CAT:

It's also a bit haunting in some ways, but in like a kind of beautiful way, the way that winter itself is haunting.

JESS:

Yeah - Exactly. I love that track too. And it would've been my memorable melody, except that we didn't have a whole lot of new music this time around and I figured you would probably be picking that one. So I chose a different one.

CAT:

Okay, well I'm excited to hear what it was.

JESS:

<laugh> Some of the interesting quotes from the people in Snowman... One person said, "please say hello to the camel's Bones in Yucca Desert. I knew that Camel once upon a time." W-what? Say hello to the bones? What <laugh> What's he talking about?

CAT:

Uh, I, it's just - guess it's just gonna be important at some point. <laugh>

JESS:

Okay, go talk to the bones. All right. Well we've already been to the Yucca Desert once and uh, I suppose now we have a good reason to go back.

CAT:

This part of the game starts seeding the knowledge of other places. Like for example, Youngtown. At the train station at Snowman, there's a girl and her father there and she says that her mom left for Youngtown and they haven't heard from her in days, and that she and her dad are going to look for her, but they can't do that because the bridge is out crossing the desert. You also hear that everybody in Youngtown has disappeared. Like, that's the rumor and that's where Ana wants to go,

JESS:

But we can't go there yet. We got other things to take care of first.

CAT:

We're hearing about a ghost house in Spookane. We're hearing about this yuca desert really for the first time. 'cause there's nothing, the game doesn't really encourage you to go there. You just are capable of doing so. And then also Youngtown - you could see where it is on the map. So that's the only reason you'd have any way of knowing like... What any of that means.

JESS:

Well, it makes sense that the people in Snowman would be telling you about all these places if they do travel a lot.

CAT:

Yeah. But of course that's something that I only know because of the Encyclopedia.

JESS:

Somebody else said, "oh my, your nose is running." And they said this to me right after I caught the cold from somebody else. And then I had this moment of panic and I thought to myself, "oh my gosh, am I spreading this virus around to the populace not knowing it?" Like, do I need to stop right now, get some mouthwash, take care of this before I talk to anybody else or <laugh>, you know, I don't wanna be a super spreader!

CAT:

<laugh> Again, the game... It's getting you a bit because, like, if you doubt what it will or won't do, it'll surprise you. But no, nothing that advanced is happening here.

JESS:

Yeah, I know. I figured I was like, "the responsible thing for me to do is to go heal myself." But I didn't do the responsible thing - I just went around and talked to everybody 'cause I didn't wanna buy a bunch of mouthwash.

CAT:

And that's a reasonable thing to do. And also that girl says that to you regardless of whether you have a cold or not.

JESS:

Does she give you the cold if you don't have it already?

CAT:

She does not.

JESS:

Okay. Well then I guess your nose... Yeah, it could be running from the cold weather or something.

CAT:

Weirdly, it's only people in blue who give you the cold.

JESS:

Ohhhh, that's a good tip. I'll have to remember that. Is that just for Snowman or is that everywhere?

CAT:

I think it's everywhere. I'm not sure. I mean not, it's not a guarantee either, but if it's a town that has a pandemic going on, don't talk to the people in blue.

JESS:

Watch out for the people in blue. Alright. And then somebody else said, "you kids are crazy running around with just t-shirts on." And I'm like, "dude, I hear you." I see kids running around in t-shirts in 30 degree weather and I'm like, "what are you doing? Stop that. Put something on. You're gonna catch cold!"

CAT:

And then that guy gives you the cold... 'cause he coughs all over you.

JESS:

<laugh>. Of course.

CAT:

Another thing folks talk about is Ana, 'cause you're looking for her, and they keep mentioning that she is in a chateau.

JESS:

"Not a mansion."

CAT:

Yeah. "Ana's house is a chateau, not a mansion. But I bet you already knew that." That is actually completely untrue because this is a major point of localization in the game. Ana lives in a church.

JESS:

Which is very apparent as soon as you walk into it. But there was nothing in the game to confirm that for me. So I was thinking to myself, "do they live in a church that was converted into a chateau? Or is this supposed to literally be a church?"

CAT:

Late eighties, early nineties, Nintendo censoring of all references to anything resembling religion, but mostly Christianity.

JESS:

And why the distinction? Why say "it's a chateau, not a mansion?"

CAT:

I don't know what the original line is. Maybe that was originally a distinction between the kind of church it was or something. So they're like, "well since now it's not a church, then we're gonna have to make another distinction."

JESS:

But as soon as you walk into it, you see stained glass windows are all around. It's very clear what it is. And I don't think there's any musical cues that would indicate that it's a church, but it's definitely what I thought of when I first walked in there. And as soon as you do walk in, you see Ana standing right there and you go up and talk to her and she says, "I must go on a trip to find my mom. And I needed your help. So I've been waiting for you Ninten. First, let's go see what's happening in Youngtown."

CAT:

It's kind of vague what happened in Youngtown, but the Encyclopedia says, "ever since her mother was kidnapped in a far away town, she's been a pillar to her father who's completely lost his spirit." So she's the daughter of the clergyman (that's how it's worded in the Encyclopedia) and I don't know what work brought her mom and someone else's mom to Youngtown, but that's the implication.

