Let's play Mother 3 (Completed)

[lightbane]

As promised, I’ll lp Mother 3. Before starting, let me do an introduction about this game:

As the Wikipedia says, Mother 3 was originally developed for the SNES in 1994, but was moved to the Nintendo 64DD and titled Mother 3: Fall of the Pig King, with the English title of EarthBound 64. Owing in part the failure of this platform, it was cancelled and moved to the Nintendo 64, though 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 (like Duke Nukem Forever). However, unlike Duke Nukem (who suffered a fate worse than death, being bought by ZeniMax, but that’s another story), the game was brought back from the dead and launched for the Gameboy Advance on 2006, April 20 (one month later after the apparition of Oblivion, and thus being one of the last shining lights at the beginning of the Dark Age of the Decline, the Retardation and the Casual).

But do not fear; the game is a wacky jrpg as Earthbound, a shame it was never launched outside of Japan because Nintendo decided to not risk after their failure with Earthbound, fortunately the boys at Starmen.net made a monumental effort and translated the entire game after 2 years, then sharing it for everyone for free (and not let’s say create a cult about it, like “some” did with a certain Obsidian’s game), the link can be found here: http://mother3.fobby.net/ (for the ROM just use Google, you’ll find one quicker than you can thought, no mercy for those that prevented one of the best jrpgs be launched to the rest fo the world).

This time the game focus more on the story and the plot, following a chapter-based system like the Dragon Quest series (a franchise of games that in my opinion are literal examples of what’s bad about jrpgs, aka they’re VERY slow paced, forced grinding, retarded design and unlikable characters); this doesn’t mean the game is less insane than Earthbound, to the contrary, it’s even more schizophrenic on every sense (the game has the unofficial subtitle of “strange, funny and heart-rending tale” for a reason), more mature and dark and gritty, including (but not limited to) animal cruelty, evil Arabians (who like to perform the former), space Nazis, dinosaurs, chimeras/ monsters made from multiple animals (anyone played Impossible Creatures?), cyborgs, mindfuckery (and much more nightmarish than Mother 2), parental beating, child killing (and thus child trauma), hopeless Apocalypse, transvestites, and absolute nihilism (and that’s only for a “children game”).

Unfortunately, it may not be liked by everyone because unlike Earthbound is a bit more “traditional”, the game is less urban (in fact, more or less there are only 2 cities on the entire game) and as I said before more story-oriented (perhaps it tries too hard, but to be fair the original Earthbound Zero was it as well), and it’s in 2d with an isometric view unlike the oblique projection of Mother 2. Despite this I’ll try as hard as I can to entertain you guests with my lp.

Related with this “Earthbound out of its meds”, the music is even more strange and awesome (with less songs based on real works sadly) than previous titles (specially the battle songs, due a new gameplay feature I’ll explain later), hear this song as a demonstration; without the need of “epic, over-orchestrated” shit that most actual “rpgs” have.

Lastly but not least, I’ll comment that Nintendo, in their infinite (ass)holiness, launched Smash Bros Brawl with Lucas from Mother 3 as a playable character, bringing with him tons of spoilers with Mother 3 they didn’t bothered to cover, thus angering the impotents fans with their shameless hypocrisy (and certainly the Earthbound models look like deformed mutants, another reason why games originally made in 2d should stay in 2d).

The introductions are over, let’s start with the game:

The game title, notice the strange mix of wood and steel, one of the game’s possible themes, nature vs industry (but WELL DONE, not an ecological shitfest like FF7). Now it’s time to name all of the important characters, with a twist: this time we can rename the protagonist’s entire family.

Lucas, the main character (the kid at the left corner, they’re moving constantly while you’re introducing the names), I’ll use his original name and for the next one because I already like the games. Unlike previous titles the protagonist doesn’t have a red cap but it’s compensated with a fireproof, bulletproof, laserproof, damageproof, waterproof, indestructible hairstyle. Despite being blonde and all he’s very far away from being an ubermensch; in fact, he’s much less manlier than Ness, he’s gentle but also a bit cowardly, timid, crybaby, not very bright, clumsy, INNOCENT (but not the worst case as you’ll see)…

Definitely, a true mama’s boy, a character more appropriate for the “victim” role, a favorite target of corrupting demons, pedophiles, priests and commissars ( unless let’s say he suffered an horrible trauma as strong as if he was hit in the balls with a power-sledgehammer that forced him to grow up at gunpoint, but that’s just saying).

Next character is Lucas’ older twin, Claus, braver and outgoing than Lucas, his impulsive behavior would be more appropriate for a standard jrpg main hero (or for unintentional suicide, let’s hope it’s not the case).

Now we’re talking: Flint (who I properly renamed to Clint), the family’s father, is a badass cowboy so manly, he can stretch his muscles so hard that it increases his offensive and defensive abilities.

Then we have Hinawa, the twin’s mother. If someone has a good name for her I’m listening, otherwise I’ll use the standard name.

Next one is the dog, who will be renamed to:

Unless you say otherwise of course. Then the game asks for favorite food and favorite thing. For the food the premade choices are Omelets, Pasta, Grain, Donuts, Stew, Gelatin and Rice; I’ll choose Omelets. For the favorite thing, because the main character is a twin Claus will like the same thing, which can be Love (faggotry), Home Run (lame), Camera (out-of place), Mach (same), Top Spec, Mt. Fuji, and Watering (flowers). Banal, shit and boring are these, I would like to write “EXTREME“ for my choice, but the main character is too sissy to apply. So, instead I’ll use:

There are also two more characters that appear later but can be renamed: Kumatora, a rebellious, bad-mouthed, bitchy princess with psychic powers (that may or may not be a tranny); I would rename her to Angry-Cunt, unfortunately it surpasses the letter-limit, so I’ll choose something similar instead, like “Asuka”. The last character to join your party is Duster, a crippled thief with a problem with his personal hygiene but compensated with elite ninja skills, I’ll dub him Garret in honor of the Thief series.

As I said, these will be the starting choices; unless you have alternatives I’ll commence the game using these in the next (and first) update.


CONTENTS:



Update 1: The Longest prologue ever existed, part 1: Welcome to Tazmily Village
Update 2: The longest prologue ever existed, part 2: Immortal magical transvestites from hell versus cyber-dinosaurs, which is better and why? Discuss!
Update 3: The longest prologue ever existed, part 3: Thief: Laughing shadows
Update 4: The longest prologue ever existed, part 4: YOU MORON (or how we meet an abusive father)!!!!
Update 5: The longest prologue ever existed, part 5: A monkey in my island
Update 6: The longest prologue ever existed, final: Even more animal abuse
Update 7: Next-gen Tazmily Village (it’s good for what it is)
Update 8: It’s not child labor if they’re willing!
Update 9: Ghosts and factories
Update 10: Tower of love and peace
Update 11: Whatever happened to the boy with the smile?
Update the twelfth: The tale of the needle and the magical transvestite cross-dressing fairies
Update 13: Meeting old friends
Update 14: The Chimera Lab: Where the game pretends it’s a survival horror
Update 15: A song of ice, fire, transvestites and not-muslims
Update 16: Twenty thousand inane leagues under the sea
Update 17: One step closer to Hell (and Heaven)
Update 18: The End of Earthbound, 1: Was Cleve right?
Update 19: The End of Earthbound, 2: Porky's inanities
Update 20: The End of Earthbound, 3: Death and Rebirth
Update 21 (extra): What could have been and will never be

 

[spekkio]

I approve this thread.

+1 for dog's name.

 

[gromit]

You must find Ghostdog a sword immediately.

vvv I guess I forgot there was a guy named ghostdog here.

 

[ghostdog]

Dog, I'll lend my name --and a portion of my power-- to thee. Use it with care and don't decapitate innocent civilians with your massive jaws, unless you have a very good reason. Or you're angry. Or bored.

...........
...................__
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
BRO FIST

 

[spekkio]

May Black Cat & ghostdog lend you some of their LP-powers in the journey ahead.

 

[lightbane]

*Sees the pictures* Aaww, how cute. Well, posting to say that because I don't have much to do these days, the update will be this Monday, if not possible Thursday as always.

PS: I forgot to comment another character that can be renamed, a little monkey called "Salsa", but because it's a joke character more than anything I will dub him "Diddy" just because.

 

[Black Cat]

Holy thingies and stuffies, did you already finish the other LP thingie you were doing? I must have fallen really behind on both my reading and my updating. :shock:

Good luck with this new one, nya.

 

[lightbane]

Holy thingies and stuffies, did you already finish the other LP thingie you were doing? I must have fallen really behind on both my reading and my updating. :shock:

Good luck with this new one, nya.

You know, I posted an update per week for a total of 14 updates (the last two the same week) and thus 14 weeks, so you have practically almost 3 months of delay...

 

[lightbane]

The update may come later than expected due a terrible flaw with the emulator: Everytime you start up VisualBoyAdvance, the screenshots' number are reset to 0, and thus you may accidentally rewrite half of your previous screenshots without noticing, as it happened to me. Now I'll have to start again *randomly punches a kitten in rage*

 

[ghostdog]

Pssst

use fraps

 

[lightbane]

This update will be a looong one

Update 1: The Longest prologue ever existed, part 1: Welcome to Tazmily Village

I’ll start posting a video with the game’s introduction, because just posting several pics without any text would be boring and unnecessary.

http://rpgmusic.org/mother-3/alecs-log-house

Now we’re in control of Lucas, the main character. Although he’s the protagonist, you only play the prologue with him, then the game switches for the first 3 chapters different characters and then returns to Lucas, really beginning the story at that point (hence the reason for the update’s title), and for some reason whoever you’re controlling will become a silent protagonist even if he was talking before. In any case, first and foremost let’s see his stats:

Most of the stats continue to do the same, but the Guts stats has disappeared entirely (understandable considering the spineless protagonist), no idea how the game calculates now the probability of SMASH/critical attacks and the possibility of surviving deadly injuries; also now every character has only one special skill (counting PSI powers as one), at first Lucas knows shit about PSI but it’s obvious he’ll learn some with time and plot advancement (his PP’s score betrays his nascent psyker’s condition). The inventory has been changed as well, now each character can store up to 16 items, and important items have their own category, not anymore wasting space on the party’s inventory.
Now let’s see what we can do here:

Nothing interesting here so Lucas goes downstairs.

“Claus has been up for a while, playing with the Dragos.”

Dragos? Sounds cool, Lucas tries to go outside to meet with his twin…

”Yes/No”
Fuck that, we have free will and we can decide our actions…

Meh, we have no choice then (the game has lots of fake choices and even sometimes jokes about that, not that Earthbound was different in this section, at least it isn’t hyped about his fake choices and consequences like certain actual “rpgs” do).
One black screen later:

Done, maybe now we can finally go outside.

And we’re out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FmEcA1OVYc

Before reuniting with Claus, let’s talk with Lucas’ grandfather and poke everything around for fun:

”I’m gonna miss you guys.”

”(All cows, no matter what they’re thinking, go, “Moo”. It’d be handy to remember that.)”

Lucas can talk with the animals as Ness and Ninten in previous titles.

Great, even chickens make fun of Lucas. There’s nothing more we can interact with, and if you try to walk south to explore…

”You might accidentally step on them, so please don’t continue in that direction.”

The game’s not very subtle invisible walls stop you. Before going to the next area where Claus is, we run into a frog:

”Memories are remembered with other memories, and in turn become memories themselves. If you don’t take care to preserve your memories, you’ll forget them. So, please tell us frogs your memories of everything so far… That is what people refer to as ‘saving’. Now, then… *hop* Save your game? (After saving) Please be careful out there. Give my regards to the next frog you meet.”

