Part 1: The Beginning Of A Legend

Update One: The Beginning Of A Legend

Hello, everyone! Today, we're going to begin our adventure through Mother, and I don't have much else interesting to say, so let's rock.



I'm going to be playing the GBA remake with an English patch, so we start with this screen. In hindsight, I could have also used this for my Earthbound LP, but fuck that. I originally played that game on the SNES and that's where it belongs.





This man needs to do more video game stuff. Aside from the Mother series, all I can find that he's done is...A bass fishing video game?





Since we have no other options, let's start a new game.



We don't get to pick any fancy options like text speed or window flavor; all we get to do is name characters and our favorite food.



Our boy is someday going to go on and be one hell of a gun nut/awkward man who shouldn't be involved with the Gameboy Color.



She looks like she'd fit nicely into a sandwich, don't you agree?



And this guy just looks like the type who is bound to get chomped by either a gigantic-ass snake or a shark.



Big, badass, and all about the manliness. 'nuff said.



We're channeling a bit of a villain for this, but it's okay. STARS is probably delicious.



And here, we come to the first vote of the topic. All four of these people need new names and we need a new favorite food. BOLD your votes, and remember, we have six characters to work with for each category.



And we begin with a touch of backstory. I feel kind of bad for George.



I could have sworn that this was Podunk, originally, but I think that was in the English prototype. The translation patch I'm using says, in the Readme included with it, that they pretty much retranslated the game from scratch, by the way, so some things might be different than you expect.



Ah, our hero. Sitting in his room, in his favorite chair, staring...At the wall? Oh, Lord, the name's affecting his intelligence!



In the present next to him, we find this thing.



Prior to this, I haven't played a ton of this game, but from what I understood, whoever was playing immediately became the lightning rod of all the enemies' hate, so this is a good find. There's also a point later on in the game to where this thing is going to be extraordinarily useful, but we'll get to that when the time comes.



For now, I'm going to slap this sucker on. If it turns out that you guys would rather I didn't use this thing, I'm going to be a sad panda.



Aside from the Easy Ring, I found nothing else interesting in this room.



So, let's scoot and skedaddle. Maybe dinner's ready or something.



Oh, God, the lamp's trying to kill me!



This here is our battle screen; at the bottom, we have Barry's HP, PP, Level and how much exp he has. Currently, we're not a very impressive hero.



Jesus Christ, that's a lot of combat options. Thankfully, most are self-explanatory, such as Fight, PSI, Goods, Auto, Guard, and Run. We'll see what Check and Setup do at a later time.



Because, right now, there's a lamp trying to kill us!



...Oh, well, that wasn't as bad as I expected. As long as we don't take 29 more turns to defeat this thing, we'll make it out of this alive.



If this is how things are starting, I'm having a good feeling about this.



Lamps have 6 HP. I'll be using a Starmen.net enemy guide for the enemies, as there's no PK Hack-esque tool for me to use to check the enemies out in depth.



And if you look in the lower right corner, we've gained 4 exp! It's not enough for a level, but we're well on our way.



After defeating the antagonistic lamp, Barry is back to staring at the walls.



Before we do anything else, though, let's have a look at Barry's stats. His defense seems monstrous compared to everything else. I'm not sure if this is a result of the Easy Ring or not.



Outside of Barry's room, there's two other doors. Let's head inside the nearest one first.



Looks like we found Minnie's room. She's Barry's younger sister, and barring that lamp, everything looks okay in here.



Let's make sure this lamp doesn't do anything to hurt Barry's sister.



Holy battle transition, Batman!



This battle goes nearly exactly the same as the last one.



Except Barry doesn't take any damage this time.



The lights flicker occasionally, informing us that there is something more devious going on here than a couple of murderous lamps.



Well, looks like she's flipping out. I probably would, too, so I'm not going to give her any shit over this.



Let's go check out that other room.



Barry's other sister, Mimmie, and...Oh, God, it's a doll!



Bu-But, the doll! It's creeping me out!



Bwahahaha! It's got a bit of a pot belly!



This is also a boss fight of sorts; the Doll is a bit tougher than the lamps are, with 12 HP.



