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Pretty sure this has been out for a few months now but I've only got in on it now. For context, MOTHER Encore is basically a Mother fan game trying to reimagine the first Mother game, which is perfectly fine as is in my opinion, but has a lot of issues. And since I probably like the Mother series too much, I had high expectations. And it was fair enough. I still need to finish it since I've only got around to the graveyard, so I'll have to update this when I finish it.
Other than those flaws though, it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the original in my opinion, but I'd still recommend playing the original, whether that's EarthBound Zero or EarthBound Beginnings, since the only difference between the two is the translation. I'd recommend giving it a go for Mother or RPG fans and personally gauging it for yourself.
Starting with what I liked about it, the art direction is amazing. Its all done in the style of MOTHER 3, and it honestly looks amazing. The new sprites are honestly amazing as well (see the attachment of the crow), excluding Mr. Batty - it looks like it's wasted.
I like a lot of the new additions as well. The graveyard got several new additions, including breaking stuff with your bat which is used to get some presents. The map got redesigned and the canary village is now easier to find since before it was basically in the middle of nowhere. I still hate how you reach Laura for the second melody though, but the hint is a bit better.
The combat system is basically a copy of MOTHER 3's, minus the combo system for obvious reasons, and I like it, but it feels like its bit too easy to get snuck up on. The sprint system is a mix of MOTHER's and MOTHER 3's, since you can either hold Shift while moving to sprint (like MOTHER), or hold Shift before sprinting (like MOTHER 3), and you can bash through some objects like MOTHER 3.
The grinding at the beginning of the game is mostly removed, though it's somewhat required for the graveyard.
The writing is better. I found the writing in EarthBound Beginnings specifically to be a bit dry, but the writing in Encore is exceptional. I attached one of them to this post as well.
And possibly the worst part of the original, the annoying random encounters designed to pad out game time, is taken out and made much more like the latter two games where the enemies are on the map and there's invincibility frames.
For what I don't like, the elephant in the room for me is the music and sound effects. I think it's probably just me being too attached to the Mother series' music, but I feel like the music is just, off. I found Pollyanna fairly good, but the rest of it mostly mediocre. A lot of the sound effects (like Lifeup and Healing) are reused from MOTHER 3, and sound really out of place.
I also found Podunk to lack its own identity. It looks a lot like Onett, with even the same font on most of the buildings, so it just feels like a worse Onett.
And if you die, you get sent to the main menu, losing any progress you made from when you last saved. This is probably to stop grinding, but just going back to where you last saved and keeping your progress is, from my experience anyways, in a lot of RPGs, including the original three Mother games. Best way of handling it would be like EarthBound where you go back to where you last saved with full health but no PP.
I like a lot of the new additions as well. The graveyard got several new additions, including breaking stuff with your bat which is used to get some presents. The map got redesigned and the canary village is now easier to find since before it was basically in the middle of nowhere. I still hate how you reach Laura for the second melody though, but the hint is a bit better.
The combat system is basically a copy of MOTHER 3's, minus the combo system for obvious reasons, and I like it, but it feels like its bit too easy to get snuck up on. The sprint system is a mix of MOTHER's and MOTHER 3's, since you can either hold Shift while moving to sprint (like MOTHER), or hold Shift before sprinting (like MOTHER 3), and you can bash through some objects like MOTHER 3.
The grinding at the beginning of the game is mostly removed, though it's somewhat required for the graveyard.
The writing is better. I found the writing in EarthBound Beginnings specifically to be a bit dry, but the writing in Encore is exceptional. I attached one of them to this post as well.
And possibly the worst part of the original, the annoying random encounters designed to pad out game time, is taken out and made much more like the latter two games where the enemies are on the map and there's invincibility frames.
For what I don't like, the elephant in the room for me is the music and sound effects. I think it's probably just me being too attached to the Mother series' music, but I feel like the music is just, off. I found Pollyanna fairly good, but the rest of it mostly mediocre. A lot of the sound effects (like Lifeup and Healing) are reused from MOTHER 3, and sound really out of place.
I also found Podunk to lack its own identity. It looks a lot like Onett, with even the same font on most of the buildings, so it just feels like a worse Onett.
And if you die, you get sent to the main menu, losing any progress you made from when you last saved. This is probably to stop grinding, but just going back to where you last saved and keeping your progress is, from my experience anyways, in a lot of RPGs, including the original three Mother games. Best way of handling it would be like EarthBound where you go back to where you last saved with full health but no PP.
Other than those flaws though, it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the original in my opinion, but I'd still recommend playing the original, whether that's EarthBound Zero or EarthBound Beginnings, since the only difference between the two is the translation. I'd recommend giving it a go for Mother or RPG fans and personally gauging it for yourself.