Unlike Mother 1 and 2 you no longer use telephones to save your game, these frogs are the next-gen incarnations.

“Why frogs? Before you ask, I’m here because I fell through a plot-hole.”

Just because (and also because the setting is the typical primitive but peaceful town stereotypical to death, with a probability of 99,99999999999% of being randomly attacked/burn to ashes according to the clichés). Finally, Lucas spots Claus, who’s play-fighting with an adult Drago:

”I’ve been play-fighting with the Dragos all morning. You should play too, Lucas. Here, try ramming into a Drago.”

Fuck yes, peaceful mini-tyrannosaurs who can be tamed and played with? Every kid’s dream made real. Before we can try anything Alec appears.

Alec: “And then hold that B Button for a second, then let go. Doing this will let you ‘Dash’, and by using that ability you can ram into that Drago there! Claus show him an example! (Claus once more charges against the Drago).”

Alec: “Now it’s your turn, Lucas! Give it a try! You’ll never succeed with such a sullen look on your face. That holds true for anything. Just relax!”

After this 4th-wall breaking comment, we’re given control of Lucas. As Alec said, you can run in Mother 3, this feature was already present in Mother 1 and missing in Earthbound for some reason, here it’s upgraded: when you charge against an enemy, if your party level is equal or slightly higher than the enemy’s you will stun him; if your level is high enough to auto-win when you touch him, the enemy will be destroyed instead (you will not receive any xp but if you’re strong enough to pull this it wasn’t worth of it anyways).
Lucas brings together all of his courage and charges the Drago…

Success! Time to try this new ability with Lucas’ bro and Alec for fun, starting with Alec, who replies:

"You whippersnappers still have a long way to go until you can get the best of me!”

Now with the big bro:

”Your ram attacks don’t work on me, Lucas!”

Even if it’s not obvious you can try crazy stuff like ramming the Drago from the side he falls, causing it to crash on you:

Fortunately Lucas is plot armored. Another trick you can pull off requires a bit of experimentation by the player, before coming to where Claus is (you cannot leave the area now), Lucas can try to ram into Hinawa to play a prank, despite he could accidentally botch the paper she had been writing the entire morning, or in the worst case cause her to fall badly and break her neck. In response to the transgression, Hinawa…

“Beats Lucas senseless?”

No, she gives him a cookie, talk about indulging. Whatever, Lucas’ speaks to Alec and Claus, eager to hear a comment about his latest achievement:

But suddenly, a new challenger appears!!

”I’m gonna wipe the floor with all of you! Get in my way and you’re in for a world of pain!”

And with that comment the mole cricket with balls triple the size of his brain attacks!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xju4bK8INU, the 1st combat song and it’s already catchy.

The combat system is fortunately the same as Earthbound with some changes: The mostly-useless auto-combat function has disappeared, and now when you guard the HP odometer will roll down more slowly. It has too new features: you can combo and score up to 16 hits when you select the “Bash” command, you had to press the action button following the rhythm of the music with the character’s “battle instrument” (each character has a distinctive sound when attacking, in case of Lucas is a guitar, sort of), if you do it correctly you’ll see something like this:

The notes will multiply and surround the enemy until you reach 16 or you fail to follow the song’s flow, unfortunately because I’m playing with an emulator it’s not as easy as it sounds due a small delay that botches my attempts (and certain songs will have strange quirks made with the sole intention of ruining your combos, ultimately it’s not so relevant because you’ll use PSI to do most of the damage); another thing you may notice here is that Claus is slightly stronger, faster and durable than Lucas (and with the possibility of having psychic powers too). After 3 turns the harmless enemy surrenders, unable to withstand our Bropower:

”If you’d like, I could train you personally sometime. Next time we meet, it’ll be at the big Mole Cricket Hole Stadium! I look forward to seein’ you there! … Bro.”

The likable mole cricket leaves… but a loud “CRUNCH” it’s heard as Hinawa comes:

”Lunch is ready, everyone. I made you your favorite, boys. Omelets!”

The twins depart with hungry resolution before Hinawa addresses Alec:

”Listen, folks… Here is how to ‘save’. Talk to frogs. This is how you ‘save’. It’s not too tedious or troublesome, so you should talk to frogs as often as you can. Plus, saving is absolutely free. Now then, it’s time for me to return to the story. ”

After another 4th wall breaking comment, the scene changes after the family’s lunch:

”Then your favorite is the same as ours? We make a good match!”

”We have to go through the forest to get back, so we’ll need to leave early.”

”I bet the kids could make it here on their own, it’s that safe. I bet even you could handle it, Lucas! Hahahaha!”

Lucas blushes when his name is mentioned, and Hinawa leaves. Now a long sequence starts, I’ll post it as a video to save some space.

“You know, it looks like this game is a very different setting than my own one. Where’s the technological stuff? What’s the matter with this ‘big and happy-oldstyle-family’ town?”

The beginning was a bit longer, there’s cut content with a supposed scene where Claus and co had fun swimming on a nearby lake, and another scene with a sunrise. About your question, you’ll see as the plot advances. Before the video, a possible reference to Mother 2: Alec was one of the possible names of Ness in Earthbound. Intentional or just coincidence?Anyways, the video.



Wow, at least something finally happened, we’re given control of Clint, a badass cowboy that’s not afraid of anything (only for this chapter unfortunately). We’ll start examining his power level:

As you see he excels in Offense and starts with a decent level, he doesn’t have any powers (not that he needs them anyways), and starts with a very basic headgear, the Ordinary Hat, that gives +3 to defense, and his battle instrument is a saxophone. About his special skills: Swing is a normal attack that affects all enemies at once but cannot be comboed, Strenghten Up increases his Offense (only one time however), Toughen Up the same for Defense, and Power Smash is a brutal attack that misses often but guarantees a x4 stronger than normal blow (and even more if it results in a SMASH critical hit). Now, before continuing we should explore the house a bit.

There’s also a mirror but Clint comments he doesn’t have time for this, but that doesn’t stop us to take a quick rest to recover all of Clint’s strength (the fire can wait).
One black screen later, it’s time to continue the game; Clint decides to see what’s up with Thomas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwoqY0PISCs&feature=related

”It’s the forest! The forest, the forest!! The forest is on fire!!! (knocks one more time) Geez! Who would lock their door in a village as peaceful as ours? (perhaps someone with common sense?) Clint!”

Thomas bravely struggles against an insidious doorknob that prevents him of reaching Clint, until he manages to break it.

”Why’d you hafta come off at a time like this?!”

Then Clint opens the door, the sudden display of manliness surprises Thomas, who accidentally throws the doorknob against Ghostdog’s doghouse, waking him up from his oblivious slumber.

”This is no time to be dozing off! There’s a huge fire in the Sunshine Forest! Bad times like this call for reckless nice guys like you! Please come, Clint!!! Please!”

”Then stop whining and start moving on moron, Hinata and the kids could be in danger, if something happens to them, you’ll regret not being fast enough to warn me in time for the rest of your short life.”

And with that Thomas joins our party!

”I happen to like following behind people!”

”Just try something funny and you’ll give me an excuse to beat you to death, I’m tired of your sick jokes, fag.”

Like Earthbound, Thomas is one npc that briefly joins the party but it’s not a true playable character, he cannot equip any item (neither store anything) and is not very useful in combat. More about this later. Before running to the forest we need a weapon, let’s ask Ghostdog if he could help us.

An undeniable plain stick, gives only +2 to Offense… Well, less is nothing.

”That stick should make a good weapon in case anything happens. Be sure to equip it first, though. Just holding on to it’ll make it as useful as a caramel.”

”Have you finished telling me the obvious, or do you need help to shut up? Then be silent and follow me.”


As we move to the forest we comb the area in search of lootable items, gaining some food like some Nut Breads (restore 30 hp) and Nuts (restore only 5 hp but there are lots of these), and talkative people.

”The whole sky north of here is pitch black with smoke.”

”And your plan to help is just standing here?”

Ignore him Clint, we have to continue, perhaps the other citizens are more reasonable.

”will be stuck out there.”

”The Funshine Sorest is on tire!!”
There is no time to visit the townspeople’s houses, but it doesn’t stop us of poking around a bit more.

”Th-the Sunshine Forest is on fire? Oh… Uhmm… Should I maybe give you a hand, too? ”

”What does your common sense tells you, genius?”

Jackie: “Ack! W-wait! Umm, I’m actually pretty busy, y’know? No, I mean, umm… You know how it is… Sorry… I’ll leave everything to you today, Clint. ”

Coward. Let’s ask the others for help then (you gotta love that EACH one of the town’s 30 npcs have their own sprites and unique animations).

Agh!!! What the hell…??

”You should probably take whatever Thomas says with a grain of salt. That’s just the kind of person he is. ”

”If that’s true, we better get our butts out of here before the fire engulfs our village, too!”

”Thomas, you’d better not cause too much trouble for Clint!”

Oh, I got it, they’re the town’s Triumvirate of Witches: From right to left, the Bitch, the Whore and the Crone, who have nothing better to do than bitching all the time even when the town is threatened to being burnt to ashes. Moving on:

Ops, let me try the north path in this case.

”Clint, if the fire spreads here, to Tazmily Village, my honor, my estate, and I will all go up in smoke, literally! So go north! North, I say! North, as in north-south-east-west!! Why do you force me to explain such simple things to you?!”

Meet the Mayor, who’s a greedy, selfish, lazy, cowardly asshole that believes himself to be important, so it’s official: Retards and assholes are everywhere, even in the middle of nowhere.

”Please, feel free to take one with you. You’re worried about Lighter’s shack deep inside the Sunshine Forest, yes? I’ve marked that area on the map for you. Please hurry and see if he needs help. Oh, whoops. Silly me. Forget to tell you how to check the map, didn’t I? To check the map, you need to –how do I put this? Fill your right index finger with a wish. Or strength. To put it more bluntly, I guess do something R Button-ish?”

Now we have the 1st map of the game, the Tazmily Village’s Map!

A shame they’re not as cool as the Earthbound ones. In the next area…

”is apparently on fire like crazy! Oh, sorry that sounded so explanation-like!”

”Rumours… PRESS SPACE TO CONTINUE.”

A meta-joke about NPCS’ speeches in other games. There we get a bit more of loot, an Edible Mushroom, heals for 20 hp.

What the fuck? Who’s that rejected Space Marine/ basketball player?

”… I see he’s as non-talkative as ever…”

He shouldn’t have accepted that Vow of Silence when he was drunk.

”If you lose your way, be sure to check sign posts and message boards. I’m telling you this out of my kindness of my heart, you know!”

Useful as an IQ-test for Oblivion fanboys. To the north, a convenient Cementery:

Necro-racism?

”For this little bit, I’m going to use game lingo rather than comparisons. You can bring up the menu by pressing yadda yaada blabla banal. Shit. Boring tutorial stuff, etc. […] A sparrow fluent in game lingo is pretty rarrow, wouldn’t you say? I mean rare. Well, this time I’ll be sparrow-like for sure and… chirp chirp!)”


These animals tell you somewhat useful stuff like how to open the menu and about the game mechanics, purposely created for the casuals that are unable to read the game’s manual / people without initiative and/or interest in experimenting.

”What I should do…?”

”You know you fail hard when you complain about your uselessness and then wonder what you could do, stupid girl.”

Next area:

”Quit pushing that… Quit it… Seriously, stop… Keep pushing that and I’ll be sick… Why do you keep pushing it? See, you did it again! If you keep this up, I’m gonna… Bleeeergh! Just so you know, if something bad happens to me, it’s all because YOU kept pressing that stupid thing!”

