Mother 3 is my favourite game of all time and is often cited in discussions on the topic of ‘Are video games art?’ for its literary quality. Ever since I played the game about 10 years ago it’s been constantly stuck in the back of my mind, for me it raised the bar of what is possible with story in video games on both an emotional and intellectual level.

So I’ve decided to finally deconstruct those thoughts in digital ink in the hopes that I can lay those thoughts to rest, and perhaps add something to the conversion about this game.

I’ve dissected the game into six core stories, each combining to what I believe it is ultimately trying to say. Or at least what my interpretation is, and that’s the great thing about Mother 3. That so many people find their own meanings from the game, like any great piece of art. We keep coming back to the world of Mother 3 not because it was technologically impressive or popular, but because it’s interesting and thought-provoking. It’s the discussion about this game that keeps it alive even despite it never being released in English.

Note: There will be major spoilers so turn away if you haven’t already beaten the game.

The story of Lucas

Our main protagonist is a child-character of Lucas. Not long after beginning the game his mother is killed in the midst of a forest fire and his twin brother Claus also goes missing. Two years later he grows into a young teenager and goes onto an adventure to find answers and ultimately defeat the fascist Pigmask army that set his mother’s death into motion in the first place.

The game is set into eight chapters from the forth chapter onwards Lucas falls to silent protagonist syndrome. However in those first three chapters you learn to understand his quiet personality and the heartbreak he feels from the sudden death of his mother. He has almost no-one to turn towards for guidance as his father becomes obsessed with finding his lost brother.

If you had to boil down his inner conflict, I would turn to chapter 6. This is a dream sequence where Lucas sees the ghost of mother in a field of sunflowers. The field eventually ends and his mother stands among the clouds beyond. Lucas tries to jump towards her but falls straight through. Lucas just wanted the love of his family and had that taken away from him, and nothing could change that.

The tragedy of Lucas’ story isn’t that death of everyone you love is inevitable, but rather that he had to learn that fact at a young age, and was forced to grow up too quickly. But it’s despite that pain that makes his accomplishments so impressive. He keeps that grief with him but he doesn’t let that stop him from fighting for what’s right, like any great hero.

That’s the thing that separates him from other video game protagonists. As many characters in gaming that you can think of that had to conquer physical hurdles, can you name many especially within Nintendo’s branding that had to overcome emotional conflict? That’s Mother 3 for you.

The story of Claus

While Lucas story is told in the fore-front, Claus’ story is mostly told off-screen. Claus is almost killed at the end of chapter 1 after trying to avenge against the ‘Drago’ animal that killed his mother. From there the Pigmasks found him and turned him onto machine-based life support and erased his memory of his previous life. They turn him into their slave and he becomes ‘The Masked Man’. His only purpose becomes to serve their leader and pull the seven needles on the island that will bring about the end of the world.

By the end it’s a war between two brothers to pull the final needle. In the last moment Claus remembers his humanity and decides to commit suicide by means of shooting lightning into Lucas’ franklin badge. This way Lucas would be the final one to pull the needle.

It’s noteworthy how similar the twin brothers even down the name Claus being an anagram of Lucas. They have some different personality traits: Lucas being shy and Claus being over-confident. But they both had to endure the same tragedy and that’s what ultimately bonds them together.

The difference is that while Lucas had the choice to overcome his issues and grow up, Claus didn’t and was forced to work on the side of darkness. It raises the question of in what degree do we have the choice in who we become? In the end Claus uses his only and final decision for the side of good. His story implies to me that no matter how much of a product of our own lives that we become, that there may always be a way to find the light. Even if you lose yourself along the way.

The story of Flint

Flint is somewhat similar to that of Lucas in that they are both left to pick up the pieces of the family after tragedy. Unlike Lucas however he’s in the position of fatherhood.

