The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)

Note: While this isn't the original version of Twilight Princess, since the Wii version was the one released first and remains the only one I've played, this will serve as the "main" review of the game for this blog. Reviews for the GameCube version and the Wii U remaster are scheduled for the future.

Within the bowels of the The Legend of Zelda fandom lies a little theory known as the "Zelda Cycle," a belief pushed by those who cannot comprehend anyone not liking the newest Zelda game. The theory goes in how people will unreasonably lob hate against the latest Zelda title, comparing its mishaps to the impeccable heights of the previous entry despite that game suffering from the same treatment at release. No one quite knows why this cycle of people magically changing their minds  takes place -- it may have to do with overzealous keyboard warriors unable to discern they're reading different opinions from different people over time -- but regardless, it's a rather pervasive theory, right down to being referenced by Nintendo's top brass themselves in an Iwata Asks installment.

If my biting sarcasm wasn't telling enough, I think the Zelda Cycle is a load of bollocks. The idea that Zelda games are prone to hosting some sort of nebulous hivemind is nothing less than fanboy drivel, and that aforementioned Iwata Asks thing is one of the more notable examples of second-hand Nintendo embarrassment. True, we could make an exception for The Wind Waker, but only in the case that people cooled on the controversial graphics switch over time; much as I love it, the game received plenty of legitimate criticism upon release.

And yet, I can't help but admit I've never been able to nail my feelings on 2006's Twilight Princess, the series' best-selling game despite being one of its more divided entries. Bear in mind this opinion has never fluctuated wildly, but...well, I'll let the evolution of my 11-year thought process speak for itself:

Upon Completion in 2006: "Well, that was pretty good, I suppose."

A Year Later: "...you know, actually, that was kinda disappointing."

Upon Replaying it in 2009: "Hmm, actually, this is better than I remember it being."

Upon a 100% Completion Replay Last Year: "Eh, it's good, I guess."

So perhaps there is some mystical force responsible for my lukewarm feelings towards Twilight Princess, but regardless, that they exist at all is something I admit with the heaviest of hearts: can you imagine anything more soul-crushing than the game responsible for the greatest reaction in E3 history causing such a divided reaction? This is, after all, the Zelda game practically every Western fan wanted: a realistic Zelda echoing Lord of the Rings aesthetics and a brooding story, and for it to miss the mark still makes me feel...neutral? It's hard to describe.

Let us make this clear: any notions of Twilight Princess being "bad" should be immediately dispelled -- there is a considerable amount of things I enjoy about it, in fact, and I will absolutely call them to attention -- yet there are undeniably bad things in it that not only undermine what should be a legitimately spectacular game into merely a good one, but are largely embryonic in what would devolve into Zelda's worst habits. Much of Twilight Princess' strongest moments are isolated, surrounded by a sea of deafening bloat that smothers any ambitions it so rightly deserves.

There's really no better place to start than at the game's beginning, and it's here I ask the reader what comes to mind regarding Zelda's great opening sequences. Undoubtedly, you have the rainstorm prelude in A Link to the Past, the dreamy mystery of Link's Awakening, the giddy experimentation in Breath of the Wild, and Kokiri Forest's snappy introduction in Ocarina of Time. Majora's Mask and The Wind Waker likely wouldn't rank among said openings, as those were when Zelda began elongating intros for the sake of context, yet even those could be defended on the grounds that they're neither patronizing nor pointless.

Twilight Princess's opening is, sadly, both of those things, choosing to crank up its own beginning by forcing you to spend three days inside a sleepy little village and experience all of its mundane routines. It should be reminded that out of those three days, the first two bear little to no importance in how they force poor Link into herding cows, cat-searching, fishing, rescuing baby cradles, testing your new slingshot or solving monkey kidnappings.

Admittedly, not all of these are terrible -- herding cows while riding Epona makes for an entertaining mini-game, at least -- but they are only brief, faint flashes of enjoyment in a never-ending swamp of boringness. The duality of the cat-searching/fishing strikes as an immediate down-point: you have to fish for a cat to send it home, see, but the game neglects to mention you have to do this twice, and I still recall begging that cat to eat the greengill I'd just caught. As dedicated readers should know, if I am not enjoying anything involving cats, you are undoubtedly doing something wrong. (On a related note, as we're discussing the Wii version, this particular segment is compounded by awful, unintuitive fishing controls I still can't get the hang of a decade later, although thankfully it's the only time the motion controls reach such a nadir)

Needless to say, the Ordon Village segment is hardly anything more than a convoluted mess of errands and fetch quests -- would you believe the cat fishing thing concludes a particularly tangled order of events just to obtain a slingshot? -- and yet it's amazing how much of that seeps into the rest of the game. Even when stuff finally happens on the third day --  mainly Link's transformation into a wolf and the introductions of Midna and Princess Zelda -- it insists you partake on tedious bug hunts and the like.

