1. 10 Reasons To Drop Everything And
Play Earthbound
http://www.gamebasin.com/news/10-reasons-to-drop-everything-and-play-earthbound
It’s been slightly over a year now since Earthbound finally found its way to European shores, albeit
as a download for the Wii U’s Virtual Console, and that’s enough time for the novelty to have worn
away. The novelty, that is, of being able to legitimately sample a title that Americans were able to
physically unwrap way back in 1995 – that’s a localisation delay of eighteen years, which is a
leisurely amble even by Nintendo’s standards. In retrospect, though, it’s hard to blame Nintendo
for its wariness – someone had made the questionable decision to over‐exaggerate the cruder
aspects of the game’s humour as part of Earthbound’s marketing campaign, leaving reviewers and
gamers alone baffled by NES‐quality visuals and vomit gags in an RPG landscape that had just seen
the release of beautiful, sophisticated Chrono Trigger. Earthbound stood out a mile from its
contemporaries, but for all of the wrong reasons, and sold poorly. Being stashed away in the
download store of the Wii U – a console that’s reached barely a fraction of its predecessor’s
audience – isn’t exactly a second lease of life for Earthbound, but with sales figures slowly on the
uptake thanks to Mario Kart, it’s finally possible for Europeans to see what all of the fuss is about.
Why has the game amassed a fanbase so dedicate and so vocal that Nintendo themselves called it
out at E3? Is it actually funny? Is that character really called Poo? With the game currently on sale,
there are lots of reasons to take the plunge:
10. It’s A Summer Adventure Movie

2. Earthbound takes place in Eagleland, producer Shigesato Itoi’s love‐letter to America – or rather,
to how America presents itself internationally. As such, stepping out of your front door and teaming
up with an eclectic gang of misfits can’t help but feel like a classic kid’s adventure movie – The
Goonies, maybe, or Ferris Bueller. The game has a breezy, lazy tone that brings back memories of
school holidays – even the weapons used by the main characters are baseball bats, yo‐yos and
bottle rockets, the toys of summer. This optimistic attitude helped Earthbound tell a unique story;
most RPGs of the time were dour swords’n’sorcery epics, where the world was in terrible danger
and everyone was either a knight or a shopkeeper. While Ness does have a heroic quest he needs
to complete, gathering eight melodies to unlock new abilities, these are often hidden off the
beaten track and almost feel like an afterthought. The actual journey will see you helping out
struggling musicians, exploring a graveyard, fending off the local bully and uncovering ancient ruins
– proper Spielberg material. The following year would see the first Pokémon game released in
Japan, brimming with that same sense of adventure and discovery – step out of your front door a
child, and come back home a hero. It’s a dream that’s inspired millions of kids and built an empire
for Pikachu and his pals, but it’s worth remembering that Ness and his friends were saving the
world before Ash had even got his cap on.
9. Everything Kids Believe In Is Real

3. There’s a point in Earthbound where you’re attacked by a speed limit sign. It’s part of the bad guy’s
malign influence spreading across the planet, but it sums up Earthbound in a nutshell – it’s all about
how kids think. Why wouldn’t psychic energy bring taxi cabs and coffee ups to life? It happens in
cartoons all the time, because kids aren’t yet boring enough to question the physics of a homicidal
sideboard (or burping Auton wheelie‐bin). Alongside a wealth of alien invaders, you’ll find yourself
needing to catch a ride through a tunnel so the ghosts that live inside don’t get you – it’s a routine
roadblock that any RPG might throw in your way, but wrapped up in a peculiar piece of child‐logic
that would make perfect sense to a kid – cars can go faster than ghosts. One town’s got a zombie
problem, another’s been taken over by religious cultists. Ancient civilisations live underground and
the local bar is a literal gateway to a world where everyone acts oddly and it’s hard to walk around.
Through it all, adults blunder. Not exactly oblivious to the strangeness all around them, most are
nevertheless too preoccupied with thoughts of money, fame or power to really register that
anything’s out of the ordinary. The grown‐up world and Ness’s own interact only occasionally, and
neither really understand the motivations of the other. As the player, then, much of what you
encounter in Earthbound will be strange – but very little of it is out of place.
8. The Soundtrack

