Pokey is such a legitimately sad character. He's abused by his parents, he's ignored and disliked by kids his own age, and even his next door neighbor doesn't really like him. Some kids can be dicks but kids are still kids and Pokey has never received any sort of affection from anyone. How else could he have turned out? Add in a corrupting evil power that takes advantage of the vulnerable and it's no wonder Pokey turned into the person he did. If I remember correctly, in Magicant it's implied that Ness may have been mean into Pokey in the past but I'll need to find the EB Central article/ a screenshot that backs that theory up.
And then Mother 3 makes the character even more depressing
This game took a lot of work to get into, I didn't really get gripped by it until I finished Threed but when it got me I blasted through it.
It's an interesting case where I'm not particularly big on the game mechanically, like at all, but hot damn does everything else make up for it.
The tone and atmosphere is brilliant even when first playing it 2 years ago in the wake of having played its sequel and games that try to match its quirky tone.
And Dungeon Man is just a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Great OST as well, something about this battle theme used in conjunction with some of the wacky enemies is just entertaining in itself.
Pokey is such a legitimately sad character. He's abused by his parents, he's ignored and disliked by kids his own age, and even his next door neighbor doesn't really like him. Some kids can be dicks but kids are still kids and Pokey has never received any sort of affection from anyone. How else could he have turned out? Add in a corrupting evil power that takes advantage of the vulnerable and it's no wonder Pokey turned into the person he did. If I remember correctly, in Magicant it's implied that Ness may have been mean into Pokey in the past but I'll need to find the EB Central article/ a screenshot that backs that theory up.
And then Mother 3 makes the character even more depressing
I don't feel bad for Pokey at all. As someone who was bullied and had people pull those same cowardly moves and excuses for their behavior, I have no sympathy for him. Picky didn't turn out to be a world-murdering psycho-man-child! Pokey had choices and ultimately he chose to support evil. Mother 3 clearly shows that Giygas's influence didn't drive Pokey to evil, Pokey's own craving for power did.
Did you play Beginnings at all? Giygas/Giegue gets a bit more characterization there and a bit of a backstory. He and Pokey are two peas in a pod, for sure.
Excellent thread, and the pictures from your journey are great.
The fanart picture at the end, however, is terrible
There really is nothing else quite like Earthbound.
Even Mother 3 - while a spectacular game - has a somewhat different feeling, where it complements Earthbound, but doesn't supplant it.
I've played through it countless times - on SNES, on Mother 1+2 for GBA, on WiiU, and now again on 3DS (much easier than Mother 1+2, due to me not understanding much Japanese).
I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I just absolutely love Earthbound.
Wonderful thread, I'm not nearly as good at putting into words what's so special about EarthBound but you managed it very well.
As for Beginnings it IS creepier than its sequels, it has this atmosphere I've never felt from another videogame and that's crazy. It also has a very different sense of humour, but it's still there in its writing and it's wonderful. And the soundtrack IS superior. (That's not to say EarthBound's is bad, because it's excellent. Its best tracks are Mother 1 remixes though.) Plus Giygas gets fleshed out, Magicant is a completely different experience, and a really cool one at that, and in general it's just really interesting to see how similar it is to its sequel but also how different it is.
But is it hard? Yes it is. Dated? Way more so than its sequel, like you say EarthBound has a lot of interesting mechanics. Beginnings doesn't. Also: a severe lack of Mr Saturn. Now that's unacceptable. So clearly it's not for everyone, but it IS worth checking out if you're a fan. Because it's a damn good game at its core, of of my favourites on the system.
I'm a bit intimidated by the alleged difficulty of Mother 1. I like challenging games (Dark Souls, The Evil Within, etc), but only when the challenge comes from fair and balanced design. I suspect much of the challenge in Mother 1 would come from dated conventions of Famicon-era RPGs.
Still, I'd like to try it out. I'll probably still buy it on WiiU. I really appreciate NOA finally releasing it in the West.
I'm a bit intimidated by the alleged difficulty of Mother 1. I like challenging games (Dark Souls, The Evil Within, etc), but only when the challenge comes from fair and balanced design. I suspect much of the challenge in Mother 1 would come from dated conventions of Famicon-era RPGs.
Still, I'd like to try it out. I'll probably still buy it on WiiU. I really appreciate NOA finally releasing it in the West.
On Wii U, I found EBB to be eminently playable with something on in the background. The real challenge is twofold: getting lost in the massive world, and the ridiculously high random encounter rate. The game itself isn't that difficult if you know where to go (starmen.net has a great walkthrough I used through the entire game) and if you learn when to fight and when to run from battles (or use 4-D Slip). It's not a super long game and I'm not super patient with old, difficult games and I managed pretty well. There were a few spots where grinding was necessary but it went fast when I had a show on in the background.