Flint is the first character we play as for a full chapter, and we get to see through his eyes what it was like to lose both his wife and his son. He’s expected to be a role model but despite this he makes mistakes and falls victim to his own emotions. He doesn’t console Lucas on how to deal with these emotions because… well he doesn’t have the answers himself. He keeps going to the woods to search for Claus, hoping for years that one day he might find him.

Much like Claus most of Flint’s story post-chapter 1 is told off-screen. In chapter 8 he shows up again in the final area to reveal that he knows about Claus being the masked man. He finally found his lost son, but he isn’t himself anymore. Flint no doubt must feel some guilt for what happened to him, if only he could had stopped him from running away in the first place.

By the end Claus dies and Flint finally consoles Lucas for the first time. He tells him to believe in himself and to be optimistic of the future. Flint has finally overcome his depression and has found what he should had been doing all of this time. Instead of focusing on what is lost he helps the son that he still has and loves.

The story of Duster, Kumatora and Wess

From the start these three characters are seen as outcasts from Tazmily Village, a label becomes more pronounced the further the game goes along.

Each of these characters are disadvantaged in some way but each of them doesn’t seem to care that much. Kumatora goes through the game being her tom-boyish self while ignoring what the villagers say about her, Duster is crippled but doesn’t let that stop him being a thief, and Wess is labeled as crazy by the villagers but he still refuses to trust the Pigmasks. These characters stick to what they believe in and in the end every suspicion they had turns out to be correct.

The tertiary cast in gaming is often filled with exchangeable extras, like in Earthbound where the party is filled with children with little characterization. But in Mother 3 all of the minor characters in Mother 3 are different. Even all of the NPC’s in Tazmily have their unique sprites and names, even some of the Pigmasks have their own personalities. It’s what gives the game it’s unique identity and helps the digital world feel more alive and lived-in.

By the end of the game it’s revealed that all three of these characters were pre-destined to save The Nowhere Islands from any harm that may befall it. You could read that as saying that different people are necessary for society but I think that’s oversimplifying. Rather I think that by presenting the player these strange but likable characters that the game supports the idea that you should learn to understand different types of people even if you can’t exactly relate to them. Different people means different viewpoints that are able to see through the lies of others.

The story of Porky

After the events of Earthbound Porky was sent through time and space for an unknown amount of time. He eventually ‘landed’ on The Nowhere islands. From there he created the Pigmask army and with the assistance of the traitorous Locria or ‘Fassad’ they schemed to pull out the needles using a brainwashed Claus to destroy the entire world and leave it in darkness.

Porky wants to see the end of the world because he has become bored with the universe after living for millennia, but also because he wants to get rid of anyone who doesn’t like him. He’s a man-child who sees the islands as his own personal ‘play box’, turning the animals and inhabitants of the islands into mechanized-chimera’s was only done to make things ‘cooler’.

“Who knows, I might be 1000 years old or even 10,000 years old. But despite that I’m still the same kid at heart” -Porky

You could argue that Porky’s desire to live forever relates to all of our inner desires for the exact same thing. After all, after living for a thousand years wouldn’t you start to get bored? But that’s what the difference is between him and Lucas. Porky doesn’t value any life other than his own while Lucas does because he seen the lives of his loved ones taken away from him. Lucas has lived a natural life while Porky has prolonged his life with technology and has meddled with the affairs of people and nature in order to project his views onto everyone else.

After Porky loses a fight with Lucas he is placed in the ‘Absolutely safe capsule’. A device that will ensure his survival even beyond the end of the world. One does wonder if this is the ultimate punishment for this character or his happy ending. He will be alone forever, but in a way that’s what he always wanted. He’ll soon find out though that isolation breeds even more sadness then the trials of life can.

The story of The Nowhere Islands

The story behind the world of Mother is given by the character ‘Leder’ towards the end of the game. The story goes like this:

Before the beginning of Mother 3 the world (which presumably included Eagleland from Earthbound) was prosperous and largely populated. However for unknown reasons the world was destroyed by human activity.

