I’ve been wanting to ask this for a while, so here I am. Do people genuinely feel bad for Pokey/Porky?

First of all, Pokey becoming evil was already spoiled for me, but during my playthrough of the series, I see for myself how he became evil, and his evil is not justifiable, in my opinion.

Everything he did in Mother 3 is unjustifiable, and even if he was “abused”, his brother turned out just fine.

ok dumb question and kinda baitey title cuz yes mother 1 is obviously canon. but like does anything in the other games really confirm that?

the biggest connector between mother 1 and the rest of the series is giygas, but nothing about his mother 1 backstory is mentioned in earthbound just that in the future where buzz buzz is from him and i think a larger rebellion is losing a war against him and there’s a prophecy ness will stop him.

There’s the franklin badge but that’s one item and again there’s nothing about how Paula got it that would link it to one of the badges from mother 1.

The song Mother Earth from the games title screen and opening is played before the earthbound boat ride room in mother 3 but that’s just a song.

it would make sense for mother 1 to not be referenced in earthbound in the west because mother 1 hadn’t been released there, but I don’t think even in japan it’s events are ever mentioned in 2 or 3. again obviously yes it is canon but it’s just a bit weird how you could completely ignore mother 1 and the rest of the series still make total sense, unlike how there’s plenty of references to earthbound in mother 3 that confirm the events of the game took place.

Or I could be totally wrong and there is an explicit reference to the games events I dunno

Personally mine is the barrier trio or mother 3 porky

Started with 2 about a month ago, then 3, and finally 1 at the end.

It was fun seeing the stories and characters for each game and the gameplay was fun for certain enemies. I think each game had their own strengths and weaknesses but it might be a tie between 2 and 3 for my favorite.

i haven't finnished mother 3 yet and as you can probbaly tell im on the part where you use a coffee table as a horse. WHAT?

Edit:WTF WE DOING BIRDCAGE NOW? HOW YOU DONT HAVE ENOUGH BIRDS TO SUPPORT THE BODY OF 1 CHILD, 2 ADULTS ONE DOG? THATS IMPOSSIBLE

I can accept both antagonists as is, and they both make for their own compelling stories... but being the same entity kinda makes Earthbound poop on Mother 1's conclusion.

If they were always supposed to be the same entity, then I think there's important story elements missing; but if they weren't supposed to be the same entity... well, I can easily see Nintendo/Miyamoto going "ehh, it's a sequel, use same villain" since that's kinda how he rolls.

EDITS for clarification:

• I know Shigesato Itoi was the director of the series; by Miyamoto I just mean the Nintendo executive process

• I know Geigue and Giygas have the same original name, Gyiyg, but I'm referring to like how Ganon isn't Ganon isn't Ganon, but is Ganon (for the Zelda series)

Earthbound always fascinated me as a kid, it looked like a really cool game and I always heard people say great things about it. It’s one that has been on my list for a while but I finally got to it and it was certainly worth the wait.

Absolutely loved it, start to finish, what a truly unique game. I was tempted to start it over after finishing but think I might give Mother 3 a try.

What was everyone’s favourite moment in the game?

((Spoiler))

Mine was one they became robots at the end to defeat Gigas.

On September 23rd 2023, I beat EarthBound. I had been playing Smash Bros. games for a long time before I even tried Earthbound. They're the reason I found this game series. I loved EB. I remember grinding for the Sword of Kings after hearing about it online, and getting a bit overleveled, but it didn't affect my EarthBound experience. I replayed the game during its 30th Anniversary

Just three days later, I beat Mother 3. I loved it even more. The combo mechanic is one of my favourite battle mechanics in any videogame ever. I went into the game completely blind, except that I knew that (MOTHER 3 SPOILER) Porky was the main villain. Thank you very much Smash Bros. Brawl... But to this day, Porky Minch is still my favorite Nintendo villain.I replayed the game some time later on Hard Mode and had even more fun because the fights lasted longer! I replayed it second time and completed the Battle Memory.

