61 Frames Per Second : mother 3

Talkin' RPGs With Itoi

Bob Mackey — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Shigesato Itoi, a true Renaissance Man of Japan's entertainment world, is mostly known to us gamers as the mastermind behind the Mother RPG series. And it's his iconoclastic, "outsider" view of the video game medium that makes his projects so unique and cult-friendly; someone deeply entrenched in the world of RPG development is far more likely to make a derivative Tales of game than anything approaching the level of Itoi's imagination. With how creatively successful the Mother games have been, it's surprising that developers haven't tried bringing in more outside artists to derail the tunnel-vision quite a few franchises and genres currently suffer from.

Thanks to Itoi, I was deeply engrossed in Mother 3 over the fall and winter months of 2008, mainly because it took such a different approach than the other Mother games; rather than having a huge, worldwide scope (the usual method of most RPGs), the final entry in the Mother trilogy scaled things down to a much smaller and more detailed world that eventually changed (for the worse) over time. It was a fascinating approach that led me to care more about the game's world and inhabitants, all the way up until the heartbreaking ending.

The reason I've been thinking about Itoi lately--aside from the fact that he's so dreamy--relates to a few translated interviews with the jack of all trades posted by the equally-dreamy Tomato over at Earthbound Central. The interviews may be framed by a larger discussion of Animal Crossing, but Itoi still has a few interesting things to say about RPG game design.

Take his comments about Mother 3's small scope, for example:

That’s when I thought of an RPG in which you stay in a certain town for a long time...

The game would have character relations, and the people would all have their own lives. This way, we could do all sorts of things in the game. For example, someone who recently hung laundry out to dry would be wearing those clothes the next day. I wanted to make an RPG in which you could grow closer to the people as time went on.

Interesting stuff, though I wish there was much more of it. You can read the first part of the Mother-related interview comments HERE, and the second part HERE.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Handbook: Better than Advertised
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled
OST: Mother

Freaktastic Fanart: Mother 3 Models

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:12:00 GMT

The fan made Mother 3 handbook is much gabbed-about for a reason. It is, without a doubt, the best way you'll spend $20. Outside of buying a fluffy new kitten. A grey one. With white socks.

The guide, put together by good-hearted people at Fangamer.net, Starmen.net, and possibly God, draws major inspiration from the Earthbound player's guide that came packed in with the ill-fated RPG when Nintendo localized it for American audiences. It's funny, it's thorough, it's well-written, and its pages are dotted with custom clay character models. The handbook is recorded proof that fans can come together to produce something beyond pornographic fanfiction or seventy-page arguments about who could reach the sun faster, Goku or Superman?

The clay figurines photographed in the handbook are by Arizona artist Camille Young. Young shows off some of her most impressive pieces in a blog post, including the Mecha-Drago, the Ultimate Chimera, the N.K. Cyborg, and, of course, Porky the sadist man-child.

Especially impressive is Young's design for the Needles that render the dragon of Nowhere Islands benign. Mother 3 has very little in the way of official character sketches and art, so Young had to work with a vague bit of sprite work. She improvised, and the end result is nice:

Related Links:

Freaktastic Fanart: Join The Nintendo Fun Club, Little Mac!
Freaktastic Fanart: Mega Man Zero Fanservice
Freaktastic Fanart: The Momachu

The Mother 3 Handbook: Better than Advertised

Bob Mackey — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Ever since I found the Starmen.net community (then Earthbound.net) a decade ago, I've been amazed by both the devotion and productivity of the insane (in a good, fun way) Mother/Earthbound fans who call the site home. Since the beginning of Starmen.net, the community has certainly been through its ups and downs, from the disappointment of Mother 3's original cancellation to the elation caused by the announcement that the game was in the works for the Game Boy Advance--then, back to disappointment again when we found out Nintendo had no intention of publishing it here. The Mother 3 translation released last October was unquestionably the group's biggest labor of love; thanks to talented superhumans like Tomato, we Earthbound fans were given a complete localization of a fantastic game far more polished than the work produced by so-called professionals.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Mother 3 translation now has a bit of competition in the category of "most ambitious, insane, and amazing Earthbound projects to reach completion:" now that I finally have the Mother 3 Handbook in my hands, it's impossible to decide what work is more mind-blowing.

One thing that must be stressed about the Mother 3 Handbook is that it's just as good, if not far better, than just about any professionally-made guide on the market--though, this isn't too surprising, given the amount of time it took to write and the people involved in the Handbook's creation. While the Handbook takes a few design cues from Earthbound's pack-in strategy guide, Fangamer's take on Mother 3 is really in a league of its own. I finished playing through the game on my own back in January, but I've been reading the guide on and off like a traditional book; the little details about characters, events, and locations added by the guide's contributors are entertaining and interesting regardlless of reading context--though I am planning on another playthrough with the guide by my side this summer, when it's open season on free time.

Really, if you're a fan of Mother 3, or just plan on playing it one day, you owe it to yourself to pick up the Handbook. Mother 3 isn't a game that necessarily needs a strategy guide, but the Handbook still adds a lot to an already amazing experience. And if my endless fawning hasn't convinced you, take a look at the following commercial produced by the cranstastic people over at FanGamer.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right
Some Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead of Working: Mother--Awwww...
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled

Excitement Time: A New EarthBound on the Way?

Bob Mackey — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

We here at 61FPS looove Earthbound. And from personal experience I can tell you that being a mega-fan of the series is an extremely bi-polar experience; we have our good moments, such as the recent Mother 3 translation, but we also have our bad moments, like every time Nintendo completely ignores the possibility of us seeing any Mother games on the Wii's Virtual Console.

Now, we Mother fans are seemingly beset with more bad than good news, but a recent report from Earthbound Central may contain some of the best news we've heard in a looong time. In an article in the latest Weekly Famitsu about developer Level 5's unfortunately-named digital download service, Roid, the magazine hints at a possible new Mother game--though it doesn't drop any names. Here's what the amazing man behind EBC has to say about all of this:

The article doesn’t say anything about the screenshot in particular, except asking, “Could this be THAT RPG?!” and that really big-title names are scheduled to be released on it. It’s not clear if this screenshot is just concept art or what, though. If you know Japanese, you can do an interactive demo of how the Roid interface works here, but there are no game demos or anything of interest in relation to this image.

People didn't seem to believe Tomato's initial post, so, in Earthbound Central tradition, he overanalyzed the single, blurry picture of this mystery game to show how much of it was similar to EarthBound:

This could be an early April Fool's joke, but I doubt Tomato could ever be that cruel. And while it's unclear if Roid will ever work outside of Japan, you can bet savvy EarthBound fans will find a way if this news is really as good as we want it to be.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled
OST: Mother

Reminder: Those Mother 3 Handbooks Are Still Coming

Bob Mackey — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Remember the Mother 3 translation, released late last October? We at 61FPS couldn't stop talking about it--until that court order limited our Earthbound/Mother posts to only a mere dozen a week. Thankfully, sites like Earthbound Central (a must-visit) exist to fill the needs of the most psychotic Mother fans out there, but that doesn't mean there isn't franchise-related news worth reporting about here. Consider the Mother 3 Handbook produced by the devoted folks at FanGamer, for instance; we were all excited about it last Fall, but as its release date slipped into March, most of us have probably forgotten that we dropped 20 bucks on the guide many moons ago.

So, as we reach the final days of March, where exactly is the Mother 3 Handbook? For all those concerned, a blog post on FanGamer's front page this week has confirmed that all of the books weren't lost in some freak postal accident:

The final proof has been approved and the Handbooks (and Poster Jackets) are now being printed/bound as we speak! They should be done either on Friday or Monday. We had a few printing-related issues which put us a few days behind schedule, but we’re still hoping to get the Handbooks in the mail on or before the 24th, meaning all domestic (USA) orders should arrive well before the end of the month.