Much like the story of ‘Noah’s Ark’, a White Ship came and took a group of people to the only inhabitable land left: The Nowhere Islands. Humanity has been given one last chance for survival. The people decided to remove their memories of the previous world in fear of creating another ‘end of the world’. They created a scenario where they believed that had always lived together in the idealistic Tazmily Village. As a failsafe they placed their memories inside a device known as ‘The Hummingbird Egg’ and left the character Leder along with his memories to watch over the village.

The reason why the island were the only inhabitable space left on the planet was because long ago it was protected by a ‘dark dragon’. The previous inhabitants eventually decided to lock the dragon beneath the island using seven needles with the assistance of a magical race known as ‘the magypsies’. Interestingly enough there’s a church in Tazmily Village that displays a symbol of the dark dragon along with an unmentioned light dragon in the shape of a yin-yang. Could this be a reference to the white ship, or Lucas? Who knows.

“The dragon is the power of the very earth itself, you see.” -Leder

The people are happy for a while. Tazmily village is a utopia with no monetary system and the people live along-side nature. However that soon ends after the Pigmasks invade. They begin by setting the forest on fire and create half-animal half-machine hybrids known as ‘Chimeras’. They begin to subtly introduce the idea of money into the village as well as electronic entertainment known as ‘Happy Boxes’. The village transforms from a wholesome community into a materialistic suburbia.

The game presents this progress as mostly a bad thing, taking away from the comradery of Tazmily Vilage and reducing the citizens into working-class robots. But more importantly then that the game presents this progress as inevitable. After all, the people of Tazmily were never forced into change. The village was also built on a lie in the first place, just in the same way that consumerism equating to happiness is a lie.

In the end Lucas pulls the final needle that will release the dark dragon, and the world is presumably destroyed. However the characters are still alive in some capacity, whether that meaning in reality or in some afterlife is unclear.

“You have you pass your heart onto the dragon Lucas” -Leder

The first time that I saw this ending I was shocked. Did I do something wrong? Why would the dark dragon destroy everything after being summoned by someone like Lucas? This element of the story more than anything is what has stayed in my mind for so long. It’s one of those mystery’s like the box in pulp fiction that will seemingly never be truly answered.

Many who have analysed the ending being their own interpretations of the vague words spoken by the characters about their current situation but not many talk about the forth-wall breaking element where Lucas acknowledges the player by name. But who is the player in this scenario? And how do they know about us?

Let’s talk about that ending

Here’s my interpretation: As the game is literally speaking to the player assuring them that the characters that they’ve no doubt become attached to are okay, without stating where they psychically are; it’s safe to assume that the ambiguity of the ending is supposed to mean whatever the player wants it to mean. But more importantly then that, the imposed idea of all of those storylines talked about previously in this article do not matter anymore. All of the characters do not have external problems anymore and only exist in text speaking to the player alongside a black screen. In other words: the world of Mother 3 now only exists as an idea. The digital world of The Nowhere Islands was destroyed and now in it’s place those characters primarily exist within the player’s own imagination.

The final track of the game is entitled ‘Memory of Life’. It’s a somber piano piece that plays alongside the title screen pictured above. It’s interesting to note that the title is made of wood where on the start-up screen the title is partly made of steel much like the Chimera beasts that inhabited the world.

The most literal interpretation from the title of that song would be the that it’s referring to end of life within the world of Mother. But what I interpret from those words refers back to the point I made earlier. Much like how the characters in the game have moved from a story into the more nebulous form of our imagination, the song could mean to signify that life might transcend onto a higher plain of existence. After all a ‘memory’ of something implies that there is some form of consciousness to be able to remember. The intrinsic entanglement of humanity and technology as shown by the title screen has reached its inevitable conclusion in the form of death. But as Lucas had to learn to accept that, so do we. Besides, perhaps in one form or another life will begin anew.

All of that from a small GBA game.