Yeah, I just finished it. This is hell of a game! I personnally didn't got the hype of EB (probably because I was too much hyped), so when I started the sequel, I wasn't really waiting for more, but seriously this is really a next level from EarthBound. Way better, the story flow sooo well and extremely well balanced from the start to the end. This is seriously in my top 5. I bought the translated repro this summer and finally was able to finish it through the job and other hobbies, but the closer I was to the end I couldn't stop to play ahah. Anyway, I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts about the game!

I enjoyed it, though it was a little too depressing for my tastes.

Yeah, I personnally loved that Rare are the games where it's not always beautiful and gentle, comming from Nintendo. It is different and make you feel some other feelings that I didn't saw before from Kirby Mario etc.

It was a great game.. But personally I hated the whole chapters aspect of it..

The chapters do kind of hurt it as the flow gets a bit off. I find it harder to enjoy and dedicate time to than the previous game as it just seems more bent on taking too long to level up and having you take more of a pasting unless you're a musician or a timing genius who can rapidly detect the pace of the music and thump up the jams in synch to get a quality bit of damage in from your hits. I can almost never pull it off and I just get the shit kicked out of me in fights unless I bore my ass half to death leveling up a lot before moving along so I put it up months ago in CH2 or 3 I forget where. It's not bad, but forcing that was just cruel.

Wow, I'm surprised most of the reaction here are negative

I'm not being negative, just a realist, if you have no sense of music in following a beat/having rhythm or just being bad at timing, this game can be a very slow grind and painful. If you're in tune with the tunes or have just really good timing, I'm sure it's a lot faster and quite good. The story is fine, chapters are a bit odd, but for me my issue is the combat giving weak hits unless you can sense the beat underneath the musical score and tap to it.

Yeah, sorry, I might haven't use the good word, but what I mean is the opinion doesn't seems that much like people really like the game as I liked it.

I understand your points though. I just didn't stucked at what annoyed you, it didn't annoyed me.

Music in the game is amazing too, a thing I forgot to say.

Maybe it's because of nostalgic reasons that I don't like the game as much as it's snes counterpart.. But the chapters honestly didn't help mother 3 at all

I still can't understand what you guys hate so much about the chapters. I mean it's a 30 sec-2 min little cut scene, what's the hate around that?

Depressing, eh? I tend to like sad games too. Makes me really look forward to playing Mother 3 someday.

It's how the chapters are broken down.. It's like ok you finished this part move on to the next.. There are areas where if you miss something in a previous chapter that if I remember correctly you cannot go back to get.. That annoyed me greatly.. In snes earthbound you didn't really have that problem.. I guess to me it just took away from an open world environment which is one of the things I loved about earthbound..

Oh seriously? I didn't even noticed that, I thought you could go back anytime you wanted.. But yeah, I feel your let down on not being able to go back. Personnally, in both (EarthBound and Mother 3) games, it pissed me off that close to the end, if you save, you can't go back anymore to the open world.

Earthbound was more exploration and gameplay driven, while Mother 3 centered more around the story--this is why they implemented the chapters I think, and this is why they flow smoothly for the first 4 chapters at least. Chapters 4 and 5 could have been combined, and 7 and 8 to a lesser extent; however, I'm glad they did separate those chapters because I love those cutscenes. I never really saw the chapters as an issue, except the fact that Chapter 7 was disproportionately long--it still flowed very well. In fact, I kind of liked how the first few chapters told separate stories then came together later on.

Anywho, aside from that business, Mother 3 is probably my favorite game ever. It is easily the greatest and best told story ever told in video games, but the gameplay is interesting too--diverse world design, many well developed characters, PHENOMENAL music, and pretty good graphics for the GBA even though I don't really care about that. It was one of those games that just left me feeling kind of deep (for lack of a better word) at the end, like there was some pressure in my chest and just sat there kind of like...whoa. It's hard to describe. Just fantastic.

It's kind of hard to compare Earthbound to this, they're very different in terms of plot and gameplay. Although Earthbound has less of a vast world than Mother 1, you still get a feeling of a large, open world for you to go on your own. With Mother 3 you feel like more of a close community, and intentionally so--this is emphasized by the lack of PSI Teleport. Both games do have some of the best video game soundtracks I've ever heard, and the Mother 3 music combat system really highlighted that. I've played these games for a long time and have recently been reading editorials on the philosophical undertones of the games, and I'd recommend checking them out if you really do like the game.

Wow pretty much agree with everything you said. Glad I'm not alone in this boat About the "Editorials" where can I find it? I'm interested

Mother 3: http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/20...
Earthbound: http://nesenshrined.flyingomelett...

The Earthbound one is quite the lengthy read, but it is very thorough and provides insight on the game you might find interesting even if you didn't like the game as much.