Parallel
A question that used to get asked, that I think has fallen to the wayside, is the game order. Any number of answers could be right, depending on how far you're willing to delve into the game, or your imagination. Comics, fiction and other media have touched on a few possibilities, including how far away Mother 3 would be. So I'm going to see if I can collect my thoughts for this particular theory, that Mother and Mother 2 run parallel.
It's not hard to see that the two games share a lot of similar ground, being the same while also being completely different. This again depends how far you dare venture, but when you take into account the heroes in these two adventures, you can see right away the similarities they share. To what degree, one must wonder, was this intended?
Well, Itoi himself, in his free-thinking way, given indication that it's okay to consider Ninten and Ness the same person. (Interview: http://yomuka.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/famitsu-06191992/). Of course with Itoi, almost anything goes (though he doesn't like names like AAAAA, or anything you don't put thought into), but that he would even say it this way is curious. They are very similar, and they are both the hero, and they are both from humble-seeming families with an absentee father, so it isn't hard to see why such an assumption could be made.
Naturally however, that doesn't quite fit. After all, you've got everything else in the World to think about, including the other characters, the towns, the time-frame, you name it. There are as many differences as you could find similarities.
Some would put thought into the possibility of Mother 2 simply being a remake of Mother 1. I know it used to come up, way back when. But I don't think that's the case, either. Giygas is a very important key in this, too.
Mother 2, Giygas Strikes Back was the title for the second game (well, replace Giygas with whichever spelling you prefer). Naturally, you can't have him striking back if he hadn't already struck once, right? Theoretically you could assume his role in Scaraba was his previous attempt, but if the aliens attack every millennium, why would this particular instance require it being a 'strike back'? No, I do believe Giygas's past with Ninten was every bit important to his role as the villain against Ness. He was hitting back, harder than his previous invasion.
This does of course beg the question of 'how'. But it shouldn't be that hard to collect points to draw a theory on for this. After all, by Mother 2, he's gotten himself something he never showed he had in Mother 1: Access to time travel.
When he got ahold of this I won't pretend to know. When he got ahold of time travel and escaped the flow is, like so many things, left up for us to think about. He could have already had it but never used it. He could have gotten ahold of it from whoever had created the original device in Mother 1. He could have taken the original device from the Mr.Saturns (another aspect missing from Mother 1). But there's nothing certain. He didn't have it in Mother 1, he did have it by Mother 2. That's all we know.
The invasion every milennia, as described in the Scaraba heiroglyphs, do give us some vital information however:
The invaders will be reborn
every millenium and will
attack again.
Even now, the invaders hide
beyond space and time and
build their evil stronghold.
A place out of time is beyond
the Dark, and is even farther
beyond the Lost Underworld.
Specifically, they point to the location the aliens hide (the Cave of the Past in the Lost Underworld), and 'where' it is (beyond space and time). That place, no doubt, is the place you fight Giygas, and is perhaps the one place that is untouched by whatever hijinx Giygas pulled off (the appearance of a Legendary Bat could be indicative of someone else facing off against him previously).
If someone who is wrathful against humanity is able to escape space-time, do you not think he would find a way of altering the world, to remove it of that which halted his previous attack? I know I would, were I a malicious force determined to invade a planet.
For all that which remains the same in this game, isn't it curious that which changed? Everyone's memories of a previous invasion are gone. Maria's Magicant appears to be missing, and now the only hidden rock leading out of reality is the Mani Mani. George and EVE seem to be just as absent, as though none of the three existed. Ana, now Paula, may still exist as a psychic, but her original motivations are gone, and had Ness not acted, she would have been killed off pretty quick. Loid, now Jeff, isn't even on the same continent as the others, cut off from his family, though still intelligent. Teddy, if he still exists, is no longer a victim of circumstance likely to join in on any adventures, and neither is Pippi.
Giygas held the power to change aspects of time, which would further his invasion. Ness, as a result, has no knowledge of any other invasion and, had Buzz Buzz not intervened, would not have considered himself anything more than your average kid in a small town in a place called Eagleland.
Thus, that which was Mother stands every chance of having been erased, and Mother 2 taking its place.
So where does Mother 3 fit in?
Some time after that.
After which game?
I couldn't say.
After all, Pokey was locked out of much of time, who's to say the alternate world didn't still exist on some level?
Food for thought.
