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

Part 3: Forest on Fire (2)

Your name is "Goons", correct?

Apparently so!

Okay, then. Please continue to enjoy the game.

Forgot what?

Oh yeah, we have people to save or something. Best to get on that.

To the left of the sanctuary are yet more people. For a small remote town in a jRPG, there sure are a lot of NPCs.

I can be useful too, you know! I'm not just some annoying onlooker!

I think Lighter and Fuel are still stuck inside the forest! Don't worry, I'll hold back these rubberneckers! You just hurry and find them!

Good thing we have Ed to save us from having more bodies for enemies to target.

Another screen, another piece of music. This game has a very impressive amount of music for a game.

I THOUGHT I saw someone as manly as me walking this way. This smoke is terrible, and with my sensitive throat, I can't continue any further. So you can have this cookie instead.

...... Please, let it be of use.

Free cookie! Of course, this is one of those RPGs where you want to talk to people multiple times.

I'll give you one more of my slightly unclean and not very tasty cookies. Let it be of use.

And he'll do this again, giving us a max of three slightly unclean cookies.

Unfortunately, that's all we can get from him. Guess we'll have to get our own slightly unclean cookies later.

See that bat?

Like Earthbound, all encounters show up on the map, and you can either get a free attack on enemies or get ambushed depending on the positioning of how you approach/are approached by the enemies. The color and sound effect will tell you how successful you were in initiating the battle. Blue is neutral, so no starting advantage to either side.

There are also a crazy amount of battle themes in this game, a lot more than Earthbound's already-impressive number. I also didn't get the musical reference for this song until I saw a guide mention it. It's pretty great.

Mr. Batty has a few neat tricks. It can stun Flint for several turns, which is annoying since Thomas is useless.

As demonstrated here.

Mr. Batty also has a decent physical attack. Not bad enough that you'll wipe unless you get really, really unlucky, but enough that it'll hurt if you get unlucky with its stuns.

It takes Flint three attacks on average to beat these guys and their 56HP.

Mr. Batty will also confuse itself randomly.

Each enemy has a list of various resistances. There's basic stuff like Fire and Ice, Poison (which Mr. Batty is immune to), sleep, and then some weirder ones I won't yet spoil. The walkthrough I'm using lists these resistances with higher numbers meaning more susceptible. For instance, Mr. Batty's Ice Resistance is an average 100, while its Poison resistance is 0, meaning it's immune.

Why am I explaining this? Because its "Strange" Resistance is 10000. Hey, I thought it was funny.

And of course, monsters still become tame rather than dying horrible deaths.

There should be antidotes somewhere around here.

The fire's scared off the snakes for now since I never encountered any in this part.

Enemies also have a good chance of dropping items, especially in this area where lots of enemies can drop Nut Bread. Mr. Batties have a 20% chance of dropping them, and a 2% chance of slightly unclean Nut Cookies (but the Nut Bread is clean).

Also, another person.

More equipment!

"There's no need to rush
Five seconds rejuvenates
Kokori Spring Water"
(An extra syllable)

There's a hot spring to the left, and also another tutorial sparrow.

(Sparrow Advice! Some people always try to avoid fighting when there are enemies around. You know the type, right? They use the dash ability to zoom right by. I guess you could say they're followers of "peace at any price". ...Oh. No, no, no. I'm not saying that's how you are or anything. I just think that if you keep running away from everything now, later on when you HAVE to fight, you'll have a really rough time because you lack experience.)

("Always running off
will only lead to regret
my young disciple.")

More generic RPG advice. Of course, it also means more of a challenge if you want one. No clue how feasible a low-level game is for this one, but I'd rather show off all the neat enemy designs anyway.

The hot spring will recover Flint's HP if you wait long enough. Sure, a forest fire has put a father and son in terrible risk, but this water just feels so good.

If an enemy attacks us from the back, it gets a free round on us.

Fortunately, all it did was ponder how incompetent we were to let it back attack us and ended up confusing itself.

*cough* *cough* Gaah! I've breathed in too much smoke! Lighter and his son Fuel still aren't back yet! I'm pretty sure they're stuck inside the forest! *cough* *cough* Don't worry about me! Go help them!

The next screen has flames littering the area.

Walking into them reduces Flint's HP by 1. A minor inconvenience, but enough to slightly discourage walking through flames like a badass.