JESS:

So Anna's father is the pastor of Snowman and they all live in the church. And because people are traveling all the time, I guess the idea is that Ana's mother traveled at some point to Youngtown and is missing along with everyone else that used to live there. Right?

CAT:

Right.

JESS:

And so Ana is wanting to go and look for her and find her, but she's been waiting for Ninten and Lloyd to show up so that she can accompany them on their journey and they can sort of help each other.

CAT:

Yeah. She says, "you've appeared just like in my dream. The boy in my dream looks just like you." Now there's a little bit of dialogue that's in there, that I do love. It's not my Mother, She Quote, but... She asks, "are you Ninten?" If you say "no", she says, "don't get silly on me now."

JESS:

<laugh>.

CAT:

Which I liked so much. I shoved it in the intro.

JESS:

Uh-huh. <Laugh>. Yeah. I don't think I got that part, 'cause I don't mess around when it comes to main character dialogues. I don't wanna screw anything up, <laugh>. So I make sure to answer honestly. And I knew she was psychic, so I was like, I'm not fooling this girl. So

CAT:

I like to think that my Ninten was just nervous, like, "...no? I don't know. You're pretty. Stop it."

JESS:

<laugh>. But after she greets you, you walk over and you talk to Ana's father and she says, "next time mommy will come back with me. Believe in us." And he says, "I know success will be yours in the end. Surely our pleas will be heard in the near future." So he seems to be on board with all this.

CAT:

If you talk to him before you talk to Ana, he does have a different piece of dialogue. He says, "my daughter Ana has never been a brave girl, but she has a kind heart and has a secret strength."

JESS:

This all happens of course after you return Ana's hat to her, which you had picked up in the Reindeer train station. Yeah.

CAT:

And you know, in fact, you don't actually ever have to get Ana.

JESS:

...What?

CAT:

You don't have to get Ana to proceed.

JESS:

Really?

CAT:

Yeah. You don't have to do this at all. Because when the game opens up, it opens up.

JESS:

So you can complete the game without Ana.

CAT:

Yeah. I don't believe... Unless you glitch or something... That you can fire off the rockets at Dunkin's. But I mean, if your Ninten is strong enough, you can walk through the train tunnel and, you know, just keep walking, and keep walking, and keep walking.. walk all the way to Snowman and get Ana before you get Lloyd, if you wanted to

JESS:

<laugh> Ninten solos the world. <laugh>. That's an interesting idea.

CAT:

It's a thing you can do... Whether you should do it...

JESS:

But you wouldn't wanna leave her behind, because Ana has a wide variety of fantastic PSI powers.

CAT:

Yeah. She's very physically weak, when it comes to dealing out physical blows and so forth, but in this game, Ninten has no offensive psychokinetic abilities. He only has status abilities. And Ana is the only party member that has offensive psychokinetic abilities.

JESS:

She can kick some butt.

CAT:

Yeah... there's another character on the way, but the team has come together. You went very quickly from being like a solo person to like a full posse.

JESS:

And the game responds. It starts throwing larger groups of enemies at you too.

CAT:

And then you have to make decisions about like, "well there's the psychokinetic abilities that deal damage to one enemy.... Or there's the psychokinetic abilities that deal damage to all enemies..." And like how that damage disperses and so forth. So there's a bit of strategy involved.

JESS:

Which is pretty typical for RPGs. So I don't think we need to get into all that, but it's fairly standard offensive spell casting.

CAT:

Mm-hmm. Now we mentioned the frying pan at the general store, or the Jack store. That's because the standard battle implement in EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings, for female characters is, I'd say offensively, ...a frying pan.

JESS:

Yeah... It's always a frying pan though! It's always a frying pan! In so many games.

CAT:

If you're a girl in a video game during this era, you wear pink, you use ribbons as defensive items, and you hit things with frying pans - because you know women are from the kitchen.

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

And I hate it. I hate it a lot. I've always hated it. But the good news is, in this game, we have items like the boomerang and the slingshot that anybody can use. So you don't need to give Ana a frying pan ever. You can just give her a boomerang or something similar to it.

JESS:

You don't have to give her any weapon, just let her rain down spells of death on everything.

CAT:

It's good to be able to hit something with your fists in a pinch if you run out of PSI power.

JESS:

Fair enough.

CAT:

Let's learn some more about Ana. She's age 12, just like Ninten. And she's the only character who we know the birthday of; she was born December 23rd. Children younger than her call her "little mother because" in Sunday School she teaches songs and reads to them from one of her favorite books, The Little Prince - which,I hear great things about. I've never read it.

JESS:

It's interesting that it appears in this game, because like one of the opening themes of the book is how grownups have an inability to perceive important things that children are able to perceive.

CAT:

Oh... Yeah, that is pretty on the nose for this entire series. Ana's also known for her skilled piano playing, which she does to relieve stress and give her clarity. She understands the language of music as well as she understands written or spoken word. As the Encyclopedia specifically says, "to Ana, a piano melody is simply words of another kind."

