A Million New Colors

My expectations have gotten the better of me lately.

The translation patch for Mother 3 dropped last week. Earthbound (a.k.a. Mother 2, its prequel) shaped my aesthetic sense in my formative teenage years, so I'd been thirsty for new content in the series. The translation project's feed was a constant presence in my newsreader, reminding me of Mother 3's absence.

All of that is moot now. Having played it, I hate this fucking game, which is incredibly surprising to me. I find the characters uninteresting, the plot poorly paced and overly melodramatic. After forcing myself to trudge through a few hours of the game, I just gave up in frustration, exhausted from trying so hard to like it. Earthbound did what it did so well by front-loading the game with humor, and then introducing drama slowly once the player was drawn in to the experience. Mother 3 starts with an overblown tragedy, centered around the death of a character who'd spoken about five lines before s/he kicked off. In Earthbound, a similar situation (Buzz-Buzz dying) is played for laughs, but in Mother 3, you're meant to find a hoary RPG cliche heart-wrenching.

When I talked to a friend (who'd never really liked Earthbound) about the experience of Mother 3, he brought up a good point: Earthbound, fire of my loins it may be, was essentially a boring little dungeon crawl game if you weren't charmed by its quirky setting and tone. Essentially, it was a bare-bones Dragon Quest. That's my problem with Mother 3: once my attention is drawn away from its polished veneer, I'm compelled to stare at its mediocre guts.

Next in Thwarted Expectations Week, I take a look at Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.