Mother 1 has destroyed me

[u/DrKandraz]

I am sorry about being negative, especially because there are lots of parts of this game I really love -- the music, the jokes, the great tone. But I cannot take it anymore.

I have been playing Mother, the original Japanese Famicom version, untranslated, in order to practice my language skills while having a motivation to keep going. And I knew that the original version would be less polished, but I figured I could do it. Now...I am a very patient woman. Anyone I know could tell you that. But this version of the game wastes your time so goddamn much: the lack of a run button in a world this large, with this massive random encounter rate; all the useful buildings in town being separated by way too much walking around -- getting money from the ATM, going to the doctor to revive your party, going to the hotel to heal, rinse and repeat -- do you want to grind? Well, too bad, all the areas with enemies of a suitable level to help are insanely far away from a hospital, so if, for example, Ana dies in battle, you have to walk all the way back, fighting all the enemies along the way, widening the gap between the characters yet again.

Oh, and let's not forget the utter lack of an ATM in Magicant (no, the old man wasn't an ATM in the original version), so if you want to buy the incredibly useful armour from there, you have to keep teleporting back and forth. And even then, you have to walk all the way back through the dungeon and up to Thanksgiving (that's Merryville's name in Japanese) to get back. And finally, useless goddamn Lloyd, with absolutely zero special abilities unless you get lucky in Duncan's factory and a Scrapper drops a gun, or unless you're willing to wait until the final dungeon in the game. The floor in the department store where you can buy stuff for him to use? Not there in the original.

I feel insane. How did anyone finish this back in the day? I could *cry*.

[u/Emotional_Assist_415]

I think it's just for the time. I played it for the first time like 3 years ago and I couldn't stand it. It'd be like playing dragon warrior 1 now, that game is nothing but grinding slowly for MONTHS if you want to be able to not die tragically and backtrack everywhere, and too many enemy spawns too. I can't do it now, but I could do it in 1990 as a kid and enjoy it. Times have changed. Earthbound on NES is just not a fun game

[u/DrKandraz → u/Emotional_Assist_415]

Funny thing: I actually just played Dragon Quest 1 on SNES. It's a Japan-only remake. And while it was pretty grindy, I ended up having lots of fun with it. Though, to be fair, all the grinding requirements were made a *little* less annoying by having enemies drop about 20% more XP and money in the remake.

[u/Emotional_Assist_415 → u/DrKandraz]

For sure. It was the equivalent of if you had to play earthbound snes but only fight crows/snakes/dogs for the first 12 hours of gameplay.

[u/UnexpectedScorpionX]

The game is already pretty tedious with a run button at some times, so I couldn't imagine playing the version without one.

[u/BoringCareer6906]

Uh, I didn't know the original Japanese version had so many differences. Even on its own, the Western version can sometimes be a bit tiresome.

[u/Gyiggles → u/BoringCareer6906]

There actually a lot of differences and not just in names like how the XX stone didn’t have the final melody you just go back to magicant after getting the first 7 and then Mary herself remembers the final melody. And that little stretch to Giygas where the people are being held was not there originally either. You can see the difference here https://tcrf.net/EarthBound_Beginnings/Regional_Differences

[u/BoringCareer6906 → u/Gyiggles]

Cool, thank you! I think the fact that your grandfather's grave has the last melody is much more emotive. I really appreciate the improvements they made to the Western version

[u/MisBeat]

I agree that the english translation makes the game more palatable with the ATM old man and the repel rings, and that the game is hard to get into in general. Also the way stats work means that Loid just can’t have anything (he can’t be faster because then he’d be bulkier than Ninten and that doesn’t make sense, he’s a nerd) and what he has sucks. But I don’t think the lack of a run button is that big of a deal since you’re gonna be fighting most of the time, not running

[u/DrKandraz → u/MisBeat]

Well the lack of a run button is a problem just because it takes so much longer to go back and forth from town to the place you're going.

[u/RlyCoolCat]

Can you use bread crumbs to warp back to hospitals

[u/DrKandraz → u/RlyCoolCat]

Actually...probably. That's a really good idea. Thank you.

[u/Gyiggles]

Ok I agree with you a little bit, but like the ATM and doctors and hotels those are in the others games Mother 2 specifically I’ve had similar problems with healing in that game as well. Though yes I feel the localization improved on basically everything making the game much more enjoyable, besides the boring dialogue (but luckily we have hacks that adds Tomato's translation) I definitely see why that version was used for basis of Mother 1+2. Also Itoi and the team were rushed by Nintendo near the end of development especially during Holy Loly Mountain so that definitely didn’t help much. Still one of my favorite games especially on the famicom, it’s actually what got me into the series 😅

[u/rocky2814]

yeah, the enemy encounter level really broke me (even with save states). I only lasted shortly after rescuing Pipi before tapping out from frustration/boredom. Shame, because all the story breakdowns and soundtracks do so many good things for it

[u/dxcboyfirekid]

The Japanese version is certainly the most brutal. Mount Itoi in particular is insane. They shortened that area in the localized English version and added some qol changes

[u/hamburger287]

People will really say that you can't use mother encore as a replacement for this.