Great, I’m really happy to hear the pace is fine for everyone so far. I’m not that fast by any means but I’ve reached the point where unless it’s particularly higher level (like I’m reading Soseki’s こころ right now and that takes some mental effort), Japanese doesn’t fatigue me the way it used to or anything like that, so I’m trying to consciously look out for the risk of me pushing people harder without realizing it. Looks like I did it ok so far
Quick response
It was level 5 that got me killed, haha. I think at that level there’s an element of luck if you roll high damage, plus he was always using the knife on me back to back. Tried to heal but one attempt one just died from 2 straight hits before it could even come out. On my successful attempt he spent way more turns not doing damage.
I was surprised to see that the map was completely in English and thought “oh, that must have been neat for the people in charge of the localization” but then I noticed the drugstore with the huge ＤＲＵＧ sign on top and thought that surely that wouldn’t make it and indeed:
I know they’re probably just comically avoiding the word drug, but I did think buying new equipment from there was so odd I wanted to mention it as a tip in the first post, so the localization is probably a little more intuitive…
Oh so this does take place in the United States then.
That was fun. The full kana is annoying but the dialogue is simple enough that while it slows me down, I don’t have to look up too many things only to see the kanji version pop up and immediately go “ooh, right”. It does force me to focus more than usual though, I was losing concentration by the time I finished talking to everybody in town.
I like the cutesy ヘタウマ graphics, in particular the isometric town. Delightful. The combat is straightforward enough at the moment, we’ll see how it evolves. I prefer the Final Fantasy combat layout over Dragon Quest, but it’s not a deal breaker. The psychedelic combat backgrounds are a good way to save on artwork I suppose. The custom flavor text and enemy sprites are really great and creative.
The sound design is more mixed. I really like the SFX at the very start, there are unsettling noises everywhere, it does a good job of setting the mood.
I think the music is relatively bad, although not enough to really offend me. I guess it fits the vibe of the game, but some of those loops are too short.
I guess I should get him to that healer in the hospital… 憑依 is one of those words that I had 0% chance of recognizing in kana by the way.
I was about to joke that this game stole a lot from Undertale!
Beyond that I get a lot of 90s nostalgia from this game even though I never played it before. I already mentioned the Mega Drive Home Alone game in the other thread and Tomba above, but I also get Heart of Darkness and Grandia flashbacks while playing it. It’s very comfy.
I remembered this one after thinking for a moment! Might say something about the sort of stuff I’ve been reading, heh.
I love the music but yeah the loops are short; I get why people would have mixed reactions to it. It’s pretty experimental for game music at this time, or hell at times just in general. There’s a song later that I think is just a harsh mess intentionally and I expect people to have some real reactions when we get there lol. I love it but that’s kinda how I am.
I played Tomba 2 as a kid and really liked it, have always meant to play 1 but haven’t yet gotten around to it. It’s probably very flawed, and I remember a few bits are ridiculously hard out of nowhere, but it was full of charm as I remember it.
Speaking of the music, I’ve been meaning to say sometime, my Vita is actually set to an Earthbound theme. When I’m on the home screens it plays the Onett Theme.
Playing this got me into a nostalgia rabbit hole and I started looking up stuff from my teenage years and I ended up stumbling upon the trailer for Avalon, a Polish movie made by Ghost in the Shell’s Mamoru Oshii:
Is this movie super niche? It doesn’t have a huge footprint online but I remember seeing it in theater in France when it released.
The vibes of this trailer are absolutely pristine, the mix of post-soviet East European drab backgrounds, the Polish language, the Japanese subtitles, the mix of grainy cheap analog film and crisp early 2000 CGI. It’s amazing. I remember finding it visually unimpressive when it released but it has aged like fine wine it seems.
Anyway this has nothing to do with Mother 2 but I had to share with someone.
Maybe @Akashelia would enjoy the mix of Polish and Nihonguese.
Yeah I’m fairly deep into movies and I can’t recall having heard of this. You’re at least right that it didn’t get much presence online for me to learn about it that way.
That trailer looks really cool though. The people slicing apart like paper remind me so much of the stuff you’d see in Daisies (1966) or some Seijun Suzuki movies.
I think that stuff looked cheap back then, but now it has transcended in a way. Shows that bold artistic choices age better than pure technical performance.
I already finished this week’s part yesterday!! I’m so excited! Since I have some more time though, I think I might go back and talk to more townspeople for the fun of it
I did default names but put my favorite food as うなぎ and the かっこいいとおもう as げんさん lol
Random Tips
Apologies if these have been mentioned or if everyone already knows these, but I have a few things to throw out there
If anyone is playing on a Switch, there is a rewind feature, which I’ve been using if I want to reread dialogue haha
Also, especially since we’re still near home, if you want HP and PP restored for free, you can go back home and talk to your mom!
