Itoi, Iwata, and Old MOTHER 3

Oh maaaan! If Itoi made a detective game, I think I could end my gaming career with it. No other game would be able to surpass it for me.

Wow. You know, I had an inkling that Mother 3’s world was smaller for that reason, but i never pieced it together.

Itoi is a really genuine guy. I gotta hand it to him.

all my friends mom plays is detective games, it would be awesome if Itoi made one.

That really does sound like a game I’d like to play, and not just because of Itoi.

Anyway, I’m glad he went down that sort of route for Mother 3, as I very much enjoyed the more intimate feel of the environment compared to the globe-trotting of the previous entries.

Detective RPG where you stayed in one town for a long time? Shenmue. The fanbase between Shenmue and Mother have a ton in common too.

Although I’ve only played like 30 minutes of it, his description reminded me a lot of what Radiata Stories was supposed to do. Never got far enough to actually see that stuff in action, though.

sounds like he really likes harvest moon

Now I can see how would MOTHER 3 had worked on the N64 DD! It sure was an ambitious project.

No mention of Majora’s Mask? Come on. That’s totally what Itoi meant. At least, the sidequest portion of Majora’s Mask where you use the Bomber’s Notebook to solve all these cases to make people happy, and the more you go into it the more detail you notice about the NPCs and the more you relate to how realistic they are.
I can’t imagine a closer game to Itoi’s original vision than this.

That’s a pretty good point Mr. Hey. I’m not sure whether Itoi is much of a fan of Zelda though. I’ve never heard him mention it.

The exploration is one of the things I missed a lot for portions of Mother 3

in that last pic of Itoi…it looks like he just did a silent but deadly…in fact that gives me an idea..

^^^ oh nos!! your not going to do what i think your going to… are you?

Tazmily and the surrounding areas is only a bit bigger than your standard RPG town. I think that’s why it probably felt more restrictive than an open game where you can travel wherever you want.

A real town is a lot, lot bigger, and if Tazmily was similar to that I think a lot less people would complain about feeling restricted. That could be a problem too though, if it was too big some players would never bother exploring everything, or might never feel attached to the setting because it’s so big. Maybe they struggled with that, as well as making the setting of the town fit in with the story, which requires travel.

Lots of things like this make Mother 3 feel unbalanced and unpolished, like a rough gem. I don’t know if it would be better if it was perfect and completely realized.

Hopefully the fact that they’re willing to talk about such a neglected game will mean that we’ll see a Mother/Earthbound collection for the DSi with some extra features and maybe new graphics (wouldn’t matter to me if the graphics were left unchanged).

Hahahaha…:

I met Itoi today! It was a total chance encounter. (I hung around his office for the past three weeks) It surprises me he’s not like most other famousy people who have to go everywhere with a gaggle of bodyguards.

Anyway, I can speak a little “conversational Japanese” as they call it, so I hit him up! Maybe I could convince him to export the famed “MOther” series to America for DS or even Nintendo’s Wii?

He told me to never come near him again.

Cool to hear this. Pretty creative gameplay , indeed!

A detective game like that sounds pretty interesting. XD

Ingrowing toenail: I’m suprised no fans are trying to make a 3D version of Mother 3. Maybe 3D-ized it would seem more polished.

This gives me new hope for Mother 4.

Mother 3 began as a detective game that centered on some random idea Itoi had one day and wound up evolving into Mother 3. That’s one huge step. Who’s to sat Itoi won’t have yet another brilliant notion and wind up creating Mother 4?

I’m still a cynic that doesn’t believe it’ll happen, but this puts it into the realm of conceivability for me.

Hey: I also thought of Majora’s Mask when I read that bit. The way Clock Town changed and advanced over the course of the game, and in particular the way all the mobs went about their lives according to the game’s timer and not triggered by events, was very interesting.

In fact, it was the only thing I liked about Majora’s Mask. 😉

We’re on Kotaku 😀 Smile
http://kotaku.com/5222336/where-did-the-idea-for-mother-3-come-from

@Darien
oh come on, you liked rolling over people as a goron. admit it.

Okay, yeah. And that mask that makes you explode was pretty fun, too.

I’m always revisiting towns in games to see if they’ve changed ^^;
They do in some of the good games.

The whole “centred around one town” thing reminded me of Persona 3….maybe because I just beat it.
(It was really good. Go play it XD)
And yeah, it is a lot like Majora’s mask.

I was really happy that things changed all the time while I was playing Mother 3. I ran around for hours trying to track down all the NPCs XD

Non-linear story-telling? My word! It’s like he’s discovered western style RPGs.

Keep in mind that this all took place in like 1992/1993, so while some of his ideas are old/cliche by now, back then they would’ve been pretty fresh.

Itoi + Famicon Detective Club + Mother = best game ever!

Holy shit, that detective game sounds ridiculous(especially if it had lots of different cases/towns/endings/etc)…especially if Itoi was at the helm and it had the Mother 3 art style too.

Heck, anything Itoi makes is great