Consequently, Twilight Princess' padding suffocates not merely the pacing but dulls the impact from what are incredibly effective moments. Take the meeting with Faron, the very first Spirit of Light you encounter: a chilling choir greets the Faron Woods' freedom from twilight, the camera panning over Link's granting of the iconic green garb we fell in love with all those years ago. Finally, we're about to dive into the sword-swinging action we've been craving since 2004...only to be deflated shortly afterwards when we enter the Forest Temple, which holds the honor of simultaneously being the first and worst dungeon in the game, largely not due to being anything more than hunting down monkeys.

The first entry into Hyrule Field also stumbles. While the kingdom is several times bigger than it was in Ocarina of Time, it cannot hope to emulate that awe-inducing feeling we felt back in 1998, as the grand scope is shortly cut off by another bug hunt, which I neglected to give context to before. See, much of Hyrule is drowned in Twilight thanks to the Twilight King's invasion, and only through destroying the Shadow Insects within can you obtain enough Tears of Light to dispel the shadowy fog plaguing Hyrule. A decent enough context, but it's married to gameplay not suited for Zelda: they're tedious, tiresome scavenger hunts that go on and on, and while Skyward Sword was the first Zelda advertised as having level-based progression zones and whatnot, these segments are embryonic of an overtly linear, railroaded system that doesn't match with Zelda's exploration at all (the worst being by far the one for the Lanaryu region; perhaps it's just me, but I've never been able to make sense of the interconnected mazes of rivers and lakes, and I always get lost).

To summarize, it's all blatant, exhaustive padding that not only deters replays but undermines the introductions of their respective locations (and not just because they're all drowned within a boring aesthetic, but we'll get to that later) . I won't deny there are highlights -- the grim sheltering of the survivors of Kakariko Village in twilight is appropriately chilling, and the Goron sumo-wrestling bits, sabotaged as they are by all the backtracking, are joyfully absurd to watch and engage in, not the least in how they come out of nowhere -- but that even awesome moments like the Bridge of Eldin duel are clumsily inserted within all this backtracking is just all the more frustrating.

The point isn't to say Twilight Princess isn't utterly blameless outside of its padding -- we'll get to its other mishaps as we go along -- but the deluge of tutorials and handholding and whatnot make it a lot harder to appreciate what it does do right. The swordplay, for one; while hardly a difficult game, I can think of few Zelda games on par with or surpass Twilight Princess in terms of quality sword control. There's a great heft to every slice, and that I say this despite the presence of Wii controls is something of a miracle. Not that I'm opposed to motion controls or anything, but a gyro-based control scheme from 2006 is hardly going to be as impressive in 2017, and make no mistake: it does feel a little clunky by today's standards (and the less we say about the "thank god I can turn this gimmicky shit off" in the form of Midna's cackling from the speakers, the happier I'll be), but the distinct pleasure of moving your arms around to initiate sword slicing and shielding is undeniable. Even the Navi pointer on-screen is surprisingly unobtrusive, and it too can be turned off.

Really, when you're not being bogged down by worthless drivel, Twilight Princess does feel great to play. Look no further than horseback riding: Twilight Princess's iteration of Epona remains the series highpoint, surpassing the acceptable clunkiness, Ocarina of Time and avoiding the surprising stiffness of Breath of the Wild. The controls are on point, the horse feeling substantially weighty and thrilling horseback sword battles abound. (I only just wish the Horse Call came far earlier than it did; as anyone who's played the game knows, relying on stray patches of Horse Grass to summon your horse is hardly ideal)

 
This also extends to the items, although the missteps are present here as well. Not because of any motion control mishaps, mind; if anything, I suspect the comparisons to Spider-Man via the Double Hookshots come from all the manual pointing and aiming. But as cool as new items like the Ball and Chain and the Spinner are, Twilight Princess makes the mistake of only utilizing them within their respective dungeons as opposed to rendering them as organic tools that continually complement the world around Link. Yes, there are quick puzzles decorating the overworld here and there, but they're more or less dumped after their respective dungeons.

But those dungeons! Those are where Twilight Princess is at its A-game. Forest Temple aside, much of the dungeons evoke the best of the organic Zelda dungeon design and "wow" moments, be they the gravity-defying magnetism of Goron Mines, the "oh, wait, this is a dungeon?" for a certain location in Snowpeak or the nostalgia-fueled setting behind the sixth dungeon. Most feel appropriately huge, and with how often these dungeons bank themselves on awe and surprise, it's wonderful how often it genuinely, honestly works.

