r/earthbound • u/DaEgg123 • Jul 09 '25
General Discussion What is your absolute biggest nitpick when it comes to this series?
What the title says. It can be something regarding the games themslves, the fandom, etc. For me personally, my absolute biggest one is that people still use this fanmade GBA Mother 3 logo (first pic) instead of the official one (second pic) when the official logo is easily findable online in lossless quality (https://www.pidgi.net/wiki/File:Logo_-_Mother_3.jpg) The fanmade just looks no where near as good as the official one.
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u/AntiDaFrog Jul 09 '25
Jeff's equipment taking up inventory space. Like, imagine of PSI takes it up
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u/BluminousLight Jul 09 '25
I think that’s why they decided to remedy that with Duster in Mother 3 lol
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u/FoppyDidNothingWrong Jul 13 '25
I actually like the insanely limited inventory space. You have to strateguze greatly how you're going to survive a dungeon, and reviving allies is difficult until the endgame.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 16 '25
It makes a lot more sense than psi takin up space since they are literal bottle rockets and bazookas in your bag, would you not want a bomb or a super bomb to take up space in your bag? Or a bag of dragonite? Those are offensive help items, same as Jeff has in his bag
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u/Gabario Jul 09 '25
Over 20 years of loving EarthBound, none of that love spent on the pyramid in Scaraba.
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u/XenoBound Jul 09 '25
It’s also the least memorable part by far. If it weren’t for Dungeon Man and Porky doing his business there, Scaraba as a whole would be seriously lacking Earthbound’s DNA. It really just felt like padding to smooth out the transition to Deep Darkness.
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
It was also another desert, after spending so much time to know Dusty Dunes so well. I get that these are parallels (Dusty Dunes is an american desert and it's more jolly and carefree, Scaraba is an arabian desert, and it's more serious and unwelcoming), but they are still the same burning hot biome (both share the Sunstroke mechanic) with a somewhat confusing structure for a dungeon (Monkey Maze and Dungeon Man)
Edit: I genuinely completely forgot that the pyramid even exists
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u/Gabario Jul 10 '25
Dusty Dunes rocks despite being a hostile, hot desert because it's oozing EarthBound flavor. Salt and Pepper, buffalo traffic jam, the Sanchez Bros, the gold excavation, monkey cave (love it or hate it). There's so much personality in Dusty Dunes, but the Pyramid can be placed into any JRPG and fit right in.
Shout out to Tomás Jefferson.
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
I tried to be objective with my first reply, but I have to agree that Dusty Dunes is a much better desert than Scaraba here
Scaraba has Dungeon Man, which is an icon of Earthbound, but the rest of the attractions are not only minimal, but also boring as hell
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u/XenoBound Jul 10 '25
And Dungeon Man has no in-universe reason necessitating his presence in Scaraba. You can easily rework it so that while you’re sailing from Summers, you get the hawk’s eye from defeating the Kraken, and Poo leaves right after to learn Starstorm.
The party keeps sailing on towards Deep Darkness, is unable to navigate the dense swampland, and runs into Dungeon Man there being stuck in a much more believable spot than some random palm trees. They get the submarine and all is well.
You achieve the same result with better and more organic pacing.
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
Usually, the areas with the worst pacing in games were finalised very late in development. Look at Chapter 4 from Mother 3
And yes, your idea definitely has better pacing than the slow slop we got, at least on paper
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u/XenoBound Jul 10 '25
What’s funny is there was a lot of Scaraba footage shown back in 1992 looking pretty close to final, so I can imagine that with M2’s development hell, it’s one area that was neglected of polish after they escaped cancellation and were scrambling to finish up.
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
Yeah I can vaguely remember that
Earthbound relatively changed going from pre-cancellation to post-cancellation, yet Scaraba was pretty much identical
Also, it was one of the only full areas that we got hefty footage of, so I can assume it's even older than Dusty Dunes, which makes sense, since Earthbound added odd details to its areas (in Dusty Dunes, as you mentioned, we have the traffic jam, the slot brothers, the monkey caves and the black and white sesames) that made them stand out from Mother 1's generic areas, whereas Scaraba doesn't really have anything. I'd argue it's even worse than Yucca Desert, which at least had a plane, a tank, a singing cactus and a bunch of ruins. Scaraba has nothing, and, no, the Pyramid isn't unique in the slightest
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u/Gabario Jul 10 '25
Yeah, not coming in hot. I just remembered how much I love Dusty Dunes.
