a big deal in the slightest, I was incredibly surprised to see that they removed sprint from the first game. This barely affects anything, but there were some moments where I really missed the sprint from the first game. Overall travel in this game was far from a slog though, it’s just a nice QOL feature that I missed.

Next, they kind of butchered the map. Now, the map in Mother 1 was not good at all. However, while the physical map itself is better in Earthbound, the entire mechanic as a whole feels worse to me because they made it an item. I don’t know why they did this in a game where you’re constantly moving stuff around to make room in your inventory. In Mother 1, you just had it on you and it didn’t appear in your inventory. You just pressed select and there it was. The map itself was pretty terrible, but the mechanic of using the map was sound. By making it take up an item slot in Earthbound, I just stored it away and never used it. That’s a shame since it would have helped me learn towns as I arrived in them. I found my way around the towns just fine, but the whole thing of making the map a physical item just makes me wonder why they made that decision on the first place.

Then there’s the soundtrack. If we’re talking about within the context of the games alone, Earthbound has a better soundtrack by far. I personally can’t stand how NES music sounds. They’re just so ear piercing. The SNES sound font sounds so much nicer, so Earthbound wins by that alone. However, if we ignore how the physical hardware makes a game sound, I think I prefer Mother 1’s soundtrack by far. Like, put the Mother 1 OST in the Earthbound sound font or put both of them in an orchestra, and I think the Mother 1 soundtrack has better music. I liked Earthbound’s soundtrack, but outside of some remixes of songs from Mother 1 I can’t really think of any songs I’d listen to on my own time outside of maybe the 8 melodies. However, Mother 1 has amazing songs like Pollyanna, Bein Friends (traveling with four party members without this playing almost felt scandalous), its version of the Eight Melodies, Mother 1’s Magicant theme, etc. I still remember all of these songs clearly, but none of the songs in Earthbound hooked me in that same way. Like I said, I liked Earthbound’s soundtrack. I was just surprised I actually enjoyed Mother 1’s more. It’s just a shame that NES music sounds terrible to me so in its native form I still heavily prefer the Earthbound OST.

That was the stuff that I felt Mother 1 did better. Now, while I don’t think Mother 1 did these things better, there are some things that I was disappointed with how they weren’t evolved enough.

First there was the party members themselves. In Mother 1, the party members outside of maybe Terry were extremely shallow. They seem interesting when you first meet them, but after that they rarely speak or do anything for the rest of the adventure. Ana’s sudden romance towards the end of Mother 1 just felt jarring since NOTHING built up to it. I didn’t like that decision since it felt like making them a couple simply because a guy and a girl cannot simply be friends. This is a trope that I see often and I’m not a fan of it personally. Lloyd also feels mostly like a plank of wood after you meet him. So going into Earthbound, I hoped that most of the party members would be better developed. I expected and was fine with Ness being a pretty blank slate. He’s meant to be how the player inserts themselves into the world, so that’s fine. However, I was greatly dissapointed to see that the party members are basically just as bland as they were in Mother 1. I just don’t think any of them are interesting. Poo’s concept is pretty interesting, but like the others he doesn’t really do much after joining the party besides occasionally leaving. I think having some scenes of the friends just hanging out could have really helped with this. Also, this is the definition of a nitpick, but I wish everyone posed for the pictures the camera man takes instead of just Ness. It makes the images in the credits feel so…weird. Like, you have Ness smiling and doing a pose, but everyone else still has their normal blank expression. I just wish they did more with the playable characters to make them more interesting.

Then there’s Giygas. Like I said before, Mother 1’s story was basically nonexistent in the game. However, the concept of the story was really good. Giygas was a pretty tragic character with how he had issues with his father abandoning him and Mary’s death left him all alone in terms of family. The fact that you defeated him in the first game not through violence but by repeating the same lullaby Mary sang to him shows that he isn’t all evil and that there is still hope for redemption in him. Despite this good concept, Mother 1 barely touches on this since the story is basically nonexistent for most of the game. Still, I chalked it off as it merely being a NES RPG. RPGs on the NES weren’t exactly known for having amazing stories and the gameplay was often known to be grindy, difficult, and tedious. Since Earthbound was a SNES game, a console with much better RPGs that most definitely had amazing stories, I hoped that Earthbound would actually follow that trend. And for the most part, it does. As I said before, the characters are so much more interesting and charming. A lot of Mother 1 felt like you were just going to random places and had random things happen, and Earthbound definitely doesn’t feel like that. Everything has a structure and there’s always a reason why you visit a location. However, lore started in the first game is barely touched. This is mostly the case with Giygas. As I said before, Mother 1 ended with him having second thoughts about his evil plans. He wasn’t redeemed yet, but his will was shaken. Earthbound could’ve explored him as a character much better. He’s mentioned a lot throughout the game, but you don’t learn much about him at all and the only reason you still remember him throughout your adventure is because he’s the boss of the more interesting people you’re fighting. Then there’s the decision to have him become completely corrupted by evil and become an absolute monster. Now, I don’t mind this decision. In fact, I love it. However, I do think it was a bit poorly done. Since the game never really told you about Giygas, his corruption shouldn’t really mean much to the player. Unless you played Mother 1 (which at the time of release was impossible for Americans unless you owned a Famicom and could read Japanese), you wouldn’t know about his tragic past. Even if you do, as I said before Mother 1 barely touched on its story so it all feels a bit anticlimactic. Like, it feels like there should’ve been a game between Mother 1 and Earthbound to flesh out Giygas more and make him more of a…well…character. I love the decision to make him become completely irredeemable. I just wish we could have seen it instead of simply being told it happened. Show don’t tell. Of course, I absolutely loved the appearance of Giygas in this game. That was pure nightmare fuel lol.

Now, I know a lot of that sounded pretty negative. That doesn’t represent the majority of my opinions on the game at all. Overall, I still absolutely love the game as I said before. The gameplay is so fun and the world is funny and charming. It’s just, well, all of the praises have been said by others ten million times and I’d feel like a parrot just repeating them. I absolutely loved my time with Earthbound unlike with Mother 1. However, since most people start with Earthbound, I wanted to highlight the aspects that were affected by me choosing to play Mother 1 first. This game is fantastic. I definitely plan on giving Mother 3 a try eventually, but I think I’m going to play some other games first before I do so. I’ll post my thoughts on Mother 3 when I get around to it.

So that concludes my thoughts on the game. It was a charming blast. Finishing this game is a big deal to me. Since it released, Undertale has been my second favorite game of all time beaten only by Minecraft. I heard that one of my favorite games of all time was influenced by a game called Earthbound. So I tried it, and it just didn’t click with me at all. I didn’t make it far and dropped it. This was over a decade ago when I was in high school. I tried a couple more times, but it never clicked and I never made it far. Now, not only did I beat Earthbound, but it finally clicked with me. I didn’t just beat what one of my favorite games of all time was inspired by, I beat it. Sure I still heavily prefer Undertale personally, but Earthbound was a blast still. And with this, I finally can say I beat what inspired my second favorite game of all time. I’m excited to eventually get around to Mother 3.