Mother 3's Darkest Mystery

Join me on another episode of Press Start to Continue! Today we're diving into another theory about the Mother series, in hopes to uncover the mystery behind Mother 3's unused boss content and cutscenes.

Credits:

MUSIC:
“Earthbound - A Tribute to the Fallen” - Clay
“Revenant” - Sub Morphine
“Giygas’ Lair” - Earthbound
“Lightning Highway” - Night Rider 87
“Is Anyone There”? - Mother 3
“Porky’s Pokies” - Mother 3
“A Moment, Eternal” - Mental Minority

ART:
-Thumbnail Art “untitled” from Deviant Art Wallpaper
-Ness’ Nightmare by Axl-fox

OTHER CREDITS:

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[PressStartToContinueYT]

Hey guys, thanks for checking out my new video! Mother 3 has always been super intriguing to me, so today we dive into one of the craziest aspects...The unused boss backgrounds. What is their purpose? Why do they exist? Today we take a look at some of the theories, leave your thoughts below!

[elfiebranford]

Imagine if this hidden boss came from an idea of entering Claus' Magicant, and unlike Queen Mary's or Ness', it was a horrific place filled with dread because of Porky's manipulation and brainwashing. You'd basically have to defeat this boss in order to have Claus be free.

Honestly, I know I'm just guessing and having a bit of wishful thinking, but I would LOVE if that was the case here!!

[mozixisd]

What if Porky was trying to turn Claus into a new Giygas? Porky saw the power of Giygas first hand and probably knows enough about his transition from psychic being with a mortal body to whatever Giygas became. Porky is also familiar with the strength of PSI users, both as adversaries and as potential assets. Porky could have scouted out the twins, chosen Claus as he was seemingly the stronger brother, and then started experimenting on him. He turns Claus into the masked man- a perfect henchman, but what if Itoi's and Porky's plan was to take it further? The masked man's helmet covers his face but what if it also functioned as a PSI limiter? Claus could have been broken and made into a Giygas-like monster but had the helmet to keep his physical form stable. Part of the final fight with the masked man could have been to have the helmet get knocked off, revealing Claus' face but also unleashing this Giygas form. I'm just spitballing here but I think it would have made for a neat twist and tied back to Earthbound nicely. It may have been too dark for Nintendo though.

[Slenderquil]

I always theorized that claus's overwhelming emotions caused him to turn into a giygaslike being. Another theory I have is that this all happens after you beat Claus and lucas has to deal with the mental trauma it caused.

[PkmariO]

“This video contains spoilers for Mother 3”
Me, who has already seen all of the spoilers despite having not beaten the game yet: *Nice*

[HolyDemonSnap]

I would've loved to have a Lucas Magicant scene where he confronts his brother's destruction.

[MAJJASTAK]

The theory I had about this Is that like kinda Akira, the helmet helped him controlling his powers thanks to Porky who enhanced and brainwashed him, but removing the helmet to sign that he finally snapped out of it like in the original game... Caused his powers to take over him (like akira without his medicines again) and he gets ccompletely out of control and transforms uncontrollably until you finally end his suffering

[iiredx]

It's simple for me. Each picture is a different part of Claus' transformation into the Masked Man, as he IS a chimera. The first two demonstrate the chimera within him, the next images show Claus, what is being put into these chimeras. And lastly, the horrifying zoom in of Claus, as well as the red face, is showing when Claus is actually being put into the masked man. The Claus close up is him losing himself entirely, losing his heart that the Magypsies could not sense, and the very last horrifying image is the new Claus, heartless.

[gmenezesdea]

Nonsensical and horrifying.

So totally in accordance with the mother series

[Kurisu]

I just really want someone to interview Itoi and ask him how the original script of the game was, and give more details on the darker final boss.

[pros_]

I think Claus just became so powerful that he lost his mind and body, just like Giygas.

[mertoslav]

Mother series is an interesting series of games.
It's not like any other RPGs.
It's spooky, mysterious and weird.
It's the reason I love it so much.

[naomi-halhoffman]

Could the unused battle content be from a scrapped version of tanetane island? I thought Itoi said that he had to tone down the area because it was too scary. Could this be the part he had to tone down?

[thelettucethatnobodywanted]

the boss battles are actually from an unused final boss battle that are based off of the 5 stages of grief. and an interesting fan theory is that the static is claus failing to remember who he is.

[ptaah]

The metal men are definitely beta versions of the Masked man. As for the rest, there is the possibility the floating backgrounds are a beta version of the Tanetane island hallucinations.

[porksmork]

My personal theory was that Porky intended the Mask Man to be as powerful as Giegue. Remember, Giygas only came to exist due to Giegue becoming so powerful that his own mind was destroyed by his power, his power went from being Inexplicable to impossible to grasp. Porky after his defeat with Giygas seeked out for a successor, the ending I always imagined was that Lucas and Hinowa still trying to get through to Claus but the emotion he feels along side his amazing power starts to distort. It goes through the few of those unused battles til finally the final phase ends up at the "Vapor 2" boss where it shows that Claus is truly gone, his body and mind destroyed by his emotions and unstable power that he becomes the thing Porky always seeked out. "An almighty idiot" who became so powerful that they don't know what's even happening, exactly how Giygas once was.

[bluebirdsigma]

Aside from these backgrounds (Itoi, please just tell us what they were supposed to mean), I'm also disturbed by the other missing sprites, the Dead Porky and both the Claus suspended in the air and being reconstructed like Darth Vader. That last one implies we were gonna get a flashback to Claus' transformation into the masked man. Speaking of flashbacks, the final one of the "Claus' memories" ends with static and shutting down like a computer. Maybe in the original plan we'd see Claus dying from his POV, that might tie into Itoi's declarations of "making the whole final battle without dialogue"

[Catcow]

When it comes to the names of the enemies in the backgrounds, I wouldn't look into it too much. For one, the game was initially in Japanese, but it's the fan translation that made it english, so first letter shenanigans and whatnot won't work. Secondly, programmers will sometimes use dummy names for things that are undecided, so possibly they were unsure what they wanted to have happen in certain places of the game, but they made all these assets so that if they wanted them, they're there. Third, as an alternative to the second one, it's possible the enemy name just corresponds to the id that the hacker entered for what fight would trigger the background, since changing around memory values does that type of thing.

[megaman]

I read a theory a long time ago that suggested the backgrounds were intended to accompany the final battle. When the battle begins, you'd see the "robot" background, as Claus still saw himself as Porky's lifeless minion, or when Hinawa speaks to him saying he isn't Porky's robot but instead their son, you'd see the image of him as a little kid. When she says "you and Lucas are brothers", you'd see the overlapping image of him and Lucas in the background. And so on.

[corbin]

my hot take: claus was originally supposed to be porkys recreation of guigas