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107-694: Mother (known as EarthBound outside Japan) is a video game series that consists of three role-playing video games : Mother (1989), known as EarthBound Beginnings outside Japan, for the Family Computer ; Mother 2 (1994), known as EarthBound outside Japan, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System ; and Mother 3 (2006) for the Game Boy Advance . Written by Shigesato Itoi , published by Nintendo , and featuring game mechanics modeled on

214-413: A Japanese role-playing game modeled on Dragon Quest . The game is characterized by its contemporary, satirical Western world setting and its unconventional characters, enemies, and humor. Examples of the game's humor include untraditional enemies such as "New Age Retro Hippie" and "Unassuming Local Guy", snide dialogue, frequent puns, and fourth wall -breaking. The game also plays self-aware pranks on

321-472: A "Platinum Hall of Fame" score of 35/40 from Famitsu . Reviewers praised its story (even though the game was only available in Japanese) and graphics, and lamented its 1990s role-playing game mechanics. Critics also complimented its music. Jackson said that the game was somewhat easier than the rest of the series and somewhat shorter in length. The series has a legacy as both "one of Japan's most beloved" and

428-454: A "pastoral forest village", a father, Flint, ventures out to protect his family (twin sons Lucas and Claus and wife Hinawa), but the rest of the world is eventually implicated in the plot. Lucas, the game's hero, does not become prominent until the fourth chapter. Along with his dog, a neophyte thief, and a princess, Lucas fulfills a prophecy of a "chosen one" pulling Needles from the Earth to wake

535-485: A "professional quality strategy guide" through Fangamer , a video game merchandising site that spun off from Starmen.net. The Verge cited the effort as proof of the fan base's dedication. Other fan efforts include EarthBound, USA , a full-length documentary on Starmen.net and the fan community, and Oddity , a fan-produced sequel to the Mother series that went into production when Itoi definitively "declared" that he

642-465: A "restore point," which is like a quick save but has no restrictions on reloading. Although likely derived from quick saves, restore points are functionally identical to save states, and can be used for many of the same purposes. Game designers often attempt to integrate the save points into the style of the game using skeuomorphism . Resident Evil represents save points with old fashioned typewriters (which require an ink ribbon item for each save),

749-512: A "rhythm-action mechanic", which lets the player take additional turns to attack the enemy by chaining together up to sixteen taps in time with the background music. Apart from this, the battle system and "rolling HP meter" (where health ticks down like an odometer such that players can outrun the meter to heal before dying) are similar to EarthBound . Around Mother 3 's 2006 release, Itoi stated that he had no plans to make Mother 4 , which he has reaffirmed repeatedly. Itoi has said that, of

856-404: A bee from the future, instructs Ness to collect melodies in a Sound Stone to preemptively stop the force. While visiting the eight Sanctuaries where the melodies are held, Ness meets three other kids named Paula, Jeff, and Poo—"a psychic girl, an eccentric inventor, and a ponytailed martial artist", respectively—who join his party . Along the way, Ness encounters the cultists of Happy Happy Village,

963-419: A choice, continue from an earlier point on. Although the feature of save games often allows for gameplay to resume after a game over, a notable exception is in games where save games are deleted when it is game over. Several names are used to describe this feature, including " permadeath ", "iron man", and "hardcore", and the feature has developed over the years from being the only kind of save system per game to

1070-553: A full fan translation of Mother 3 , a full-length documentary, and fangame attempts . Ness , the protagonist of EarthBound and Lucas , the protagonist of Mother 3 , received exposure from their inclusion in all five entries of the Super Smash Bros. series. Other Mother series locations and characters have made appearances in the fighting games. The series is known for its combination of humorous and emotionally evocative tones. Itoi wanted to tell Mother 3 through

1177-440: A heavier emphasis on storytelling are designed to allow the player many choices that impact the story in a profound way later on, and some game designers do not want to allow more than one save game so that the experience will always be "fresh". Game designers allow players to prevent the loss of progress in the game (as might happen after a game over). Games designed this way encourage players to 'try things out', and on regretting

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1284-473: A large nose, and bald except for a single hair with a bow. Though they are a technologically advanced and peaceful species with a pureness of heart, they are under constant attacks from encroaching enemies. Nadia and David Oxford of 1UP.com considered the Mr. Saturn to be aliens despite their human-like and fleshy appearance, as described a piece arguing the central theme of aliens in the Mother series. They compared

1391-620: A playable character and would have been replaced by Lucas, the main character of Mother 3 . However, Mother 3 's original Nintendo 64 release was cancelled, though it was later successfully revived as a project for the Game Boy Advance. As a result, Ness was featured in Melee instead of Lucas. Ness was later joined by Mother 3 's Lucas in Brawl , and both characters returned in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate . Players can fight in

