Fuzzy pickles! If you’ve read the title, you might know where it’s from. Hell, you’ll probably know what I’m going to talk about before I talk about it. If you know me well enough, that is. I’ll widen the range; if you’ve seen my profile last week on Backloggery, you’d know. Goddamnit, I’m rambling. Thanks for the “Fuzzy Pickles!” name recommendation, Dystorce! You really saved me some trouble! Some of you may be wondering why I’m not talking about Final Fantasy: Dissidia! Well, that’s because… there just isn’t enough to talk about right now. I’ll talk more about it when it’s released and I get my hands on it. If I get my hands on it. Yeah. That’s right. Anyways, seriously, if you didn’t guess yet, I’m going to be blogging about…

Well, this blog post specifically is going to talk about the first entry of the series, Mother 1, but I’ll eventually get through to the rest of the series! I GOT THIS UNDER CONTROL! Okay, three, two, one, let’s go!

If you’re wondering if I’ve beaten this rare, extremely, overly valuable gem of the NES era, I’ll tell you the truth. Yes I have. If you’re wondering how I got my hands on this rare, extremely, overly valuable gem of the NES era, I won’t tell you. Anyways, let’s start on the review.

Mother 1

Mother 1 is an NES JRPG designed by Shigesato Itoi. It revolves around a boy named Ninten, and how he and his friends develop as they travel through the thick and thin, solving mysteries and saving the world. It’s an average JRPG with a very steep difficulty level. It’s got simple visuals that do the job, and music that was past its time.

Graphics – ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8/10)

There is almost nothing that will catch your eye in this game. The enemy designs are pretty nice, and the towns are nice and atmospheric, but that’s about it. Of course, I would have given it a 5/10 if that was all. The towns are exceptionally well done, and most, if not every town gives off a different vibe. The enemy sprites are creative and interesting; you might just get into random battles just to see what the sprites look like. Well, maybe not, but c’mon… Who DOESN’T love the Sky Yddet.

However, the visuals aren’t perfect, or beautiful, or even pretty in some areas. The dungeons are bland-looking and boring. The sprites are fairly ugly, but they do the job. Although, I suppose it fits the simple, quirky style a shitton better, so I really shouldn’t complain about that. At the end of the day, the visuals are bland, and there’s really nothing special about it. Variety keeps the graphics at an 8/10;

Sound – ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (9/10)

The music is very nice, but beyond that, there’s nothing. Really, there’s absolutely nothing. Well, there are basic sound effects in battle, and collision sound effects when you bump into the wall, but beyond that, there is barely anything at all. However, I give this particular segment of my review a 9. Why? Because the soundtrack is simply amazing, atmospheric, and just.. nice to listen to. Words cannot describe my love for this soundtrack. One of my favorite soundtracks in an NES game; hell, I still prefer listening to this over some modern soundtracks. The music doesn’t really try to be “epic” or anything like that. It just tries to be cheerful and fun, and succeeds at doing so.

Gameplay – ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

I guess I would almost say where this game really shines, but this game is just too unbalanced. I’ll just get the good stuff about the gameplay out of the way first. So I can get down to the nitty gritty of the game. If you know what I mean.

First off, on the world map, you can walk diagonally. Mother 1 gets rid of that funky tile system you see in most RPGs on the NES. You can “run”, which basically speeds up everything on the world map, including NPCs. The battles are simple and interesting. The battles are presented in a Dragon Quest-esque first person view style, which is a good thing. Of course, you won’t be able to see your own characters attacking (for some reason, people complain to me about this a hellalot…). By close to the end of the game, you’ll have 3 characters in your party. Ninten is the first party member, and he’s the main character. He’s a powerful physical attacker (baseball bat and yoyo user), and he’s a support magic specialist. Loid, or Lloyd, the second party member you get, uses guns, bombs, and missiles. He’s a weak character with absolutely no magic powers. However, he’s balanced out by his ability to use a wide range of disposable weapons, such as bottle rockets and other explosives. Ana is the weakest physical attacker in the game. Her weapon is the frying pan. She, however, is the most powerful character, in my opinion, in the game. Why? Because of her offensive magic. She can really deal the pain to enemies; especially once you find out the enemy’s weakness. Late in the game, she gets an attack that insta-kills every enemy you find in battle. Of course, it doesn’t work on bosses, and for the most part, people don’t get this skill. It requires about 2 times the grind the game already needs (we’ll get into this later). Finally, there is a character called Teddy. We don’t know much about Teddy, except for the fact that he’s the strongest physical attacker and that he uses katanas and swords to attack. You only get him in your party for a short period if time, which I won’t explain until the story section of this review. The NPCs are fun to talk to, and this game’s script is fun and amusing. Usually, the NPCs blatantly insult you.

The menu system is fairly Dragon Quest-esque too. You have three ways to interact with the world; you can talk to it, check it, or use PSI powers on it. (If you’re wondering what PSI is, PSI is magic.) It’s a lot simpler than Dragon Quest’s menus (no “door”, “chest”, “specific stuff” buttons, which keeps it nice and to keep track of. The attacks in battle promotes variety. Using the same strategy over and over again won’t work (Until you get PK Fire Ω, but you will most likely never get that skill in the game, since like I said earlier, you’ll need to grind a shitton), so you’ll need to mix things up. Support PSI does wonders in this game; especially buffs and the shields.

