Introduction
Mother 3 is the final installment in the highly acclaimed and beloved Mother trilogy of RPGs, and is considered by many to be the best of the series. The game was released in April of 2006 for the Game Boy Advance, only in Japan. It delves into many social and political topics, unusual for a Nintendo series, and has attained a cult following ever since. The game has been fan-translated so that it can be enjoyed in English and is considered a masterclass in fan-translation. The music of the game is also highly acclaimed, with some believing it is the best soundtrack for the GBA, and one of the best video game soundtracks ever.
Preface
This is the debut submission of Mother 3 on TASVideos, improving on sprocket2006’s previous effort by 15 minutes and surpassing the current RTA glitchless record by 50 minutes using previously unthought of strategies, optimizations, and manipulation. The RTA time of this run is 4:56:27
Interest had been shown in creating a TAS for a long time, but it wasn’t until 2021 until attempts were made. Eventually, this project began in January 2023, being completed in March 2024. Much effort and hard work (and lots of procrastination) were used to create this movie.
xxEzraBxxx (or just Ezra) did most of the overworld TASing while RadixSmash did most of the combat, with some overlap. RadixSmash also created the route for the run. This is the first completed movie and submission for both of us.
We are proud of this submission and a movie of this magnitude is much more work than most TASers are willing to do. We hope that you enjoy this movie. It would not be possible without the help of the Mother 3 speedrunning community.
Region
As this game was only ever officially released in Japan, only the Japanese version can be used to make a TAS that would be accepted. While the fan translation is very good, and considered to be a gold standard of fan translations, the original official version must be used. This also allows Japanese viewers to enjoy the TAS in their language. The Japanese version saves a significant amount of time over the fan translation due to faster text speed, potentially adding up to over 30 minutes total. Any item names, characters, and other such things will be referred to as they are in the fan translation.
Main Menu
The game begins with the warning screen us naming the main family, and you may be wondering why we are going crazy naming the characters. We do this since there’s a delay between naming the characters, so that the scene in the top left corner can play out. You can name the character while it plays out but it will eventually stop until you proceed. We can use this to our advantage to spend some extra time on the naming screens without losing any actual game time.
Some frames are lost for entertainment so that the menu so that the character names can spell out マザー 3 TAS (Mother 3 TAS). Obviously text speed is set to fast and the textbox color was kept at default to not waste time.
Katakana was also chosen not because it would be accurate to spell MOTHER, but also to save time naming characters in-game whenever that happens as the main Hiragana alphabet will appear first.
Prologue
The prologue is a short and simple interaction with our family but it introduces us to movement and fighting mechanics. Strategies and game mechanics will be introduced in order of appearance.
Movement
This game has pretty simple movement mechanics. You have the ability to walk and run in 8 directions. You can run by holding B for a certain amount of frames (varies based on # of people in the party) and letting go. You may press B again or bump into collision to stop. Otherwise, walking occurs by holding the intended direction down on the D-pad until you let go. When you run however, you do not need to hold down the direction, you will continue to run until you stop or change direction. Additionally, moving in a zig-zag pattern is exactly the same speed as moving in a straight line, something we often make use of.
Encounters occur when enemies touch your hitbox, but when you’re in a party with other members, you run together in a line, and any enemy can hit any character and it will trigger a fight. You can get creative with movements in order to avoid unnecessary encounters, although some encounters are not possible to avoid.
An interesting but unintended mechanic is the ability to hold L+R and U+D at the same time, which allows you to run in place and not move. This can be used to avoid encounters and is used a tiny bit in the latter half of the game. As pressing LR/UD is not possible on a real unmodified controller or console, this mechanic can only be used in tool-assisted movies.
Dialogue
All dialogue can be mashed through by alternating A and B every frame. However, when a “Yes” or “No” question happens, it’s best to make sure the choice is made on the earliest possible frame. This can also be true for textboxes that have a waiting period.
Mole Cricket
Mole Cricket is the first battle in the game. Improvements over the last TAS came from not doing combos and getting a smash attack on both turns, dealing efficient damage and finishing the battle in 2 turns.
RNG Manipulation / Select Cancels
Because of Mother 3’s usage of dynamic memory, RAM Watch can’t really be used to any benefit. Combat RNG isn’t determined by frames, but rather rolled when you select the enemy or action. You can select the target and then wait for however long and the RNG won’t change. We manipulate RNG in this game through repeated selection and cancellation of a certain action or enemy, which allows the RNG to change. This can be repeated until you get the desired RNG, a tactic we refer to as ‘select cancelling’.
Another aspect of combat RNG is that select cancels don’t change based on the character made to perform them. You can have one character do 14 select cancels, or make 2 characters do 7 each, or 4 players do 5, 3, 2, 4 for example, all leading to the same result.
Select cancels are the main source of combat RNG manipulation throughout this run, however we sometimes also use combos and alter overworld actions, which also has an impact on combat RNG.
End of Prologue
There isn’t much left to the prologue after the Mole Cricket fight. The entire prologue exists mostly to introduce us to the game. Alec does encourage us via fourth wall breaking to save our game using the frogs, but no saving will be done throughout the entire TAS.
Chapter 1 - Night of the Funeral
The interesting thing about this TAS is that the game is linear, so there really is little purpose in describing the route in full detail, as you can just watch the TAS itself. But for some deviations and other general things done in the overworld, it’s good to explain why they were used here. For this chapter, we take on Flint.
Fireflies
The fireflies are easy to handle. Just use the “swing” option twice and they’re dead. Super difficult.
Rolling HP
Another thing to introduce is the rolling HP mechanic, returning from Earthbound/Mother 2. When you take damage, your health rolls down. The quirk of this is that if you take a lethal hit, you don’t actually die until your health rolls to 0, and if you can heal in time, you will survive. Another quirk is that if you win the battle before losing all damage inflicted, it won’t be dealt to you. The last quirk is that defending will slow the rolling, buying time at the cost of an action. This will come in handy at times in the TAS.