That weirdo’s speech doesn’t make sense until you realize he says that every time you press the “A Button” to scroll down the text, the npc has a strange allergy as an inane meta-joke.

”would first stop by the sanctuary to say a little something to the forest gods! At least that’s my opinion, anyway! Is it… Is it so wrong of me to think that way!? Yes/no?”

”It is when you’re one of these hypocrites that prefer to kneel down and pray instead of getting up and actually do something. Besides, the gods don’t seem to care of their sanctuary being destroyed by the flames.”

Jonel: “But you must!”

”Haven’t you heard what…”

Jonel: “But you must!”

”…So, I don’t have a choice, right? *Rolls eyes* Whatever, no, you’re not wrong.”

Jonel means serious business, if you try to ignore this religious crap and try to save Lighter from an horrible death before it’s too late…

Sigh, fine, you won.

Uh ho, a dragon sanctuary. An unintentional resemblance of Breath of Fire series maybe?

… Wasn’t expecting that. I’ll follow the flow then.

”Okay, then. Please continue to enjoy the game. After I count down from three, you’ll forget you were ever asked this question. 3, 2, 1… Have you forgotten?”

Let’s see, 2+2 is 5 and what can change the nature of a man is… Racism? I think I’m fine, so no, I haven’t.

Epic fail dude.

”I can be useful too, you know! I’m not just some annoying onlooker!”

”I think Lighter and Fuel are still stuck inside the forest! Don’t worry, I’ll hold back these rubberneckers! You just hurry and find them!”

Actually I would encourage these idiots to go, with a bit of luck they’ll kill themselves and prevent of them of infecting the genepool, but your mileage may vary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIGrkMAn ... re=related

”I THOUGHT I saw someone as manly as me walking this way. This smoke is terrible, and with my sensitive throat, I can’t continue any further. So you can have this cookie instead.”

”Who’s the manly now? “

”Bastard. You know one of my three weaknesses are cookies, regardless of what common sense tells me.”

And we got a fully functional Nut Cookie (recovers about 15 HP), you can extort Mike for up to 3 cookies. Continuing the path, we find an enemy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m8FisxH ... re=related
This enemy is not a powerful threat but his battle music is cool, amusingly based on the classical Batman series of the 60s; as one of the first battle songs it’s easy to combo, this will not last. Now that we’re on it Thomas’ wonderful battle skills include but are not limited to sound his siren, act flustered, swiping the sweat from his forehead and run around restlessly… At least he tries to help unlike Porky.
Eventually we find a strangely non black afro guy:

More importantly is the gift at his left, it contains the Aries Bracelet, an accessory that adds +3 to your Defense.

From here, if you turn to the left you arrive at the forest’s hot spring. Like Earthbound, it restores your vitality, but here’s it’s even more powerful, after a few seconds it will restore all of your HP and PP and clean any possible ailment of your characters; the hot springs will be the main way of restoring your characters to their peak condition unlike hotels for example (and the hot springs are literally everywhere, some in zones that shouldn’t be).

Now, shall we continue? That fire will not extinguish itself:

”Gaah! I’ve breathed in too much smoke! Lighter and his son Fuel still aren’t back yet! I’m pretty sure they’re stuck inside the forest. *coughs* don’t worry about me! ”

A true man, unlike the other pussies, unfortunately he tried too hard. The smoke doesn’t shit to Clint because that’s just fresh air compared with the tobacco he smokes.

The next area is filled with little fires that will harm Clint if he steps on them. Fortunately Clint’s badassery is fireproof and thus he’ll be damaged for 1 hp only.
Further away we spot something strange: A pig-man manipulating a suspicious device.

Ominous.

 

[spekkio]

My seal of approval:

 

[lightbane]

Part 2

This is a new type of enemy in Mother series, I call them “static enemies”. Unlike the other monsters they will not jump against you at first sight, you can freely walk past them, but they tend to protect certain stuff you could be interested like loot, and they’re much stronger than the usual enemies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WjEF9H3LBA&feature=related 2nd battle song

This for example is a… no idea, it only stares at your position, a weird joke enemy I say.

A good thing of static enemies is that sneaking behind them is much easier, and the game includes sprites for their backs as a nice extra detail (all enemies included but bosses).

Soon we meet Lighter, lying nearby one of these strange flies of before:

Thomas: “Hey! Lighter! You alright?”

Lighter: “Clint… Oh, and Thomas…D-dammit… *cough* I try to beat these things up, but more just keep comin’! I can’t get past them! *cough*”

Everyone looks at the metallic bug before continuing:

Thomas: ”What IS that thing? A bug?”

Lighter: “Dunno. They’re going around the forest, lightin’ fires. But never mind that, Fuel’s still at home!”

Thomas: “What?! Fuel is still in your shack?! Clint! You go help Fuel! I’ll look after Lighter!”

Lighter: “You should be able to use my lumber decently enough. Take it *cough* with you.”

”Don’t worry my friend, I’ll be back with your son.”

And now we got a new weapon!

A lumber’s welding cowboy. Awesome, “walk softly and carry a big gun (or stick)” said the saying. As soon as we get the weapon, 3 fireflies strike against us:

http://rpgmusic.org/mother-3/a-more-ann ... ttle-theme

They attack breathing fire doing like 5 hp of damage each one, the battle is basically an excuse to try the new weapon and the “Swing” special skill, killing the monsters in 2 rounds. Now we can walk off to save a kid with a punny name:

That’s why leaving your son in a wooden house, inside a forest on fire is not a good idea.

WTF? Doesn’t matter, Clint uses all of his might and charges, bursting through the door,

The moment you try to walk upstairs that thing pounces at you:

http://rpgmusic.org/mother-3/background-beat-battle-5th-battle-theme


This Mother Nature’s abortion should be considered the 1st serious enemy you encounter in the game, it can do a combo of his own for nearly 30 points of damage if you’re unlucky, but usually he loses his turns with things like poofing out his hair to look threatening (I’m serious), in my case I just upgraded Clint’s Offense and Defense with his abilities and attacked the monster with a Power Smash, managing to get a SMASH critical attack for a total of 210 points of damage, a ton at this point

Luckily for him Fuel is still alive.

Clint and Fuel quickly leave the house before it completely falls apart:

”but I’m alive. Oh, you’re pitch black too, Mr. Clint. Thank you, Mr. Pitch Black Clint! Thank you so much, Mr. Pitch…!”

”Say it one more time and your ridiculous punny name will be literally applied.”

”Uuuh… Oh yeah! We need to let my dad know I’m okay. He’s probably worried sick about me somewhere! “

We’ll backtrack until we meet Lighter… but before the party uses a hot spring for an amusing result:

”Dunno who you are, Mr. Pitch Black Guy, but thanks a million for saving Fuel! Wow. You’re really, really pitch black. *hic*…”

Screw this, there’s a fucking fire threatening his town and the bastard got drunk? Useless shit is useless. The other two tell you that Lighter had been brought to the Sanctuary, so there we go.

”…but you’re all right! Being the responsible man I’m, I managed to bring Lighter here! Hurry up and let him see Fuel.”
http://rpgmusic.org/mother-3/gentle-rai ... ers-rescue

”You’re alright?! What the…?! What in the world happened to you? You’re pitch black, and covered in soot!”

”What about you, Dad?! You busted your leg!

”Oh, this? This ain’t nothing! All I gotta do is twist this like so, and then do this, and then… Oww oww oww! Consarnit!“

”It’s enough to make me jealous.”

”… Thanks, Clint. Guess I showed my not-so-tough side, huh?! I owe you one today. “

”The only thing that could make this any stranger is if it suddenly started pouring rain.”

As soon as Bronson finishes talking, rain delivers, saving a town whose stupid citizens did absolutely nothing to stop a fire from consuming them (hell, only Thomas and a small bunch actually tried to help, and that bench was conveniently placed here it seems):

The scene changes to the Yado Inn.

Tessie: “It’s been a while since Tazmily last had rain. Clint, please get some rest.”
Not yet, first lets’ ask Clint’s companions:

”Did you see anything else in the fire besides those weird bugs? I’m talking about some… suspicious people with pig-like masks on. Those bastards… They turned the forest pitch black! And you Clint! You wound up pitch black too. ”

”With the forest like it is now, won’t the way back be dangerous?”

OH FUCK!! I was noticing something was missing. Clint goes outside as fast as he can… but he’s interrupted by Isaac:

”Perfect timing! I heard you were taking a rest here… Mighty heavy rain, isn’t it? Think I’ll join you under the awning. Clint. Tell me…Have you seen Hinawa and the kids?”

”Not yet, I was worried about them so now I was planning to go for them.”

Isaac: “I see… Actually, I was up in the mountains earlier, picking mushrooms. While I was up there, I caught sight of Hinawa. Then, while I was taking a break by the river, I heard loud roars far off in the distance… It sounded like it might’ve been a Drago was roaring… After that, I heard… what I think… might’ve been screams. Say, Clint. Hinawa and the kids made it back home, right? ”

*HEADDESK* FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!!! WHAT THE HELL??? This is not an excuse for naivety nor retardation, he heard a fucking dinosaur going berserk followed by human screams and the asshole didn’t even bothered to check it, this is a sign of a clearly evil, cold, inhuman, cruel intelligence.

“For not to mention he apparently had no problems with the fire. Or the invading army. Or the rampaging animals. Or the closed roads (due the fire and shit, who also surely trapped Hinawa, Lucas and Claus). Totally not suspicious at all.”

More proof about his assholery is that if you try to leave the area, he purposely follows Clint to stop him:

”You should probably head back home and check on things.”

He doesn’t allow us to leave, so let’s get back to Clint’s home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jt8RpLZ ... re=related
The content is the same as the video I posted, but the music changes, sadly it looks the odds are all against her. After Clint finishes reading and wonders what he should do Fuel and the motherfucker step in:

”It’s getting late, so we should all go look for them. Let’s get the other villagers to help, too.”

Clint agrees with the plan, but as he exits his house, Ghostdog approaches him:

”(Please take me with you. I’m sure I’ll be helpful)”

And Ghostdog joins our party!

Ghostdog is and will be the fastest member of the party, and it’s perfect to use him as a mobile medkit giving him healing items; his special skill is Sniff, it can be used to detect an enemy’s type and weakness like Jeff’s Spy in Earthbound, but it’s less effective because some enemies are either too repugnant to be smelled and/or are odorless. One of his oddities is that his main gear will be collars, because he obviously cannot use weapons (durr), and that he may randomly devour with gluttony a food item you ordered him to use, but he’s a good dog and that rarely happens. Lastly but not least his battle instrument is a barking sound (duh).

Now, to change the topic, back in the game, the citizens except Isaac demonstrate a genuine concern with the actual situation:
http://rpgmusic.org/mother-3/hard-rain- ... for-hinawa

”I really wanna help you out, honest. *hic* I’m totally just the guy to help you out (at this moment the pathetic fool staggers to the opposite direction).”

Well, almost everyone. At the Sanctuary we meet Jonel and an old man:

”I asked everyone to split up and search the forest for Hinawa. You’ve been blessed with kind friends. That must be true happiness, in one sense.”

”Seems nobody’s aware of just how strong I really am.”

As we move to the now open path that was previously blocked by the flames we meet several persons with different understandings of “searching”, ranging from useless like barely moving from a fixed stop to wasting everyone’s time with their stupidity (aka not even looking around).

Here’s how Ghostdog’s special skill works btw:

One new static enemy we encounter is the Baked Yammonster:

Much less dangerous than the previous version, and almost always drops the Baked Yam, food that restores 40 hp.