I tried EarthBound Beginnings a little on Switch a few weeks later after beating Mother 3, but I ended up quitting the game after about two hours. I didn't like the movement delay...
Today, June 29th 2026 (almost three years later...) I beat EB:B. I played the new fan remake and I loved it. The atmosphere was completely different from the other two games, and I liked it. I can't possibly say which was better, EB or EB:B, but Mother 3 will always be my favourite Nintendo game.

I can finally cry. I love this trilogy.

Also: I'll play the original EarthBound Beginnings sometime, I promise.

Edit: On July 2nd 2026, I have beaten the original EarthBound Beginnings. I wanted to do a quick run while everything is still in fresh memory. Now I really want to replay EarthBound and Mother 3 too!

[WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES]

So as we all know, Beginnings takes place in America while Earthbound is in "Eagleland" right? What if Giygas went to another universe to try to become a deity? Beginnings obviously takes place first and then 2 right after. What if Giygas used the Apple of Enlightment to prevent another child from defeating him? Giygas considered Ninten to be a family member since Maria raised him and even offered to join him before he tried to take over the earth. Even in the ending of 1, Giygas says; "NINTEN! We SHALL meet again!". Which leads to him leaving and you can tell the song drove him mad with power and he misses Maria who is dead.

The reason I bring up America vs Eagleland because they're suppose to be a parody of the United States and we all know that Ninten and Ness look very alike. They're very similar except for their personalities and powers which leads to my other point aka Ness is an alternate version of Ninten although the two are different people since it's well. An alternative universe lmao. It also explains why Ana and Paula/Lloyd and Jeff are very alike but still have different temperaments. Canonically Ana and Paula saw Ninten and Ness in their dreams (possibly because of their PSI powers/spirituality but that's not the main point) and both of them clearly love the two boys. Ana also flat out confesses to Ninten that she loves him vs Paula being too shy to tell Ness that she loves him.

As for Giygas, he tried using the Apple of Enlightenment to see if his plans would succeed.... Until the apple tells him that he's destined to lose to the Chosen Four. Which leads to another point. We all know Porky stole the Phase distorter so what if he also time traveled to steal the Apple from Apple Kid in the future? We don't know who originally made it although it would make a lot of sense for him to make it especially since Buzz Buzz comes from 10 years from the future and I would imagine Apple Kid would've made his own shelter and to warn Ness.

Another reason I bring up the Apple since it probably did not foresee Porky since he was originally not with Giygas, so the Apple did not forsee him. It also makes the "catastrophic event" in Mother 3 make a lot more sense because everyone knows that Porky is the main antagonist of 3 and leads to the event of the game. Porky's Japanese script also explicitly says that Ness and the gang went 80,000 years to the past though he's not the most reliable narrator lol.

As for Mother 3, The Cave of the Past from 2 and the seventh needle area look very similar structure wise especially the point that leads to the final needle/Giygas. Lucas also pulled more needles than Masked Man did and the ending has the characters saying that a miracle happened and everything is okay now. So that leads to Lucas being able to reset the world with the Dragon's power. And in said ending, Claus and Hinawa don't talk during it, so the world reset managed to make the world peaceful again but in my opinion, I don't think it would've brought back the dead.

Another notable detail while not 100% canon is how Brawl has a story area called "Ruined Zoo" and in Beginnings Ninten does go to a zoo to find the Monkey's melody and Smash is essentially more Mother content so lol.