Running Through Fire
Typically in a casual playthrough, you’d want to not risk the fire damage, but because we have the health to sacrifice, we can just take the damage for the timesave.
Flying Mouse
Flint has an attack called “Power Smash”. This is a standard RPG heavy-hitting, low-accuracy (30%) move. With the power of RNG manipulation to ensure a successful attack, Power Smash will one-hit the Flying Mouse making this fight no big deal. Interestingly the Flying Mouse gets a smash attack of 24, but we only lose 10 in the time he takes to take him out, making this a good display of the Rolling HP mechanic.
Hotel Stay and Boney
After the hotel stay scene, all of our health is restored. How convenient! After reading the letter Hinawa gave to us (with a music box song in the key of Db minor) we also welcome Boney, a man’s best friend, to our party.
Enemy Dodging
Sometimes clever maneuvering is required in order to dodge encounters. Much effort was put into making these movements happen. The dodge isn’t always a quick maneuver around, sometimes you gotta dance around the enemy.
Duster
We need Duster for his makeshift step-ladders to get on top of the mountain. When we are asked to name him, the convenience of naming the characters in the Main Menu something other than the quickest available hiragana characters allows us to name Duster あ (a) and immediately exit out of the naming menu, which is a neat little optimization.
Reconstructed Caribou
The strategy here is to just mainly use Flint’s Power Smash. Boney and Duster can deal extra damage with regular attacks. It is important that we get Flint’s offense powered up a bit first to deal the maximum damage possible per hit. Since Flint’s Power Smash misses fairly often in regular gameplay, it can be a gamble, but because we have RNG manipulation, it hits every single time. Luckily we get rid of the Reconstructed Caribou before being dealt any fatal damage, making this a pretty smooth fight.
Hinawa’s Death
A small little movement optimization is done by simply just walking when it’s faster in this scene, as running takes some frames to charge up. Unfortunately this is where the game rears its ugly head in terms of its emotional content, as this is one of the most notable parts of this game.
Better Stick
Getting the Better Stick is essential to the final Chapter 1 fight against the Mecha-Drago in our route. It is a good boost in offense and when combined with Power Smash, it can deal substantial damage per turn. We also pass by Bronson, getting the Drago Fang that is required to deal any damage to the Mecha-Drago in the first place.
The Cave
One of the interesting tricks you can do in an emulator in this area is done by disabling the first sprite layer, making the cave fully exposed. It made TASing the area way easier and allowed for the dodge of the pair of moles before the first vine, one of the hardest encounters to dodge in a standard RTA run. Some frames were lost to manipulate this to be possible (Alec’s dialogue was still annoying though).
Mountain Desert
You can actually walk through what appears to be gaps on ramps. This was used to dodge enemies. Also, some frames were lost in the small cave area to allow an enemy pattern sufficient for dodging.
Mecha-Drago
The first player turn uses the Drago-Fang making the Mecha-Drago vulnerable to standard attacks, as well as using some manipulation to force the Drago’s attack to miss. Luckily Alec can be somewhat helpful throughout this fight as well. He does deal a single point of damage every now and then which isn’t too helpful, but he primarily heals us. The next turn goes to powering up Flint’s offense so that his Power Smash will deal higher damage. Luckily Alec heals us throughout the ordeal. A normal hit was thrown in prior to the final Power Smash attack to manipulate the Mecha-Drago to do less damage so that we would have enough HP for the final blow. A normal hit is good here as the Mecha-Drago’s HP would be low enough for one final Power Smash attack, saving the time required to manipulate Power Smash to hit. You need 31HP to survive Mecha-Drago's final blow, and we have 33HP. With our RNG, the Power Smash could actually be manipulated with less select-cancels, but one of 226 damage was needed to deal the perfect amount of damage, ending the fight and concluding Chapter 1.
Prologue / Chapter 1 Overview
It’s important to note that these timesave figures are approximated and were not counted using frame comparison. It is also important to note that the old TAS’s video encode is 30fps, and that VBA ran at an inaccurate frame rate.
Mole Cricket Time: 4 seconds saved
Fireflies Time: 4 seconds saved
Flying Mouse: 1 second saved
Reconstructed Caribou: 7 seconds saved
Mecha-Drago: 7 seconds saved
Overworld: 6 seconds saved
Total Time Save: 29 seconds saved
Chapter 2 - Thief Adventure
The game's focus turns to Duster for this chapter. The entirety of Chapter 1 was TASed by xxezrabxxx, but this chapter brings on RadixSmash’s input contributions beginning with the Clayman boss. From this point in the TAS, the majority of fights will have been TASed by RadixSmash, while most overworld content will have been TASed by xxezrabxxx, with some overlap in select areas.
Zombie Fight
In this encounter of 4 zombies, a Thunder Bomb combined with some RNG manipulation takes out the first 3 in one turn. The last Zombie won’t appear as part of the fight until at least one of the first three are killed, and takes 2 turns. 2 hit combos can easily be done with an A or L input on the correct frame. The last turn uses some RNG manipulation so that the zombie will drop a Rotten Eclair which is then traded for a Rope Snake, which is necessary to advance the game.
Underground
In order to get to the castle, you have to take the underground route. On the way we picked up a Thunder Bomb, Peculiar Cheese, and a Running Bomb. There is some clever enemy dodging in some areas but one enemy is outright undodgeable, requiring an encounter followed by an immediate run away, which can be easily done through overworld or battle RNG manipulation.
Osohe Castle / Mr. Passion
Osohe is a rather straightforward route. Getting to Mr. Passion, the strategy here is to just use RNG manipulation so that he keeps missing you. We take a few turns to lower his defense and accuracy, followed by a barrage of standard attacks while manipulating his attacks to miss.