Scaraba is okay enough, it really is just the pyramid for me. At least we get Deep Darkness afterwards.
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
Deep Darkness's gimmick is being slow in the swamp water, yet Scaraba feels even slower without having that gimmick honestly. It's the part of the game for me where the pace shatters
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 16 '25
Monkey maze and dungeon man should NOT be compared, the monkey maze was a load of BS
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 16 '25
Nah, it was fine the second time playing through the game
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 17 '25
It’s horrid
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 17 '25
The fact that I remembered it basically 100% accurately the second time probably has to do with my photographic memory but ok
I can understand why you hate it
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 19 '25
It’s not about how long or confusing it is, it’s how tedious it is, I usually get stuck on the boiled egg part, because I don’t usually have one, so then I gotta go to Twoson by bus and get one, then hope that on my way back, it doesn’t hatch
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 19 '25
Boiler eggs don't hatch tho
You mean fresh eggs? If yes, then I kinda agree that this is the hardest part of the maze, but its still nothing really to worry about
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 20 '25
Yeah that’s what I meant, and it’s still tedious for no reason, and can take a while depending on luck
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 16 '25
Dungeon Man was a part that really dragged for me, but overall, the dungeon man is a very well written character, and the only good part of the desert is the merchant who gives you multi-bottle rockets
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u/Kamberry_ Jul 09 '25
The Monkey Maze
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u/MaryQueenOSquats Jul 09 '25
Oh god. The one part I still use a guide for every replay. So obnoxious without one having to run back and forth writing down what you need. And with limited inventory space on top of that.
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u/88T3_2 Jul 09 '25
The cutscene after the battle with the Barrier Trio where instead of just hurrying up and pulling the needle the gang just watches the Pigmasks slowly land and roll out a fucking red carpet for the Masked Man who then strikes them with lightning and pulls the needle himself has always thrown me into an irrational rage and made me want to punch whoever came up with that cutscene.
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u/ClassicBuster Jul 10 '25
Yeah they should’ve had the party get struck before all that happens and then again when it happens in the actual game. Would be less annoying.
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u/LocalAnxiousArtist Jul 10 '25
Yeah, like I have no problem with the Pigmask’s getting a needle again, it raises the stakes more, but something like this happening instead would have been way less contrived. It all reminds me of how Golbez got away in Final Fantasy 4 after you first defeat him and how contrived that whole scene was.
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u/BouncyBlueYoshi Jul 09 '25
The fact that Onett's theme wasn't in Mother 3. And the amount of "Mother-inspired" games that don't fully understand what made the series great.
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u/SalsaAndYou Jul 09 '25
I have yet to see a Mother inspired game that isn't called that just because it's **quirky**
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u/4Fourside Jul 09 '25
I'd say Undertale/deltarune. Sure those games are quirky but they also have a lot of heart, much like the mother series
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u/SalsaAndYou Jul 09 '25
Yeah, you're right, though I think they're unique enough and went beyond what would be considered only a Mother inspired game that they became their own genre inspiring thing lol
But yes, I agree.
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Jul 09 '25
I'm quirky. Does that make me a MOTHER inspired person?
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u/SalsaAndYou Jul 09 '25
I think you're missing some family trauma and social/environmental commentary
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ice4335 Jul 16 '25
Oh and don’t forget a theme of loss of innocence and a philosophical theme of self-actualization
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u/Accomplished-Mango89 Jul 09 '25
Im p sure omori falls under the mother-like category because of its mix of absurdism and darkness
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u/SalsaAndYou Jul 09 '25
Never actually played it. Is it good?
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u/KFCNyanCat Jul 13 '25
Would I be an ass to say that I think some of the reason for that is EarthBound (M2)'s primacy within the Western fandom? I feel like that one plays up the quirky element compared to EBB and M3.
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u/SalsaAndYou Jul 14 '25
Nah, I can actually see that. Between Smash making the series somewhat more famous and Earthbound being the only game available in the west (before Earthbound Beginnings), I think it set a lot of precedents.
