Mole crickets are members of the insect family Gryllotalpidae, in the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts and crickets). Mole crickets are cylindrical-bodied insects about 3–5 centimetres (1.2–2.0 in) long, with small eyes and shovel-like forelimbs highly developed for burrowing. They are present in many parts of the world and where they have been introduced into new regions, may become agricultural pests.
Mole crickets have three life stages, eggs, nymphs and adults. Most of their life in these stages are spent underground but adults have wings and disperse in the breeding season. They vary in their diet; some species are vegetarian, mainly feeding on roots, others are omnivores, including worms and grubs in their diet, while a few are largely predacious. Male mole crickets have an exceptionally loud song; they sing from a sub-surface burrow that opens out into the air in the shape of an exponential horn. The song is an almost pure tone, modulated into chirps. It is used to attract females, either for mating, or for indicating favourable habitats for them to lay their eggs.
Mother 3 is a 2006 role-playing video game in the Mother series, developed by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. The game, intended to be the final entry in the series, was directed by Nobuyuki Inoue, written by series creator Shigesato Itoi, and scored by composer Shogo Sakai. The story follows Lucas, a young boy with psychic abilities, as he attempts to prevent an invading army from destroying the world. The game's themes include human physiology, renewal, moral fungibility, and dualisms such as nature and technology, and feudalism and capitalism.
The game's development spanned twelve years and four consoles, beginning in 1994 for the Super Famicom console and then transitioning to the Nintendo 64 and its 64DD add-on before being cancelled in 2000. Mother 3 restarted development in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance and was finally released in Japan on April 20, 2006.
Mother 3 was a critical and commercial success upon release. Critics generally praised the game's graphics, music, and story, but believed that the gameplay offered few innovations to the role-playing genre. The game was never released outside Japan, though an unofficial English fan translation was released by the Starmen.net internet community in October 2008. On December 17, 2015, the game was released for the Japanese Virtual Console on the Wii U.