Since I played through the entirety of Mother 3 from late October to late December, I probably won't get much use out of the guide until I decide to give the game another whirl--probably sometime in the summer. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to read the Handbook cover-to-cover as soon as I get it. As a psychotic Mother fanboy, it is my duty.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
What's In My MP3 Player: Mother 3+'s "Pollyanna"
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again

What's In My MP3 Player: Mother 3+'s "Pollyanna"

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:29:00 GMT

There exists a song that's a perfect accompaniment to the sunrise on the first warm day of the year. That song, as I discovered though an example of ideal iPod shuffling, is “Pollyanna” from the Mother 3+ soundtrack.

Pollyanna is one of a few pieces of music that recur through all three games in the Mother/Earthbound series. The revision done for the Mother 3+ soundtrack—which you can buy on iTunes (do it)—is very pretty and, as I already stated, God's own theme song for springtime.

However, I dare say that the first occurrence of the song (Mother for the Famicom) is the most impressive. The 8-bit era wasn't lacking for ambitious and memorable game music, but retro-Pollyanna is especially heartfelt and spunky. The story for Mother was a bit less structured than most Famicom RPG offerings: not aimless, but not as urgent as “Holy crap, a Dragon Lord draws near.” Pollyanna, which serves as the basic world map theme for Mother, reflects the laid-back start to Ninten's adventure.

The name of the song is telling in itself: “Pollyanna” is a reference to the hyper-positive lead girl of a popular children's book initially published in 1913 (it's still being printed and adapted today). When things were looking down, Pollyanna played the “Glad Game,” which allowed her to see the good bad situations. “Pollyanna” is even a term in the English language that refers to cheerful optimism.

No surprise that the Mother tune of the same name is so upbeat. Even its lyrics are warm with sugary references to love, hope, and silver linings.

Yes, Pollyanna has lyrics. Karaoke time!

Related Links:

What's in my MP3 Player: Earthbound "Snowbound" OC Remix
What's in my MP3 Player: Castlevania II "Castle of Tears"
What's in my MP3 Player: Shadow's Theme

Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:14:00 GMT

The Mother/Earthbound fandom is the loudest on the Internet. It's also the unluckiest. Earthbound was a commercial failure on the SNES. Mother 3 just ain't never gonna doggy-paddle its way here (officially). The first Mother game was dressed up for America, but was pulled at the last minute. And now it's looking like Earthbound won't be granted its long-awaited heroes' rest on the Virtual Console.

“Oh God. What now?”

The problem is beautiful in its irony: because it's such a thorough, loving tribute to the best and most creative bits of pop culture, Earthbound is also a fat target for copyright lawyers, IP theft paranoia and the bureaucracy bred by the same culture (that's irony, right? Right?). Earthbound's soundtrack alone uses a lot of samples from other songs, from The Who to the Monty Python theme.

Shigesato Itoi makes no secret about his love for the Beatles, with John Lennon's “Mother” being not only the series' namesake, but its very foundations. Unfortunately, Apple Corps' sense of humour is about as sharp and attractive as a wet dish rag. Every IP lawyer in the world carries a list in his or her pocket that's titled, “I'm Just Not Going To Fuck With This,” and Apple Corps is on the top of each list.

Interestingly, the sometimes-emotional Earthbound supersite Starmen.net is looking at the situation from a very logical point of view:

You might be thinking, "sampling/references aren't enough to bring a lawsuit", and you'd be right. But it's also true that not everything in EarthBound is simply sampled/referenced, and even if the game was technically legal, that doesn't mean lawyers will be comfortable with it. They get paid to avoid lawsuits entirely, not to get sued and then say "here's why this lawsuit is stupid".

Starmen.net also notes that someone, somewhere, didn't want to “play ball” with proposed alterations to the game. Nintendo of America's lawyers apparently offered suggestions on how Earthbound could be made into a “safe” release, but Nintendo Japan wasn't interested in the changes for some undisclosed reason. It's not even known if Itoi was involved somewhere, somehow.

Maybe a clearer reason will be forthcoming, but for now I guess there's not much to do about the fate of Earthbound except cry many Mr Saturn-scented tears.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Translation: We're Not Worthy!
Earthbound's Secret Evil
Earthbound's Other Secret Evil

Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:28:00 GMT

The Game Boy Advance never had much of a problem matching up to the SNES graphically. As for audio, well, that was another matter. GBA remakes of SNES classics like Final Fantasy IV and especially Final Fantasy VI tried really hard to ship the games' epic soundtracks. The end result got an A for Effort, but it was like listening to a favourite singer belt out a classic song with a wad of cotton stuffed in each cheek. Something about the whole affair felt off.

I can recall only two instances where I was genuinely impressed by the soundtrack in a GBA game: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Mother 3. You wouldn't accept a flimsy soundtrack from a Castlevania game (least of all one that has the stones to feature a subtitle with “Aria” in it), but Mother 3's soundtrack is an integral part of the title's gameplay because the player performs “combos” by tapping the attack button in tune to the game's battle themes. These combos make all the difference between an easy battle and a difficult one, not to mention the difference between taking an active part in the fight or sitting on the sidelines, dejected and bored, possibly with rainwater streaming down your face.

Mother 3 has a pretty huge roster of battle themes, but it's no sweat. Once you memorise the rhythm for a song, you have it in a lock for the rest of the game, right? Sixteen-hit combo city!

”WRONG!”

Harmonix employee Dan Bruno recently analysed Mother 3's soundtrack down to the last note—no, really, he has sheet music written out—and lays out the staggering amount of work that went into Mother 3's battle tunes.

Most games would be satisfied to let the player figure out how things work early in the adventure, then drift into a button-clicking hypnosis as the body count mounted. Mother 3 won't allow you the luxury. As battle themes become more familiar, they're liable to skip beats or change their pace, forcing you to pay attention and re-align your strategy accordingly.

The formulation and execution of said strategies is one of the things that makes Mother 3 a unique experience. If an enemy is accompanied by Fate or Accelerondo as battle music, I have the fight in the bag because I have little trouble keeping time to either piece. That's not the case for everyone, though. The pacing of Accelerondo is surely some other player's idea of hell.

I'm not exactly a musical prodigy myself. Bothersome Guys is considered one of the easier pieces to keep up with, but I just can't feel it. Thanks to Bruno, I now know I'm supposed to follow along to the high hat.

Pretty detailed work for such an underpowered sound system.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came To America
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
OST: Mother

Whatcha Listening To?: 1-Up's Retronauts Podcast Covers the History of Earthbound

Cole Stryker — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

It's a double dose of Earthbound today and a double dose of video game podcasts. Deal with it.

Think you can handle some superdorks yukking it up about Earthbound for over an hour? Well have I got a podcast for you! 1Up's Retronauts, now broadcasting from UGO offices, has remained intact after the merge.

A few of these guys are my age, but at least one of them admits to be at least sixteen upon the North American release of Earthbound. I was only ten, so I imagine the game's presentation affected me in a different way than a dude capable of growing a mustache. It's also nice to see mainstream journalists discussing the innovations of this lost classic.

For nothing else, it's worth listening to for the awesome chip-tuney music.

Visit 1Up to download the new podcast.