Yup. One of my all time favorite games and yet some how Mother 3 is even better. I so highly recommend continuing on. Especially since the 10 year anniversary is just a couple days away. (April 20th)
Yup. One of my all time favorite games and yet some how Mother 3 is even better. I so highly recommend continuing on. Especially since the 10 year anniversary is just a couple days away. (April 20th)
One of my favorite subtle touches in the game are the battles. Not the battles themselves but the psychedelic backgrounds in them... When you first start playing and battle enemies you see the background, and it's cool as hell with the music, weird enemies, and BANGING HOT OST, but you write it off as another weird quirk in the game. But then you face Giygas and she takes the form of the background itself. So upon repeat playthrus you notice the background in normal battles actually represents Giygas' evil influence in the enemies you face.
It's honestly one of the coolest things I've seen a game do and something that only a video game CAN do. It's immersive storytelling.
Earthbound is a bona-fide classic. Sigh..
Now my eyes are little misty thinking of Iwata.
One of my favorite subtle touches in the game are the battles. Not the battles themselves but the psychedelic backgrounds in them... When you first start playing and battle enemies you see the background, and it's cool as hell with the music, weird enemies, and BANGING HOT OST, but you write it off as another weird quirk in the game. But then you face Giygas and she takes the form of the background itself. So upon repeat playthrus you notice the background in normal battles actually represents Giygas' evil influence in the enemies you face.
It's honestly one of the coolest things I've seen a game do and something that only a video game CAN do. It's immersive storytelling.
Earthbound is a bona-fide classic. Sigh..
Now my eyes are little misty thinking of Iwata.
Huh, I've never thought of it that way. Those backgrounds are neat though. Apparently a lot of them are actually complicated mathematical graphs. They'd probably just be graphing arbitrary numbers for the sake of creating the effect, but it's certainly more interesting than a static image of an environment pasted to the back of the screen.
To this day still my favorite RPG and tied with Super Metroid as my number 1 game of all time. It's just so charming and unique, everything I want videogames to be. It constantly surprises and delights. It's scary, funny, heartwarming, sad and happy, just like real life. For all its crazy situations and fantasy elements, it's all incredibly endearing and recognisable and it feels almost like a game made for me personally. Truly a one-of-a-kind game that has never been bested. But they sure gave it their all with Mother 3, if not quite as good as Mother 2, it came damn close.
I'm going to challenge that one-off statement. The way I see it, Pokey doesn't mean any actual harm. He doesn't seem to have any friends and his parents don't seem like the most caring bunch, and even his little brother doesn't respect him. The only person who could be his friend is Ness, and even then, we're given the opportunity to say that he isn't Ness' friend at the beginning of the game.
The way that Pokey seems to go out of his way to taunt Ness and his general attitude make me feel like he perceives the whole game to be, well, a game. A fun, well-meaning contest between him and Ness. He's too immature and selfish to realize that the consequences of his game are dire for the rest of the world.
Plus... well, I'm sure some of you know the obvious thing to bring up.
Actually, I think that the rival from the original Pokemon - Blue or Gary or whatever you want to call him - is a shallow imitation of Pokey. He's the boy next door in the sort of modern world where weird animals and psychic powers exist, and he's always taunting you from one step ahead. But the relationship comes across as being very different in Pokemon. There's nothing vulnerable about that rival, and there's no reason to think that he's got any interest in you aside from being a smug asshole. That rival still ends up being an appealing character though, which really just goes to show how interesting Pokey is. I think that a lot of the staff from EarthBound went on to work for Pokemon (Ape -> Creatures).
I can't really debate this because I haven't finished the game, haha. So far, he seems like a dick, but I don't have the full story behind him yet, soooo....
I just don't mean to ignore your comment / other comments for no reason.
Yeah, when Paula was abducted at the mall, I pretty much couldn't stop playing until she was rescued. It's funny that the game looks so simple, graphically speaking, but to me she was a real person in grave peril, and not just some sprite who would return at a scripted point in the game. Or how about earlier in the game, when both Ness and Paula were trapped in the graveyard at Threed, and Jeff leaves Winters to find them. The whole time I was worried about what would happen to Ness and Paula. Those creeps in the hotel weren't fooling around!
Yeah! I liked Jeff's part but I was so impatient to get back to Ness and Paula. (Almost went "Harry and Paula" cause that's how I named them in my playthrough! And Jeff=John and Poo=Ringo. Because awesome). I thought when I got on Tessie I'd be off to rescue them...but nope! Not yet.
We can all definitively say that Jeff's Dad is a dick though, right? The fathers in this game are rather interesting. Always tugs at my heartstrings ): I can't wait to finish the game so I can compare the mother/father stuff. Though I heard the Mother title doesn't make as much sense here as it did in Mother 1.
I'm a bit intimidated by the alleged difficulty of Mother 1. I like challenging games (Dark Souls, The Evil Within, etc), but only when the challenge comes from fair and balanced design. I suspect much of the challenge in Mother 1 would come from dated conventions of Famicon-era RPGs.
Still, I'd like to try it out. I'll probably still buy it on WiiU. I really appreciate NOA finally releasing it in the West.
When it got tough I just grinded a bit. I only remember one part that was pretty ridiculous.
Magicant was a big highlight of the game. There's definitely this unsettling mood in the game (in a good way), and I kind of want to replay it after I finish Earthbound/Mother 2. You hear that, Nintendo? Could you put it on the 3DS Virtual Console so I don't have to emulate it again?! (I played it before it came on the WiiU and I don't even have a WiiU...)
