Here's my unorganized thoughts and notes I wrote down while getting high and playing through the fan-translated version of Mother 1 for GBA. The town names and some other stuff are different from the official Nintendo translation. I'm mostly playing this version because it's a lot less grindy than the original NES version.
- Backstory -
In the early 1900's, a dark shadow appeared, and the married couple George and Maria disappeared. Only George eventually returned and started some weird research...
- Mother's Day -
In 1988, in the town of Mother's Day, Ninten's house started shaking and household items attacked. Inside his sister's doll was a broken melody...
The sister gives me unlimited orange juice...
Ninten's dad on the phone:
It sounds like a poltergeist of some sort. Your great-grandfather did study PSI at some point.Some creepy horror movie stuff going on... Ninten's dad tells me about the checking ability, and gives me the key to the basement.
An NPC describes the people/animals attacking as zombies and animals gone mad.
GGF's diary:
The password... Where is the god's tail, that which was left behind by the ship that soars the heavens?Pippi is missing, tell the mayor...
First enemy I encountered was a hippie and this was just hilarious...
Hippie is praying
Hippie used bullhorn and shouted "Your mother is calling you!" Ninten was not convinced. Ninten became angry. Ninten's offense increased by 12!A smoking crow in high heels... I love the enemies in this game. It's even more humorous than the later games in the serious in some ways.
Mouse npc:
Houses with round doors or signs on them are the ones you can go into.The near-empty pet shop gives me a baby canary for free after I refuse to buy it.. they think something is controlling the animals.
Can use use bread to drop crumbs to show where I've been.. its use is very limited though.
The mayor asks me to help the little girl who got lost in the cemetery... heading south along the left river... find a healer's house. A sign tells me the cemetary is east along the bridge, and "going alone is dangerous".
Checked inside some coffins under a grave... the one without a zombie in it had the missing girl, hiding from them.
Pippi gives you a dialog choice. The best one is to say you're not brave and you hope we meet again sometime. she gives you the Franklin Badge then...
Sent Pippi to the mayor for $100, and agreed to help with his zoo problem. Pippi asks me if her socks are too short, and calls you a cutie either answer you pick.
Mayor's receptionist says she has a secret to share with me later... what is this about?
Dunno where the zoo is... and I still have this Baby Canary I need to get rid of... maybe in that upper left town? A guy in this other cemetary tells me to give that songbird's baby to Laura... Now where did I last see Laura...?
signpost: "South: Mother's Day, North: Cream Puff Zoo"
I lost track of where I'm goin.. just kinda sticking to a main path, now going up and right and looping around back down... UFO enemies now...
These 2 guards are blocking a bridge, saying someone needs to take care of the zoo incident before anyone can pass... still staying on path...
Zoo 700 meters west. oh so I was just doing a loop around it... these are the 2 top-left dots above Mother's Day... Ninten's home and another area are the 2 top-middle above Mother's Day. Zombie Cemetary and another area are the 2 below Mother's Day...
A monkey is blocking the zoo entrance, just mocking me... tried Telepathy, nothing happened... I think I need a hint right about now... oh wait yeah, I didn't get the key yet... I had to sell some things to make room for the zoo key the mayor was gonna give me... then the monkey steals it from me and unlocks the zoo. I bet the monkey wants to free his buddies.
Canary Village I assume is either one of the 2 far top right dots from Mother's Day, or the first top-right dot very close to Mother's Day I somehow never noticed I could get to..? but anyway first is the Zoo part.
Got lost for a little bit.. I've realized I can find Mother's Day and the Zoo pretty easily... but lost track of where "My Home" is, even though I can clearly see where it is on the map... this Yume Nikki-like overworld maze that almost all looks the same but not quite... though I did find Pippi's house somewhere in the middle of the upper left-ish water streams... THAT leads to the close top-right dot... okay and My Home is just further along that path. I think straying off the main path in this game is kind of a bad idea.
Oh gosh this story.... I'm falling in love with it more and more... it's weird how it took me until the 2nd playthrough to notice how good it is.
It's like... this stuff about zombies and animals gone mad and hippies and UFOs etc... it's like this is all sort of Ninten's imagination affecting his reality, conflating "normal" problems with paranormal phenomenon... or something I dunno...
- Zoo/Canary Village -
The bottom left Cemetary was the first real "dungeon" of the game. aka a maze with different music than the overworld but it's still seemlessly one with the overworld.
This zoo is the second dungeon. will I finally find the 2nd melody here? it's a huge diagonally square maze with diamond shaped paths and zigzaggy bushes... this one empty cage has a sign that says: "The world's only singing monkey!"
finally, found the zoo office.. found a rope... a little tiny alien enemy called Starman Jr in a capsule.
Used PSI shield alpha, Def Up alpha, Def Down, etc to prepare, but it all that preparation was unnecessary on easy mode.
This game is a breeze so far on easy mode... I kinda want to give normal/famicom mode an honest try some day.
I love how the check button works in this game. If you are checking anywhere that does not have anything that needs to be checked, you get either "No problem here" or "There is danger lurking about", to tell you whether there are random encounters or not.
The whole zoo is now "No problem here"... zoo incident solved
Learned the 2nd (actually the 3rd) part of the melody from the singing monkey
Still gotta get back to a phone... then gotta go back to Canary Village which I've been to already and is closer to Mother's Day than the zoo... now I can give back the baby canary
I had trouble finding the Canary's mother, and instead found a cave with a strange spiral shell inside...
(Actually I found this earlier, before getting the 3rd melody from Canary Village, not thinking that's where Laura is after fixing the zoo incident)
Something is speaking into Ninten's mind.oh I get it, NOW's the time to use Telepathy..
Where is the god's tail?hmm...
Needed a hint from a guide to find out you can walk through the HIDDEN opening in the fence BEHIND this one off-colored tombstone/pillar things at Canary Village to get to where mother canary is... This is some pretty janky map design I gotta say...
Suddenly remembered I might have business at city hall again... the receptionist tells me about this girl with special powers..
Well, the mayor has nothing to give me this time anyway..
Laura the songbird... taught me the 3rd (2nd) part of the melody...
In song there is strength. True words, indeed.
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