One example from the sandy depths of Arbiter's Grounds readily comes to mind. Hailing from my first playthrough, I was navigating a room impeded by falling chandeliers, with one particular road obstructed by a chain-activated candelabrum. Pulling the chain to raise it up, I quickly dashed across the bridge before it fell down, but it was too late: I yelped as the rickety structure came crashing down...yet I wasn't dead. Spotting a small indent on the floor, I deduced that since it was too quick otherwise, the entire point was to let it fall around me. A more observant player might've figured that out ahead of time, but I can hardly recall any other puzzle that so quickly shifted fear into an "aha!" moment.

In terms of general engrossment, however, Lakebed Temple and City in the Sky are the obvious highlights, what with how they engage the player in gradually shifting their geography through waterslides and falling towers. All are initiated through the Clawshot, which have Link zipping across both dungeons and instill a true "hands-on" sense of satisfaction in altering your surroundings. And let us not forget their thrilling boss fights of giant eels and armored dragons, which have you riding for dear life within deep watery grottos and treacherous rainy skies.

It's a shame Twilight Princess only shines in segmented locafions, too, as I do like what this iteration of Hyrule is trying to do. Yes, it is rather empty, but let us not dismiss its more inspired concepts; namely, the labyrinths. Interconnected throughout Hyrule, these mazes are blindingly dark, haunted by Skulltulas and endless pits, and only through careful use of your lantern will you successfully navigate their depths. It's the one element of the overworld that comes across as an organic component, and I'd certainly would've liked to experience more challenging terrain akin to those.

And yet, I can't help but notice just how lame the civilizations are. I'm not going to sit here and pretend the likes of Goron City or Dragon Roost Island were accurate depictions of lived-in cities, but surely they were better than the one-room circles that house the Gorons and Zoras! This game's iterations of Kakariko Village and Hyrule Castle Town might provide better arguments here, but the former remains its most dismal iteration to date: a boring, dusty canyon town that, context aside, is utterly lifeless.

 There lies the source of Twilight Princess's sluggishness. I cannot claim it is entirely full of ugly sights -- the towering emptiness of Morpheel's lair after its' defeat, for one, or the gloomy melancholy of the Lost Woods -- but so much of the game's aesthetic lies within dull, washed out colors that often settle for hues of brown, and it's never very enthralling to look at. While it's understandable that bold colors wouldn't be emphasized within a realistic-driven title -- it's not as if Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask were particularly colorful, either --- it's hard to get caught up visually when so much of it looks this inert, and I figure this is why the Twilight Realms feel as sluggish as they do.

The character designs also suffer in their attempt to carry over Zelda-esque figures. Consider how we've had some goofy-looking designs in the past (with occasional missteps; look no further than the portly women NPCs in Ocarina of Time), but they generally served the purposes of their respective artstyles; namely, Tingle in Majora's Mask and the snot-filled Zill in The Wind Waker. Twilight Princess forgets that if you just carry this on within a realistic direction without a hint of irony, you're going to have some real grotesque-looking figures.This isn't to say there aren't some inspired concepts -- that the Goron Elders house steaming miniature volcanoes on their backs is too cool -- but it's not that uncommon encountering characters which look like this:

or run across critters that I cannot imagine were created as anything but the most eye-burning of nightmare fuel, as evidenced by Link's expression at meeting Ooccoo.

Really, it's hard not to see where one's distaste with the artstyle would hail from. It wouldn't be until Breath of the Wild that Nintendo would find a nice middle ground between colorful fantasy and grounded character design, but alas, that took some eleven years...

Even the music is only memorable in fragmented occasions, and it kinds of breaks my heart to say that. Toru Minegishi heads the soundtrack with Asuka Ohta -- and the legendary Koji Kondo supervising -- and when they do nail it, they nail it: the utter despair of Midna's Theme/Midna's Lament, the chilling power of the Light Spirit theme, and the heartpounding finale of the Final Boss theme. (I'd also cite the sheer adventure of the Hyrule Field theme, but as evidenced by the Wii U remaster and Super Smash Bros. Brawl's rip, it was obviously constrained by system limitations)

But they're surrounded by songs that don't evoke much of anything. I have earlier praised atmospheric songs in Zelda, but the problem with Twilight Princess it focuses too much on that particular direction and not many of the songs stick to memory. One can see this in, say, the dungeons: the previous Zelda games interchangeably used atmospheric and songs with a stronger melody to create a stunning ear-grabbing blend of ambience. Compare the haunting hypnosis of Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple to Twilight Princess's iteration and note which one absorbs you more. Only City in the Sky matches this quality very late into the game, and it's disappointing nothing else even so much as echoes this quality.