More and more people are playing Earthbound for the first time. It makes me so happy. I'm really interested in seeing what you think of Mother 3. In my opinion, it's both an amazing thematic and emotional end cap to the series and the overall best entry.
One of my favorite subtle touches in the game are the battles. Not the battles themselves but the psychedelic backgrounds in them... When you first start playing and battle enemies you see the background, and it's cool as hell with the music, weird enemies, and BANGING HOT OST, but you write it off as another weird quirk in the game. But then you face Giygas and she takes the form of the background itself. So upon repeat playthrus you notice the background in normal battles actually represents Giygas' evil influence in the enemies you face.
It's honestly one of the coolest things I've seen a game do and something that only a video game CAN do. It's immersive storytelling.
This is an awesome observation! I suspect you are right when you say the psychedelic backgrounds are meant to be Giygas exerting his influence. So cool!
Top 2 JRPG for me along with Final Fantasy IX. I doubt many games could get away with being as straight-up weird as Earthbound, but the game just nails it with how earnest it comes across in its presentation. Earthbound is the only JRPG where I go out of my way to talk to every NPC. Damn near every scenario in the game (Happy Happy cult, Dungeon Man) is clever and memorable. Just a warm, cozy game with a big heart and superb execution.
I've had this thread open all day because it's so well-done and I honestly don't want the discussion to end. I love this game through and through. On my last player, I was able to do the unthinkable.
This may be a random question, but are there any games that remind people of Earthbound that are available on the Vita?
That was a fun read Neiteio, thank you for doing that. EarthBound is my third favorite game of all-time and a very important part of my childhood. I played it when I was 13 years old, a few years after its initial release, and I fell in love with the down-to-earth, matter-of-fact nature of it just the same way you did. The natural themes of childhood adventure and friendship were exactly what I was looking for out of an RPG. Pokemon Red and Blue were also released in the same year that I played EarthBound and those games shared very similar themes that I appreciated them for, as well.
It is an absolute masterpiece. The criticism for the graphics never made sense to me at the time, some reviewers wanted it to be Squaresoft levels of art, but I think what EarthBound had fits the game perfectly. That there was one artist devoted entirely to designing the unique psychedelic backgrounds of each fight speaks to the attention to detail and care that went into the overall visual presentation. I loved the music, what I first fell in love with was the theme that plays inside Ness' home, but all of it is so incredibly diverse and wonderful.
I still find EarthBound enjoyable to play, but so much of my love for it it is also about the time and place in my life in which I played it. My three favorite games are all 90's JRPGs very much rooted in nostalgic attachment (FFVII and Chrono Trigger the others), so it's always great to see people come into them now and still enjoy them as much as I did. After so many years of posting on forums, I've heard every game I've ever liked called overrated enough times to doubt anything, so sometimes a well articulated appreciation post from fresh eyes like this can do wonders for my own confidence.
EarthBound is a special game. And it was such a treat for me to see Ness pop up in the original Super Smash Bros. It felt like this weird, quirky game hadn't been forgotten. That Nintendo was acknowledging it by having Ness alongside mainstays like Mario, Link, Kirby, and the others.
That was a fun read Neiteio, thank you for doing that. EarthBound is my third favorite game of all-time and a very important part of my childhood. I played it when I was 13 years old, a few years after its initial release, and I fell in love with the down-to-earth, matter-of-fact nature of it just the same way you did. The natural themes of childhood adventure and friendship were exactly what I was looking for out of an RPG. Pokemon Red and Blue were also released in the same year that I played EarthBound and those games shared very similar themes that I appreciated them for, as well.
I read a description of Earthbound way back that really resonated with me - the game feels like it was made by a child. Not a game for a child, but a game made by a child who was basically told "go nuts". "Yeah, so first the heroes are going to fight a giant puke monster, then there's going to be zombies everywhere, and later everyone is gonna turn into robots!". The game is batshit crazy, but it's all pulled off with a sense of innocence and earnestness, and there's not a drop of cynicism in sight. The wacky shit that happens doesn't feel like a product of a bunch of assholes sitting around in a boardroom trying to develop the next meme, or the next sequence that could go viral on YouTube. It's just, like, why not give a monkey a pack of chewing gum so it can blow a bubble and float in the air to get the player across a lake? Because it's Earthbound, duh. Every scenario in the game feels like it's engineered solely to put a smile on the player's face, and nothing more.
I read a description of Earthbound way back that really resonated with me - the game feels like it was made by a child. Not a game for a child, but a game made by a child who was basically told "go nuts". "Yeah, so first the heroes are going to fight a giant puke monster, then there's going to be zombies everywhere, and later everyone is gonna turn into robots!". The game is batshit crazy, but it's all pulled off with a sense of innocence and earnestness, and there's not a drop of cynicism in sight. The wacky shit that happens doesn't feel like a product of a bunch of assholes sitting around in a boardroom trying to develop the next meme, or the next sequence that could go viral on YouTube. It's just, like, why not give a monkey a pack of chewing gum so it can blow a bubble and float in the air to get the player across a lake? Because it's Earthbound, duh. Every scenario in the game feels like it's engineered solely to put a smile on the player's face, and nothing more.