Clayman
The main trick here is to manipulate Wess to use his secret arts so that we can deal maximum damage per hit. Missing is also an important aspect that helps us, which the Smoke Bomb absolutely helps with. When the Clayman falls, he becomes disabled until he stands back up meaning we can use that time to inflict as much damage as possible. Rolling HP also helps us survive Clayman’s falls.
Kumatora
Kumatora gets introduced soon after. Because we didn’t name our family the closest hiragana characters to the main character, we are able to name Kumatora か (ka), as あ (a) has been taken by Duster.
Oh-So-Snake
We get to the point where we can pull out more tactics to approach bosses with the introduction of PSI through Kumatora. Duster uses Running Bombs, Kumatora uses PK Freeze, and Wess helps deal some extra damage with Thief Arts. In the latter half, Duster defends which slows down his HP so that Wess' secret arts can deal maximum damage along with Kumatora’s PK Freeze. Duster does get sacrificed but luckily due to the rolling HP mechanic, Kumatora lands the final hit with 1HP left. As you’ll see later, Kumatora staying alive over Duster in this fight serves an important purpose.
Chapter 2 Overview
Zombie Fight: 13 seconds saved
Mr. Passion: 29 seconds saved
Clayman: 25 seconds saved
Oh-So-Snake: 28 seconds saved
Total time saved: 1m35s saved
Chapter 3 - The Suspicious Peddler
Salsa is the main character of his only star chapter. Animal abuse is not tolerated in our hearts, so we will use the power of tool-assisted speedruns to kick Fassad’s ass. This chapter contains less boss fights (only 1 major bossfight) and is mostly plot.
Cactus Wolf
Salsa is very weak and does little damage himself. Luckily with some manipulation we can get Fassad to do most of the heavy lifting, particularly to make him throw Bombs. We pick up a Running Bomb on the way there to deal some extra damage.
Gooey Go Fight
Fassad does a lot of the heavy lifting, but Salsa’s imitation attack does extra damage compared to the basically useless regular attack he has. The trio is then finished off with a Running Bomb, ending the fight pretty easily, allowing us to get to Tazmily to allow Fassad to begin bullshitting the residents.
Monkey Delivery Service
One of the more boring and frustrating parts to TAS as you can’t run. It’s one thing to play it, it’s another TASing it and optimizing it, as it’s incredibly monotonous. Wacky unnecessary movement flair when Salsa can run on the way back to the packages has been added to make it slightly more entertaining to watch.
Pork Tank
Salsa, Kumatora, and Wess make a well suited power team to take down the Pork Tank. Using Kuma’s PK Thunder (learned through her staying alive during the Oh-So Snake fight!), Salsa’s items and Imitation attack, and Wess for extra damage with the occasional Secret Arts attack, along with lots of RNG manipulation, while slim on HP near the end, we take down the Pork Tank in record time.
Chapter 3 Overview
Cactus Wolf: 5 seconds saved
Gooey Goo Fight: 7 seconds saved
Pork Tank: 22 seconds saved
Overworld: 15 seconds saved
Total Time Saved: 49 seconds saved
Chapter 4 - Club Titiboo
This is where the game really begins. Skipping ahead 3 years in this new capitalist and more “advanced” Tazmily, the focus goes back on Lucas for the remainder of the game, and where our dream team of Lucas, Duster, Kumatora, and Boney are formed.
The New Tazmily Village
Seems there is no shortage of action going on in Tazmily. Fassad is peddling his usual BS and Duster has gone missing, and somebody in Club Titiboo looks just like him. In the midst of it, we skip right past the frog's explanation of the brand new currency “DP”, to his frustration. We grab a Sprinting Bomb and then get Wess’ messenger pigeon, and on the way to the tunnel, a man will give us a railway map, which isn’t useful for our purposes.
Skipping the Black Beanlings
One major deviation from the old TAS and RTA runs is the skipping of Black Beanlings. If we go back into the forest, there is a rare chance that Black Beanlings can spawn. They are easy to take out, but they give an insane amount of XP (16080, one of the highest values in the game!), allowing you to level up very quickly if you keep manipulating them to spawn. Skipping all of these encounters in the new TAS saves multiple minutes of grinding time throughout the run. If you’re wondering how we will handle future fights while underleveled, that will become evident later.
Railway Tunnel / Obtaining PSI
Travelling through the tunnel is rather boring as we just dodge enemies for most of it. On the way we stop by a hot spring which Ionia is in, and they detect some power in Lucas. Following a brief drowning sequence (this has been interpreted to mean…other things…), Lucas leaves the springs with his newly learned power of PSI!
3 Squawking Stick Fights
When we get to the end of the tunnel, we fight 3 Squawking Sticks and manipulate them to drop Good Sticks. The sticks have a drop rate of 5%, with the odd inputs prior to the encounters being used to manipulate them to drop. These fights were done purely to get the three Good Sticks, used later to sell for DP.
Factory
We get a part-time job at the factory, granting us some extra DP and tickets to Club Titiboo. The man there asks us for our name in English (in the fan translation, it just asks you to reconfirm your name). We enter “TAS”, losing some frames but allowing “TAS” to appear in the credits as the player name, which is a nice touch. For our job, we need to bring tired Clayman miners back to the surface to be recharged. This is one of the more monotonous and boring parts of the game, and it was not fun to TAS at all. It’s one thing to play it, but it’s another to TAS it and optimize it.
Club Titiboo
Once we get there, we are first questioned by the guards but a girl named Violet gets us in. She reveals that she is Kumatora, and we enjoy a couple numbers from DCMC, the inhouse band. Later we go through a secret tunnel, grabbing a Saltwater Gun on the way, and bringing us to Kuma’s room. We then take a shower, and a summary explains (with a nice tune in C minor). what the 3 did now that they are reunited again.