And it still only deals one damage to us.



The previous turn is repeated exactly.



And we win this fight!



Sweet Jesus, look at the exp it gave us! 40 points!



Level ups are handled similarly as they're handled in Earthbound; we're told which stats raise and by how much.

Barry gained two levels here, and with his levels, he gained +5 fight, +4 speed, +5 wisdom, +5 strength, +4 force, +11 HP and +9 PP.

Offense and defense also increased, by numbers equal to the fight and speed increases, respectively. I've done a bit of checking around, and I can't seem to find what these stats do. But, wisdom and force seem related to PSI powers; force is used to help determine PP growths, so it might be equivalent to IQ from Earthbound.



And Barry learns himself a new PSI power!



And whatever was happening to the house has been stopped with the defeat of the Doll.



Barry's new PSI power is Lifeup Alpha, which will get plenty of use. Using it right now, Barry regains 15 HP.





Either this is a small music box, or that doll's a lot bigger than I think it is.



Try as I might, I'm having a hell of a time tracking down the little tune that plays here.



But, hey, we learned the melody!



Over in the other room, Minnie gives us some juice.



Sweet. Minnie has saved us from getting scurvy on this adventure.



Let's head downstairs, and see how things are going down there.



Alright, Mom's barricading the front door and the door closest to us is locked. Let's try the phone.



Barry's dad is like Nass'; constantly away, only reached by telephone.



He's taking this news much better than my dad would have if I had called him at work.



Our great-grandfather studied PSI? Did he have any abilities himself? If he did, that provides a nice explanation as to why Barry has PSI powers.



At the very least, I hope there's a gun. Shooting things would be better than punching them, as Barry has been doing up to this point.



Anyway, you're our only hope. Now is the time for an adventure. Go forth, Barry! Protect us all! (Click! Beep-beep-beep...)

Well, that's certainly one way to start an adventure.

"Hey, Dad, something weird just happened!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, shit, son, time for you to go around the world and do shit!"

"Wait, what?"

"Good luck, Savior of Humanity! No pressure, son!"

"Wait, Dad--"

"Loveyoubye!"



Maybe Mom is a bit more rational than Dad.



If he was here, I imagine he'd probably send Minnie with Barry. And give them nothing but a hickory switch and $4 cash.



Alright, let's head outside. Looks like Barry's family has a nice bit of real estate.



Thanks to Telepathy, Barry can converse with animals, which is going to be hella useful.



Ch-Checking you? Do you have fleas or something?



...Wasn't there a "puzzle" similar to this in one of the Resident Evil games? Well, at least we don't have to use a dog whistle to make the dog perform a forty-foot vertical leap to the balcony.





Back inside the house, we can enter the basement now.



Or maybe I should have called it a dungeon.



Alright, Great-Grandpa's Diary! This is sure to contain something useful.



Barry uses bats for his weapons, much like Nass will someday.



Upon equipping the bat, it raises our offense by three points, making Barry a touch stronger.



Bread is a very useful item. When used, it will create a trail of bread crumbs, allowing Barry to follow it back to wherever he used it. So, if we use this at the beginning of a dungeon and things go downhill near the end, we can just use this to quickly get out of there, rather than risking walking back through the dungeon.



And the one thing in Grandpa's diary is rather interesting.

The password...



Um, alright then. Sounds like there's aliens and Fin Fang Foom hanging out around somewhere.



Back upstairs, Minnie has come downstairs.



Much like Tracy, she is hella useful, storing items for us. For now, I don't have anything to store or take.



And Mom serves the same purpose as Nass' mom will in the future.



She's a free full-heal, making Barry's favorite food for him.





And by now, I'm sure everyone guessed what Dad does.



We start off with more money than Nass did. He started with far less than that.



Now, as I'm sure I've shown, I'm not a Mother expert. As far as I know, this is the only way to check how much exp you need to gain a level, which isn't too bad, actually. Every time I'd like to check the exp we need, our game is saved and we get some more money in the bank.



And our game is all saved up.



And this is where we're going to stop off for now. Next time, on Mother, let's begin our whirlwind adventure!

Remember, everyone VOTE for character names and our favorite food!