This is a promise. It will move you to tears– hot, cleansing tears of joy.
It‘s not just a fairy tale or a myth. It’s a story that a character like yourself, a character who is you, lives.
You will never forget this journey of days, perhaps weeks, maybe months. Even after you grow up. If you are already grown-up
for reasons known only to the seasoned, it will move you even more deeply …… As a classic should.
From kids, to intelligent adults (grown-up cleverly).
That‘s what R.P.G. "MOTHER’ is.
BORN TO BE A CLASSIC
Shigesato Itoi presents the newest role playing game.
https://twitter.com/TreeFr0ggy/status/1682810369356488704?s=20
There it is, _**"for reasons known only to the seasoned"**_... That's what I'm talking about, and there it was from the beginning. That's what mother fangames are missing. Pretty sure I even said "a seasoned life" verbatim, to describe this before, haha.
___________
Also this is a good thread about some stuff I lived through:
https://twitter.com/ewilio/status/1671134465580572673?s=20
https://twitter.com/ewilio/status/1671137320928526336?s=20
https://twitter.com/ewilio/status/1671143074209095681?s=20
Top left: My artwork is in this book that was sent to various people involved in the series, namely Itoi, Miyamoto, Iwata. I was in 7th grade at the time.
Top Right: this article in Nintendo Power was huge. It meant so much to me. I had been reading Nintendo Power for as long as I could read (like 1996). Earthbound was never mentioned in media at this point and any time it was, we documented it.
@“IrishNinja”#p125431 I think I had three pieces across different pages even :o)
for the longest time, the book wasn‘t distributed for whatever legal reason. Toby had a .pdf from reidman (all the “staff” must have) but he wasn’t allowed to share it. at some point I saw scans, but idr where.
oh wait I found it. it was made available sometime after 2009, which was when I was on my own adventure living out of a backpack on the street while finishing high school, so I didn't have much internet time lol.
@“◉◉maru”#p126234 thanks for sharing this. one of the best illustrations from this period that I‘ve seen, and the composition and shading reminds me of my friend JMV’s earlier earthbound fanart, like this:
@“treefroggy”#p126370 Then FYI the illustrations are done by Kaneko Osamu (@sam_neco) in one of his rare works outside of Dragon Quest-adjacent manga series and illustrations for VJump.
This changes my perspective a bit. Wonder what those ideas were, and if they influenced other games too.
If you could prescribe MARK FROST to play a certain game, what would it be?
Sooner than Link‘s Awakening, I’d prescribe Mother 3 or Majora's Mask.
I feel as though the three days mechanic could have also been subconsciously or consciously derived from rewatching Twin Peaks tapes, looking for insights. I know I've watched the pilot about 10 times or more.
this is your daily reminder that Animal Crossing was not originally just a cute vanity simulator. Originally it was a game that was built on bittersweet 20th century nostalgia for slow paced, old fashioned country life that came out at the turn of the “new millennium”.
>
Creates a sense of world weariness that doesn't beat down the optimism of the music's simplicity, but rather gives that optmism more weight.
You get the sense that K.K. Slider has been around the block a few times.
**He knows how the world works but he still comes back every week to play his guitar and help the townsfolk relax with his laid-back tunes.
- 8bitmusictheory video linked above
This. This is a brilliant thing for him to recognize. This is what makes games like MOTHER and **CHULIP** what they are. That's something I think people miss about CHULIP, because it's pretty hardcore about literally beating you down, and it's probably why I love it so much!
I‘m not going to hype this up or get my own hopes up, but this could be the best thing since Mother 3 / Chulip / Contact in my book, if it’s what it looks like!
I'm not going through the effort to cut and post videos like I did for the death of Lars Hanson episode of Little House on the Praire, but I finished the series finale and it may also confirm inspiration of some parts of Mother 3:
- someone threatens to enslave the entire town with technical legal land ownership.
- The town is destroyed completely.
- ends on a straight shot of the priest (see above posts comparing the priest to Mother 3's Leder) going into the ruined church house and ringing the bell (like Leder).
- The troops come marching in to the destroyed town. Like the Pigmask army.
- Bittersweet ending, adjacent towns are saved from enslavement but Walnut Grove is no more.
(They actually blew up the set for real, unprecedented move in Hollywood after the phenomenon of the series and the cast growing up together as a family)
This is just one of my theories, but I wouldn‘t be surprised if Mother 3’s earliest development on Super Famicom (which is a fact) was split into the Satellaview software interface before or adjacent to Mother 3 being moved from SFC to N64.
Recently found out I went to school with the child of the localizer of Earthbound, and that person is a named character in the game! But we‘re acquaintances at best, so I’m not going to bother them with questions about it of course.
@“Funbil”#p134747 Lindblom‘s daughter Nico. It’s on the wikipedia page for the game!
@“BluntForceMama”#711 that‘s awesome! and yeah nah yeah, I’ve been in that situation a lot with HS friends‘ parents working in the film industry. keep it cool, doesn’t really matter, and not much to come of it, but, as a normal person, if given the chance, it's ok to just drop a hey, love your dad's work, his work is my childhood. emphasis on being normal about it haha
I picked up Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk on sale… a game that mixes its artistic inspirations from Mother/Undertale/Zelda with a dash of Celeste. It looks great and has a cool vibe… But my gosh, these games need to cool it on not giving you a real enemy encounter for an hour+ into playing it. The game promises turn-based rpg battles but it appears to only be for boss battles and the two that you experience in the first hour are both scripted for you to lose/not do anything. I don't even know how the battle system is supposed to work yet. Not a great first impression.
There are zeldish battles and puzzles in the overworld which are not bad but you are funneled into them quite linearly in a way that messes a bit with the game's pacing. The first puzzle of collecting Apples was a bit tedious because the game does a poor job of signposting how to get the 20th apple >!(basically, you have to fall into a specific pit, but falling into other pits lands you in the same place where you can't move. The underground also doesn't map to the overworld)!< and the second puzzle where you're given more freedom and shops open up involves a ton of backtracking through kind of underwhelming areas.
I've been in the mood for what this game promises, but it's running into the same the indie pitfalls that something like Eastward or Sea of Stars ran into. I intend to finish it, _it's not bad,_ but also learning that it's basically early access without saying it's early access and it's "part 1 of an episodic series" has me a little extra cynical.
keep it cool, doesn’t really matter, and not much to come of it, but, as a normal person, if given the chance, it's ok to just drop a