Club Titiboo’s Attic / Jealous Bass Fight
The first thing we do here is sell 2 Sprinting Bombs, Lucas’ equipped weapon, and the 3 Good Sticks. We then purchase 4 Pencil Rockets for the upcoming fight, making this one of Boney’s first fights in his recurring item-slinger archetype. We take a slight detour to pick up a Magic Tart, which heals PP, and make our way to the Jealous Bass to fight him and his musical cohorts. Lucas’ PK Love and Boney’s Pencil Rockets will do the job. The guitar and drum are taken out quickly and the Jealous Bass is finished with quick work.
Chapter 4 Overview
Jealous Bass Fight: No time saved
Overworld: 3 minutes saved
Total time save: 3 minutes saved
Chapter 5 - Tower of Thunder
In the first full chapter with our dream team, we will hunt for the missing egg to discover the truth, and where we go into the Thunder Tower to dismantle it. One massive timesave is that the old TAS goes back to the Sunshine Forest to level up the whole party with Black Beanlings, while this TAS skips them entirely. The higher levels allow them to save time compared to this TAS on the fights, but the journey to getting leveled up actually lost them time in the long run compared to our route. More details later on how we handle later boss fights without being levelled up.
Fever
Occurs automatically after Lucas or Kumatora have reached a certain level. Having fever prevents you from running on the overworld until it clears. When the fever finally does clear, Lucas or Kumatora will gain access to additional PSI abilities.
Top Dogfish Fights
Essentially serving as a ‘money-equivalent’ of the beloved Black Beanling, we take four of these rare Top Dogfish fights which are important to this new route. Top Dogfish earns 869DP per fight, and is guaranteed to drop a meteotite which sells for an additional 2500DP, earning us an extra 13476DP. This money will come in very handy at a later point.
Clayman Facility
We pick up a Secret Herb on the way to the Clayman Facility. Once we get in, we heal at an Instant Revitalizing Device.
Burn
A status ailment we sometimes use to our advantage. While typically rare to activate, burn can even be inflicted on some bosses. The ailment has a chance to be applied when using PK Fire, and deals a set 5% of the enemies’ max HP prior to their action until eventually wearing off.
Pork Trooper
We use Lucas’ PK Love and Kuma’s PK Fire. Using RNG manipulation, PK Fire will actually burn him, meaning he takes extra damage. Duster’s Tickle Stick lowers his defense. The Pork Trooper loves DCMC, so Boney uses DCMC merch to completely deactivate him, effectively rendering any offense against us useless. This allows us to concentrate on dealing maximum damage without worrying about defense. Duster and Boney are also used for extra damage.
Highway
We grab a set of Chic Gloves and a Brown Collar along the highway, and heal at an Instant Revitalizing Device to refresh. Along the way Kuma gets hit by fever, giving her access to PK Fire Beta.
Forlorn Junk Heap
The approach to this one is similar to last time: Use Lucas’ PK Love and Kuma’s PK Fire, while Duster lowers defense, and this time Boney for extra damage. We again use PK Fire to force a burn, providing extra damage. While the Junk Heap has a shield for physical attacks, it still does some damage so Duster and Boney are good for that purpose. Defense is not too much of a concern because we can use RNG manipulation to make sure damage is dealt in a manner in which nobody dies. We get the egg, returning Duster back to his original identity, and we continue on into the tower, making sure to heal at an Instant Revitalizing Device along the way.
Pork Trooper Refight
He’s back to guard us from climbing the Tower, but luckily we can easily deal with him the same we did last time: Lucas’ PK Love and Kuma’s PK Fire, Duster’s Tickle Stick, and Boney’s DCMC Merch.
Up The Tower
On the way up the Tower, we heal in Lil’ Ms. Marshmallow room, and we pick up a Saltwater Gun, a Secret Herb, and purchase 2 cups of Pork Noodles for Boney and Duster. Lucas and Kuma get a fever, and then Lucas’ gets shocked on the way up and learns PK Flash suddenly. The fever then wears off and we learn
Mr. Genetor
This approach compared to the other fights has some differences: Lucas’ PK Love is the same, Instead of Kuma’s PK Fire, we use PK Freeze, but we start with a PK Fire with manipulation to burn Mr. Genetor, the PK Fire is not effective but the burn is, so we use it to make sure he gets burned and use PK Freeze until it wears off. Duster actually starts off with a Smoke Bomb to lower Genetor’s accuracy, then follows with Tickle Stick to lower defense. Boney starts off with a Saltwater Gun to deal some extra damage, and is used for extra items/heals throughout the rest of the fight. When Mr. Genetor discharges, we can use it as an opportunity to deal lots of damage. We need to be clever about how damage is dealt across the players, making sure nobody dies or is dealt too much damage. After he revitalizes to attack again, Lucas takes mortal damage but we finish him off with a final blow before Lucas dies.
Chapter 5 Overview
Pork Trooper: 39 seconds lost
Forlorn Junk Heap: 53 seconds lost
Pork Trooper Refight: 48 seconds lost
Mr. Genetor: 48 seconds lost
Overworld: 15m53s saved
Total Time Save: 12m45s saved
Chapter 6 - Sunflower Fields
🌻
Chapter 7 - The Seven Needles
This is the longest chapter in the game, with many boss fights. Our team was separated after falling off the blimp, so we must go out and reunite with them. We learn of the 7 needles and continue our journey henceforth.
The Needles
We save Ionia and bring her back to Aeolia’s house. Suddenly something happens, and she disappears. She reveals an underground passage to the castle, we grab her memento, which can revive you in fight, and we go see the missing needle. Ionia gives us an explanation of the Needles. We grab a phone left behind by Fassad. Ionia’s transports in fashion going back home, and we go under the castle to back to Tazmily, unfortunately encountering an undodgeable enemy, but we run away. We make a stop by Hinawa’s grave to pay our respects, and receive the Courage Badge from Nippolyte. The phone rings back in Tazmily and a Pigmask asks about directions to the Chimera Lab. Using the underground passage, we head to Saturn Valley instead to rescue Duster.