JESS:

I relate to that majorly <laugh>

CAT:

<laugh> Says the person who's scoring the show, yes. I would imagine you do <laugh> She loves to write letters to her friends and has both a stamp and envelope collection. And she has a Japanese pen pal named Yoshi who sent her what's become one of her favorite records, I'm Home, the 1981 record by Akiko Yano. As the Encyclopedia says, "she may not understand a foreign country's language, but has the mysterious ability to comprehend what a piano is trying to say." And Yano's later song "Greenfields" is quoted in the Encyclopedia in part of the section about the Underflow. I listened to these records and I'd never heard of Yano before. And she is amazing and kind of sounds like what if Kate Bush was Japanese and sung in a bunch of different genres?

JESS:

Oh, that sounds awesome.

CAT:

If you wanna hear what it sounds like for Kate Bush to sing yacht rock style music in Japanese. I've heard that now.

JESS:

<laugh>

CAT

It's wild. <laugh>

JESS:

Kate Bush yacht rock. Let's go.

CAT:

<laugh> In Japanese!

JESS:

In Japanese.

CAT:

Also, there's a story about Ana and some frogs. Once she was feeling really disturbed by an upcoming frog dissection in class - because she was worried about the frogs. The day of the dissection, she felt unwell enough that she stayed home from school, and while in bed she broke out in a fever. The next day, she heard about what people were calling "The Great Frog Escape," and, for reasons that are not elaborated on, she realized that her powers were somehow responsible. Like, during her fever. Powers that, according to the Encyclopedia, she liked to get by without using, if possible. On the way home from school, a frog said to her, "I owe you one dear Ana." And she replied telepathically, "next time you get caught, it's none of my concern."

JESS:

Oh, wow.

CAT:

Now this frog scene is very suspiciously similar to a scene from E.T. further cementing that Spielberg connection between MOTHER, especially this first game and the oeuvre of Spielberg at this time. E.T. seems to have been a pretty significant influence on the game, and there's a scene where E.T. gets drunk and psychically projects onto Elliot - influencing what he's doing at school... All the way to a famous scene where some frogs are being euthanized for dissection and Elliot goes on a rampage and starts freeing all of them and all the other kids join in. It sounds like Ana does the same thing... Somehow, but it's just her asleep doing it.

JESS:

She seems aware of these powers in a way that Ninten wasn't. She hears the animals thinking, but she knows full well what it is and she understands the effect that she's having on the world.

CAT:

Yeah. Which is why, and we should make a point of saying this: there's a lot of things in this particular introduction to this episode that is me elaborating on what I've interpreted from the game and the Encyclopedia. Like, Ana's parents recognizing that she has special powers, but like putting constraints on whether or not she's destructive or not... That's all me. I invented that. That's not in the game. It's not the Encyclopedia, but things like this frog escape and trying to get by without using her powers and so forth. I interpreted it in that way.

JESS:

You took some creative license, using all the sources that you had available and we'll make sure to call those out when we get to those pieces so that you all know what is actually in the game and what is us sort of elaborating on that.

CAT:

Yeah, it's a little difficult with the main characters and getting into their heads when there are kind of holes in their stories. But I'd like to hope that I still have, you know, rendered all of them in a style that is true to the source material, even if it's kind of off the rails from what is provided.

[Energetic train music begins]

JESS:

Well, let's get back on the rails and let's head over to Spookane.

CAT:

Now, of course Ana has just said, "let's go to Youngtown," but there's this town in the middle... And you could have gone to Spookane at any point, it just makes sense to not do it until you have another party member 'cause... Gosh, I wouldn't wanna be here with any fewer party members.

JESS:

Yeah. And as I was traveling around on the Paradise Line, going back and visiting places, I actually heard more of that song. I was traveling from Marysville back to Snowman, which is a pretty long train trip. So I heard a good chunk of the song. And so, my Memorable Melody from the game is, again, "The Paradise Line" because I heard more of it. And you know, it may be used music, but it's new to me.

CAT:

Well, yeah. Hey look, "The Paradise Line" is so good <laugh> why not come back for seconds?

JESS:

<laugh> It might be my favorite track of the whole game. We'll have to see.

CAT:

"The whole game." Woah.

JESS:

It's so good. I love it so much.

CAT:

Okay, well on the theme of traveling, before we get to Spookane, we've talked about all the different folks from different places saying different things. My Mother, She Quote... Is a weird one. My Mother, She Quote comes from a person we've already talked to: a man outside the station at Reindeer, one of the people who gave you a clue that the hat belongs to Ana and she lives in Snowman. But when you talk to him again, once that information becomes superfluous, he says, "go ahead, poke your nose into other people's business. It's what makes playing the game so much fun."

JESS:

<laugh> I didn't encounter that 'cause I didn't talk to that guy again. But I love that so much. I love how self-aware this game is and I love that statement in particular - 'cause it's encouraging you to just... Stick your nose in every everybody's business.

CAT:

It's one of those fourth wall breaking moments, that happens throughout this series, that's really special. It's like, it's acknowledging different layers of reality. It's saying, "hey, you. The player of this game. You might not get to go up to any random person in your life and hear something fascinating that they've got to tell you, but this lets you do that. So just live it up."