”Not you, though. You’re pretty careless, so I bet you forgot to bring Antidotes with you into the forest, despite the fact the place is teeming with Mighty Bitey Snakes everywhere. Here, you can have one of my Antidotes. If you don’t think that’ll be enough, you can always get some more at Isaac’s house.”

Very hypocrite this bitch is, because she’s standing right near a Mighty Bitey Snake, and after she finishes talking the snake immediately attacks (and I was already packing several antidotes looted from several gifts):

Here in Mother 3 the Poison ailment cannot kill you but it never disappears and will leave your character with 1 hp with time, so these enemies are dangerous.

”With all of these people looking, I’m sure we’ll find them soon. Let’s have faith and keep searching.”

”It will be all right. Reggie knows it.”

”These huge trees were snapped right in two. How could such big trees get ripped down like this? There’s one thing for sure. Whatever did this, it wasn’t human… And no, it wasn’t me! What do we do now? They have the path completely blocked…”

”because of all these knocked-down trees blocking the way.”

Bateau and Jackie are on the left area:

”Oh, no, I mean that in a good way! What I meant to say is, I¡m getting GOOD bad vibes, if that makes sense. *thump* *thump* ”

Nice try but you fail.

”See those claw marks? Those most certainly belong to a Drago. But why would a Drago claw at stuff like this, enough to leave gashes in rock, even? They’re such peaceful creatures… I get the feeling something very bad is happening to the forest, the people, the animals, and me…”

OMINOUS. And SUDDENLY, Ghostdog sniffs something, scratching the wall and howling gloomily.

The following section is made on video to once more post less pics and to offer some variation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcsIsqbc7WY
At the nearby cave there are new enemies,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJZm3yej7Jk
some loot like food, and finally strange markings on the ground that are oddly shaped like the island of Japan.

Now I would like to talk about Garret. Despite he seems to be a pretty plain guy, he’s awesome. He has a crippled leg (he visibly limps when moving) and yet it doesn’t stop him from pulling tricks like the one he did in the video. Here are his stats:

He’s a very balanced character with an Offense slightly stronger than Lucas, and an amazing speed. In fact, he’s so fast there’s a chance in every battle he’ll do a quick strike before the fight itself commences, like this:

And if you’re ambushed he may cancel the ambush by either doing a reverse kick stunning the enemy, or parrying the enemy and forcing him to show his back, and he attacks by kicking, despite having a crippled leg. About his Thief Tools he for now only has Wall Staple, an ability that can paralyze an enemy for some turns.
Now let’s continue, I’m eager to end this longish update as soon as possible.

”What’re they doing…?”

Clint walks slowly towards the pigmen as he raises an eyebrow showing his curiosity, the seer manliness displayed with that gesture scares the shit out of these soldiers who retreat instantly, but one of the two manages to activate the strange xeno-device before the party can react:

Oh Fuck! ITZ!!! ITZ IS ALIVE!!! And he looks angry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR62ktmmpx0&NR=1
This is the first serious mid-boss of the game (and the 1st chimera abomination we meet), that xeno-tech-bio-heresy is very powerful, can go berserk and attack all of the party at once, stab one character for a high damage, and has lots of hp. The strategy here is to raise Clint’s stats and use Garret’s Wall Staple ability to pin it down for several turns, and attack it continuously (healing with Ghostdog if needed). He’s tough but unless you’re a retard you’ll eventually win. After it’s knocked down:

The soldiers valiantly ran away from our party. Interested with the discovery, Clint examines the contraption:

But he failed the Tech-use roll and cannot comprehend what that thing is supposed to be, but there is more stuff to investigate:

”Give it a read? (No, I just don’t want to advance the plot and stay here eternally, yes goddamit). Clint picks up the notebook, opens it and starts reading it. The following is written in poor handwriting:

All the creatures around here suck. We need to make ‘em cooler. So the theme will be:
- Tougher!
- Rougher!
- Badder!
We’ll mix and match this and that to create whole new things no one’s ever seen before! I dub it the “Fascinating Chimera Project”. Let’s reconstruct and modify stuff slowly and steadily. “

ROFL. I’m maybe overanalyzing it, but couldn’t this be a metaphor for the actual gaming and the new “dark and gritty” shit (that consists on taking a concept that perfectly works alone, butcher it horribly and add parts that doesn’t fit and then sell this poor abomination that screams to be killed to the ‘tard masses just because it looks cool (and makes profit)) ?
Anyways, we follow the bad dudes…

But they escape with a “Pork-ufo”. We cannot continue this way because the cliff crumbled, so Clint and his comrades go back.

”It seems they fell into the river and washed up here. I’ll look after Ghostdog. You just hurry up and see ‘em.”

Well, finally something good happened. But where’s Hinawa?

”Here, everyone else should take a break and get warm, too.”

”… In any case, I’m just glad they’re okay. ”

”I hope she comes back soon.”

I don’t like where this is heading…

You dare to say, asshole?

”Poor little things…”

”Darn it… Darn it…”

”Mom’s… Mom’s…”

”If you keep this up, you’ll wind up worse off than her.”

”That’s how WE grew to be adults, after all. Gahahaha! Ain’t nothin’ to worry ‘bout. I’m sure everything’s alright. Tomorrow’s gonna come, and everything’ll be the same as it always is. ”

Definitively, I don’t like what they’re implying…

Suddenly, Bronson appears with something urgent to tell, I’ll close this update with a final video depicting what he has to say.

Well, I cannot say that was unexpected, after all if a certain fellow acted when he could, this could have been prevented to happen. That’s how you should do a character you minimally care his/her death a touching scene, eh Gaidar, eh Aeris? Well, that’s all for today, logically the next update will be shorter (and the video demonstrates that Mother 3 is indeed darker and grittier (without the need of over-the-top violence and gore, nudity and lots of buttsex) than previous titles, for if you haven’t noticed by now, and it will get worse, but don’t worry, it will not turn into a shitty emo-fest, I promise). Stay sharp!

 

[Mattresses]

(F)Clint actually does go pretty fucking emo for most of the game after this point..

 

[lightbane]

(F)Clint actually does go pretty fucking emo for most of the game after this point..

Maybe, but after Chapter 1 he pretty much disappears for the rest of the game, so it doesn't count for the other characters (and his sadness is justified).

PS: Also, Fraps doesn't work with the emulator.

PPS: Actually, there's a difference between "tragedy" and emoness, emo would be if the character suffered a disgrace and has the luxury to sit down and whine about it (or ask inane questions to his friends like they need a reason to live to stop the big bad from destroying the world) ,in tragedies the character can't do that and instead does something (and Clint's mental state is dubious as well after this chapter).

 

[lightbane]

Upate this week if everything is right (and you'll surely love the update; as a minor hint, Mother 3 predates Dragon Fail in a certain aspect)...

 

[lightbane]

Because it was starting to get too serious

Update 2: The longest prologue ever existed, part 2: Immortal magical transvestites from hell versus cyber-dinosaurs, which is better and why? Discuss!

For a quick recap, Hinawa died due the townspeople’s general apathy/incompetence, Clint lost it and was throw in jail, and now he’s being addressed by Bronson.

”You have the honor of being the first. (Looks at the right) Clint. You gave Ollie and Abbot a real walloping, but they’re alright now. (Starts walking outside before stopping and continue talking) About Hinawa…I can only offer my deepest condolences… Still, why would a Drago attack someone? They’re such friendly creatures… Take it here for a while. I know you must be having a hard time with this, but try and get some sleep. The Drago’s fang that was stuck in Hinawa’s chest… I’ll hold on to it for you. When you’re outta here, come drop by my house and get it. Don’t forget it, now.”

Meh, if Clint is the first resident of Tazmily’s jail, why they have one to start? Weren’t they too peaceful to commit crimes and such? And either Bronson’s verbal disease of hi horrible choice of words continues to affect him, or he’s a jerk. In any case, it looks like we cannot escape the jail unless we get external help (because Bronson doesn’t seem to bother how much time Clint was supposed to be here before being allowed to leave, unless he was ditched here to be forgotten, more than likely seeing how’s the townsfolk here). One minute later, Claus enters:

”but he’s been crying at Mom’s grave all this time. Dad. I’m gonna leave this apple here. The core might be hard, but… The core… Be SURE you eat it!”

”I’m gonna get so strong even Dragons won’t stand a chance against me! Dad… I…”

”Claus, my son; please, tell me you are not planning some retarded, dangerous scheme like a cliché anime’s overconfident idiotic hero.”

Claus: “Of course not Dad! I’m just gonna play all day with knives! Sharp, pointy knives! And Dragos! Trust me! It will be… cool! And totally not dangerous!”

And with that totally not suspicious comment Claus leaves. As he intructed us, Clint eats the apple, just to discover a conveniently hidden Hand File inside, which is used immediately to break the lock and leave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBPdFPSf ... re=related

Outside we see that Garret was waiting for us:

”I’m not really sure what to say… What happened to Hinawa was a terrible tragedy… I can’t say I know how you’re feeling. Hinawa’s burial ended without incident. Lucas has been crying at her grave ever since. His poor little heart seems like it’s about to break in two… If there’s anything else I can do for you, just let me know anytime.”

Well, that was a nice try from Garret, but I think it’s really a dickish move to proceed with Hinawa’s burial without allowing poor Clint, her fucking husband, to be present at it. Either way we can explore this “new zone” (the left side of Tazmily Village, not accessible until now) for some loot and a new npc we can talk to:

Deep. We should return to the village then:

”Come stop by our place! We’re baking Nut Bread!”

Angie’s mom, Caroline (not Coraline) can recycle the several Nuts that are distributed randomly in every area into Nut Cookies or Nut Breads; unfortunately because now we have only Clint in the party the inventory is limited and we’ll find tons of better food anyways, so I pass. Next stop is Bronson’s house:

”But… But I had to come back home. Seeing Lucas’s sobbing face was just too much for me to handle…”

Intelligence: The dickish individual doesn’t give us the thing he promised us to give, so I assume I have to do something before to trigger the event, like going to where Hinawa’s grave is. Before, let’s visit the recently opened Bazaar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfEKt9lnIyI

”Anyways, this is the village bazaar. If you need anything, just go ahead and take it.”
Because here in Tazmily Village the only type of economy is communi… I mean barter, you’re allowed to take for free any item you see in the bazaar (they replenish and change every time you exit the town). We take everything he offers, that from right to left are an Antidote, a Running Bomb (deals damage to all enemies), and a Flea Charm (Defense +5). Now we could go to Abbot’s house and apologize.

”Please just forget that you hit me. I’m going to forget about it. Compared to your pain, this is nothing at all.”

His sister Abbey confirms that Ollie as well doesn’t hold anything against Clint, but not everyone thinks the same thing…

”I wasn’t the one who decided to place you in that jail cell. Really, it wasn’t me!”

Why I’m not surprised? As an extra, a brief reference to Mother 2:

It’s time to head over to the funeral. In the way we find more of our fellows:

"You really lost it during that wild outburst of yours. I know you had your reasons, but it’s wrong to act out of your aggressions on others.”

But it’s even more wrong to not help when there was a fire threatening your home, you know (Paul’s resemblance to Jeff from Earthbound may or may not be coincidental).

”Everyone loved Hinawa…”

This entrance will be closed until approximately half of the game.

”People have the power to forget.”

Some more easily than others, it seems. Finally we arrive at the local cemetery:

”Words fail me… I’ve humbly prepared “huff” a grave of the finest quality for you’re your wife’s resting in it right now, but when the time comes, you’ll be able to rest right beside her. It’s a top-notch grave, it is.”

