Spoiler Policy: Many people haven’t had the chance to play EarthBound yet, so don’t be the kid who doesn’t mark his spoilers properly, EarthBound veterans! No one likes that kid!
Credits for the OT title go to Into. Blame him if you don't like it!
Title: EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! (Called Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back! in Japan)
Developer: Ape and HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: SNES (NA and JP), GBA (JP alongside with Mother 1), and now on the Wii U Virtual Console
Genre: RPG
Original Release Date: August 27, 1994 (JP), June 1, 1995 (NA)
VC Release Date: March 20, 2013 (JP), July 18, 2013
Price: $9.99 / €9.99 / £6.99 / C$12.99 (?) / a gazillion dollars on eBay
File Size: 42 MB
The year was 199X. (1995 to be precise, but that doesn’t sound nearly as cool.) Nintendo had already released EarthBound in Japan under the name Mother 2, a sequel to a Famicom game called Mother. The game had been warmly received there and had sold about 300,000 copies. Nintendo apparently had high expectations for it in the US with a fairly big marketing campaign for its time, but sales turned out to be disappointing, with about 140,000 copies sold and much more printed, and certain reviews weren’t too stellar either, with common criticisms being the graphics and the game being too kiddie. (Oh and perhaps the slogan “This game stinks” wasn’t the most effective way to market a game.) And so was the story of EarthBound.
Or was it? A lot of games would have been forgotten after that, but not this game. No, EarthBound was special and became a real cult classic. The inclusion of EarthBound’s protagonist Ness in Super Smash Bros. no doubt played a big part in that.
Now you may be wondering why a virtual console rerelease of an old SNES game is such a big deal. Well, it’s not that complicated. EarthBound is considered one of the best SNES RPGs and by some even the best RPG of all time these days. It’s no surprise that copies are extremely sought after and thus very expensive due to this. The game also has a lovely/crazy/annoying fan base here on the internet to take advantage of, so the lack of localization of the GBA rerelease, the game’s sequel and Wii’s promised virtual console rerelease (Thanks Iwata!) make this a pretty big deal for quite a few people.
And it’s these fans you can thank for this: since Mother 2 got announced for the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan, frustrated fans swarmed its Miiverse page (everyone could post on it for some reason) and begged for an overseas release and against all odds it worked. EarthBound is finally being rereleased, making it available for the first time ever in Europe. If it really is as good as they say is for you to make out, but you won’t know until you have played it! So let’s get started, shall we?
EarthBound is a Japanese role-playing game known for its humour, quirky dialogue, pop culture references (The Beatles!) and trippy… well everything. Our main character is a regular happy kid called Ness but then stuff happens. The icky sticky kind. Because of this you decide to save the world and set out on a journey, like all regular happy kids do in video games. Along the way you make new friends and experience all kinds of things and they’re all very trippy. Seriously, these developers must have been on drugs when they made this game.
Now perhaps I should tell more about EarthBound’s gameplay. EarthBound’s combat system is very traditional in a lot of ways; it’s pretty much like Dragon Quest. There are a few small differences though. The most important one is that your hit points will scroll when you take damage. What this means is that you still have the chance to heal yourself if you take more damage than you can take, or even win before you’re out of HP. What’s also notable is that EarthBound doesn’t have any random encounters, which certainly is nice for a game from 1995. And you won’t have to fight those weak early enemies again if your level is high enough: you’ll get instant wins against these annoying little guys.
Also fairly unique about EarthBound is its setting: EarthBound isn’t set in a medieval fantasy world like a lot of its brethren. No, EarthBound’s world is fairly modern, and more importantly very weird. This whole game is weird, really.
Why the fuss?
Earthbound is a cult classic and one of the finest SNES JRPGs of the 90s era. Unfortunately the title was overshadowed at the time of its release by darkly serious and prettier games such as Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger. Game reviewers at the time looked at the simple style graphics, labelled it a kids game, didn't give it the attention it deserved and the title never took off saleswise.
What makes Earthbound a unique and special game is that its creator was not a traditional game developer. The game was directed and written by Shigesato Itoi, a talented and well known essayist independent of the Nintendo company. The big benefit of his collaboration with Nintendo is that Earthbound is considered to be one of the finest written games ever made, with witty and clever dialog and a scenario refreshingly different from typical JRPGs of the time.