Yeah, like someone said earlier, there's nothing callous or mean-spirited in this game. When it satirizes something, it does so with sentimentality and sweetness. It's the West circa the 1990s, as seen through the unique lens of the East, but in essence it captures childhood in general — the trials and triumphs, the "smiles and tears," the sense of innocent wide-eyed wonder. All of the quirky characters you meet along the way are endearingly idiosyncratic; many have their flaws as people, but they still have heart, and they're worth saving... or beating senseless to make them "tame" again!
EarthBound is a special game. And it was such a treat for me to see Ness pop up in the original Super Smash Bros. It felt like this weird, quirky game hadn't been forgotten. That Nintendo was acknowledging it by having Ness alongside mainstays like Mario, Link, Kirby, and the others.
Super Smash Bros has been so good to the Mother/EarthBound series. Like I say in the OP, it was Ness in SSB64 — and then the Onett and Fourside stages in Melee, plus all of the trophies for Paula, Jeff, etc — that led me to the community of starmen.net. From there I got swept up in their crusade to re-release EarthBound on the VC, and bring over Mother 3 to the West. Then Brawl came out with playable Lucas, the Pokey boss in Subspace Emissary, the Jeff assist trophy and New Pork City (a stage I appreciated, despite the critics). Not to mention the wealth of music.
Most recently, there was the Starman assist trophy and breathtaking Magicant stage in SSB4. Details like Dungeon Man wandering along the bottom of the screen, the Skyrunner and Mobile Sprout, etc, had me keen to know more. It'd be nice if the rumored Smash NX has a remastered version of that stage!
Top 2 JRPG for me along with Final Fantasy IX. I doubt many games could get away with being as straight-up weird as Earthbound, but the game just nails it with how earnest it comes across in its presentation. Earthbound is the only JRPG where I go out of my way to talk to every NPC. Damn near every scenario in the game (Happy Happy cult, Dungeon Man) is clever and memorable. Just a warm, cozy game with a big heart and superb execution.
Yeah, I was trying to think of my "favorite part" in EarthBound, and nothing stands out over anything else. Everything is good.
Also, you mention FFIX. I was intrigued by previews of that game as a kid; I think its world and characters even inspired me creatively at the time in my writings and drawings. But I haven't played it. With the recent re-release, it's another game I've been thinking about lately.
But I think I'll try another of your favorites first: Super Metroid. It looks great on N3DS. I have a good feeling about it this time. But I'm still basking in the afterglow of EarthBound.
I've had this thread open all day because it's so well-done and I honestly don't want the discussion to end. I love this game through and through. On my last player, I was able to do the unthinkable.
This may be a random question, but are there any games that remind people of Earthbound that are available on the Vita?
I actually found the Sword of Kings, as well! It was the only weapon I found that Poo could equip. I also found two other items he could use (I believe they were called the Cloak of Kings and Bracer of Kings), but I don't recall finding a fourth item for him. Or maybe I did and didn't realize I could equip it, lol.
Looking into it now, I see the Sword of Kings has a 1 in 128 drop rate. Guess I got lucky!
It's pretty much impossible for me to pick a favorite scenario — they're all so good! — but I think I might nominate Dusty Dunes or the first scenario in Winters as the stretch that best embodies the game's density of ideas, or quirkiness per capita.
In Dusty Dunes, you encounter gridlock traffic, a convenience store selling wet towels, Talah Rama and the teleporting monkeys, the bakery man's missing contact lens, talking cattle bones, the sunbathers who aren't corpses, the black and white sesame seeds who are in love, the gold miners who don't care for diamonds, the mariachi men acting as slot machines, etc, all one after another.
In Winters, you go from a boarding school full of inventors to a convenience store with a bubblegum-chewing monkey, and through the snowy woods to the camp of Tessie watchers, and then across the lake to the first Brick Road dungeon and the cave with Rainy Circle, followed by Stonehenge with the bears and cavemen, and Dr. Andonuts' lab with the Skyrunner. So many ideas!
Meanwhile, I'd nominate the stretch of Kraken -> Scaraba -> Deep Darkness -> Tenda Village -> Lost Underworld as a case for the game's strong sense of adventure. It's like every pulp adventure compressed into one amazing act! I especially liked the gimmick in Lost Underworld, where they convey the size of the roaming dinosaurs by making you and your party a few pixels tall on the map, moving super-slowly. So cute!
And of course I have a fondness for all of the cities and towns... So many good moments. This game! <3
I actually found the Sword of Kings, as well! It was the only weapon I found that Poo could equip. I also found two other items he could use (I believe they were called the Cloak of Kings and Bracer of Kings), but I don't recall finding a fourth item for him. Or maybe I did and didn't realize I could equip it, lol.
Looking into it now, I see the Sword of Kings has a 1 in 128 drop rate. Guess I got lucky!