Mother 3 a Shred More Likely to Hit US

Cole Stryker — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Siliconera reports that Mother 3 developer Brownie Brown is interested in putting the game on the DS:

While it’s way too late for Nintendo of America to backtrack and release Mother 3 as a Game Boy Advance game they could port it to the Nintendo DS. “If we were asked to make one [a DS version of Mother 3], then we would definitely like for fans abroad to play the game,” Kameoka-san said.

Obviously this isn't a substantial declaration of intent, but for fans of the franchise, it's a tiny glimmer of hope that this most heralded of games might hit American shores one day.

If you haven't played Mother 3 in English yet, what are you waiting for? I don't think fans could have asked for a better fan tranlation, and I wonder if on official release could even improve on the ROM in any way, other than providing buyers with a healthy sense of satisfaction that they are supporting the folks behind one of the finest games of the decade.

Nintendo’s New Year’s Resolution

John Constantine — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Hell yeah! I love that new year smell. It’s a heady blend of desperation, manic behavior, stale cookies, and endless possibility! You can practically taste it on the air: the tang of freshly printed gym membership cards, the musk of old car models being discounted. This is the time when we wide-eyed lovers of videogames stare forward, ready for anything that may come. We take our last looks at 2008 and get to predicting what’s on the horizon. In the spirit of embracing new opportunities, I would like to recommend one New Year’s resolution for each gaming console maker as well as a select few third-party publishers. We’ll start with your friend and mine, Nintendo.

Nintendo? You resolve to release Star Fox 2 on WiiWare in 2009.

There’s no shortage of exciting stuff coming out for the Wii in the next twelve months, but actually releasing this forgotten and ignored gem could be an event. An unreleased SNES game in a beloved-but-bedraggled franchise? Solid gold! Not to mention the game is, thanks to the work of some intrepid fans, literally finished and playable at this point. Bring in Dylan Cuthbert and the Q-Games crew, have them polish it up, and put it out at twenty dollars. You can’t go wrong!

Come on. Everyone reading would play the hell out of this, right? Course you would.

(Bet you thought I was going to say release Mother 3 commercially. Nope. That will never, ever happen.)

Related links:

Fun Fact: Dylan Cuthbert - The Genre Masher
Why Am I Playing This: Star Fox Assault
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 3
Industry Predictions for 2009: Doom and Gloom Edition

Some Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead of Working: Mother--Awwww...

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:17:00 GMT

Mackey stole my big idea to declare Mother 3 one of my favourite games of the year--if not my very favourite of the year--despite it being a two-year-old Game Boy Advance title. I was going to be a rebel. I was going to spit out of the side of my mouth and tell you I don’t give a rat’s ass about your opinion on my taste in games, see?

Oh well, it’s good to know that I’m not the only one who thinks Mother 3 deserves recognition amongst this year‘s shiny big-budget games. Mackey and I need to stop putting things off, get married and name our twins Lucas and Claus regardless of whether or not they’re male.

All right, time to stop saying stupid things for the sake of being funny. I’m going to be serious and stupid, now. Mother 3 is the kind of game that reinforces my love for the pastime. When I finished it, I said, “God damn I am so glad I experienced that. I’m happy I’m a gamer.”

Mackey and I already have about twenty thousand Mother 3 essays between us that covers everything from the game’s emotion-driven story to the rhythm based battle system that involves you in every fight; no more turbo-mashing the “A” button while simultaneously trying to please your girlfriend with the other hand.

Mild spoilers follow the jump.

Mother 3 might be gaming’s last hurrah for sprite graphics. Mother 3 is certainly an ideal showcase for the ancient art, though it’s kind of sad when you realise how beautiful a game can look when it’s put together pixel by pixel and nobody will ever again attempt to scale such lofty heights (and few games in the history of the hobby even tried).

Mother 3 is the title that made me admire Shigesato Itoi as a story writer. I now know that well thought-out stories can co-exist with gameplay. There’s no excuse for rambling monologues, inescapable cut scenes or clichés. Admittedly, the game had me worried at times. The narrative is less subtle than Earthbound/Mother 2, often resorting to tortoise-paced scrolling text at the end of some chapters to inform the reader “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. IT IS BAD.”

Somehow, and I have no idea how the brilliant crazy bastard did it, Itoi tipped the story back into neutrality just in time. Despite the game being deeper and more text-heavy than Earthbound, there’s still so much room to form your own opinions and realisations. For instance, the people of Tazmily village are very innocent and it quickly becomes obvious that the introduction of money and worldly goods by mean old Fassad the Arabian peddler is going to rip the utopia apart. The stage is set: Fassad and the Pork Troopers are the bad guys. The people of Tazmily are the victims, corrupted by the same material goods that have turned our brains into slush, according to our scared elders and smelly hippies lording over communes.

But Itoi didn’t take the easy way out. As the game progresses, it becomes apparent that the story isn’t black and white, despite its potential to be straightforward. Tazmily’s villagers, are innocent, but not necessarily kind. They don’t lament the loss of their simple paradise; they want things to be even bigger and more modern, which is a very human reaction to a “convenient” society. Meanwhile, it’s impossible to not feel some measure of affection for the Pork Troopers, the extended army that forces Tazmily to catch up with the wonders of technology. Despite being faceless, the Troopers’ array of personalities is impressive. Some are faithful to Porky’s mission (Screw Up Everything), but most are just going along with orders, forming friendships with one another and discussing whether or not it’s important to take off their masks before using the washroom. In other words, they act like low-end soldiers who are largely clueless about their role in a vague war, so they simply do as ordered.

Then there’s the small things that make the game unique simply because most game developers are busy making sure they have something that looks beautiful. Perfect hero, perfect teeth, perfect hair. Since Mother 3‘s release, has anyone else attempted a lead character who’s crippled, balding, lives in his father’s basement and isn’t dripping with obvious emotional baggage? There’s one instance in the game where we get a dark glimpse of Duster’s past: a quick clue that his crippled state is somehow the fault of his unpleasant father, Wess. It’s never elaborated upon, nor does the player even get to find out if it’s true or just part of the exaggerated visions that come with mushroom trips (long story). Even so, it’s a more thoughtful scene than the slow character revelations that tend to come packaged with most JRPG heroes and leave nothing to the imagination.

Itoi claims there will likely never be another Mother game. But stranger things have happened in this crazy ol’ industry and I’m confident Itoi will return to risk running his beloved series to ruin like a pack of huskies in an Alaskan race. Just kidding. The man doesn’t seem to rely on games to tell the world what he thinks. Too bad he mostly sticks to Japanese.

Merry Christmas, 61 FPS. May Santa grant you many gifts and not linger to touch himself while you sleep.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came To America
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
Hey RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Mother 3

Bob Mackey — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal for--oh wait, we've reach the end of the list! Thanks for playing.

I know, I know; Mother 3 didn't come out in 2008--its Japanese release date was April of 2006. But none of that matters when you're a love-starved Earthbound fan looking for his next fix--and besides, who's writing this list, you or me? Sorry for getting a bit emotional there, but I can't help it; Mother 3 is a game worth getting emotional about. Finally getting a sequel to something you've loved for over thirteen years is a pretty monumental event, especially when said sequel doesn't pee all over what made its predecessor good in the first place. Mother 3 may be tad different than Earthbound, but in keeping with the tradition of the series, it's completely unlike any game out there--despite being built on a very old, Dragon Quest-y foundation. And thanks to the heroic efforts of Tomato and his translation team, Mother 3 might just be my favorite game of the year. I now regret never ranking my list entries.

