/vr/ - Retro Games

I enjoyed it. I like the atmosphere and that sense of adventure it and Earthbound has compared to Mother 3.
You've gotta try Earthbound out OP.

>>691279
I will when my super everdrive comes in next month

It was definitely one of the best RPGs for its time, definitely hasn't aged well though.

that ending.
so good.
so many feels

>>691292
The one thing I didn't get about the ending is why Ninten and Ana are writing letters to each other.
We know they both have phones, and psychic teleportation powers, so why on earth do they need to use snail mail to communicate?

>>691301
it's more romantic that way?

Currently playing it and so far has been pretty good.

It's my favorite Mother game. Earthbound and Mother 3 were...okay, I guess, but I never really quite 'got' them for some reason.

Earthbound Zero was just somehow really charming. It was also the sort of game that, when I first played it, I was hit by a strong wave of nostalgia even though I had obviously never played it as a kid.

I like the relative simplicity and straightforwardness of it's narrative, as well. In Earthbound and Mother 3 it kind of feels like you're reading a book and only occasionally playing, but with Earthbound Zero it felt more like your typical RPG that still had a decent amount of text, but it wasn't outweighing the gameplay.

>si-fi
more like being butthurt over that whole mess

>>691324

>>691301

people do that in real life too.

Am I the only one who thinks that EB zero doesn't have enough good fanart? It seems especially scarce compared to the other games in the series.

It's cozy
Like any MOTHER game

Feels like I'm at home...

How did you enjoy the game with all those goddamn frequent random battle encounters

>>692024
It doesn't have the mass cult following the other two have.
It's a bit awkward for new players to get into thanks to the awkward difficulty curve and NES graphics.

>>692162
They stopped being annoying about halfway through the game. I had more money than I knew what to do with so I filled all my extra inventory slots with repel rings. I did all the battles that gave decent experience and every time I had to backtrack to somewhere with enemies I could kill in one hit I put one, problem solved.

I like Earthbound more, but Mother 1 has a few really great standout moments. Like entering that submarine and finding EVE, the robot Ninten's grandfather built to protect him. And the whole ending sequence and last "boss" fight. For me, Earthbound > Mother > Mother 3

>>692162
I played the first two games first so I was already in love with the series
It was neat going back to see where it began

I don't even remember the random encounters being a pain at all, it was all like a really pleasant dream. I hung around Magicant a lot just to listen to the music and talk to the swimming cat, haha

>>692247
the other two games first*

>>691267
>calling it earthbound zero
>not mother 1

The fuck is wrong with you?

>>692252
>Being this mad over what someone calls a lame JRPG
Okay.

>>692252
Earthbound zero is the officially translated NES version of the game that was never released in the west.
Mother 1 is unofficially translated GBA version of the game that was never released in the west.
I played Earthbound zero

>>692259
Objection!

The NES game was supposed to be released as "Earth Bound"

The title was changed to Earthbound Zero by hackers.

>>692330
Yeah, you're right.

>>692259
"Mother" is just the japanese version of the game.

There was a GBA release called "Mother 1 + 2" in Japan. The version of Mother on it was notable for having features only added in the cancelled US localization, which means they were retained by Nintendo somewhere

>>692257
Maybe because it's not the name? Zero was added by the hackers that originally dumped it. This is a case where it's alright to be nitpicky like this.

>>692419
Okay, so let's call them by their official English names, Earthbound and Earthbound.

We wouldn't want to confuse anyone, after all.

For being an 8bit RPG, Mother 1 is pretty awesome. Dat huge worldmap (that isn't divided into overworld/towns like most RPGs, its all one big map, that was not an easy task to do back then, a game so big), 8-directional movement instead of the usual 4 (I was always surprised Pokemon didn't got the same 8-directional controls of Mother, since part of the dev team were the same, and basically a lot of technical stuff from Mother can be found in Pokemon too).

As for the game, it's lacking a lot of stuff that made the battle system of M2 or 3 unique (rolling HP meter, rhythm combos in M3, etc), so it's just a Dragon Quest menu-based combat and nothing else, but the game's world, scenario, dialogues and characters are as good as it is expected from Itoi.

I played Mother 1 before playing M2 and 3 and I gotta say I'm glad I did it that way. I got to experience the full trilogy in release order, which is the best thing to do since you get to enjoy the upgrades in gameplay instead of going backwards and feeling its "too dated" (then again, I'm used to 8bit RPGs, so the difficulty and random encounters in m1 wasn't a big deal to me).

It's my least favourite of the series, but that doesn't really matter because I love all three so much. I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I finished it, and the final battle was so good.
My only complaint is that I'm fucking terrible with directions, so I ended up getting lost way too frequently.

I really enjoyed Zero, especially with some patches that made things less grindy (and added in censored content). I don't like it nearly as much as Earthbound but I found it much better then Mother 3.