JESS:

Once you get to Spookane, you're dropped off at the train station, you walk into town, and it seems to be abandoned. It seems like all the buildings are run down.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

I didn't see anyone around and there was enemies attacking me the whole way. So for a while I was just wandering around thinking, "okay, well I, you know, I guess nobody is here also," but it turns out there is someone in the larger Spookane - 'cause there is kind of like a little smaller side community off a little bit of ways.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

But if you go into the hotel, there is someone who is standing behind the counter that looks like a robotic Ninten.

CAT:

Oh, that's interesting...

JESS:

And when you talk to him, he says something about like, "do you want to stay the night?"

CAT:

It's for the most part the same dialogue that anybody at a hotel would say to you.

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

Except there's some weird laughter.

JESS:

Right. And after you sleep, the person behind the counter attacks you and it's a Starman.

CAT:

What I think is really interesting about what you just said here is I've never thought, "oh, it's like a robotic Ninten." 'Cause I mean, the graphics are so simplified. It looks like somebody wearing a weird little kind of like gray green outfit and like maybe has a skull for a face.

JESS:

I thought it looked like he was wearing a ball cap. So...

CAT:

I mean it kind of kind of does, yeah. But like, there's also a skull... But making the correlation of like, it's like an evil Ninten robot... Like I've never thought about that.

JESS:

That's just what I thought when I first saw it. I might be making that up completely.

CAT:

Well it's a really interesting idea and something, I mean, uh, I don't really know... I don't have much information about that.... There is a living human being in Spookane Town and that is a doctor working at the hospital. He's the only one left.

JESS:

Okay. I didn't go into the hospital, so I didn't see that person.

CAT:

There's no nurse, so you can't recover people's bodies, but the doctor can do doctor stuff. In the Encyclopedia, it says, "even in the old district, as cut off as it is from human activity, there's still lights on at the hotel and the hospital. If you're about to hit the floor from exhaustion, you have the option of enduring the hotel manager and the ugly look in his eyes and staying the night. Even the lone, Flustered doctor whose nurse flew the coop will at least heal your injuries."

JESS:

Well, glad to know they still have some basic services and you know, hats off to that doctor for sticking around and taking care of anybody who might be wandering through. Now, I will say I went up to the second floor and I went to look for a third floor of the hotel to see if there was an interesting restaurant at the top of that. And I was fairly disappointed that there was not a restaurant-haunt-haunt up at the top.

CAT:

Oh Jess! No! NO!!

JESS:

<Laugh>

CAT:

That's too good! Arg!

JESS:

<laughs>

CAT:

Spookane is not called "Spookane" in Japan. It's called "Halloween".

JESS:

Halloween?

CAT:

Yeah. Its major industries were mining and commerce. "Roughly 100 years ago, a vein of gold was discovered in the nearby mountains. Here, in the barren wasteland, where the very rock face is harsh, a gold mining town appeared, flooded with men dreaming of striking it rich. Singing the praises of the gold they'd obtained, the townsfolk would let loose and whoop it up like crazy every night. It said that the state of things were that practically every night was Halloween and that's where the town got its name. Even now, copper and tin, in addition to gold, have been dug up.

JESS:

I was gonna say- those buildings are pretty large. It seems like Spookane was a large town.

CAT:

A lot of the apartment complexes you see, the ones north, the train station specifically, are for housing miners who are still doing that job somewhere out there... in the wilds. I mean... They would've been, if this hadn't happened. And what happened is that a bunch of kids fainted due to a "unknown force." And then everybody took refuge in the mountains to the east, and this old district has become a literal ghost town overrun by a "unseen madness", which mostly means the regular kind of woodland enemies - bears and then saucers and stuff.

JESS:

Typical world enemies that you've been fighting up until this point.

CAT:

Yeah. I did finally catch a red snake though, which is something that had been happening - Every now and then there's a snake that shows up that's not the usual blue snake that you've been fighting since the beginning of the game. It's a red snake and it usually runs away immediately. But I finally got 'em.

JESS:

I did encounter one of those as well. And yeah,, it bites you and then runs away.

CAT:

When you beat it, you get a lot of experience points. You get much more in the Japanese version, but it's still... If you can catch one, it's a worthwhile way to spend your time. "Follow the steep mountain path that lies east of the old district, until it goes up to the residential area, where the people of Halloween have taken refuge. By improving mountain cottages, making use of the old elementary schoolhouse, and recycling old vacation homes, the people are devising different ways of making a living."

JESS:

They're some really interesting folks, just like everywhere else in this game, but my Mother, She Quote, came from this area. I was walking along and I saw a woman standing there, and I went up and talked to her, and she said to me, "I'm not a resident of this town. I'm your assistant. Maybe you forgot to write something down. I'll sell you a hint for only a thousand dollars." And I was like, "no, I'm, I'm good. I don't need any help."

CAT:

You weren't like, "I'm just gonna go find a cash machine, Bunny Lebowski?"

JESS:

Yeah. And so she said, "oh, you don't need anyone's help do you? Fine and dandy. You can color me gone." And then she just disappeared into thin air.

CAT:

She vanishes. Yeah.

JESS:

Yeah. What's up with that?

CAT:

Well, she was telling the truth in a weird way. This is another person who's breaking the fourth wall. Their presence there is very specifically like, "hey look, this game's pretty confusing. You can go anywhere. I'll sell you hints for a thousand bucks." You could write all kinds of stories about who this person is, where they come from, how they operate, but it's definitely somebody who does not exist in reality as the rest of the characters in this game know it. If you say no, she is gone forever.