But my love of Mother 3 shouldn't come as a shock to any of you loyal readers out there; the fact that about 50% of my output on 61FPS has been entries about all things Mother proves that I'm absolutely crazy about the series in a "this man must be institutionalized for his own safety" kind of way. When the Mother 3 translation patch hit in late October, I celebrated the event by heading over to Fan Gamer and forking over some serious cash for unofficial Earthbound merchandise. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that a game with such a troubled development history actually turned out good; otherwise, there wouldn't be such a call for celebration or the irresponsible spending of semi-disposable income. Of course, I haven't exactly finished the game yet, but unless it somehow makes all of my limbs fall off after exploding the final boss, Mother 3 deserves its ranking at the top of my best games of 2008 list.

Thanks for following these installments of the past few weeks; I'll be back in 2009 with more baffling choices. Happy new year!

The Final List:

Audiosurf
Braid
Grand Theft Auto IV
Fable 2
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Persona 3: FES
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
Rock Band 2
Mother 3

Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Part One

Joe Keiser — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

The official mandate has come down from the top—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. I am taking on this task in the way of our forefathers, using their traditional number (10) and order (from great to most greatest). Games were chosen for this list using a highly scientific list of criteria, including but not limited to dopamine levels, blood alcohol content, coin flips, and the rate at which the number of in-game explosions approached infinity. Today is #10-#8.

10. Fable 2

I played Fable 2 during a two-week period in which I saw some significant real-life difficulties, so the game’s emotional moments, being fiction, didn’t resonate as strongly with me as they did with others. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the risks the game took or the choices it forced the player to make. Yet while it went further than most games, it still didn’t go far enough, with punishment for doing the right thing in the face of temptation still being too easy to make up for later. But the game play was there; Fable 2’s shallow but broad mechanics encouraged experimentation while making sure there was always something new to try.

9. Mother 3

Yeah, this is a recent fan translation of an old GBA game. I don’t need to explain it, you know all about it already. The translation itself shamed some professional efforts, as it was flavorful but didn’t diminish any of the game’s most affecting moments. And the game itself was fantastic—it floated several candid depictions of loss on a sea of outrageous absurdity, a combination of themes that you’ll recall was loved by your college English professor. It’s easy to see why Nintendo opted to not bring this out in the States, as Mother 3 has a combination of themes and content that makes it almost impossible to market. But it was that combination that made Mother 3 one of the most unique and powerful titles in recent memory.

8. Spore

I feel like a lot of people didn’t really understand what Spore was trying to do, and why it was one of the year’s best games. Complaints like that most of the game modes weren’t fleshed out or complex enough were ridiculous—forcing players to figure out a whole new complicated set of interconnected rules every few hours isn’t a learning curve, it’s a learning Everest. Spore took the correct approach by instead being the first few hours of four very good games, staying put in the early periods that encourage playfulness and experimentation. Instead of throwing new rules at you, Spore throws out endless waves of surprising, often beautiful new content. The space phase is worth playing solely for this reason, as who knows when you’ll trip over your next tuxedo walrus? I often play games just to see what new art will be on the next screen. Spore is the king of games for this type of player.

Related Articles:

Joe's Top 10 Games of 2008 - Special Jury Prizes
10 Games Nadia Played Instead of Working: The World Ends With You, Super Smash Bros Brawl
Bob's Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Audiosurf, Braid, Grand Theft Auto IV
Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
What Amber Didn't Play in 2008
Time Magazine's Top 10 Games of 2008

The Mother GBA Translation: Tomato is a Crazy Mofo

Bob Mackey — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

No, not that Mother translation. I'm talking about the first Mother: released in Japan in 1989, translated by Nintendo of America, abandoned, discovered, and re-released by the ROM hacking community in 1998 as Earthbound Zero. Mother was also ported to the Game Boy Advance along with its sequel (AKA Earthbound) in 2003; unfortunately, this game fell victim to Nintendo's policy of Earthbound fans not having nice things. Fortunately we have dudes like Tomato, whose amazing hacking/translating skills will one day give us the privilege of playing the first Mother on the go. Here's a video of his progress so far:

Of course, this isn't quite as monumental as the Mother 3 translation--after all, an English script for this game already exists--but Tomato plans on making quite a few interesting changes this time around. And here they are, taken right from this blog post:

Some of the things you can expect from this retranslation:

* A retranslated script. The EB0 ROM has a good number of changes and mistakes/issues with plot details. The EB0 script is also very dry, because of limited resources. This retranslation can allow for a lot more text, and censoring/changes won’t need to be done.

* Expanded text boxes, allowing for more dialog text at one time, meaning the text will be nicer and easier to read.

* Expanded battle text boxes, allowing for more text than before. I still need to actually edit the text to use the new space though.

* I added an “Easy Ring” to Ninten’s basement, for those who don’t like to grind for experience and money. The item, when equipped, doubles the exp and money you get from enemies. It makes the game much less of a chore.

* Things like the status screen are a little fancier and more verbose.

* You can use the L Button in this game much like you can in EarthBound. It makes talking to things/checking things a little quicker.

* I plan to make a few changes with the font and the window borders to be more like EarthBound.

* Many of the little EarthBound / MOTHER 3 connections will be left intact in this translation, so fans of the series will surely enjoy that. The EB0 translation changed a lot of things, which broke some of these connections.

* Translations into other languages will be incredibly easy to do.

Mother isn't exactly the most modern game, but I'm considering playing through it again aftering seeing the changes Tomato plans on making. This is a project that's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Earthbound and Back Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

Bob Mackey — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

I recently gave up on Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World a scant four hours into my experience for one reason alone: the game was literally stabbing me in the brain with its narrative. It's not that DotNW's story was exceptionally bad; actually, it was delightfully mediocre, which is really all I can ask for from a JRPG these days. The biggest problem, you see, is that DotNW's stopped to show me its accursed story about every 5 seconds, like an attention-starved child waving a macaroni art project in my face.

"Yes, I see. Very nice. Daddy's trying to play his game now."

Listen up, JRPG developers: the stories you're trying to tell? They aren't necessarily worth telling. In fact, I can really only name two RPGs in the past decade that've had stories which ranked far above "serviceable:" Final Fantasy XII, and Mother 3--note that the latter of these two was written by an actual writer. I may come off as kind of snobbish with this post, though I think that just comes with age; there was a point in my life when I thought RPG plots were totally tubular, but that was back when I was in high school. Turning into a cranky old man has given me the benefit of perspective; through experiencing a number of excellent narratives (across various media), I've obtained standards that I can't quite drop. (Also, I need some way to justify my expensive BA.)

The problem of lousy narrative is a pretty big hurdle for JRPG developers, but I've taken the liberty of coming up with some easy-to-follow and unsolicited solutions:

- Keep it simple. This involves recognizing your own limitations. You're not the next Tolkien, so don't try to be. Some of the most fun and charming RPGs--like Chrono Trigger--had simple, storybook tales that steered clear from pretention. Do your neologisms number in the dozens? Have you name-dropped at least two German philosophers? Then you've gone too far and must be stopped.

- Showing us your story means we're not playing your game. We want to play your game; that's why we bought it. Could something in a proposed story scene actually be played by us? Then let us play!

- Your story is not as good as you think it is. Seriously. Odds are, you've just assembled a collection of stereotypes from the popcorn entertainment you've been immersed in for your entire life. Go to someone who can recognize quality writing. Get them to hit you, if necessary.

That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, if we could only get you guys to stop committing deicide so often, we'd have a real revolution on our hands.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man
Watcha Playing: Opoona

Do You Translate When You Emulate?

Joe Keiser — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

All of our incessant conversation about Mother 3 (it’s worth every word, believe me—I’ve read essay anthologies about less meaningful, layered work than this game) seems to bring us inexorably back to the pros and cons of emulation. John and Mackey have covered the bases on this pretty well—though I do want to add for the record that hacking an Xbox Classic and getting one of those Street Fighter Anniversary controllers with the awesome d-pad will square you for pitch-perfect couch-based emulation.

