Mother 3 Part #2 - Forest on Fire (1)

Part 2: Forest on Fire (1)

The Lucas stuff was the prologue, essentially. The first real chapter starts here, with a town in chaos thanks to some pig-clad creatures being irresponsible with explosives and causing a forest fire.

The object in this guy's hands is a siren, which he keeps turning as he runs like a madman.

It's a fire! A fire, a fire! The Sunshine Forest is on fire in a huge, fiery, flamey fire!!

This is Flint, father of Lucas and Claus.

The menu has its own nice relaxing music. Flint starts with a hat, with his special ability as being able to use strength on stuff.

Swing damages all enemies, Power Smash does more damage at the cost of a low chance to hit, and Strengthen/Toughen Up boosts offense and defense respectively.

You can nap if you're a jerk.

Flint is a shepherd, so the family having a wool spinner makes sense.

It's the forest! The forest, the forest! The forest is on fire!!!

Geez! Who would lock their door in a village as peaceful as ours?! Flint!

Why'd you hafta come off at a time like this?!

I mean, Flint! This is no time to be dozing off! There's a huge fire in the Sunshine Forest!

Bad times like this call for reckless nice guys like you! Please come, Flint!!!

Eh, no thanks.

Too bad! Anyway, Thomas has no abilities or real stats, clearly just a temporary character to take hits for us if we get into battles.

What? What's so wrong with that? I happen to like following behind people!

Anyway, first thing to do obviously is talk to our dog.

Hey! Flint! That stick should make a good weapon in case anything happens. Be sure to equip it first, though. Just holding on to it'll make it as useful as a caramel.

Equipping weapons and armor works just like every other video game.

(It's really noisy out. You're supposed to be quiet at night. I'm a good dog, so I'm being quiet.)

The animals aren't really liking this noise any.

There's also lots of save frogs about. Between the next five screens, there are three save frogs. Literally the next screen up also has a save frog. Note that there are no battles in these five screens.

When leaving the house, new music plays.

A few recovery items on the way to Sunshine Forest. Nut Bread restores 30HP.

We won't get to Sunshine Forest today, or even get into any battles. No, what's most important is meeting some of the NPCs in this village. Appreciate it since I've had to do sprites for every single one of them.

The whole sky north of here is pitch black with smoke.

The next screen up is the town square, where there's lots of town residents wandering about.

Claus and Lucas and Hinawa will be stuck out there.

The Funshine Sorest is on tire!!

These two are Thomas's children, around the same age as Lucas and Claus.

There's several stores about, but obviously we can't go into any of them right now. This store, of course, belongs to our current party member.

Th-the Sunshine Forest is on fire? Oh... Umm, uhh...

Sure, the more the merrier.

No, I mean, umm... Sorry... I'll leave everything to you today, Flint.

Whatever.

If that's true, we better get our butts out of here before the fire engulfs our village, too!

One of the few reasonable people here, apparently.

You'd better not cause too much trouble for Flint!

As you probably guessed, Lisa is Thomas's wife.

You should probably take whatever Thomas says with a grain of salt. That's just the kind of person he is.

Eh, I don't know if I'd risk disregarding someone screaming about a massive fire that might destroy the town I live in, but whatever floats your boat.

No exploring right now, of course.

Just hearing there was a *cough* fire has me *cough* *hack* coughing uncontrollably. I'm ultra-sensitive to things, you know? By the way, if you'd prefer to run instead of walk, I recommend trying the "Dash" ability.

Please, feel free to take one with you.

Hey, someone useful!

You're worried about Lighter's shack deep inside the Sunshine Forest, yes? I've marked that area on the map for you.

Forgot to tell you how to check the map, didn't I? To check the map, you need to - how do I put this?

To put it more bluntly, I guess do something R Button-ish?

By doing something R Button-ish, you can look at your map. Red dot at the bottom-right is where we're at, while our target destination is circled top-center.

Go check out the fire! Quickly! Chop-chop! If the fire spreads here, to Tazmily Village, my honor, my estate, and I will all go up in smoke, literally!

Why do you force me to explain such simple things to you?!

And if you talk to him again...

Please don't make me repeat myself! North, as in north-south-east-west! Just go north! Do things simply not register with you the first time you hear them or something?!

This wonderful person is our mayor. He's obviously not running for re-election anytime soon.

And as I mentioned earlier, there's another frog here for some reason.

Now to the north.

The Sunshine Forest, which is to the west of Cross Road and past the Prayer Sanctuary, is apparently on fire like crazy!

This one only restores 20HP.

Rather than being a generic zombie joke, this is much more likely a nice callback to Earthbound and its own zombie-infested cemetary.

The other gift is a Nut Bread. All consumables so far.

If you lose your way, be sure to check sign posts and message boards. I'm telling you this out of the kindness of my heart, just so you know!

Abbey and Abbot are married.

Anyway, the signpost tells us the Sunshine Forest is west, as does our map, so on we go. But there's just one more person to talk to...

This is Leder, who is thankfully a mute or else his dialogue would stretch your computer screen horribly. He's also ringing a bell, though he actually always does that rather than doing it as a fire alarm.

(Sparrow Advice! For this little bit, I'm going to use game lingo rather than comparisons. You can bring up the menu by pressing Start! Starting from the left, the menu selections are Goods, Equip, Status, and Sleep. At present, you can use the control pad to select one of those four. By choosing a menu option and pressing the A Button, you can find out all sorts of things you might want to know! Lastly, about the rightmost "Sleep" menu option. If you choose this Sleep option and press the A Button, you can pause the game! The batteries won't drain very much while the game is in Sleep Mode, so don't worry. When you want to start the game again, just press Select and the L and R Buttons all at the same time!)

HELL NO

Chirp-chirp. (A sparrow fluent in game lingo is pretty rarrow, wouldn't you say? I mean, rare. Well, this time I'll be sparrow-like for sure and...)

All I have to say is that I had to rip that sparrow sprite from one of my screenshots since I don't think anyone made a sprite sheet for it. Everything else, talk to the bird.

What should I do...?

Next area has these two.

But ol' Lighter and li'l Fuel are still stuck in the forest...

Talk to Lou again, and...

Yeesh. What a bonehead of a partner...

Quit pushing that... *wheeze* *gasp* Quit it...

See what I have to put up with?

Quit pushing that... *wheeze* *gasp* Keep pushing that and I'll be sick...

Just so you know, if something bad happens to me, it's all because YOU kept pressing that stupid thing!

Oops.

Bud and Lou are references to Bud Abbot and Lou Costello.

(Sparrow Advice! Got a minute? If you're ever out of strength or find yourself poisoned, a dip in a hot spring is best for what ails you. But it's important that you stay in the water for a while for it to be effective. And actually, there's a nice hot spring right inside the Sunshine Forest, too. Now, to end this with a sparrow-like...