JESS:

Oh no.

CAT:

This person will never come back.

JESS:

So your only option is to spend a thousand dollars or lose the opportunity forever?

CAT:

Yeah. I mean, of course if you don't have a thousand dollars, she's like, "cool. Come back when you have a thousand dollars." I mean, that's not what she says, but something like that, you know?

JESS:

Yeah. What does she tell you if you spend the money?

CAT:

She tells you that she can only sell you three hints and then proceeds to tell you the first of the three ones, at least at this point in the game. I'm not really sure how the mechanics of it work - I assume it adjusts based on what you have or haven't done. But she said to me, "the ghost house is not a place for slaying monsters. There is a melody, hee hee. A haunting melody, hee hee hee."

JESS:

Which I guess that is kind of leading you towards exploring it and finding the melody that's inside of it? I mean, I guess if you didn't know that already, then...

CAT:

Yeah. I mean, Rosemary's Manor, which we're about to get to... It is a challenging and labyrinthine place... And you don't have to go there... Until you get to the part of the game where you need all those melodies, otherwise you can't beat the game.

JESS:

I was wondering about that. 'Cause those enemies in there were tough.

CAT:

Yeah. You could go in there anytime, and you gotta do it at some point, but you don't have to do it now.

JESS:

Yeah. So being that it's called the Rosemary's Manor, is that a reference to Rosemary's Baby?

CAT:

The answer is: probably. Because, Rosemary's Baby - an international hit from 1968, adapted and directed by Roman Polanski, it's a big deal in the horror world. But what does it have to do with this game? Nothing other than, you know, they're like, "here's a horror part of the game, let's pick an interesting name." And they picked "Rosemary". And that's the case in Japanese and English. It's Rosemary both ways. But, the game doesn't have any other like actual contextual reference to Rosemary's Baby. The only thing is that Rosemary's a mother and this is a game called MOTHER and maybe that's all we got.

JESS:

Well, it's the first thing I thought of when they said that. So, like you told me earlier, if it seems like it's a reference to something, it probably is. Yes.

CAT:

Yes. I think that's true in this case.

JESS:

Okay.

CAT:

It just doesn't really mean much.

JESS:

But you can't get into the house without a key. And when you find that person that will give you that key, they say, "oh, you're such a charming boy. Just looking at you makes me so confident. I'm sure you'll bring that house into control. Here's the key to it."

CAT:

Yep.

JESS:

Who's that that gives you the key?

CAT:

That is Mr. Rosemary's daughter, who is an adult woman - 'cause she has a child as you'll learn later... She has a baby. But... The baby's a child that can talk.

JESS:

Mm.

CAT:

The Rosemarys are clearly not well-liked by most anybody else in the community. They're, I guess, kind of wealthy eccentrics. Someone outright says, "I don't like the little Rosemary girl," but who she's talking about is... This woman who's a grown woman.

JESS:

Yeah, that was a little confusing. 'cause when you talk to people, it doesn't give you any like nameplate or anything like that. You're just supposed to guess from the context of the dialogue who this person actually is.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

And in the case when you're talking to the Rosemarys, you kinda get the impression, "okay, they are probably the Rosemarys that lived in the house. That's why they have the key and they're giving it to you, and they know that it's haunted, and all that stuff." But there's nothing that outright calls that out to you.

CAT:

No. And there's a bunch of context about what the Rosemary Manor is that is not given to you in the game and is only given to you in the Encyclopedia. 'Cause around this little area that everybody's refuged in, you've heard things about a ghost house elsewhere in the world, you hear about a piano that plays itself, so if you're thinking about the melodies, you might think, "oh, I definitely should check that out." And then you also hear some stuff about the Rosemarys as like people to be aware of. What we learned about the Rosemarys from the Encyclopedia is that, "during the gold rush they struck a high quality vein and since then they've been important figures in the town. The Rosemary that struck it rich was the first mayor and all the Rosemarys were mayor until the current Mr. Rosemary's father's generation. The firstborn of Mr. Rosemary's mother was his sister, who was, they say so deformed at birth that she didn't appear human. Mr. Rosemary's father built a villa in the mountain recesses where she would go unnoticed. And, so that she would never set foot outside the house, he built a Labyrinthine basement keeping her away even from family and apparently shutting her up underground her entire life."

JESS:

Oh wow.

CAT:

"They say her only enjoyment came from playing the grand piano there in the backmost room."

JESS:

Oh my gosh.

CAT:

"Ever since that ominous day last year, possibly because of the child's curse, Mr. Rosemary's villa became a haunted mansion that lets no human being near it. From the very back of the intricately warped basement comes the sound of a piano. It goes without saying that this unhappy incident is the doing of some yet unknown enemy."

JESS:

Wow. No wonder that place is haunted.

CAT:

Yeah, it's pretty gnarly.

JESS:

There is a postman, a jolly postman, who likes to sing. He says, "la la la la la." And he says, "have you heard the Rosemary's new address?" And there's somebody else that says, "tell the postman that seeks the forwarding address that the Rosemarys have moved far away. La la la." It's a little girl that says that. So, I was trying to figure out what in the world are they trying to say here? The Rosemarys have moved far away. They have a forwarding address?

