GBA

Mother 3

Mother 3 is a role-playing game developed by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory, and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. The game follows Lucas and his friends as they uncover the mysteries of the Nowhere Islands while confronting the invading Pig Mask Army.

Release Date
January 1, 2006
Publisher
HAL Laboratory
Players
1
Region
US

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Story

Mother 3 is set in the fictional Nowhere Islands, an unknown length of time after the events of EarthBound . The game begins with twins Lucas and Claus and their mother Hinawa preparing to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa's father, Alec, who lives in the northern reaches of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military force known as the Pigmask Army, who bomb the nearby forest and start a forest fire. Hinawa's husband, Flint, is alerted to the fire and sets out to rescue his family.

He finds Lucas and Claus, but discovers that Hinawa was killed defending them from a hostile Drago, a normally peaceful dinosaur-like creature. Later, Claus leaves the village to take revenge on the Drago; Flint attempts to follow him, discovering and defeating the Drago, which has been turned into a cyborg, but fails to find Claus. In response to the Pigmasks' invasion, novice thief Duster is sent by Wess, his father and teacher, to the abandoned Osohe Castle to retrieve the mysterious Egg of Light. While there he meets the spirited young Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are caught in a trap and vanish.

At the same time a mysterious peddler known as Yokuba, who works with the Pigmasks, introduces the concept of currency and sells television-like devices known as Happy Boxes to the townspeople, with the unwilling help of a monkey named Salsa whom he abuses. Salsa escapes from Yokuba's control with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess. Three years later, Tazmily Village has been taken over by the Pigmask Army, who have modernized it with railways, Happy Boxes, and other modern technology. Lucas hears rumours that Duster, who has been missing since leaving for Osohe Castle, is working as a bassist at the nearby Club Titiboo, and sets off with his dog Boney.

While travelling there, he learns psychic powers from Ionia, who is a superpowered, benevolent, androgynous creature known as a Magypsy. At the club, he finds Kumatora working as a waitress, as well as Duster, who is suffering from amnesia. They join to recover the Egg and restore Duster's memory, but while attempting to board a flying Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man shakes them off and sends them flying to the ground, separating them. Lucas and Boney land in a haystack back in Tazmily, and learn from the Magypsies that beneath the Islands is a massive, sleeping creature known as the Dark Dragon.

The Magypsies' purpose is to guard seven Needles that were placed in the dragon to control its power; whoever pulls most of the Needles will be able to use the dragon's incredible power to completely reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas and Boney reunite with Duster and Kumatora and race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man, but only manage to pull three, with the Masked Man pulling another three. The seventh and final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmask Army.

Lucas and company travel there and meet Leder, another villager, who reveals that the inhabitants of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global apocalypse, who travelled to the Nowhere Islands as they were protected by the dragon's power. To prevent a second apocalypse from occurring, the survivors sealed their previous memories in the Egg of Light; Leder was given the role of revealing the truth if the situation called for it. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmasks is Porky Minch (known as Pokey Minch in Mother 2 ), who, after the events of Mother 2 , travelled in time to the Nowhere Islands and began building an empire there, kidnapping inhabitants from other time periods (including Dr. Andonuts from Mother 2 ) to populate it, and transforming the local wildlife into twisted new forms (including the Drago that killed Hinawa).

Lucas and company set out to confront Porky and pull the last needle. While fighting their way to him, they discover that Yokuba was the Magypsy responsible for protecting the seventh Needle, who betrayed them and started working for the Pigmasks. The heroes finally meet Porky on the 100th floor of New Pork City's Empire Porky Building, where he taunts Lucas and company in a monologue. He sends them deep beneath New Pork City, where he meets them and they battle, but he seals himself inside an "Absolutely Safe Capsule" built by Dr.

Andonuts; unbeknownst to him, however, Andonuts has tricked him, as the Absolutely Safe Capsule also renders the outside world safe by permanently sealing Porky within it. Lucas reaches the seventh needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Claus. During the battle between Claus and Lucas, Hinawa's spirit speaks to the boys and begs them not to fight. This eventually causes Claus to remove his mask and commit suicide by casting lightning at Lucas's magic-reflecting Franklin Badge.

Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands. In an epilogue set in pitch darkness, the game's cast reveals that they have survived and wish the player farewell. After the credits, the Mother 3 logo is shown restored to being made completely of wood.

Gameplay Systems

Mother 3 is a single-player role-playing video game similar to previous games in the Mother series. The player controls a party of playable characters who explore the game's two-dimensional fictional world, primarily shown from a top-down perspective . While navigating the overworld , the player may converse with non-player characters , obtain items , or encounter enemies. Winning battles against enemies awards experience points to the party, which is required for leveling up .

Leveling up a character permanently enhances its individual attributes such as maximum hit points (HP), power points (PP), offense, and defense. Weapons, armor, or accessories can be equipped on a character to increase certain attributes. The player can restore their characters' HP and PP or heal various status ailments by visiting hot springs which are abundant in the game world, and the player can save the game by talking to frogs . Currency is introduced in the later half of the game as Dragon Power (DP), earned by winning battles and used to purchase items.

The player can deposit or withdraw DP from frogs. Mother 3 retains the turn-based battle system featured in EarthBound . When the player comes into contact with an enemy in the overworld, the game transitions to a battle screen. Battles are viewed from a presumed first-person perspective, showing the enemies against a distorted, animated background.

The player can assign each character in their party to perform an action, such as attacking an enemy or using items to restore HP or PP. Some characters can utilize psychic -based abilities referred to as PSI, which includes stronger attacks and healing abilities, but require PP to execute. Like EarthBound , combat uses a "rolling health" system: when one of the player's characters is injured, their HP will gradually "roll" down, similar to an odometer , rather than be immediately decremented. This allows a mortally wounded character to perform actions like attacking or healing themselves if the player acts quickly enough.

If a character's HP reaches 0, they will fall unconscious and be unable to perform any actions until they are revived by another character. The player loses a battle if all characters become unconscious; the player will then be given the option to continue play from the nearest save point, but with half the DP on their person. Combat in Mother 3 includes a unique musical combo system not seen in previous Mother games. When one of the player's characters directly attacks an enemy with a weapon, they can repeatedly attack the enemy by pressing the button in time with the beat of the background music , with each enemy possessing a musical theme with different rhythms.

Using this system, the player can attack the enemy up to sixteen times in a row. When the correct beat is not apparent, the player can put the enemy to sleep to isolate the beat from the music.

Media Reviews

GameSpot
30
Famitsu
35/40
Eurogamer
7/10
OPM
2.5

About Mother 3

Mother 3 is a classic video game released for the Game Boy Advance on January 1, 2006. Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by HAL Laboratory, this title has become a beloved entry in the retro gaming library.

This wiki entry provides comprehensive information about Mother 3, including release details, gameplay information, and story synopsis. Whether you're looking to revisit a childhood favorite or discover classic games for the first time, Emulator Games Wiki has you covered.

Some information sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 3.0.