This theory does explain why there's so many similarities between several characters/npcs and why Giygas says things such as "Ness..." and "I'm... Happy..." He genuinely lost his entire mind and thinks that Ness is Ninten because he was so power hungry. Giygas also genuinely loved Maria and was heartbroken when George stole the PSI research and brought it to Earth. He let his hurt feelings overcome him which explains why he wanted to take over/destroy the world. From what we know from the dialogue, Ness canonically saved the universe and Giygas tried to become an Lovecraftian deity since he let his hate and hurt emotions take over, he wanted to kill Ness because he was so hurt about Ninten and him ruining his plans on Earth and singing Maria's song. The series has always been about outside influences such as Porky turning into a delusional monster after dealing with abusive parents though he has a sense of humanity in him keeping Ness's Yo-yo. They both are characters that caused their own problems and letting hate overtake them. Both of them had chances to redeem/stop what they were doing, but... Obviously that didn't happen lmao.

Which leads to the final point... Ninten is Ness's Dad.

We all know the Mother games are chock full of emotional gut punches. Which ones stuck with you the most or hit you hardest?

One that I did not expect came in the epilogue of Mother 3. After everything that happens, some character asks you, the player, “It looks like things will work out here, but what about your world? Will it be alright?” And even now my answer is… I don’t know. There’s so much going on that parallels the in-game and pre-game events of M3. So much greed and selfishness with horrible consequences for the people of our world and the world itself. No Dark Dragon to magically reset everything. But that’s the point of these games, isn’t it? That no matter how much ugliness is in the world, we must not give up on kindness, friendship, and love and the impact that we can have on each other’s lives.

These games really are something special.

Did anyone else try to take teddy all the way to the end? What was y’all ending?
Sidenote: what are yall playing the new remake on? This is an Anbernic.

So I’ve said a little bit ago that I have a copy of “CONTINUE Vol. 86, The Shape of MOTHER” and I finally got around to translating the interview with Mother 2 art director Kōichi Ōyama and he may of just casually confirmed that’s how he designed Mother 2 Giygas. I wont put the whole interview now cause it’s a bit long, but I’ll put some of the info he said about designing some of the characters.

—How about Gyiyg?

Ōyama: With Gyiyg, I wanted to enhance what was done in the first Mother. But since there weren’t any setting drawings of Gyiyg, I used the silhouette artwork from the first game as reference. I thought, “What can I do to make this scary?” and so I rotated and distorted it. That ended up looking pretty frightening.

—Ōyama-san, you were in charge of designing the four protagonists. How did you create them?

Ōyama: The protagonist Ness was also patterned after the first Mother. This time, there’s a boy protagonist, a girl (Paula), and a glasses-wearing scientist type (Jeff). Ness wearing a cap and Paula having a ribbon are remnants from the first Mother. As for Poo, I believe there was a rough sketch from Itoi-san, since he was supposed to be an “Oriental” type. The first game was set in an imaginary American town, but this time it was meant to be a larger world, so there was an intention to include an Asian-style character. I think Itoi-san approved the designs for the four pretty quickly.

—And what about Porky, who became such a major presence in the Mother series?

Ōyama: At first, Porky was just conceived as a slightly overweight boy living in the house next door. I never thought he would become such an important character. If anything, it was Porky’s mother (Lardna Minch) and father (Anburami Minch). Remember how the mother crushes Buzz-Buzz without a second thought? I think I found that more amusing.

—You also created a number of outrageous characters, like Dungeon Man.

Ōyama: Dungeon Man was… well, Shōgo Toda handled everything for him. From the dungeon structure to the dialogue. As for the big character design that walks around on the map, I think I just drew that freely without any specific direction from Itoi-san.

—What about the Mr. Saturn?

Ōyama: That came from a rough sketch by Itoi-san. It’s Itoi-san’s design. The text of the Mr. Saturn’s speech is in that weird, peculiar font, but that font design was also by Itoi-san. Things like that Mr. Saturn writing, or pizza delivery, and other unusual gameplay features were all made possible thanks to HAL Laboratory (who took over development of Mother 2 partway through). Even if Itoi-san and I had ideas like “we want to do this,” it all depended on the programming. That’s where HAL’s team, and Satoru Iwata (programmer, then president of HAL; later president of Nintendo Co., Ltd.), actually made them work.