CAT:

This section has a lot of sloppy translation. There's even an outright typo. They use the wrong they're/their at one point. The translation of EarthBound Beginnings, as it was originally done by Nintendo of America, is not the best. And at places it gets increasingly rough around the edges and... Whatever the heck's happening with the postman or what they're trying to say about the Rosemarys, it's just not...

JESS:

It just doesn't land.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

There's also another person that says, "I'm the only clown in Spookane. Everyone else is so serious." And actually it's kinda like they're asking you a question. Like you can say "yes" or "no" to that. And if you say "yes", he says, "truth is, by nature I'm not a jolly guy." And if you say "no", he says, "is that right? I may be the true pessimist myself." It's another one of those things that - there was something interesting there, but I just couldn't piece it together based off of what was being said.

CAT:

Yeah. Now, there has been some fan translation work, which in theory we're gonna talk about at some point. But... as we're playing the game as it's available on the Nintendo Switch, currently... This is what we're talking about.

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

CAT:

And we can talk about that other stuff later. An experience that I haven't had, and Jess hasn't had, is playing the game with a better translation.

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

Which does exist.

JESS:

Okay. Another quote that did make sense that I found very delightful was, a little boy says, "a ghost appeared at my house too, but he didn't stay long. He thought my room was too small." <laugh> Like - this ghost is too picky. It's like, "sorry kid, your room's too small. I can't stay here." <laugh>.

CAT:

Yeah. Little vignettes like that that are one of the great pleasures of these games.

[Spooky musical transition]

JESS:

So you go up to the mansion, you use the key to get inside, and the mansion sucks. It's all dark. It's just a labyrinth of passageways. Typically, you walk into a room and there's two doors that exit on the other side of it. And you go through this just... chain of choosing left and right paths. Occasionally there is a staircase that goes down. Sometimes the staircase is really long, other times it's kind of short. But the entire house is filled with really difficult monsters. I died many times there.

CAT:

It's a bit of a slog, but I enjoy it so much more than either of the factories. For starters, it's easier to figure out where you are in some regards, like, because it's just different forking paths and so forth. And it's also punctuated by a strange phenomenon that I'm not really sure what to attribute to - But when you enter Rosemary's Manor, you talk to a mouse and the mouse says, "I'm just an ordinary mouse. The room with the piano... Hee hee hee hee." The "hee hee hee" is important because it may suggest that the mouse is the one who then proceeds to torment you throughout this entire ordeal. 'Cause every now and then you'll enter a room and... Something will happen. Like in one, you just walk through a place it goes, "aaaaarrrgh!" Like, you don't hear it, but you see "aaaaarrrgh" spelled out. And then one says, "nobody's here. He e hee hee." Or, "you'll never make it. Hee hee hee."

JESS:

"Turn back now."

CAT:

Yeah. So what's interesting about these things are - these are other ways, because they happen every time you get to certain points, that you can tell where you are if you get lost. You're like, "oh, I'm in the part that says 'nobody's here.'"

JESS:

Interesting.... That's really interesting. I did not pick up on that. That's really clever.

CAT:

The enemies, some of them are pushovers and some of them are - the worst <laugh>.

JESS:

There is an enemy that's called "armor" that frequently comes in pairs, hits really hard, has a ton of health and defense, and they don't really seem to be weak to a whole lot. I think they were weak to one of the elements... But usually Ana did not survive long because they would just hit for so much.

CAT:

And they use PK Thunder, which is not fun. There's a bunch of different things you can do - like, I was having Ninten use Defense Up like immediately to protect the party from certain doom, and just doing status stuff to make sure that my party could stay alive long enough to fight them, to get the experience from them, so maybe just maybe I could start getting better at fighting them. But it was tough. And I don't know if this is just a misnomer, or what, they're listed under the "robots" section in the enemy list. So I suppose you could think, "oh, is this armor, that's definitely appropriate in an old haunted mansion, actually an alien robot?" But I don't think that's the case. I think it's a haunted armor. I think that's what's going on here.

JESS:

Yeah, it's made a metal. That's the only thing that would make it seem robot-like.

CAT:

There is an enemy in there that does seem to indicate alien tampering, which is the bionic bat. Just like the bionic scorpion, aliens have engineered a bat that is bionic. However, as the Encyclopedia says, "if there's one aspect of Mr. Bat, they apparently weren't able to change, it was, of course, his personality. So the side of him that puts himself in others' shoes remains in place." As in - the way that Mr. Batty can get confused. However, these bionic bats, they attack with what is called in the English translation "stone origin", which turns a person to stone and is something that can be cured by Healing Gamma, but it's actually "stone needle" in Japanese.

JESS:

So like, it sticks you with a weapon or something...

CAT:

And it petrifies you.

JESS:

There's also the alarm ghost, which is the same sprite as the normal ghost that we've encountered before, but it's kind of more translucent and actually looks pretty cool. I liked that enemy.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

Except for the fact that it calls other enemies to fight against you, including dust balls, which explode upon death. They don't hit you for any damage while you're fighting them normally, but as soon as you kill them, they explode and do a lot of fire damage.