Responses
I love this!!
I was gonna comment on this too! I was surprised he wasn’t a bee!! I understand if you can’t keep up playing english and japanese at the same time, but I would love to hear any interesting differences between the two you come across
I will forever hate Porky and never forgive him (Mother 3 spoilers) I’LL NEVER FORGIVE HIM FOR HURTING MY BABY LUCAS
BRO HIS PARENTS ARE RUDE TOO, his stupid dad saying they’re “broke” because of our family
HAHA
Yeah, I feel like (not saying this about others, but about myself) since it takes longer to read in Japanese, I’m in areas longer and that also makes the music loops feel more repetitive haha
I LOVE THE ONETT THEME That and the leitmotif that plays at home (I think Pollyanna? I can’t remember, I know it’s kind of the game’s main theme)
There’s other songs I love that I can’t wait to hear in game as well
Fuzzy pickles!!! Ah, just kidding… I mean, チーズ サンドイッチ！ Funny that that is different too, but it makes sense!! I feel like Earthbound and Ace Attorney are some of the first games that come to mind for EXCELLENT localization
Also, in fighting the スターマンのむすこ we have seen our first instance of PKファイヤー！
I’m luckily getting far enough along that I take twice as long as a native lol (or less if I’m lucky and focusing moving quickly heh) but since so much of my Japanese reading experience has been visual novels, oh boy is this a struggle at times. Songs playing 5 times as long as you’re meant to hear them or sections with annoying sound effects that are meant to go for like 10 lines getting stretched out, and even longer because the sound itself is distracting me from reading as well…
I’m sort of new to this stuff (both clubs and learning japanese), but so far I love the format and discussions.
Even after 30 years since the release the game looks and feels fresh, the only downside is being clunky controls. Graphics, sounds, plot, characters and humor are just great.
I was rather skeptical about this game cause I know it has inspired Undertale, and Undertale just didn’t click with me. Now I am glad I gave it a try. I also recently finished FF1 - FF6 pixel remasters and compared to them this game feels more chill, comfortable and less energy consuming. Had to do a little grinding though, but still it was less tedious than in FF.
Buzz buzz is certainly an MVP of this week. I really enjoyed the buzzing he did, but it really reached its climax at the neighbors house to the point that I wished he would’ve just shut up already (and it was so agonizing when he did it deserves a special “the most tragic death” award).
Glad you’re enjoying! I’m just genuinely curious, because I personally feel like when it comes to controls this kind of RPG is to me the simplest to go back to compared to other genres of games from the time – are you just thinking about things like the menu popup and how you navigate all that? Or does something about the movement and stuff actually feel off to you?
I personally find the menuing a bit weird and “nonstandard”. I would expect the contextual “interact” button to be mapped to a face button, not a trigger for instance.
The way the enemies zero in on you on the field is a bit bizarre, I’m used to these types of mechanics (Trails does it for instance) but here it feels off. I don’t even understand how I’m supposed to trigger a back attack because so far the enemies seem to immediately go in a straight line towards me as soon as I enter a certain radius.
I do like the way the stores are handled though, clearly showing you if an item is usable and an upgrade, and offering to sell the previous gear when you equip something new. That’s certainly nice coming from the Famicom Final Fantasies…
The enemies are definitely pretty much homing missiles. As I recall it that’s mostly about your own strength relative to them, like they’ll start running away from you when you’re higher level. At a certain point you just get instant wins (I think I already did on something weak near the house) but sometimes there’s a stage between where they don’t really want to mess with you. That behavior might also vary by enemy eventually but I’m not 100% sure at this point, it’s been quite a while since I played the game.
I get what you mean about the button mapping though; I was able to internalize trigger quickly even though it is a bit off but I kept hitting the map button when I wanted the menu.
It’s a stat check but if this wiki is accurate there IS an element of it looking at the stats differently based on factors like if you got the initiative or not. If the enemies get advantage on you it can’t happen, but I thought they always tried to avoid you on the field anyway if you were that strong. Maybe I’m remembering wrong.
Movement was fine iirc, but the whole non contextual action menu felt peculiar at first cause of strange mix of actions and menus, but I guess this bumper action should at least ease the process of exploration (I completely forgot about it and didn’t even map it lol). Is there a reason for leaving the check and talk options in the menu? Like, some objects can be treated as both a person and an inspectable object?
Unfortunately I can’t compare it to games of that time cause I didn’t play them, although I did finish Ocarina of Time not long ago, but afaik it’s the game that popularized the contextual action, so that’s a miss!
That and the leitmotif that plays at home 