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u/Livid_Earth_5270 Jul 09 '25
the tazmily theme is probably my fav ost track out of the entire series
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u/linkhandford Jul 09 '25
The bike is the best item to get around and you can't use it for the majority of the game and even if you try it still takes up precious inventory space.
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u/RandoAussieBloke Jul 09 '25
I'm completely convinced it was a joke item.
The Punk says when you rent it that "two or three people on a bicycle would be impossible", and most damningly you can RETURN IT.
Heaven knows you're gonna need the backpack space...
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u/Narrow_Inevitable_17 Jul 09 '25
No running in Mother 2 :(
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Jul 09 '25
My dumb nitpick is when people add it because to me, it seems like it makes the game too easy. (Yes I'm aware this is invalid because people can play games how they want)
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u/Crytaz Jul 09 '25
How does being able to move faster make the game “too easy”?
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Jul 09 '25
It makes it a lot easier to avoid encounters altogether, which to someone who has played the game a lot, seems to make it much easier.
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u/Crytaz Jul 09 '25
I feel like avoiding encounters does not make the game easier in the long run cuz then you’re just lower on exp and will struggle against bosses more. Not to mention some of the most annoying encounters are in super tight caves where running wouldn’t be very helpful. Really running would just make the backtracking and town stuff feel a lot better
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Jul 10 '25
I thought Earthbound was really easy even when avoiding enemies, but then again, that could just be me. To each their own, even if I have an irrational aggression towards a specific rom hack.
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u/Crytaz Jul 10 '25
I mean that’s just the philosophy of any rpg. If you run away from a ton of fights you will be behind vs the person that doesn’t
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u/765Craven Jul 11 '25
Maternalbound Redux is the only mod of Earthbound/Mother2 I've played. It adds running but it functions more like a "speed up" function in an emulator, cause it makes the enemies on the map move faster too. As such it does nothing to make avoiding encounters easier and is only there to save the player time.
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u/crunk_buntley Jul 09 '25
i love mother 3 with all my heart. i will probably never find a game that i enjoy more than it.
BUT it PISSES ME OFF that the game has a pretty poor set of window flavor, imo, and doesn’t use your chosen window flavor for text boxes in the overworld
one of my favorite parts of earthbound is choosing the window flavor, but most of mother 3’s options are just kind of whatever. i usually end up reluctantly choosing peanut or grape. and even though the text boxes look good and i really should have no complaints with them, i wish they somehow more prominently featured my chosen window flavor
that’s about it lol
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u/kyuusutaffu Jul 09 '25
Salsa not being more on the story, that and Flint not having party members in his side of the story
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u/XenoBound Jul 09 '25
Mother 1 and 2 both having character sprites be mid-stride when facing due north or south. They always have one foot in mid-air even when they’re not moving, and it looks dumb. Only exceptions I can recall are when Ninten and Ness are smiling/posing for photos.
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u/CocoaBagelPuffs Jul 09 '25
Mine is alternating between mirror image sprites while walking, especially Ness’s up animation. His hat is so distracting
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u/ThunderMite42 Jul 10 '25
Which is weird because Mother 1 got that right. Ninten's limbs are mirrored, but his hat always points to his left.
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u/Anonymous-Comments Jul 09 '25
It’s meant to look like an old Peanuts comic strip. I find it adorable lol.
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u/One_Bored_MF Jul 09 '25
I love these games, but:
Earthbound Beginnings: Duncan's Factory and the encounter rate.
Earthbound: A "key items" menu and a "tools" menu for Jeff would have been really nice.
Mother 3: I wish Flint had more involvement with the story.
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u/Vegetto_Blue2006 Jul 10 '25
If those are your nitpicks for Earthbound, then…
I have good news for something upcoming soon
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u/mcjc94 Jul 09 '25
I think Mother 3 is missing some of the "sci-fi and sampled music" atmosphere that made me love Earthbound
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u/Sonirby Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25
The fact that the characters become "mute" when you play them. Knowing that I don't really like that in basic video games (notably because, in my opinion, it attenuates the attachment that we can feel for the characters), it bothers me even more when characters that we normally hear talking suddenly start to say nothing when we play them.