Needle Order
Chapter 7 is unique in this game in that you may tackle the needle sequence in whatever order you choose (despite the game leading you to a specific order). The first and last needles of the chapter are always the same, but the middle four can be done however you choose. The intended sequence is Chimera Lab > Snowcap Mountain > Saturn Valley > Tanetane Island, and this is also the sequence most commonly used in RTA runs, as well as what was used for the original TAS. We instead take a different route of Saturn Valley > Tanetane Island > Chimera Lab > Snowcap Mountain.
Saturn Valley / Saving Duster
We need to rescue Duster, but first we grab 7000DP from the Save Frog floating on a balloon. We encounter 2 Pigmask Majors and a Frightbot. The Pigmask Majors actually deal damage while the Frightbot tries to tell us horrifying stories, effectively only acting as a time stall. Lucas defeats them with PK Love while Boney just defends, using RNG Manipulation to make sure neither dies. We get Duster back and continue our business here in Saturn Valley. We grab the Good Kids Shirt and then go to the Saturn Shop to sell 2 Secret Herbs, Chic Gloves, Brown Collar, the Good Kids Shirt we just got, and the 4 meteotites we picked up from the Top Dogfish. We then fill our inventories with 35 Honey Showers.
Volcano / Pigmask
We heal at a hot spring as we climb up the mountain, and we dump extra Honey Showers to the Item Guy, and keep 6 for ourselves. We get fever on the way to Phygria’s house. We encounter 2 Pigmask Captains. We use Lucas’ PK Love, Duster and Boney for extra damage. Hilariously, using RNG manipulation, the 2 Pigmasks are manipulated to just run away, automatically winning the fight. Lucas then learns PK Counter Alpha and PK Psychoshield Alpha. We then heal ourselves using PSI before the Fassad fight.
Fassad
Armed with the Honey Showers, we will use them to completely make a joke out of most fights left in the game. Honey Showers usually send a swarm of bees and do minor damage, but there is a 10% chance that a bear can spawn and deal 800 or so damage. This strategy is the reason we went to Saturn Valley first, as this is the only location in the game which sells Honey Showers. Using intense RNG manipulation, this is how bosses will be taken out very quickly using this strategy, saving tons of time. This is also why the Black Beanlings were skipped entirely, as the damage from a successful bear spawn isn’t impacted by the player’s stats at all. Due to the low overall hit rate, reserve Honey Showers were needed to be most efficient, as forcing 3 or 4 bear spawns in a single round of combat would be nearly impossible to do in a time-efficient manner, since it would be incredibly unlikely that the game’s RNG would favor multiple back-to-back <0.1% rounds in reasonable time. This is why many Honey Showers are used that only provide the damage from swarms of bees. Still, you can deal around 1600 damage PER TURN with 2 honey showers working, with the additional ~100 damage from extra swarms of bees. In only 2 turns, Fassad is toast. We pull the needle and learn PK Love Beta, and Phygria leaves us with their memento.
Finishing Up Saturn Valley
We need to do some business in Saturn Valley before we get out of here. The Pigmasks blocked the main exit by bombing it, so we grab some pigeons for the Mr. Saturns to make a bird's cage out of. Along the way, we grab more DP from the Save Frog and purchase more Honey Showers to give to the Item Guy. From then, we take a rest in the Hot Spring and enjoy some coffee, and we get a recap of events so far. Afterwards, the Bird Cage is now ready, and we purchase some Honey Showers and fill our inventories to keep on hand for our journey.
Under the Sea
After Saturn Valley, we make our way to Tanetane purely because it saves on the travel time that coming here later would add. The underwater segment is one of the more annoying parts to TAS. We have to manually move without running and we are limited on oxygen. There are also plenty of undodgeable enemies throughout it, but luckily we can get through, and we make it to Master Eddy just before we run out of oxygen.
Master Eddy
2 turns is all we need for this. Interestingly, the extra damage provided by the swarm of bees is actually pretty important in this fight, as Master Eddy has an odd amount of HP. We technically don’t win this fight, instead we just get sent up to the surface of Tanetane Island, losing our items in the process. It doesn’t actually matter if anybody dies, so unfortunately Boney does bite the dust in this one.
Tanetane Island
When we get on the island, we are depleted of all our energy, and so we eat some mushrooms which turn out to be psychedelic. We essentially have an acid trip and everything becomes rather nightmarish. Luckily when we make it to Mixolydia, they bring us back to sanity. She gives us a jar of pickles for Ionia. Ocho luckily has our items, so we get our Honey Showers back for the Barrier Trio fight. We encounter a few undodgeable enemies across the way however.
Barrier Trio
We only really need 3 turns of Honey Showers to take it down, although a few more turns are used for healing and defending since it needs to finish out its routine. Rolling HP is somewhat helpful in this scenario. The Masked Man swoops in and takes out the needle however, but we get Mixolydia’s memento. We head back down to the shore of Tanetane, encountering some undodgeable enemies. Instead of having Ocho take us back to Tazmily, we re-enter the water and drown, taking us back. This is around 11 seconds faster.
Travelling to Chimera Lab
While it may seem reasonable to take the train, the train is actually 15 seconds slower than just travelling by foot. Along the way, we make sure to open the Mole Cricket Hole leading to Snowcap Mountain before we go to the lab, as this will skip a cutscene about opening the hole following the Lab sequence.
Chimera Lab
We go into Chimera Lab and get some Pigmask disguises on to help us out, we then ignore Dr. Andonuts and then we spot Salsa and Samba. Along the way we encounter the Almost-Mecha Lion.
