Mother 3/Tear Jerker

• Arguably, the entire damn whole of Mother 3 — starting with Hinawa's death and Flint's subsequent breakdown in Chapter 1, the whole of Chapter 6 where Lucas chases his mother's ghost through a field of sunflowers, before culminating in the granddaddy of tear jerkers with the final boss fight. This game wasn't tagged "strange, funny and heartrending" for nothing, you know.
  • This troper spoiled Hinawa's death for herself mightily early, she knew it was coming... and she still cried. Oh god, that music.
  • This troper saw a picture of a sunflower lying on a pillow. The context wasn't even remotely Mother 3 related. She utterly broke. That should give you an idea of how badly this game has affected her.
  • For those of us who were right on top of the game's release, that spoilered scene in Chapter 1 possibly hit worse. In order to promote the game, Nintendo and Itoi released some bits promotionally ahead of time - one of which was a free mp3 download of "Theme of Love." This troper, as well as many others, thought it was beautiful and wondered when it would first play in the game. Then, right as Flint finds out about Hinawa's death and has one of the most realistic emotional breakdowns seen in a game, that song finally wells up. Player Punch doesn't even begin to describe it - it wasn't a soft and gentle ode to love, it was an elegy over someone losing their most important person in the world... damn it, why does it still hurt so much to remember something from a game?
• There is a long, straight hallway towards the end of the game, featuring nothing but a tile floor, a red carpet, and this music.
• The abuse Salsa endures can be very tear-jerking to animal lovers.
  • What really got this troper was examining a mirror, and getting the message "What does a smile look like again?"
• In EarthBound, two sesame seeds- one white, one black- can be found in desert. They're each only one pixel big, and if you talk to them, they'll ask you to help them find each-other, because they're in love. The sesame seeds cannot be interacted with beyond this, and they're on completely opposite sides of the desert. Twelve years later, Mother 3 came out. In the last chapter of the game, you can find a single black pixel and a single white pixel sitting on a stand, side-by-side.
• The end of Chapter 4, in which DCMC bid farewell to Lucky slash Duster. It's so simple, sweet, and heartwarming, this troper couldn't help but be moved. "Hey, big guy in the sky! Look after our pal!"
• This:

Claus: Everyone's here, Lucas. Everyone's waiting to spit on you, throw rocks at you, and make your life Hell. Who's "Everyone"? ... Everyone you love.