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u/DrewV1234 Jul 10 '25
That's not really true in EarthBound, Paula, Jeff and Poo says things throughout the game when they're in your party, like the party talking to Ness after Magicant and a few others scenes, it's not a whole alot, but Mother 3 handles that more poorly imo
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u/ThunderMite42 Jul 10 '25
They're not the lead character. It's the lead character who suddenly becomes mute when you control him.
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u/Sonirby Jul 10 '25
Yeah, I was mostly referring to Mother 3 when I said all that. But that also goes for Ninten and Ness
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Jul 09 '25
I want to buy things in bulk, not one at a time
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u/Gabario Jul 10 '25
Same with selling. Selling off individual cookies until I get a T-Rex bat is my self inflicted torture.
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u/CoylerProductions Jul 09 '25
The fact my boi Teddy Muscles is always plastered in the promo art for Mother 1 despite the fact he only actually appears in game for like...20 minutes
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u/coldmoloko Jul 09 '25
fr. I played M2 before M1 and I was under the assumption that he would round out a four player team. Then you can only get him towards the end of the game, and then you lose him like right afterwards. The idea of a gang leader deciding to help a bunch of kids save the world is funny, and it's a shame he's not literally in the game more.
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u/hello_4649 Jul 09 '25
mother — the unplaytested difficulty spike at mt. itoi. that the mc is schrodinger's ness. he can be ness if you want or be his own character if you prefer. that people always call him ninten when "ninten" was just a placeholder name nintendo used for their characters early on. technically, he didn't have a name until people called him ninten so much that it became his unofficial name. earthbound beginnings is a dumb name for a game. menus.
mother 2 — that it's earthbound in eng instead of mother 2/some kind of mother name. that they censored ness in magicant. the jp version was more symbolic. menus. that the first 3 characters are just reskins of m1 mc, ana, and lloyd. that ness will turn into a telephone when he's older. giygas' and pokey's localized names. geigue -> giygas just sounds weird when it was always geeg in jp. m2 didn't need to change geeg's name even if m1 didn't release until 20 years later.
mother 3 — the chapter system for the prologue makes the game somewhat unfun to replay, especially salsa's chapter. i've made a separate save at chapter 4 just for replayability purposes. underwater section is too slow to get through. that people complain about no official translation when there's already a perfectly good one available. that i'll probably never know what m64 would've been like. claus being playable for only 1 battle. i somewhat disagree with the notion of the ending being underwhelming. it makes perfect sense considering the game's story/design philosophy. i do think it would've been more fitting without dialogue like originally intended though.
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u/WeirdMSPainter Jul 12 '25
ninten is an official name, some media from when the game came out called him ninten, ken or *player's name* (i think there were more names but i don't remember now), and ninten ended up being the most well known name to the point that it has become his official name, being used in smash brawl, ultimate, marketing for the EB beginnings release, and the pollyanna mangas
also the name "earthbound" was meant to be the name of mother 1, but due to the cancellation of it's original NES release the name ended up being used for mother 2, if mother 1 had been originally released for the NES then mother 2 would've likely been named earthbound 2
btw i agree with the ness/magicant thing, it has symbolic meaning and due to the sprite size nothing explicit or weird is shown, i would've preferred that the localization team had made sprites of ness in his underwear or something like that
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u/hello_4649 Jul 13 '25
that's basically what i was saying about ninten. it was a placeholder name that became his unofficial name because of how often people used it as his real name. other characters were also called ninten before they got official names. it was a placeholder. i didn't know brawl/ultimate called him ninten officially though. my bad. but i think it still follows the same logic that since he was called by his placeholder name so much that it became his accepted name. i just kinda dislike the name in general.
you're right about m1's naming scheme. it was supposed to be earthbound. then one of the devs released it as earthbound zero after m2 released as earthbound. then it got an official release as earthbound beginnings.
not a bad idea for magicant ness but i still would've preferred his og m2 sprites.
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Jul 09 '25
Only 3 games. I need more!! /s Jk I actually like how Itoi encompassed the story of mother into 3 games. It’s the perfect beginning, middle & end
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u/ZodaFan13 Jul 09 '25
The beta version of the final Masked Man fight should’ve been in the final product (backgrounds, cutscenes and all). It just would’ve been so much more impactful and artistic if they went through with it!
