Fantasy Life
The newest collaboration from Mother 3 developer, Brownie Brown and the Professor Layton series creators, Level-5 is a fairly original sounding RPG.
Fantasy Life will be a “slow RPG” according to Anoop Gantayat’s translation on Japanese gaming news site, Andriasang (who have been covering the Level-5 Vision 2009 conference.)
As Eric Caoili of Tiny Cartridge pointed out, the game looks incredibly similar to Mother 3, but of course, that’s probably because the same art team at Brownie Brown that worked on Mother 3 is working on Fantasy Life.
The game doesn’t focus on combat, but instead focuses on living the lives of various characters that you create, and by playing through the game multiple times, experiencing multiple “small endings” to hopefully collect enough information to piece together the bigger picture.
Level-5 merely said the game doesn’t focus on combat, so does that mean it doesn’t have any combat at all and is a game purely based on interaction? That’s a possibility as Level-5 did mention two stats your characters would have based on your decisions. Richness, which measures your money and wealth, and Happiness, which of course measures your happiness.
High happiness levels, means more charisma, and Level-5 says that the happier your character is, the more likely that character will be able to speak to more people that might have not wanted to talk to that character before.
Fantasy Life boasts some rad production values as well, since Final Fantasy composer Nobou Uemetsu will be composing the entire score for the game. Oh how, I wish the DS had better sound.
The game looks absolutely awesome, yet little is known about the interactivity that will go on within it’s world.
- Kyle
Shigesato Itoi Has An Online Music Store
I’m really not trying to post three back to back Mother 3 related posts, but I really can’t help myself when I find awesome stuff like this.
I was browsing Mother creator, Shigesato Itoi’s website when I found a link to this Mother 3 inspired online music store. The background music for the store is absolutely awesome, and the store itself has so much to click on, read, and do.
It’s a bummer that I don’t understand Japanese because it looks so exciting. I was, however, able to find a couple of really cool easter eggs in the store. One being the Mother 3+ soundtrack and the other being an ultra cute Clay Man action figure. Both of the finds are featured in the above screen capture.
You can visit the store, here.
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.
My wonderful girlfriend has put together a collection of Mother 3 desktop backgrounds which contain white backgrounds and large sprites of enemies and characters.
If you like minimalism and Mother 3, then these backgrounds should be right up your alley.
mother 3 ebay hunting
Every now and then I get an itch to explore eBay for Mother 3 goods. A lot of the material are really ridiculous fan-mangas that involve the characters in ways that series creator, Itoi probably would be weirded out to see.
However, with most all things, diamonds in the rough do exist and I stumbled upon this piece today.
While not a very distinctive art style, the choice to have Lucas holding Claus’s shoe like that is a total heart break, and I have to commend this weird pirate manga culture in Japan that is so devoted to the Mother franchise.
Don’t Import Mother 3 From Toys N Joys
They’re lying when they say they have it in stock. They’ve already charged my credit card and recently sent me an email informing me it’s on back order and it could take up to ten days before they even have a copy.
So whatever you do, take my advice and don’t buy Mother 3 from here.
The Earthbound Movie
Ness sure does look mighty old and Porky looks like a girl.
Good Game Get! mother 3
Shigesato Itoi didn’t pen the ending to Mother 3 until the game was almost finished. Then he placed himself in isolation and wrote it. Supposedly the Nintendo 64 version of the game was much darker, but Itoi felt that was a was a better person when working on the GBA version and so he made it lighter.
If you choose to experience Mother 3, I’ll have you know that nothing will prepare you for the ending you’ll receive upon completion of the game. It’s so out of left field that it will leave you smiling and it may even conjure a tear from you. I won’t spoil anything for you in this recommendation and in fact will keep specific details to a minimum.
In fact you could say Mother 3 is slightly indescribable. You could talk about the incredible sound battles that utilize attacks and drum beats or the perfection of the rolling HP meter. You could say that the art direction in Mother 3 is absolutely mind blowing and that perhaps no other sixteen bit game will ever look as good. You could also discuss just how absolutely surreal and incredible the game’s sound is. The music is more than exceptional. It’s almost perfect and it all fits together nicely.
Despite what others may think Nintendo of America has not been insane to not port this game, because I feel a great deal of charm would be taken away if they did localize it. Nintendo may know this too, for I think it’s why they didn’t shut down the fan translation project. For example the game has profanity and severe drug usage at one part in the game. Nintendo would probably dissect the game and pull a lot of the life away from it through censorship. Besides, NOA is riding on the tailcoat of the most successful family friendly video game console of all time. They can’t really afford to localize such a kiddy looking game with such mature themes.
The themes in the game shine brightly from the threat of industrialization to materialism, and how the lines between good and evil are always blurred. In fact the game goes beyond good and evil to show you a world where love is always stronger than any evil or good intentions. The game grows on you and with you, over the course of the thirty so hours you’ll be playing it. Years pass, people change, towns change, people die, hopes die, but love always prevails and stays present the entire time.
I’ve held off on writing this recommendation, because I wanted to marinate on exactly how the game made me feel. For one, I already plan to beat the game again. It’s just that good, as it’s like a novel, a perfect little novel that you’ll read so much, the pages will start falling out. It’s funny, whimsical, absolutely strange, and heart wrenching at times. It’s a collection of every feeling you may have had about the world. You’ll begin to feel hate for characters and then later realize that you were wrong to hate them. You’ll be trapped in places that you’re uncomfortable in and you’ll want to run, and worst of all you can’t. However, If you play the game right, you’ll gain an incredible amount of hope from Itoi’s message, and perhaps you’ll hold the media genre of video games to a much higher standard.
When I started playing video games, I never realized how important a few of them would be to me, even at twenty years old. Mother 3 is by the far the best game I have ever played, and It is without a doubt, the closest to perfect a game can be. If I ever taught a course on video games, this would be The Fountainhead of the course material, as it transcends ever video game to come before it and may possibly be one of the most important video games ever made.
Mother 3 is magical.
mother 3 swag
These lanyard charms are cute, albeit a little cheap looking.
mother doujinshi cover is awesome
This fan-made Mother manga cover is incredible.
