Music of The Earth Bound Series - Mother 3

Mother 3

Mother 3 is a role-playing video game published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console in 2006. The music for the game was composed exclusively by Shogo Sakai; he had previously composed music for several games such as Virtua Fighter 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Series developer Shigesato Itoi stated that Sakai was given the position because he understood Mother 3 the most, given that he could not use Keiichi Suzuki or Hirokazu Tanaka, the composers for the first two games, as they were both busy with other projects. Itoi also said that given the massive amount of songs in the game, over 250, he needed someone who had a lot of time to dedicate to the project and who could focus exclusively on it.

"Love Theme", the main theme of Mother 3, was composed late in the game's development; earlier in development Itoi intended to use the "Pigmask Army" theme as the main theme of the game. During creation of an important scene in the game, however, Sakai was asked to create a song that would have a greater impact than the Pigmask theme; upon its creation it was chosen to be used as the main theme instead of the "Pigmask Army" song. Itoi claims that, given how quickly Sakai composed the song, that he had been "waiting for the order" to make a song like "Love Theme". Itoi requested that "Love Theme" be playable on a piano with only one finger, as the "Eight Melodies" theme from Mother had gained popularity and been played in elementary schools due to its simplicity. The "OK desu ka?" that plays after the player chooses the character's name was recorded without Itoi's knowledge by Hirokazu Tanaka more than a decade before the release of Mother 3.

The MOTHER3+ soundtrack album was first released by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office on November 2, 2006, and then distributed through the iTunes Store on February 2, 2007, featuring an additional bonus track, "MOTHER3 – theme of LOVE". Another album of music from the game, MOTHER3i, was released on February 6, 2007 by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office in the iTunes Store and other online music services. Like the Earthbound soundtrack album each track of Mother3i is a combination of several tracks from the game itself, though it still does not cover all of the tracks from the game.

Kyle Miller of RPGFan gave a warm reception to Mother3+ in his review, saying that it "retains the same quirky, but thoughtful feel so well captured by the previous entries in the series" and was "a worthy addition to the Mother musical canon". He enjoyed that it included both songs that were new to Mother 3 and pieces originally from previous entries in the series. He felt that the weakest tracks on the album were those that used real-life instruments, while he named "Snowman" as the strongest. Square Enix Music Online was not as pleased with the album; although the reviewer agreed with Miller on which tracks were the best and worst, they were very critical of the fact that the album contained "only nine or ten distinct themes from a pool of perhaps one hundred viable choices". They also disliked the fact that the pieces were "by design short and repetitive". They instead recommended the Mother3i album, which, though "missing the iconic 'Love' theme and perennial series favorites like 'Pollyanna'", had "more engaging arrangements, less cloying sentimentality, and a wider variety of themes". They also noted the improved sound quality of the album over the original Game Boy Advance version. Mother3+ reached position #24 on the Japanese Oricon charts, and stayed on the charts for three weeks.