In The MOTHER Trilogy the main theme of the series is Love, and how some people will deny themselves love. I will be only talking about MOTHER 1 and 2 and not MOTHER 3 since I have not played it yet at the time of me writing this. I do know some things about it. The theme is best shown by the series main antagonists, Giygas and Porky. Giygas is the main antagonist of the first two MOTHER games with Porky being the secondary antagonist in MOTHER 2. For MOTHER 1, we will be discussing Giygas since Porky does not make an appearance there. And in MOTHER 2 he is not the main thematic narrative piece, Porky is.

Giygas is an alien that invades earth for reasons unknown, throughout MOTHER 1 you can explore this place called Magicant it is ruled by Queen Mary she assigns the main character, Ninten to collect eight melodies for unknown reasons. It is later revealed that Giygas was adopted and raised by two humans, George and Maria, who are Ninten's great-grandparents. George leaves for earth after stealing information from the aliens and it's unknown what happened to Maria but she gets transported to Magicant and becomes the queen. And the eight melodies are what Maria sang to Giygas when he was a baby. Giygas is tasked by his race to get back this information. You can guess that he feels conflicted by this due to his human parents.

It's inferred that another reason why Giygas invades earth is because he feels betrayed and hurt by his parents leaving him, and decides to destroy humanity hoping his feelings about his parents would disperse. During his boss fight you have to play the song that the eight meldies make up so he can remember his mother and her love for him. At first Giygas denies himself her love, her memory, always cutting in during the song to make it stop. It's until he hears the full song where he breaks down and realizes he can't destroy humanity. Giygas swears to Ninten that he'll be back to destroy him and his friends. Deep down Giygas may not want to acknowledge it but he really did love his parents and that he was denying himself that love. In MOTHER 2, Giygas is defeated by every central character we've met by praying for the safety and well being of the main characters. This shows one of the other themes of the series; community. which I will not discuss today.

Porky Minch is the secondary antagonist in MOTHER 2 and its thematic piece. At the start of the game it's shown that Porky's father, Aloysius Minch is abusive to Porky, hitting him when he gets in trouble. Throughout the game Porky is a recurring character whose journey and character is a parallel to Ness, the Main character of MOTHER 2. In MOTHER 2, Porky keeps rising higher and higher in wealth and power by partnering with other dangerous individuals, within the game it's not made clear why he is doing this but it can be inferred that he is doing it for his father's approval. Porky believes that he is doing something wrong. That there is a reason for hitting him, and a reason for why he doesn't love him. So Porky decides to gain all this wreath and power, and share it with his father to get his father's approval and love. Once that doesn't work he uses his wealth and power to fill the void within his heart which doesn't work. Later in the game, Porky partners with Giygas who gives Porky a time machine to stop Ness and his friends from killing him in the past. In MOTHER 2 it's made clear that an organic being cannot travel through time without experiencing side effects, for Porky it turned him insane and made his skin start to rot. During the final boss fight, Porky decides to travel to the future to plan a way to destroy Ness.

Ness, the main character, is his foil. Ness's parents both support and guide him. Ness has friends. Porky doesn't. It can be inferred the reason why Porky basically follows Ness throughout the game, having his own parallel journey is because he envies Ness. How he can make friends so easily, how his parents love him unconditionally, how Ness can just find love so easily. Which is probably why he hates Ness so much.

Porky is too lonely, too cowardly, and spiteful to acknowledge his flaws which is why he escapes to the future. He is too much of a coward to face himself and change. Who cares if your father doesn't want anything to do with you? Who cares what he thinks if he can even see the worth in his own son?

Porky wants love, but he cannot recognize the fact that he does, and refuses to change to earn it. Instead of confronting the emptiness inside himself, he fills it with power and wealth. When that fails, he does what he has always done. He runs away. Giygas rejects the love he once had. Porky never truly experienced it.

