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!

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!!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Nonsensical and horrifying. So totally in accordance with the mother series

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.

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"

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.

THAT IS DEFINITELY NOT A ROPE SNAKE

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.

Cool! Keep doing this! Mother is awesome.

Quick Note: The video showing the unused boss is a montage of the various appearances it would have taken, the accompanying music comes from the original Earthbound to add effect, in fact there is another soundtrack in Mother 3 that went unused that would have probably accompanied the boss itself.

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.

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

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.

I believe its more of a twin theory. Some say twins can feel each other's pain etc. Perhaps this was that twin connection in a form of a nightmare.

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.

I really really just want someone to recreate the original concept of mother 3 using the hidden assets... especially the kindness stat. I’m surprised no one has started a fan game of this yet, that is my dream.

I'm personally a fan of the "Lucas' Nightmare theory". Lucas is the odd one out of the Mother protagonists and doesn't have a dream world that they visit. It would also slot pretty well into Chapter 6 with Lucas seeing the Masked Man who suspiciously looks like him and needing to confront the topic of his brother's fate once again. While I do enjoy Chapter 6's inclusion, it is a bit odd that there is no gameplay there and I think a bit of wandering around in Lucas' mind, being assaulted by psychic manifestations of survivor's guilt, just to be pulled out and saved by Hinawa would fit well before the lengthy Chapter 7 mission.

Can't believe we almost got Jetix's logo as a boss fight, only if... 😔

my theroey is tha these backgrounds were to be used in relation to the unused happy end sprite and the sorta unused kindness stat. i always thought that if the player didnt have enough kindness the player would get a bad ending, for instentse, in the fight against porky the party kills him (using the also unsused sprite of porkys machine breaking down) not letting him get into the super safe capsual. as they move towards the needle like in the main game the masked man electrocutes the party, leading into a boss fight with only lucas. the fight starts as normal, with the normal backround, although, lucas can actually fight back. but something isnt right, hinawa dosnt interfeare its just the two brothings attacking each other, obilivous to the truth. as they continue to attack the masked mans mask starts to break, orange tuffts of hair pointing out as lucus starts to find out the truth, the more and more the mask breaks the more and more lucas realizes its his brother... or is it?? He isnt sure how to tell, if this is claus was why didnit he reconize him!? he is compelled to keep attacking, hiss attacks getting weaker and weaker as he tries to comprahend if the masked man truly is claus... his mind getting lost in the confusion as he starts to stress. but by the time he breaks the mask... Claus casts pk thunder in a last ditch effort to defeat his brother, once again killing him. Lucas is distrought as he looks at the corpse of what once was his brother... But Claus didnt even know who he truly was in the end. With eavy greif over the death of his brother, blaming himself fpr the masked mans death. Lucas pulls the final needle. the credits roll as the nowhere islands are destroyed, unlike the happy end, the player isnt aloud to move around. a bit too dark and maybe kinda edgy but thats how thought the unused fight would play out.

Well, I’m glad I didn’t watch this before bed.

Is there a point in development where you had to square tf up with Aeolia's coffee table?

I don't really know about the story behind those, but I sure feel some early Newgrounds vibes from this specific drawing 05:17

My theory would be that these enemies were meant to appear right after the claus boss fight. When Lukas wakes the dragon up. It would have something to do with h9w he was overcome with grief and emotion, and so, he would have to fight those in order to correctly influence the dark dragon, and make it as human as possible by having it learn from his weakness, or something like that.

I don't remember the circumstances I was in when I first saw Vapor 2, but I remember how I felt. I hadn't seen anything quite like it. The simplicity of the image itself, the fact of it being cut content, the fact that despite being cut it was still here, the sheer disturbance of it and how it really felt like a peak in the terror of the surrounding images, it's a lot to take in. And I think the mystery of it will always be more terrifying than whatever it was originally intended for. It's the kind of thing you'd see in a creepypasta...