Everyone seems to love Mother 3, but I can't give it as much love. It seemed to me to have lost a lot of the tongue in cheek and lightheartedness of the first two.

>>693603
Yeah I had the same problem.
Once I knew where to go everything was really linear, but figuring out where to go next was a pain in the ass.
I antecedently skipped a couple of important sections early on, so I had to go back and play them at the very end before I could finish the game.

>>693859
M3 felt too linear and story focused to me. Like playing a book. I don't remember it having a lot of huge areas to explore (but it's been a long time so correct me if I'm wrong).

>>691267
I can't really get into the NES RPGs, Mother included. Except for Sweet Home, I haven't played one that particularly enjoyed. But that's just my personal taste, I didn't have any specific technical gripes about the game.

>>693881
Yeah that was another issue I had with the game. It's not a bad game. Just not as fun overall

For me Earthbound Zero is one of my favorite games. So much so that I bought a repo cart of it to play on my NES anytime I want. Don't get me Wrong the mother series is great as a whole, but damn if EB0 don't give me them feels.

There should be a board wholly dedicated to this series

>>695121
oh no this single EB thread is going to crowd out things on this extremely fast moving board!

we need an entire board because some anons can't simply ignore a thread they've seen before!

>>695121
SIEG HIEL!

>>691267
There's a remake in development using the Earthbound engine. They already have the overworld down. Check it:
http://earthboundcentral.com/2013/01/mother-remake-hack-overworld-finished/
Lend your support to get it finished!

>>695121
I'd rather have a dedicated board for people who don't want to talk about games as much as they want to post photos of their possessions.

>>695121

Mother 1 isn't Earthbound. In fact, most Earthbound fans dislike Mother 1, so if you want to jump on the Earthbound hate bandwagon, supporting Mother 1 threads should be on your agenda.

>>696285
>Earthbound fans dislike Mother 1
since when?

>>698036
probably since it became cool and edgy to shit on Earthbound

>>698036

"Aged poorly" "Not as good as Earthbound!" "random encounter baaaw", etc, etc

>>691380

Only Japanese people.

>>692163
But Earthbound has barely better than NES graphics.

That's one of the reasons it sold like shit in the first place.

>>698391
>But Earthbound has barely better than NES graphics.
I can't really deny this, but obligatory statement about how graphics don't make the game

>>698402
Tell that to kids in the 90s who bought RPGs that looked better than they could get on the NES.

>>698413

I was a kid in the 90's, I bought GB RPGs over console ones.

What now?

>>698413
HEY KIDS, GRAPHICS DON'T MAKE THE GAME. NOW BUY 10 COPIES OF THIS AND MAKE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS BY HOLDING ONTO THEM FOR 20 YEARS

>>698421
>MAKE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
hopefully not for much longer now that Earthbound is getting WiiU VC release

>>691267
Play it its worth the price.

I haven't gotten to it yet but I did finish Mother 2 & loved it. My only gripe being NoA's censorship, but I read Tomato's legendsoflocalization & was pleased to find out what was intended to be in the original. I have a JP copy too, along with a deluxe Mother 3. Just started the third & I'm loving it. Once I finish it I'll start the first. I'm sure I'll enjoy myself.

I have a save about 1/3 through Mother that I need to get back to. I like the game a lot, great music and the scenario seems good. obviously not as polished as Earthbound but that is as expected.

Mother 3 didn't hold my interest, though the fan translation is great. Earthbound is my favorite of the series

>>693893
>>700398
samefag detected

>>691267
Is that just Mother 1 ? And Mother 2 is EB? And Mother 3 is GBA japan only?

Earthbound Zero is the repro from Timewalk games right?

I want to buy some of their games but I was curious about the quality of their work.

I love Mother 1 so much. I admit though that the encounter rate is a little crazy, I can only see not minding if I owned a (flash)cart and had the whole TV experience. It's a lot more annoying than FF3 or DQ2 or whatnot. I usually recc it to people on the GBA with the easy-ring, just because it's got such a great atmosphere. The sum of its parts is what's amazing, the music, locations, characters and dialogue (especially mato's GBA translation) make it so lovable and full of that bitter-sweet feeling of nostalgia any Mother game has.

Fuck that dragon though.

>>701389
>It's a lot more annoying than FF3 or DQ2 or whatnot.

Really? have you played remakes of those, or the original 8bit versions? Because encounter rates in early DQ or FF (or any other random encounter RPG of the time) are as brutal (if not more) than Mother 1.

>dat pyramid in Dragon Quest III

>>700832
Wow I'm amazed there is this much confusion.

Earthbound "Zero" is the officially localized NA version of Mother 1 that was completed but cancelled/never released. It was to be released in America as "Earth Bound", a title that was later used for Mother 2's localization, not unlike how Final Fantasy 5 was almost released in the US as Final Fantasy 3. It was dumped in full. The only modifications made to the ROM are removal of copy protection and the addition of "zero" to the title to distinguish it from Earthbound for SNES (Mother 2).