1498-446: A player saves the game. For instance, IGI 2 allows only a handful of saves in each mission; Max Payne 2 imposes this restriction on the highest level of difficulty. Some video games only allow the game to be saved at predetermined points in the game, called save points. (Not to be confused with " checkpoints ".) Save points are employed either because the game is too complex to allow saving at any given point or to attempt to make

1605-459: A remixed soundtrack. Later that year, fans released a 25th Anniversary Edition ROM hack that updated the game's graphics, script, and gameplay balance. The Verge cited the two-year-long Mother 3 fan translation as proof of the fan base's dedication, and Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell called it "undoubtably one of the best known fan translations in existence", with active retranslations into other languages. Frank Caron of Ars Technica said that

1712-405: A savegame with a loss condition used in this way is usually referred to as a "save state". Game saving does not need to be manual. Some video games save the game in progress automatically, such as after the pass of a fixed amount of time, at certain predetermined points in the game as an extension to the save point concept, or when the player exits. Some games only permit "suspend saves" in which

1819-402: A single session. In early video games , there was no need for saving games, since these games usually had no actual plot to develop and were generally very short in length. Classic arcade video games from the golden age of arcade video games did not save the player's progress towards completing the game, but rather high scores , custom settings, and other features. The first game to save

1926-431: A sleeping dragon and determine the fate of the world. The game features a lighthearted plot, with characters such as "partying ghosts" and "talking rope snakes". Mother 3 , much like its predecessors, is a single-player role-playing video game played with two buttons: one for starting conversations and checking adjacent objects, and another for running. The game updates the turn-based Dragon Quest -style battle system with

2033-500: A technique that swapped the active player-character, which he first attempted in EarthBound . The two games also share similar visual styles, both with psychedelic battle backgrounds and cartoonish art. While Mother 3 's music is both similar in tone to its predecessors and completely new, it features similar sound effects. EarthBound characters such as Mr. Saturn recur, and RPGamer wrote that Mother 3 's final chapter

2140-485: Is save state hacking , the practice of which uses a hex editor to modify the save states to alter gameplay conditions, usually in favor of the player. Save states are comparable to snapshots of a computer system's state or hibernation in computing, with save states being a limited form of snapshots. Save states have started to receive mainstream usage in the early 2010s with Nintendo's Virtual Console. Some Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console titles allow players to save

2247-677: Is "full of blatant links" between the games of the series. Mother also shares similarities with its sequel, such as the game save option through phoning Ninten's father, an option to store items with Ninten's sister at home, and an automated teller machine for banking money. Additionally, the members of the party follow behind the protagonist on the overworld screen in the first two games. Ninten's party members in Mother are analogous to those of EarthBound in style and function. While Mother 's battles were triggered through random encounters, EarthBound and early Mother 3 shared battle scene triggers, where physical contact with an enemy in

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2354-418: Is "name-checked by the video gaming cognoscenti more often than it's actually been played". Critics consider EarthBound a "classic" or "must-play" among video games. The game was included in multiple top 50 games of all time lists, including that of Famitsu readers in 2006 and IGN readers in 2005 and 2006. IGN ranks the game 13th in its top 100 SNES games and 26th among all games for its in-game world, which

2461-430: Is a remastered and remixed collection of his 2011 mixtapes House of Balloons , Thursday , and Echoes of Silence . Creators of trilogies may later add more works. In such a case, the original three works may or may not keep the title "trilogy". Game save A saved game (also called a game save , savegame , savefile , save point , or simply save ) is a piece of digitally stored information about

2568-404: Is a form of a saved game in emulators . A save state is generated when the emulator stores the contents of random-access memory of an emulated program to disk. Save states enable players to save their games even when the emulated game or system does not support the feature. For instance, save states may be used to circumvent saving restrictions or as a savescumming technique. An associated concept

2675-424: Is a mechanism to distinguish players, such as user accounts . Leaving the decision of when to save up to the player increases the likelihood that a save will be made during a less than favourable game state. A quicksave shortly before an event which kills the player creates what is known as a death loop. Passwords are a form of saved game not stored on non-volatile memory . Instead, everything needed to reconstruct

2782-564: Is available after finishing the main story. Saved games have generally been rare at arcades, but have found some use, notably in the Konami e-Amusement system, Bandai Namco 's Bandai Namco Passport, or Banapassport system, or by the use of PlayStation cards, as in Dance Dance Revolution . These generally use either a magnetic card to store the data, a card that stores data through network (internet) connection or through

2889-400: Is better known for his role in the fighting game than for his original role in the role-playing game. He returned in the 2001 Melee with EarthBound 's Mr. Saturn, which could be thrown at enemies and otherwise pushes items off the battlefield. Melee has an unlockable Fourside level based on the EarthBound location. When Melee was in development, Ness was not supposed to return as