To me the strange names feel like these were all other battles that they had planned at one point in time, but their data was then re-purposed to hold these backgrounds, maybe meant to swap them out in sequence in the last battle. But then they ended up not going with the idea so most of them were never re-named or given sprites.

I don't watch that many Mother/Earthbound content on KZfaq, however your video got on my recommendations, congrats!

I'd say those are most probably the remaining of an alpha multi-stage final boss battle against Claus mixed with different concepts by the devs to test how they looked in-game (is pixel art Claus creepy enough or should we go with the more detailed one?, etc). The weird enemy names, as you suggest, is simply because they used them to trigger and test each battle scene independently. As for why this content was left in the cartridge… well, most probably because they didn't need the storage space, knew that no one would see it unless they hacked the rom… and also because it'd be a pain to find and remove that code last-minute without potentially breaking other triggers/variables in the process (coding for GBA is a box full of bad surprises). I don't really think Itoi had influence on that, as he wasn't the director of Mother 3 or an active part of the "technical" development team (apart from providing the writing and his feedback, of course).

My theory is that these sequences were of clause turning into an entity similar to Giygas. Porky had figured out how Giegue went from being Giegue in the first mother game to Giygas in the second, and used those same methods to transform clause into a powerful entity he could control much easier than Giygas, and use his powers to destroy the universe, just because he was bored. So the ending of this game would help explain exactly how Giegue turned into Giygas, and possibly introduce something even more terrifying to the mother series.

How does this guy only have 5k subs? He deserves more!

My theory is that porky made Clause into the new Giygus through all thay torturing and modifications. He must have done that stuff without giving clause any pain killers or make him sleep and wanted him to suffer as unbearible as he could and by the end, Clause's mind body and soul was ripped and torn to shreds because of it, he obtained unquantified power, but because of how unstable Clause was, he wouldn't utilize that properly and became like a new Giygus. It was only till his mothers reached deep into his conscious that he had clairity and chose to end himself with PK Thunder knowing Lucas had it on him so he can choose to go out by his own terms and break free from his literal hell. Those unused sprites I'd like to believe would be his Magicant if Lucas tried to enter his mind to save him and try to defeat all of that active inside him only to find out it would still set him free but only in death.

I think that, while Giygas dies physically in EarthBound, lives on in Mother 3 as Porky. Throughout EarthBound you see Porky slowly become more influenced by Giygas, until the point where Giygas' will is basically implanted into Porky's mind, which he then tries to go about doing in Mother 3 by building armies of pig machines.

to me, it only really fits that this is a step-by-step incursion into Claus's mind in the final battle, with Lucas doing battle not necessarily with Claus but with layers of his damaged psyche to get to the true brother within and, ultimately, failing, leading to an ending quite a lot like the one we got

I always figured that the unused backgrounds were a part of the final fight. That the final fight as we know it actually happens. Then Lucas, horrified by what has just happened, either loses his mind or in this critical moment, his despair is made manifest, so the party has to fight through Lucas' thoughts, shown by all the scary imagery.

Nintendo: Itoi how's the ending coming along? Itoi: Its great look! OG ending: Nintendo: WHA DA F---!!

I am glad that Itoi didn't end up making Mother 3's ending extremely dark. I don't think I'd be able to cope with that. No game impacted me emotionally as much as this one when I first played it back all the way in 2011 or so.

