I had a long running love/hate relationship with Earthbound. Fans raved about it over the years. I tried my best to get into the game but it was just too, well, weird. Then one day it just randomly clicked. I loved Earthbound. So much that I consider it to be one of the best RPGs of all time. Mother 2 (as it’s known in Japan) was the follow up to an equally strange Famicom RPG that was never released in the West. As the genre grew outside of Japan Nintendo decided to give the follow up a chance to capture audiences worldwide. They gave it every chance. It was hyped in issues of Nintendo Power, it came in a huge box complete with scratch and sniff stickers and a strategy guide. Admittedly the promotion was strange. This is a weird game though, and it fit.
Most ignored it. The game defied many RPG conventions from the time. It’s just too strange for most. Over the years though Earthbound found its footing and became a cult classic. Copies of the game now retail for insanely high prices. It has some of the most loyal fans of any franchise around. Recently I had the itch to give it another shot. It turns out that I love it just as much as I did the last go around. Today we’re going to take a look at Earthbound fresh off of reaching the credits. Fair warning; it’s not for everyone. Open minded folk will however discover it’s one of the best SNES RPGs of all time Let’s get started.
Let’s start with the story. Right away we can see that Earthbound isn’t a simple Final Fantasy clone. For one thing the game takes place in a fictional version of 1960s America. You play as a bright eyed youth named Ness. This boy is blessed with psychic powers. Instead of swords or bows/arrows he instead is armed with a baseball bat. Fitting. His world is twist turned upside down when one evening a meteor strikes a mountainside near his small hometown of Onett. While investigating this phenomenon he meets a warrior from the future named Buzz Buzz. You see, he’s a bee. The name actually fits. He warns the boy of an impending threat in the form of a an alien named Giygas. Unfortunately our bug warrior soon perishes by means of a fly swatter.
You still with me there? Good. Ness is now tasked with collecting eight magical melodies from around the world using sound stones. These are needed to defeat Giygas which will save Eagleland from certain doom. First of all it’s strange enough that a child is the main protagonist in an RPG, but it works. There’s an innocence to this title that goes beyond just the age of our hero. All of the companions that join him are also children. Although the dialogue is a bit stiff the story is really enjoyable. It also takes some really dark turns. Some of the locations and sub-plots are eerie. In particular is a town full of brain washed cultists bent on painting everything blue. In another section of the game you’ll save a different city from hordes of the undead. Something isn’t quite right in just about every corner of this world.
There are also a few personal touches that are meant to draw the player in. First of all you can name each of the main characters. That’s pretty standard and nothing special. What’s cool though is that you can also write in your favorite food, and favorite ‘thing.’ Admittedly the latter is a bit vague, but I always come up with silly answers on purpose. These come in to play in a few simple ways. When resting at Ness’ house in Onett the character’s mother will mention the favorite food you listed. That’s why I love coming up with hilarious answers. Furthermore one of Ness’ psychic spells is actually named the ‘favorite thing’ that you chose. This isn’t anything major by any stretch, but just a neat and subtle personalization that I’ve always enjoyed.
Now on to the gameplay. Here’s where Earthbound is a little less unique. This one is a fairly traditional turn based role playing game. You wander through towns, wild areas, and dungeons. Enemy encounters are not random, and instead occur when touched by a group of them. Here you’re whisked away to a separate screen with a front facing view of your foes. You enter commands such as attack, psychic powers (which functions like magic), items, etc. Victory in battle nets you money and experience points with the latter increasing your character levels and stats. You can both find and purchase new equipment to outfit your party members with. This too makes them stronger. If you’ve played any of the older Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest titles then you know what to expect. Earthbound isn’t much different in terms of its battle system.
There are a few small things that set it apart however. Your party members’ hit points are displayed on a dial. When you take damage this immediately starts counting down. The thing is if you take a heavy hit, and defeat the enemies before the dial reaches zero then they don’t perish. This sounds insignificant, and most of the time it is, but the mechanic has saved me more than once. Earthbound also has a much lower rate of successful attacks than most RPGs of this era. What I mean is that you’ll missing. A lot. It’s not uncommon for this to happen multiple times in a row. The same goes for the enemies. This isn’t exactly a good thing, but it’s worth noting. On the plus side critical hits are also more common than in other games. It sort of balances itself out.