2996-415: Is defeated through love and prayer instead of through a tour de force of weaponry, unlike the endings of other period games. Nadia Oxford wrote for IGN that nearly two decades later, EarthBound 's final fight against Giygas continues to be "one of the most epic video game standoffs of all time" with noted emotional impact. This battle's dialogue was based on Itoi's recollections of a traumatic scene from

3103-445: Is deleted and the game must be restarted. The term "perma-death" would come to refer to the concept used for that purpose. It is possible to cheat the system by copying and reusing suspend save files in an act of what is considered to be a form of savescumming. "Checkpoints" are locations in a video game where a player character respawns after death. Characters generally respawn at the last checkpoint that they have reached. A respawn

3210-466: Is known for having a cult following that developed over time well after its release. Colin Campbell of Polygon wrote that "few gaming communities are as passionate and active" as EarthBound 's , and 1UP.com 's Bob Mackey wrote that no game was as poised to have a cult following. Starmen.net hosted a Mother 25th Anniversary Fanfest in 2014 with a livestream of the game and plans for

3317-573: Is less often applied to music. One example is the Berlin Trilogy of David Bowie , which is linked together by musical sound and lyrical themes, all having been recorded at least partly in Berlin, Germany. Another example can be found in the Guns N' Roses songs " November Rain ", " Don't Cry " and " Estranged ", whose videos are considered a trilogy. The Weeknd 's 2012 compilation album Trilogy

Mother (video game series) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3424-444: Is most often due to the death of the in-game character, but it can also be caused by the failure to meet an objective required to advance in the game. Checkpoints might be temporary, as they stop working when the player loses their last life, completes or quits the level, especially in platform games. Most modern games, however, save the game to memory at these points, known as auto-saving . Checkpoints might be visible or invisible to

3531-465: Is not set in a fantasy genre . The player fights in warehouses and laboratories instead of in dungeons and similar fantasy settings, and battles are fought with baseball bats and psychic abilities instead of swords and magic. Mother follows the young Ninten as he uses psychic powers to fight hostile, formerly inanimate objects and other enemies. The game uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system. Mother 2

3638-404: Is to use a deterministic, seeded pseudorandom number generator , so that undesired random outcomes cannot be avoided simply by saving and reloading. In this situation, when the player reloads a saved game, 'random' events will occur identically every time – the only way to get a different outcome is to play differently. Savescumming is made an in-built feature in most game emulators. In this case,

3745-543: The Dragon Quest series, Mother is known for its sense of humor, originality, and parody. The player uses weapons and psychic powers to fight hostile enemies, which include animated everyday objects, aliens and brainwashed people. Signature elements of the series include a lighthearted approach to the plot, battle sequences with psychedelic backgrounds, and the "rolling HP meter": player health ticks down like an odometer rather than instantly being subtracted, allowing

3852-490: The Grand Theft Auto series used representations appropriate to the era of the setting: cassette tapes for the mid-1980s ( Grand Theft Auto: Vice City ), 3½-inch disks for the early-1990s ( Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ), and compact discs for the late-1990s ( Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories ). Although save points are typically seen as boons, some games have traps which use this tendency to fool

3959-560: The 3DS 's Magicant stage, which features clips from the Mother series in its background. Sources Trilogy Most trilogies are works of fiction involving the same characters or setting, such as The Deptford Trilogy of novels by Robertson Davies , The Apu Trilogy of films by Satyajit Ray , The Kingdom Trilogy of television miniseries from 1994 to 2022 by Lars von Trier . Other fiction trilogies are connected only by theme: for example, each film of Krzysztof Kieślowski 's Three Colours trilogy explores one of

4066-577: The Shintoho film The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty that he had accidentally seen in his childhood. Oxford wrote for 1UP.com that Itoi intended to show the alien's yearning for love in "a manner ... beyond human understanding". Despite EarthBound and Mother 3 's dissimilar settings, the Mr. Saturn fictional species appear in similar Saturn Valleys in both games. The Mr. Saturn look like an old man's head with feet,

4173-557: The Super Cassette Vision was the first-ever game to allow saving game progress on a video game console, using an AA battery on the game cassette. In modern consoles, which use disks for storing games, saved games are stored in other ways, such as by use of memory cards or internal hard drives on the game machine itself. The use of memory cards for saving game data dates back to SNK 's cartridge-based Neo Geo arcade system and home console in 1990. Depending on

4280-575: The Wayfarers trilogy by Knut Hamsun , the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz , The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy , and His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman . A pivotal example is J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), which was written as a three-volume novel but published (for economic reasons) as a trilogy, thus helping to popularize the trilogy format. The term