This is beautiful that someone is making mother content in 2021 Thank you so much for keeping the dream alive 🤧

After watching this, as a person who is far from a mother superfan, I have a theory that fits fairly well as far as I can see. When you fight claus in the final battle, instead of him being in his pig man commander outfit, he's in his normal clothes. He had just pulled the last needle. He was given his wish, ultimate power, the power to slay his enemies. A gold light shines and claus suddenly becomes a golden angelic form, shimmering and shifting, the ultimate form of PK love. You fight, he's tough but you're still holding on. This infuriates him, he has the power to slay his enemies so why can't he kill you? His form shifts, he's now an strange silver alien like thing. You keep fighting, he shouts "Die! die! die! die!" His form shifts, now he's naked for some reason, but his power keeps growing as he keeps getting angrier, but you keep trying. His form shifts again, his body disappears and leaves him screaming. "Aahhh!" Eventually his form shifts once more, his power having overtaken his mind. "Lucas! Lucas! LUCAS!" But you still beat this wannabe gygias with the help of the spirit of Hinawa. The battle between the brothers finishes, claus revealing that the reason he couldn't beat you was because you weren't his enemy, that there was a small part that was still Lucas's brother. As Claus says this, he shimmers and shifts, then saying "You really got strong. Maybe you'll be strong enough to fix the mess I helped make. I hope you'll forgive me, but I understand if you don't." The player is given the option of yes or no. There's different dialog but no other changes. Yes, "I don't know if you're just saying that or if you really mean it, but thank you bringing me back to my senses, and for being my brother till the end." No, "I see... I don't blame you, a lot of this mess was because I pulled the needles out. Even if I was mind controlled, I still did it even if I wasn't willing. I hope someday you'll forgive me, and thank you for bringing me back to my senses, and for being my brother till the end." The screen is filled with light and we wake up, everyone we know alive and fine. There's things to do, to fix, but a lot of time to do it. Basically: Claus nearly became giygas 2.0 after getting too powerful. This ties up the themes of mother pretty well, book ending the series and showing humanity as finally advancing further by accomplishing what George and Maria, Ninten and Ness couldn't: stopping evil on their own, with kindness and love. Showing that evil is no where near as strong as the bond of true family.

I think that the red background is represent that claus lost his mind, just like gygas, hurting and without a mind. The other backgrounds for me represent what Lucas is seeing, seeing his brother behind that mask maked him start thinking in all the pain and suffering that claus got true.

Or, you know, it's just unused battle backgrounds for different phases of the Claus Battle meant to be disturbing/creepy to show the inner torment in Claus' Soul. The ending itself would have been the same, the final battle would have been harder to sit through.

Lucas's nightmare was probably planned for that Island he goes to.

5:04: thanks for giving me nightmares

Has anyone ever asked Itoi on his twitter about the unused stuff ? He seems like a nice guy maybe he will answers us.

That nightmare music really reminded me of some of Giygas 's theme from earthbound; the motions of the lucas and claus as battle backgrounds did as well. Seems like they originally wanted the ending to be similar, but changed it because as we know, giygas was disturbing af.

I don’t think Claus just becomes giygas, but more like lucas’ mind go insane during the masked man battle.

Amazing video! I really love these unused backgrounds, they even inspired some stuff for my own original story

I don’t know much about mother 3 beta stuff, but going from the dream theory what if it was supposed to be chapter 6, seeing as it’s literally the shortest chapter in the game. Lucas would fall get knocked out when he hit the ground, and then be put into a dream like situation where the battles would happen, but maybe it was scrapped late into development which would explain why the chapter is so short but also why the battles are left over in the code.

Bro while the Vapor 2 Appeared, A Whopper ad began playing and that scared the shit outta me 💀

It could be a PTSD Hallucination, caused by hearing that Claus is the Masked Man.

I like to think what that Gigas entity was was porky upgrading Claus's psychic ability so much so that he became of psychic entity much like how the antagonist from mother 1 lost his body, had to be put in the devil machine and became Gigas in mother 2

why exactly do you say that shigesato itoi "emulates" creativity? I feel like he *harnesses* it. also I don't know if "palpable theory" makes sense as a phrase, because palpable moreso describes a sensation. like "the palpable melancholy of Mother 3." just a couple of semantic nitpicks. love your vid!

13:06 in most cases, it simply isn't worth the effort to remove unused content from the code.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was supposed to take place during the mushroom trip sequence

God, I LOVE this channel! These videos are really cool! Keep doing what you're doing.

