The Rolling HP Meter

The Mother/Earthbound series features one of the most unique and peculiar gameplay elements in video games. Essentially the Mother series plays and looks similar to earlier Dragon Quest games in terms of combat, but one of the biggest differences is how the HP meter behaves like a life odometer.

The part of this particular non-spoiler video that I want to focus on is the first part. Keep in mind most of the stuff after the first battle is glitchy as none of this stuff was kept in the final game. However, the following battle from Mother 3 is a good example of the rolling HP meter.



You’ll notice that when Lucas and Boney are attacked, their HP is not immediately taken away but rather rolls down. The magic behind this HP meter is that you aren’t immediately dead, but dying, and you can still issue commands to other characters and you can even heal a character at the last minute, even if they’ve received mortal damage. In the particular battle above, it’s important to note that even though the player did not heal themselves, they were still able to escape from the battle while they were dying.

This is such a dynamite idea and it’s really sad that it hasn’t been imitated. It’s one of the best features of the game and really gives the battle system an extra edge.

It truly is something to appreciate as it’s one of the rarest and surprisingly least copied gameplay element in video games, and to my knowledge it’s currently exclusive to the Mother series.