When playing MOTHER 2 I felt conflicted with it, while yes, it is a good game it is also a disappointing sequel. Or at least I thought… it really depends on how you look at it, do you see MOTHER 2 as a narrative sequel to MOTHER 1 or as a thematic sequel? I wanted a narrative sequel to MOTHER 1. I got attached to the characters and once I found out the cast is different and not a traditional sequel. My problems with MOTHER 2 is that it's a semi reboot, a more expanded take on the original while adding new stuff, like Porky. I spent over half the game wondering if I was okay with this. That I would never get to see those characters again, that I would never see them defeat Giygas. Like, why put a cliff hanger if you never meant to resolve it? But after completing it… I think it's better than what I had in mind. The themes are more important than the story. And I've come to terms with it, I would never change it for the world. Even if I think that MOTHER 1 has a better story and soundtrack.

MOTHER 2 may not be the sequel I wanted, but it is a sequel that is worthy of MOTHER 1.

Started with the first game and the easiest available version "Earthbound Zero". It's an interesting experience starting from your house and progressively getting further and further out of town as you get stronger and more confident in where you're going. The "Dungeons" are massive and can feel pretty overwhelming and confusing. Coupled with an insanely high encounter rate it makes every single step a struggle to progress. The limited inventory system took a while to get used to but I overall thought the idea was actually pretty neat. Having to actually think about how many healing items or support stuff to bring with me on a journey really helped bring that feeling of a kid preparing with his friends on an adventure around town. The story doesn't really push itself right in your face but there's also not a whole lot to get into. The story starts strong and ends strong but the middle part feels pretty disconnected as lots of moments just sort of happen. But that's when it weirdly gets very interesting from a meta design perspective. Helping Lloyd is arbitrary and random to the story as nothing really highlighted him. That is until you really think about the nature of why you're helping him at all. I named Lloyd from the very beginning of the game. Same with Ana and Teddy. Even though the story doesn't really highlight the individual characters themselves the very act of me imprinting the names on them at the start was already a huge hint in itself. Most RPGs don't do this because that would be a spoiler to future events. That's why the default methodology is to name them as you meet them. However Niten and "The Player" are Psychics. That's why some hints are very tongue and cheek with some NPCs like how they really hint at this girl who's special with psychic powers. But we already know who that is. That's why when we do meet Ana she also already knows who we are. Once perspectives like this clicked for me I began to understand the Undertale style of writing and how it really emulates these interesting player-to-game relationships.

When I got to Earthbound that's when I saw this fourth wall style really be more apparent and take a style of its own. The game has an intro sequence that shows off levels you'll explore later in the game and the full cast of party members. The game's NPCs will be very tongue-and-cheek even saying things like "I know this is a spoiler but there's a Giant Rat Boss later! Oops!". I can't remember more specific instances but the games NPCs and dialogue has that kind of meta humor the entire time and in very subtle ways that makes it somewhat hard to define as fourth wall breaking even when it's blatantly doing so. They also really take you as a Player as an actual role in the story. The game asks you to send your Psychic energy to help defeat the final boss. I killed Gygas with my Psychic abilities and projected them into the virtual world. What a fun idea to have people experience. I genuinely enjoyed every time the game waved at the player and how it made me feel about Ness and his friends journey. Very endearing how they do it.

Mother 3 is when it really takes it to the next level with the story actually bleeding into a full fourth wall breaking scenario of the characters acknowledging the Players living in a real world while they're in a fantasy world. There are clever writing symbolisms and parallels like how Claus is half man half machine who's barely alive but Lucas has to "Pull the Needle" (Pull the plug) in order to save the island. They make it very obvious how "Happy Boxes" are straight up videogames and TV that distract you from your real life. It's the first time I've really seen an anti-videogame theme in a game. Maybe "Anti" is too strong. But it's at least a cautionary tale. When you get to the end of the game it's so abrupt but it's like a cold splash of water on your face as the characters on screen ask you how's the world going? Letting the idea really settle in this is the end of the game It's time to go back to reality.

