MOTHER 3, A Literary

Video Game
written by Isaac Yuen

M OTHER 3 tells a story most would not expect a videogame to tell.

Written by Shigesato Itoi, an essayist, slogan maker, copyeditor, voice
actor, famed blogger, short fiction collaborator (with Haruki Murakami),
Iron Chef judge and fishing fan, MOTHER 3 is a deeply intimate tale that
engages on both an intellectual and emotional level. Games journalist
and developer Tim Rogers believes that it represents the closest a
videogame has yet come to modern literature. For me, MOTHER 3 is art.
The Short Gist
MOTHER 3 begins in Tazmily Village, a utopian paradise where humans
and nature live in harmony. One day, an army of Pig-like soldiers
invades the area and transforms the local wildlife into mechanical
abominations, setting off a chain of events that eventually changes the
tranquil lives of the town’s inhabitants forever. As the player, you play as
multiple characters through eight distinct chapters to make sense of this
strange and changing world.

3 Readings of MOTHER 3: Nature, Culture, Self

MOTHER 3 is about many things.

It is about the chief villain Porky and his Pigmask Army’s utter contempt
for life. Early on, the player comes across their scattered mission notes:

“All of the creatures around here suck. We need to make them

cooler. We’ll mix and match this and that to create whole new
things no one’s ever seen before!”
– Memo from Porky
As a result, many of the game’s enemies are floral and faunal chimeras,
ranging from cybernetic caribou and mechanical dragons to bizarre
hybrids of familiar creatures: dogs mixed with mushrooms, snakish
cattle, pig-headed petunias, ostriches with grinning elephantine bodies,
just to list a few. Towards the end of the game, these creations grow
even more perverse as living beings are turned into literal weapons –
hippos shoots missiles out of their mouths; and rhinos exist as rockets
(in Mark I and II versions) with the sole purpose of tracking your party
down.
This childish disregard and active malevolence towards nature drives
much of the game’s conflict. In the prologue, the Pigmask Army sets fire
to the forest for no discernible reason. Chapter 3 has Fassad, Porky’s
chief underling, blackmail and torture the player’s avatar, a monkey
named Salsa. Throughout Chapter 5, 7, and 8, the player journeys
through a host of laboratories where scientists brainwash and
experiment on various creatures. The very logo of the game sports this
motif of unnatural melding – a mix of wood and metal, the organic and
inorganic rammed together to elicit feelings of unease.

“I feel like these are all things of modern times – these feelings of uneasiness and
discomfort. But I understand that they make up the world I’m in. The logo is a symbol of
that.” (Translated Mother 3 interview from mother3.fobby.net)
***

MOTHER 3 is about the corruption of utopia. The arrival of the Porky

and his Army sets off a family tragedy and a chain of events that forever
transforms Tazmily village. Over the span of three short years, rapid
modernization of the town sends people to work at factories, creates a
caste of disposable slaves, and transforms authentic happiness into a
manufactured commodity. Those marginalized by or opposed to such
radical change are exiled to the town’s margins or struck down by
lightning bolts generated from a distant tower of judgement.
 Elder neglect and mistreatment? MOTHER 3’s got that.

Divine retribution upon those who refuse progress.

The isolation and dehumanization of modernity; the homogenization of

individual thought and desire; the emptiness and ennui associated with
consumerism – these are all elements expressed in MOTHER 3. By the
end of the game, Tazmily becomes a ghost town, with its inhabitants
relocated to the glamorous but ultimately shallow metropolis of New Pork
City.

***

MOTHER 3 is also a bildungsroman, a tale of a child who matures into

adulthood. Lucas, one of the main protagonists, is forced to grow up too
fast in the wake of his mother’s sudden death, his brother’s lingering
disappearance, and his father’s ensuing depression. From Chapter 4 on,
the player guides Lucas and his friends to overcome enemies and
challenges, eventually becoming strong enough to face Fassad and
Porky.
MOTHER 3 is all of these things. Yet it is not only them.
 A Unique Literary Telling
What I love about MOTHER 3 is that the entire package exists as a
contradiction. Itoi’s insistence to use the videogame medium to tell a
story that is structured like a play, complete with multiple acts and
protagonists. The insertion of surreal and bizarre humour into serious
moments. The fearless reliance of musical motifs or wordless silence to
carry the emotional weight of pivotal scenes. The choice of child-like
visuals to convey a narrative steeped in adult matters of grief, loss, and
the inevitability of change.

Yet, there’s always room for toilet humour.

Out of these deliberate clashes emerges MOTHER 3’s ability to provoke

and evoke. MOTHER 3 can make you laugh out loud one moment and
then tear up the next. It is completely self-aware but is strong on warmth
and whimsy. Its world is strange but is never weird for the sake of weird
(well, almost never.) The story revolves around mature themes but never
takes itself too seriously. The game constantly subverts expectations,
and it is out of these acts of subversion that the game’s depth and
nuances of thought shines through. Tragic, absurd, maddening, funny,
poignant – MOTHER 3 can be all of these things for a player. It resists
being distilled into the neat simple summaries like the ones above – a
key characteristic of literary work.

3 Deconstructions of MOTHER 3 Readings

MOTHER 3 may come across as a lament for a time and place where
nature and people existed in harmony. But in the last chapter during
what is the longest exposition dump in memory (another hilarious
subversion of what is generally considered good writing and pacing), the
player learns that the utopian world of Tazmily is and always was a lie,
an artificial construction by survivors of a destroyed world who chose to
wipe their memories and begin anew. Because they denied their history,
neglected to cultivate deep mythologies, and ignored the darker aspects
of human nature, Tazmily became an exceedingly fragile society: Its
innocence offered no strength against outside influences. Porky’s
Pigmask Army was able to destroy it through the use of fear, greed, and
violence.
In the end, the utopian vision of Tazmily is just as unsustainable as the
shallow grandeur of New Pork City – both exist only as shiny facades
that crumble upon closer inspection.