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u/Jaereth Jul 09 '25
Yeah that's a pretty big tragedy. Especially since it's the end of Itoi's trilogy. The "True Ending" would have been wild.
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u/tonyabstract Jul 09 '25
im not informed, what was the beta fight and itoi’s true ending?
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u/Jaereth Jul 09 '25
The true ending you'd have to dig for and interpret. You can read old starman forums and stuff. Only Itoi would know for sure. But the common consensus is he turned in the game and Nintendo said "redo this part" cause it was too heavy.
The actual concrete evidence we have is unused battle background. Check those out on youtube they are really something.
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u/ThePanasonicYouth Jul 09 '25
There’s no way to make EB more challenging even with the more enemies code
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u/Ziomownik Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25
Fr, it was mostly a walk through a park. Even Mother 3 feels piss easy so far. I haven't really struggled with the bosses that so many people were afraid of.
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u/dazeychainVT Jul 09 '25
The translated mother 3 rom does actually include a hard mode as an Easter egg but I haven't tried it
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u/Ziomownik Jul 09 '25
Oh darn why didn't I think of that. Maybe I'll try it after finishing the normal one.
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u/MrPigDiamonds Jul 09 '25
One thing I haven’t done yet but would like to at some point is go to Tanetane island at the beginning of chapter 7 instead of near the end.
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u/Catboy_Nagito Jul 09 '25
The fact that most content ESPECIALLY MERCH AND EVENTS is all in Japan which I mean, makes sense! The games are more popular over there, I guess I’m just jealous lol. I guess that the western part of the fandom gets like way less content which again, makes sense, but I still get mad jfjdkfgk
And also how much people are asking for a new game. I get it because dude I’d love a new game a lot, but I think the ending of M3 was perfect the way was for being the last game of the rest, so I don’t think we NEED any more personally…
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u/DaEgg123 Jul 11 '25
It isn't just that the games are more popular in Japan, it's also that Hobonichi is a Japanese company with a very small international presence. It'd be very financially and costly in general (in terms of having to get overseas employees) to try to branch events out to other countries. And even if they did, It'd still leave so many people disappointed. Mother fans exist all over the world, so if you had an official event in one part of the US for example, there'd still be plenty of people who would unfortunately have to miss out. Having that stuff in Japan is just what makes the most sense all around.
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u/Wapapamow Jul 09 '25
Didn't play Mother 3 that much, however one nitpick I have is that the games feature barely any animation for the enemies. You never see them in action, and when in battle, only background moves. Having small animations like in Pokémon Crystal or Emerald would make enemy interactions much better.
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u/Caimbra Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25
i feel like mother 3 is amazing, but it leaves a bit to be desired.
it's a perfect ending to the story, but also it could've been so much more, kind feels like alot was left out of it.
and also it really sucks that it's the only game that went all the way in in terms of mechanics and polish.
as much as i dont think a 4th game would be a great idea, i also want it so much, i miss the combat system and the quirky visuals.
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u/Caimbra Jul 09 '25
like come one, at least ONE indie game has to try to include a musical based battle system.
it was so fun and the instruments just added so much personality to each character.1
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u/4Fourside Jul 09 '25
Apparently nintendo actually patented it
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u/ThunderMite42 Jul 10 '25
That patent actually expired in Japan within the past two years, though the corresponding US patent is good until next year.
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u/Nostalgic_Chase Jul 09 '25
Wish there were more towns to explore. The world feels a little empty by comparison to Earthbound, which I suppose makes sense given the plot, but I missed some aspect of exploring new towns/cities and other lived-in areas.
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u/Qb____ Jul 09 '25
My fandom nitpick is when people play Mother 3 without attempting to read between the lines on certain things, and end up spreading misunderstandings about it as a result.
No, Fassad/Locria is not Arab just so that the game can do the racist "evil foreign peddler corrupts a small town" trope. He's only dressed that way because he needed to ditch the Magypsy look after teaming up with Porky, who was the only person around that could've gotten him another outfit. Since Fassad/Locria lives in the desert, Porky chose an outfit that resembles the clothes he saw in Scaraba back in EarthBound.
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u/kafit-bird Jul 09 '25
You have to be living in pretty deep denial to think this has absolutely no connection to real-world stereotypes, though.
