Part 2: Forest of Flames
Chapter 1 begins with a man named Thomas running around with a siren to alert the townsfolk of the fire blazing in the Sunshine Forest. He runs to Flint’s house and pulls as hard as he can on the door, which is locked. The game then puts you in Flint’s perspective and makes you walk to the door to open it. Not many games let you play in the shoes of someone other than the main character like this; in Mother 3, the game will switch perspectives like this constantly. By the time Flint makes it to the door, Thomas has pulled so hard that the doorknob came off. When Flint opens the door, Thomas is startled and throws the doorknob out of sight, waking up Boney, who was sleeping in his dog house. Thomas says, “Bad times like this call for reckless nice guys like you!” This is our first description we find of Flint’s character since we named him: reckless, but nice. The cowboy outfit he wears also depicts toughness. Thomas pleads that Flint investigates the fire, joining your ‘party’, which, in video game terms, means he follows your every step. Itoi pokes fun of the trope he uses by letting Thomas say, “What’s so wrong with that? I just happen to like following people.”
The first townsperson you meet on your way, Butch, describes the sky as ‘pitch black with smoke’; other people say similar things. This is the first instance of the game where you can freely explore the town and talk to everybody in Tazmily. There is no real urgency for the player, as this is a video game and time only passes when you reach certain places to advance the story, but to the townsfolk, the fire is a very real threat. To try to emulate panic for the player without actually rushing them, Thomas will tell Flint that there’s no time to get sidetracked if the player tries to wander too far away, as well as everybody sounding distressed in their dialogue.
By talking to the people in town, you can learn more about people’s lives and gain context of the current situation. For example, Lisa, one of the gossiping ladies in the square, says, “Thomas! What are you running around like a siren for?! Honestly, now! You’d better not cause too much trouble for Flint!” By this line of dialogue, and from what is said by other people, we can learn that Thomas is not very well respected, in contrast to Flint.
Other characters remark how hot the fire is, or how Flint should go to the forest immediately, giving instructions on how to get there as if he’d never lived in Tazmily his whole life. To make it more excusable, as instructions do need to be told to the one playing the game, characters are made aware of how awkward their own dialogue is. For example. a man named Abbot says, “Oh, sorry that sounded so explanation-like!”
One very peculiar villager is Leder. He is freakishly tall, being about six times the height of everybody else. He is sounding the bell tower as the forest burns. When you try to talk to him, he says nothing, and Thomas notes that he’s silent as usual.
I would also like to comment on the song that plays while you walk around town. It’s in a minor key, so you know it isn’t a happy song. Despite being played at an urgent time, it sounds a little more relaxed than one might expect. It certainly is not a relaxing song, but it is not too troubled either, in the scheme of things. My favorite part of the song is when the strings quickly play in between pauses in the melody; it encapsulates the scenario very well in my opinion. One could imagine a flickering fire, but it’s not close enough (or prevalent enough in the song) to be of immediate danger. You are still aware of its presence, though, and know things need to be taken care of. At the end of the song, the instruments become louder and bolder; it signifies the call of duty Flint recieves and the bravery he must muster up to enter the fiery forest.
As you are about to enter the forest, a villager named Jonel encourages you to pay a visit to the sanctuary and pray to the forest gods for the safety of everyone. He then prompts you to answer if it’s wrong of him to think that way. The game forces you to go to the sanctuary, so I don’t really understand why the game pretends to give you a choice between ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to his question. If you answer ‘yes,’ as in, “it’s wrong of you to think that way,” he asks the same question again as if asking it for the first time until you answer ‘no.’ I think Itoi could have written this part a little better by making Jonel’s question a command, since there really is no choice.
When Flint (and Thomas, awkwardly), enter the sanctuary, a bright flash of light hits the screen. Then, the game prompts you with this: “Please tell me your name. Yes, the name of the person playing the game.” Were we not supposed to insert our name for the main character (Lucas) at the very start of the game? It seems like, in Mother 3 at least, the characters are meant to represent actual personalities rather than, like in most RPGs, yourself. This is why I chose the default names for the main character and his family at the start of the game, as Lucas is like no one else, nor is Claus, Hinawa, Flint, or Boney. However, the game seems to really want the player to be involved. In what capacity? We will see later. After you enter your name (I entered ‘Andy’), whoever is communicating with you counts down from three, and we are supposed to forget that all of this happened. I think this was a really neat way of getting information from the player. The game tries so hard to keep itself isolated from reality, but entering your own name requires the illusion to be broken. So, the way the game does it is by communicating to you with a deity, who can surpass the confines of four walls.
The song that plays in this area is quite appropriate. It is rather short, but so is the scene in which it takes place. The use of the organ symbolizes the religious aspect of the sanctuary, as they are stereotypically played in churches. The melody sounds like it is reaching out to the heavens, symbolized by the long and rising notes.
You exit the sanctuary feeling that something important happened, but you can’t quite remember what. Then, you find Ollie and Butch being blocked by Ed, who won’t allow them to go into the forest.
Ed lets you and Thomas pass, showing once more that Flint is held in high regard. He also mentions that Lighter and Fuel, the names of two people coincidentally trapped in a forest fire, live deep in the woods and must be rescued.
As you get nearer to the fire, a man named Mike says he can’t go any further, and offers Flint a slightly unclean and not very tasty cookie for good luck. There is one house early in the forest, and Matt is desperately knocking on the door, wondering where Isaac is. Apparently, he is in danger too. You can find other people who tried to look for their neighbors in the woods, but could not go on any further because they were too sick from the smoke; it seems like Flint is Lighter and Fuel’s only hope.
When you enter the fire, you encounter one of the pig people opening a box that contains some kind of flies. When he notices Flint and Thomas, he flees, painfully running through a great wall of fire to escape.