Yeah, that was the reassuring conversation Clint really needed now, and it doesn’t stop us to wonder how the hell this old man prepared a grave in less than a day. Better not ask and move on… But before, you can randomly check the cemetery’s graves for some lulz:

Lame puns aside, we can talk to the villagers reunited here:

”When I called out to him as he was leaving, he gave me a tiny little smile… and then suddenly dashed off…”

More ominous stuff.

There are lots of people here but they mostly comment about the recent disgrace, some worth of mention are:

”She barely even got to live life! Wouldn’t you agree? I can’t not drink at a time like this…”

”He said we wouldn’t see each other for a while… When is “a while”? Tomorrow?”

”You loved each other so much that even the little birds in the forest were jealous. And that’ll never change, even after this.”

”I’m, umm… I’m sure Hinawa… She’s… up in the sky now… Waaaah!”

”I was just trying to remember what sunflowers symbolize…Because Hinawa really loved them.”

”as we prayed from the bottom of our hearts?! Mom can’t even punish me anymore now… I don’t want it like this…”

I could comment about the obvious problems of burying someone at the end of a cliff, but that would ruin the scene so I will not.

”I haven’t been to the village in a while, but I rushed straight here after I heard about Hinawa. Just after I had such a wonderful time with my grandkids… Sorry. Say, come to think of it… Where’s Claus? IS he not with you? He said he was going to see you, but he never came back… Lucas. Do you know where Claus went?”

”Don’t tell me Claus went after that detestable Drago to try to…”

Lucas: “(Bluff check: Critical failure) N-n-no! He didn’t take Dad’s homemade knife and go into the mountains to kill the Drago! … Aaah!!”
Alec: “It’s a good thing you raised him to be honest, Clint!!”Does Claus honestly think a homemade knife can kill a Drago?! Lucas! Why you didn’t you stop him?!”
Lucas: “Well… I said I wanted to go too, but he said no because he was going alone…”
Alec: “So you just let him go?! You fool!”

Alec’s harsh commentary affected Lucas so much that he ran away crying. Smooth move, sir (/sarcasm).

”It sounds like Claus is headed into the mountains to kill the Drago that killed his mom. We’re in a race against time, but this can’t be any ordinary Drago we’re dealing with here. We’re gonna need the proper equipment first! Get a weapon to fight Dragos with, and then hurry to my place.”

Alec mentions we can ask Mapson to mark his house’s location on the map, we do and then proceed to take some preparations for our incoming task; but first we visit Lucas:

”Don’t… Don’t worry Lucas… My son, I promise I’ll return back with Claus, I’ll not rest until I find him.”

Lucas: “But… but dad… what if… if… if it’s too…”

”I SAID I’ll not rest until I find him, no matter how hard it is.”

Next, the Drago Fang:

”I made it into a weapon. The only thing that can pierce the tough hide of a Drago is a Drago’s fang. There’s no other weapon that can beat a Drago. I realize this might be tough for you to accept, but you should take it. I think Lighter had something to give you, too. He should be at the beach west of here.”

Oh really? Great, more loot then!

”Mr. Clint. Think you could go say hi to him?”

”But if you start acting like that, what’ll happen to the two kiddos who rely on you? You know what’s best. It’s tough being a man. No doubt Claus is intent on avenging Hinawa. You’d better go after him, and fast… I’ll let you borrow this. Don’t worry. I washed it. It’s clean.”

:True patriot: Now we could go directly to the forest, but there’s still one part of Tazmily we haven’t inspected yet:

This will not be the first time we see that Arabian-looking guy.

”I’m alive! I’m plenty alive, dagnabbit!”

”Something not right’s happening to this village. I can feel it. But that’s just me talking to myself. Oh, Clint! Good of you to come! You weren’t the one who taught my cutte little Myrna ll of those unsavory words, were you?”

Gotta love how much the townsfolk care for their elders. Here in this house we can expropriate a Peculiar cheese; depending of who eats it will restore more or less hp, Clint loves cheese so he’ll regain 60 hp, nice. Lastly but not least, old Wess has something for us too:

”It’s truly hard to bear when younger ones pass away first. Oh, yes. Clint. This is a useful item used in the Thief Arts. Take it with you. I won’t stop you. I have an inkling of where you’re off to. But your life’s not the only at risk here. Old Nippolyte is getting up there in years. Don’t make him dig another grave. Always remember this. Your life isn’t yours alone.”

Wise words, a shame later you’ll see he pretty much breaks his own image as a wise, kind old man. In the forest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjBLsTxHovU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQxEKE2FLas&feature=related
There are old enemies like the flying mice of before (apparently more than an abomination it could be a sort of biological chimera), and new enemies like this Praying Mantis, a pushover but with a nice song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg6_GilvJNw&feature=related
Jew-mice, they can randomly steal your stuff, notice how the battle song is much harder than previous ones.

A rare enemy that appears where Lighter’s house was, it can only be killed with a 10-hits combo or with an attack item, it gives you 1000 xp after its death.

These ones can cast psi Lifeup Alfa and heal themselves, but they continue to be no threat for our one-man army.

That one is perhaps the weirdest of them: they never attack, instead they will repeatedly cast Lifeup Alfa on you for no reason and then escape; unfortunately for them even if they’re good intentioned and they give away only 1 xp it’s our duty to purify this forest at any cost.

Somewhat dangerous, can charge constantly for 30/40 hp of damage. Eventually we arrive where the downed trees were and beyond:

A new type of enemy appears:

These motherfuckers are very tough, have many hp, and they can camouflage themselves as if they were random rocks, what to do? Attack with no mercy is the solution. Soon we arrive to an intersection, to the right we reach Alec’s house, to the left…

The path is blocked dammit. Off to Alec’s house then:

”Traveling through the forest has become quite dangerous indeed… (I suppose the pigmasks managed to deploy a small army of ferocious predators/excite the forest’s animals to rampaging madness while they were busy setting the forest on fire). What were those extremely bizarre flying mouse things with bug wings? It seems one bit me right on the head, too. I’ve healed up perfectly, though… No, no, no, no! None of that matters! I know where Claus might have gone! According to my froggy intelligence, he’s at my friend’s house. Let’s head there right now!”

And so Alec joins us. Before walking out to save Claus…

Poor Clint. Anyways, we have stuff to do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vhOHkGYAws

"When I said 'froggy intelligence' just now, you thought, 'Whaat?'", didn't you?”Frogs work for my friend, as messengers. My friend is able to talk with frogs, lizards, and what have you. See that lizard there, for instance? We just need to go in the direction it tells us.”

”You have doubts about this friend of mine, don’t you? (no shit Sherlock, I think you’re just delirious) My friend – no, friends- are known as ‘Magypsies’. They’ve lived isolated away from civilization for a very, very long time.”

The lizard thingy points to the south, so we’ll continue in that direction. About Alec’s combat skills, they’re useful as being concerned about his lower-back pain (CONSTANTLY), urging Clint to be careful, and actually doing something at all and healing Clint with a special herb medicine when his HP is very low.
As we continue our travel Alec interrupts us one more time:

A fun thing is that to represent Clint’s increasing frustration and anger towards Alec he takes more and more time to turn to face Alec as he pesters us with his incessant babbling.

”It seems the word ‘Magypsies’ has made you curious. The Magypsies have mysterious powers, and have been protecting something here for a very long time. They’re neither human nor beast, neither man nor woman. I have absolutely no idea how old they are. That explanation didn’t explain much, did it? Basically, they’re strange. All of them. Every one of them. That’s just how they are. They ARE good-natured, though.”


This is very interesting but we have a mission to accomplish more important than your trivia old man. Also, I hope when he mentions neither man nor woman he’s not referring they’re androgynous abominations like these:

Spoiler

They’re even worse

Ugh, good luck discovering who is a man and who a woman in these examples. Back to the topic:

Intelligence: One of the 2 frogs must be the key to continue, and that’s the right one:

”Frog!! The right frog!!”

At the other side, the first thing we find is a cow:

You can milk it for a Fresh Milk item. Like the Chicken Egg in Earthbound, it changes with the pass of time: originally it restores 80 HP but if you don’t consume it soon it will degrade to Rotten Milk (heals only 10 hp), but if you wait a bit more it will turn into an Yogurt (restores 80 hp and never degrades).

We can try to explore a bit before entering the Magypsies’ house…

”… But not that way!!”

Except that our old “loved” Alec doubles function not only as an annoying sidekick but as a mobile invisible wall as well. Sigh.

”Can’t you hear those indescribably deep yet shrill voices coming from Aeolia’s house?”

Strange house is strange; it’s vaguely reminiscent of the ones in Magicant, in Earthbound Zero/Mother 1. I wonder how these Magypsies look…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz4u7HeKMzY
… WHAT

“THE…”

”HELL??”

“This is why the Japanese shouldn’t try to play Torment…”

Why… Oh, I get it, “what can change the nature of a man”, indeed. No doubt this would be super-censored if Mother 3 was released. Clint, summoning all of his courage decided to interview the “thingies”:

”You simply MUST have some of this cake! It’s scrumptious! (assume that EVERY Magypsy'sl ines ends with a heart)”

”And who’s this with you?”

”Now, let’s get you all properly introduced to us, the Magypsies. You’re in luck, we’re having a party today. Nearly all of us are here. First we have Aeolia, then there’s Doria, Phrygia, Lydia, and that one over there is Mixolydia. The only one not here is Locria. You can call me Ionia. Hmm? You can’t remember all that? Of course not. That’s why I just introduced you, darling. Isn’t that how it works? Right, Alecy-poo?”

”Do you know where he might’ve went?”

Then I suppose this Clint fellow is his father. Hmm… Yes, I can see the resemblance now. You have the same eyes.”

”He was in a great hurry, mentioning something about avenging his mother. I was just feeling generous at the time, so I sent him on his way with a super-powerful Psi technique. I doubt he’ll be able to use it very easily, though.”

”And you didn’t stop him?! What if something happens to him?!”

”That’s a blink of an eye to us Magypsies. Why would anyone bother to care about such short lives?”

”Isn’t that right, Alecy-poo? I understand how you feel. I really do.”

”Barely seemed concerned about his own short little life. If you go now, you just might catch him in time.”

”So let me get this straight: You’re immortal crossdressers with unlimited powers that according to your own words you don’t care about humanity, and yet when you see my son, an obviously distressed child bent on avenging his mother on an impossible quest, you become minimally interested enough to the point of giving him a powerful technique that you dubt he would be able to use, thus contradicting your previous statement and probably sentencing him to die due your carelessness.”

Aeolia: “Exactly!”

”… Where is a chainsaw when you need one?”

That’s why you shouldn’t trust trannies (super-powered or not), more characters filled with devilish “naivety”. Kreia already said it:

Apathy is death, but immortal sociopathic transvestites with eldritch powers are even worse. We should go before Claus is completely munched.

”The quickest way to get to the Dragon Plateau is through the cave behind this house. Claus probably went through the cave, too. There’s nothing to worry about, Clint. But you’re not gonna get very far being as tense as you are. What you need to do is smile. Understand? (Ok, why not? There is no problem with that except that every lost second could be the difference between finding Claus alive or as loose meaty pieces). Yeah, okay. But you still seem pretty tense, if you ask me. Come on, now. That’s no good. Smile! And Relax!”

The cave is a maze with some enemies we already met before like the Mr Batty. Navigation here isn’t very hard; the worse is being interrupted by Alec constantly, with comments such as:

”It’s pitch dark in here, but never fear. I’ve been through here many a time. Just leave it to me. But more importantly, that super-serious look on your face will only bring us trouble. You gotta relax!”

He occasionally tells us something slightly useful like where to go to get through the cave (but nothing stops you to freely explore to get some loot), however…

”That was my Magypsy impression. Did you like it? Relax, relax.”