CAT:

They're weird. They just look like a big kind of scribble with a face. I wasn't sure what to make of them. Like, is it literally a dust ball like the fireball maybe was literally a fireball back in Duncan's factory? But the way it's described is "a ghost born from within garbage."

JESS:

Oh... All the garbage that you left lying around, gets possessed and attacks you and blows up.

CAT:

Turns into a psychokinetic tumbleweed.

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

CAT:

Basically.

JESS:

Mm-hmm. That's a good way to describe it. That's exactly what it looks like.

CAT:

It can hit you in battle, but it almost always just "grins and bears it".

JESS:

I fought several of them and I don't think it ever actually attacked me. It always just "grinned and beared it" and then blew up <laugh>.

CAT:

Yeah. I don't think it attacked me either, but it can.

JESS:

There's also my Smashable Enemy of this section of the game, which is shroudly - who is a green man in a brown cloak and he unfortunately uses an ability called "last blow", which just one shots you. Which I hate - But there was something about shroudly that I really found appealing.

CAT:

Shroudly is also my most Smashable Enemy. Shroudly's design is rad. The design is so cartoony and strange. It almost feels like it's outside of the EarthBound aesthetic and a little bit more into like the aesthetic of something like early nineties gross out toys that would come later - like Madballs or something like that.

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

CAT:

And originally the sprite was even cooler because he had blood dripping from his hands.

JESS:

Oh wow!

CAT:

Because shroudly's actual name is "blood-soaked zombie".

JESS:

"Blood soaked zombie"!

CAT:

"In order to make up for blood loss. He lives by sucking it from humans. People who've had their blood sucked, see a sharp decrease in their offense and defense."

JESS:

That's horrifying.

CAT:

Interesting thing about the "last blow" though: it deals an absurd amount of damage, but then the battle text says, "shroudly was exhausted" and the battle ends.

JESS:

Oh no.

CAT:

So that last blow - it ends the whole match.

JESS:

What a jerk! Just shows up, one shots one member of your party, and then goes away.

CAT:

Yeah. Something else of note here is that there are enemies that only show up when summoned by the alarm ghost. The alarm ghost can summon all kinds of stuff: dust balls, bionic bats, but also zombies - not pseudo zombies - regular zombies, which are worse because they use a brain shock technique. They also laugh at you sometimes, which is another different thing they do. And then the other thing is the, nasty zombie, which is the pallet swap of the gang zombie, and it's harder.

JESS:

Lots of stuff inside that haunted house that will ruin your day.

CAT:

Yeah. It keeps you on your toes. Ninten, at this point in the game, is probably your fastest character and he has status attack stuff, so you have to like make sure that Ninten does something to protect your other characters, who are weaker. And then Ana is last in speed up until a certain point. So most enemies are gonna get an attack before she actually manages to get her psychokinetic ability off. So you have to really pay attention to this like flow in the battle. This is the first time in the game where I've really... Now that you're playing with a set of three people... You actually do need to pay attention to battle strategy way more than usual.

JESS:

Yeah. Which I like. I think that is great. I love in RPGs when the fights get a little bit more complicated than just hitting the attack button over, and over, and over again. This haunted house is annoying in other ways too, though. There are gifts that don't contain anything. You open them up and they're just empty. There are looping passageways, at least I think they are. It seemed like I was kind of like, I would go in one side, go out the other, go in and out, and it just kinda like it took you back and forth around like the same loop over and over again.

CAT:

That does happen. Yeah.

JESS:

So it's really just this weird sort of death tunnel.

CAT:

<laugh>. Yeah, it is, it is, it is definitely a "death tunnel" <laugh>.

JESS:

But after you make your way to the bottom of the house, you find a room with a piano in it. And if you go up and you look at the piano, it plays a melody that you remember.

CAT:

And that is a very passive reference to a very famous Japanese movie, the 1977 film House. It's directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, and this movie is incredible. This movie is essential viewing for any fan of EarthBound for a lot of reasons. Obayashi, just like Shigesato Itoi, is somebody who was famous for kind of like a weird thing before he stepped into creating this movie. He was a famous commercial director, and this was his first feature film that he directed. It came into being because it was a commission from the studio. They're like, "we want Jaws! Give us a Japanese Jaws." And so he was like, "alright, I'll figure that out." And created what is easily one of the most visually, and just in every other regard, unique films I've ever seen in my life.

