Mother 3 doesn't have the same set of characters save Pokey, and takes place well into the future. For me, though, the entire goal of the purchase wasn't to see the concept of Earthbound moved forward so much as to just enjoy more of the same. Like I said, a little fanboying is behind that one. Earthbound is my favorite game, so I'm more forgiving on that one than the others, though it was rather fun (though very odd, with its cross-dressing gypsies and such). It featured a chapter system for plot developments, multiple parties, new specialty skills, and a new combat system based around improving your attacks by timing them with the beat of the music, which was actually pretty neat, and gave a reason for bosses to have more frantic, chaotic music. Other than those changes to the formula, yeah, fanboying.

I'm personally sick of the copious amounts of sequels out there, but what I'm looking for are those old sequels from franchises that publishers weren't at the time willing to take risks on or just couldn't because of copyright issues. I mean, we'll never get a game like Battle Dodgeball over here (dodgeball featuring Gundams, Getters, Mazinger, Ultraman, and Masked Rider Kamen characters) just because of all of the separate licensing of the featured characters. No one at the time of the SNES was gonna bother to pick up the rights to everything featured in Super Robot Wars just to sell 6000 copies stateside. Even now those games would have a limited audience, so I don't think it's unfair of publishers to pass on them. I'm not above indulging the part of me that is slightly blinded by nostalgia from time to time, though.