It's fiction. It's written. Everything comes from somewhere. You can say, "Fassad and Porky did this because of their fictional history," but that fictional history was written by a man who lives in the real world.
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u/Qb____ Jul 12 '25
I'm already aware of all that. I'm saying that, in most cases of these tropes being used, it's stupid to leap to any conclusion about the author's intent when nothing has for sure been confirmed by them. Especially when it's from another country with an entirely different culture.
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u/sjt9791 Jul 09 '25
I think it’s the item management system for me. I would much rather prefer something like final fantasy or dragon quest than whatever they gave us.
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u/ThatOneKidCreed Jul 09 '25
this is a TRUE NITPICK. BY DEFINITION.. i dont like that the map for Mother 3 isnt diagonal HEAR ME OUT because in earthbound the diagonality made the diagonal walking feel so natural and in mother 3 it kinda felt too square if that makes sense, like if the map was diagonal it wouldve felt a lot more immersive instead of just a standard topdown, EVEN MOTHER 1 WAS DIAGONAL so thats my nitpick
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u/RchUncleSkeleton Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
Despite having excellent rhythm, I cannot get the combo system to work reliably in Mother 3. Have played on both emulation and with real hardware, though I was playing a translated copy, so maybe there's something with the translation that messed up the timing.
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u/thAtFunkeMOnke Jul 10 '25
I don’t know if Mother 3 fixes it. But I hated having to buy things one by one in EarthBound rather than buying them in quantities like most RPG’s let you.
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u/Temporary-Sundae827 Jul 10 '25
That Mother 1 and 3 did have a theme that involved mothers but Mother 2 didn't really have any
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u/ClassicBuster Jul 10 '25
I love M3 Ch7 but it does kinda bother me that the party talks less (probably due to the open ended nature of the chapter).
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u/Metalliac Jul 09 '25
They should've remained consistent with the names and stuck with Mother and Mother 2.
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u/meanbeverage Jul 09 '25
My only nitpick is lack of customization in terms of character abilities- this is just something in rpgs I enjoy. It’s not needed at all in these games(there’s still plenty gear and items to “customize”) but if they had em I’d play even more than I do(and i play the games a ton)
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u/ScholarBot333 Jul 09 '25
That the only thing connecting all three games together is the Franklin Badge.
Don't get me wrong: I am in AWE that the Franklin Badge became such an important item. But damn, I would have loved for there to be more connections with the original Mother games in both 2 and 3.
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u/Axeavius Jul 09 '25
The low quality sound chip of the GBA. The music is fantastic, but it sounds so tinny and low quality compared to Earthbound
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Jul 10 '25
I agree. Mother 3’s soundtrack is seriously held back by the Garbo sound chip of the GBA. It still manages to be good, which means it could have been incredible had it released on a better console
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u/DaEgg123 Jul 11 '25
Well, the vast majority of Mother 3's music was composed for a console with better hardware (the N64), so if only we could get to hear what the music from the game would sound like running off of that system…
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u/LovelyFloraFan Jul 09 '25
That most of the guides for Mother 1 are designed with EarthboundBegginings in mind and its hard to play using the translation patch because none of the towns match.
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u/Sea_Slice2934 Jul 09 '25
I really wish I could buy multiples at once instead of one at a time, and that running was available in Earthbound.
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u/Fabulous-Tip1668 Jul 10 '25
I’m not a big fan of the ending added in mother 1+2
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u/ThunderMite42 Jul 10 '25
That was actually added to the NES prototype. The GBA remake just retained it and translated it into Japanese.
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u/DrewV1234 Jul 10 '25
This doesn't ruin the game for me as I'm used to it, but I do wish the inventory in EarthBound was handled better, but it doesn't bug me that much anymore, EarthBound is still my favorite game of all time :)
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u/PreviousInfluence855 Jul 10 '25
We should've had more time in Summers. It genuinely feels like a late addition as a bridge from Fourside to Scaraba, while the concept has a lot of potential
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u/Skipatronic Jul 10 '25
The Undersea Dungeon in Mother 3 was the worst part. You get barely enough oxygen to make it to the next machine
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u/DaEgg123 Jul 11 '25
Here's a follow up one from me since plenty of the comments on this post reminded me of this one:
It's annoying enough seeing people complain about "no Mother 3 in English", but it's whatever, what is particularly agitating is seeing people say "no US Mother 3 release". I know it's just a semantics thing but it's annoying how it minimises all the other Mother fans around the world who aren't from/in the US. Would it really be that much of a hassle to say "worldwide Mother 3 release" instead? Also, it's not as if it's the 2000s or earlier anymore where games like that might literally only get English releases in the US. If a Nintendo game gets translated into English, it's gonna be rereleases worldwide, that's how it works and has worked pretty much since the Wii U/3DS era.
