Mother 3 Chapter 8 Analysis

I have to be perfectly honest with you. During this second playthrough of Mother 3, I’ve actually been enjoying the game a little less than I thought I would. When I finished the game for the first time back in 2021, I was completely floored. The game seemingly took the oddities of EarthBound, and converted them into a more coherent story. But this time around, I find the pacing of the game to be not as fun to engage with. I miss the parody of American culture and insane ongoings of each new town in EarthBound.

But look at what I’m doing. I’m writing a chapter by chapter examination of Mother 3. Why am I doing this? Because even though I may prefer EarthBound, I still think Mother 3 is one of the most fascinating games in Nintendo’s long history. It is still a beautiful game with good meaning. I absolutely consider it a game that every JRPG veteran should play. It holds one of my favorite scenes and stories in the genres long history. More on that later…

Immediately after pulling the sixth needle at the end of Chapter 7, a limousine pulls up in front of the temple. The chauffeur tells us that “Master Porky” has asked him to escort us to “New Pork City”. We agree. The limo’s interior reminds me of the child-like bedroom inside Thunder Tower. The one belonging to “Master P”. The limo is filled with all sorts of distractions and toys such as a billiards table, arcade games, and a hot tub. It’s ridculous to say the least.

But nowhere near as ridiculous as our destination- New Pork City.

New Pork City is a hulking mass of artificiality and amusements. You could make the sound argument that all cities are artificial, but we can actually see that some of the buildings are literally cardboard cutouts supported by small wooden beams. This is a city built in a rush and without much thought. Distractions? Haste? Constant amusements? Seems childish…

Much like our old “friend” Pokey Minch from EarthBound. Except this time he goes by the name Porky.

There’s much debate in the Mother community if this character was originally intended to be called “Porky” or “Pokey”. The Japanese names of his entire family are food puns, so it makes sense that his would be one too. “Porky” also makes more sense given his round stature and gluttonous nature. I personally like “Pokey” a little bitter. It sounds a bit more childish and endearing. I like to think that by the time we get to the events of Mother 3 and after his collaboration with Giygas, Pokey decided to go full-on evil and become “Porky”.

But anyways, yes, welcome back Porky. It seems that at the very end of EarthBound, Porky took Dr. Andonuts and his Phase Distorter to travel to a different time. A time seemingly very far in the future where things have reset?

We find out through a very unexpected scene that Mother 3 takes place after an almost post-apocalyptic event. Human beings have destroyed the world except for a small island. The very few survivors gather on the White Ship and land on these islands. They agree to seal their memories in the Egg of Light. The only one with their memories intact is a very tall and very silent man known as Leder. Leder is the one telling Lucas and his friends all about this.

Porky time travelled to these islands, and thanks to the help of Dr. Andonuts, began the Pig Mask army. Using this army, he slowly manipulated and converted Tazmily and the island to his sick desires. But once he found out about the needles and the dragon, Porky wanted to pull the needles and destroy the last bit of life in the world.

It feels like an almost biblical style story. The last humans seal the memories of their sins away and try to restart civilization. And yet, even with this fresh start- they screw up. They become addicted to technology and currency. They resort to violence.

It is because of this story and the message that I love Mother 3 deeply. There’s a lesson here that if we truly want to become better people (or a better society), we need to remember our mistakes. We need to remember our flaws. And we need to make sure never to act the same way. Perhaps there is a bit of bitterness on the side of Itoi? He is practically saying that humans will continue to fuck up no matter what.

We start to climb Porky’s Tower, a massive skyscraper that technically isn’t finished being build. This is where things get even weirder. There’s a museum area dedicated to EarthBound. Trinkets that we interacted with all the time in EarthBound. There’s even some items we can buy at the New Pork City Theater Shop that come straight out of EarthBound

This might be a hot take, but I don’t really see much of a point or benefit in having Porky or all of these EarthBound references in Mother 3. Technically, EarthBound does share some connection to Mother 1, but it’s very scarcely discussed. EarthBound can easily be digested as a standalone game. It comes from the era of Nintendo semi-remaking their games. Games like Super Metroid come off as a remake of Metroid, but thanks to the storyline- technically aren’t. Same thing as Starfox for the SNES and Starfox 64. Half-remake and half-sequel. But I can’t really say that Mother 3 can be enjoyed as a standalone story. Even little things like seeing the Instant Revitalization Machine in Chapter 1 is fulfilling as a Mother fan. But I think it would’ve been better if we just focused on the wonderful cast given to us in Mother 3. There’s a lot of silly and open-ended questions here. How did people like Fasaad come to work under Porky? Why is Dr. Andonuts seemingly okay with creating these terrifying chimeras and weapons?

As we march closer to the final needle, we end up in a very deep and dark cave. It’s reminiscent of the final cave in EarthBound. Flint is with us too, but sadly not for battle. Flint begs us not to hurt the Masked Man, because (shocking to nobody) he’s Claus!

Much like EarthBound, the penultimate boss battle is the true final boss in terms of challenge and testing the players mastery over mechanics. We fight Porky in his weird spider machine. After beating him, he hastily enters Dr. Andonuts Absolutely Safe Capsule. The ASC allows somebody to enter but never leave, and it guarantees absolute safety against any threat. Porky seems to be so far gone being a normal person anymore, so it’s likely that he no longer requires food and water. It’s very possible that he will spend a very long, boring, and insanity-driving existence in this Absolutely Safe Capsule.

Then we get to the final boss battle with Claus. This is one for the heartstrings! Kumatora, Duster and Boney can’t help out in this fight. It’s just Lucas versus Claus. Brother versus brother. Whenever we try to have Lucas fight Claus, he refuses. He can’t bring himself to hurting his brother. After constantly healing and defending against Claus’ brutal onslaught of attacks, Hinawa’s voice reaches the boys. Claus ignored her at first and tries killing Lucas with a PK Love, but Flint defends Lucas. Claus strikes his father again, almost killing him. Hinawa’s voice reaches the boys again. This time Claus listens to her and briefly reverts back to his normal self. He becomes the lovable boy we knew from Chapter 1. He recognizes that Lucas’ Franklin Badge can reflect lightning. So he kills himself by firing a powerful bolt of lightning at Lucas, knowing full well it will reflect back at him and end his life.

Pretty soon after we are thrust into a black void where we can talk to NPC’s whom we can’t actually see. They thank us by name (the game asked for our player name back in Chapter 1). And then a big burst of light. So what happens? Is the world over? Or does everything reset? Back to its pre-Nowhere Islands age? Or before that? And seeing as Lucas is the one who pulled the majority of the needles, one may assume that Hinawa can come back to life?

We don’t get any of these answers from Mother 3. Instead, we’re left with a little 20 hour JRPG that deals with grief, capitalism, industrialization, greed, suicide, and human nature- by Nintendo of all companies!

I think Mother 3 is absolutely one of those experiences that hits hardest the first time you play it. I love this game with all of my heart. I’m happy to have had the experience to revisit it right after playing its legendary predecessor. In my EarthBound analysis I argued that the game could be viewed as a metaphor for growing up and facing the evil within the world. Well, I think Mother 3 could be all about facing the evil within ourselves as humans. Fasaad is a greedy bastard and animal abuser. Claus wouldn’t have become a slave if he didn’t seek revenge. Dr. Andonuts helped Porky create weapons of destruction. Why are humans like this? We’ll never know…