ROM Hack - MOTHER - Re-Faithful

MOTHER - Re-Faithful

Original game : EarthBound Beginnings

Platform : NES

Author : Red Mage Joe

Release date : 15 March 2019

Category : Addendum

Patch version : 1.0

Modifications : S, P

Downloads : 2582

ROM Information

File: Earth Bound (USA) (Proto).nes
CRC32: F5EF5002
MD5: 5BACF7BA94C539A1CAF623DBE12059A3
SHA-1: 505CC723E0C8D66BAAAF9597F21A505A88291F64

Hack description

While DragonDePlatino's MOTHER - 25th Anniversary Edition is a wonderful work of art with excellent graphical and script overhauls, the core mechanics of the game itself were not inherently flawed, even if they were a product of RPGs of the time. The difficulty could be satisfying to a great many players, and the internet is rife with analytical resources picking apart the mechanics of the game. Dragon's changes sadly render many of these resources irrelevant.

This patch reverts all changes to character stats and enemy stats, allowing players to experience the challenge of the original game, while still enjoying the beautiful art, map, and script changes. Enemies are just as tough and unforgiving as in vanilla, but appear slightly less frequently and reward 25% more exp. The idea to this patch is to make the game less tedious while still keeping combat faithful to its challenging origins. Re-Faithful pairs well with MOTHER - 25th Faithful Edition and MOTHER - Vanilla Sprites.

This patch DOES:

-Revert initial character stats to original MOTHER state
-Revert character stat growth values to original MOTHER state
-Revert enemy stats to their vanilla state for resource consistency and challenge's sake
-Revert grossly nerfed enemy encounter rates back to a difficult but not unreasonable frequency
-Slightly revert Dragon's streamlining of level-up text; pauses are added at RNG breakpoints (after "level up!", after 5 primary stats gain, after HP gain, and after PP gain)
-Revert a few of Dragon's battle theme changes to be more contextually appropriate; made one or two changes myself

This patch does NOT:

-Revert any graphics (for overworld sprites only, see other patch linked in description)
-Revert level-up text to its slow, tedious, pause-between-every-single-stat behavior as in vanilla
-Revert ALL of Dragon's battle theme changes (there were some very nice choices that fit more than the original; again, context is important)

Contributions

Contributor	Type of contribution	Description
Red Mage Joe	Hacking

Reviews

Mother: The Best Version but Even Better!	Ziko	2019-03-18	Version 1.0
I wasn't too happy the first time and I admit I quit when I played the 25th anniversary version as it made too many changes and took away some essential functions for the sake of simplicity (i.e. RNG still runs after the level up check, encounter rates not being consistent in some locations, etc.) Re-Faithful restores the challenge back to the game but kept some of the other QoL changes and even now you can mess with the stats with save state abuse again which is cool as so far my Ninten & Lloyd are godly at their levels and that's putting it mildly. This hack can also work with the graphic revert patch if you don't like the new sprites as I know purists want to not mess with the graphics but do with the new changes to make the grind more tolerable and the game more fun too. I personally love the new graphics and sprites for the NPCs & main characters as they resemble the clay art style more than the rather bland original designs that don't seem to look right. Overall, this is the best way to play Mother or Earth Bound if you like that name better.

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