Actually, I'm not sure Mother 3 has the same set up as Earthbound (with children stumbling into adventure) anyway, but that raises another issue -- if it's TOO different, then why make it a sequel to Earthbound?

I can't be too stringent when talking against sequels -- like just about every videogame player, some of my favorite games are sequels -- but I still think there are way too many, and have been eventually burned by almost any long-running series, even ones that had included some of my favorites.