A brief history of this game and me:
Like many gamers, I didn’t know about EarthBound until Ness in Smash Bros 64. To me at the time, he was just a cute lil’ dude with psychic powers. I was curious, but not that curious.
It was the Onett stage in Smash Bros Melee that made me fall in love with his charmingly colorful world and want to know more. I loved pausing the game and turning the camera to scope out the city block, and listening to the theme, which is simply magical. But what really drew me in was the community around EarthBound. The diehard fans clamoring for EarthBound on VC and Mother 3 in the West had me intrigued by the series’ magnetic pull.
Remember the starmen.net campaign where they made the EarthBound Anthology — a phonebook-sized tome of fan art, essays and other tributes they sent to Nintendo executives? It was a stirring display of passion from a fan base that really felt like a family — a family bound in the shared experience of EarthBound’s “second childhood.”
I describe it that way because that’s what EarthBound feels like, even completing it now for the first time: It feels like a second childhood. It feels like you’re back in the ‘90s — a very odd version of the ‘90s, but the ‘90s nonetheless. It’s a lovely time capsule, but I think even someone with no nostalgia for the Clinton Years would really enjoy this game. It has a warm, cozy feeling of being at home during summer vacation. It’s a game filled with love, laughs and adventure. It’s a string of moments that will make you smile and add up to something grand.
CAPTION: It’s worth examining everything you find in the game. EarthBound is unapologetically odd!
Still, it took me three attempts to get into it. I originally played EarthBound in college, on an emulator, and barely made it to Onett. Then I purchased it for the WiiU but struggled to get past the valley leading to Happy-Happy Village. I blame my slingshot’s poor accuracy, the exploding Territorial Oaks, the robots inducing “nighttime stuffiness,” and the Lil’ UFOs’ relentless barrage of lasers! So I tabled the game for the time being.
More recently, I purchased it for the N3DS. Playing it on a portable in perfect pixel mode, with super-sharp non-stretched 8:7 graphics, it finally clicked for me and I saw it all the way through. And boy, is it fantastic.
It still took me several attempts to get past the valley leading to Happy-Happy Village, but I was aware this time of how I was growing stronger. And each time I tried new strategies — like kiting enemies around trees in the field to avoid them, bringing along the teddy bear decoy, or making extensive use of hamburgers, cold remedies, and PSI abilities. It’s a thoughtfully constructed game where you should make use of all the options available to you.
CAPTION: From the thieves of Burglin Park in Twoson, to the cultists of Happy-Happy Village, there is some shady stuff going on!
The game already moves at a good clip, but the pace really picks up once you defeat Mr. Carpainter and rescue Paula from the cult’s mountain cabin. Then you have scene changes like Jeff traveling from Winters to Threed to rescue Ness and Paula, which kept me guessing what would happen next.
The game manages to maintain that forward momentum all the way to the end. It’s a JRPG where you can look back at the first few towns and say, “Wow, I foiled gangsters, corrupt cops, a cult, zombies, an evil circus tent and a pile of puke — and I was just getting started.”
In hindsight, one wonders how Nintendo managed to make the box art so boring!
CAPTION: EarthBound is funny and sweet, but also likes to get introspective from time to time.
Legitimately fun:
There’s very little fat to this game — quite a feat in a genre notorious for bloat. Just about everything in EarthBound feels focused and efficient.
For example, it’s worth talking to each NPC: At best you’ll learn a new mechanic or vital tip, such as the password to Belch Base at Grapefruit Falls; and at worst, you’ll smile. Either way, NPCs are succinct and to the point. Part of me wonders if this is when the Treehouse really came into its own. The game communicates clearly, and the comedy is on point.
There’s a lot that seems progressive, too, especially for the time. Enemies appear in the field and can be avoided. If you approach them from behind, you get the opening attack, but the opposite is also true. Then there’s the way enemies flee from you when you’re stronger, and how you can automatically defeat weaker enemies simply by touching them. Also of note is how nearby enemies can join the fray when battle is initiated, and some enemies may call in reinforcements mid-battle.
Then there’s the rolling HP meter that ticks down when you take damage. If you’re quick, you can heal your party or defeat the enemy before you’re knocked out, thereby stopping the damage, which adds a timing element. You can also choose to guard against attacks, spy on enemies to check their stats and weaknesses, use items, cast spells, or attack with your equipped weapon. The game conveniently indicates when a piece of equipment in the store is an upgrade, and the shopkeepers will even buy your old gear in the same transaction. Talk about service!
CAPTION: You never know what curious characters will temporarily join you, in battle or in the field.
Another quality-of-life feature is the telephone found in just about every establishment; it lets you save your game, collect money from your dad, talk to your mom to cure homesickness, call a delivery service to pick up/drop off items, and more. And where there’s a phone, there’s usually an ATM — often in places where you’ll spend money. And then there’s the “Help” option in the inventory that clearly defines each item you find with a few lines of text. Nice!