That can't be good.

Can't chase him, either.

No special music, but green means we get a free round of combat!

One neat thing is that when you sneak up on an enemy, you actually see its back. The artists went out of their way to design backs for a majority of the enemies in this game, which is crazy.

In the original game, there's some item that tracks how many enemies you encounter, and seeing all of them gives a star to that file. This translation adds a gold star if you see every possible enemy's back as well. I don't think I'll go that far though.

The monster will use its action that turn to turn around.

This guy isn't anything special, just weak physical attacks. It'll go down in two hits. The most interesting thing about this guy is the 60% chance of the potato monster dropping bread.

Like the other games, you level up and gain stats and sometimes new abilities.

Lighter! Hey! Lighter! You alright?!

D-dammit... *cough* I try to beat these things up, but more just keep comin'! I can't get past 'em! *cough* *cough*

What IS that thing?! A bug?!

*cough* *cough* Dunno. They're goin' around the forest, lightin' fires. But never mind that, Fuel's still at home!

What?! Fuel's still in your shack?! Flint! You go help Fuel!

Thomas really likes his "?!"s, as you may have noticed.

There's no need to look so worried!

Take it *cough*

Flint. If you're gonna use that lumber as a weapon, be sure to "Equip" it first! It's completely useless otherwise!

The lumber gives a nice offense boost, but being bulkier blasts bpeed...I mean speed.

Not so fast, though!

Our first battle with multiple enemies!

This is where Flint's techniques come into play. Each enemy takes two hits to go down, and they do enough damage that you may struggle if you fight them one at a time. Fortunately, Flint has an attack that hits every enemy.

The fireflies will either charge into you or breathe fire at you. Both do similar amounts of damage, I think the charging doing slightly more.

Swing in action. No reason not to use it in battles with multiple enemies.

One neat thing is that when enemies die in battles with multiples, the other enemies will reposition themselves. Kind of a moot point here since two Swings kills all three.

Another screen, another frog hiding in a barrel of water.

...Welp.

One well-placed dash gets us inside.

The Flying Mouse is a mini-boss with a good chunk of HP, 110 to be exact.

Though unnecessary, I boost Flint's stats with his Offense/Defense-boosting abilities. I believe they can only be used to good effect once per battle.

The defense boost came in handy due to the Flying Mouse's critical hit.

Also, the Flying Mouse has 10000 Sleep Resistance, meaning it'll fall asleep if someone so much as yawns. I guess all that flying must tire it out.

Flint's last move is Power Smash. It has low accuracy, but...

If it lands, it does quadruple damage. I didn't really even need the offense boost. Thus it's a bit quicker to just use Power Smash rather than use regular attacks. Unless you have horrible luck, that is.

And free level out of it!

You have to dash to clear away the debris.

Fuel's now in our party, albeit in a secondary role like Thomas. Unlike Thomas, Fuel's actually slightly useful.

On the bright side, we made it out alive.

Unfortunately, we are now pitch black and covered in soot.

I'm pitch black and covered in soot, but I'm alive.

Thank you so so so much, Mr. Pitch Black Flint!

He's probably worried sick about me somewhere!

Time to escort Pitch Black Fuel back to his father.

Fuel will sometimes throw rocks for minor damage, or cheer you to heal you a small amount. Nothing too helpful, but it's the thought that counts.

Forgot to examine the box the fireflies came from before, so here we are now.

That's somewhat better.

Dunno who you are, Mr. Pitch Black Guy, but thanks a million for saving Fuel! Wow. You're really, really pitch black. *hic*...

You're pitch black and covered in soot, but you're all right! If you're looking for Lighter, Thomas took him to the Prayer Sancuary. But wow, you're really pitch black...

You're both pitch black, but I knew it was you two the instant I saw you.

Actually, about that...

Yes! This injury! Abbey here was attacked by some bizarre flying mouse thing with bug wings. It just went, "Chomp!" and bit her on the head. That make sense? If it didn't, I can explain it to you again.

It made sense to me! That was a very easy-to-understand explanation.

Yeah, can't argue with that. Made perfect sense to me.

These things were all fly-y, mousey, buggy, and bitey.

I never saw anything like them before.

Onward!

You're pitch black and covered in soot... ...but you're all right! Being the responsible man I am, I managed to bring Lighter here! Hurry and let him see Fuel.