Jeremy Parish of "USgamer" described the game as a mild-mannered parody ("between satire and pastiche") of the role-playing game genre, specifically the "Dragon Quest" series. He noted that "Mother", like many Japanese role-playing games, emulated the "Dragon Quest" style: the windowed interface, first-person perspective in combat, and graphics, but differed in its contemporary setting and non-fantasy story. Parish commented that Atlus's 1987 "" was similarly set in the modern day, though it devolved into science fiction and fantasy in ways "Mother" did not. He added that the game has "a sense of wonder and magic realism ... in the context of childhood imagination", as Ninten can feel more like someone "pretending" to be a "Dragon Quest"-style hero than a hero in his own right. Parish said this makes the player wonder which game events are real and which are Ninten's imagination. Parish cited Itoi's interest in entering the games industry to make a "satirical" role-playing game as proof of the genre's swift five-year rise to widespread popularity in Japan.