So I'm not sure how to ask this, but how is Mother 3? Feel free to approach that however you want: General premise, cast of characters, places you visit, enemies you encounter, etc. I'm OK with mild spoilers, although try to preserve the big surprises.
I know Lucas has a twin Claus, their dad is the cowboy Flint, and I know something happens to their mom. I know they live in the Nowhere Islands, which include friendly dinosaurs. I know there's a Pig Mask Army that's doing... something, and a Masked Man (and yes, I know his identity, although not why or how it happens). I know that Pokey returns as the villain, and is now the ruler of New Pork City. I know there's a thief named Duster and a pink-haired princess named Kumatora... Also a monkey named Salsa and a dog named Boney, I think.
I also think I saw a screenshot of one scenario where there are ghosts in a rundown bar drinking wine, and the wine simply falls through them forming puddles on the ground, lol.
But yeah, that's more or less the extent of my knowledge about Mother 3. Maybe you guys can tell me more to whet my appetite for what I hope will be an E3 localized release!
So I'm not sure how to ask this, but how is Mother 3? Feel free to approach that however you want: General premise, cast of characters, places you visit, enemies you encounter, etc. I'm OK with mild spoilers, although try to preserve the big surprises.
I know Lucas has a twin Claus, their dad is the cowboy Flint, and I know something happens to their mom. I know they live in the Nowhere Islands, which include friendly dinosaurs. I know there's a Pig Mask Army that's doing... something, and a Masked Man (and yes, I know his identity, although not why or how it happens). I know that Pokey returns as the villain, and is now the ruler of New Pork City. I know there's a thief named Duster and a pink-haired princess named Kumatora... Also a monkey named Salsa and a dog named Boney, I think.
I also think I saw a screenshot of one scenario where there are ghosts in a rundown bar drinking wine, and the wine simply falls through them forming puddles on the ground, lol.
But yeah, that's more or less the extent of my knowledge about Mother 3. Maybe you guys can tell me more to whet my appetite for what I hope will be an E3 localized release!
The entirely optional rhythm-based combo system in battle winds up being SO FUN. There winds up being something of a push and pull risk/reward between rushing through battle for the sake of the rolling HP meters versus taking your time to hit the battle rhythms. It's a weird deal, because Mother 2 and Mother 3 are fairly clearly made by the same creative voice, and they have a ton in common (with some of the more dated aspects of Mother 2 getting streamlined a bit in the final game). I would say that on a game mechanics level, it has aged the best for a playing-for-the-first-time audience. However, the mood isn't really the same as M2, but the narrative winds up feeling really resonant in a more serious way than you may be expecting. That said, when the game wants to be funny, it is HILARIOUS.
When you start the game, you may just take it at first for the first few hours to be some sort of EarthBound: 1800s Period Piece Edition, but suffice it to say that there is a lot more going on under the hood than you may expect.
Explore everything, take every opportunity offered to check everything out and read every bit of text that strikes your fancy. Note that there are a couple of jukeboxes in the game that play multiple otherwise unused songs, not merely just one song each, the one in the filthy cafe seemingly being full of songs that were originally going to be used in the N64 version of Mother 3 that were since cut, and the one in the bedroom is full of some songs that will give you some comfort in the middle of a fairly difficult stretch.
My strongest advice is that you choose the twin Bucket Brothers to drain the lake.
I'll say that Mother 3 is much more story focused than Earthbound, and in fact has one of my favorite stories in all of gaming. It goes over some much darker topics than Earthbound such as breaking up of families, abusive parent-child relationships, animal abuse/enslavement, and so on, but nonetheless always maintains a light-hearted tone with some hilarious writing and visual humor. The game's namesake, "Mother" also turns out to actually be a strong prevailing theme throughout the game.
On the gameplay front, battles are much improved with each character having unique skills and your PSI abilities being expanded on with new stuff like stat buff/nerf moves. And when you're not using PSI (which is a lot more than in Earthbound), you can now chain attacks together to the rhythm of the fight to do extra damage. This is pretty difficult to get used to though and the in-game explanation is quite poor, so don't worry if you take a while to get the hang of it.
I also think Mother 3 is more difficult overall, but not in a grindy kind of way, it's more like you have more options than you did in Earthbound and you're expected take advantage them, or else you will struggle.
Outside of battle there's now a dedicated run button which makes traversal smoother and can also be used out-maneuver enemies.
I started playing Super Metroid last night. I've tried getting into it multiple times before, but it never clicked. Then again, the same was once true of EarthBound. I'm hoping I'll finally see in Super Metroid what others see in it. I'm also thinking about starting Pilotwings SNES.
I had to change the controls in Super Metroid so that run and jump are more like DKC2. I think the biggest adjustment is Samus' jump. Did she linger in the air like this in Fusion or Zero Mission? I can't remember. I know the game is designed around it, but it's still tricky for me at this point.
So yeah, I'm chipping away Super Metroid. But man, I kinda just want to start another play-through of EarthBound. It feels especially satisfying having it on a portable. It's like you're holding Ness' world in the palm of your hand. :-3
I feel tired every time I look at TW101. Good game, but its relentless pace burned me out one chapter from the end. And I was playing just one chapter a night!