It's all enough to make one walk away from Twilight Princess not feeling much of anything, even when considering all the good things it accomplishes. Running around in the wolf form is cool, for instance, and I like the attacks involved with it, but that so much of it is associated with the boring Twilight Realms renders it "eh". Even the story falls into this trap, as what should otherwise be a strong tale is imbalanced through the strength of its characters. I enjoy seeing Colin grow via his admiration for Link, for instance, but I struggle in recalling the names and personalities of the Resistance members. The yetis are adorably hilarious and absolutely make the fifth dungeon, but I care not for the Zora prince Ralis and his grief, which can be chalked up to his precious little screen time.

In particular, I can't help but note the balance between the two Twili. Anyone can agree Midna is a fiercely engaging sidekick to the extent one could even say she's the true protagonist of this Zelda, yet I cannot help but feel Zant is wasted as a villain. Unlike many, I'm actually rather fond of the personality shift in his last appearance, but only in concept; juxtaposed with the calm ruthlessness displayed beforehand, it's far too abrupt and I've never been convinced it was a facade all along. Had there been some effective foreshadowing beforehand, I'd likely think differently. (That he gets sidelined by a certain other villain is also unfortunate, but I'm already too deep in spoiler territory as it is)

There are other things I enjoy in isolation. Naturally, I enjoy the emphasis on cats being Hyrule's animal of choice this time around, and take great amusement in one particular sidequest involving a wild west showdown. Despite what I mentioned previously about the realistic style not meshing with more absurd Zelda character designs, Malo -- the shrewd toddler who discovers the joys of capitalism --  is the one delightful exception, and I can't help but notice how he expertly dodges sword swings should the player swing their sword in his vicinity. Seeing as how he opens his own market empire (complete with theme song!), perhaps he's the true villain of this tale. 

More than anything, however, Twilight Princess feels tired. While not without merit, even underneath all its successes lies a tired familiarity, a fatigue that makes one go "I've done this before." When married to bloated padding, dismal aesthetics and handholding and all, it culminates into this bizarre paradox of being too much Zelda and yet not very much like Zelda all. It certainly looks like Zelda, what with Link and Princess Zelda and the first three dungeons being forest, fire and water, and even before we groan at the same tired twists and formulas, the actual look for it is as tiring to watch as being reminded you've picked up a blue rupee every time you start up the game. Sad to say, any ambitions it has are quashed underneath this crushing misdirection, one that would come to erroneously define the next few years of Zelda.

Mother 3

Note: While I try to be as vague as possible, spoilers can be easily gleaned throughout the review. Playing the game isn't required to enjoy the review, but reader discretion is advised.

When copywriter Shigesato Itoi developed the original Mother--EarthBound Beginnings--he wanted to make a title that would break the mold of RPGs. It wouldn't be a tale of swords and sorcery, but instead children in 80's America fighting aliens and collecting melodies of love. It was an ambitious deconstruction of gameplay, tropes and story all in one Famicom (NES) cartridge, but while it captivated a Japanese audience, it wasn't immune to criticism: maps were too broad, the random encounters were too difficult, and maybe it deconstructed things a little too much, what with its lack of bosses and awkward story beats.

In that sense, Mother 2--EarthBound--is what he set out to accomplish all along. Both games revolved around similar plots, starred a mute boy wearing a red cap, and deconstructed RPG tropes and American culture in a comedic context. The 16-bit console was the perfect template for the series' minimalist vision, but it was no easy task: EarthBound's labored development took five years, with it gradually climbing up the megabit ladder (8 to 24--a huge leap for those days), implementing the overworld's oblique projection was gruelingly difficult, and the game was on the verge of cancellation numerous times...until the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata--then a top programmer for HAL Laboratory--approached Itoi and offered two choices: he could fix the game as it was now, or reboot it and make it even better.

That Itoi chose the latter was undeniably a difficult decision, but thankfully, it was also the correct one: where Beginnings was something of an enchanting rough draft, EarthBound ended up being the Super Nintendo's masterpiece. One of many for that particular console, you understand, yet the game's nebulous quality spoke to fans in a way Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger or Super Metroid did not. Every other top-shelf work on the system excelled in their gameplay, yet EarthBound invited the player in and encouraged them to interpret its world as they saw fit. It was a video game that celebrated the player's interaction, with its themes of memories, nostalgia and even weirdness permeating themselves into what's probably gaming's most devoted, loudest fanbase.

But though he finally accomplished his vision on the Super Nintendo, Mr. Itoi wasn't done just yet. So excited was he on the concept of a third Mother game that he'd already begun brainstorming on Mother 3 before EarthBound was even finished (much to the chagrin of his co-workers, who blankly told him to focus on the game he was still working on). And yet, in the eleven-year span it took from its ill-fated inception on the Nintendo 64 to its 2006 release on Game Boy Advance, there was something clearly different about this final entry. Whereas the first two games focused on parodying America and embracing the nostalgia of youth, Mother 3 features cowboys, dinosaurs, an army of pig-garbed soldiers, and a nature vs. technology narrative.

