Topic: What is so special about the Mother/Earthbound series?

I think what you mean by "realistic" is really "set in modern-day," MarkyVigoroth. Nothing terribly realistic about Earthbound OR Persona.

It's not like Mother 1 at all. They look alike on the surface, but where Mother 1 was an RPG set in modern day with a definite sense of sillyness, Mother 2 goes all out with it's zanyness, essentially parodying the RPG genre completely. Both games have their own definite charm, but they're not really trying to do the same thing. They're pretty hard to compare like that.

Earthbound's better, though. Most people agree on that.

Most Earthbound fans agree on that because the Earthbound fans became Earthbound fans because they enjoyed Earthbound's style, and played Mother because it was the prequel. The amount of people who didn't care for Earthbound but still decided to seek out the prequel to see if they liked it better are, obviously, not that numerous, and since Mother was only released in Japan, the amount of English-speakerswho played it without having gotten interested in it due to having played Earthbound are practically none.
That's why "most people" agree that Earthbound was better - they played Earthbound first and liked Earthbound, then played the prequel and didn't like it as much because it was different. Liking Mother over Earthbound because of this difference is just as likely, it just wasn't a game these "most people" were likely to play if they didn't already like Earthbound for what it was, making it less likely thy'd like Mother for what IT was, since they were so different.

Okay, whatever. That was a very strangely worded post, Adamant. I did understand it, though, so don't go thinking I didn't!

The style of Earthbound is a fair bit different from Mother 1, in a way that most gamers prefer. It requires WAY less level-grinding, gives you a better sense of what you have to do next for the most part (or maybe I just think that because it comes with a guide ), and has a far better (because it was actually finished) translation which lends itself to a much funnier script overall.

You being the person who prefers the NES version of Final Fantasy I, I'm sure you'd just LOVE Mother 1. I like things a little bit more modern, though.

There are a lot of things about this game which make it special and one of my favourites, most of which have already been pointed out, so I'll just say this - the music in this game is fantastic too, one of the best things about it!

I actually liked Mother better then Earthbound and I played Earthbound first.

Well I saw my friend play through EB and it looked interesting and funny. Getting attacked by a hippie=hilarious. I played Mother 3 and it was awesome. I think it's really the story, the humor, and the environments that make EB amazing. Battle-wise it's nothing new it just has the number dials that can let you save yourself if you heal your character before the dial reaches zero after the character's taken mortal damage. Also you gotta hate Porky.

earthbound is epic i love playing it all the time beat it about 4 times but its a modern turn-based game like final fantasy super mario rpg crono trigger dragon quest

Nothing gameplay-wise, that's for sure, outside of the ability to not fight low-level enemies (which is a G-dsend considering how boring the battles really are). But it has some of the best writing and humor I've ever seen in a game (...well, 2 and 3 do. Mother 1 is a terrible game with souless dialogue, and barely any story. Don't even get me started on the dungeon design, the encounter rate, the difficulty, the lack of any sort of direction whatsoever that makes Dragon Quest look helpful. It really is just a terrible Dragon Quest clone with some lame attempts at humor). That alone makes it special. Mother 3 also tries to mix up the battles, too, though I still find them pretty boring. They really need to remake 2 and 3 for the Wii U or 3DS with actual animations and camera panning to liven things up. Maybe also change up some of the gameplay so it's not so Dragon Quest-y (It's not hard to do, Dragon Quest gameplay is pretty much the bare minimum of RPGs ).

you know i did, lol
it is very nicely done

earthbound zero (or as i call it earthbound 1) was long and tough, and im crazy enough to sit through it and beat it again too.
theres an english repro gba mother 3 cart fixing to be out as well...

I like, scratch that, LOVE EarthBound for reasons besides the gameplay. Its just full of personality. I love the weirdness of everything, sometimes it verges on being psychedelic. The music is catchy, everything the characters say is genius, and the atmosphere can't be matched. Its truly one of a kind.

Plus, it just grows on you. No wonder its become a cult following, it like becomes a part of you.

It's also very quotable, "DOING!"

Edit : And the fact that I wrote all this, and haven't even finished the game yet, just shows how I was able to fall in love with this game so easily.

What I've seen of the gameplay looks boring to me, but I still really want to play Mother 3 just because it has just the kind of humor I love.

http://walkthrough.starmen.net/earthbound

For me its the weirdness and humor in the game.
Also, even though very simple, the battle system's HP counter was unique. :3

It's not just the humour but the opposite of it as well. The games are able to make you sad, especially MOTHER3. I mean, the boys lose their mother, your brother runs away, your father gets accused of spoiler, the world is attacked by spoilers, an evil dictator makes '1984' real, the modernizing of the world, a crippled jobless as one of the main characters, animal test objects for gene mutation, transvestite fairies that wanna make love, etc etc etc.
MOTHER3 was such a punch to the face to the mistakes and randomness of humanity.
Very good 10/10.
The battle system is extremely simple, but with those low-level-instant-kills, and kill-before-die features, and battle text making a story out of each fight, among other good things, this series introduced ingenious additions like no other battle system had before.

It has a nice battle, equip and field system, That's why I always play mother 1 and 2 on the GBA. It's understandable to see why it can get highly over rated sometimes... People on nintendo's facebook won't shut up about it.

Since when was the equipment system something to write home about?

It was far more annoying than other games at the time could dream about!