• For This Troper , the absolute most depressing moment of the game was washing up on shore after pulling Mixolydia's needle to find Tazmily Village, the central hub of the game has been abandoned due to everyone moving (or rather being moved) to New Pork City. All the NP Cs you've grown closer to through the story are gone, almost all of the houses are empty, and the music is just sooo depressing. Hell, This Troper even felt sad finding that the batteries to the pigmask's boombox had died.
• The movie theater. It's not just that Porky wants to show off Ness's adventures in his movie theater. It's that he had to have actually taken the time and effort to have them properly filmed.
  • Exactly what did you think the Photographer in Earthbound was doing all that time?
• I can't be the only one crying during Leder's Info Dump.
  • God, no. When you come upon the realization that you're essentially on untouched utopia, created so the lives on it were to be the happiest, truly perfect ones- and it was all corrupted in a moment by Porky and his happy boxes? Bring on the crippling depression and a virtually nonexistent will to go on. Until you realize you do have something to fight for- a reset button. Or, atleast, what might be a reset button, if Masked Man isn't truly corrupt.
• I teared up more than enough to spill a few tears when Reggie said this- "We can forget happy things. We can probably forget sad things too. People have the power to forget." It was a true whammy in that you slowly realize throughout the game that forgetting and moving on is a huge theme. The people of Tazmily had all forgotten their previous lives, driven to destruction by society and technology. They exist on a perfect plane of harmony and happiness. Claus had forgotten who he was, forced or no. Porky has forgotten kindness and love, and Flint refused to accept his wife's sacrifice. Lucas seemed to be stuck in this stagnant form of grieving for the entire game, never dwindling on his happy memories. It's especially apparent when he looks into the mirror later in the game, the one he looked into in the beginning. Hinawa's reminders to Lucas become all the more powerful, along with the Magypsies messages. Tazmily village quickly forgot their peaceful ways to usher in a newer, modern age, completely accepting it and transforming Tazmily, even going so far as to shove the elderly into a decrepit home and abandon their hometown for the city. Even taken out of context, in application to your life- it's a heartwrenching thing to say. In relation to the game, in relation to your own, personal trauma... people have the power to forget. To move on. And it's not always, necessarily, for the better.
• Porkey's playroom was originally a silly little place for a boss battle a fancy item, but it suddenly became heartbreaking when I noticed its name. "Friend's Yoyo". Ness was this poor bruised-up kid's only friend ever. Damn. I really hope Porky was counted in the whole "and all of humanity shall prosper" part of the needle prophecy and died a proper death. Which would probably be a good end for him. That in and of itself is depressing as hell.
• This troper found a tear jerker in an unexpected place: Fassad, the unquestionably Jerkass character who abuses Salsa and is the forefront of corrupting the Nowhere Islands. He's defeated and subsequently self-terminates in New Pork City's sewers; later, in the Empire Porky Building, you encounter his pet mouse, who tells you his master was "very kind" to him and wonders "when he is coming back". Definitely jerked a tear or two out of this troper, especially since she felt very responsible for Fassad's suicide.
  • This wasn't really a suicide, he just was so beaten-up he couldn't help but plummet. But even if he did survive this somehow, he still was the Magypsy bound to the final needle, so he ceased to exist anyway when Lucas pulled it.
• Claus... Come to your mother. You must be tired. Makes me choke up every time.
  • Claus... fired an intense bolt of lightning. He knew what would happen.
    • Lucas remembered Claus's scent.
    • If you think about it, you'll remember that sniffing enemies was Boney's shtick throughout the whole game. Lucas is basically using the All Your Powers Combined usual to a Final Boss just to recognize Claus.
      • The whole dang fight is a duel between this and High Octane Nightmare Fuel. Claus starts out blasting Lucas with PK Love Omega and the occasional physical attack, but as the fight drags on and Hinawa starts calling out to Claus, he uses lower and lower levels of PK Love, then eventually just starts dealing low double digit damage and then single digit. You can eventually successfuly attack him, but Lucas feels horrible doing it. You probably lack a soul if you kept attacking with Lucas after first doing so.
  • These are all magnified a hundredfold if you opt to name Lucas' family after your own. Particularly if your family matches up, having two parents and two brothers, you being one of the brothers. I did this. And was especially stricken with Wangst during the final boss fight when your own brother knowingly commits suicide to effectively save you.
  • This troper simply cannot stress enough the pure Tear Jerker that is the final boss fight. The simplicity of it- the simple actions themselves can completely obliterate your composure. When you factor in Hinawa, whispering to Claus the entire time, Flint's drive to protect his sons, and finally seeing Claus return, seeing the mask gone and hopelessly hitting your brother... Lucas breaks down at the same time the player does, and if you have played this game, you understand the feeling of reading Claus... fired an intense bolt of lightning. This troper could not forward the text, as reading this one line shattered her so completely, she was crying harder than she could ever remember crying.
• I swear, I am the only person who feels horrible for Porky. First, he's got the abusive parents. When you return him to them after he runs away, he gets beaten offscreen. (In the Japanese version, leastways). It turns him into a psychotic, annoying asshole, yes. Then, comes the Incredibly Safe Capsule. He goes in there. And can't come out. I know, the game's dialogue is entirely in text, but goddamn, I can hear his voice cracking when his says "D-don't you see? I'm going to live forever. Ahahahahha... -cough-" Sure, he's an evil, immature jerkass, but that's just it. Beneath his evilness, he's still a child.
  • You are not the only one. What makes it worse is a bit of Fridge Horror. It wasn't just Porky's parents that corrupted him when he was young...It was Giygas. Think about it. Wasn't there a Mani Mani Statue alarmingly close to where Ness and Porky grew up? It was underground, found by a certain man in the neighborhood that most players forget to speak to after leaving for Onett. That statue had taken complete control of the man who had found it, and would later make Ness and Jeff hallucinate that a tiny room was a huge city. It just radiated brainwash and corruption. Now you might wonder why Porky couldn't fight back like Ness apparently did. But then keep in mind the fact that he had so very little will power as a result of his upbringing. Ness, in contrast, had very kind parents who supported him and raised him to be a strong boy. And then (though it was blotted out in the English release) he thought that Ness had stopped being his friend. That set him off the deep-end all the way. So really, Porky never stood a chance against everything crashing down on his psyche. He never recovered, even after Giygas was destroyed. It's still very easy to hate him, but this troper can't help but feel sorry for him.
• This Troper, having never expected to play Mother 3, went ahead and let everything be spoiled for him, right up to Claus's suicide. These parts were still heartrending, but what hit the hardest was right after, when Lucas has to pull the final needle. After responding "no" to Flint's "Are you ready?", I finally gave in, watching every person and place in the whole game go up in flames...knowing the whole time that I did this. It took me almost 10 minutes of staring in horror at the fake end screen before realizing it wasn't over yet.
• How about the ending after the Dragon is raised and we watch the world destroyed, we get to walk around as, presumably, yourself, listening to the people of the Mother 3 world thanking YOU, the player, for all your help, and asking you how you are doing in your world, or if the world you are in is treating you well. I'm welling up right now remembering it.
  • Oh god, seconded so much. That scene had me bawling for minutes straight.
  • "Hey world, treat our friend well!" Sniff...
• This Troper, who has not played Mother 3, steeled himself for the video of the final boss fight linked above. He took it fairly well, all things considered. Likewise the ending. Then he saw the last few seconds of the cast roll. And dissolved.
• Playing through the whole game, then starting again. Seeing Lucas and his family being so happy made me bawl, since I knew what was going to happen eventually...
• The true ending screen. The credits were sad enough, but then you see the wooden "MOTHER 3" logo...
• This one was crying so hard by the time the credits rolled that when she walked over to her mother, she thought that someone had DIED.
  • Seconded. My mother walked in my room just as I had finished the game, and I was so broken down and out of breath from literally sobbing until my stomach ached she immediately thought a close friend had died.
• One that I didn't quite get until the third or fourth time playing was the aftermath of the Mecha Drago fight. It's lying on the ground, helpless, while Flint prepares to kill it, but then its baby comes along. And the Mecha Drago sheds a single tear. That poor baby Drago...

---

Back to Mother 3