Mother 3 is Fantastic. Captain America? Meh.

Of course I would finally return to GGG! on the same day that Kyle responded to our inactivity — I’ve never been known for my timing. But regardless of his post and not knowing just how much I’ll be able to contribute in the future, I just want to add… Mother 3 is a fantastic game. And I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for GoodGameGet. Well, I would have heard of it, but I wouldn’t have cared and I wouldn’t have played it. For that I owe GGG! so much.

I really understand how Kyle is feeling, though. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the hype and commercialism, not to mention the “professional enthusiasm”, but then just end up feeling like your soul is being sucked dry. All entertainment industries are like this. They exist to try to get you to consume easily and cheaply produced crap because of your interest in the good stuff. I won’t claim to know where exactly Kyle’s head is at right now, but I think we’ve all been there to some extent.

Seriously, if I hear one more person try to convince me that the Captain America game is worth “checking out” I’ll go nuts. It might not be a bad game, but there are so many games that have been released in the last thirty years that most people haven’t played, cost much less than $60 and are far more worth our time than a stupid Captain America movie tie-in. Games like… Mother 3.

Or the sublime Retro Game Challenge. Seriously, go buy that game, it’s like $15 now.

But then, I think, we just have to stop and embrace what it is we love so much about this hobby. Mother 3 is the perfect example. I can’t read a word of Japanese. If it wasn’t for the fan translation — or the passion others had for the game — I would never have played it.

The original Cave Story is another great example of this, and all kinds of people still love it enough to encourage remakes on other platforms. Just today, I received this fantastic case made by Etsy artisan whataboutki. All his work celebrates what’s great about games.

I guess I don’t really know why I’m writing this post. Partly, I’d love to encourage everyone to go find a classic you haven’t experienced and relish something that played a role in making our favorite hobby great. Partly I wanted to rant about stupid movie tie-ins. But mostly I wanted to say, “Hey Kyle, I hear you, man.” And I think I’ll go play some more Mother 3. I haven’t finished it yet, which is just a shame… I think I’ll do something about that tonight.

- Andy