Mother 3 is the final game in the Mother series, released more than 10 years after its predecessor due to multiple problems with its development like console changes (it was originally going to be on the Nintendo 64), and it unlike its forebearers, it has never been officially released outside of Japan (but that didn't stop the fanbase from getting their hands on it and translating it for an english speaking audience).
Story: The story of Mother 3 is split into 8 chapters, with different chapters focusing on different characters until your final mission becomes clear in the last two chapters. It does a really good job of telling you where you need to go, although there were a few times playing it where I just completely missed something obvious. The story is amazing when you start to go through it more, and I really recommend playing it blind instead of getting it spoiled. please play it
10/10
Spriting: Mother 3 fixed the few issues that Earthbound's spriting had. It improved building and landscape sprites, as well as making older characters actually look older, instead of like in earthbound where the adult characters were the same height as the main character who is around 12-13 years old. There is next to nothing bad to say about the spritework in this game, it's easy to follow what's happening, and the spriters even took the time to animate custom sprites and animations for certain cutscenes. I would say this is absolutely the gold standard of its style.
10/10
Music: Mother 3, unlike the previous 2 games, had its soundtrack composed by Shogo Sakai, and he does a really good job of replicating the style of the other games. It has a more realistic soundfont than Earthbound, but a lot of the instruments still sound a lot like synths. It's definitely a cool soundfont, and makes the experience of playing the game much better. There's also an aspect of this that I'll be covering in the battle system section, but that's for later. Mother 3 doesn't really have any songs that have gotten big in internet culture like Mother 1 and 2, but the OST is still a masterpiece.
9/10
Battle System: The battle system is largely the same as Earthbound's, just with a few UI changes, but one thing that really stands out is the hit combo system. By memorizing the beat of the battle theme that is playing, you can tap the A button (or x on your keyboard if you're playing on the emulator linked above), you can get up to 16 extra hits in on an opponent. They all do significantly less damage than the first hit, but it feels really damn good to get a 16 hit combo on an enemy. The soundtrack also builds on this feature by including variations of earlier battle themes that try to throw you off by adding extra beats at odd places on purpose. It's a really clever system, and it forces the player to pay attention to the music that is playing. Some themes, like Fate, Serious, Back Beat Battle - Hard, Strong One, and Strong One (Masked Man), are known for being particular thorns in the sides of players due to their erratic nature as songs. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, some of the songs that easiest to hit combo to are Troublesome Guys, Mr. Batty Twist, Piggy Guys, and Intense Guys.
9/10
Overall Rating: 9.5/10
Story: The story of Mother 3 is split into 8 chapters, with different chapters focusing on different characters until your final mission becomes clear in the last two chapters. It does a really good job of telling you where you need to go, although there were a few times playing it where I just completely missed something obvious. The story is amazing when you start to go through it more, and I really recommend playing it blind instead of getting it spoiled. please play it
10/10
Spriting: Mother 3 fixed the few issues that Earthbound's spriting had. It improved building and landscape sprites, as well as making older characters actually look older, instead of like in earthbound where the adult characters were the same height as the main character who is around 12-13 years old. There is next to nothing bad to say about the spritework in this game, it's easy to follow what's happening, and the spriters even took the time to animate custom sprites and animations for certain cutscenes. I would say this is absolutely the gold standard of its style.
10/10
Music: Mother 3, unlike the previous 2 games, had its soundtrack composed by Shogo Sakai, and he does a really good job of replicating the style of the other games. It has a more realistic soundfont than Earthbound, but a lot of the instruments still sound a lot like synths. It's definitely a cool soundfont, and makes the experience of playing the game much better. There's also an aspect of this that I'll be covering in the battle system section, but that's for later. Mother 3 doesn't really have any songs that have gotten big in internet culture like Mother 1 and 2, but the OST is still a masterpiece.
9/10
Battle System: The battle system is largely the same as Earthbound's, just with a few UI changes, but one thing that really stands out is the hit combo system. By memorizing the beat of the battle theme that is playing, you can tap the A button (or x on your keyboard if you're playing on the emulator linked above), you can get up to 16 extra hits in on an opponent. They all do significantly less damage than the first hit, but it feels really damn good to get a 16 hit combo on an enemy. The soundtrack also builds on this feature by including variations of earlier battle themes that try to throw you off by adding extra beats at odd places on purpose. It's a really clever system, and it forces the player to pay attention to the music that is playing. Some themes, like Fate, Serious, Back Beat Battle - Hard, Strong One, and Strong One (Masked Man), are known for being particular thorns in the sides of players due to their erratic nature as songs. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, some of the songs that easiest to hit combo to are Troublesome Guys, Mr. Batty Twist, Piggy Guys, and Intense Guys.
9/10
Overall Rating: 9.5/10