4387-521: The Game Boy Advance, and based on encouragement what he predicted to be further pressure, decided to release Mother 3 . The new Mother 3 abandoned the Nintendo 64 version's 3D graphics, but kept its plot. The game was developed by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory, published by Nintendo, and released in Japan on April 20, 2006, whereupon it became a bestseller. It did not receive a North American release on

Mother (video game series) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4494-413: The Mr. Saturn to Kurt Vonnegut 's Tralfamadorian alien species. Finally, Pokey begins as Ness's child neighbor who "cowers" and "refuses to fight" in EarthBound , but grows into a "vicious control freak with no regard for human life", Porky, by the end of the series' Mother 3 . The soundtracks for Mother and EarthBound were composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka . The Mother soundtrack

4601-517: The Nintendo 64 and its 64DD disk drive accessory, but was cancelled in 2000. Three years later, the project was reannounced for the Game Boy Advance alongside a rerelease of Mother and Mother 2 in the combined cartridge Mother 1 + 2 . Mother 3 abandoned the 3D graphics progress for a 2D style, and became a bestseller upon its release. EarthBound was rereleased for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, and Mother received its English-language debut for

4708-562: The United Kingdom, where EarthBound had been previously unreleased, GamesTM noted how it had been "anecdotally heralded as a retro classic". IGN's Scott Thompson said the game was "the true definition of a classic". Kotaku wrote that the game was content to make the player "feel lonely", and, overall, was special not for any individual aspect but for its method of using the video game medium to explore ideas impossible to explore in other media. Multiple critics wrote that Mother 3

4815-595: The United States. It originally received little critical praise from the American press, and sold poorly in the United States: around 140,000 copies, as compared to twice as many in Japan. Kotaku described EarthBound 's 1995 American release as "a dud" and blamed the low sales on "a bizarre marketing campaign" and graphics "cartoonish" beyond the average taste of players. Multiple reviewers described

4922-484: The Xbox 360, many players are beginning to view those who load other people's files onto their systems as "cheaters". Some games such as Grand Theft Auto IV attempt to prevent the use of saved games made by other users. In contrast, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages actively encourages players that have completed the game to share their progress with others via a password swapping side quest that

5029-402: The absence of continued support for the series, an EarthBound fan community coalesced at Starmen.net with the intent to have Nintendo of America acknowledge their interest in Mother series. They drafted petitions for English language releases and created a full-color, 270-page anthology of fan art . Upon "little" response from Nintendo, they localized Mother 3 by themselves and printed

5136-563: The basis that it would not sell. Mother 1 + 2 was released in Japan on June 20, 2003. The combined cartridge contains both Mother and EarthBound . Mother uses the extended ending of the unreleased English language prototype, but is still only presented in Japanese. Unlike earlier games in the series, Mother 3 is presented in chapters. When the Pig Mask Army starts a forest fire and imposes police state -like conditions on

5243-542: The company's lead designer, Shigeru Miyamoto , his idea for a role-playing game set in modern times. The contemporary setting worked against role-playing genre norms, and while Miyamoto liked the idea, he was hesitant until Itoi could show full commitment to the project. Itoi reduced his workload, formed a team, and began development in Ichikawa, Chiba . Nintendo tried to accommodate Itoi's ideal work environment to feel more like an extracurricular club of volunteers. Itoi wrote

5350-562: The complete localization was recovered by the public and distributed on the Internet, where it became known as EarthBound Zero . Mother received its English language debut in June 2015 as EarthBound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console . Mother is a single-player role-playing video game set in a "slightly offbeat", late 20th-century United States (as interpreted by Itoi). Unlike its Japanese role-playing game contemporaries, Mother

5457-426: The design process over the five-year development of EarthBound . When the project began to flounder, producer and later Nintendo president Satoru Iwata rescued the game. EarthBound 's English localizers were given great liberties when translating the Japanese game's cultural allusions. The American version sold poorly despite a multimillion-dollar marketing budget. Mother 3 was originally slated for release on

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5564-485: The fan translation's "massive undertaking ... stands as a massive success", and that "one cannot even begin to fathom" why Nintendo would not release their own English localization. EarthBound 's Ness became widely known due to his later appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series. He appeared in the original Super Smash Bros. and its sequels: Melee , Brawl , 3DS/Wii U , and Ultimate . In Europe, which did not see an original EarthBound release, Ness

5671-586: The festival in Athens in 458 BC. The three Theban plays , or Oedipus cycle, by Sophocles , originating in 5th century BC, is not a true example of a trilogy because the plays were written at separate times and with different themes/purposes. Technical changes in printing and film in the mid-to-late 20th century made the creation of trilogies more feasible, while the development of mass media and modern global distribution networks has made them more likely to be lucrative. Examples of trilogies in modern fiction include