At last, you find Lighter, lying on the ground with his trusty 2×4, which he always carries around for some reason. He says that whatever those flies are, they are the cause of the fires, and that they prevented him from escaping. Thomas remains with Lighter while Flint goes further on to search for his son, Fuel.
After defeating what we now know are called ‘Fireflies,’ Flint knocks down the door to Lighter and Fuel’s log cabin. Before he can rescue Fuel, he is stopped by an unnatural-looking flying mouse. The Dragos we saw before weren’t exactly realistic either, but at least they were peaceful! What is the origin of these strange animals, and who is releasing them into the forest?
After Flint defeats the flying mouse, he goes upstairs and gets Fuel out of the cabin right before it dramatically collapses. They are both completely pitch-black in soot. If the player chooses to go into a natural hot spring to restore Flint’s HP after battle, only the lower half of his body will have been washed of the soot, since, technically, his head never touched the water. In most video games, you’d be completely cleansed from that. These little bits of humor serve to lighten up a dark spot in the story.
The music that plays when you are inside the burning forest reveals the fast-paced music that was alluded to in an earlier song. The synth that plays during the melody rapidly goes up and down the scale, signifying the danger of the flames engulfing everything around you. The bass that plays is a signature of Shogo Sakai’s work. The line that plays at the beginning of this song will be played similarly in several other tracks as well. The percussion is my favorite part of this song, since the wooden sound of it symbolizes the trees of the forest. Usually, forest settings will have a beat like what is played here, but with a much calmer melody. The contrast between the natural-sounding beat and the lightning-fast synth is something to take note of. Also notice that the melody of this song is extremely similar to what played by whatever was flying above Alec’s house at the end of the prologue (you can listen to it again below for comparison). This shows that they are connected to each other.
When you leave the forest, you have the option to speak to Abbot and Abbey and Matt, whom you previously encountered. All three of them mention how Flint and Fuel are pitch-black in soot. The dialogue from Abbey and Abbot is something to take note of:
Abbey: “Oh! Mr. Flint, and Fuel! But I knew it was you the instant I saw you. Huh? Oh, this Injury? Actually, about that…”
Abbot: “Yes! This injury! Abbey was attacked by some bizarre flying mouse thing with bug wings. It just went, “Chomp!” and bit her on the head. That make sense? If it didn’t, I can explain it to you again.”
Abbey: “It made sense to me! That was a very easy-to-understand explanation.”
This dialogue is interesting for three reasons. First, I need to explain why it sounds like Abbey is talking to herself in the first line. In video games, the character you play as usually doesn’t talk, since you’re supposed to project your personality onto them. In Mother 3 though, I think it could have gotten away with giving them lines of dialogue as you play as them, since everyone has such defined personalities. Even though you play as them, they can act on their own will occasionally. “Huh? Oh, this Injury?” implies that Flint inquired about Abbey’s injury, and that she was not talking to an imaginary friend. Second, it confirms that the flying mouse that we just encountered is foreign to Tazmily, along with the fireflies. However, in the forest, you are also able to battle against ‘Yamonsters’, which are yam-monsters, and bats named ‘Mr. Batty’, whose song in battle begins with a one-to-one copy of the intro of the Batman cartoon, as well giant T-Rexes who can do no harm. The player must use discernment between which creatures are alien to Tazmily and which are just a result of EarthBound’s quirky nature. Third, is the last line by Abbey; “That was a very easy-to-understand explanation” – nobody actually speaks like that! All the townsfolk we’ve spoken to so far talk in very strange ways, as if they are speaking their thoughts word-for-word. It can result in dialogue so awkward that you can’t help but laugh, which I think was the intent. As stated in the prologue, it’s also done this way to keep the story moving along at a quicker pace.
When you get closer back to town, Fuel finally gets to reunite with Lighter, who is being tended to by Bud and Lou, two friends who work for him. Lighter can be seen with cloths wrapped all over him. His leg is broken, but he tries to put it off as nothing. Ed mentions that Flint was just returning a favor, as he and Lighter have been friends since childhood. Lighter thanks flint, which Bud adds he has never seen Lighter do for anyone before. Bronson says, “The only thing that could make any of this stranger is if it suddenly started pouring rain.” Can you guess what happens next?
This song plays as Lighter and Fuel reunite. It doesn’t sound too happy, but not too sad either – it sounds relieved. The sole instrument that plays is the piano, and it’s used beautifully in this song. The arpeggios going up the scale give a sense of recovery – to Lighter and the rest of the forest. The crisis is over. Many things have been lost to it, but at least Lighter and Fuel are okay.
Everyone heads to the Yado Inn, where Lighter spends the night. Inside, Bud mentions that Isaac, whom Matt was searching for earlier, went to the mountains to pick mushrooms, and that he hopes he’s okay. Tessie, the maid of the Inn, mentions that the rain looks like it won’t let up any time soon, implying that it will put out the forest fire. Jackie, the innkeeper, apologizes for not helping out, with his wife Betsy adding that he was being a wimp. As you may have noticed, Tazmily Village is very interconnected, with almost every character having a connection to one another; It makes this fictional town on the Nowhere Islands a little more believable.
When you leave the Inn, Isaac approaches you on your way out, letting Flint know that he is okay. That wasn’t the reason he came to see him, though. Isaac just so happened to be up in the mountains picking mushrooms near Alec’s cabin, where he said he could hear the roar of a Drago in the distance, occupied by what sounded like screams. He then asks Flint if Hinawa and the kids made it home alright. Flint runs home to see if his family made it back.
The song that plays during this scene, is nothing but the ambient raindrops. What Isaac just said was very significant.
This concludes part 2 of the analysis.