I do feel the urge to go back to Xenoblade — I miss the characters, especially Shulk — but I hesitate to talk about it here because these days people just take it as an opportunity to shit on X, which was my 2015 GOTY. Sad that sequels lead people to elevate one and tear down the other.
As for Mother 3... All of those rumors about its imminent localization, from Emily Rogers and others, has me hopeful it'll be a surprise at E3 2016. Playing with an unofficial fan translation will never quite feel right to me, regardless of quality.
(Although I'll sing a different tune if Nintendo uses it!)
I feel tired every time I look at TW101. Good game, but its relentless pace burned me out one chapter from the end. And I was playing just one chapter a night!
I do feel the urge to go back to Xenoblade — I miss the characters, especially Shulk — but I hesitate to talk about it here because these days people just take it as an opportunity to shit on X, which was my 2015 GOTY. Sad that sequels lead people to elevate one and tear down the other.
As for Mother 3... All of those rumors about its imminent localization, from Emily Rogers and others, has me hopeful it'll be a surprise at E3 2016. Playing with an unofficial fan translation will never quite feel right to me, regardless of quality.
(Although I'll sing a different tune if Nintendo uses it!)
Considering you are the hype man I am pretty sure you will come around Wonderful 101 too when you experience the ending, even some people that hate the game love the ending.
Also that's kind of a silly reason to not play Xenoblade, I am pretty sure a Xenoblade centric LTTP thread would only have about 50% of the thread complaining about X.
Okay 80%
I'd probably complain about some aspects of X on your LTTP too
I love to picture poor lil' Paula, her mind trapped in a robot body eons in the past, her friends fallen around her, facing incomprehensible evil and overwhelming forces of darkness, and reaching out with a prayer... and her prayer transcending time and space to reach her family, Jeff's family, the Runaway Five, etc, who all offer up their strength, and turn the tides of battle, repelling Giygas not through force but through love.
That's the most amazing part of all. This is a JRPG where, yes, you kill a god, but not with weapons or magic. You stop Giygas with a heartfelt prayer. You negate hate with love.
...and speaking of Paula, I really want her in Smash Bros. It's a bit odd, in retrospect, how Ness has most of her moves, but for her normals she could wield her frying pan and teddy bear, and for her Final Smash she could pray!
I read a description of Earthbound way back that really resonated with me - the game feels like it was made by a child. Not a game for a child, but a game made by a child who was basically told "go nuts". "Yeah, so first the heroes are going to fight a giant puke monster, then there's going to be zombies everywhere, and later everyone is gonna turn into robots!". The game is batshit crazy, but it's all pulled off with a sense of innocence and earnestness, and there's not a drop of cynicism in sight. The wacky shit that happens doesn't feel like a product of a bunch of assholes sitting around in a boardroom trying to develop the next meme, or the next sequence that could go viral on YouTube. It's just, like, why not give a monkey a pack of chewing gum so it can blow a bubble and float in the air to get the player across a lake? Because it's Earthbound, duh. Every scenario in the game feels like it's engineered solely to put a smile on the player's face, and nothing more.
I feel like that's both true and untrue. It's definitely got the childish whimsy going on. But there are a lot of things about the characters and situations that strike me as frank and worldly. There's something distinctly mature there, and not in the ESRB sense.
For some examples, look at the Orange Kid / Apple Kid situation. Apple Kid's got the intelligence, the practicality, the good intentions. But Orange Kid is the one who gets the glory, the money, the women. Why? Entirely because people are superficial, and Apple Kid doesn't seem to know how to market himself as well. Everdred's a criminal, although we don't know exactly what he deals in, and the wad of bills he gives you is probably dirty money. And look at Dr. Andonuts, who sees his son for the first time in years and still can barely be distracted from his work.
But you're right in that there's no cynicism even despite that. Apple Kid doesn't seem to mind being unpopular once Ness helps him out, Everdred still serves the greater good, and Dr. Andonuts connects with his son through his actions even if they don't talk much. So these things end up feeling less like a criticism and more of "well, that's just how life is, but that's okay."
The comparison that comes to my mind is Dragonball. Dragonball's actually incredibly misanthropic. If you look at the heroes, Bulma and Krillin started off as cowardly, selfish tricksters. Roshi's a sleazebag. Yamcha was a bandit, Piccolo is the reincarnation of a world-conquering demon, Vegeta had genocide in his job description. And half of the random humans you see in the series are jerks, with the cities in particular being full of muggers and bank robbers. It's shouldn't be surprising to learn that Akira Toriyama much prefers life in the country than in Tokyo. But somehow all of the bad guys either end up cleaning up their act and becoming reliable friends or getting their comeuppance, so it ends up feeling like a really optimistic feel-good work as a whole.
So I'm not sure how to ask this, but how is Mother 3? Feel free to approach that however you want: General premise, cast of characters, places you visit, enemies you encounter, etc. I'm OK with mild spoilers, although try to preserve the big surprises.