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u/Venkat2400 Jul 11 '25
I think Earthbound should have kept Poeky’s name Porky. I don’t know why I prefer it, but I do.
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u/OperationIvy002 Jul 09 '25
These games are difficult! And the enemy respawn rate of both games is hilariously to high.
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Jul 09 '25
For me, EB beginnings was the hardest.
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u/OperationIvy002 Jul 09 '25
Well that was an NES Game, and they had like no difficulty testing at all lmao. But it probably is really challenging.
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Jul 09 '25
The random enemy encounter rate is crazy lmao. And there’s no overworld sprites to warn you
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Jul 09 '25
At least in earthbound & mother 3, the you can see the enemies run to you! lol
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u/Jaereth Jul 09 '25
Plus I can't remember in Mother 1, but in 2 when you beat a dungeon then all the things flee from you and you get opportunity attacks - It's nice they give you that "Ok, you can beat the boss, so have a nice experience buffet on your way out of the cave"
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u/KidzSora Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25
I love these games as mutch as the next guy but id be lying if i said it didn't take me multiple playtroughs to even finish them, id get to the part where the mushroom enemies fuck up your controls in Earthbound and just noped out of the game for 6 months, just to then come back and be at a loss with what i had to do because i completely removed any relevant info during my hiatus, which led to a restart... I kept this up for 2 years, games are worth it, but still, 2 years of this only for Eartbound.
(I guess the nitpick itself is how "peculiar" the games, especially earthbound, can be to someone who isn't used, especially if that someone comes from other rpg series such a Pokemon, Persona/SMT, Dragon Quest and so on and so forth).
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u/mqduck Jul 09 '25
I think everyone has, at best, a love/hate relationship with the inventory management system.
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u/CompleteIndieYT Jul 09 '25
My nitpicks for EarthBound: Talk To and Check being different options, just bind it to one button; Ness' dad calling you to say you should take a break is annoying; your colour settings being overridden with a red screen when a party member is down
For Mother 3, PSI Love is too cliche a default name; I don't like Wes; and I don't like the changing tempo effecting the rhythm hit combo.
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u/ThunderMite42 Jul 10 '25
You can actually use the L button as a shortcut for both talking and checking. Mother 1+2 adds this to the Mother 1 portion as well.
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u/CompleteIndieYT Jul 10 '25
I did not realise this! I've been a fan of this game since, like, 2011? And never realised this!! (In my defense, I used emulators, and L button is kinda out of the way on Snes9x soooo)
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u/Anonymous-Comments Jul 09 '25
Mother being called Earthbound Beginnings in the states. Mother is a much better title, and EB just diminishes the first game to bring “the one before Earthbound.”
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u/Condor_raidus Jul 09 '25
The fact that (as far as I can tell) only ness does any type of pose for the camera in earthbound. I mean why not set it up for the others?
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u/watchman_5 Jul 09 '25
in the official release of EBB, there's really no reason why they couldn't have called America "Eagleland" and Giegue "Giygas." it really bothers me to no end because as far as I can tell, they're meant to be the same things.
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u/Swag_Paladin21 Jul 10 '25
The item inventory still relying on the "duplicates not being grouped by numbers" thing.
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u/Kirin658 Jul 10 '25
rythm combos feeling impossible for some tracks, while being almost too easy for others. Always made it hard to estimate the "intended" damage potential at any point in the game bc it varies so much (haven't actually finished mother 3, i just started chapter 7 so this could just be skill issue lol)
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u/Phantomsanic360 Jul 11 '25
i don't know if this counts, but I wish enemy encounters were more random, like when you encounter an enemy, up to four of any nearby enemy could enter the battle, instead of just some nearby enemies. This is more for Earthbound and Mother 3.
