Mother 3 is a role-playing video game created in 2006 by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory and released by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is the third and last game in the Mother series. The story follows Lucas, a boy with special psychic powers, and a group of characters as they try to stop a secret army from destroying the world.
Like earlier games in the series, Mother 3 lets players explore the game world from above and fight enemies in turn-based battles. The game took 12 years to make and was developed for four different consoles. It began in 1994 for the Super Famicom, then moved to the Nintendo 64 and its 64DD add-on, where it was called EarthBound 64. The game was stopped in 2000 but started again in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance. Mother 3 has a more serious and emotional tone than earlier games, covering topics like protecting the environment, money, consumer habits, sadness, and fighting unfair leaders. It still keeps the series’ unique style and humor.
Mother 3 was never officially released outside Japan because it came out near the end of the Game Boy Advance’s time, and Nintendo focused on the Nintendo DS. However, the game was well-received and became popular among fans, who praised its characters, artwork, music, and story. Some people thought it did not bring new ideas to the role-playing game genre.
In 2008, a group called Starmen.net created an unofficial English version of the game, which was downloaded more than 100,000 times in one week. Mother 3 was later released again on the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan in 2015 and on the Nintendo Classics service in Japan in 2024.
Gameplay
Mother 3 is a single-player role-playing video game that is similar to other games in the Mother series. Players control a group of characters who explore a two-dimensional fictional world, which is mostly shown from a top-down view. While moving through the game’s main world map, players can talk to non-player characters, collect items, or face enemies. Winning battles gives the party experience points, which are needed to level up. When a character levels up, their abilities such as maximum health points (HP), power points (PP), attack strength, and defense are permanently improved. Players can equip weapons, armor, or accessories to boost specific traits. Characters’ HP and PP can be restored, and status problems can be healed by visiting hot springs, which are common in the game world. Players can save their progress by speaking to frogs. Later in the game, players earn a currency called Dragon Power (DP) by winning battles. DP can be stored or taken from frogs.
Mother 3 uses the same turn-based battle system as EarthBound. When players encounter an enemy on the main world map, the game switches to a battle screen. Battles are shown from a first-person perspective, with enemies appearing against a distorted, animated background. Players can assign each character in their party to perform actions, such as attacking enemies or using items to restore HP or PP. Some characters can use psychic-based abilities called PSI, which include powerful attacks and healing skills but require PP to use. Like EarthBound, battles use a "rolling health" system: if a character is hurt, their HP decreases gradually, like an odometer, instead of dropping immediately. This allows a severely injured character to still act, such as attacking or healing themselves, if the player acts quickly. If a character’s HP reaches zero, they fall unconscious and cannot act until revived by another character. Players lose a battle if all characters are unconscious. After losing, players can restart the game from the nearest save point but with half their DP remaining.
Combat in Mother 3 includes a unique musical combo system not found in earlier Mother games. When a player’s character attacks an enemy with a weapon, they can press a button repeatedly in time with the background music’s rhythm to attack multiple times. Each enemy has a musical theme with a different beat, and players can attack up to sixteen times in a row if they match the rhythm. If the beat is unclear, players can put the enemy to sleep to isolate the music’s rhythm.
Plot
Mother 3 takes place in the fictional Nowhere Islands, a long time after the events of EarthBound. The story begins with twins Lucas and Claus and their mother, Hinawa, who are preparing to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa’s father, Alec, who lives in the northern part of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military group called the Pigmask Army. The Pigmask Army bombs the nearby forest, starting a fire. Hinawa’s husband, Flint, learns about the fire and tries to save his family. He finds Lucas and Claus but discovers that Hinawa was killed while protecting them from a dangerous creature called Drago, which is usually peaceful but has become hostile. Later, Claus leaves the village to seek revenge on Drago. Flint tries to follow Claus, finds and defeats the cyborg-like Drago, but cannot locate Claus.
In response to the Pigmask Army’s attack, a young thief named Duster is sent by his father and teacher, Wess, to retrieve a mysterious object called the Egg of Light from the abandoned Osohe Castle. While there, Duster meets Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are trapped and disappear. At the same time, a man named Yokuba, who works with the Pigmask Army, introduces money and sells television-like devices called Happy Boxes to the people of the village. He forces a monkey named Salsa to help him, but Salsa escapes with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess.
Three years later, the Pigmask Army has taken control of Tazmily Village, using modern technology like railways and Happy Boxes. Lucas hears rumors that Duster, who has been missing since leaving Osohe Castle, is now a bassist at a nearby club called Club Titiboo. Lucas travels to the club with his dog, Boney, and learns psychic powers from a kind, magical creature named Ionia, who is part of a group called the Magypsies. At the club, Lucas finds Kumatora working as a waitress and meets Duster, who has lost his memory. Together, they try to recover the Egg of Light and help Duster remember his past. However, during their attempt to board a Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man pushes them off, separating the group.