This is not to say Mother 3 is for the worse for this sudden thematic shift; in fact, it's the only possible way it could compete with EarthBound. If the outsider's perfect vision had already been achieved, why iterate upon it again? The only way to match up people's expectations would be to go against conventions lest it be too familiar, and so what we have here is a finale that takes place in something entirely different: a backwater town on conjoined islands in the middle of nowhere (hence the name "Nowhere Islands").

Bear in mind that Mother 3 does not strip itself entirely of Mother conventions: the game is still framed within Itoi's trademark absurdist humor, JRPG deconstruction, minimalist character design/ battle encounters, and heartfelt messages. But that is where the similarities end. The game is not a grand, globetrotting narrative, but an episodic one divided into eight chapters, most of which center around the gradual transformation of an idealistic, yet naive village. There is no eye-catching oblique projection, but instead the standard top-down perspective commonly found in retro RPGs. There are no chosen children guided by fate, but people of all ages and even animals brought together by tragic circumstance.

And therein lies the biggest shift of all: if EarthBound was a game about crafting and cherishing memories, Mother 3 is a grounded reality. The tale of Lucas, the younger of twin brothers whose family is torn apart, is perhaps the most heartbreaking story ever told in the video game medium. It's not actively harrowing, and there's still plenty of supernatural elements to go around, but the game's themes of love, loss and change are so achingly genuine and sincere you cannot play through it with a dry eye.

There's so many reasons for why it tugs at our heartstrings, be it the evolution of the series' trademark minimalist aesthetic or Shogo Sakai's beautifully fluent score (which, as of ten years later, remains his masterpiece), but I personally cannot get enough of how Mother 3 is a deconstruction of Mother itself. We see this right from the excellent transition from the prologue to Chapter 1. There may not be any America-inspired towns around, but Lucas's last day of vacation at his grandfather's still feels like home. Just like in EarthBound, there's animals with quippy inner dialogue, a sudden encounter with a talking bug, and slice-of-life moments with his mother and sibling.

Cue Chapter 1: things are not so well back in the village of Tazmily, with the surrounding forest mysteriously erupting into flames, and the native animals emerging as freak hybrids and cyborgs. Lucas's father, Flint, takes it upon himself to solve the crisis, but a sudden rainfall arrives with the most chilling of news: his family never returned home.

We're approaching spoiler territory, but the following scene is infamous for hooking players into Mother 3's world. The first of many tragedies is revealed from the blacksmith Bronson, who drops the news in the most tactless way possible: "I've got good news and bad news."

If the Game Boy Advance was tethered to any limitations relative to the Super Nintendo, you wouldn't be able to tell from Mother 3's character animation. The minimalist Mother designs are now fluid in expression, with the campfire scene being the cream of the crop. Everyone suddenly reeling back in shock, Flint hopelessly pounding the ground in despair, and the act of rage you see above. I'm hard-pressed to think of any other example of sprite animation expressing such raw anger (and bear in mind, this is only the first half: how it ends depicts fear and violence just as intense).

I could go on peeling layers form this one scene. How Shogo Sakai's song of choice, a heartrending piano piece, is aptly named Confusion. What were the exact circumstances as to what made Bronson blurt out what he said (we see this later with Flint's in-law Alec, who despite sharing the same grief and is racing against the clock to help Flint save his grandson, decides now is the time to cheer up his son-in-law with wildly inappropriate fart jokes). How the repercussions of Flint's actions begin to unravel Tazmily at the seams, beginning with his prestigious honor of being the first person locked up in Tazmily Jail.

However, the most important takeaway from this scene is that these are real people. Whereas we were free to inject ourselves into the protagonists of the first two games, these are defined characters with active thoughts and development that reflect human nature in the real world. Hardly a first for video games, and it's not like there weren't already great characters in EarthBound's world, but Mother 3's wonderful balance in presenting this cast can't be stated enough. So much of this has to do with the denizens of Tazmily, who are introduced as a money-less, carefree society where no one knows the concept of sadness.

But when the likes of Yokuba and the Pig Mask Army instill the values of capitalism and vague conceptions of "happiness," we begin to wonder if their varied transformations would be right at home in EarthBound's modern-day world. Abbot and Abbey, once a sweet, young couple, selfishly believe the other villagers are jealous of their newfound happiness and fear what lies beyond the borders of their town. Jonel, a nature-loving man who worships in the nearby Sanctuary, comforts Flint with the reminder that he has friends...only to distance himself when he and Lucas refuse to adhere to the town's new regulations, informing the latter that his father is "awkward." (I imagine that his Tyrolean hat hides a pair of hair-formed devil horns is no coincidence) His wife, Brenda, descends into full-on nastiness towards the ostracized Lucas: "Your father is still looking for your brother in the mountains? You should tell him it's hopeless and give up."