By now Clint logically doesn’t bother to face Alec every time he yells something, I guess he’s restraining himself with all of his willpower to not punch Alec to death.

”*fart* Was that you? Just kidding, it was me. Hehehe.”

I think I can understand now why he lived so far away of the village.

”Was it north? I’m pretty sure there’s a vine to the north. We need to “vined” it and climb up it.”

”… Did you not notice it? I said we have to “vined the vine”. You know, instead of “find”? Wasn’t that funny?”

”Looks like we should’ve gone west at that last fork in the path.”

I think not only the village hated you Alec, Hinawa was probably eager to return to the village as fast as possible.

”… Don’t be so embarrassed. Heheheh.”

”Now we just need to head upward and climb up some vines. Da vines go up because they’re divine. Oh, c’mon, it’s just a pun.”

If it wasn’t because Claus was in danger Clint would do the world a favor and kill you slowly and coldly, dumbfuck.

Finally we’re outside of the caves. Time to continue moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCoVIDrwRdw
The pigsoldiers run away when you spot them, but at least this recovering machine works like it did in Mother 2 (another throwback). In the Drago Plateau there’s interesting loot like the Fresh Lumber, a new weapon for Clint, and also new enemies:

An odd scorpion thingy, directly imported from Mother 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ37Boa0V6Q
An impatient vulture, and the worst of all of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw_Izr1Ylr8
The return of the damned kamikaze trees! As I said in the previous update, notice how the song is identical to another one but with slight variations that if unnoticed will ruin your combos. Now we should focus on finding Claus…

Alec: ”This belongs to Claus! And that was a baby Drago just now. Claus MUST be around here somewhere!”

Oh fuck, this doesn’t look good. We should hurry…

”This one appears to be broken, however.”

Wisdom: Because we’re in the Drago Plateau, I think this thing was used to create a Drago chimera but the resulting creature was unexpectedly extra-EXTREME and broke it. Not long after this...

”Claus! We’re here to rescue you! Where are you?!”
But SUDDENLY, something very close roars, and the ground trembles as ITZ appears:

”I have a bad feeling about this…!”

The robo-ITZ roars a last time and charges!

Here you can notice several things if you watch it closely. First, we can confirm this particular Drago was the EXTREME one that killed Hinawa, because he lacks the fang he used to stab her and leave her to die for the lulz. Second, the same Drago was the one that Claus attacked because these scratches were probably made by him in an epic battle. Fully understanding that he found the murderer of his wife, Clint gets very angry and counterattacks. Rampaging cyber-dinosaur versus a very angry lumber’s wielding tribute to Clint Eastwood. If that’s not one of the definitions of awesome nothing is. The battle and the outcome is here
Well, due that horrible flaw that the weak call “mercy”, Clint couldn’t finish the job and left alive the Drago’s baby, who will surely grow up as a vengeful and dangerous enemy. What’s worse, in a sad but realistic way the big bro failed to avenge his mom and died .
And there you have it, the update’s end. Somehow more shit hit the fan, and long before Oblivion mods and THE NEW shit featured it, Mother 3 already had transvestites, and it manages to be even darkier and grittier than DA without need of excessive gore. Trannies, grimdark, DRAMAH, epicness, (false) C&C, mindfuck and weird shit; I would say Mother 3 is the true codexian jrpg, ever. Stay tuned for the next update!

 

[spekkio]

With it's cartonish looks it's no surprise this game wasn't released in West. Earthbound was like 1995? Different era.
Now games must be MATURE (and appeal to 12-year olds).

 

[lightbane]

Update this week. So, tell me readers and lurkers, should I continue posting every song of the game that can be heard as you play? Because I thought you would be interested in hearing the several battle themes and their evolution as the enemies become more and more difficult (and because most of these are epic win), but maybe it could become tedious for you. Also, once more: do you like my style in the lp, or should I change something? Please respond if you can and not just stare creepily/lurk obsessively for if there's new updates.

 

[spekkio]

:lurks moar:

 

[Cenobyte]

Please respond if you can and not just stare creepily/lurk obsessively for if there's new updates.

Okay, honestly I never bothered to follow your links, but that's just me (hardcore lurker, just look at my massive post count xD). Otherwise, it's fun to read and fairly amusing.

 

[ghostdog]

Keep posting links, continue as is.

thnxby

 

[lightbane]

Update 3: The longest prologue ever existed, part 3: Thief: Laughing shadows

Following Claus’ demise, surely Lucas by now will be angsting and feeling great remorse right? Who the fuck cares, it’s time for Garret to shine, here’s chapter 2’s introduction.

As you saw in the video, we now have more special items for Garret (and as Wess says there is a chest hidden behind the house with Thunder bombs that is replenished every time you exit the village, we travel back and forth until I have 2 or 3 of these). Time to go to the castle… but first we’ll waste our precious time speaking with the villagers just for fun and possible information for our objective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w36PdRaRSi4 the music for if someone still cares

”Say, what do you do for a living? Don’t tell me you’re actually a…)”

*SPLAT!* Sorry, it knew too much. Moving on…

Shame, for once it would fit to sistematically plunder every house you find.

”Oh, if it isn’t Garret. I see you still enjoy your nighttime strolls. Oh? You want to go to Osohe Castle? In that case, I’ll mark it on your map for you. I’m not even going to bother asking what you’re off to do this late at night, but you do know that Osohe’s Castle’s drawbridge is up, right? [Intelligence]: That means you can’t get inside. But there are rumors of an underground passage that leads into the castle. I bet Nippolyte the gravekeeper knows something about it.”

I love how these retards contradict themselves what they said mere moments before; at least it still works for us. The rest of the houses are as inaccessible as the first one, but…

Poor little thing,..Don’t blame yourself so much, it is not that your big bro’s death was your fault… Oh wait, it is :twisted: .
As Garret tries to silently leave the village, he bumps into someone.

”Come now, little monkey. We should be off.”

The monkey casts us a pitiful glance before leaving. Unfortunately for him the Emperor demands no compassion for anyone, there is only rage. Now I would try to advance… but Garret bumps into someone, again:

(Looks around) If you promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you in on a cool secret.

”What do you think’s inside?! “Money”! There’s “money” inside! Ever heard of money?! What? You don’t know what money is?! …Actually, I’m not really all that sure, either. After all, we’ve never had it in Tazmily before (communists). But apparently an “era of money” is about to start! Huh? What’s an “era of money”?...Huh? Oh, a traveler gave it to me in exchange for some pigs! Yeah, he took a real liking to my pigs. And the asked me in tears if I’d trade them for this. It did seem pretty strange to me at first, but I decided to trust the guy. He’s definitively a friend worth having!”

”I don’t want any ignorant people taking off with it, so I’m gonna hide it in this well here… Garret!... This secret is just between you and me!”

And with these last words the redneck leaves.
[Wisdom] It looks like that Arabian-looking guy of before is starting to corrupt this innocent village with the wonders of capitalism. Oh boy, this is going to be good…

Unfortunately Garret is the last living thief with a shred of honor, these were a great clan, I wonder why they died out. We can now leave the town but before, for something totally random:

Here’s the castle:

Hmm, ominous stuff is ominous. The moment you enter the graveyard, a cutscene triggers, watch it here.

It’s strange no-one mentioned the zombies before. Shouldn’t Lucas be worried for if his mom or his bro return to share a meal with him (literally)?

“Maybe the pigarmy started messing with the Necronomicon, that or this was done for the lulz. Either way they’re dangerous only in number, and for Claus, you should ask the vultures.”

Maybe. In any case Nyppolyte suddenly appears when the zombies are gone, and Garret doesn’t see this suspicious at all.

”at night, you do.”

Why is he digging a grave now that's so late? It’s for Claus? Better to not ask.

Like Mapson said, you cannot directly enter the castle, we’ll have to find another way around.

”And that voice is mine! Watch where you’re steppin’, will ya?! I’m, like, standing right here! I’m an ant! Don’t you dare step on me! I’ve been watching you fight for a while now… but I just can’t take it anymore! Fights are all about rhythm! You know, like “boom boom boo-boom boom, boom boom”. When you’re in battle, there’s a very specific rhythm that matches the enemy’s beat! Pick up on that rhythm, and victory will be yours! If you’re really good, you can even pull off 16-hit combos! I hereby name these “Sound Battles”! Thant you very mantch!) “

Basically an explanation of the combat’s system, but I already told you before However, the game doesn’t tell you (not yet) that if you manage to get an enemy to sleep (for example using Garret’s special gear like in the video), you’ll be able to combo more easily following the enemy’s heartbeats (unfortunately I suck at this, blame the emulator).

As soon as you return, Nyppolite runs off to his cabin to continue performing his dark arts. That or the zombies suspiciously decide to hang around when he’s not around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z_UrNvRhpY

Cool song but they’re not dangerous (unless there are several of them; you gotta love btw how much the game exploits the GBA’s hardware with its awesome music, kinda of embarrassing when a gameboy game can pretty much owns most of actual rpgs’ soundtracks, and just wait for the awesomesauce piano music pieces).

Also, most of the enemies here drop Rotten Eclairs, a favorite food for ghosts, you’ll see their utility later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG2h7TqV9bM
Fuck, even the graves decided to try their luck on killing Garret! Their battle song is very hard to combo for obvious reasons, and they have a deadly attack:

That hurts like a bitch but fortunately common sense and logic apply here and they’ll waste some turns trying to get up. Avoid them at all costs or if you must destroy them with extreme prejudice.

There are of course the classical zombies (not the crappy, banal, boring shit of the running zombies of nowadays movies), this time in both genders so that sexists don’t complain.

“Wait a minute; this zombie’s sprite looks familiar… What… That’s… that’s ME!!! FUUUUUCKKKK!!!!!!!! What kind of sick joke is that?? THAT’S ALL I GET AFTER SAVING THE WORLD GODDAMIT???!!”

Actually, there’s a triple reference here: First is a rather humorous throwback to Earthbound because Zombie man and Zombiewoman look like Ness and Paula respectively; second, it could be interpreted as a morbid joke with Hinawa and Claus (because the zombiewoman looks like her a bit); and third, it’s an obvious joke with the clichéd cemeteries where zombie arise and start shambling around at the first excuse. Now we should follow Nyppolite:

Hmm, nothing there but a secret passage:

And new monsters to exterminate of course. Nothing impressive except it can leech your health (durr).

I like these mooks, they don’t jump at you immediately, instead they stare hard at you. You can easily outstare them, scaring them to run away like cowards until they stupidly hit a wall and show their unprotected backs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQxEKE2FLas
The name is amusingly appropriate. Anyways, after a long walk we’re outside:

”You made it through that underground passage without being done in by all them monsters? (that doesn’t sound disturbing at all no) That’s really somethin’. Want inside the castle, do ya? ‘Fraid that’s not gonna happen. The gate’s locked, and *huff* won’t budge at all. Only way inside now is to climb up the walls.”

But that’s why Garret is a thief, puny walls will not stop our evolution!

Success! And now we know that the thing the zepigling airship dropped was rather shitty *dodges shot*

”I BLABLABLABLABLABLAMORETUTORIALSBANALSHITBORINGBLABLA, etc. etc.”

This time it tells you about the trick I already pulled off to sleep the enemies to learn the rhythm and stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZAldaggW-M
Finally, we’re inside the goddamned castle. As expected, it’s dusty, decrepit, filled with traps and ghosts, because everyone knows all abandoned buildings eventually become haunted. As a demonstration that painting follows you as you move, its eyes moving to left or right when you’re not looking.

