01/10/2025, 05:01 PM
happy 2025, everyone! as to not get into too many details, my year did not have a great start, and i needed some "comfort food" to keep me going. i ended up playing and replaying the first two MOTHER games several times over, back to back, since they've always helped me in my times of need. i guess it's like a defense mechanism, when i feel lost or hopeless these games always bring me back to a grounded, reassuring state of mind. while i've played both of these games to death over my 20 years of existance, i've never played and replayed them in quite this density, nor to the obsessive degree i did these past two weeks. my goal was to get every achievement for both games on RetroAchievements, as i'm known to do, which had me knuckling down and doing everything these games had to offer. because of this obsessive, fine-combed experience, i've formed a lot of new thoughts and experiences i'd like to share, which is what i'll be doing today. so let's start with the first topic...
to be fair, this isn't a completely new realization for me, i could definitely tell that Mother 1 is much less linear than its sequels, but only recently did it really click with me just how non-linear it is. sure, you're kind of locked in for the first chunk of the game, but once you finish Duncan Factory and get the rock off the train tracks, you're free to go do whatever the hell you want. i mean, for crying out loud, you can make it all the way to R7038XX on Mt. Itoi without getting a single melody. hell, you can get there without a single additional party member, outside of Loid, who you need to complete Duncan Factory.speaking of party members, i only found out about a week ago that you can go face Giygas with only Ninten in your party! during the scene where Ana and Ninten dance in the mountain cabin, if you use the Onyx Hook to teleport to Magicant before talking to Ana, you can just leave everyone behind. this kinda blew my mind when i found out about it for the first time, i guess there's always more to learn about your favorite games, especially when it comes to the MOTHER series. compare all of this to Earthbound, which pretty much locks you into whatever town you're in until you solve its problem, at least until you're doing the last few sanctuaries. and like, i don't think i even need to say anything about Mother 3 in this discussion, it's the very definition of a linear, story driven RPG. a very good one, don't get me wrong, but still. this whole thing is interesting to me, because for the first couple of areas Mother 1 feels very similar to Earthbound in terms of how it handles progression. you need to leave Podunk, but to do that you need to save the zoo, but to do that you need to save Pippi, etc, etc. but once you destroy the rock and get the trains running again, it completely throws this out the window and lets you do whatever you want, which i personally love. i don't know much about the fanmade remake of Mother 1, Mother Encore, but i hope they keep this aspect of the game, it's part of what makes it so lovable to me.
i mentioned that i was trying to get every achievement for Earthbound earlier, and there were five achievements that felt extremely intimidating at first. these were the achievements for getting the Sword of Kings, Goddess Ribbon, Broken Antenna, Star Pendant, and Gutsy Bat. so what, big deal. they're just some items, right? well, kind of, but not really. you see, these items are all pieces of VERY good equipment, and they're not just something you can buy or find in a box somewhere. no, these are all item drops from defeating certain enemies, and exceedingly rare item drops at that. luckily, computers really SUCK at generating truly random numbers, and some games have methods to manipulate the random number generator, or RNG, usually called RNG Manipulation, and Earthbound is no exception. without getting too technical, you save the game at a phone and reset the game, which resets all of the RNG to its default state. then, by pressing certain buttons at certain times, you can change the RNG, since it's influenced by player input. and luckily for me, the Earthbound speedrunning community have figured out all sorts of setups for manipulating the game to give them these exceedingly rare items. it takes a bit of practice, but i was able to get the Goddess Ribbon, Broken Antenna, Star Pendant, and Gutsy Bat using manipulation. the Gutsy Bat was probably the hardest one, but it was pretty fun to get good at! now, you may have noticed that i left one item out, the Sword of Kings. there is technically an RNG Manip setup for the Sword of Kings, but it's MUCH harder, since the area where the enemies that drop the sword is much further away from a save point than the other examples. so in the end, i had to do it the old fashioned way, and submit myself to the grind. the Sword of Kings is probably the most infamous of the rare equipment drops, for a multitude of reasons. it's the only weapon that can be equipped by Poo, your final party member, it's the only one of his equipment pieces that isn't found in a box in the overworld, and worst of all, once you progress too far in the story, you're locked out of ever getting it. it's dropped by the Starman Super in the Starman Base, and once you beat the boss of that dungeon, the Starman Supers will never spawn again. so if you want the sword, you gotta halt your progress and get to grinding. but it goes even deeper than that, the Supers aren't the only enemies in the dungeon. there's also the normal Starmen, which look the same on the overworld, and can potentially overwrite the Sword of Kings drop with their own, more common item drop, the Brain Food Lunch. there's also the Nuclear Power Robots, which can make fights drag on for ages, since they heal the other foes in the fight. they also explode when you defeat them, dealing huge damage to your whole party, so it's not like you can just mash through them. the worst part of the Sword of Kings grind is that you have to put a lot of active thought and effort into each battle, you can't just mindlessly mash away at each enemy. i spent over 4 total hours grinding for this item, and the worst part is, it's not even that good!! Poo, as a party member, is primarily a spellcaster. it's nice to give him an option for physical combat, but that's really only in emergencies. realistically, though, you aren't doing the Sword of Kings grind for the practicality of the weapon, you're doing it for the experience. it's a right of passage for any Mother fan worth their salt to do it at least once, so at the very least i'm glad i finally got it off my plate. in retrospect, it was a good experience, but i'll never do it again. (at least, not until i work up the motivation to complete the Mother 1+2 RetroAchievements set...)
for my last topic, i'd like to talk about an excellent fanwork i recently experienced for the first time. the MOTHER fanbase is famously EXTREMELY dedicated, and has created some of the most high effort, impressive fan works i've ever seen for any piece of media. some of my favorites are Project PK Flash, an amazing animated tribute that features the version of Pollyanna from the Mother vocal album, Legends of Localization: Earthbound, an entire ass book about the localization of Earthbound, and probably my absolute favorite, Mother: Cognitive Dissonance, a fangame taking place between the first two games that follows a motley crew of aliens as they try to prevent the events leading the Giygas' return in Mother 2. my newest obsession in terms of Mother-related fanworks, however, is an album by VGM cover artist Cory Johnson, simply titled Earthbound. really though, it rides the line of what can be considered a cover album, it has a handful of proper remixes, but it's more interested in songs that convey the emotions one feels during the darker parts of Earthbound. by far my favorite track on the album is I am the evil in your heart, an 18 minute journey of a song that is meant to evoke the feeling of experiencing the Giygas fight for the first time. it uses some insane vocal samples and gets downright terrifying at times, i can't get enough of it. A Flash of Memory is a close second, it's a beautiful arrangement of the eight melodies from Mother 1 that fills you with so much energy and hope. this is gonna sound really dorky but it sounds like the kind of thing that would play in the final scenes of an Earthbound movie, if that makes sense. it's such a beautiful rendition of the song, and really prepares you for the emotional journey the album is about to put you through. now, to be fair, i totally get that this kind of thing isn't for everyone. it's not the type of album you'll be listening to for back to back bangers, it's moreso something you listen to for the experience. if that sounds like your kinda thing, and you're a big Mother/Earthbound fan, i can't recommeng the album enough. it's severely underappreciated, and i think it deserves a lot more attention than it gets.