Itoi isn't the only all star in this cast. The game features excellent music by Hip Tanaka and the struggling project (it took 5 years to develop) was bailed out at one point by all star genius programmer Satoru Iwata (yep the current president of Nintendo).
Still not convinced? Here's a post made by Amir0x detailing why EarthBound is so special.
And here's another great one by L Thammy.
Both contain marked spoilers, so don't highlight those if you don't want to get spoiled!
TIPS AND TRICKS
- The balance of Earthbound is such that regular enemies hit hard, but bosses aren't necessarily huge HP damage sponges. You may find you defeated a boss in two rounds. Always be cautious of regular encounters.
- The beginning of the game is tough, and a lot of people think you have to grind, but it is not necessary if you're cautious. Get the best armour. Have lots of hamburgers and watch your health closely. Regular enemies hit hard, and rats in the caves will frequently get critical attacks.
- You'll probably have to back out of the cave at least once before you're strong enough to get through it entirely.
- You can heal for free at your Mom's house.
- You can get a free hat (armour) early in Onett.
- Get cold medicine before you go to Happy Happy Valley in Twoson.
- If you get a status ailment go to the hospital. Talk to everyone.
- Talk to everyone in the game in general. Chances are that the NPC has something useful and/or funny to say.
- Don't buy Yoyos. Their hit percentage is worse than regular weapons.
- Save often. Save after every boss. Don't advance any plot elements if you're weak and not prepared to fight someone.
- Don't walk around with huge sums of money on you. Defeat in battle takes away half your current cash, but money in the bank is safe.
- If you find a group of enemies on screen that you don't think you'll win against, walk a few screens away, and then walk back to reset the enemies on screen. This is really useful in certain areas!
There's also a FREE guide to check out! I have linked to it under the Media section. It's definitely a recommendation if you're new to the game.
Earthbound isn’t the first game of the series as mentioned earlier, but fortunately you don’t need to play the first game to understand the plot of this one or anything like that, the stories aren't very connected with the exception of some neat little references. There are three games in the series: the Famicom game Mother (also known as EarthBound Zero in the west), Mother 2 (EarthBound’s Japanese name) and Mother 3, a GBA game that began development on the SNES, then got moved to the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo 64DD and finally to the GBA. The original Mother is a bit hard to go back to nowadays, but Mother 3 is considered a very good game and has a fantastic fan translation, so you should definitely check it out of you liked EarthBound and want more.
Mother 1 was released on the Famicom in 1989 and is a typical NES RPG in a lot of ways. It was originally going to be released in the US too, it has even got its localization floating around on the internet, but in the end it wasn’t. It also got a rerelease on the GBA alongside with Mother 2 called Mother 1 + 2. That version of Mother 1 got an improved fan translation by the same guy who did Mother 3 and I’d really recommend it if you want to play the first Mother game.
Mother 2 is the game you’re reading the OT of at this very moment!
Mother 3 is the third game in the Mother trilogy. It got released in Japan in 2006 for the GBA, fairly late in the handheld’s life cycle, and thus never got released in the west. Fans held petitions for it, but it just didn’t happen. Luckily some crazy fans decided to translate the game themselves and boy did they: Mother 3’s fan translation is one of the best fan translations you’ll ever come across.
The Official Website
NOA's webpage with screenshots
NOE's webpage, also with screenshots
eShop Launch Trailer
PLAYER'S GUIDE:
***The old (and great) Player's Guide, free from Nintendo's website and optimized for the Wii U browser!***
***A downloadable PDF of the Player's Guide, directly from Nintendo's website!***
Also here's a review from IGN, 9/10.
EarthBound Miiverse Page
Mother 2 Miiverse Page
EarthBound, like all Wii U Virtual Console games, will also have its own Miiverse page. You know , like the one where people begged for a western release. There might be some cool fanart there. Dreweyes for example made this great drawing:
You can also use Miiverse to share screenshots with others, so why not share some of your favorite moments with us?
Another thing you can do is adding this cute little Mr. Saturn sprite to your avatar, like I have This way we will all be one. Originally I was going to make some avatars but it’s too late for that now! Oh and I’m sure a kind GAFfer (like me) will add the Saturn to your avatar if you haven’t got the Photoshop skills.
Don’t know what a Mr. Saturn is? No problem, I’ve got you covered.
Anyone going to do this? No? Okay...
Well that’s that then, it’s your turn now. I'd like to give a special thanks to Tiktaalik who pretty much wrote most of the "why the fuzz" section. Happy EarthBounding!