But let’s talk more about emulation’s wonderful translation scene. Mother 3 is without a doubt the most high profile fan-created ROM translation ever, but it’s not the be all and end all by any means. The translation scene is perhaps the best thing to come out of rampant internet-based ROM sharing, as it has allowed plenty of games to be rendered enjoyable for people that previously would not have been able to play them. And this doesn’t just mean English speakers finally can play the craziest Japanese Famicom RPGs, either—it’s also given South American and European non-English speakers games we’ve been enjoying for decades.

You’re probably concerned about the English stuff though, and there’s plenty of it. Romhacking.net, probably the best resource for this kind of thing, records no less than 46 complete translations being made this year. And it’s not all crap, either. There’s no beating Mother 3 for quality and relevance, but unfortunately overshadowed by that mammoth release was a complete translation of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, the precursor to Eternal Punishment that Atlus never felt fit to bring to these shores. Mackey’s told you about it, and after fiddling around with it I have to say it looks like good work.

Then there’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, widely considered the best game in the DQM spin-off series. Japan-only SNES classic Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem was also rendered fit for western consumption by crazed fans this year. So was PlayStation Rez precursor Internal Section, and a variety of interesting Langrisser games. Ever been curious about Famicom Wars, the first game in the series that spawned the beloved Advanced Wars titles? Now you can check it out for yourself.

Individually, this may just come off as the obsessive work of a few bilingual zealots working way too hard for fairly little payoff. Together however, they’re doing something great. With so much of gaming’s incubation stages taking place in Japan, it’s inevitable that the west would lose some of that region’s important early works. Translation Hackers are saving those games, allowing people like you and me to have a more informed understanding of the totality of the medium.

Or, you know, we could just have fun with finally being able to understand Bahamut Lagoon. So, do you translate? What’s your favorite non-Mother 3 translation? Me, I was charmed by the pictured Gunman’s Proof.

Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:35:00 GMT

So on Saturday I indulged in my weekly Mother 3 play session--

("Oh God, she's talking about Mother 3 again, you sneak up behind her with this piano wire while I slip this cyanide into Mackey's coffee.")

Please let me live. I don't know when I'm going to be so motivated to pick a game's brain ever again. Mother 3 is unlike any RPG I've ever played--and for the simplest reasons. This, more than anything, is what fascinates me about the game. Shigesato Itoi realises that the easiest way to get people to love your characters is to treat them like human beings. For some reason, woefully few of his fellow RPG designers have picked that up.

It's rare to find an RPG cast that everyone can relate to on a human level. Mother 3's world-saving brigade casts ground-shaking magic and racks up experience points and throws giant staples at enemies like any other JRPG (okay, the staples, not so much), but Itoi wants us to feel close to them. So he draws us in by being realstic about the one thing that unites even Superman with the common Earthling: family.

Here there be spoilers.

(Oh and don't feed Mackey any cyanide. Thank you. His parents appreciate your restraint.)

Parents don't mean much in JRPGs. They usually exist as target practise for bad guys, a catalyst to turn fresh-made orphans into Super Saiyans. In instances where they do survive, they stand blankly in front of the kitchen sink all day, every bit the same plastic "house" accessory as the ever-ticking clock, the endlessly-burning fire and the assembly line coffee table with the book nailed to it.

Or, sometimes a parent exists as a shadowy legend that the hero is destined to chase (sidenote: DragonQuest V did a wonderful, wonderful thing by casting you as an aspiring hero who travels along with his Pop, then grows up and makes more traveling/slime-fighting babies). In short, mom and dad are a springboard to get the main character out of the house and on the road. The standard shonen game hero is usually fine with this, even though he's a little punk who's barely off the tit and has probably never spent a night away from home. In fact, he's rarin' to go without a backwards glance.

JRPGs never grew up, much as fans like to think they went through a growth spurt with Final Fantasy VII. Realistically, they share a lot in common with young adult fiction. The story isn't supposed to be about parents, right? It's supposed to be about the kid, the adventurer the audience is supposed to relate somehow. Parents are old and slow. They're uncool.

But moms and dads are cool. All right, so "cool" might not be a great descriptor, but as you grow older, you start to appreciate the dedication your mom and dad have towards one another. The bond between two people is a deep and ancient thing that has held society together since the dawn of humanity. If you're lucky enough to have two parents who still love each other after years of living together, you're witness to something special. It's not as exciting as a rampaging dragon that only you can stop, but it's still one of the most powerful forces on Earth.

It's Itoi's exploration of this bond that makes Mother 3 special. In the game's first chapter, Lucas vacations with his grandfather, mother and brother in the mountains. Mom (Hinawa) sends a carrier pigeon to tell Dad (Flint, stuck at home) that they'll all be coming home that evening. A forest fire begins a chain of bad juju that prevent Hinawa, Lucas and Claus from coming home. There's one brief scene where Flint, unsure about his Hinawa's whereabouts even after the fire is put out, retreats inside their house and reads over the note she sent. Even with mere sprite graphics and Flint's silence, you can clearly feel what he's thinking.

Eventually, Flint gets the inevitable bad news: Hinawa died to save Lucas and Claus from a nasty creature altered in an experiment and set loose in the mountains. Flint loses it completely, seizing a burning stick from the fire pit his sons are warming themselves next to and pummelling fellow villagers who try to comfort him. He breaks down further when Claus goes missing, and as the game progresses over three years, Tazmily's villagers remark that Flint does nothing except visit Hinawa's grave and search for Claus.

People freak out when their significant other is killed. They maintain fruitless searches for children long after others have given up and moved on. The loss of Hinawa and Claus irrevocably changed Flint the way it would change any human being--so why is this the first time a JRPG has conveyed such a sad but common occurence so powerfully? Why is this the first time, in my recollection, that a JRPG husband has had such a strong reaction to the death of his companion?

I'm holding hope that more game developers will begin to look at their family for inspiration instead of bothering with more corrupt Churches and Governments.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
OST: Mother

OST: Mother

Bob Mackey — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Everyone knows that Earthbound has some godly music, and we've all recently come to discover that Mother 3 is no slouch in this department, either. But what about the first Mother, AKA Earthbound Zero? Sadly, this is the one game in the trilogy that's almost always overlooked; it may be the least fun to play out of all three Mothers, but the soundtrack by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka helped lay the foundation for some of Earthbound's best tracks. American gamers had no idea back in 1995, but the sleepy, heartwarming music of Ness' house is a direct callback to one of the overworld themes of the first Mother; makes sense, given the connection with childhood homes and nostalgia.

The greatest--and at the same time, strangest--thing about the first Mother is without a doubt its Japan-only (duh) soundtrack. Instead of putting out the simple NES tunes on a CD, the producers went one step further by creating "complete" versions of Suzuki and Tanaka's songs with full instrumentation and lyrics. I'm not going to lie; most of these lyrics are pure Velveeta straight out of the late 80s--but at least a native English speaker is singing them. Embarrassing or not, these songs give us a peek into an alternate universe where Mother was a Disney musical instead of a Japanese 8-bit video game.

And notably, two of the OST's songs are far more sweeping and epic than any Celine Dion Titanic single could ever be. In order to show you just how mindblowingly awesome this soundtrack is, I now present "Wisdom of the World," which, along with "Eight Melodies," is one of Mother's best songs. Try not to giggle at the sexual subtext in the lyrics:

And, in case you want to hear the original 8-bit tune, here it is:

In closing, click here for a version of the song that, while beautiful, may scare the pants off of you.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
"Have You Heard the News? He's Gay!"
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.