The other posts have had a solid overview of Mother 3 so far, so I'll just give my opinions. Bear in mind, I'm in the camp that thinks EarthBound is better. I don't think that it's a particularly divisive game: most people agree that it's good, but it seems that EarthBound is generally preferred in Japan whereas Mother 3 is better liked in the West.
Whether you prefer Mother 3 or EarthBound will probably be made or broken on how you feel about the more focused storytelling. Personally, I feel as though it takes away that vagueness that makes EarthBound fun to think about and question. You get a much better sense of exactly who the characters, which means that you can't fill in the gaps yourself so much. That's not to say that there's nothing there to discuss, there's probably more there than most games, I just think there's less of it.
I don't get the same sense of whimsy from Mother 3 as with EarthBound. There's weirdness, sure, but a lot more of it is clearly tied to the story and isn't meant to be as innocent. Sometimes they throw in stuff which strikes me as if it's going through the motions. I think part of this is just that the same sort of humour might be unfitting in such a serious story.
Since the setting of Mother 3 is totally different than the previous two games, the feeling of exploration also ends up being different. You do explore and you do meet people, but the game's still revolves primarily around one area and the people who live there. I don't think that's totally bad though. There's less of an experience of crossing a wide world full of weird people, but there are still a bunch of people you meet, and you interact with them for a greater amount of time. It's like Clock Town from Majora's Mask in that sense, where there's sort of a micro-exploration.
The game also has a very different theme from the other games, and a pretty unique theme for video gaming in general. Not going to highlight any story events, but since this might be something you'd rather read afterward, I'll spoiler tag it:
Mother 3 strikes me as a game that is totally centered around growing older. I don't mean that Lucas will end the game with a beard and a cane, but that the game is meant to reproduce the feelings associated with the aging and the experiences that come with it. In fact, I think this theme permeates throughout the work so thoroughly that we see it even in the mechanics. When Lucas or Kumatora get a new PK power; a growing pain from your character's developing psychic abilities. Itoi has compared it with menstruation.
I remember when Earthbound came out, the gross scratch n sniff ads in EGM. Didn't interest me in the slightest. FFVI had just come out and when I looked at Earthbound it just felt like "Are you kidding me? Puh-leez." Probably not quite 10 years later I finally tried it on ZSNES. After less than an hour I lost interest and never touched it again. But I dunno, I'm determined to actually play it someday. Bought on the Wii U VC a few weeks back... not sure when I'll get around to it.
I wrote an essay years ago for a website contest (in which I won a copy of Soul Bubbles, which is also a fantastic game) that I thought I'd share in this thread. I wrote this in October of 2008. I know most of the stuff in this essay has been covered already in the thread, but I've loved this game for a seriously long time. I got a physical cartridge shortly after writing this essay, and I try to go through the game at least once a year.
Earthbound: a study in two parts
Earthbound is one of the best games ever made. It also flopped. How can a game so good flop as it did in North America? Only 140,000 copies of this gem were sold, compared to twice that number in Japan with its lower base population. To explore this very absurd part of gaming history, it is necessary to understand the components that made Earthbound fucking sweet. Only then can you begin to see why it flopped, and start to understand why it has not been released for Virtual Console.
Part one: Why it is fucking amazing
Earthbound is fucking amazing for a multitude of reasons, but the primary reason is the humor. Talking to everyone is a must while you play through the game, because you never know what they are going to say. Like the zombies in Threed calling you a monster, or the guy that says "Last night there was a solitaire tournament. I lost my shirt ", or even the lovable camera guy that tells you to say "Fuzzy pickles!" Lets not even forget about the bicycle. You get the bicycle in Twoson for free, and the second Paula joins your party, it becomes unusable because it is a bicycle built for one! Once you beat the game, you are free to roam the world with Ness, and now you can once again use the bicycle to get around faster. The names of some of the characters are outrageous too, like the slot machine brothers named Pincho, Pancho, and Tomas Jefferson. This is just a sampling of the humor, as the game is just chock full of things like that.
The battle system is really good too. Earthbound has a rolling HP meter, so when you take damage you dont instantly drop down to your new level of health, but your HP drops visibly over time. This means you can get a heal in on someone that was about to die and reverse the meter. You can also end battles while someone is about to die and they will be OK, as the meter stops rolling when the battle ends. There are even enemies that take advantage of that. When you kill some enemies, they will explode, doing a massive amount of damage. This prompts the player to pummel the a button trying to avoid as much of the damage as possible.
Part two: How Nintendo fucked it up
The marketing for the game was just horrible. The ad slogan was This game stinks! and the ad itself was a bunch of screenshots that had little to do with what made the game good. Plus, it had Master Belch burping on it without context, making it seem as if the entire game was a string of bathroom jokes. The ad just did not do the game justice. The commercial was even worse. It had very little to show about the game as well, as it showed none of the humor and very little of the combat system. Nintendo did not try to sell the game very hard at all.
The poor marketing is not the only thing that contributed to low sales. In 1995, Japanese RPGs were not doing that well in North America to begin with. There wasnt much of a demand for them, and with the way Earthbound was advertised it looked like it was just another JRPG. Add in the sub-par graphics and there just wasnt really any room for Earthbound to grow. Perhaps if Nintendo had realized how underdeveloped the JRPG market was they would have pushed to change the conception using Earthbound.