Almost-Mecha Lion
We take out this little mini-boss in a single turn, with Lucas’ luckily surviving with 1 HP. Interestingly, this is the only fight in the game where you are allowed to game over and still proceed, often used in RTA runs as this is a fast strategy. In our case however, completing the fight successfully was faster when accounting for rolling HP. We find Salsa and Samba again and keep chasing them down throughout the Lab. We get cornered by the Ultimate Chimera but Salsa remembers us and manages to disable it. They then temporarily join us and take us to Doria’s house. We finally reunite with Kumatora, who you would typically find first if following the intended needle order. We need to drain the water to get to the needle, but luckily Dr. Andonuts has a couple of Chimeras to help out, of which we use the Pump Chimera. We then pull the needle to Doria’s excitement and Kuma’s sadness. Lucas learns PK Love Gamma and gets Doria’s memento.
Mole Cricket Hole
We go down the Mole Cricket Hole to their underground tunnel area. The Mole Cricket wants a revenge fight, but we finish him in a single hit. We head to the Snow Mountain. The trick to get up to the Snow Mountain from the maze is to always take a turn when there is one, and we easily get out.
Snowcap Mountain
If you press L+R or U+D at the same time, you will actually run in place. This is used to dodge the Ten-Yetis going downhill. It’s TAS only, but it’s a neat mechanic. We grab more Honey Showers from the Item Guy, and the Mole Cricket sets up shop near the Hot Spring. We arrive at Lydia’s house. The Masked Man swoops in and pulls the needle before we can, and leaves behind the Steel Mechorilla for us to deal with.
Steel Mechorilla
2 turns is all it takes for this tough guy. Lydia leaves behind their memento for us, and we then make our leave from the Snowcap Mountain and land back in Tazmily, where we will go through the Sunshine Forest, then through Argilla Pass, to the Chupichupyoi Temple.
To Chupichupyoi Temple
Lucas and Kuma get fever in the Sunshine Forest, afterwhich Kuma learns PK Freeze Beta, PSI Magnet Alpha, and Paralysis Alpha. Lucas learns PSI Counter Alpha. We trip and drop the jar of pickles Mixolydia gave us, but we have Boney quickly find it. We encounter an undodgeable enemy in the cave, and run, and finally arrive at Ionia’s house. The Mr. Saturn from the Saturn Valley hot spring returns our polished Courage Badge, which turned out to be a Franklin Badge, a Mother series staple which allows the wearer to reflect electricity. We make it to the temple where we encounter the Masked Man, and a bunch of Pigmasks to fight.
Pigmask Fight
Honey Showers will deal with them. 2 turns and we are good.
Masked Man
One of the few fights using both PSI and Honey Showers. Boney and Duster do most of the Healing and Honey Shower work, while Lucas and Kuma use PK Love and PK Freeze. We continue on pulling the needle. Ionia teaches Kuma PK Starstorm, and Lucas pulls the needle and learns PK Love Omega, both very high damage dealers that are nearly on par with the Honey Shower Bear. Ionia disappears and leaves us with the final needle. A limo pulls up and takes us to New Pork City, and to the beginning of the end.
Chapter 7 Overview
(note that the fights are in different order in the old TAS, and that Kumatora is present for fights that she isn’t in the new TAS)
Saving Duster Fight: 35 seconds lost
Volcano Pigmasks: 15 seconds lost
Fassad: 5 seconds saved
Eddie: 5 seconds saved
Barrier Trio: 36 seconds saved
Almost-Mecha Lion: 6 seconds saved
Mole Cricket Refight: 1 second saved
Steel Mechorilla: 6 seconds saved
Temple Pigmasks: 24 seconds saved
Masked Man: 29 seconds lost
Total Time Save: 2m13s lost
Chapter 8 - All Things
New Pork City
Now that we are in New Pork City, we head to the theatres and lose Boney to an insect. We then use the arcade to go underground into the sewers to find him. We encounter an undodgeable enemy and then eventually reunite with him. We then meet with Leder where he gives us a massive speech. Once we are done with him, we encounter some more undodgeable enemies and then we eventually encounter Fassad, who is back for a refight.
Miracle Fassad
For this fight, we use Lucas’ PK Love and Kuma’s PK Starstorm combined with Honey Showers from Duster and Boney. He breaks apart on the first turn, and in just a few more we finish him off. Afterwards, we go and purchase a Super Bomb and 3 Saltwater Guns from the Pigmask under the tree, where afterwards we get fever
The Tower (Pt. 1)
We constantly use the elevators. The movement for these has been optimized to make sure to reduce cutscene movement to save frames. Eventually we get to the other DCMC remembers and Duster rejoins them for a couple numbers before Porky interrupts them. We get to the water section, the fever wears off and Kumatora learns Hypnosis Omega and Lucas learns Healing Gamma, and we grab a Super Bomb along the way. Just as we step out of the water, we do some inventory management. We give Duster and Boney a memento each, and 2 to Kuma and Lucas. Duster and Boney get 2 Saltwater Guns each, as well as a Super Bomb.
Hippo Launcher
This one is easy. Just one round of PK Love and PK Starstorm from Lucas and Kuma will finish him off in a single turn. Lucas takes some damage, but not too much.
The Tower (Pt. 2)
Locria turned out to be Fassad, and he left his memento which we picked up. We navigate and dodge enemies some more and eventually get to the mini-games.
Mini-games
We play against a Porky Bot in 3 different mini-games. The thing is, if the Porky Bot doesn’t win, we cannot advance. It’s really easy for us to beat it, so we need to intentionally throw the games in order to lose. We can do this by doing things for entertainment or just almost winning in some way, just for some tension. After we have dealt with this, we can continue forward, resting at a couch to heal up just after for upcoming battles.