So if there's repros they are essentially a repro of an official game with two minor alterations. This isn't like LoZ: Outlands or Super Metroid Remix or anything. It's official English Mother 1.

While I think the engine was less polished than Dragon Warrior/Quest 3 and 4 and I have a lot of little nitpicky problems with the game, I very much liked the theme and general feel of the game and I think it has a kind of charm I haven't seen in another video game (I'm in the middle of Earthbound right now and withholding judgement for now. Mother 3 I'm going to play afterwards)

>>701443
As far as encounter rates, Mother 1's is higher than the NES versions of Dragon Warrior 3 and 4.

>>701456

Also the "earthbound zero" version is different from the original Mother 1 for Famicom. In the NOA version, some dungeons were redesigned to be less confusing, and a whole new, extended ending was included.
I was never really sure who made that extra ending... Itoi himself? the EB Zero localization was around early 90s, so Mother 1 have been already released and finished in japan for a while.
The ending of Mother 1 is very similar to that of Earthbound, so I'm guessing it is an idea from itoi and not just a madeup NOA thing, but who knows.
At any rate, the new version with the extended ending was released in Japan in 2003 in Mother 1+2 for GBA. This version also included all the censorship (crosses, blood, etc), Mother 2 isn't censored like the US version though.

So there's 1 versions of Mother 1, the original japanese, and the unreleased US version that was also only released in Japan on GBA.

>>701456
When I got my reproduction of Mother 1, I got it without the "Zero" appended to the title.

>>701456
>As far as encounter rates, Mother 1's is higher than the NES versions of Dragon Warrior 3 and 4.

I dunno, I played DQIII, NES version recently, and random encounters were a lot more brutal than in Mother 1. Literally 1 spet, 1 random encounter, literally.

And repel doesn't work in dungeons.

Maybe it's not worse than Mother 1's random encounter rate, but it's more or less on par.

Earth Bound Zero, compared to Earthbound, has:
A slightly inferior story
Slightly inferior graphics
Much inferior gameplay
Vastly superior music

The music pushes it over the top for me. I love them both pretty equally, but the end half of Mother is pretty unbalanced and bullshit. Mother 2 really hits home harder after playing Mother.
I still haven't played Mother 3, but I intend to soon.

>>692621
That would be Earth Bound and Earthbound.

>>701479
Repel has never worked in dungeons/caves in Dragon Quest games, and the manuals actually tell you that they don't.

And yeah, the Pyramid is nothing until you grab the Golden Claw. That's when the encounter rate becomes fun.

Polite sage because not Mother related.

>>701456
My repo copy just says "Earthbound" when I play it. What now?

>>701542

I know all of that, that's why i was saying Mother 1 isn't really brutal compared to most other 8bit RPGs.
In fact, if you're used to play old RPGs (especially DQ) Mother 1 is easy... you've got 2 franklin badges, lots of healing and resurrect PSI powers, and many strategies to avoid dying in Mt. itoi... it IS tough, but people just took that "lol we didn't really checked the difficulty" too seriously from that Itoi interview, I think he just meant that he didn't care if the difficulty was too high, not that the game is completely broken like some people tend to believe.

>>701591
I'm not bashing Mother for the encounter rate. In fact, I think people who hate a game or won't play it because it's encounter rate is "too high" are fucking pussies who don't like turn based RPG's in the first place.

And if people actually want a hard endgame, Rhone Cave and Plateau from Dragon Warrior 2 kick's Mt. Itoi's ass. That's an endgame where they decided no more mercy.

>>701562

Seems like whoever made your pirate cart was not retarded and used the clean dump rather than the Nesticle hack.

It's my favourite to play through but it is clearly the worst in terms of game design and presentation.
A remake with the same level of in-game text and translation as Earthbound/Mother 3 would be my dream video game.

>>704101

There is a fan doing a hack of Mother 1 with Mother 2 graphics. The downer is that, since it's using Mother 2's code, the maps can't be as big as in the original.. so it will end up being a much smaller version of the game (which I guess some people will like, since many complain Mother 1 is too big open and easy to get lost, etc).

Personally, I love the 8bit graphics and presentation of the original Mother.

>>700812
You must be new. You can't even tell who's samefagging. If you reread those posts, I mentioned that I will play the first & more than likely enjoy it.

The amount of newfags as of lately baffles me.

I dunno if its been mentioned yet, but the encounter rate is really high because from what i understand, in the NA version, when they added holding a button to walk faster, they screwed something up and basically your encounter rate is like 2x normal rate when walking fast

>>704586
I think exploring was one of the coolest things about the original Mother, really.

I kept exploring the world and getting lost, but didn't even care because the music and atmosphere were just too good.