Even before Tazmily's transformation, we begin to realize it's not the utopia it appears, as seen when the outsider Nana ponders about why hardly any of Tazmily's relatives resemble each other. Their naivete is just as tragic as their brainwashing, and the journey of Lucas and his band of outcasts becomes ever more poignant as you recognize you're not just taking on an invading dictatorship: you're against the only world you've ever known.

Needless to say, it's an emotionally heavy game, but never one that's overtly sappy or constantly fishing for your tear ducts. It's more somber than the other two Mother games, but what's amazing is like how EarthBound wasn't cynical in deconstructing the JRPG model, Mother 3 isn't necessarily cynical in the journey its characters embark. True to the game's tagline ("Funny, strange, heartrending"), there are just as many dark moments as there are lighthearted. It is every bit a sad story as it is an empowering tale about growing up. It may not be a globetrotting adventure, but it is one that changes the world itself.

As mentioned before, this is still a game framed within Mother's most valued conventions. If this is a world that must possesses nasty characters, then there must be characters that stay pleasant through it all. (Hey, isn't that like real life?) And if there is such pleasantness to parallel sad moments, then there must be moments that render you a convulsing, laughing mess on the floor. Itoi's writing is as wonderfully charismatic as ever, be it moments that ape series tropes (the animals' inner dialogue, including a pig who wants to see a pig seeing the ocean) or ripping on RPG conventions (there are two dungeons that consist of, respectively, a mole cricket society and a toilet/restroom maze. Do I dare spoil the enemy of choice for the latter?). 

However, Mother 3's emphasis on character animation brings a new sort of humor that Mother was largely unable to capitalize upon before. This is not to diminish the quality of the humourous writing (you don't see the best of the DCMC band outside of their dialogue, for example), but there's a far bigger emphasis of such writing working in tandem with aesthetics. Fans would be quick to point out the infamous dance sequence, but I'm particularly fond of the measures Lucas takes to sneak his dog Boney into Club Titiboo.

And yet despite being so vivid in animation, it's amazing how Mother 3 continues to channel the series' most compelling asset: letting the player fill in the blanks. The minimalist approach to sprite design and battle encounters are just as integral as they were before. For example, how exactly does Duster kick in battle despite his limping leg? You can tell right from his sprite model that he has a bad hip--quite inconvenient for an aspiring thief-who-doesn't-steal-anything--and yet he deals some mighty damage; in fact, he's built as a primarily offensive character. Itoi offers some suggestions in this Nintendo Dream interview, but since the game borrows EarthBound's minimalist battle system (more on that later), he leaves it up to the player's imagination.

Even the actual story works into this. We had this in the first two games, too, but the active symbolism and character motivations grip at us long after the game's completion. What makes Yokuba such a despicable, evil man despite his late-game revelation? What's the deal with the doorknob we hear whispers of? Is the Negative Man really just a joke enemy? Can we even begin to fathom the depths of the tragic villain, whose callous, childish disregard for all life gradually unveils itself throughout the story's progression? Their roles and more are so tantalizing, beating just underneath the surface, that we can't help but speculate. To cite Shigesatoi Itoi himself:

"My personal feelings steer me to want to affirm everything the player thinks about the game. I wanted to make Mother 3 like a mirror. One that reflects the heart of the player off of the screen...Mother 3 is a playground with plenty of room for your imagination to run free. The more you think about it, the greater Mother 3 will become. The more you feel it, the deeper it will become. The more fun you have, the more you'll grow."

Ah yes, that reminds me: this is also a game! Despite being more linear than the first two, there's quite a bit more "game" here. I could go upon about how are more sequences resembling sidequests--particularly with hidden enemies and bosses in places you wouldn't normally think to look--but remember how EarthBound was a game past its time with elements like onscreen enemies and a rolling HP meter. Mother 3 doesn't necessarily introduce ground-breaking in that regard, but chooses to instead build upon where its predecessor left off. Where previous protagonists may've moved a tad too slow, there's now a run button. Whereas inventory may've been a tad too confining and cumbersome to manage before, there's plenty of space now that there's a separate pocket for important items.