4. There’s a rumour among Earthbound fans that the game’s lengthy absence from Europe, as well as
a download or re‐release further afield, was due to numerous samples and motifs in the game’s
soundtrack getting a little too close to their inspiration for comfort. Nintendo isn’t saying, of course,
but enthusiasts have put together lengthy videos comparing Earthbound’s score to famous artists.
Whether you spot the homages or not, Earthbound’s soundtrack will do a lot to surprise you,
whether it’s the ethereal alien weirdness during the meteorite crash that starts the game or a lilting
flute melody in a snow‐covered city. It’s the action sequences and battles where the game really
lets loose, making use of samples and pitch bend effects to supply the proceedings with anything
from classic rock’n’roll to mid 90s electronica that sounds like someone trapped The Prodigy in
your SNES. The SNES had a fantastic sound chip, designed by PS3 architect Ken Kutaragi, and while
Earthbound’s soundtrack may not be as technically impressive as Donkey Kong Country’s nor as
sweeping as Final Fantasy’s, it’s as much a celebration of American culture as anything else about
the game. Besides, even the more experimental pieces fit surprisingly well when you’re fighting a
barf monster in a battle to the death.
7. It’s Old-School Hard…

5. By 16‐bit RPG standards, Earthbound is not a particularly taxing game. Its puzzles are lightweight,
mazes are usually fairly simple and the best equipment can be attained without having to grind for
rare items. Compared to modern games, though, there are a whole bunch of limitations that can
trip you up if you’re not careful. The first one you’ll notice when playing is that you have an
extremely limited inventory – just twelve inventory spaces per player, and that’s including any
weapons or armour you’re not actively using, as well as key items. Since whatever you grab get
handed to the next player with a free slot, there’s a lot of juggling to be done. If someone happens
to leave your party and you’d given them all of your food to hold, you’re going to go hungry. And
probably dead. That’ll happen a lot, requiring a trip to the local hospital with the spirits of your
friends in tow, ready to be reunited with their bodies. The enemies in each new area aren’t so
much a smooth difficulty curve as a series of gut‐punches; you’ll be sent scurrying back to the
emergency room (which, in a pre‐Obama world, will require you to pay for treatment) until you
level up and figure out how to deal with the enemies effectively. Oh, and some areas will give you
heatstroke or poison effects just by being in them. As a consequence, it’s actually slightly daunting
to enter a new area, and all the more satisfying when you finally get strong enough to walk the
streets of Eagleland without being savaged by grannies.
6. …Yet Surprisingly Modern

6. Its inventory management system may be clunky and the battles may be brutal, but Earthbound
was surprisingly forward‐thinking in other ways, making use of concepts that would later become
genre staples. Where most RPGs would use an “overworld map” for traversal, snapping the players
into random battles at any given moment, Earthbound melded its towns, fields and dungeons
together with a single unified engine. Within this single perspective, enemies and characters could
be shown roaming the map, allowing players to more easily anticipate and even avoid a fight if
they needed to. That said, although the enemies were tough, death returned you to a previous
save point but – unlike most RPGs – you kept the experience and items you’d accrued. The only
penalty was that half the money you had on you would be gone, but you could drop your cash back
into a bank account before heading into danger. Money, in fact, was key to Earthbound’s
accessibility. Provided in abundance by your distant Dad (an unseen voice on the telephone) every
time you defeated an enemy, money allowed players to stock up on items and go grinding with
little penance for failure. Skilled players might be able to beat a dungeon more swiftly, but even
novice players could get there in the end. Your Dad even advised you to take rest breaks if you’d
been playing too long in a single sitting, although that’s one innovation few gamers appreciate.
5. It Has Intermissions

7. When your Dad’s not suggesting you put the SNES away and go outside for a bit, nature itself gets
on in the act – at a hot spring, Ness is given a chance to take what the game calls a “coffee break”.
What follows is a slow text crawl that’s half inner monologue and half director’s commentary,
recapping everything you’ve done in the adventure and praising your spirit and bravery, all to the
accompaniment of some soothing music and kaleidoscope visuals. Earthbound understands the
importance of the journey, and goes out of its way to replace the traditional overworld map with
extensive travelling sequences and moments of reflection. Itoi’s efforts to bring pacing to his game,
to have the player as well as the characters take stock and regroup after a particularly tricky boss
battle, feel remarkably refreshing in a genre where cutscenes generally existed to showcase only
gloom and failure. Eventually, Ness and his chums will learn to teleport back to previously‐visited
areas, assuming there’s enough space for a run‐up, and the world will feel smaller as a result. Until
that point, home feels a long way away, with Mum just an ever‐patient voice on the other end of a
phone line, and coffee beaks are very welcome indeed.
4. Its Sense Of Humour