Credits for the OT title go to Into. Blame him if you don't like it!
Title: EarthBound: The War Against Giygas! (Called Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back! in Japan)
Developer: Ape and HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: SNES (NA and JP), GBA (JP alongside with Mother 1), and now on the Wii U Virtual Console
Genre: RPG
Original Release Date: August 27, 1994 (JP), June 1, 1995 (NA)
VC Release Date: March 20, 2013 (JP), July 18, 2013
Price: $9.99 / €9.99 / £6.99 / C$12.99 (?) / a gazillion dollars on eBay
File Size: 42 MB
The year was 199X. (1995 to be precise, but that doesn’t sound nearly as cool.) Nintendo had already released EarthBound in Japan under the name Mother 2, a sequel to a Famicom game called Mother. The game had been warmly received there and had sold about 300,000 copies. Nintendo apparently had high expectations for it in the US with a fairly big marketing campaign for its time, but sales turned out to be disappointing, with about 140,000 copies sold and much more printed, and certain reviews weren’t too stellar either, with common criticisms being the graphics and the game being too kiddie. (Oh and perhaps the slogan “This game stinks” wasn’t the most effective way to market a game.) And so was the story of EarthBound.
Or was it? A lot of games would have been forgotten after that, but not this game. No, EarthBound was special and became a real cult classic. The inclusion of EarthBound’s protagonist Ness in Super Smash Bros. no doubt played a big part in that.
Now you may be wondering why a virtual console rerelease of an old SNES game is such a big deal. Well, it’s not that complicated. EarthBound is considered one of the best SNES RPGs and by some even the best RPG of all time these days. It’s no surprise that copies are extremely sought after and thus very expensive due to this. The game also has a lovely/crazy/annoying fan base here on the internet to take advantage of, so the lack of localization of the GBA rerelease, the game’s sequel and Wii’s promised virtual console rerelease (Thanks Iwata!) make this a pretty big deal for quite a few people.
And it’s these fans you can thank for this: since Mother 2 got announced for the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan, frustrated fans swarmed its Miiverse page (everyone could post on it for some reason) and begged for an overseas release and against all odds it worked. EarthBound is finally being rereleased, making it available for the first time ever in Europe. If it really is as good as they say is for you to make out, but you won’t know until you have played it! So let’s get started, shall we?
EarthBound is a Japanese role-playing game known for its humour, quirky dialogue, pop culture references (The Beatles!) and trippy… well everything. Our main character is a regular happy kid called Ness but then stuff happens. The icky sticky kind. Because of this you decide to save the world and set out on a journey, like all regular happy kids do in video games. Along the way you make new friends and experience all kinds of things and they’re all very trippy. Seriously, these developers must have been on drugs when they made this game.
Now perhaps I should tell more about EarthBound’s gameplay. EarthBound’s combat system is very traditional in a lot of ways; it’s pretty much like Dragon Quest. There are a few small differences though. The most important one is that your hit points will scroll when you take damage. What this means is that you still have the chance to heal yourself if you take more damage than you can take, or even win before you’re out of HP. What’s also notable is that EarthBound doesn’t have any random encounters, which certainly is nice for a game from 1995. And you won’t have to fight those weak early enemies again if your level is high enough: you’ll get instant wins against these annoying little guys.
Also fairly unique about EarthBound is its setting: EarthBound isn’t set in a medieval fantasy world like a lot of its brethren. No, EarthBound’s world is fairly modern, and more importantly very weird. This whole game is weird, really.
Why the fuss?
Earthbound is a cult classic and one of the finest SNES JRPGs of the 90s era. Unfortunately the title was overshadowed at the time of its release by darkly serious and prettier games such as Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger. Game reviewers at the time looked at the simple style graphics, labelled it a kids game, didn't give it the attention it deserved and the title never took off saleswise.
What makes Earthbound a unique and special game is that its creator was not a traditional game developer. The game was directed and written by Shigesato Itoi, a talented and well known essayist independent of the Nintendo company. The big benefit of his collaboration with Nintendo is that Earthbound is considered to be one of the finest written games ever made, with witty and clever dialog and a scenario refreshingly different from typical JRPGs of the time.
Itoi isn't the only all star in this cast. The game features excellent music by Hip Tanaka and the struggling project (it took 5 years to develop) was bailed out at one point by all star genius programmer Satoru Iwata (yep the current president of Nintendo).