I thinks it's scrapped background from a darker final boss fight; stuff like the silver robot being symbolic of Claus' corruption (the scar could've been inflicted by the Mecha-Drago) and the amorphous faces being his free will fighting with the part of him who is essentially Porky's double, suffering as he is forced to watch that side cause panic and enforce Porky's totalitarian regime.

I wonder if those sequences were like stages: loss, guilt, anger, hate, fear, etc.

Damn why did I decided I should watch this before going to bed? I’m absolutely horrified rn.

One of Itoi's inspirations in writing Mother 3 was Agota Kristof's book Le Grand Cahier. It's written from the perspective of twins Lucas and Claus keeping a journal; left with their awful grandmother for their safety during WWII, they steel themselves against pain and emotion to cope, and record what they hear and see very matter-of-factly. There will be spoilers for this further down. Now, I'm not sure what the angelic or that other form are. But between the inspiration and Itoi talking about betraying the player, I have a guess what to make of the scene where both appear: we've been dealing with an unreliable narrator, and it's all coming apart. In the third book of the trilogy, The Third Lie, it's revealed the twin brother was made up, another trauma coping mechanism. (There was also something about a disfigured skeleton that he claimed was his brother...? I dunno, it's been 20+ years since I read it.) There's any number of ways the game could have gone with that-maybe Lucas had been projecting all his trauma onto this unrelated foe, maybe only Lucas actually saw the Masked Man, maybe it was his own alter ego and he couldn't hide it any longer. I dunno, I'm not a writer.

Hell yeah man! I love this Earthbound analysis.

To expand on the first theory proposed (it's a clairvoyant/prophetic dream of Lucas', where Claus/Masked Man tries to reach Lucas), there's unused sprites of the Masked Man which indicate we might have seen him be reconstructed. Perhaps it would of happened there. Also hello! New sub, these videos are really well done!

Every name besides Vapor 1 and 2 ,Clayman and Dung Beetle (the latter 2 being enemies and vapor not existing) are either key items you can pick up or things that exist in the overworld

"why didn't they remove" because that's some amount of work, however insignificant, and is completely unnecessary. You don't go to work to waste your time faffing about, aggressively deleting content that might not get used in the final game when it's not necessary. unused content is removed en masse when more space is needed or the like, and is otherwise typically left alone.

It wasn't left in because Itoi wanted it or because he wanted you to find it. It was left in because they didn't feel like removing it and there was no reason to do so. Removing stuff from the game requires work that would not have to be done if you do not remove it. Nearly every game ever has content left in the files that didn't make it into the final build. For a relevant example, Star Fox Adventures has tons of stuff left in from Dinosaur Planet and from earlier drafts of the story post-transition. Seriously, go to TCRF and check, it's insane.

Nice synthwave in the background!

I can't get enough Mother content!

I love how you put in the cave of the past ost to make it creepier

Yeah this shit keeps me up at night sometimes since like 2009. I'm haunted and fascinated that this game had a somehow even darker plot during its development that we don't even know anything about. Only hope for answers is that Earthbound 64 leaks online someday but I doubt it. As far as I'm aware the structure of the full game was complete or near completion, but it wasn't fully playable, something like that

I have something that may help with the reason that yellow angel-like enemy is called "tent person". In Japanese there is an honorific used "shi" which you can use for someone you've never met but have heard about. If the Japanese is written as "Tent-shi" they could translate it as "tent person". Of course this name is a pun, because the Japanese word "tenshi" means angel.

8:56 Their connection was that strong that they even manage to have a saber duel with them switching between two different places.

Maybe those creepy sprites and background is for chapter 7 when lucas eats weird mushroom

The Last Jedi mentioned? "A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one."