"Have You Heard the News? He's Gay!"

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:19:00 GMT

I'm still not done with Mother 3. You could say I'm savouring it (something Mackey can surely appreciate).

I'm coming close to the end though, so I'm in an adequate position to talk about the game on message boards. This is an especially fun way to waste time because Mother's papa, Shigesato Itoi, never struck me as a convential game designer. He's a writer first, something that I think comes out clearly in his games.

For instance, I was talking with a dapper gentleman in a tophat about some of Itoi's characters in Earthbound and Mother 3. Both games feature at least one gay character. This is nothing new in Japanese-developed games and anime, where gays and transvestites serve the same function as our own laughtracks. Everyone laugh at the flamboyant man fretting over his shoes and dress! It's funny 'cause men aren't supposed to do that!

The difference with Itoi's characters is that the player is not really supposed to laugh at them. They're vital to the plot, but they just so happen to be gay.

Earthbound has Tony, a boy who boards with Jeff in the Winters' School. Even in the game's translation, it's (very surprisingly) obvious that Tony harbours a special affection for his roommate. Mother 3's translator, Tomato, posted a snippet of an interview with Itoi wherein he talks about his decision to make Tony bat for the other team:

"Well, for example, there’s a gay person in MOTHER 2. A really passionate friend who lives in an England-like place. I designed him to be a gay child. In a normal, real-life society, there are gay children, and I have many gay friends as well. So I thought it would be nice to add one in the game, too."

Needless to say, Tony is pretty young, but that's what's cute about his devotion: there's a childlike innocence to it that stays comfortably far away from sexuality. It's precisely like the crushes we had as schoolchildren, before puberty made its noxious presence known. I'm unclear about how many gay men become aware of their orientation before puberty (feel free to enlighten me), but the fact that Tony has accepted his own orientation at such a young age--and the fact that nobody seems to isolate him because of it--is nice.

Even nicer is that Itoi's writing of a gay character is miles above the Internet fangirl standard. Tony loves Jeff, but when the time comes for Jeff to leave, Tony understands and helps him get past the school's gates. There's no extended sessions of weeping and wailing, but there is a certain excitement towards adventure, even if it's an adventure he can't participate in. In other words, Tony acts like a boy who's gay. Itoi didn't just give Scarlett O'Hara a penis and say, "There, I have a gay character."

Now that I've revealed the write-by-numbers method of the yaoi fandom, I'm afraid I'll have to kill you with the Crimson Spear of the Seme.

Mother 3's portrayal of gay characters is more coomplicated and worth an entry of its own. Say, I just gave myself an idea.

Something besides "Chicken for dinner sounds good."

Related Links:

Flying Gay Men Invade Virtual Console
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix C-C-Combo Makers
Penn and Teller to Cover Gaming Violence and I'm Not Sure How I Feel About It

Our Emulation Habits

Bob Mackey — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

A long, long time ago (actually, it was just this past Friday) fellow blogger and 61FPS boss-man pined over his inability to emulate. I'm afraid that I'm a bit less romantic than John, even though my feelings about emulation have changed slightly over the years. But when I first started emulating--man oh man--it was like some sort of amazing technology I dreamed about but never thought would exist. As is the case with most people who caught onto emulation, I got hooked on NESticle back in 1997, and spent the copious amounts of free time I had (I was a dork in high school, after all) downloading all the games from my past I was dying to play again.

If I'm not mistaken, I think this was also the year that SNES emulators--a baffling proposition at the time--first started to support sound. I remember downloading a .wav file of the Chrono Trigger opening song as played through the soon-to-be released SNES9X and sitting there completely awestruck. Yes, even then I realized how nerdy I was.

Really, the late 90s-early 00s were a very fruitful time for emulation, and during this short span of years we saw some of the most notable translations: Final Fantasy V, Seiken Densetsu 3, and even a ROM dump of Nintendo's own aborted attempt at releasing the first Mother game. If emulation has served me any good, it's come from being able to play games I would've never been able to play otherwise. The translation scene is much quieter these days, but every once in a while there's a huge release, like the PSX version of Tales of Phantasia or Mother 3, which we can't stop blogging about.

Really, the inauthenticity of emulation really doesn't get to me, because the differences from the real hardware are--in my eyes--imperceptible; and I'd rather play something great with minor imperfections than not play anything at all. The only trap I've ever fallen into has been the dreaded "emulation fatigue," which happens when you have a lot of ROMs but not a lot of patience. It's easy to judge and dismiss a game in moments when you've got hundreds more sitting on your hard drive; most people suffering from this disorder try out games for roughly eight seconds before deciding to never play them again. But I've found that if I actually pay money for emulation, usually via the Wii's Virtual Console, this problem disappears entirely. I still have a bunch of games I've never finished sitting on my Wii, but I feel compelled to go back to them because they actually have a dollar value. Not sure if that makes me a hypocrite, but that's my typical behavior.

So I'm going to go ahead and say "Huzzah for emulation!" as long as it isn't hurting anyone. I honestly don't see the point in ethical hand-wringing over games we'll probably never see on any platform again; sure, Capcom may not see a dime from you downloading a DuckTales ROM, but the great money chain for that game was broken about 18 years ago. That doesn't make you entitled to play it, but in the end, who the hell cares?

Related Links:

Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
The End of Time and the Beginning of Fan Drama

Earthbound in 3D

Bob Mackey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

With writer Shigesato Itoi calling it quits with the Mother franchise after Mother 3, it won't be long until we start seeing remakes--or maybe that's just wishful thinking. As charming as the original Earthbound (Mother 2) was, those 3D renders of in-games towns Onett and Fourside in Super Smash Bros. Melee were enough to make any EB fan squeal with glee. In my wildest of video game-related daydreams, I've often thought of an Earthbound remake, made completely in 3D, with the characters looking just like their little clay models did in the strategy guide.

Some men dream, while others do; like YouTube user cswavely, who has painstakingly rendered a few of Earthbound's town in glorious 3D. Even with that whole new axis, they feel completely authentic to the original game's stubby sprites; but I'll let you judge for yourself:

He also has an awesome version of Fourside:

As well as a super-creepy version of Threed, perfect for Halloween:

Maybe I'm misremembering my adolescence, but it feels like I've really been to these places. I'll have to check the family photo albums and get back to you on this.

Related Links:

Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Earthbound and Back Again
The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:35:00 GMT

None. There is no good reason why Mother 3 never came to America.

Oh, there are a couple of valid reasons why we never officially received Earthbound's follow-up, but they're not necessarily good.

The easiest blame can be laid on finances. We are elbow-deep in the era of the Nintendo DS right now and the heyday of the Game Boy Advance is long over. Nintendo might get away with releasing all three Mother games in a DS collection, but that's obviously not going to happen in a grand hurry.

By now, the universe knows that the original Earthbound bombed on the Super Nintendo. Nintendo did a beautiful, loving job with the packaging and translation, but dropped the marketing ball hard enough to cannonball clear to China. Earthbound was marketed as a cheesy science fiction game brimming with toilet humour, which it wasn't. Alas, a mass-mailing of scratch-and-sniff stickers made to smell like rancid pizza will do a lot to kill an appetite for game.

Besides, after experiencing the majesty of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, why would anyone want to fight against giant piles of barf? I sure didn't. Earthbound tanked, Nintendo made up their mind about American tastes and Mother 3 never had a chance at a ticket to America.