8. Unless you’re particularly into fart jokes, Earthbound is rarely laugh‐out‐loud funny. It does manage
to be consistently amusing, though – Itoi was one of Japan’s most famous and prolific copywriters
prior to his work in game design, and the translators worked long hours to try and capture the spirit
of his dialogue and kinks of the characters. “I threw my slippers at the beast,” one sailor confessed
after a nautical battle against a kraken, admitting “Maybe you didn’t notice.” Unfortunately, much
like South Park’s early seasons, it’s the poo and puke gags that people tend to focus on, missing the
game’s cultural satire and love of the surreal – ironically, Trey Parker cites Earthbound as being one
of the inspirations behind modern‐day RPG South Park: The Stick of Truth. The censors went to
work, too, cutting out corporate logos that hit to close to home and tweaking sprites to remove a
few of the raunchier references. Even so, there’s a decent amount of cheekiness to be had in an
adventure described by the localisation team as “glass half full” in tone; Nintendo’s patrician
approach had only just started to shift under increased pressure from Sega, so while hostile drunks
become “Annoying Party Guys” and pharmacies don’t say “DRUG” above the door, there’s enough
hidden away that’s quirky and subversive to keep even modern players entertained.
3. The Combat System

9. No matter how compelling the story, RPGs live and die by their combat systems – it’s what you’re
going to be spending 80 hours doing, after all. Itoi was keen that people who didn’t normally play
games should like Earthbound, so his team overhauled the way that combat had worked in Mother
– Earthbound’s predecessor on the NES. The biggest innovation, and one that’s still largely
uncopied today, is that the characters’ hit points roll down gradually when they’re attacked, giving
you crucial seconds to act – do you quickly sacrifice someone’s turn to heal them or try and blitz
through to the end of the battle, thus stopping the clock? Outside of combat, monsters roam visibly
around the world – when they encounter Ness and the gang, other nearby enemies will rush
forward to help, but if they can’t get to you in time, they won’t be in the fight. As such, it’s possible
to divide and conquer a room of baddies, sneaking up on them for a free hit before battle begins.
By far the most refreshing change, though, is that enemies will start to avoid you if your stats are
high enough, and if you do collide with them you’ll get the EXP without having to battle. It’s a
stunningly effective idea that makes exploring old areas a cakewalk, and is one mechanic today’s
RPGs would do well to take note of.
2. Faith In Family And Friends

10. Beneath its gaudy visuals and wacky encounters, Earthbound has some fairly serious things to say
about having trust in those around you. While you never see your Dad in person, he’s a constant
companion as he acts as your stat tracker, bank account and game saver thanks to the game’s many
telephones. And while Mum seems like she’s been consigned to the stay‐at‐home role of video
gaming mothers everywhere, it won’t be long before Ness starts feeling homesick. If you don’t
make a point of phoning your Mum regularly, sooner or later, loneliness is going to strike – possibly
in the middle of battle. Your friends, too, each have their own unique role in the party. Paula’s the
only character capable of magic for attacks or healing, at least at first, while Jeff will never learn
any magic but is able to craft weapons out of inventory junk. Warrior Prince Poo is the first to learn
teleport, but he won’t get healed by any of the western food items in your inventory. Party
members with particular abilities are nothing new, of course, but Earthbound’s main cast is
introduced so slowly that each new friend feels like a reinvigoration. The game’s ultimate
expression of faith comes near the game’s climax, in a touching scene that’s far too impactful to
talk about here – suffice to say that it uses a very simple trick to great effect. There are no
Shakespearian betrays in Earthbound, no enemies masquerading as allies – good is good, evil is evil
and faith in the people you love can be absolute.
1. The Final Boss

11. To talk at length about Giygas would be the sort of spoiler the BBC’s likely to upload to an FTP
somewhere; suffice to say Earthbound players who thought they knew what to expect after his
debut in Mother were in for a bit of shock. While much of Earthbound’s final battle still inspires
debate, the emotions and trauma depicted come directly from Itoi’s childhood – as a boy, he
walked into the wrong theatre and witnessed what he believed to be a rape scene during an adult
film. Itoi was haunted by what he believed he’d witnessed, and sought to evoke that feeling of
witnessing something indescribable in the final boss encounter. Earthbound is a deeply personal
game, with the hopes and fears of its team interwoven throughout. While the final boss fight sticks
in the minds of those who’ve played to the end and at first seems to provide a deeply grim finale,
its message is the culmination, not a subversion, of what Itoi’s been trying to say. He reaches into
his own past and recaptures what, to him, is an expression of true evil that you and your friends
must overcome together. At turns funny, scary, juvenile, witty, clever and cunning, there’s nothing
remotely like Earthbound – and it’s currently on sale at the Wii U’s eShop. While it won’t deliver
the polished adventuring of Skyrim or Mass Effect, Earthbound’s craftsmanship helps the game
stand tall against modern‐day offerings – and it doesn’t need novelty advertising to win your heart.
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