And then there's the rhythm combos. The sole strength of Mother's combat was that it let you be the star: how the parties of Ness and Ninten fought off Giygas's forces was entirely up to you. Well-suited for players seeking immersive gaming, mind, but not particularly compelling for those looking for deep battle systems. As mentioned previously, this immersion is alive and well in Mother 3, but it decides to include a combo system to make things more interesting. Tap the A button to the rhythm of the battle music, and you can perform up to a 16-hit attack. Considering how there's over fifty battle themes in the game courtesy of Shogo Sakai, it's a lot harder than it sounds. Some are repeats, but those throw in off-tempo beats calculated just perfectly to trip you up. Of course, you don't have to master it if you don't want to--you can win any and all fights just fine without them; after all, most of the additional hits largely deal minuscule damage. Those hits can rack up, however, and the feeling accomplished combo unleashes a deserved audience cheer can't be understated. Think of it as an "every little bit helps" sort of thing.

And you can certainly think of it as capitalizing upon some of the best battle themes in JRPG history. Above is one of my favorite boss themes, Unfounded Revenge. It's a fast-paced, trumpet-heavy frenzy that will test your button-tapping reflexes not just in memorizing the beat, but in that the related battles themselves are notoriously difficult (so don't neglect your HP meter in favor of keeping with the beat). Since it's reserved for repeat encounters, it doesn't just pave the road for off-tempo screw-ups: it serves as the game's theme for rivalry.

However, there will be times where rhythm combos will be the least of your concern, for the story's themes certainly work their way into certain battles. Fight Against Mecha Drago, which concludes the the first chapter, is the beginning of the end of the initial Mother deconstruction. Previous Mother games had never sounded this raw barring maybe their respective final battles, yet here early on we're treated to a track so dangerous it immediately removes any sense of security that things will turn okay. Without going into the details, they don't, and it's superseded by the heartbreaking Long Shadow closer only brings this point home.

But let us not forget how wonderful the music outside the battle system. It really is amazing how much Shogo Sakai gets the story's themes (and he should, considering he even contributed to how certain scenes unfolded), as seen for the shifting music themes of Tazmily. What's interesting is that while they're all based on the same song, we can never pinpoint which one is its "real" theme. The very first time we hear it, Sorrowful Tazmily, plays when the town is in mourning, and we know it can't define what was the town was before.  Happy Town?, the version above, is probably the closest to an actual main theme, but the title raises a good point: is this industrialized renovation of the town really the right direction?

I'm also a fan of how Sakai handles the supernatural. The Magypsies are some of the game's most flamboyant characters, but they're embedded deep into the game's mythology, and so their homes are granted the above theme of mystery and reflection. The like of aliens are nowhere to be found, but how Mother 3 instead focuses on the world's history makes it seem that much more real. Speaking of ancient history, perhaps their shell-shaped homes recall the series' one other instance of magic and mystery...

I mentioned the presence of a nature vs. technology/modernism narrative. This isn't to say the game full-out promotes tree-hugging or the like, but you can easily point to themes representing each. For the latter, the march of the Pig Masks you can hear above was actually the original main theme for Mother 3, and it seeps into numerous facets of the game. At times a comedic fanfare and others a majestic song of triumph, the way the ultimately childish His Highness's Theme bookends the game is nothing sort of genius.

Which renders the background behind the Mother 3 Love Theme all the more a miracle. It's a song that wasn't composed until the very final stretches of development, and despite being just as simple and short as both iterations of Eight Melodies, for it to turn out so poignant, so beautiful and full of hope in its accompanying themes of family, acceptance and moving on is just flawless. (It's highly implied in the aforementioned Itoi interview he already had the song thought up before he was even asked; perhaps it being the basis of the early Mom's Hometown theme was the inspiration...?) If neither of the two versions here can make you cry, the haunting chorus found in the final battle will.

I could cheap out and just say something cliche like how it's the greatest song Shogo Sakai ever composed (which is true!), but it's something that means so much to me on a personal level. The game's own tragedies very much mirror the ones I had to personally overcome, and while the song itself always has me on the verge of tears. the lessons I continue to derive from it give me the strength every day to pursue my dreams, live on for the memory of those who've departed from my life, and to continue loving and appreciating everyone I hold dear. For that alone, I'm eternally grateful for the series to have touched my life.

Despite what the provided screenshots have implied, Mother 3 is a Japan-only game. There's a variety of factors to why it never came out westward: it came out too late in the Game Boy Advance's life cycle to justify localization costs, the underwhelming sales for EarthBound, and the story themes were probably too problematic for a 2006 America. (The poor Magypsies!) We do, however, have access to a wonderful fan translation courtesy of Clyde Mandelin and several other Mother superfans. It reads with all the flow of a legitimate game localization (and it should, considering Mr. Mandelin has localized quite a number of games and anime himself), and has been celebrated as one of the most polished fan efforts in the game industry.