Lucas and Boney land in a haystack near Tazmily and learn from the Magypsies that a giant, sleeping creature called the Dark Dragon lies beneath the Islands. The Magypsies guard seven Needles placed in the dragon to control its power. Whoever pulls the most Needles can use the dragon’s power to reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas reunites with Duster and Kumatora, and they race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man. They manage to pull three Needles, while the Masked Man pulls three as well.
The final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmask Army. Lucas and his friends travel there and meet a man named Leder, who explains that the people of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global disaster. They fled to the Nowhere Islands because the Dark Dragon’s power protected them. To prevent another disaster, the survivors locked their memories inside the Egg of Light. Leder was chosen to reveal the truth if needed. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmask Army is Porky Minch (called Pokey Minch in Mother 2), who traveled through time to the Nowhere Islands after events in Mother 2. Porky built an empire there, kidnapping people from other time periods, including Dr. Andonuts from Mother 2, and changed local animals into strange new forms, such as the Drago that killed Hinawa.
Lucas and his friends travel to confront Porky and pull the last Needle. Along the way, they learn that Yokuba, a Magypsy, betrayed them and joined the Pigmask Army. The group finally faces Porky in the 100th floor of New Pork City’s Empire Porky Building. Porky taunts them and sends them underground, where they battle him. Porky seals himself inside a device called the "Absolutely Safe Capsule," created by Dr. Andonuts. Unbeknownst to Porky, the capsule also protects the outside world by trapping him forever.
Lucas reaches the final Needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be Claus, who was brainwashed. During the battle, Hinawa’s spirit appears and pleads with the boys not to fight. This causes Claus to remove his mask and end his life by attacking Lucas with lightning. Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dark Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands.
In an ending set in darkness, the characters reveal they have survived and say goodbye to the player. After the credits, the Mother 3 logo is shown as a wooden carving again.
Development
The development of Mother 3 started in 1994 for the Super Famicom, with Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata as the producers. Most of the team members had worked on the previous Mother game, EarthBound. Inspired by Super Mario 64, the team moved from the Super Famicom to the Nintendo 64, believing they could create a 3D world without technical limits. However, the game’s early design was too complex for the Nintendo 64’s memory and power. Midway through development, the team reduced the game’s size and changed the platform to the 64DD, a Nintendo 64 add-on device released only in Japan in 1999. Mother 3 was expected to launch with the 64DD, but development shifted back to the Nintendo 64 after the 64DD failed commercially.
Nintendo displayed a demo of Mother 3 at the 1999 Nintendo Space World trade show. The game was planned for release in North America as EarthBound 64 on a 256-megabit cartridge, like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. IGN praised the demo, comparing its story to the Japan-only Super Famicom RPG Live A Live. Famitsu readers ranked the game as one of their top ten most anticipated games in late 1999.
In late August 2000, Shigesato Itoi announced that Mother 3 had been canceled due to delays. Miyamoto and Iwata explained that resources were redirected to the GameCube, the next Nintendo console. Itoi said the game would have needed two more years to finish, as it was 30% complete at cancellation. Iwata later said the focus on 3D graphics made the project too complicated. Miyamoto added that the Mother series was not abandoned and that he still wanted to complete the game.
In 2003, Nintendo announced in a Japanese commercial for the Mother 1+2 compilation game that development of Mother 3 had restarted for the Game Boy Advance. Itoi initially thought restarting the project was impossible but changed his mind after encouragement from fans. Brownie Brown, a Nintendo subsidiary, developed the game with input from Itoi. While the graphics changed from 3D to 2D, the story remained the same. By July 2004, the game was about 60% complete and released in Japan on April 20, 2006.
Itoi thought of Mother 3’s concept near the end of Mother 2’s development—a "detective story where the city was the main character." He imagined a small-time, womanizing private investigator solving a murder case, with the story unfolding through a young female clerk at a flower shop who slowly recalls important details. The idea of a "single place changing over time" was central to the game. Unlike other RPGs, which Itoi saw as "road movies" with little reason to return, he wanted players to see the town’s gossip grow dynamically. This change caused the team to question if fans would recognize the game as part of the series. Itoi planned 12 chapters with different mechanics and rotating characters but reduced the number to seven or nine as development continued. The "uncomfortable beauty" of chimera—creatures fused together—was central to the game and inspired the metallic and wooden Mother 3 logo. Itoi took a more active role as a team member and scriptwriter than in previous projects. He aimed to create a game he wanted to play while also setting challenges for players.
