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Gentlemen Discussing Mother 3 Part 3

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Gentlemen Discussing Mother 3 Part 2 is the third in a series of 3 podcasts dedicated to analysis, opinions and trivia on the video game Mother 3. Warning: may contain facts, lies and coarse language.

Mother 3, the long-awaited sequel to the cult RPG Earthbound, was released for the GBA in 2006 and translated 2 years later by a dedicated group of fans. The game holds a special place in our hearts because of its unique, cliche-defying approach to the RPG genre. Mother 3 is profound, poignant, and genuinely unfortgettable. We hope you’ve enjoyed these podcasts, and would like to thank everyone who made playing Mother 3 possible, including Shigesato Itoi, Brownie Brown and the Mother 3 translation team.

This podcast covers chapters 7 and 8 of Mother 3, and contains extremely heavy spoilers (for those chapters only). It is intended for people who have already finished those chapters. If you haven’t played up until the end of the game,  then procure a ROM, get the translation patch, get an emulator, and play along with us! You won’t regret it!

If you haven’t listened to part 2 yet, you can listen to it here. You can also listen to part 1 here.

We will be resuming our regular episodes shortly. Stay tunes!

Pixel

Hey guys, just finished listening to the podcast, and I wanted to thank you for putting it all together. I played Mother 3 for the first time a couple months ago and it definitely left me with that forlorn feeling when you reach the end of an amazing story and you know there’s nothing more after that.
My personal interpretation of a lot of the plot near the end was that it was kind of a satire of itself, and that’s where a lot of the strengths in the narrative came from for me. Leder just dumps this huge exposition on you out of the blue that reads like a template JRPG world, 80% of the way through this game that otherwise stands out from any other game out there, and the Masked Man reveal is presented with such weight when the game took care to make it so very obvious to the player beforehand. These almost seem like an intentional juxtaposition to add another layer of meta-goofiness, and I loved that, regardless of whether or not anyone else saw them that way.
On top of that, the story manages to be one of the most compelling I’ve encountered while barely relying at all on those two huge reveals, which I feel like would have needed to be central pivot points for any other storyline.
You guys also showed me that I’m apparently an idiot, albeit a tactical one- I went through the whole game not knowing that ANY of the bosses could be made easier with items other than the Pork Trooper- never even got the shield stealer. I didn’t know about the refresh or ground moves either, so I guess I was underleveled at the end too. x_x

On September 17, 2014 at 8:25 pm