~~SS
A question that used to get asked, that I think has fallen to the wayside, is the game order. Any number of answers could be right, depending on how far you're willing to delve into the game, or your imagination. Comics, fiction and other media have touched on a few possibilities, including how far away Mother 3 would be. So I'm going to see if I can collect my thoughts for this particular theory, that Mother and Mother 2 run parallel.
It's not hard to see that the two games share a lot of similar ground, being the same while also being completely different. This again depends how far you dare venture, but when you take into account the heroes in these two adventures, you can see right away the similarities they share. To what degree, one must wonder, was this intended?
Well, Itoi himself, in his free-thinking way, given indication that it's okay to consider Ninten and Ness the same person. (Interview: http://yomuka.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/famitsu-06191992/). Of course with Itoi, almost anything goes (though he doesn't like names like AAAAA, or anything you don't put thought into), but that he would even say it this way is curious. They are very similar, and they are both the hero, and they are both from humble-seeming families with an absentee father, so it isn't hard to see why such an assumption could be made.
Naturally however, that doesn't quite fit. After all, you've got everything else in the World to think about, including the other characters, the towns, the time-frame, you name it. There are as many differences as you could find similarities.
Some would put thought into the possibility of Mother 2 simply being a remake of Mother 1. I know it used to come up, way back when. But I don't think that's the case, either. Giygas is a very important key in this, too.
Mother 2, Giygas Strikes Back was the title for the second game (well, replace Giygas with whichever spelling you prefer). Naturally, you can't have him striking back if he hadn't already struck once, right? Theoretically you could assume his role in Scaraba was his previous attempt, but if the aliens attack every millennium, why would this particular instance require it being a 'strike back'? No, I do believe Giygas's past with Ninten was every bit important to his role as the villain against Ness. He was hitting back, harder than his previous invasion.
This does of course beg the question of 'how'. But it shouldn't be that hard to collect points to draw a theory on for this. After all, by Mother 2, he's gotten himself something he never showed he had in Mother 1: Access to time travel.
When he got ahold of this I won't pretend to know. When he got ahold of time travel and escaped the flow is, like so many things, left up for us to think about. He could have already had it but never used it. He could have gotten ahold of it from whoever had created the original device in Mother 1. He could have taken the original device from the Mr.Saturns (another aspect missing from Mother 1). But there's nothing certain. He didn't have it in Mother 1, he did have it by Mother 2. That's all we know.
The invasion every milennia, as described in the Scaraba heiroglyphs, do give us some vital information however:
The invaders will be reborn
every millenium and will
attack again.
Even now, the invaders hide
beyond space and time and
build their evil stronghold.
A place out of time is beyond
the Dark, and is even farther
beyond the Lost Underworld.
Specifically, they point to the location the aliens hide (the Cave of the Past in the Lost Underworld), and 'where' it is (beyond space and time). That place, no doubt, is the place you fight Giygas, and is perhaps the one place that is untouched by whatever hijinx Giygas pulled off (the appearance of a Legendary Bat could be indicative of someone else facing off against him previously).
If someone who is wrathful against humanity is able to escape space-time, do you not think he would find a way of altering the world, to remove it of that which halted his previous attack? I know I would, were I a malicious force determined to invade a planet.
For all that which remains the same in this game, isn't it curious that which changed? Everyone's memories of a previous invasion are gone. Maria's Magicant appears to be missing, and now the only hidden rock leading out of reality is the Mani Mani. George and EVE seem to be just as absent, as though none of the three existed. Ana, now Paula, may still exist as a psychic, but her original motivations are gone, and had Ness not acted, she would have been killed off pretty quick. Loid, now Jeff, isn't even on the same continent as the others, cut off from his family, though still intelligent. Teddy, if he still exists, is no longer a victim of circumstance likely to join in on any adventures, and neither is Pippi.
Giygas held the power to change aspects of time, which would further his invasion. Ness, as a result, has no knowledge of any other invasion and, had Buzz Buzz not intervened, would not have considered himself anything more than your average kid in a small town in a place called Eagleland.
Thus, that which was Mother stands every chance of having been erased, and Mother 2 taking its place.
So where does Mother 3 fit in?
Some time after that.
After which game?
I couldn't say.
After all, Pokey was locked out of much of time, who's to say the alternate world didn't still exist on some level?
Food for thought.
~~SS