As I mentioned earlier you can see foes on the field. That means a battle doesn’t start until they actually touch you. A lot of the time this is unavoidable because many of them move rapidly, and charge when you get anywhere near them. What’s nice however is the fact that as you get stronger the weak enemies will avoid your party. Furthermore if you do wind up engaging with them, and the power difference is too great, you automatically win the battle. These take a lot of the frustration out of the encounter mechanics. At least you won’t be stuck in repetitive fights against enemies you can take out in just a few hits, and you can still collect rewards from them. This is especially useful when returning to areas you’ve already been. Honestly I wish more RPGs borrowed this idea.
I especially love the enemy designs. This is where the game gets truly bizarre. Instead of fighting dragons and the like you instead battle against a lot of animals, people, and bizarre items. Some of these are absolutely hilarious. Seriously, in what other RPG can you fight against a pile of barf? Or how about a gas pump? The naming conventions are seriously on point too. You’ll encounter a puppet called Handsome Tom for goodness sakes. Or how about the Annoying Old Party Man? Spiteful crow? I don’t know what these things were called in the Japanese version, but I absolutely love the named Nintendo’s team came up with. If you don’t find yourself laughing at some of these names then clearly you don’t have a sense of humor. Or maybe I’m just immature.
Unfortunately Earthbound is one of the few RPGs of this era that doesn’t have a traditional world map. Instead exploration is handled by traveling through interconnected areas. At first this bummed me out. The thing is, some of these areas in between towns and dungeons are really well designed. Many of the layouts are interesting with thoughtful obstacles, and there are rarely any dead ends. You can figure out pretty easily where you need to go next which makes travel much easier. There’s actually a section late in the game, specifically the underworld, wherein you have a more traditional world map. This is short lived however. Earthbound is a linear by design. At specific points you can no longer return to earlier areas. It’s a bit of a bummer especially if you miss an item somewhere.
There are also some balancing issues. Especially later on in the adventure. Ness is the only one of the four party members whose standard attack is useful late-game. Paula and Poo rely more on their psychic spells. These are useful, but they also die very easily due to having low defenses. The other character I haven’t mentioned yet is Jeff. He lacks any useful psychic abilities, and has a weak attack. His only real service to the party is using fireworks. Unfortunately these are consumables, and quite expensive. They’re also the most powerful attacks in all of Earthbound. Should you get stuck on a boss character all you need do is save up enough money for some bottle rockets. These can usually decimate a guardian in one or two hits. It’s a cheap strategy for sure, but hey, it’s all he’s got.
Earthbound straddles the line between too easy too difficult. I had little trouble with the first half of the game and most of the bosses. Things ramp up around the mid point but go too far into extremes. In the final areas however even the standard encounters had me sweating bullets. Some of the enemies here can take out each character in just one hit. Others were pushovers. The difficulty is kind of a rollercoaster at times. I expected the final boss to be incredibly difficult based on the battles leading up to it. This just wasn’t the case. This seems to me like a lack of play testing. It’s absurd when the rest of the game is so polished.
Then there’s the limited inventories. Each character can only carry eleven items at once, and these do not stack. There’s also no universal inventory, so you can only carry as much as your party members can hold. To make matters worse you have to waste space for key items. The system is just too limiting. To alleviate the inventory issues you can call up a delivery man on the phone and have him hold on to these for you. It’s just a little cumbersome especially when you’re in a dungeon and have to start throwing things away. Finding a telephone to call him often requires backtracking to town, and nobody has time for that. This methodology just feels archaic. Even back then most RPGs had moved past this limitation.
Earthbound is still a lot of fun to play. Warts and all. Although some elements are frustrating the battle system is perfectly functional. It flows at a nice pace, and you get a great sense that your characters are getting stronger as they rise in levels. There’s very little wrong with the actual RPG mechanics of this title. At the same time it doesn’t push the envelope in the gameplay department. It’s the atmosphere and wackiness that push Earthbound to the next level. It’s like a fever dream that you never want to wake up from. It will have you laughing, and then in the next minute crying. Few other role playing games have elicited such an emotional response out of me. You can tell that this was truly a labor of love, and I love playing it. The issues are all minor with how charming it is.
The graphics are interesting to say the least. I really like the bright colors the game uses. It’s one of the most vibrant RPGs on the SNES. Everything else is a matter of taste. The character designs in particular take some getting used to with their exaggerated features and sometimes rudimentary sprite work. Some of the citizens of Eagleland look downright bizarre. The enemies in battle have some extremely creative designs and look nice enough. Many of them are just very abstract. The scenery lacks a lot of detail but you can easily tell what everything is meant to be. I can see how people would struggle with this visual style, but I love it. The soundtrack is amazing, and just as wacky as the visuals. Most of the music is upbeat and happy, but there are some really unsettling tracks that add tremendously to the disturbed atmosphere.