Mother 3 content in 2021? I'm living for it😭❤️

That’s Traumatizing, It’s worst than Giygas

My theory is those scenes happen during the final battle as Lucas is trying to reach out to his brother. Each background, though not in order, represent a moment in Claus' death and eventual rebirth. The creepy red background is the exact moment of his death, or maybe represent the moment of the fall that leads to his death.

now i just want a continuation rom hack of mother 3 with the cut content added back, like a alternate ending type of thing

I remember a theory that say. Vapor 2 image was the return of Gyigas but on Claus body, because in a point of the story. Porky would use the body of Claus (Like the masked man) to try of "revive" Gyigas after his defeat by Ness in Earthbound because to Porky, Gyigas was his only friend. This is a theory that explains why the image of vapor 2 it's like Claus but red and black and with that move like Gyigas Phase 1 on Earthbound

I think these backgrounds were supposed to be used for the final battle with the masked man and as the fight progresses it gets more scarier as claus realizes who he is.

I'm back in the Mother rabbit hole.

On the SNES Classic EarthBound's rating was bumped up to T. Unsurprising. At one point in Summers if you talk to the hint guy he tells you to check out the stri- I mean Stoic club. I guess mature references like that and the dark tones were enough to bump it up from K-A (later changed to E) from its SNES release to a T rating now that the game has a reputation.

I'm glad I've subscribed

Wonder if this where Toby got the inspiration to leave Gaster in the code for us to find and theorize about.

An old theory, I remember it was Hinawa Soul trying to reach the twins showing Claus but also Lucas as an expectator that he was Him his Son and Living being while Masked Man Programing keep remind him that he was a Souless Robot of Porky. all while Old Claus was suffering a Breakdown of all of this.

Rope snake is legit terrifying

Ummh..I think the names are just the names of the actual enemies you're replacing with the cheats

The theory I personally ascribe to is a rather simple one, related to the 'darker ending' Itoi infamously mentioned. Simply put, these unused backgrounds aren't Giygas-esque enemies...they're unused backgrounds for the existing final battle with the Masked Man, perhaps from an earlier version where Lucas was coming to terms with the fact that he was, in fact, his lost brother, rather than just some soulless robot to be crushed to bits. Possibly with Hinawa's spirit intervening in a more direct way to help remind *Lucas* that this is Claus, rather than just try and make Claus remember who he is, though that certainly still could've happened as well. I think someone made a mock-up of what this would've looked like as far as the backgrounds in the Masked Man fight and it was pretty convincing, as I recall.

For anyone still reading these comments I'm gonna rain on the theory parade a bit thanks to game dev background: the simplest and most likely explanation for these battles existing and most importantly, being unique, is that these are all tests for the new tech they were using for backgrounds and music using assets that were available early on in development (ie. sprites for major characters, a modification of fight music from mother 2, etc). That said they could also have been tests for the final battle and I would not be surprised. It's important to note that a LOT of things left in game code that are unused, especially when it comes to cartridges, are really just things devs were using to test or cut content they didn't remove. Ocarina of time has a room in it with a huge number of jabu jabu copies on top of each other that they were clearly using for benchmarking for instance.

Great video. Very underrated.

I really like your dialogue in this video. Keep up the great work. I love the Mother Series

Someone patch this into the game! Lucas and Claus battle like before, but this time, after Lucas meets certain conditions, their dad comes in to temporarily hold back Claus, and allows Lucas enters Claus’s mind to do battle against Porky’s corrupt influence. These assets should be used for that fight, with their mom’s voice appearing during that battle. After winning, Claus will be free from Porky and alive, but comatose. The original battle can be an alternate ending where Claus dies because you couldn’t meet the conditions to stop him from committing suicide. It could be an extensive sidequest about Lucas’s mom, granting Lucas a key item (or melody) that will help him take on Claus in a different way.

I think it’s Claus losing against the coding of Porky

Beautifully crafted video yet again. I continue to be impressed and excited for what content is coming next.

Right outta a creepypasta. Really want to play this series.