The developers of MOTHER 1+2 had fourteen years and, in the marketing speak of the time, four times as many bits with which to work when it came time to port MOTHER. This is what they did with the time.

• Your dad doesn't care whether you reset or not. Battery backup was old hat by the time MOTHER 1+2 came out, so there was less to be concerned about when it came time to shut off the system.
• The L button acts as an all-purpose CHECK button, as in EarthBound Perhaps the most-requested feature for anyone who's gotten frustrated and stopped playing Earth Bound at the graveyard, In MOTHER 1+2 you can avoid going through the menus by CHECKing anyone and anything that needs to be interacted with.
• Walking is no longer done in single-tile increments. Another major playability improvement, Ninten and company now stop and start walking on a dime, as in EarthBound
• Random battles now trigger a mosaic effect. The backgrounds are no more psychedelic than they were before, but it's a nice touch.
• There's a battle text speed option.
• SMAAAASH!! is always displayed in green. In the original version of MOTHER it cycled through several colors.
• The text itself changes color when your status changes. On the Famicom the color around the text would change while the text itself would remain the same color.
• Using CHECK in the field will tell you whether or not you're in a random-battle zone. This is especially useful in MOTHER, where the town areas are just barely demarcated from the field.
• Ana switches places with Lloyd when naming characters and walking around. She now follows right behind Ninten, the better to put the moves on him.
• The screen scrolls when you're sucked into the whirlpool, because the Game Boy's aspect ratio is different from the Famicom's.
• After you get EVE's melody you're given the memory chip, which will warp you back to her. Anyone worried about the "dumbing down" of the English version will be pleased to know that they've continued doing it in the Japanese rerelease.
• The Flea Bag doesn't work on enemies like R7038. Bug fixes can be such buzzkills.