Still not convinced? Here's a post made by Amir0x detailing why EarthBound is so special.
And here's another great one by L Thammy.
Both contain marked spoilers, so don't highlight those if you don't want to get spoiled!
TIPS AND TRICKS
- The balance of Earthbound is such that regular enemies hit hard, but bosses aren't necessarily huge HP damage sponges. You may find you defeated a boss in two rounds. Always be cautious of regular encounters.
- The beginning of the game is tough, and a lot of people think you have to grind, but it is not necessary if you're cautious. Get the best armour. Have lots of hamburgers and watch your health closely. Regular enemies hit hard, and rats in the caves will frequently get critical attacks.
- You'll probably have to back out of the cave at least once before you're strong enough to get through it entirely.
- You can heal for free at your Mom's house.
- You can get a free hat (armour) early in Onett.
in the bushes north of the library. Walk around the edges until you find it
- If you get a status ailment go to the hospital. Talk to everyone.
- Talk to everyone in the game in general. Chances are that the NPC has something useful and/or funny to say.
- Don't buy Yoyos. Their hit percentage is worse than regular weapons.
- Save often. Save after every boss. Don't advance any plot elements if you're weak and not prepared to fight someone.
- Don't walk around with huge sums of money on you. Defeat in battle takes away half your current cash, but money in the bank is safe.
- If you find a group of enemies on screen that you don't think you'll win against, walk a few screens away, and then walk back to reset the enemies on screen. This is really useful in certain areas!
There's also a FREE guide to check out! I have linked to it under the Media section. It's definitely a recommendation if you're new to the game.
Earthbound isn’t the first game of the series as mentioned earlier, but fortunately you don’t need to play the first game to understand the plot of this one or anything like that, the stories aren't very connected with the exception of some neat little references. There are three games in the series: the Famicom game Mother (also known as EarthBound Zero in the west), Mother 2 (EarthBound’s Japanese name) and Mother 3, a GBA game that began development on the SNES, then got moved to the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo 64DD and finally to the GBA. The original Mother is a bit hard to go back to nowadays, but Mother 3 is considered a very good game and has a fantastic fan translation, so you should definitely check it out of you liked EarthBound and want more.
Mother 1 was released on the Famicom in 1989 and is a typical NES RPG in a lot of ways. It was originally going to be released in the US too, it has even got its localization floating around on the internet, but in the end it wasn’t. It also got a rerelease on the GBA alongside with Mother 2 called Mother 1 + 2. That version of Mother 1 got an improved fan translation by the same guy who did Mother 3 and I’d really recommend it if you want to play the first Mother game.
Mother 2 is the game you’re reading the OT of at this very moment!
Mother 3 is the third game in the Mother trilogy. It got released in Japan in 2006 for the GBA, fairly late in the handheld’s life cycle, and thus never got released in the west. Fans held petitions for it, but it just didn’t happen. Luckily some crazy fans decided to translate the game themselves and boy did they: Mother 3’s fan translation is one of the best fan translations you’ll ever come across.
The Official Website
NOA's webpage with screenshots
NOE's webpage, also with screenshots
eShop Launch Trailer
PLAYER'S GUIDE:
***The old (and great) Player's Guide, free from Nintendo's website and optimized for the Wii U browser!***
***A downloadable PDF of the Player's Guide, directly from Nintendo's website!***
Also here's a review from IGN, 9/10.
EarthBound Miiverse Page
Mother 2 Miiverse Page
EarthBound, like all Wii U Virtual Console games, will also have its own Miiverse page. You know , like the one where people begged for a western release. There might be some cool fanart there. Dreweyes for example made this great drawing:
You can also use Miiverse to share screenshots with others, so why not share some of your favorite moments with us?
Another thing you can do is adding this cute little Mr. Saturn sprite to your avatar, like I have This way we will all be one. Originally I was going to make some avatars but it’s too late for that now! Oh and I’m sure a kind GAFfer (like me) will add the Saturn to your avatar if you haven’t got the Photoshop skills.
Don’t know what a Mr. Saturn is? No problem, I’ve got you covered.
Anyone going to do this? No? Okay...
Well that’s that then, it’s your turn now. I'd like to give a special thanks to Tiktaalik who pretty much wrote most of the "why the fuzz" section. Happy EarthBounding!
