The Mother series is, in my opinion, the most interesting one Nintendo has in its stable. These games are RPGs, and first began on the Famicom in Japan. We missed out on the original, but its follow up was released in English and has been a big topic of discussion among retro gamers. This is because it’s so unorthodox. While most role playing games of the era were firmly planted in medieval times Earthbound instead took place in North America during the 1960s. It sounds weird, and it is, but for some reason the game works and still holds up today. I was a little late to the party on this one, and I disliked it for many years. It wasn’t until recently that the game finally won me over. Earthbound is widely considered one of the best RPGs of all time, and I agree.
In Earthbound you play as a young boy names Ness. This child seems ordinary, but has psychic abilities. The adventure begins as a meteor hits on the outskirts of his hometown of Onett. Ness sets out to investigate this strange occurrence, and meets a warrior from the future named Buzz Buzz. Unfortunately this soldier is a mere bumblebee, and soon meets his end by a fly swatter. It’s up to Ness to stop Giygas; an otherworldy being who takes over the world in the future. Along the way three other children join the cause. Aside from the unorthodox setting Earthbound is unique in a number of different ways. The main characters use toys typical for children, and get involved in several very weird situations by genre standards. Earthbound’s story is a little difficult to get into, but it’s so different that you can’t help but be overwhelmed by its innate charm and innocence. Despite this the game is quite eclectic and the story can be even downright terrifying at times.
At its core Earthbound is very traditional by genre standards. The differences are what’s worth noting. This is one of the first RPGs to not feature random encounters. Instead you can see every monster on the field, and battles only erupt when you touch them. The life of everyone in your party is measured by numerical stats, but what’s interesting is that when you take damage it’s like a slot machine wherein the numbers must count down to where you’re currently at. This is a slow process, and you can potentially end a battle before a character hit with a mortal blow perishes. Aside from these differences the gameplay is standard RPG fare. Battles take place on a separate screen where you have only a view of the enemies as well as your hit points. From here you input commands, and while the names are different functionally they are the same. Bash is your standard attack, PSI includes special skills ala magic, goods are your items, and defend is pretty explanatory. These battles end either when you drain all hit points from the enemies, or when everyone in your party dies. Victory gives you experience points as well as money that can be used at one of the many shops in towns These elements are very traditional.
The game’s sense of humor however is not. The modern theme is extremely unusual but Nintendo pulled it off with amazing finesse. Your healing items consist of modern day food items such as juice, hamburgers, pizza and more. What is really interesting is that you can add ingredients to any of these, and if they go well together the effect is increased a great deal. Each of your four characters uses some rather unorthodox weapons. Ness’ bashes foes with his bat, Paula uses frying pans, Jeff has toy guns at his disposal, and Poo fights hand to hand. The most hilarious aspect of this game is the enemies that you will encounter. In the beginning you battle against animals such as snakes and crows, but as you progress they become progressively more weird. You’ll fight hippies, piles of vomit, annoying party guys, manly fish, and more. I found myself laughing pretty frequently at some of the characters you encounter and zany experiences.
Unfortunately the game suffers from a few issues. For starters your characters each have their own inventory, and can only store eleven supplies at once. Items do not stack, and you will find yourself struggling to pick everything up because of this. In addition the difficulty can be extremely unbalanced. In the final areas of the game normal enemies can sometimes kill individual characters with just a single hit while others in the same section are pushovers. In addition the boss encounters are simply too easy. Once Jeff joins your party you gain the ability to shoot bottle rockets at the enemies, and this is so powerful that you can often defeat a boss in just one or two hits. Jeff is simply too overpowered, and I really think that the developers should have worked out this kink. Earthbound is not a very challenging game most of the time, but when it is it feels like the game is being unfair because of the aforementioned balancing issues.
Earthbound isn’t the prettiest looking Super Nintendo game. Characters and scenery lack a lot of detail, and at times look a bit abstract. This game would look fine for an early Super Nintendo game, but the fact that it released late in the system’s life is surprising. Enemies are just static images on-screen, and they would have looked a lot better with even just a little bit of animation. On the other hand I really love the creativity that went into them. All of the enemies are drawn with significant care, and they exhibit an absolutely wonderful art style. The backgrounds generally look like old screensavers with swirling colors and abstract patterns. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but real backgrounds would have been a significant improvement. Earthbound is a very colorful game, and I love how distinct each area in this world looks. It’s not that impressive technically, but everything looks as it should and the charming art style accent the graphics greatly.
The soundtrack is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. There are some absolutely standout tracks here which include the themes for Threek, Winters, and Fourside, but the other town music tends to be a little boring in my opinion. The underworld theme is incredible and fits the game extremely well, but my all time favorite track is the boss music. What’s cool is the fact that there are several different songs used for normal battles, but I’ve always found these a little too weird. Most of them aren’t particularly fitting, but they have an awkward charm overall. The sound effects are really well done despite also being a little abstract. For the most part these remind me of those in classic Dragon Quest titles and I like them. The audio is pretty decent in this game overall.