5778-456: The game a particular feel or alter its difficulty. A video game may allow the user to save at any point of the game at any time. There are also modified versions of this. For example, in the GameCube game Eternal Darkness , the player can save at almost any time, but only if no enemies are in the room. To make gaming more engaging, some video games may impose a limit on the number of times

5885-417: The game again. If the outcome is red (or green), the player disregards this outcome by reloading their last savegame. This allows for an indefinite winning streak. Game programmers may defend against savescumming by various means, such as checking timestamps. For example, on multiuser Unix systems, NetHack uses setgid to prevent users from copying save files into the necessary directory. Another technique

5992-477: The game appeal to populations that played games less, such as girls. Earthbound 's story is a continuation of Mother 's, featuring many of the same antagonists and monsters. By default, the player starts as a young boy named Ness , who finds that the alien force Giygas ( / ˈ ɡ iː ɡ ə s , ˈ ɡ aɪ ɡ ə s / GHEE -gəs, GHY -gəs ) has enveloped the world in hatred and consequently turned animals, humans, and objects into malicious creatures. Buzz Buzz,

6099-403: The game as "original" or "unique" and praised its script's range of emotions, humor, cheery and charming ambiance, and " real world " setting, which was seen as an uncommon choice. Since its release, the game's English localization has found praise, and later reviewers reported that the game had aged well. Prior to its release, Mother 3 was in the "top five most wanted games" of Famitsu and at

6206-405: The game is automatically saved upon exiting and reloaded upon restarting. The aim of a suspend save is only to allow the gameplay to be temporarily interrupted; as such, suspend saves are erased when the player resumes the game. This concept was popularized by Rogue and the namesake genre , which are known for employing the mechanic such that if the player were to die in the game, their save file

6313-404: The game more challenging by forcing the player to rely on their skills instead of on the ability to retry indefinitely. Save points are easier to program and thus attractive from a development standpoint. Some games use a hybrid system where both save anywhere and save points are used. For example, Final Fantasy VII permits saving anywhere when the player is traveling on the world map, but once

6420-452: The game part of the series. The game entered development hell and struggled to find a firm release date and in 2000, despite its level of completion, was later cancelled altogether with the commercial failure of the 64DD. The project was reannounced three years later as Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance alongside a combined Mother 1 + 2 cartridge for the same handheld console. Itoi had been working on porting Mother and Mother 2 to

6527-400: The game state is encoded in and displayed on-screen as a string of text, usually comprising random alphanumeric characters, and the player can then record or memorize it. The player may later resume play from that point by entering the same password. Passwords were widely used by home console games before the advent of non-volatile memory and later internal and external storage. A "save state"

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6634-424: The game when resuming. BYTE magazine stated in 1981, regarding the computer text adventure Zork I ' s save-game feature, that "while some cowards use it to retain their hard-earned position in the game before making some dangerous move", it was intended to let players play over many weeks. InfoWorld disagreed that year, stating that save games "allow users to experiment with different approaches to

6741-542: The game's script. The game, titled Mother , was developed by Ape , published by Nintendo , and released in Japan on July 27, 1989, for the Famicom (known as the Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). The game was slated for an English-language localization as Earth Bound , but was abandoned when Nintendo chose to focus on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System instead. Years later,

6848-503: The game's similarities with the Dragon Quest series and its simultaneous "parody" of the genre's tropes. They thought the game's sequel, EarthBound , to be very similar and a better implementation of Mother 's gameplay ideas, overall. Reviewers also noted the game's high difficulty level and balance issues. USgamer 's Jeremy Parish said that Mother 's script was "as sharp as EarthBound 's ", but felt that

6955-402: The game, a player will have the ability to save the game either at any arbitrary point (usually when the game has been paused), after a specific task has been completed (such as at the end of a level), or at designated areas within the game known as save points. The available ways to save a game affect gameplay, and can represent a practice of players or an explicit decision by designers to give

7062-436: The game. For many years, sharing game saves among friends has been very common. From trading passwords to swapping memory cards, gamers have always been able to help each other out to unlock features in a game. With the growing popularity of the Internet, many people upload their game saves to help out their online friends. However, with the inclusion of a progress meter or " gamerscore " that tracks player progress in games for

7169-517: The game. Simon Parkin wrote that the game's rerelease was a "momentous occasion" as the return of "one of Nintendo's few remaining lost classics" after 20 years. In an interview in late November 2015, Shigesato Itoi has once again denied plans to create a Mother 4 , despite fan feedback. In 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die , Christian Donlan wrote that the Mother series is a "massive RPG franchise" in Japan comparable to that of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest , though it does not enjoy