N.K. Cyborg
One of the most intimidating bosses in the game by sheer magnitude, and he does lots of damage. The strategy is to combine Honey Showers with PSI. Lucas’ PK Love and Kuma’s PK Starstorm do good damage, with the Honey Showers matching it. The first turn is the longest manipulation in any battle, resulting in 2 Honey Showers bringing bears and Lucas and Kuma doing good damage, but with Lucas mortally damaged. The second turn is the same actions, but with Kuma taking mortal damage. Luckily, the 3rd turn finishes him off before Lucas' health drops. We then continue by enjoying a flashback to the previous games, a museum of artifacts from Mother 1 and 2 with Pollyanna serving as the theme.
Porky Bots
There are too many bots to use Honey Showers on, so for a change, they will not be used in this major battle. Boney and Duster use items, while Lucas and Kuma use PSI attacks. The thing is that PSI attacks reflect back, causing Lucas and Kuma to also take the damage that the bots take, but thanks to rolling HP, we can take multiple out as their HP dwindles, and when they die, they will be revived by mementos. Boney and Duster also get revived by mementos due to damage taken from the bots exploding when killed. The bots that appear by themselves call for some enemy backup, but they are low-level enemies taken out in one hit from a PSI attack. Eventually, 3 more will appear, but the DCMC will come in and take them out for us, helping us out and winning the fight. A whole slew of characters show up to the scene, but Porky sends our party along with Flint way underground.
Deep Cavern
As we traverse down stairs, Kuma and Lucas are hit with fever, where Kuma will learn PK Freeze Gamma, Offense Down Omega, and Defense Down Omega. Lucas will learn Lifeup Gamma. Now that we can run, we encounter a box which contains a hot spring in it, which will heal our party for the upcoming fight. We enter this cave that seems to have electricity in the air, and we dodge enemies throughout it. We encounter Flint, who comes to realize the Masked Man is Lucas’ brother Claus. We eventually come to Porky to give him Honey Shower retribution.
Porky
Porky will start off by lowering our stats, but that doesn’t affect us since Honey Showers are not tied to them. You trigger dialogue from Porky after dealing so much damage to him, we encounter his first lines after the first turn alone. For the second turn, he makes Duster and Boney cry, which doesn’t affect us, and trigger his second line of dialogue. 3rd Turn: deals Boney some damage, but we do so much more that we trigger his third line of dialogue. 4th Turn: Porky does some damage to everybody but Boney, and we deal a Honey Shower to him. Lucas and Kuma do PSI attacks, with the damage reflecting back on them, but due to rolling HP, we can tank the damage. His chair breaks down, and he puts himself into the Absolutely Safe Capsule, where he cannot damage us, and we cannot damage him. The fastest move is to just run away, which while it does nothing, immediately ends the turn, and the fight ends. Dr. Andonuts has some fun with the capsule, and we continue on to the final battle in the game. Lucas heals beforehand to prepare, and we dodge enemies and encounter him at the final needle.
The Masked Man
He immediately takes out every other character in our party, leaving only Lucas due to his reflective Franklin Badge. You can attempt to revive other characters using PSI, but the Masked Man will immediately take them out. Lucas, knowing that the Masked Man is Claus, cannot bring himself to attack his brother, so we sit defending, which slows the loss of HP until we need to heal using Lifeup Gamma. Every few turns, their mother Hinawa will call for them beyond the grave. The only thing we can do is sit and tank the attacks as his mother continues to call for him. Flint jumps in front of a Masked Man PSI attack, and takes damage himself, but pleads for the Masked Man to realize who he is. You can actually attack the Masked Man from this point, although it is not effective to do so. Eventually, a cutscene plays, and the Masked Man is finally hearing his mother. His attacks become weak and brittle, and we will one more time, luckily having the perfect amount of PP. As Hinawa calls for him one last time, The Masked Man will eventually reveal himself as Claus, and sends a flash of lighting to Lucas, reflecting off his badge, taking his own life.
The Final Needle
As Claus takes his last breath, Flint talks to Lucas, asking him to forgive Claus and to pray to the dragon as the final needle is pulled. We go up to the needle, and pull it, letting the dragon come free and make the world anew.
End?
After the cutscene showing the destruction of the world plays, text saying “END?” will appear. We can move this around as we advance through dialogue. When the final dialogue is advanced, TAS timing ends, and the screen fades to white and the credits begin.
Chapter 8 Overview
Miracle Fassad: 13 seconds lost
Hippo Launcher: 2 seconds lost
N.K. Cyborg: 5 seconds saved
Porky Bots: 3 seconds lost
Porky: 9 seconds lost
The Masked Man: 14 seconds saved
Total Time Saved: 1m42s lost
Total Time Save Altogether: 14m23s
It is important to note that the title of the old TAS uses a different timing which ends on the final textbook of the Masked Man fight to get 5:08:11, in reality: It is a 5:11:06 in the accepted conventional RTA timing, and a 5:17:37 in TAS timing.
Battle Breakdowns
In this spreadsheet is a collection of all battles. documenting each turn, actions, and select-cancel counts. This can be used to understand better that strategies used in battle.
Here is a link to that spreadsheet:
Battle Breakdowns
Potential Improvements
While this movie is as optimized as we could make it with what we know, there are certain aspects that would show signs for improvement in the future.
Better Movement Optimization in the Early Game:
Ezra speaking directly here, when looking back on the early game, primarily in Chapter 1, it is clear that some of the movement primarily in the realm of reducing movement in cutscenes could be optimized further. The optimizations would be small optimizations however, and they are optimized to the best I could do at the job with the skill and knowledge I had. As the game progressed, it was a learning experience and the movement in the late game is incredibly optimized in my opinion, and I think rather difficult to beat.
