EarthBound

Name(s): EarthBound
Release Date(s): August 27, 1994 (JP) / June 5, 1995 (NA)

EarthBound Review

I recently beat EarthBound for the first time. I’m ready to comment on it. There isn’t much about this game that hasn’t been said a million times over. EarthBound is all about the charm. It’s one of the most wacky games ever created, if not ever. And it never really draws attention to its insanity the way the Disgaea games might, for example. Everyone in the world of EarthBound seems to act as if alien invaders and giant road-blocking steel pencils are everyday occurrences.

Ness is a psychic boy from Onett and by nothing other than fate is meant to team up with three other children to stop the ultimate evil figure known as Giygas while Ness’s neighbor Pokey, a spoiled, dumb, chubby kid aids Giygas in stopping them. The narrative of EarthBound is great. It flows very well even considering there’s almost never any exposition. One minute you stumble upon a town being controlled by an insane cult and then the next town is infested by zombies. The logic or reason behind it isn’t important, just that it’s entertaining and always keeps you wondering what you’ll run into next.

Novel Concepts

The world is also bright and colorful, which even today is refreshing amongst so many fucking medieval settings in RPGs. EarthBound is contemporary, and many of the towns are large cities. You buy items with dollars and can withdraw and deposit from an actual ATM machine. It’s awesome.

Many things in EarthBound exude intelligent design. For starters, there’s no random encounters which is great and you also have access to an Auto Fight option which is faster than just mashing the A button repeatedly. And if you’re high enough leveled, you can defeat enemies simply by touching them. EVERY RPG after EarthBound should have every single one of the aforementioned features. No exception. Considering this is a SNES RPG, all these features are extremely impressive.

Frustrating UI

However, like all SNES RPGs, EarthBound hasn’t aged perfectly. Its battles are slow as molasses, and Ness without the bicycle moves far too slowly on the world map. Having to keep using the bicycle is far too cumbersome to bother with—not like it matters, because it’s unusable the instant you get another party member. The limited inventory space NEVER stops being an annoyance. The fact you can’t “trade” items to reorganize them is a huge pain in the ass.

But these are only moderate annoyances in the big picture. EarthBound isn’t perfect, but absolutely nothing is. Perfection is an ideal to strive for, not something achievable. That doesn’t mean all other accomplishment is pointless though, and EarthBound deserves almost all sense of praise it gets. I also like the idea of HP rolling, where you don’t die until your HP meter actually hits 0 in real-time. You don’t just outright die of injuries in real life, it’s gradual.

Verdict on EarthBound

Bottom line: EarthBound is clever, charming smart, and a unique experience. When you’ve played as much videogames as I have, you are more willing to sacrifice gameplay so long as the game is unique enough. EarthBound is one of those games you should play simply because you will never experience anything else like it. Every flaw it may have is entirely negligible. After all, what is your alternative?