Mother!
What you're looking at is an original Famicom edition of Mother, perched on top of a converter made from a copy of Gyromite. If you don't know what I'm talking about, the original release of the game Gyromite, as well as a few others that were released with the first NES run in the US, were simply Japanese editions of the game with a converter inside of the cartridge, since the pin set was slightly different. If you're lucky enough to have a first edition copy of the game, then you have a converter... If not, Ebay.
Also, making this I learned how to make a pretty serviceable wallet out of old NES games. maybe I'll do a little tutorial on that some time... Anyway, it's time to start the show!
That's right, I'm still using the awful camera I was last time.
I feel the need to mention that I have played Mother 2/Earthbound many, many times over in the form of the US release for the Super Nintendo, so this may give me some form of advantage, or it may not. I suppose we'll have to wait and see, won't we?
Time to name our character!
Good gods that's a lot of Katakana. I thank the almighty Zarquon that they let me name the characters in English, because I rely on that sort of thing in the random text to let me know something is going on.
For our main character, what name could we go with other than Ness? For the female character, Paula, of course. For our little scientific friend, Jeff is a must. And finally, our martial artist friend shall forever be... Poo!
Yes, those were their names in the US release of the game. Poo!
So, once I've named them it asks me either what my favorite thing is, or my favorite food... Either way, the answer remains the same.
Hells yeah, Ham.
Anyway, the game gives me a bit of back story on something or other, letting us know that this takes place in the NEAR FUTURE!
That's right, it takes place toward the end of the 1900s, that's how we know it's the near future. So far this is honestly seeming like the US version I played was a copy of the NES game, but with better graphics, but I'll never look a gift game in the slot... that... sounded a lot worse than I expected. Let's move on, shall we?
Well, isn't my face red? No sooner do I head on to the next screen than I am informed that this is all to have taken place in the year 1988! Talk about embarrassing, but at the same time interesting, because that means this game took place a year before it was released. That tells us right off the bat that this is not a game, it is the recounting of a tale, which is much different. We're dealing with solid, historical fact here, guys. I don't want to mess it up.
We begin the story when we awake in the middle of the night... apparently we sleep in a chair, but that's cool, who am I to judge? I've clung to less comfortable things in a drunken stupor, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Moving on, what I also notice is that Ness has what has to be the most depressing room in the history of housing.
Freaking look at it. It's not small, sure, but small rooms aren't always depressing as long as you've decorated them properly. This room is huge, cavernous, and even a little intimidating in size. What does Ness have? He has a bed, one pillow, one sheet. He has a white chair, sitting slightly off to the side of the only source of light in the room, which is a small lamp. there's a dresser in the corner of the room, which is so small that it can either hold clothing, or bed linens, likely not both.
This is a room you put a child in to when you want to forget about them, or when they're in a mental health facility. Five bucks says everything in the room is bolted to the floor, even the sheets on the bed. And I can see why, since you start the game with Ness knowing some sort of PSI power. I guess they locked the little freak away where he could do no harm.
As I move to the door, I am attacked by a lamp. I can't tell you the number of times this has happened to me... Really, I can't. But as we can see by the stunning NES graphics, it is a very angry lamp.
Or perhaps happy... Gassy? Hell if I know, but it looks like it has a zipper for a mouth. I don't even think I have a weapon right now, so this could be a very awkward battle... Or I could crit it twice in a row, which seems to be the case.
As soon as I defeat him, it is brought to my attention that the house is now shaking, as though being shocked by angry, musical electricity. I accept this as normal and I head out into the rest of the house to have a look around, then find another Angry Lamp in my little sister's room... or at least I think it's my sister. For all I know it could be my mother's room, you really can't tell with old NES games some times. I beat her lamp and move on to the next room, which has just as little decoration as the other sister's room, and also has the single most frightening monster I have encountered in an NES game to date.
I'm not sure this picture does it justice, really. It looks like some sort of fat little larvae, but without the redeeming cuteness. I'm pretty sure this is what the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man looked like as a baby, only he grew up to be cool.
I beat the freaky baby doll, and am glad to see the house is no longer angry with me for whatever I'm supposed to have done. I also see that it now appears back on my sister's dresser, which is odd because none of the lamps did that, that I recall.
Now that the house is happy again, I head down the stairs and see a telephone! For those of you that never played Earthbound
... shame on you! But just so you're aware, the telephone is the save point in this particular game. If I remember it right, you phone your father, who saves the game, tells you you're working too hard, tells you what you need to the next level, then hangs up, not in that order.And that's where I'm going to call it for today, because I think it's a good point to take a break. Don't worry if it doesn't seem that interesting, things get pretty wacky really soon.
More tomorrow!
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