Speaking of ghosts, some may randomly spawn next to you and attack in almost every area in the castle:

They hit pretty hard until you level up at least two times, can call reinforcements, and worst of all they can inflict the “nauseous” ailment, that prevents the affected character from using food items, a pain in the ass in other words.

Hmm, it looks like we need to ram that statue to continue. Let’s do it!

Banzai!! *crunch*

Ops, who would know that common sense would apply and the metal ball would fall on you? Fortunately, this never happened, Carter Jr agreed to be the replacement victim for if anything happened before this lp started, so Garret is fine.

Okay, this time worked. Below there’s a room with a gift. If you open it…

The bastard laughs at your disgrace as Garret is afflicted with the ailment I mentioned before. Fuck!
Fear not, in the next room we find something:

That item heals the nauseous ailment.

Soon we arrive at the main hall, Garret doesn’t waste his time and unlocks the gate, stopping a brief moment to speak with Nippolyte:

”It’s just and old, crumbling castle now. ‘Bout the only things in there are ghosts and spooks.”
You surely now by experience, right? Anyways, we backtrack and this time we follow the main hall’s left corridorl:

Here there are some gifts to loot and hot springs:

So we choose this time the north door, arriving to a room with 3 doors.

The left room has more loot and enemies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsum4fCSxo
They’re not even poisonous, so no danger here except with the song that has odd twists as you can hear. More importantly is that I found the Battle Memory, a compilation of all the monsters you encounter in the game, you can fight again against any of them to learn their songs’ beat and such.

Now we’ll visit that bazaar (a fun note is that the ghostly signs only appear when you’re nearby).

A true bioware fan is he. You can notice they’re friendly because they don’t have red eyes and do not try to kill you (/captain obvious).

”Like his length. And his jaw.”

That Rope Snake may be a reference to one of Mother 2’s enemies, I would prefer a normal rope though.

”How about a Rope Snake? He’s incredibly popular these days! He makes for a good pet, and he can even change into a jump-rope or a clothesline at the drop of a hat! He¡s a very handy and hard-working snake! Yessiree!”

He sells each item for a determined number of rotten ecclairs. Because I stopped to grind two or so levels before continuing I got enough rotten ecclairs to buy everything on his stock.

”Keeheehee!”

And we got the Rope Snake. Now we return to the layer of before and explore the last door of the 3, looting everything before walking downstairs through a trapdoor that was there:

The room includes new monsters like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBh7d31oXdM
The Big Bro, don’t ask what the hell that thing is that, my guess is as good as yours. Cannot attack except trying to use powerful psi attacks… but it doesn’t even have enough pp to use these. A joke enemy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPtYr4pez6Y&feature=related
Self explanatory, another pushover.

We’ll return here in another chapter, so we’ll have to look for another route:

”Keep it a squeekret from the ghosts, though.”

As the mouse tells you can use the fireplaces to be able to return to the room with the hotsprings thanks to the magic of alien geeometries. Useful when you’re desperate and need healing. The gift next to it contains a Chick Bandana, +5 for defense.
However, more disconcerting is the fact that when you turn back to leave…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lALLyn6YsQ

Even the paintings want to kill us, fuck. Even stranger is the fact that the enemy is not very aggressive, it will randomly spent turns discussing passionately about art (don’t ask). We should hurry before something worse attacks Garret.

Unfortunately it happens, the Ghost Armor enemies are tough and hit hard, if you don’t know how to use Garret’s special skills by now you’ll be deader than dead. In the next room we find a peculiar party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7hfWqE9y8

”It’s moving! It’s tearjerking! It’s hinting!”

”No, you’re not normal. You appear to be a thief-person!”

”In this castle, I’m the ghost who knows the most.”

Casper anyone? Anyways, let’s see that supposedly “hinting song” we were recommended:

”I’ll never forget you. In my lonely room, your wig weeps. Baby, believe me when I say don’t attach anything to the walls of this room. Like moles or wigs or wall staples. Ooh, ooh ooooh. No wall staples.”

Okay, that was blatantly ridiculously “hinting”.

This friendly ghost will always offer you some rotten éclairs for free even if you already had more than one, he’ll comment that you and he are buddies and don’t need to hold back to be polite, you can easily abuse him to farm rotten éclairs.

LOL. An angsty ghost? Have we found the spirit of Cloud, the prince of emos?
Before climbing the painfully obvious wall marks, we visit the kitchen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl34XvTbhRI
Just to be attacked by cockroaches, wtf? An old enemy of Earthbound, it continues to be as inoffensive as it was there.

These have the map for the zone you are, good thing to know.

As it can be expect almost everything here is rotten and unusable, what’s more, there is one enemy that will only appear if you examine certain pot:

Despite what its looks, it is actually strong; it can spray you with its digestive fluids for tons of damage, and has lots of health, at least it gives a reasonable amount of xp.

This path is closed too so we’ll need to use the scalable wall.

”Please! Trade it to me for this Beef Jerky!”

He’ll exchange any rotten éclair you have in exchange of Beef Jerky, as many times as you want. Not a bad trade.

We arrive to the other side of the broken path of before, finding a new and better accessory, and an asshole ghost that coughs on you, sickening Garret. Meh, good luck I was prepared and had a fresh mint just in case.

Somehow this works, I insist a standard rope would be enough, but it wouldn’t be funny as this. The moving shape is ANOTHER new type of enemy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8gzPalCyVc
Once more nothing that old-fashioned violence cannot solve, the monster is weak, our faith not.

”But the suit of armor inside here is definitvely no pushover, either. I’m talking INCREDIBLY strong, here. If you think you’re up to the challenge, I’ll move out of the way. Regular ol’ items, Mystical Thief Tools… Use whatever you can to cling-clang boom-bang that guy into submission!”
Finally, some actual challenge! Inside the room there is a new weapon for Garret, the Durable Shoes:

And that armor. If you don’t kill the sword and/or the shield (these are separate enemies), they’ll combine into:

It’s just slightly stronger than a regular Ghost Armor, Garret used a smoke grenade to neutralize his physical attacks, effortlessly defeating him. As a reward it drops a Yogurt, plus the ghost will compliment you (but he will not give you anything, greedy bastard).

Next room a strange girl walks in and runs off without noticing Garret, dropping a pendant we immediately pick up for later. The following room has several mirrors you can interact with:

But they will warn you of these poltergeists when you walk next to them, however the specters are very fast and will surely catch you the first time:

They hit hard but you can use their aggressiveness against themselves: if there’s two Rocking’ Ghosts they’ll start to waste turns attacking each other. The next, final room of this update contains several doors, only one of them is the correct one, the rest are monsters (literally):

Once more, not very dangerous but they have an unique mechanism of defense when they’re hurt:

Lulz. As a fact they will no longer attack when they’re in this state (for if you were wondering, yes, Mother 3 has lots of variety for the enemies, much more than just a bunch of reskins).

”The music I am playing is “Family Matters, 2nd Movement”. Listen thoroughly. Listen and marvel to your heart’s content.”

This guy is our next boss; I’ll post the link here because it’s too awesome to be explained. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj3LOpUQtR8
And that’s it for today, Garret’s adventures will continue in the next update.

PS: Family Matters: 2nd Movement contains bits of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, the original piece Etude for Ghosts (which sounds a bit like Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 2), Mozart's Symphony No. 40, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 6. Also, the Etude for Ghosts song was one of the scrapped ones of Earthbound 64, kinda ironic that it was converted into a theme for ghosts.

 

[ghostdog]

That mr. passion sure got what he deserved.

 

[lightbane]

Update 4: The longest prologue ever existed, part 4: YOU MORON (or how we meet an abusive father)!!!!

Right now we have something shiny as Wess demanded, so it’s time to return.

It looks like we had spent the entire night with our quest, but before rushing to Garret’s house we should say goodbye to the gravedigger:

”If you’re headed out, crossing the drawbridge would be faster and safer than taking this underground passage. Here, I’ll give you the Drawbridge Key. Nah, don’t worry about giving it back. Just go on and take it. As long as I got this here underground passage, that’ll be enough for me.”

I suspect this is some sort of bribe so we don’t mess anymore with his surely dubious experiments and foul sorceries.

We use the key to open the bridge and then return to Tazmily Village. Because now the citizens are awake and active, we will talk to them for some gossip.

”I thought you were the type of man who wakes up at night and sleeps in the morning, but it seems you’re trying to be a man who wakes up in the morning and sleeps at night. Doing that is only going to cause confusion, so maybe it’s not a good idea. Does that make sense?”

”And you’re a man who lives with his sister in the same house and all that it entails. Plus you’re pretty retarded.”

”Would you like some?”

Why not? Never say “no” to something free.

Cheapskate bitch.

”Right now, I’m learning about how to make Omelets-flavored cookies. I’m gonna let Hinawa try some when they’re done baking. I hope she comes back soon…”

Poor little thing, so innocent… Anyways, the other civilians are quite talkative too:

”I baked some delicious Nut Cookies to try cheer everyone up. I made too many though, so you can have one.”

The Triumvirate of Witches continues to be useless as always, at least we got some free food. The mayor’s house:

”And, upon closer look, you’re actually surprisingly manly now.”

”Wont’ some people think you’re trying to steal something if you go into their houses? I don’t think you are, though.”

Bluff: I’m not removing anything from anyone’s inventory, I’m just cleaning drawers and shit, really (and for a fun note I think there is literally nothing you can loot on anyone’s house, all items you can get are randomly placed on gifts).

Uhh, ok…

”Something’s definitively changed since then.”

”But now that she’s gone… My problems just get worse and worse now.”

”They say that on Tanetane Island, across the sea, is a world of dreams and nightmares. But they also say that nobody knows the real truth about it. So then how do I know about it?”

Remember these words; we never know if we’ll need to travel to Arca… I mean that island.

”The sea washes away people’s worries. I once washed someone’s back in a bath. What do you think? I wrote that poem myself.”

Jonel continues to be a failure, how surprising.

These kids could be referring to the strange Arabian-looking guy of before. You’ll see how most of the townsfolk react to this obvious display of animal cruelty.

The Bazaar has nothing worth of wasting one space on Garret’s inventory. Time to enter the Yado Inn and see what the hell is happening with this stranger of sorts.

”What am I supposed to do with it?”

Apparently she isn’t as easily corrupted with greed like the redneck that’s Butch.

”I hope he’s all right…”

Yes, don’t try to visit him and talk with him as a friend would do, you know, being his friend and merely being some steps away of his house. Speaking of Lucas…

He still is affected due the recent events, and Clint is nowhere to be seen. Now we just need to give him somewhat annoying friends (that will be systematically killed), a crazy bitch that abuses him constantly, and a cold, inhuman father so he’ll be able to pilot an uber-mech made with some remains of his mom… Ops, wrong universe.

”Something not right’s happening to this village. I can feel it. Actually something bad could even happen to me, too…”

Somehow that old man is more aware of what’s happening than half of the villagers.

Come on, now. What a nuisance that guy is. I don’t know much about the secret info, personally.).

If you insist the pig will eventually reveal a 4th-wall breaking commentary:

”and it was so great it managed to get into the game. But this time, with MOTHER 3, the croquette rolls they sell at the Lonlon shop in Kichijoji got all the attention).”

”You better not tell ANYONE about the money I hid in that well!”

Sure, sure redneck.

”Do you know what his deal is, Garret?!

”I mean, you almost seem like a thief, y’know!”

Captain obvious to the rescue! Anyways, time to move the plot, so we go to speak to Wess:

”This delicate, profound, and shiny…quality! This is the legendary Noble Spitton, passed down from generation to generation in Osohe! You found it! My judgment was correct after all! Garret! You’re excepcionally…”

”I THOUGHT!!”