I like how your party members follow you in the field, making it feel like an actual party. I like the isometric perspective and the way you can walk diagonally down sidewalks and streets, making each town feel like a proper place with real depth and dimensionality. I like the layout of each town — expansive enough to feel inhabited, with all the amenities you’d expect, but smartly designed so that navigating is a snap. And should you get lost, the map is just a button press away.
All of this makes EarthBound fun to actually play. Which is great, because you’ll want to see this adventure all the way through.
CAPTION: From the hilltops where the meteorite lands, to your cottage overlooking the sea, there’s a lot to see in Onett — and it’s only the first town!
A wonderful world:
One of my favorite moments is in Threed, when you use “zombie paper,” Apple Kid’s invention to trap the undead. You lay it down in the circus tent at the heart of town and then go to sleep at the inn. Sure enough, a cutscene triggers, showing the shambling cadavers descending on the tent and walking straight into the trap. When you visit the next morning, there are zombies stuck to the floor, and each one has something to say.
As though that wasn’t charming enough, there’s also the “fly honey” you retrieved from a trashcan after defeating the Boogey Tent. As one NPC explains to you, fly honey is honey made by flies. Not bees! And you use this fly honey to send Master Belch — the pile of puke creating the zombies — into a fit of rapture. He’s so distracted by the delectable treat that he can’t attack!
Not pictured: The sarcastic zombies who make liberal use of air quotes, and Master Belch’s alter-ego, the hot-pink Master Barf.
It’s this matter-of-fact nature to everything — this silly, but oddly sensible logic — that permeates the world of EarthBound and makes it memorable. Of course the pile of puke has a craving for fly honey. Of course fly honey is honey made by flies. Of course you can trap zombies by laying down sticky paper in a circus tent. Of course they’ll be passive-aggressive about it afterward. Why not?!
Or how about Dusty Dunes, where you can relay love messages between a black sesame seed and a white sesame seed — each a mere pixel in a vast ocean of sand. The game never prompts you to do this; you simply stumble upon them by chance. Or how about the two sunbathers you find lying in the middle of the desert, who assure you they’re not corpses. And farther down the road, past gridlock traffic and a convenience store selling wet towels, there’s a mariachi band with a broken slot machine who spin around in place when you hit the lever. Get the signs they’re holding to match up, and you can win sandwiches! But even if you lose, you still had the pleasure of meeting a Mexican named Tomas Jefferson.
CAPTION: Time for a detour through the desert! Keep an eye out for a lost contact lens, talking cattle bones, a meditating guru and his monkeys, a gold prospector, mariachi men slot machines, star-crossed sesame seeds and more…
Everything about the world of EarthBound feels effortless. Like it’s a real place that exists somewhere and was plopped down in a cartridge (or a conveniently downloaded data pack). I found it engrossing, even when it broke the fourth wall and had the developers talking to me via graffiti on a billboard or a dog possessed at the drugstore. It’s self-aware and has fun reminding you it’s a videogame, especially when it comes to plot devices (a trout-flavored yogurt dispenser?!), but it’s still easy to suspend your disbelief because there’s an earnestness to its humor and a genuine emotional core that makes everything so gosh darn compelling.
I also like how vibrant the world feels. Grassy bluffs, white picket fences, sparkling water, pillowy snow, deep yellow dunes, rolling clouds, and twinkling stars… The lil’ vehicles that putter up and down the streets lined with colorful facades and signage. The many NPCs who are clearly parodies of American pop culture icons, from Mr. T to the Blues Brothers. The fact you're attacked by fiends like Annoying Old Party Man, New Age Retro Hippy and Unassuming Local Guy, or even a Mad Taxi straight out of Disney World’s Toontown. Even the names of re-skinned enemies made me chuckle, like Manly Fish and Manly Fish’s Brother, or Slimy Little Pile and Even Slimier Little Pile.
The game is just brimming with character. In the snowy land of Winters, for example, you’ll sneak out of a boarding school, befriend a bubblegum-chewing monkey, explore a camp of cryptozoologists, and hitch a ride on the Loch Ness Monster. Then you’ll go through a dungeon made by a man who yearns to become the world’s first man/dungeon hybrid (and later gets his wish, his innards full of bulletin boards with helpful game design tips). There’s another cave that’s home to a hyper-localized cloud of rain, and nearby there’s a pencil-shaped iron statue, which you can erase with an invention called the pencil eraser (not to be confused with the eraser eraser, which erases iron statues that resemble, well, erasers). To the south is Stonehenge, crawling with bears and cavemen, and south of Stonehenge is a lab where a wacky scientist works on UFOs and time machines.
From top to bottom, Winters gets weirder and weirder.
CAPTION: On a return trip to Winters, watch out for aliens like the Wooly Shambler, Whirling Robo and Lesser Mook!
