I refuse to put this in the Retro section because it is not retro.

Do any of you remember all the times that I claimed I was going to finish Mother 3, but never ended up getting to it (or any other game for that matter)? I finished it a couple of hours ago.

How do I put this? It was the saddest game I've ever played. I felt tears - I held them back because my brother was watching, but they were there. And now, I just feel empty. That game actually managed to depress me.

Strange, funny, heartrending. That's the tagline. It lives up to it.

That's all. I need to mope for a bit and try to get some sleep. In beating this game, I have completed one of my objectives for the winter intercession. The other objectives were mostly tossed out by two weeks of illness.

Play Mother 3. There are English patches on the web. If you aren't hooked by the end of Chapter 1, then you are not obligated to continue.

Wow... So, do you need to play the other games as a prerequisite?

No, but parts of it do have a lot more meaning if you do. The villain is a character from Earthbound, and there are plenty of references to both of the previous games, especially near the end. But, the story is stand-alone

Earthbound is a great game, but it takes a while to beat, and is quite a bit different from Mother 3. It is more lighthearted, and the story is much less powerful.

I would say that it is perfectly acceptable to play the games in reverse order. There are references you won't understand, but those are more for nostalgia's sake.

Most of the references are to Earthbound (Mother 2), but there are parts where music from Mother 1 plays, and where enemies from that game appear.

The musical references to the previous games, in my opinion, are the most important part you'll miss out on. The tunes borrowed are much more meaningful only you have played the previous games.

But, if you are only going to play one of the games, it should be Mother 3. If you try to beat the others first just to play it, you'll probably never get to it.

I'd be interested to play it, but not sure it's worth $300 to buy a copy. I saw one for Mother 1 + 2 for $100, but that's still pretty pricey for older games.

It costs that much now? I imported it when it was still on shelves, so I paid a modest sum.

Itoi recently tweeted about upcoming developments, something about "making MOTHER playable". That sounds like a re-release to me. Some people suspect that America will finally get an official port, but I'm doubtful.

Here's what I would do - import something currently on the market, especially if you find something MOTHER-related. Consider that to be your payment for the digital copy of the game; Nintendo is well aware that a huge internet community is playing the game as a patched ROM simply because there is no other way to play it without spending hundreds of dollars and learning Japanese.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... s=mother+3

I think I got it mixed up. Mother 3 is $275 (new), $81 used, but the 1+2 is $300 new or $200 used.

I've played and beat Earthbound on my SNES, I don't own it, but I really wish I did, because that price just keeps on skyrocketing..
http://www.amazon.com/Earthbound-super- ... earthbound

I'll play Mother 3 one of these days, maybe I'll try and get it on my phone.

I played it on my phone. My Xperia Play is perfect for that :D

You have an Xperia Play? How is that phone?

Alright, you've made me feel like I've put this off long enough. I'm attempting to get it now...

The internal memory is really terrible. You have to be prepared to only download apps that can be installed on the SD card. But, it's great for emulators.

I've heard rumors of a Play 2 coming being prepared.

Yeah, the internal memory on my phone is awful as well.

I got the ROM for Mother 3, and that works fine. Hm, I've always had difficulty getting a free working GBA Emulator. The last emulator I tried was only a free version that wouldn't allow saving. -_-"

Android, right? Use DroidEmu. It will pester you to upgrade, and there will be a banner ad while you play, but it's easy to ignore that once you get in the game.

Do you have Tomato's English patch?

Edit: Oh, you'll also be asked for a GBA bios file. Those are all over the web.

I'm stuck at the BIOS part.. I've unziped it, I've placed it in the rom section, and yet it still won't play.

EDIT: Eureka! Success at last!

Enjoy!

If Nintendo releases it, a group known as Mother 3 Fan Translation Team has offered to give Nintendo access to their translated script for free if it helps to get the game possibly released in America.

I'm fairly sure that Nintendo would not go for that. Nintendo wouldn't want to legitimize or endorse ROM hackers by using their translation. Aside from that, the translation, although surprisingly good, has clumsy wording at parts as well as cursing.

If Nintendo releases Mother 3 in America, it will be translated from scratch. They would EARTHBOUND IS COMING TO WIIU!!!!11!!!1!

Darn it. Now I have to buy a WiiU.

I played about halfway through the fan translation of Mother 3, but my computer died on me and I lost all the save data. As much as I loved the game, I put so much time into it that I had no desire to go back and play through hours upon hours of it just to get back where I left off.

I considered watching a playthrough online, but decided that it just wouldn't be the same. After hearing your impressions of the ending, I'm considering going back. It's been about a year since I last picked it up, so I'm sure I've had enough time to forget most of what happens.

Nintendo World Report's Radio Free Nintendo podcast crew played the game and did a couple of podcast segments about it a while ago, and they're really interesting. If you're not fully convinced that you should play the game, go listen to them. They're relatively spoiler-free and incredibly interesting! I believe they talk about it on episodes 203 and 205. Enjoy!