So there you have it: two parts of an essay designed to enter a contest for Soul Bubbles. Much like Earthbound, this essay is pretty awesome. However, also like Earthbound, it is likely to flop horribly, never to be released on VC and likely sequels never translated into English. Finally, to quote a man that might not be worth quoting: "In conclusion, ultimately, the end is the final apex of the pinnacle, the end."
I feel tired every time I look at TW101. Good game, but its relentless pace burned me out one chapter from the end. And I was playing just one chapter a night!
I do feel the urge to go back to Xenoblade I miss the characters, especially Shulk but I hesitate to talk about it here because these days people just take it as an opportunity to shit on X, which was my 2015 GOTY. Sad that sequels lead people to elevate one and tear down the other.
As for Mother 3... All of those rumors about its imminent localization, from Emily Rogers and others, has me hopeful it'll be a surprise at E3 2016. Playing with an unofficial fan translation will never quite feel right to me, regardless of quality.
(Although I'll sing a different tune if Nintendo uses it!)
Considering you are the hype man I am pretty sure you will come around Wonderful 101 too when you experience the ending, even some people that hate the game love the ending.
Also that's kind of a silly reason to not play Xenoblade, I am pretty sure a Xenoblade centric LTTP thread would only have about 50% of the thread complaining about X.
Okay 80%
I'd probably complain about some aspects of X on your LTTP too
Kinda funny how this game was apparently critiqued for its "simple" graphics when it first came out in the West, but now those same graphics seem charming, resonant, timeless, etc, and you have countless indie titles that attempt to capture the same feel.
I also find myself listening to the soundtrack on repeat, especially the Runaway Five remix that plays during the roll call at the end. I think I hear the Onett theme and maybe Smiles and Tears mixed in, as well. The OST is consistently great. Who composed this soundtrack, and what else have they worked on?
The more I think about it, the more I think EarthBound is a Top Three SNES title for me, up there with DKC2 and... something else. I'd have to think long and hard about the third title. Maybe I can cheat and say EarthBound = DKC2 for No. 1, and then pick two others, lol.
By extension, this means EarthBound is definitely an all-time favorite for me. What a game!!
Just beat this on my n3DS for the first time, though I've played it countless times in the past, I never beat it.
That final fight with Giygas was very emotional and made me tear up. The game itself is a very emotional experience and it definitely feels nostalgic and reminds you of your childhood...even if you didn't play Earthbound in your childhood. It just has that warm, inviting feeling.
This game made me crack up with some of the NPC dialogue and it made me want to talk to absolutely everybody, which is something I actually don't make a habit of doing despite the fact I play a lot of JRPGs.
Lastly I'm really happy with the variety of environments and dungeons in the game. From snowy Winters to hot Summers, the heights of Pink Cloud and the lows of Deep Darkness there's an absolutely impressive amount of variety in terms of the areas the player is able to visit.
Fuck 1/128 drops though man. Grinded for 5 hours in Stonehenge trying to get a Sword of Kings and I never got it. Decided to reset without saving since my guys were so op and I wanted to preserve some of the remaining challenge. SoK isn't necessary but it still stings.
The more I reflect on this game, the more impressed I am, not just with it as an experience, but also as a game.
The latest realization? I didn't have to grind. I just played the game. Sure, I had to try some areas a few times, and I'm sure the strength gained from the previous attempts helped. But I never had to go out of my way to grind. I just... played the game.
Also, the handful of maze-like dungeons in the game weren't overwhelming. Through simple process of elimination, I could always find my way... None of the dungeons felt tedious to go through. And any time I fell in battle, I always felt like I could handle it next time.
And I used all of the options available to me. That's something I rarely do in RPGs, but here it was natural. I used all of my PSI powers. I used all of Jeff's inventions. I used all of the items I came across. I used everything. I felt encouraged to experiment and it was rewarding to do so.
The game is also smart about backtracking. Need to go back to Dusty Dunes from Fourside? Just take a bus this time and it'll give you the option to hop out in the desert. Need to go back to Fourside from Dusty Dunes? Use the Teleport skill you just learned in the desert.
Smart shortcuts, manageable dungeons, no need to grind — the game is quite user-friendly when you think about it. I appreciate that this is a JRPG I can finish in ~30 hours. I much prefer that to a 200+ hour-long game. Every part of the game had a point. It's memorable and emotionally resonant from start to finish, creating a singular effect that warms your heart just thinking of it.
A true masterpiece. Playing this alongside DKC2 and F-Zero, I'm in SNES heaven.
It really is. Like I said, it's now tied with DKC2 for my No. 1 game on SNES. The two titles provide very different experiences but complement each other well.
Going through my collection of screenshots, there are so many nice details in EarthBound. I'll share more of them with my thoughts, if/when we reach the next page of this thread.
It really is. Like I said, it's now tied with DKC2 for my No. 1 game on SNES. The two titles provide very different experiences but complement each other well.