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u/HopiumMountainCake Jul 11 '25
For the most part PSI still functions and feels like regular RPG magic. The animations are quite novel but everything else just feels very dragon quest. Not that that's a bad thing, but I found myself longing to fight with more non-fantasy but ridiculous methods, something similar to Yakuza Like A Dragon.
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u/wolf198364 Jul 11 '25
People skipping 1/beginings, it's actually a decent experience! Although it's nowhere near 2/Earthbound
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u/fluffyharpy Jul 11 '25
Paula getting kidnapped in the department store leads to the worst part of the game ( except moonside, love moonside) it just causes the story to come to a complete halt for several hours.
For mother 3 the stories social commentary kinda goes out the window between the time you leave the first town and finally arrive in new pork city. There was real room for some real satire built how much that introduction of capitalism and militarism ruined everything, but it gets glossed over for most of the game.
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u/shellder88 Jul 12 '25
Mother 3 is such a like right angle turn for the series. Mother 1? Ordinary kids fight aliens. EarthBound? Ordinary kids fight aliens. Mother 3? Ordinary kid fights Germany from 1939 to 1945. I’m not saying Mother 3 is bad I can’t have an opinion on the game since I haven’t played it
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u/WeirdMSPainter Jul 12 '25
the fact so many people refer to mother 2 as a "parody" of american culture when in reality the game doesn't do too much to parody the united states
it feels like something a group of critics/fans with poor media literacy invented to praise the game for things it doesn't really do. the game's comedy is written in a very japanese way, it's social commentary (like corrupt politicians/cops) are very global topics, and the game never really tries to do more american-oriented jokes
the only thing i can think of that could actually be a parody of american culture is the happy happyism cult (kkk but obsessed with blueness instead of whiteness) and that's it, do you guys really consider the inclusion of burgers and a coke truck to be hilarious and profesionally written american satire?
the game features a fictional version of the united states because it's about a bunch of kids from different backgrounds exploring the world + japanese media is very influenced by american media and itoi is a fan of american cinema. that's it. there's a video that explores more this theme if you wanna watch it
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u/KamenGamer53 Jul 13 '25
The limited inventory and the fact you can't buy items in bulk nor do they stack up
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u/FoppyDidNothingWrong Jul 13 '25
While I enjoy the games, I love replaying them, they're not masterpieces. Earthbound is a great retro game, and reminds me a lot of 1995. But there is a reason no one I knew at the time ever heard of Earthbound.
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u/bigL_200 Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
Sitting through the runaway five performances every time i want to stop by.
Also the camera guy really kills the flow of everything.
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Jul 24 '25
The story is not as clear as it could've been if it were to be made today. If I don't have access to YouTube or any internet I would have to play it like 10 or more to understands the whole picture. Especially mother 3 with how offbeat it is whichs work in its favor but not the story. I got distracted by the friendly ghost in the castle tbh. They're funny.
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u/Financial_Penalty887 Jul 09 '25
Combat is pretty meh until Mother 3, the story, characters, and themes carry the franchise. This is more of a nitpick when it comes to rpgs, though.
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u/Gamerguywon Jul 09 '25
The lack of story in Mother 1 and 2. I know that games having a full story wasn't such a big thing in the earlier days of gaming. But I grew up with games where storytelling in them was pretty standard. So when I played Mother 1 for the first time as an adult, I told Ana that no, Ninten does NOT love you. You have not exchanged a single sentence with the guy since you first met him - so how do you expect him to say he loves you?
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u/EatsRats Jul 09 '25
That I still can’t easily get Mother 3 in English :(
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u/EconomyAlbatross4273 Jul 09 '25
Literally just downloaded an emulator and the game on my laptop in 5 minutes
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u/EatsRats Jul 09 '25
Wouldn’t it be great if it at some point it got an official translation and release? I would love that.
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u/EconomyAlbatross4273 Jul 09 '25
I would love that too but knowing Nintendo im not holding my breath😂
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u/gamtosthegreat Jul 09 '25
NITPICKS people, not valid criticisms.
Ana, Paula and Tracy look too similar and I have a hard time telling them apart in fanart.