7276-528: The games made this feature optional, as do franchises such as the Fire Emblem , Shenmue and .hack series. Video games may also take the saved games of other video games into account; for example, the character Rosalina becomes available on Mario Kart Wii if there is a Super Mario Galaxy save on the console. The save game of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition can be imported to the Remix version of

7383-472: The games were distinct from all other video games in that they stirred "genuine emotion in players beyond ... 'excited' and 'afraid ' " with a "charming", "touching", and "tragic" story, which he credited to its creators' pedigrees from outside the video game industry . Mother was the sixth best-selling game of 1989 in Japan, where it sold about 400,000 copies. It received a "Silver Hall of Fame" score of 31/40 from Japanese magazine Famitsu . Critics noted

7490-516: The legal status of Native Americans under U.S. law. Trilogies—and series in general—are common in speculative fiction . Trilogies ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : τριλογία trilogia ) date back to ancient times. In the Dionysia festivals of ancient Greece , for example, trilogies of plays were performed followed by a fourth satyr play . The Oresteia is the only surviving trilogy of these ancient Greek plays, originally performed at

7597-519: The more modern 'suspend game' feature among regular save points. For online games, the game's progress is maintained on the remote server. In some games, upon resuming the game from a save game, the software locks or marks the save game. Early examples include Moria and Diablo II 's "hardcore" mode where the character save game is managed by the server. The use of saved games is very common in modern video games, particularly in role-playing video games , which are usually much too long to finish in

7704-527: The original's game mechanics were subpar, lacking the "rolling HP counter" and non-random encounters for which later entries in the series were known. Parish wrote earlier for 1UP.com that in comparison to EarthBound , Mother is "worse in just about every way", and important less for its actual game and more for the interest it generated in video game emulation and the preservation of unreleased games. EarthBound sold about 440,000 copies worldwide, with approximately 300,000 sold in Japan and about 140,000 in

7811-481: The overworld began a turn-based battle scene shown in the first-person. Apart from Mother 3 's rhythm and combo battle mechanic, the two game's battle systems are similar. Mother 3 also retains the "rolling HP meter" of EarthBound (where health ticks down like an odometer such that players can outrun the meter to heal before dying/fainting) but removes the feature where experience is automatically awarded before battles against much weaker foes. Recurring through

7918-439: The player enters a location (e.g. town, cavern or forest), saving is only possible at save points. Overusing saved games may be seen as unfair and in such a context is referred to as "savescumming". Savescumming makes losing a game impossible because whenever the player loses or is about to lose, a savegame is loaded, effectively turning back time to the situation before the loss. In a video game, this could for example be done when

8025-404: The player feel emotions such as "distraught" when playing the game. The game's writing was intentionally "quirky and goofy" in character, and written in the Japanese kana script so as to give dialogue a conversational feel. Itoi thought of the default player-character names when he did not like his team's suggestions. Many of the characters were based on real-life personalities. Itoi sought to make

8132-411: The player loses a battle/race, misses the best performance grading for a level (such as an S-rank ) or runs into an unwinnable situation by losing anyone or anything needed to continue and win. For example, in a game that features a casino, the player could save the game and then bet all their in-game money on black at a roulette table. If the outcome is black, their money is doubled and the player saves

8239-403: The player must find and expend an ink ribbon for each save. In some games, save games or save points are part of the plot. In Chrono Cross , save points are called Records of Fate, managed by an entity called FATE, an antagonist that uses the save points to control people. In Anonymous;Code , the protagonist Pollon Takaoka has a unique ability to save and load save games, which is central to

8346-470: The player to take preventative action, such as healing or finishing the battle, before the damage is fully dealt. While the franchise is popular in Japan, in the Anglosphere it is best associated with the cult following behind EarthBound . While visiting Nintendo for other business, Itoi approached Shigeru Miyamoto about making Mother . When approved for a sequel, Itoi increased his involvement in

8453-415: The player would lose all of their checkpoints. Quick-saving and quick-loading allow the player to save or load the game with a single keystroke. These terms are used to differentiate between the traditional saving mechanism where the player is required to invoke a menu or dialog box, issue save the order, specify a title for the game being saved and, if applicable, confirm whether an old saved game file with

8560-451: The player's score was Taito 's seminal 1978 shoot 'em up title Space Invaders . The relative complexity and inconvenience of storing game state information on early home computers (and the fact that early video game consoles had no non-volatile data storage ) meant that initially game saves were represented as " passwords " (often strings of characters that encoded the game state) that players could write down and later input into

8667-488: The player, such as the existence of the useless ruler and protractor items that players and enemies can unsuccessfully try to use nonetheless. In 1996, Mother 3 ( EarthBound 64 in North America), was announced. It was slated for release on the 64DD , a disk drive expansion peripheral for the Nintendo 64. Itoi's expansive ideas during development led the development team to question whether fans would still consider

8774-554: The player. In Chrono Trigger , attempting to use a fake save point in Magus's castle can actually bring the party into battle. Some games employ limits to saving in order to prevent players from using them as a primary means of succeeding in the game. In Tomb Raider save points are consumed upon use, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest charges two banana coins to use a save point more than once, and in Resident Evil

8881-399: The player. Visible checkpoints might give a player a sense of security when activated, but in turn sacrifice some immersion , as checkpoints are intrinsically "gamey" and might even need an explanation of how they work. Invisible checkpoints do not break immersion but make players unsure of where they will respawn. Usually, if a player does get a game over, then their progress will be lost, and

8988-482: The plot and the main game mechanic. Another way saved games interact with each other is through passing along data to sequels. A famous example of this is the first three installments of the Wizardry series. To play the second and third installments, players needed to import the characters they'd used in the previous installment, which retained all experience and equipment gained in that installment. Later versions of

9095-509: The political ideals of the French Republic ( liberty, equality, fraternity ). Trilogies can also be connected in less obvious ways, such as The Nova Trilogy of novels by William S. Burroughs , each written using cut-up technique . The term is seldom applied outside media. One example is the " Marshall Trilogy ", a common term for three rulings written by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall from 1823 to 1832 concerning

9202-465: The poor sales and the dwindling support for the Super NES, the game did not receive a European release. The Mother series titles are built on what Itoi considered "reckless wildness", where he would offer ideas that encouraged his staff to contribute new ways of portraying scenes in the video game medium. He saw the titles foremost as games and not "big scenario scripts". Itoi has said that he wanted

9309-433: The progress of a player in a video game . From the earliest games in the 1970s onward, game platform hardware and memory improved, which led to bigger and more complex computer games, which, in turn, tended to take more and more time to play them from start to finish. This naturally led to the need to store in some way the progress, and how to handle the case where the player received a " game over ". More modern games with

9416-528: The same platform in 2015, retitled EarthBound Beginnings . In 2022, Nintendo released Mother 1 and 2 to their Nintendo Switch Online service. Mother 3 later came to the service exclusively in Japan in 2024. EarthBound is widely regarded as a video game classic, and is included in multiple top-ten lists. In absence of continued official support for the series, members of the EarthBound fan community organized online to advocate for further series releases through petitions and fan art. Their projects include

9523-529: The same popularity in the West. IGN described the series as neglected by Nintendo in North America, which only received one of the three Mother releases. Donlan added that the series' oddities did not lend towards Western popularity. RPGamer's Jordan Jackson noted that the series is "known for its wacky sense of humor, originality, and its very young protagonists", and Kotaku 's Luke Plunkett said that

9630-428: The same situation". Home computers in the early 1980s had the advantage of using external media for saving, with compact cassettes and floppy disks , before finally using internal hard drives . For later cartridge -based console games , such as The Legend of Zelda and Kirby's Adventure , saved games were stored in battery-backed random-access memory on the game cartridge itself. Pop and Chips (1985) for

9737-452: The same title should be overwritten. The term "quick save" may be used in video games that lack the traditional saving mechanism altogether. The advantage of quick saving is its low burden: The player only has to press a button and, if applicable, wait a few seconds. The disadvantage is the automatic loss of the previous quick-saved game. Games that only offer quick saving may be impossible to play by two different players (or more) unless there

9844-528: The series is its signature "SMAAAASH" text and sound, which show when the player registers a critical hit . Some characters are present in multiple entries of the series, such as Giygas, Mr. Saturn, and Pokey/Porky. Giygas is the primary antagonist in both Mother and EarthBound . The alien creature's emotional complexity deviates from genre norms. Giygas shows internal conflict in Mother and has no appearance but as an "indescribable" force in EarthBound 's final boss battle. In both final battles, Giygas

9951-404: The series. Sakai worked to make the music feel similar to previous entries in the series. Kyle Miller of RPGFan wrote that the game retained the quirkiness of the previous soundtracks in the series despite the change in composers. He felt that the second half of the album, which included reinterpreted "classics" from the series, to be its strongest. RPGamer's Jordan Jackson too found that the music

10058-427: The three, he had the strongest drive to create the first Mother video game, and that it was made for the players. He made the second game as an exploration of his personal interests, and wanted to run wild with the third. While reflecting on Mother 3 's 2000 cancellation, Itoi recounted the great efforts the team made to tell small parts of the story, and felt this was a core theme in the series' development. In