Itoi chose the pixelated style of Mother 2 for Mother 3 on the Game Boy Advance because he was not interested in current computer graphics trends. The series used hiragana instead of kanji to keep the games accessible to children. Itoi described the game world as governed by a "might equals right… macho" power struggle. The antagonist, Porky, was designed as a "symbol of humankind," reflecting Itoi’s view of evil as a range of choices from harmless pranks to serious crimes. Itoi compared characters’ psychic powers to menstruation and included themes about human physiology. He believed physical struggle helped growth and added characters like the Magypsies and Duster (who has a bad leg) to show the value of diverse friendships.
Itoi also explored the balance between serious and lighthearted elements in games, adding a serious death scene in the first chapter. The Nintendo 64 version of the final battle was darker and more upsetting, though the final version changed little in concept. Itoi said the tone shift reflected his personal growth and the new team’s composition. He later reflected on the ending’s message about helping even bad people, which he saw as a lesson about appreciating life on Earth despite its inevitable end. Much of the script was written after hours at a local hotel.
Shogo Sakai, a composer at HAL Laboratory who worked on Kirby Air Ride and Super Smash Bros. Melee, created Mother 3’s soundtrack. Itoi chose Sakai because of his deep understanding of the game’s story and the EarthBound series, as EarthBound composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka were unavailable. Sakai aimed to make the music similar to previous Mother games. The Mother 3 soundtrack was released on compact disc on November 2, 2006. Kyle Miller of RPGFan noted the game kept the playful style of earlier soundtracks despite the new composer, with the second half of the album—featuring rearranged classics—being the strongest.
"Love Theme," the main theme of Mother 3, was composed late in development. Earlier, Itoi planned to use the "Pigmask Army" theme as the main song. However, during an important scene, Sakai was asked to create a more impactful song, which became the main theme instead. Itoi said Sakai composed "Love Theme" so quickly that it felt like he had been waiting for the chance to create it. He requested the theme be playable on a piano with one finger, inspired by the simplicity of the "Eight Melodies" theme from Mother, which was popular in schools. The "OK desu ka?" song played after naming the character was recorded by Hirokazu Tanaka over a decade before Mother 3’s release, without Itoi’s knowledge.
Release
Mother 3 was released in Japan on April 20, 2006, and became a very popular game. Before its release, it was listed among the top five most wanted games by Famitsu and led the Japanese preordered game charts. Before the game came out, the "Love Theme" from the game played as music on hold for people calling Japan Post. A special Deluxe Box Set was made, including a unique Game Boy Micro and a Franklin Badge pin. The game was advertised in Japan with a television commercial featuring actress Kō Shibasaki, who appeared close to tears while sharing her thoughts about the game. The game’s creator, Itoi, said her performance was not planned. Mother 3 was later released on the Japanese Virtual Console for the Wii U in December 2015. A Game Informer editor named Imran Khan claimed Nintendo planned to make an English version of the game but canceled it because of concerns about its themes, such as sadness, drug use, and animal cruelty. Reggie Fils-Aimé, a former leader at Nintendo of America, later said the lack of an English version was because it was not financially practical to release it for a game coming out near the end of a handheld system’s life. He also said he discussed with Iwata the possibility of releasing it on the North American Wii U eShop before Iwata’s death. The game was re-released in Japan through the Nintendo Classics service on February 21, 2024.
Mother 3 was not officially released outside Japan. On October 17, 2008, Starmen.net released a fan translation patch that changes the text in the game’s digital copy to English. Reid Young, co-founder of Starmen.net, said the team created the translation after learning Nintendo would not make an English version. The project involved about 12 people, including Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin, a professional Japanese-to-English translator. It took two years and thousands of hours to complete, with an estimated cost of $30,000 if done by a freelancer.
The project included translating, writing, and revising about 1,000 pages of the game’s script, along with changes to the game’s code to support translated text. Some changes included adjusting place names and puns, and renaming certain characters and locations. For example, the character "Yokuba," based on the Japanese word for "greed," was renamed "Fassad," inspired by the Arabic word for "corruption" and the French word for "façade." The code changes required advanced technical work to support features like different font sizes.
The team said top leaders at Nintendo of America were aware of their project but did not stop them. The team planned to stop the project if Nintendo announced plans for an official English version or asked them to stop. They noted the legality of the translation was unclear because it required using an emulator or a flash cartridge. The patch was downloaded more than 100,000 times in its first week. Alongside the translation, the team released the Mother 3 Handbook, an English guide for the game that had been in development since June 2008. The guide was described as high-quality, similar to professional strategy guides. The Verge noted the translation showed the dedication of the game’s fan base, and Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell called it "one of the best-known fan translations ever made," with translations into other languages continuing.
