This month marks 20 years since the launch of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance, the RPG sequel to the cult classic Earthbound (known as Mother 2 in Japan). It’s still never seen an official release outside Japan, but Mother 3’s unflinching critique of capitalism feels more relevant than ever today.
Mother 3 opens in the bucolic Tazmily Village. There’s no crime and no concept of currency — all the items at the trading post are free for whoever needs them. Within the first couple hours, an army of masked, portly pigmen wearing tactical gear set the nearby forest on fire and start performing experiments on the local wildlife, resulting in the death of protagonist Lucas’s mother and the disappearance of his twin brother Claus. Fast-forward a few years, and the Pigmasks have introduced railroads, factories, money, and TV-like “Happy Boxes” to Tazmily. The once-happy villagers grow bored with the lack of stuff to do (and buy) in their hometown, and relocate en masse to the glitzy and gaudy Pigmask metropolis of New Pork City, where they enjoy the “freedom” to work ceaselessly in order to buy more junk.
Aesthetically, Mother 3 has a lot in common with Earthbound: endearing sprite art, pun-laden dialogue, toe-tapping tunes, oddball enemy designs, and trippy battle backgrounds. Thematically and tonally, Mother 3 is a very different animal. If Earthbound is The Last of Us for quirky 16-bit RPGs, Mother 3 is The Last of Us Part 2 — it’s gonna ruffle some feathers. It’s far more serious, far more upsetting, and in many ways far more ambitious than its SNES predecessor.
