FEATURES - EarthBound - Mother 3 (GBA) Game Description :: In early 2003, surrounding the announcmenet and release of Mother 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance, Itoi made it clear in two different places that he was planning to remake the formerly cancelled Mother 3 for the GBA as well: first at the end of a Japanese TV commercial for Mother 1+2, and second in an interview, where he revealed that, for the past few years since Mother 3's N64 cancellation, he'd been planning to release the game's story in one form or another. In fact, apparently a Mother 3 feature film was even considered for a time, but his team came to the conclusion that starting the game up from scratch on the GBA would be the best and easiest way to get it done. Over two years passed with no more news at all, until finally in November 2005, the silence was broken. On his personal website, Itoi assured the public once more that his game was on the way, and even that it was nearing completion. For the following 5 months, a slight trickle of Mother 3 information and media started to pour down from his website. Fans were kept on the edge of their seats until April 20th, 2006, when the first new Mother game in 12 years was released in Japan. As it turns out, the Game Boy Advance version of Mother 3 is not too dissimilar from the unreleased Nintendo 64 version of the game. The same characters, plot elements, chapter structure, and scenery was kept intact and ported over to a 2-dimensional format. This game is very unusual, even to us fans of the already oddball series. The basic theme of an alien invasion is still at the core of the third Mother, but this time it takes a back seat to a tragic tale of one family that is torn apart by the cruelty of the invaders. Naturally, you play as the boy of this family for most of the game. However, unlike Mothers 1 and 2, this boy, Claus, isn't the only hero. Like EarthBound 64 would have been, Mother 3 is split into 8 chapters, each with their own plotline that weaves in and out of the other seven, sometimes in a way that isn't obvious until the chapter's conclusion. All this makes for a profoundly more epic story-telling experience than those in EarthBound or Mother 1. The gameplay is equally unusual for an RPG. In addition to awesome new features such as music-based timed hits, several genre standards are thrown out the window and redone to suit the game's progression. Rather than staying at an inn to revive health, the characters take a dip in one of several hot springs scattered all around the map. Instead of purchasing items and weapons from a village-centric bazaar, the player need only talk to one of a travelling band of mole crickets to pick up what they need right then and there. Rather than saving the game by arriving at a mysteriously glowing spot on the map, helpful talking frogs record your progress (it's a Japanese play on words). All these and more add up to a boldly unique game that makes EarthBound look tame by comparison. Fans of the series should be extremely pleased with the release of Mother 3. It is everything that EarthBound was and more. Hopefully, Nintendo will see the game's potential for success in America before the Game Boy Advance becomes a thing of the past.