But from there, it starts going downhill. ( If you’re wondering where the odometer is, it isn’t here. It was introduced in Mother 2, so I won’t point out anything wrong with that. After all, there’s nothing wrong with it.) The first thing you’ll notice is that there is barely any customization in the game. Each character has a specific moveset that isn’t affected by anything you do in the game. You level up, and there you go, there are your stats, and there are your abilities. If you’re looking for something like the weapons system in Final Fantasy 2, or the job system in Final Fantasy 1, you won’t find it here. In fact, you won’t be able to change the characters performance-wise in any way save weapons and accessories. This means that no matter how you play, your characters will be the same in every one of your runs. There’s one strongest weapon for each character, so once you get that, there’s no point in using any of your other weapons. The weapons aren’t difficult to get either. For the most part, you buy the weapons from the shops in the game. The sports shops. For some reason. That’s not really a flaw, though, since Ness Ninten uses baseball bats and yoyos as weapons. The biggest flaw of the game is the difficulty of the battles. Right in the beginning of the game, after Ninten leaves the house, he will be bombarded by a bunch of enemies that are pretty balanced. You will be able to kill them fairly easily. Then, the story asks you to go to the graveyard. As you walk towards the graveyard, the enemies become progressively harder. Fine. Finally, you reach the graveyard. The enemies… they kill you in one regular hit. That’s not all. They come in groups. Finally, you grind for about 1 hour, frequently visiting Ninten’s mom’s house for some of your favorite food and a bed. You make it past the graveyard! What comes next? Some more enemies that are ready and willing to kick you in the balls until they swell and you’re begging for mercy in the floor. Clutching your balls. If you have them. Trust me. You’ll be going back to the graveyard for summoar grindain gaems. This continues for the entire game. Including the last area. In the last area of the game, you’ll be running away from most, if not all of the battles. I guarantee it. Unless you ubergrinded. If you play the game, I’d expect you not to have ubergrinded. Because the battles near the end of the game are too fucking hard. I’m not exaggerating on the difficulty. Seriously. This is how hard the game is. Hell, if I recall correctly, they even give you a PSI power that makes you automatically escape from battles. Thankfully, the bosses are a little easier than the regular encounters; meaning you can use your brain instead of your “Run”. This difficulty hurts the game so much; it’s the reason why this game isn’t a very recommendable game to anyone but the most hardcore of old-school RPG players.

Story – ★★★★★★★★★☆ (9/10)

The Japanese slogan for Mother 1 was “No crying until the ending.”

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

You start off learning about a couple, their names being George and Maria. In the early 1900s, they had suddenly disappeared from their household. Two years later, George returned, only to begin on the study on a strange subject. Maria, however, never came back.

After learning about this in the opening sequence, you are thrown into the world as Ninten, a young boy with a blue shirt and a red baseball cap. Ninten looks around his house see if anything’s wrong, and stumbles upon a living doll in his sister’s room. He slays it, and finds a music box inside it. The music box plays a tune; a tune that changes Ninten’s life forever. Ninten, of course, doesn’t know this yet. He visits his basement, and finds a part of his grandfather’s diary. His grandfather’s diary contains some information on the research he was doing. It brings up a mystery; what are PSI powers, and what was Ninten’s grandfather doing?

After a fair bit of adventuring, Ninten meets a girl named Pippi. She’s a young girl, and she barely gets any screen time, but she’s an extremely important character in the storyline. Ninten rescues her from a graveyard, and she promises to repay Ninten someday.

Itoi sure knows how to develop his characters well throughout a game. Ninten journey’s through, and eventually sees a seashell. On this seashell, he reads what is written in his grandfather’s diary. This takes him into a journey in his own mind; Magicant. Magicant is a mysterious place, filled with clouds and strange people living in seashell houses. There’s a castle in the middle of it all. This castle houses a strange woman that calls herself Queen Mary. She asks you to find 8 melodies in order to save the world from destruction from mind-sucking aliens. You leave Magicant, and you find a boy named Lloyd, a young.. well… weak geek who hides in trash cans, and is bullied all the time. He asks you to bring him a bottle rocket. When you do, he jumps with glee, and joins your party, being curious about what he can find outside of the dull school life he lives in at the day. Ninten has found one of his first friends.

As Ninten and Lloyd move through the storyline, they eventually reach the town of Snowman. Snowman is a cold, wintery town. Here, they meet a girl named Ana. Ana, like Ninten, knows how to use PSI powers. She claims that Ninten appeared to her in a dream, and practically begs him to take her away on an adventure.

END SPOILERS! END SPOILERS!

I’m not going to write about the whole story, of course. This is just the beginning of Ninten’s adventure. I personally love the storyline of Mother 1, as it shows how people grow older, how people change, and how people mature. The storyline of Mother 1 focuses on friendship, and how friendship can help people through the thick and thin, when times get rough. How your friends will be there for you if you need help, and how you can be there to help your friends. Unfortunately, the characters can be a little too mature at times. Even so, the story is enough to move you to tears. Nearing the end of the game, all the characters make a certain resolution, where they come to understand how powerful friendship can be. There are unexpected revelations in the game, so expect many plot twists.

Overall – ★★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

First and foremost, let me make this clear. If you cannot stand grinding, this game is not for you. This game will FORCE you to grind through it. If you can live through the grind, Mother 1 proves to be a charming, fun, and unique experience that manages to pace itself well. If you can’t live through the extremely high encounter rates and the need to grind, you’ll really be missing out on one of the treasures of the NES. I give this game a 7/10 for being a great, unique, and interesting experience that is dragged down by the lack of balance and some fine-tuning. Would I recommend this? If you’re anything like me, yes. I would personally recommend this game; at least a try!

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Getting out of that review mode, I’d like to say that I might not be here for a week or so; on Backloggery or on the blog. Of course, I might be on both, depending on when I get the internet, by tomorrow! Don’t expect that happening, though. Anyways, I’ll just shut this down like I always do; happy gaming guys!  For those of you who wonder; I am Dr4G0nZ on Gamefaqs.