As a Mother superfan myself, I own the original Japanese cartridge. (And by the way, I'm not ashamed to admit I still pull it out just to listen to the Sound Player) What Reid Young pointed out in the Do-It-Yourself Devotion project announcement is true: you won't be able to perceive every story detail and character interaction if you're Japanese-illiterate, but most of what you really need to know is conveyed through the masterful context of sprite animation and the like. It's eerie just how far they went to do this: you almost always know where to go and every single item has a little graphic next to its description.

Will the game ever come out in America? If the recent deluge of inside rumors saying it finally will this year, it might. Us Mother fans are notorious for our resilient optimism, and if it took right up to the game's 10th anniversary for us to be right (and right off the heels of the original Mother's surprise launch last year, no less!), then that makes it all the more magical.

Maybe I could cite moments where Mother 3 falters in going through the motions, and maybe its advances in minimalist design just miss the heights of how EarthBound came full circle for me, but such trivialities mean little in the fact that it's one of gaming's greatest treasures. As a self-contained narrative, it's thought-provoking and powerful. As the finale to a beloved trilogy, it's cathartic and even hopeful. It's the Game Boy Advance's masterwork swan song, and ten years later, I'm still hearing it.

Biweekly Music Wednesday! No. 35 ~Midna's Theme~ (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)

Origin: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Plays in: Various cutscenes

Status: Original Composition

Composer: Toru Minegishi

They say that whenever Nintendo holds a stockholder's meeting or the like, you should always expect the worst and hope for the best. Predictably, the results have lately been falling upon the former, and today's bombs are no exception. The nebulous NX console won't be arriving this year as most expected, but instead March 2017 so as to ensure a strong launch line-up. The next Zelda title has once again been delayed, as it'll launch alongside the NX next March. What this means is that Nintendo will once again have to ride its current money-making waves from amiibo figures and their mobile ventures, as the Wii U's paltry lineup will hardly sustain another Christmas season.

I've largely come down from the disappointment this morning, but there's no denying things are looking bleaker than ever for Nintendo. 2015 was already one of their roughest years despite their high-quality output, and the ways thing are going, 2016 looks to be even worse. We still have no idea what exactly the NX is, and outside of Pokemon Sun and Moon, who knows what else they'll have scheduled for this fall.

Biweekly Music Wednesday! No. 23 ~Butch and the Villagers~ (Mother 3)

Origin: Mother 3 (GBA)

Plays In: The end of Chapter 2
Status: Original Composition

Composer: Shogo Sakai

Shogo Sakai's work on Mother 3 possesses the most heart-wrenching music ever inputted into video games. That the title deliberately stands in stark contrast with its predecessor (Earthbound) is one of its biggest strengths, and one needs only to compare their individual soundtracks to see why. Earthbound is composed of rich, multi-fledged nostalgia -- be it the familiar old scent of Twoson, the music box-esque tunes that rest at the sanctuaries, or the mellow choir of Ness's home, such songs serve to celebrate childhood innocence and adventure.

Mother 3 borrows this template only to highlight the exact opposite: the crippling reality of adulthood. In the context of Butch and the Villagers, Tazmily Village's awkward reception to the deaths and disappearance of certain characters was disconcerting enough, but the town's moral fabric begins to truly unravel through the staged theft of a new, foreign concept: money. Bear in mind only a day or two had passed since the aforementioned tragedies, yet the destruction of a family and a missing person report is quickly forgotten in the face of greed. At this point, Mother 3's exact setting and timeframe relative to the two previous games are unknown, but the former's fragility is already hard at work in providing one of the game's most powerful statements.

Butch and the Villagers is perhaps one of the game's more underrated tracks, yet the way it complements the above scene can't be lauded enough. Mother 3's script already functions as something of a play, and I can't imagine that the way the song channels the basic beats of a closing act is no coincidence. But what's even more powerful is the defeated plucks of a guitar, the one that signals the song's other, more heartbreaking message: "there's no going back."

From now on, the peace-celebrating utopia of Tazmily begins to be no more. One family's tragedy in a formally close-knit village is quickly forgotten in the advent of capitalism and modernism. A grandfather can only cope through his special brand of fart jokes as the world changes around him, the townsfolk roll their eyes as a father spends three years in a hopeless routine of prayer and searching, and a lone boy can only clutch tighter to his dog in the depths of the night.

I listened to this song one night on Mother 3's sound player maybe a month or two after Michael's death, and that one message repeated firmly in my skull. I couldn't go back -- not to the private forum I left after I'd grown disillusioned with its gradual insensitivity, or to the safe childhood I'd taken for granted, or the warmth of my brother's embrace as he went goodbye.

There's no going back...so the only place to go is forward. But you don't know that in despair.

Final Thoughts: Even now I'm choking back tears. Damn you, Itoi!

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What a downer! Hopefully Kirby can make it up to us...been making some real progress on that, so expect that and a Nintendojo article soon!