Battle Navigation Mechanics in the Early Game:
Around Chapter 2, we figured out that the L button and A button have the same function in the battle navigation menu. All battles are in 30fps, meaning that every other frame is a “lag frame” essentially. You cannot press A in between a lag frame, as that is interpreted as holding A for 2 frames in 30fps. What you can do is press A and L in between a lag frame, and that’s like pressing A twice, which would save a frame in 30fps anytime you do this. This was not realized in Chapter 1, and would save a few frames, but ultimately less than a second.
Avoiding Mistakes:
There were 2 mistakes that had to be left in unfortunately, as it was too late when we realized a more optimal path. One mistake is that we picked up a Magic Tart in Chapter 4, but it never got used. This was intended for restoring PP for use with the Genetor, but ended up not being needed. Another mistake was going to the Pigmask to buy things in New Pork City in Chapter 8. If we had purchased the items prior to going underground and fighting Fassad, we could actually have taken a faster way to get there, coming from the left. After the fight, that area gets blocked off by some people, which lost a few seconds.
Fights:
New strategies or improving on existing strategies is the most common way to improve a TAS, but that would be something for the future as we’d need to come up with ways to achieve that to do so. Better RNG is another way. The thing is that you will get a different result depending on the frame you enter the battle in, and pause cancels could be drastically different. Theoretically, if we came 1 frame later, we could have saved many pause cancels, or used way more to get the results we wanted. The only time where frame manipulation was used in fights was to run away from enemies that could not be dodged. There is a delicate balance when TASing RPG fights. You could theoretically manipulate 4 bears to spawn in Honey Showers per turn, getting roughly 3200 damage per turn, but the time it would take to manipulate that using pause cancels would be far from optimal in terms of real time. The approach we used is to just encounter an enemy on the fastest frame we can, and just roll with it. There is a balance between getting super-duper-duper ridiculous optimization and preserving your time and sanity. For approaching battles, we optimized strategies and turns, and planned them out ahead of time. We will leave the hyper-optimization stuff to the TASing bots.
Future Endeavours
An improvement to this TAS is something that will probably occur looooong in the future. For now, we can focus on other categories.
New Game+
By using a save file glitch, you can bring over some stats to a brand new game profile from a pre-existing one, allowing you to gain some advantages. This is an official category that is ran by the RTA runners of this game, and would definitely result in some different approaches potentially making a pretty unique TAS.
Hard Mode
In the master-class English fan translation of the game, which is how many people experience this game, there exists a hard mode which you can get by naming the player name “HARD MODE” in Chapter 1. This raises the stats and health of the enemies in the game, making them more difficult. This will change the approach to battle and could result in a pretty interesting TAS, which English speaking viewers could potentially enjoy more. Because this is not an official feature of the Japanese version, it cannot qualify for TASVideos, but one can be created despite that.
Author’s personal notes: xxEzraBxxx
I have been aware of tool-assisted speedruns before I was even a teenager. I was in the community somewhat but I never made a TAS of my own, which is something I wanted to do. I wouldn’t call it a dream to get a published TAS, far from it, but I would consider it a great accomplishment to get a movie published to TASVideos. And now here it is, my first full-length TAS being submitted here to TASVideos. I started getting interested in Mother 3 around 2021, and began to attempt TASing the game. I came up with some incomplete WIPs that never got too far, not past Chapter 1. Eventually, on January 17th, 2023, I began the groundwork for a new TAS that will come to fruition. I did Chapter 1, and brought RadixSmash along for Chapter 2. I was already using the routes he had made, and in my hiatus before the new TAS began, the Honey Shower strategy was theorized. I would sometimes have large gaps in between TASing the game, sometimes for months, but I was determined to finish it.
A 5 hour TAS is no joke, that's a far longer movie than what most people on this site will ever do, and do that as my first TAS and get it done, I’m very proud of myself for accomplishing that. We had plans to eventually get it revealed on Really Really Long A Thon, a speedrunning marathon dedicated to long runs, and the main organizer loves the game and wanted to offer us a primetime slot on the stream. I was very excited to see that play out, but I was especially excited for the Honey Showers strategy. When Radix sent me movie files of the first Fassad fight, when I played back his work, I was absolutely floored. I knew this was gonna be good. Over Christmas and New Years, we got a lot of Chapter 7 done, and on March 9th, 2024, I placed the final inputs to complete the TAS.
In reality, I wanted this run to be a contender for GBA TAS of the Year, since I was so ambitious, but being submitted in December as we had to wait for the marathon, it will probably not be published in time before the New Year, but that’s okay.
I realize that I’ve probably gotten too long now, so I want to close by thanking RadixSmash for being my co-author for this project. I can’t give him enough credit, he came up with the route and strategies and did most of the battles. This would be nowhere without him.
Author’s personal notes: RadixSmash
Hey everyone, thanks for taking the time to read through this. This is the first TAS I’ve contributed to that’s been submitted to TASVideos, and the first full run I’ve contributed significantly to. I’ve made attempts in the past to create a full TAS of this game that never ended up being completed, but Ezra eventually brought me into this project in March of 2023. From there on, I TASed the majority of the combat throughout the rest of the game, starting with the Chapter 2 Clayman fight. The games’ route was mostly unchanged for chapters 1-3, though the Honey Shower strategy had been theorized prior to the start of the TAS. I eventually took the time to write out the full route for the later chapters, and with some double-checking, we continued with the TAS production.
I have plans to work on many more TASes in the future if I am able, especially for consoles such as the PS2 and PSP which don’t have accurate TASing emulators as of yet. As for my plans for this game, well, be on the lookout :). Many thanks to Xel and ReallyReallyLongAThon for allowing us to showcase our TAS at the event, to the Mother 3 RTA community for their help in crafting this route/TAS, and to Ezra for bringing me into this project. I hope you all enjoy this TAS!
Special Thanks
Mother 3 RTA Community
Really-Really-Long-A-Thon / Xel
Google Drive
nymx: Claiming for judging.