Just the idea of money was enough to destabilize Tazmily village.

New Pork City is a shallow and constructed reality.

Thomas More coined the word “utopia” in 1516 from the Greek
phrase ou-topos, meaning “no place” or “nowhere”. MOTHER 3 takes
place on the Nowhere Islands, a not-so-subtle foreshadowing hint that
Tazmily is the ultimate illusion.
***

It would be easy to portray MOTHER 3 as an indictment against

modernization and consumerism. Yet Itoi meticulously creates a world
where people struggle with these huge forces in very human ways. One
of my favourite scenes occurs in Chapter 3, when Fassad arrives in
Tazmily to ask the townspeople if they are happy:

Notice how each person responds. Some walk away immediately.

Others stay for a while and laugh before rejecting his sermon. Still others
are genuinely curious, raising their hands when asked if they would like
to become more happy. The first to raise her hand, Abbey, is
enthusiastic and naïve, believing there can never be too much
happiness. Abbott follows his wife in all things, hinting at his own
tendencies. Biff has no idea what Fassad is talking about but is eager to
take advantage of any opportunity. Isaac, the most hesitant of the bunch,
is curious to see if happiness can really be so easy to attain.

It’s a cute, weird, and fascinating scene that illustrates the level of
characterization in MOTHER 3. To acknowledge that humans have
various and multiple motivations, and to show subtle and contrasting
reactions on bit characters the player can ignore without consequence is
rare in the medium of videogames. If the player chooses to interact with
Itoi’s minor creations, he/she will discover that the world of MOTHER 3 is
not so black and white, that he/she may empathize with the journeys of
each townsperson with their own circumstance, being caught up in
something much greater than themselves.

By the last chapter, Isaac becomes a brainwashed member of the

Pigmask Army (oh gullible Isaac!). Biff still seems ill at ease, following
others to New Pork City simply because no one else is left in Tazmily.
Abbott and Abbey remain relatively unchanged, as if to suggest that their
bond is sufficient to shelter them even through to the world’s
end. Hardcore Gaming 101’s essay succinctly summarizes the subtlety
and impact of MOTHER 3’s writing:

“This path [MOTHER 3] has chosen to walk is that of reflection and

analysis. The adventure takes place in a world caught up in a
bizarre yet very real mutation. At the start of chapter 4, after the
scene has been successfully set, an ellipse brings the player three
years later, to an unrecognizable Tazmily that once was a small
utopian rural village and now has gone through a radical
transformation process. Of course, there already exists a whole
bunch of “anti-consumerist” works, and the like in every medium,
most of which really aren’t all that subtle. But that is not where
Mother 3 stands. This contributes to a most welcomed absence of
phony black-and-white morality-tainted “sides” in the story, and it
helps in reasserting every last NPC’s humanity in this open-minded
yet unsettling atmosphere where you are to expect anything
coming from the disorientated citizens of the new Tazmily, from
desperate bravery to aggressive conformism.”
– Hardcore Gaming 101
Itoi’s script, rooted in delicate observations of human nature and a lack
of moral judgement, provides the layered complexity necessary for
MOTHER 3’s power and resonance. As I revisit MOTHER 3, I’m
reminded of the work and attraction of an artist in another medium:

“By doing his best not to preach or moralize through his art,
Burtynsky seems to speak on a more subtle and accessible level:
‘Like it or not, this is how things are.’ The landscapes are allowed
to exist without judgment or justification. How we interpret and
react to their existence is left to us.”
– Manufactured Landscapes: A meditation on man-made spaces
***

Finally, MOTHER 3 also resists being a traditional tale about growing up

and moving on. In the end, the player doesn’t triumph over evil by being
stronger or more powerful than his/her opponent. They win because
brother refuses to fight brother. They win because a mother begs her
two sons to stop fighting. They win because a father sacrifices himself to
protect his son. Much of MOTHER 3 is about a family being torn apart;
its conclusion thus comes full circle, reuniting them in a final act of
reconciliation, providing closure through familial love.

Interestingly, it is less Lucas’ courage but more his childish innocence,

retained through a traumatic journey in adulthood, that proves
instrumental to the story’s conclusion. In the last scene, Lucas conveys
his will towards the reconstruction of a broken world. While there is no
going back to the false paradise of Tazmily and the outcome is not
shown as the credits roll, the player is assured that the future, guided by
Lucas’ innate kindness and empathy, is a hopeful one.

MOTHER 3 as Mirror

Image from animatedscreenshots.tumblr.com

It’s been six years since I first played through MOTHER 3. Each time I
revisit the game, I seem to come across a fresh line of dialogue, a subtle
musical motif, or a poignant moment that deepens my understanding
and love for its story. This quality of depth is something I look for and
treasure in stories, especially ones with interesting things to say about
nature, culture, and self. Itoi, I suspect, would welcome such
explorations:

“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.”
– Translated Interview with Shigesato Itoi
For those who have never played MOTHER 3 and probably never will, I
hope the piece made some sense and opened your eyes to the potential
of video games for telling meaningful stories. For those who are
MOTHER 3 fans, thanks for reading – I hope you found something here
that enriched your view of the game. I would love to hear about your
experiences with the game.

My heartfelt thanks to Shigesato Itoi for crafting such a “strange, funny,

and heartrending” tale, and to Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin and the fans at
Starmen.net for pouring thousands of hours into developing a masterful
fan-translation, without which I would have never experienced the beauty
of this utterly unique story. MOTHER 3 is one of those rare games that is
as rewarding to play through as it is to ponder afterwards, and I cannot
envision it being told in any other medium, in any other way.