Since the release of the translation patch, however, more than one person has claimed that maybe Nintendo's fear of another financial disaster wasn't the only thing keeping Mother 3 from the States. There was suddenly talk about in-game content being inappropriate for American audiences: the dark story, the characters (oh, the characters) and whatnot. God knows Japan has thousands of little quirks that only those born under its flag can truly appreciate, but I don't see how Mother 3 is one of them.

Mother 3 is certainly unorthodox. Much like big brother Earthbound, it adheres to basic JRPG battle rules, but its heart and soul are wholly unique. The game ladels endless charm over the player, but at the same time, the story is unapologetically sad and says a lot about our tendency to listen to shit-disturbers disguised as charmers instead of making our own sane judgements.

American gamers could do with a story as raw as Mother 3's. It's not what we're used to, but that shouldn't matter. Before I inevitably die under a falling safe, I want to see game stories earn recognition as true literature. Unless games like Mother 3 reach a wide audience--games that have stories worth listening to--that's not going to happen.

Mother 3's other damning trait, the townspeople say, is its questionable content. The strongest example cited thus far are the magypsies, an immortal, all-knowing and all-powerful troupe of...er, transvestites who aid Lucas and his friends in saving the world. This makes for interesting times. Lucas, for instance (PSSST, MILD SPOILERS), has his PSI powers awakened through a questionable encounter with a naked magypsy in a hot tub.

Even this particular scene isn't close to explicit. It certainly implies that black-screen hot tub shenanigans went on between Lucas and the magypsy, but only in that coy, joking way that happens all the time in anime, games and manga. When the picture comes into focus again, it becomes obvious Lucas' head was being held underwater to awaken latent powers vital to his survival--also an extremely common occurrence in anime and manga. The entire scene wouldn't be too difficult to censor, though it would be unfortunate.

(End spoilers, babe.)

Now, I'm probably just talking out of my proud, firm buttocks because I'm only about halfway through the game. But so far, I'm comfortable saying that Nintendo never released Mother 3 because they're still throwing a profit sulk. They could take a chance on Mother 3, which could easily get away with a Teen rating, but they're a business and must step carefully. If game companies didn't have to think about profits and made games solely to lighten the hearts of fans, we would have had Mega Man Legends 3 by now.

It's a shame, because the whole world deserves Mother 3.

(And now we have it either way. Heh heh.)

Related Links:

Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.
The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?

John Constantine — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

I am a console gamer. It’s not something I’m proud of, not a badge I wear to mark myself or somehow justify the way I view the medium as a whole. It does, however, define what I’m drawn to play, what genres I return to year after year, and just what I’ve had the opportunity to play since I was four years-old. Only playing games on devices that fit in my pocket or plug into a television has, by turns, given me an incredibly imbalanced game-literacy. Deep, respected play experiences bound to personal computers are things I’m familiar with by name only. Space Quest? Fallout? Oh, yeah, sure, I’ve heard of those. Great games, right? Call me a nerd with a seriously warped perspective, but I’m actually embarrassed, that guy sitting in a circle of academics discussing James Joyce and having to admit that the last book I read was Harry Potter. My console crutch hasn’t just kept me away from keyboard-and-mouse-only fare either; there are literal hundreds of classic console games I’ve never played, and will never have the spare cash or access to the actual cartridges or discs, waiting at my fingertips via emulation.

I have never played a Sega Master System game. I want to, and I know I could, but I don’t. I’d love to try out Final Fight 3, but I don’t have fifty bucks to drop on a stray cartridge and, somehow, Google searching a ROM feels wrong. It’s not the piracy issue. The vast majority of silver age games will never, ever be commercially re-released. It’s that I feel like I’m missing out on the actual experience of the game by not engaging the physical artifact it was originally presented as. Crazy, I know. But it’s undeniable that there’s something vital and intangible in an “authentic” experience. Standing in front of Monet’s Vétheuil in the Fog, being able to see the physical cracks in the paint, is fundamentally different than looking at a print. There’s a difference between playing the English edition of Terranigma on my laptop and actually putting the cartridge, with its art flaking from the badly cared for label, into an SNES and holding that controller in my hand. The recent translation of Mother 3 is monumentally exciting but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to play this game on a bonafide Game Boy Advance.

So, tell me, dear reader: am I just completely batshit crazy, an overthinking rube with pretentious ideas about legitimacy? Or is there something to be said for an original experience of a game? Let me know.

Related links:

Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?
Question of the Day: Has the HD Revolution Happened and Does It Matter For Games?
Screen Test: Fallout 3
Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
Earthbound and Back Again

I've Decided on a Game Tattoo

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:36:00 GMT

If I ever gather up the metaphorical balls to get a tattoo, that is.

If you carefully cast your eyes to the right, you'll see the design I have in mind. Now I'm going to make you sit and listen as I slowly explain my choice. You may be tempted to flee, but pretend I'm an intimidating prison inmate showing off his tapestry. You wouldn't run from your cellmate, right? He makes you happy at night.

See, I think there is a very fine line between classy and trashy video game tattoos. When I say "fine" I mean this line is as thin as the silk belched out of a spider's bum. Personally, I believe that if you're going to get the summation of your beliefs and feelings scratched onto your skin, you may as well have something to say that both you and the whole world can appreciate.

You can get away with tattooing Super Mario on your forehead because pretty much everyone in the civilised world knows who Mario is and understands his contributions to modern culture. Chances are good--though by no means secure--that Mario will endure for a while longer. On the other hand, there was a time when Sonic the Hedgehog was the coolest mascot ever and it was inconceivable that he would become the fantasy husband of 12-year-old fangirls. The people who got Sonic tattoos in the '90s have some 'splainin' to do (or some big-ass gauze bandages to buy).

Flynn DeMarco over at Kotaku got Jack's chains from Bioshock drawn on his wrists. This, in my opinion, is an example of an awesome game tattoo. Fans of the game recognise it immediately and everyone else can apply their own meaning to it. Nice conversation starter.

Gaming is full of awesome little symbols that also do well as tattoos. The Triforce, for instance, or an adorable little Starman. I personally love the crest design for the Royal Family in the Zelda series, but apparently so does everyone else. It's a bit overdone.

"So what makes your choice such hot shit?" you ask me.

It combines Mother, dragons and balance. Since I was a little girl, I have loved dragons in spite of the Internet's attempt to ruin them for me. I believe the general health of humanity and the world requires a balance in Nature. And I like Earthbound/Mother. For me, the series has ascended above "pleasant, fun distraction," which is where I file 95% of my game experiences.

Not quite "hobby" and not quite "religion," but somewhere in a comfortable middle.

The Dragons appear in Mother 3, but this particular design was put together by Starmen.net. I have always considered a dragon tattoo, but the designs I look at tend to be overly-masculine or too complex. I want a tattoo to say the things that I'm too shy/stupid to say, and I don't exactly want to scream at people or intimidate them.

Related Links:

Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man
Gamer Caskets Rob Your Grave (of Dignity!)

Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again

Bob Mackey — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Nadia's recent post got me thinking (and sniffling) about a game I've been playing--and a game I hope you're not sick of hearing about yet--Mother 3. The Japanese advertising campaign for Mother 3 declared the long-awaited sequel to be "strange, funny, and heartrending." While I haven't exactly been shedding tears over Mother 3, I can at least say that it's remarkably sad; and shockingly, scenario writer Shigesato Itoi has made his game "heartrending" in a completely sincere way. Forget about melodramatic depictions of flower girls being impaled; the tiny sprites of Mother 3 have been able to convey more emotion than any other game in recent memory.