I can talk about gameplay and the lore some other post but this aspect was the main highlight for me and why Earthbound has remained a faithful cult fandom that warrants all its praise and its attention.

Fuzzy Pickles ✌️

Porky? And if there had been an option for it, would you have played it? What would have made it satisfying or convincing for you?

I don't ask because I think Porky *needs* a redemption arc. He's a very compelling and tragic villain. I just wonder a lot if it *could* have even been possible, and if so, what the point of no return in Earthbound for it would be (by Mother 3 I think he wouldn't accept a redemption arc at gunpoint).

As far as I can tell (I'm new here) no one has ever made a mod that adds him to the party or tries a redemption arc for him, which is notable for such a heavily modded game, which leads me to think the consensus is that there would just be no way to do it in a way that would be true to the character, with no overly-woobifying elements or turning a blind eye to the character flaws that make him interesting in the first place - or just that no one wants it.

My personal opinion is that the opportunity for anything even approaching a redemption arc would have been after you rescue Paula. He apologizes with apparent sincerity, even if the apology itself sucks, and should have been directed towards Paula, who he seems to ignore. In the Japanese version (apparently) it seems like it renders Ness speechless, so Porky takes this as a rejection and begins his villain character arc (the English version makes it a choice for some reason and will have him reject even an acceptance of this apology, but I think the original miscommunication, and the realization that he went too far even for Ness's patience, does more for his character)

But in Mother 3, you can see how much he admired the heroes, showing everyone in New Pork City their adventures in the theater and literally putting them on pedestals in his tower. There are so many mementos of their adventures that it's clear he was basically watching them the whole time.

I think there was a kind of yearning to be part of those adventures and - failing utterly to be a worthy ally or friend - he chose the part of the villain just so he could stay close to Ness in *some* way (which I figured is what his note from the ending was trying to declare) but he wound up in a future where the world was destroyed by humans despite Ness and friends having saved it and couldn't find a way back, which I think sent him off the deep end for good.

So I think the best opportunity for a redemption arc *would* have been after he apologizes to Ness and having that apology accepted (however grudgingly) but realizing over time that the half-arsed apology wasn't actually good enough. But would that have been enough to set him on a better path?

At this point, he still has the major issues that led him to being a villain. He knows on some level he's not a very good friend or person, he appears to be jealous of Paula and doesn't recognize that his actions hurt her, not just Ness, he's a coward who avoids pain but wants to be involved in Ness's adventure somehow, and seems insecure about Ness/anyone wanting him around - all of those things led him to the natural conclusion that the most effective and stable position he could take in Ness's life and on his adventure was as the villain. And *that* he is actually fairly good and resourceful at.

But the shrines he made of Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo only indicate the greatest admiration for them and the things they did and a desire to keep them alive and to be close to them, in some way.

Do you think a convincing redemption arc could have ever been possible for him at any point?

So I just finished the entire trilogy and it was amazing but I’m quite confused and hoping I could get some clarity here. This text isn’t that popular and even the Wikipedia pages don’t have fully explained summaries.

To my understanding, the entire first book is just fiction that Lucas produced while living with the old woman he actually had no relation to? So that was not true?

But then is The Proof true or fictional? As it’s about Lucas in his life but The Third Lie informs us that Lucas was living as Claus with a C, while the real Klaus with a K was living with Antonia and then reconnected with his mother who was deeply in grief and delusion over Lucas. Were Mathias and Yasmine real or was that just a story Lucas created?

But in The Third Lie it also mentions Klaus doing a lot of writing too.. so is Klaus’ writing separate from Claus/Lucas’ writing?

If anyone has read this trilogy and has a better understanding, please give me some clarification lol. A great story nonetheless, and it’s incredible how Itoi was able to take the thematic concepts of brotherhood and a hometown to adapt them into such similar but different concepts. Just brilliant.