JESS:

Totally. You showed it to me a while ago, and they do things visually in that movie that I have never seen before, that I could really only even dream of. It's completely disarming at times. I'm curious to hear what it kind of has to do with EarthBound. Obviously there's the piano and in the movie there's a piano that eats people. But, other than that, what else is relevant about House as it appears in EarthBound?,

CAT:

Well, if you think about the kind of project it is, what we've just delivered so far is an oversimplification of how it got made. And Obayashi had to overcome a lot of different struggles, especially regarding how he was perceived by other film professionals, in terms of what genre-breaking and even like production-breaking way that he wanted to make this movie. It was extraordinarily against the grain from top to bottom. There's a Criterion release that has a bunch of wonderful documentary content on it that I highly recommend. It is as radical a movie as the MOTHER series are games. And it's a cultural touchstone to a degree that Shigesato Itoi - there was a kinship there. He felt emboldened by in a lot of ways. Having a piano that plays itself is, it's a kind of standard fare for a haunted house thing, but Obayashi got a lot of the ideas for all the spooky stuff in this film - which is a haunted house movie, and this is a haunted house that we're in here - from talking to his daughter. She would tell him her nightmares and he would turn them into parts of the movie. Then also the theme to House is a one finger piano melody, which is exactly the sort of thing that Shigesato Itoi asked for when it came to the eight melodies. Something that was beautiful, but simple, that a child could play with one finger, if they needed to. Now, of course, the piano, like all the other melodies - you just hear it and it's over. In the audio drama segment I did choose to combine Ana's piano playing and the history that we learned from the MOTHER Encyclopedia about the horrible things that happened in Rosemary's Manor and actually create a beautiful little scene there. But that's not something that happens in the game at all. That's another thing we've added.

JESS:

It's a creation, but it was a good one. That was a heart-touching story and I really enjoyed it.

CAT:

When I'm writing these, I do wanna replicate the actual experience as much as possible, but sometimes the adaptation commands something a bit more.

JESS:

Well, fortunately, the piano in this haunted house is a little bit friendlier and teaches you one of the melodies that you need to collect.

CAT:

Yeah. <laugh>. And once you leave the manor, you're done! You're good! And the ghosts are still there. But, if you go back, and you talk to the Rosemary lady again, she says, "oh, you know, the ghosts aren't gone... But what a brave boy you are! I've renamed my son Ninten after you."

JESS:

Awwww. Renamed?

CAT:

Renamed her son. She had a son and you can talk to her son. Her son's just walking around. And he says, "hi there, my name is Ninten. I used to be Buggerror Rosemary." You heard me right. I said, "buggerror" not "buggerer". B-U-G-G-E-R-R-O-R. And, as this is an all ages podcast, I'm not going to explain what that word means. Don't look it up. It's not for you to know if you don't know already.

JESS:

<laugh>

CAT:

But it's not something you would expect in a game that's been censored so intensely as this game. However, kenisu did come up with a very interesting theory, all because of The Legend of Zelda 2. In Legend of Zelda 2, there is a mysterious, but correctly translated, line of dialogue that reads "I am Error." And there's also a character named Bagu. Well, "Bagu" is likely a misinterpretation of the Japanese word for "bug". There's a reasonable suggestion that these are intentional technical jokes, "bug" and "error". So if this was happening, in a similar timeline, in a Nintendo game, because the actual content that's been translated, B-U-G-G-E-R-R-O-R is correct - that's what that character says and they translated it directly. It may be that it's a joke about like... This NPC had its name changed to Ninten and is now glitching out - bug error! And that's what's happening here. It's a joke about glitching.

JESS:

Maybe it's a direct homage to Zelda 2.

CAT:

As kenisu pointed out, Shigeru Miyamoto worked on both games.

JESS:

Well, I wonder if anything bad happens if you say his name three times in a row...

CAT:

<laugh>.

JESS:

Buggerror, Buggerror, Bu- No, I, you know what? I'm not gonna chance it. I don't wanna do that.

CAT:

<laugh> Good job bringing it back, Jess! Well done <laugh>! We've got more adventuring to come, but for now, I'm Cat.

JESS:

I'm Jess.

CAT:

And that's all she wrote.

JESS:

<laugh>

[music stops]

[upbeat music plays]

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon Producers: Amber Devereux, Becky Scott Fairley, Bob Hogan, C B, Joe “Tank” Ricciardelli, Josh King, McDibble Deluxe, MjolnirMK86, Patrick Webster, Sean Hutchinson, Sean T. Redd…

And our Super-Deluxe Executive Patreon Producers:

BigBadShadowMan, Marcus Larsson, and Jaimeson LaLone

JESS

You can join the team at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia! And if you think “MOTHER,” She Wrote is simply smashing, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser  - and be sure to subscribe via your favorite podcast player.

CAT

This series is recorded and produced in Orlando, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky on lands stolen from their Indigenous people: the Timucua and Seminole, and Shawnee, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca-Iroquois, Miami, Hopewell and Adena.

JESS

Acknowledgement of the first peoples of these lands, and the lasting repercussions of colonization is just the beginning of the restorative work that is necessary. Through awareness, we can prompt allyship, action, and ultimately decolonization. 

CAT

For links to aid Indigenous efforts and to learn more about the first nations of the land where you live: visit omniverse.media/landback

JESS

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is written, produced, and performed by me: Jessica Mudd.

CAT

And me: Cat Blackard. Our original score is composed and performed by Jess and Ana is performed by Sarah Rhea Werner.

JESS

Special thanks to Kenisu for his invaluable work translating the MOTHER Encyclopedia. Find a link to his translation, other media we’ve referenced, and full episode transcripts at mothershewrote.earth

CAT

“MOTHER” She Wrote is not affiliated with Nintendo, Shigesato Itoi, or any rights holders of the MOTHER and EarthBound intellectual properties. Please play the games' official Nintendo releases.

[Omniverse Audio Brand]