Wess rages and thrashes the shiny thing, without even asking at all how much punishment Garret could have suffered back in the castle, not to mention Garret was technically a beginner thief, according to Wess himself. And he still has more to say.

:codexrage: “You call yourself a thief, yet you can’t even tell what it is you need to steal?! Anything else, moron?! Did you bring back any other big jackpot items?! Are you sure you’re not just fooling around to try to entertain me? You moron.”

”Well, there was this pendant…”

”This… I isn’t what I was looking for… But could it be…?”

There’s a flashback about the strange girl that Garret saw and thingies.

”The princess of Osohe Castle. Garret your first job was an utter failure. But this is no time to be calling you a moron. I’ll come with you this time. We’re heading to Osohe Castle at once. Let’s hurry to the room the spittoon was in!”

And with that Wess the abusive father joins us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKgjX_-xn0

Now some of our fellows will have different dialogue now that Wess is around (and even foreshadow some events to come, if you look closely). Of course, no-one in the village is aware (or gives a fuck) of Wess’ abusive tendencies (and frankly, even if Garret decided to ditch him and leave, he had no place to escape anyways).

”but no one will even give me the time of day.”

I wonder why…

”You don’t happen to know where little Claus is, do you…? No, I suppose not, uh? I’m starting to get worried.”

Good to know the Triumvirate continues to bitch about everything.

”Why, if it isn’t Mr. Wess! “Wess”up?”

*facepalm* let’s see the others:

”I’m not sure why, but none of the family members in this village really look alike.”

Blame the programmers, that for once wanted to make original models for each of you instead of copy-pasting 3 different models to death (also, it’s me or she thinks she’s a so “forgettable” character that she introduces herself every time she’s spoken to?).

”It’s still some years off –I’m not sure how many, exactly – but there’s talk about constructing something called an “old folks’ home”. I figure it’ll be perfect for you, old man. It’ll be like a dream come true, so I hope you look forward to it. Actually, an associate of sorts came to our village this morning.”

Sounds good! What can go possibly wrong? I wonder if the Mayor considers himself an “old man” to be included in that project of his (/sarcasm).

”…That’s how I always feel, anyways. But I can’t even begin to imagine what the outside world is like.”

”Meanwhile, my own thoughts just keep getting gloomier and gloomier…”

Future emo detected. There is nothing more that could catch our interest, so time to proceed to the castle…

*inserts rumbling noise*

[Intelligence] It seems the Pig Army decided to invade Castle Osohe in search of something. Perhaps they’re after whatever Garret was supposed to find? An unanswered question would be how the hell they moved there without alerting the apathetic villagers… Oh wait, nevermind, I replied myself. Anyways, Garret and Wess follow the trail...

”Some pig-looking guys just bust right into the castle. If you’re going inside, *huff* do be careful.”

At least they did something right.

Like Clint Wess and Garret lack the Tech-use skill to know what these heretical devices are, but this doesn’t stop us to continue, except…

So the space Nazis can use golems like the Jew’s myths, aka Jew-tech, as if they weren’t enough with their other techno-sorcery (btw, Wess’ moves are things like scolding Garret (the most frequent one), throw one of Garret’s socks to paralyze, throw a Thunder Bomb, and rarely use a Secret Thief Technique for massive damage).

Thanks to the magic of their techno-heresy and the jew-tech the ghostly enemies have been replaced by Pigmasks and robots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LovjsnINGjk
There are several types of Pigmask enemies, these, the rookies, have combat skills like shooting a laser for some damage; say some nasty, horrible things to decrease defense to a random party member, apologize profusely (reminiscent of something, anyone?), and kicking the shit out of a party member. They leave one food item:

Lame, as you see you no longer can trade Rotten Ecclairs, so we’ll return where Mr. Passion was.

That’s the 2nd new enemy you can find in the castle. A variation of the Fireflies, not very strong but can call reinforcements.

The pigsoldiers wasted no time to wreck everything they could see, including the ghost party. In fact, most of the ghosts are hiding where the kitchen was, like this:

Lol. Their dialogue doesn't change much, they just complain the place is stuffy and they were forced here because of the pigarmy. The rest of the travel is uneventful, except the occasional pigmask with a deathwish.

”It appears someone has opened this door…Very recently, too. I believe only the princess has the ability to turn open this secret door… Garret. This is embarrassing. Turn the other way.”
What could be so embarrassing according to Wess? Watch it here.
Emm… What the hell was that? Was Malcom/Kekfa the jester the architect of this secret door? Whatever, in any case we must continue.

In this room there’s a large garbage can (the use will be explained later).

”I remember way back when, when I asked King Osohe what it is. His normally gentle expression suddenly turned stern, and he said, ‘Forget about it.’ …I think. I can’t remember. I decided to mind my own business and forget about it ever since then. Or so I recall. That isn’t the ‘certain important item’ I speak of.”

Damn, the Nameless One has photographic memory compared with Wess. But SUDDENLY, the princess:

”Is that you, you old geezer?!”

”My, joy this brings back memories! Sometimes… I wouldn’t remember you for not but a little bit. No, no, no! I’m so giddy that I’ve mixed my words! I haven’t forgotten about you for but a bit! No, no wait… Garret! You moron! Get your act together!”

Good move, when you commit an error and you say something stupid, blame your son. Wess will surpass Dr. Andonuts if he continues like this.

”I can’t afford to die here, so I was just thinkin’ about cuttin’ my foot off.”

*Headdesk* Wait, wait, this is so wrong I need external assistance:

Little girl, there is a difference between ‘Extreme’ and ‘being retarded’. You crossed the line twice. If you cut your goddamn foot, you will not be able to move at all, and you will die of exsanguination. Don’t pretend to be tough and suffer an embarrassing death, for fuck’s sake.”

Wise words, Grandmaster of the Extreme. Now, Wess has to say something:

”But you needn’t resort to removing your foot, Princess. For me and my Thief Arts, a trap of this sort is absolutely nothing to never worry about! No, wait, wait! Just leave it to me! I’ll have this off faster than you can say ‘piece of cake’!”

The Princess’ bitch-senses tingle.

Romance? Future buttsex?

PWNED. I was considering calling her “Jack”, but knowing how is nowadays the game industry Biowhore could use this as an excuse to try to extort several millions of dollars out of me (and no-one deserves to be named after a Biowhore character anyways), so, instead, I’ll name her:

”…? What’re you doin’? Let’s go!”

”Isn’t it obvious? You guys’re here for it, too, aintcha?”

”Just a little spit on it and it’ll be as good as new! Let’s move! Hey! Geezer’s son! Escort me, will ya?! Geez!

And with that Asuka joins us! Her original name was Kumatora (something like “cat-tiger”), and she’s a tomboyish girl, very aggressive and with psychic powers.
Her items, powers and stats are:

As you see she’s a psyker, focused on offense. Because she’s one of the two psykers you will ever have in your party (the other can be guessed with a bit of your intelligence lazy bastards), she’ll get practically every offensive move possible. Also, here psychic powers are considered even more magical in nature than in Earthbound, and she’s much more aggressive than Paula/Black Cat in Mother 2 as well (and could pass more as a witch than as a princess, no offense). As we try to move…

”I apologize for being so sudden, but you know the phrase, ‘The word on the wind is…’? Yeah, I’m that wind. I’m where rumors come from. Rumor has it that Asuka, the mysterious, strong girl who just joined you, is able to use psychic powers, or Psi. If it’s true, then you’ll definitively have the upper hand in battles from now on. Well, that’s all for this ‘Word on the Wind’’. I should be going now. Bye! *whoosh* ”

As that 4th-wall breaking thing said, Asuka has psychic powers (for if someone was too retarded to notice), and is rather strong, she has the power of Cutscene superpower (aka she can one-hit punch anything in a cutscene, and yet in-game she’s weaker than a dog, literally!).
In the next room more new enemies assault us:

These are immune to fire and thunder attacks (but obviously vulnerable to ice ones), resistant to physical hits, can use PSI fire Alpha, plus they can try to emonize one of your characters (seriously):

Whatever, the party continues onward, loots everything in their path… until we find a new enemy:

Not very tough, but can use psychic powers. As a fun note, the “clothed” enemies like this haunted cape are very vulnerable to Garret’s Wall Staples skill.

Uh?

Ah, yeah, these haunted brooms don’t attack you; instead, if they catch any of your characters…

You’re literally swept away to the garbage can of before.

”I apologize for being so sudden, but you know the phrase, “The word on the wind is…?” Yeah, I’m that wind. I’m where rumors come from. It appears that one of your friends is not feeling very well. She isn’t poisoned, nor is she sleepy, yet she just can’t get rid of that ill feeling. She lacks the energy to run, and using items or hot springs don’t appear to help, either. It would seem this is because something is beginning to awaken insider her. But I’m sure she’ll get over it before long, so don’t be too worried. Well, that’s all for this “Word on the Wind”. I should be going. Bye! *swosh*”

As the Wind says, every time one of your psychic characters learns a new power (one that is not plot-related), he/she becomes temporally sick and will not be able to run, but the combat performance isn’t affected. I suppose that your body trying to cope that now you can alter reality at whim is nothing compared with a terrible cold. After a certain number of steps the effects will be gone and the power revealed:

Cool! Returning where the brooms are Asuka gets the opportunity to learn another power, PSI Thunder Alfa (same effects as in Mother 2, aka being able to ignore the enemy’s shields and sometimes paralyzing them, but it can fail to hit). We obtain more loot,

(It gives you 20 PP), and finally reach the place where “it” is:

”This is the ‘certain important item’ I had instructed you to bring back. It seems to be known as the ‘Egg of Light’, or the ‘Hummingbird Egg’. Truth be told, not even I know anything about this egg. The Hummingbird Egg is a ball of secrets inside secrets that are inside even more secrets… Or something like that, supposedly, apparently.”

”Just what sort of hope –or calamity- is hidden away in this egg? Not even I know… In any case, this Hummingbird Egg is our secret.”

”holds all of the world’s secrets?”

”But what’s most ridiculous of all is this moron standing right here. Garret. This egg gives off such a thick scent of secrets that’s so concentrated it almost reminds me of condensed milk. Yet you couldn’t catch a single whiff of it! (Don’t mind that Garret had instructions so vague he was clueless what to find and that he could never know that Egg was AT THE FUCKING TOP OF THE CASTLE, I’m starting to dislike more and more this jerkass; also, that’s a good way of utterly obliterating Garret’s self esteem). That’s how much of a moron you are! You’re a failure as a thief!”

”’Cause if he really is a moron, he wouldn’t understand anyways. Anyways, we can’t let the bad guys get their hands on this egg.”

But SUDDENLY:

The porkarmy is laying siege to the door with their jewgolems!

Asuka grabs the Egg…

”I know it appears to be sitting here nonchalanty… But I placed traps around the egg!”

*headdesk headdesk headdesk* Good to know you explained this at the beginning, less Garret accidentally died.

Oh fuck! Boss time!

Things are getting worse and worse… Also, Fuel demonstrates that definitively he’s an apathetic asshole like the rest of the villagers here, but we have to find Garret (after we speak with some people of course, there are new dialogue):

”(If you say no) Huh? You’re a girl? Yeah, come to think of it, you ARE really pretty. (However, with the other option, she says I bet you’re pretty popular with the girls, huh, mister?”

Lol, gender confusion. Anyways, the ending of the chapter is here.

And that’s it for today. Somehow, even more shit hit the fan. Will it get worse? What will happen now? Had Garret got tired of his father’s abuse and escaped (or in the worst case, broke his neck and died)? More in the next update! Stay sharp!