Spoilers for Chapters 1-3 coming up. This Japanese Mother 3 commercial should provide a nice buffer:

The introduction to Mother 3 presents a pristine, small town where everyone knows your name; and if you've ever played an RPG, then you can probably guess that Tazmilly village will soon be destroyed--hey, it's the oldest of RPG cliches. But the destruction--so far, at least--hasn't been physical (well, for the most part); rather, the story of Mother 3 depicts the chipping away of a peaceful, communist ideology by materialist, capitalist, and hawkish antagonists. As the game progresses, a constant sense of quiet, inescapable dread accompanies the narrative of a naive town slowly losing its innocence.

So far, there haven't been any "Get ready to cry! And...NOW." moments because, despite its cutesy, quirky look, Mother 3 is remarkably mature for a Japanese RPG. Consider your playable characters: the first time you really get to dig into game, you're thrown into the shoes of a blue-collar dad who has to cope with the sudden death of his wife--and his reaction to the news, conveyed only in simple sprite art, is stunning. And the second chapter's star is far from being the RPG staple of a sexy teen with an ambiguous gender; instead, you play a balding loser with a heart of gold, bad breath, and a slight limp.

As for chapter 3, what I've experienced so far has been the world through the eyes of a captive, abused monkey. As much as the word is thrown around these days, Mother 3 is truly unique--and I doubt we'll see such an unconventional video game narrative in quite some time. Now more than ever I understand why Nintendo was so hesitant to bring the game out here; I'm still not happy about it, but I do understand.

Related Links:

When Video Games Make Us Sniffle
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

Note: In your comments, please make it clear if you're going to talk about anything after the beginning of chapter 3. I don't want anything to be spoiled!

When Video Games Make Us Sniffle

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:33:00 GMT

It's all right to cry.
Crying takes the sad out of you.

Anyone else remember Rosey Grier serenading us while wearing a very groovy collar? He taught us that it's okay to weep when we're feeling sad, because even big boys feel down in the dumps sometimes. Gamers have taken his song to heart, shuffling and sniffling when bad things happen to good game characters. Video games and emotional expression have shifted monumentally: our fathers didn't cry for Donkey Kong, doomed to fall four storeys and crack his skull open over and over like some simian Sisyphus.

But according to Roger Moore, who reviewed the indigestable Max Payne in the Orlando Sentinel, gamers have never cried at a game's story, because game stories never give gamers a reason to cry.

This, of course, is false: denying that gamers have ever cried means denying the River of Aerith, which was formed from the tears of RPG fans when--well, you know. I do have to admit that I'm hard-pressed to remember specific instances when a game's story made me weepy. Don't get me wrong, I bawl pretty easily, but mostly because of something that happened in a book ("Dammit Colour-Me-Elmo, why can't I stay in your lines? Sob sob!") or a movie. I know I'm the exception here, but games just don't seem to touch me in the same way as often.

So am I a heartless harpy, or do games just lack something in presentation? It's not to say that games have never made me tear up, and God knows enough have made me sad: Mother 3's tagline, "Funny, Strange and Heartrending" is actually quite accurate. I just sometimes feel like game developers are trying too hard to make me feel bad at appointed times. Final Fantasy VI still takes home my "Most Depressing Game Evar" award, but the storytelling in that game is about as subtle as a freshly-cut onion.

Some games admittedly do the story thing better than others. I haven't yet played Shadow of the Colossus, but I hear that one scene in particular gives people Neverending Story Artax flashbacks.

What games make you weep like a girl?

Related Links:

Games to Movies: Why Is It So Gad-Danged Hard?
Counterpart: Games Shouldn't Try To Be Movies
Games to Film: W.S. Anderson's Castlevania

The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

Bob Mackey — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Since I've had the chance to play it all weekend, I can say that I've been completely impressed by the Mother 3 translation project--so much so that the kind people at 61FPS are probably going to have to send people to my house to get me to stop blogging about it (this also happened with Mega Man 9). But until hired goons show up at my door, I'd like to write about the upcoming Mother 3 strategy guide, which shows just as much devotion, hard work, and obsessiveness (the good kind) as the translation itself.

In keeping with the theme of the amazing (though mostly unecessary) strategy guide originally bundled with the American release of Earthbound, the fine people at Starmen.net and Fangamer have been working on a Mother 3 strategy guide in a pseudo-travelogue format--though this is no paltry .txt file uploaded hastily to GameFAQs. We're looking at a full-color, roughly 200 page tome of Mother 3 goodness, fully illustrated (and clay-modeled) by devoted fans, that won't ship until early next year. And if you've got a small amount of disposable income like me, you can head on over to Fangamer's Mother 3 handbook page and give up a mere twenty dollars to make yourself happier in the future. As a bonus, you'll also get a Franklin Badge keychain that probably won't ward off lightning. I wouldn't try it, anyway.

Believe me when I say that I am not being paid in cash, goods, or services to promote the Mother 3 Handbook; this is an item all Earthbound/Mother nerds need to have in their home, lest they be judged by stronger nerds. On Friday, I was so drunk on Mother 3 madness that I even went and added one of these kickass t-shirts to my order; so the next time I'm out at a bar, an attractive woman can tell me "Hey, it's that video game I never played!" while I spill beer all over myself and others. Thanks, Fangamer!

Related Links:

THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.
Earthbound Saga Pt. 4

What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.

Nadia Oxford — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:57:00 GMT

When we log onto the wide, wide Internet and talk about the games we loved as children, it's inevitable that a mean person will say, "That's just nostalgia talking. Game X was actually badly designed/badly written/infected with rabies." Then you break down and cry because you know it's true, at least to a point.

But having only experienced Earthbound for the first time a mere few months ago, there is nothing nostalgic about my naked, shameless love for that game. I wholly believe that video games try way too hard to be art, but there are only a rare few titles that I would be comfortable about shooting into space to represent the human species as a whole. Earthbound is one, a lovely story about growing up in the shadow of world-devouring elder gods.

I am fortunate because my wait for the Mother 3 translation has been short compared to long-established Earthbound fans'. Even so, it's been a nail-biting few months; I checked the site every day, poured over the trailers, marvelled at Tomato's work. Finally, the wait is over.

Almost. I have a big assignment to finish, blogs to write (hello!), etc etc. Focusing as been a monumental challenge today: inside of me I have a ferret bashing against my ribcage and running in crazed circles. "Let's play let's play let's play c'moooooooon!"

Soon, inner ferret. Soon.

Related Links:

THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
Earthbound's Secret Evil
Earthboudn's Other Secret Evil

THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

Bob Mackey — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I have to apologize for posting about the Mother 3 translation project twice in one week, but this post contains actual news, as opposed to just speculation. Today--right now--you can finally grab the Mother 3 translation patch; though how you choose to use it is entirely up to you (Note: it cannot possibly be used for evil). Here's the newest trailer, in case you still need convincing:

I can't think of a better way to end this post than with project lead Tomato's comments about this project finally wrapping up:

After more than 13 years of waiting, the sequel to EarthBound is now in English! I hope fans of the series, new and old, will find MOTHER 3 to be just as unique and interesting as its predecessors. We tried our very best to make a worthy translation, and I think we came close to hitting that mark. With any luck, the translation will seem just as "strange, funny, and heartrending" as the original Japanese version.

MOTHER 3 is filled with secrets and rarities. Characters say new things after even the tiniest of events. Take your time to explore the game's intriguing world - you won't be disappointed! And when you're done, be sure to come back here, because we've prepared many more goodies for fans to check out and enjoy post-game!

Enjoy your time in the world of MOTHER 3!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste a significant portion of my Friday. Go and grab the patch HERE if you didn't do so immediately.

Related Links:

Earthbound and Back Again
Earthbound Saga Pt. 4
Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete