« Reply #20 on: July 14, 2015, 05:12:31 AM »
Tuesday 2015-07-14 - Mother 3
Format: Game Boy Advance
What it is: A sequel to Earthbound, that does not have a whole lot to do with it storywise. But it definitely feels like a sequel. Combat system is even improved. Has a variety of interesting stuff. A sad game, but no crying until the end, damnit!
Release date: 2006-04-20 (in Japan, the English translation was released on 2008-09-08)
Owned since: 2015-05-14 (okay, so I technically owned the repro cart a number of days prior, but I wrapped it and gave it to myself as a birthday present, so as far as I'm concerned I've owned it since my birthday)
Status: Prologue and the first two chapters played. Going to spend five hours riding trains today, so it seemed like a good opportunity.
Available: Repro carts in various places, I got mine from
Etsy. The translation patch
on their website.
Verdict: Since I had played a few hours before, I knew it was a great gamelready. And it became more so, and also a bit more depressing, oh my god. Even more depressing, however, was that my cart has a bug. That might make it so that I'm stuck, 8½ hours in. I actually knew of it from early on - using any skill to decrease enemy offense would freeze the game. I learned to not use that because it's not important. A later character had a move that could do random things, including doing that. I just didn't use it. Turns out, though? The bug seems to trigger on any sort of enemy offense modification. Including an enemy buffing its own offense. And I've run into a boss that does. So I don't know. One of my options, since I have unlimited full HP/PP restores for free available plus a bunch of enemies that I can respawn by exiting the room and coming back, is to grind up my levels to the point where I can kill the boss fast enough so he won't do that. That feels wrong somehow, though. Still, I'll probably rather do that than replay the game to that point... though to be fair I DID replay practically all of Earthbound on VC. The prior playing had been a number of years before, though. EDIT: Grinded a little, getting everyone to level 20, and then had a lucky fight where the boss didn't buff. I can continue for now.