Earthbound: One of the Best Video Games Ever Made

Already I can see one of two reactions to those reading the title of this post. The first is to flee from the horrible hipster gushing you are about to read, and the second is an eye-roll about another overpraised Super NES game. I implore you to stop. This post is not what you think.

Before I get thrown into the tired hipster crowd, there are a few things you should know. Unlike those jumping on the bandwagon for this game, I was actually there when it came out. I rented it with a friend, and even got it for my birthday not long after. I've been a supporter of this game since the very beginning.

There is no revisionism here from those who hated it when it came out and now love it (I've met such characters) or smirking eggheads who are obsessed with being different from the crowd. This is coming from someone who has been into this game since it came out and who doesn't like it for quirky hipster glorification and/or cheap nostalgia. That's right, I was one of ten people who knew who Ness was in the N64 Super Smash Bros. when I unlocked him. And yes, he is still who I mainly use to this day.

With that out of the way, let me tell you why Earthbound is so good. The post for this game is deserved.

Earthbound, known as Mother 2 in Japan, is an RPG series by Japanese novelist Shigesato Itoi. That's not a combo you see too often, not even in the west where you would figure it would be common. He came to Nintendo in the late '80s about wanting to create a unique game series of his own. Inspired by Dragon Quest he made an RPG set in a modern pseudo-American setting which he called Mother for the NES. It was a hit in Japan.

The first game is pretty rough when it comes to difficulty balancing, but as a whole it is a fun experience and very different for the time. But we never got it when it first came out, though we almost did. Nintendo finally released this game over here as Earthbound Beginnings a few years ago for the Wii U Virtual Console. That was a trip.

But with the coming of the Super Nintendo, he wanted another shot to do it better. Mother 2, or Earthbound as the US version was named, took the same concept of the original but revamped everything with a brand new story and cast of characters.

Both games involve a quest to find an alien out to destroy the world, and a coming of age story of a young teenager growing as he experiences this quest. He does this by confronting the burgeoning evil in the world influenced by the same alien that spans both games. Along the way our party tangles with gang members, zombies, dinosaurs, monsters, and disturbing nightmare fuel, as they explore the world and become heroes.

Mother 2 was a huge hit in Japan and is still regarded as one of the best SNES games to this day. Over here there were a long string of problems preventing Earthbound from taking off from RPGs still not being mainstream, to a terrible ad campaign, to giving it a premium price (packing in the Player's Guide was not the best idea), and saddling it with a weird cover. None of this did the game any favors. Until Super Smash Bros. came out four years later with Ness as one of the playable characters, Earthbound had become nearly forgotten by those overseas.

But it shouldn't have been. It is, in fact, a great game.

"Who is that?" they said.

Earthbound is a Japanese RPG which means it features turn-based combat, but that is about all it has in common with other combat systems at the time. It has some twists. The battle system is simple, but there's a bit more to it. The small things make the difference.

The battle system is turn-based but it has a wrinkle to the proceedings. When an enemy attacks you for say 20 damage, your HP bar rolls back in real-time from where it currently is and down the 20 points to where it is destined to go. This means if you win the battle before the damage counts down you can save HP. At the same time if you get a critical hit in battle that will lead to death you can either heal up in time to save yourself or finish off the enemy before it reaches 0 and you can negate death. This cushion gives you enough time to play around, but also adds a sense of urgency to the system.

At the same time, there are no random battles. Every enemy is seen on screen before you battle them. This also means that you can approach them from behind for sneak attacks or dodge them on the normal map. Also, if your stats are high enough you can one shot enemies for free experience.

It's the simple things that make it stand out.

This sense of being a bit different from the norm of the 16-bit generation also extends to the story. It's basic for the time, but what it does is add interesting aspects to it. And it doesn't need tragic backstories or over the top busy designs to do it.

You start the game as a normal teenage boy (His name is Ness, but you can call him whatever you wish) who wakes up in the middle of the night after a meteorite hits the nearby mountain. He heads out there and runs into some friends who help him reach the ruins where someone from the future arrives and tells him that a great evil is coming. This is an alien being known as Giygas who has come from a distant world and has grown into a terrifying creature. Four destined teenagers are to go out into the world and stop this monster from winning, as the prophecy says.

They go out to record the eight melodies taken from eight natural landmarks throughout the world. This begins a quest into this weird and wild world that Itoi has dreamed up with strange humor, a heartfelt love of the idiosyncrasies of '90s modern life and the importance of family and friends, and a constant and deadly serious battle between good and evil threaded throughout it all. It's a tricky balance, but Earthbound pulls it off.

Ness also is one of the few in the world with psychic abilities known as PSI. Two of his other party members do as well, but they all have different abilities to do with the power. His powers are used as a sort of a branching between the supernatural fantasy aspects of the story and the environments with the natural beauty of the world and how important both are together. In this he discovers both the good and bad things in the world. There he learns just what he really is fighting for. Ness's conflict is essentially between the good in everything vs Giygas being the bad in everything.

This leads to a large scale battle both exterior and interior in his journey. And for a small spoiler, the key to winning the final battle involves praying.

As for how this game achieved a cult following instead of success, well there are a few reasons as stated above.

Console RPGs didn't take off in a big way until Final Fantasy VII. Few RPGs were hits at the time aside from the random Square title or Phantasy Star, and an overpriced game like this packaged with a guide and over-sized box wouldn't entice them further. 1995 was not a prime RPG year for the charts.

The advertising campaign was also abysmal. It tried to capitalize on '90s gross out humor for its advertising which isn't really much in tone with the game. They could have done so much more for it, but Nintendo had more on their plates--such as the upcoming Nintendo 64. Pushing a goofy RPG such as this just wasn't in the cards.

The game was also ahead of its time. This might be hard to imagine in a world where "modern" settings are about 85% of all game settings, but it was not common at the time. The humor is not very in your face for the time period either, but it still has a distinct late '80s and early '90s feel with much warmth and cleverness, and the threat is not ironically detached from the rest.

At the same time the game stayed locked to the SNES in North America until the Wii U's virtual console put it out again well over a decade later. This allowed it to foster a reputation as an underrated classic that only the cool kids got to play and dumb old Nintendo forgot about. And some people are instantly turned off by the "cult" label due to those who attach themselves to it. 

But it wasn't all bad. Just like most cult hits it was bolstered by a base attached to its quality that ended up boosting its reputation in the process. And now it's the hipster game to go to.

However, it wasn't always this way. Earthbound is just a great game that came out at the wrong time and in the wrong way. Its success in its home country shows just that much. It is still one of the most popular games in Japan to this day.

If you enjoy RPGs, especially from the golden age of Japanese ones, then Earthbound is well worth trying. It adds and refines a lot of the genre's quirks to a peak experience you won't get anywhere else even today, and considering this was on the SNES (one of the best video game consoles ever made) that says a lot. Be sure to give this a go.

Earthbound is more than worth your time: it is one of the best games ever made.

An Effective Opening