10165-402: The top of the Japanese preordered game charts. It sold around 200,000 units in its first week of sales in Japan, and was one of Japan's top 20 bestselling games for the first half of 2006. In comparison, the 2003 Mother 1 + 2 rerelease sold around 278,000 copies in Japan in its first year, and a reissue "value selection" of the cartridge sold 106,000 copies in Japan in 2006. Mother 3 received

10272-506: The video game cognoscenti's "sacred cow", and is known for its long-lasting, resilient fan community. At one point leading up to Mother 3 's release, the series' "Love Theme" played as music on hold for Japan Post . Similarly, the Eight Melodies theme used throughout the series has been incorporated into Japanese elementary school music classrooms. Donlan of 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die wrote that EarthBound

10379-547: The zombie-infested Threed, the Winters boarding school, and the kingdom of Dalaam. When the Sound Stone is filled, Ness visits Magicant alone, a surreal location in his mind where he fights his dark side. Upon returning to Eagleland, he prepares to travel back in time to fight Giygas in a battle known for its "feeling of isolation, ... incomprehensible attacks, ... buzzing static" and reliance on prayer. EarthBound plays as

10486-460: Was "distinct and unforgettable" for its take on Americanism, unconventional settings, and 1960s music. And Gamasutra named it one of its 20 "essential" Japanese role-playing games. The rerelease was Justin Haywald of GameSpot 's game of the year, and Nintendo Life 's Virtual Console game of the year. GameZone said it "would be a great disservice" to merely call EarthBound "a gem". In

10593-417: Was "just as catchy as previous games" despite being "almost completely new". Luke Plunkett of Kotaku credited Suzuki's background outside of games composition as a rock star and film scorer for making the music of Mother and EarthBound "so distinct and memorable" as "a synthesized tribute to 20th-century pop music ". While visiting Nintendo for other work, celebrity copywriter Shigesato Itoi pitched to

10700-521: Was also modified between the versions to adapt to Western sensitivities. To avoid confusion about the series' numbering, its English title was changed to EarthBound , and was released on June 5, 1995, for the North American Super Nintendo Entertainment System . Although Nintendo spent about $ 2 million on marketing, the American release was ultimately viewed as unsuccessful within Nintendo. EarthBound

10807-507: Was announced in 2013 for the Wii U Virtual Console as part of a celebration of the anniversaries of the NES and Mother 2 . North American and European releases for the same platform followed, with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata crediting fan interest on the company's Miiverse social platform. The game was a "top-seller" on the Wii U Virtual Console, and Kotaku users and first-time EarthBound players had an "overwhelmingly positive" response to

10914-475: Was developed by Ape and HAL , published by Nintendo, and released in Japan's Super Famicom on August 27, 1994. The game was translated into English for North American audiences whereupon it became the only Mother series game to be released in North America until the later localization of Mother as EarthBound Beginnings . The localizers were given liberties to translate the Japanese script's cultural allusions to Western audiences as they pleased, and symbolism

11021-549: Was done with the series. IGN described the series as neglected by Nintendo in North America, as Mother 1 , Mother 1+2 , and Mother 3 were not released outside Japan. Despite this, Ness's recurrence in the Super Smash Bros. series signaled favorable odds for the future of the Mother series. IGN and Nintendo Power readers anticipated a rerelease of EarthBound on the Wii's Virtual Console upon its launch in 2006, but it did not materialize. A Japanese rerelease

11128-553: Was likened by RPGFan reviewer Patrick Gann to compositions by the Beatles and for children's television shows . He found the lyrics "cheesy and trite" but appreciated the "simple statements" in "Eight Melodies" and the "quirky and wonderful" "Magicant". The Mother soundtrack contains several tracks later used in subsequent series games. When Suzuki and Tanaka were unavailable to commit to Mother 3 's soundtrack, Itoi chose Shogo Sakai for his experience with and understanding of

11235-410: Was made with a development team different from that of the original game, and most of its members were unmarried and willing to work through nights on the project. Itoi again wrote the game's script and served as a designer. The game's five-year development exceeded time estimates and came under repeated threat of cancellation. It was in dire straits until producer Satoru Iwata joined the team. Mother 2

11342-406: Was one of the best role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance. GamePro 's Jeremy Signor listed it among his "best unreleased Japanese role-playing games" for its script and attention to detail. Video game journalist Tim Rogers posited that Mother 3 was "the closest games have yet come to literature". There are no plans for an official Mother 4 . The series, and specifically EarthBound ,

11449-412: Was released when role-playing games were not popular in the United States, and visual taste in role-playing games was closer to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI . EarthBound ' s atypical "this game stinks" marketing campaign was derived from the game's unusual humor and included foul-smelling scratch and sniff advertisements. 1UP.com called the campaign "infamously ill-conceived". Between

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