Reception
Mother 3 received a lot of praise from critics. It sold about 200,000 copies in its first week in Japan, even though it was not available in English. Critics still played the game and gave it mostly positive reviews. It was one of Japan's top 20 best-selling games for the first half of 2006. Japanese reviewer Weekly Famitsu gave it a "Platinum Hall of Fame" score of 35 out of 40. By the end of the year, it had sold over 368,000 copies, ranking as the 36th best-selling game in Japan that year. Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell called it the "perfect" Game Boy Advance role-playing game. Reviewers praised its story and graphics, even though the game was only available in Japanese. They also noted that the game's mechanics were similar to those of 1990s role-playing games. Critics complimented the music as well.
Famitsu's reviewers highlighted the game's detailed storytelling, accessible design, and unique art style. They found the timed battles to be both helpful and challenging. Eurogamer's Simon Parkin discussed the game's 12-year development, its status as one of Japan's most beloved series, and the strong fan community that supported it. He praised the quality of fan translations and described the game's creator, Itoi, as a "storyteller" who used the Japanese role-playing game format to share his story. Parkin noted that the game's script evolved from a simple story into a deep and emotionally impactful experience. He compared its chapter structure to that of Dragon Quest IV. He also mentioned how the game's themes, such as the contrast between nature and technology, were explored in a meaningful way.
NGC Magazine's Mark Green said the game felt similar to Mother 2.5 in its look and feel, though he considered it somewhat outdated. Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell noted that Mother 3 was more serious in tone than earlier games in the series.
Eurogamer's Parkin described the game's graphics as "childlike" and "unusually Western," similar to those of EarthBound. He noted that the background art was lively and full of character, while the cutscenes had unique animations that were rare for 16-bit role-playing games. RPGamer's Jordan Jackson said the visuals matched the series' style and fit the game's mood. Mike Moehnke of the same site criticized the inventory limits carried over from the previous game. NGC Magazine's Mark Green called the game mechanics "depressingly basic" compared to more advanced role-playing games. Parkin added that the game's role-playing elements were less interesting, though he praised its attention to detail and the rhythm-based battle system. Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis and GameSpot's Greg Kasavin both praised the rhythm-based battle system, comparing it to that of the Mario & Luigi series.
Jackson said the music was as catchy as in previous games, even though most of it was new. Moehnke agreed, calling it "stunning" and noting influences from composers like Wagner and Chuck Berry. Jackson noted that the game was slightly easier and shorter than other games in the series, taking about 30 hours to complete. Both RPGamer reviewers mentioned that the game had few penalties for dying. Jackson said the game was humorous but also had serious moments. Eisenbeis of Kotaku highlighted the theme of "the importance of mothers" as a central focus, which he preferred to the game's mid-game humor and final twist. Parkin wrote that the game had many memorable moments, including a character who criticizes the player for not laughing at puns, frogs with silly costumes that save the game, a battle with a "reconstructed mecha caribou," a bad haiku, and the "campfire scene." He noted that the game's simplicity was elegant rather than simplistic.
Legacy
Many critics said that Mother 3 was one of the best role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance. GamePro’s Jeremy Signor included it in his list of "best unreleased Japanese role-playing games" because of its detailed story and careful design. Tim Rogers said that Mother 3 was "the closest games have yet come to literature."
Nintendo faced criticism for not releasing Mother 3 internationally. IGN described the Mother series as "neglected," noting that EarthBound was the only game in the series released outside Japan for many years until 2015. Mother was finally made available globally as EarthBound Beginnings on the Nintendo Virtual Console, 26 years after its original release on the Famicom in 1989. Bob Mackey of 1UP.com wrote that no other game in history created such strong demand for a translation. Chris Plante of UGO Networks said the lack of an official English version of Mother 3 was one of 2008’s "worst heartbreaks." Frank Caron of Ars Technica praised the fan translation as a "massive success" and questioned why Nintendo did not release the game in the West.
Although Mother 3 was widely praised, the game’s creator, Shigesato Itoi, has said he has no plans to make a fourth game in the series.
The Super Smash Bros. series includes Lucas as a playable character. Other characters from the Mother series appear as collectibles, items, or stage hazards.
At Nintendo’s E3 2014 digital event, the company humorously referenced the lack of an English version of Mother 3. A stop-motion animation created by Robot Chicken showed a fan asking Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé for Mother 3. Fils-Aimé responded by eating a Fire Flower from the Super Mario series and throwing a fireball at the fan.