Or how about the illusory world of Moonside, where “yes” means “no” and “no” means “yes;” where the city of Fourside is depicted with glowing lines on a black backdrop; where random NPCs teleport you at will, and one warns that you’ll fry your brain if you stay too long. You’ll also see my favorite opening line to a battle: “You confronted Abstract Art!” (Although I’m partial to Dali’s Clock.)
Out in Fourside proper, you might meet a bodyguard who warns you to be careful, lest someone take a potshot at you with a machine gun… or an elevator operator who tells you to stop standing behind her and staring at her hips. An alien might abduct your friend at the mall and leave you to fight killer guitars and scalding cups of coffee. At the museum you might meet an archaeologist who wants a pop star’s autograph on a pencil eraser, but who’ll settle for it on a banana peel instead. You’ll still get to go down the manhole he’s guarding and fight the Plague Rat of Doom. And don’t forget to smile and say “fuzzy pickles!” for the photographer who drops out of the sky onto a skyscraper!
CAPTION: The neon landscape of Moonside, and the sparkling spires of Fourside. I suppose every town has its dark side!
There’s even an entire stretch of the game that seems like a loving tribute to pulp novels (quite fitting, since Giygas himself seems dreamt up by H.P. Lovecraft — with a bit of bio-mechanical H.R. Giger). Playing as Prince Poo in the kingdom of Dalaam to the Far East, you’ll scale a mountain and meditate while the agents of evil try to trick you. You'll commune with the spirits of your ancestors and learn how to... become nothing. You’ll then meet up with Ness and cross the sea with a seasick sailor, battling the Kraken on your way to the land of Scaraba. If the desert of Dusty Dunes is the American Southwest, then Scaraba is Egypt, with a pyramid full of living hieroglyphics and a sphinx that wants you to dance. From there you’ll take a submarine to the jungles of Deep Darkness, where you'll wade through quicksand and murky water, and come across a village of adorable introverts.
CAPTION: The last third of the game includes an epic journey through desert ruins and dense rainforest.
Help the indigenous people overcome their shyness with a book on that very topic, and you’ll discover the Lost Underworld, full of geysers, dinos and talking Easter Island heads. Here your characters are depicted as mere pixels next to the sizable sprites of the dinosaurs, and you move slowly across the land — a clever way to convey a sense of scale. The music also sets the tone perfectly for exploring a savage continent. But before you go there, drink some hallucinogenic tea and hear inspirational messages from the game’s writer. This must’ve been how Francis York Morgan felt drinking coffee in Deadly Premonition.
CAPTION: Behold, the fearsome Chomposaur! Also, I don’t think that was -weed- we smoked…
This is a game where I feel like I’m outside on a breezy summer day… even when it’s still cold and rainy outside, and I’m holed up inside. It really feels like you’re on a grand boyhood adventure. Alternatively, it brings back fond memories of discovering a cool new arcade cabinet at a Pizza Hut — the kind with the brick walls, red fogged glasses, warm lighting, and a piping hot pizza waiting for you back at your booth. This game is comfort food in a comfy environment, in videogame form.
I can see now why it’s a world that has stuck with people for so long. It’s not nostalgia for the game — I played through this for the first time in a post-3D world (soon to be post-VR!), and I was still hooked. You know it’s a good game when you’re checking a player’s guide not for tips on how to beat it, but just to confirm there’s plenty of game left because you’re enjoying it so much and don’t want it to end.
And when it does end, it ends in the grandest fashion. The places you visited and the people you met all come together in the most spectacular way. It’s about internalizing the love of the world around you, growing it and sharing it with others. It’s about the power of family and friendship repelling evil and hate. And ultimately, it's about hope. Just as a wise apple once foretold…
CAPTION: Before facing Giygas, I stocked up on Magic Tarts in the resort town of Summers. Then I used the Phase Distorter in Saturn Valley to travel back in time. Turns out we needed robot bodies to survive the trip, but in the end we stopped Giygas and saved the world!
In conclusion:
EarthBound really is a classic. I truly understand now why this is such a cherished part of so many gamers’ childhoods. And for the child-at-heart, EarthBound is a classic waiting to be discovered. Take the game slowly and enjoy it at length, because once you learn the mechanics and acclimate to the game’s unique rhythm, you won’t want it to end. And when it does end, make sure you talk to everyone in the game before talking to your mom for the credits roll... and stick around after the credits for a stinger that must've made the wait for Mother 3 unbearable for fans back in 1995.
Speaking of which, I’m now more interested than ever in trying Mother 3, and I really hope that the rumors of its localization are true… Mother 3 sounds like a very different game, but it’s clear it still has the same indelible spirit. I can’t wait!
So, what are your favorite EarthBound moments and memories?
Illustration by Shawn Witt for starmen.net’s EarthBound Anthology
Screenshots by myself on my N3DS via Miiverse
