Earthbound

 

So I finally finished Earthbound, THE cult game that everyone spoke of and with Ness (a character possessing strong psychic abilities) in Super Smash Bros poked everyone's interest who hadn't played the game, including me. So Nintendo finally released the game for the virtual console all across the world so the first thing I got from the virtual console when I bought the Wii U was this game since I was clearly interested. That was half a year ago and I finished it this Sunday. I gotta say, I will probably be threatened by the Earthbound fans, cause it wasn't really my thing... Please don't kill me! Really, I can see why so many like it. It's charming, charming as hell, the music, the world, the characters and all the wacky things that happens. Sadly it isn't enough for me to say this is the best game of all time. Let us begin with the story. A meteor hits outside your house so you go out investigate and later meet up with your obnoxious bully neighbor Pokey. There you meet Buzz Buzz, an intergalactic police bee that tells you about Giygas, this alien overlord that will conquer earth if Ness doesn't stop him. Buzz Buzz gets killed by Pokey's mother and you set out to finish the job. On the way you meet Paula, another psychic and apparent love interest (well they appear to be around 10 years old so not much more than close friends, but still), Jeff scientific engineer  and Poo, a psychic martial artist and future king of some enlightened society.

One reason I might not get this instant love might be the rpg sin for leaving the game for a month or two before continuing, putting me in the dark at certain times on where I'm supposed to go and what some things do. Still, didn't stop me from enjoying the final battle. This gonna be spoilers so heads up if you care. So to fight Giygas you must travel to the center of the earth in a transporter. There you find out that it isn't enough since you need to travel back in time as well by putting your soul into robots (almost a reversed Terminator time travel). You find Giygas and Pokey who (for some reason) appears to be the brains behind Giygas since Giygas have gone mad for some unknown reason (how Pokey got there I didn't quite get). You fight of Pokey which leaves you alone with Giygas. To defeat Giygas you need Paula to use Pray (the game gives you a hint by making Pokey mock you that no one will save you and you are all alone so you are supposed to get that you "pray for help" even though as far as my understanding went Pray only gave you some small HP recovery, figure that out) that will ask your friends and families you meet on the journey for aid, in the end that isn't enough. So Paula prays out into a void a couple of times. First her prayer disappears, but then it grows stronger and stronger and this unknown character hears this and joins in the praying. Each time a couple of letters gets displayed until the whole name is shown, showing the name that you entered as your name, meaning it's you who prays. That's pretty neat. Must have been rather unique at that time to put you the player in. Today I can mention Baiten Kaitos and Bravely Default that have done it even more (I won't say better, but put more hints of it into the game that you as a player guided the main characters). Your prayer deals huge amount of damage and kills Giygas. The characters souls return to their bodies, the group goes there separate ways and Ness takes Paula home and then goes home himself and tells his mother about his adventure by showing her the album a photographer made during the journey. And then after the credits roll the game seems to start over, but when you open the front door you get a letter from Pokey telling Ness to try and catch him. The End...? A damn cliffhanger. Well, lets see if it takes another 20 years until we get Mother 3 (or even Mother 1) to the rest of the world.

So the story is fine, the ending is good so what's the problem? Small things that just irritates me, but first let's discuss the good gameplay aspects. No random encounters, and best of all, if you are over leveled and you accidentally walked into a low level enemy the screen goes black and the enemy auto-dies. THANK GOD! Best rpg mechanic ever. The HP/PP counter is neat (if you get hit the counter rolls down and if you are fast enough you can reverse a deadly hit with a cure spell or such). The bad then, why isn't there a window or button that lets you see that the different healing spells does? Do I have to memorize it (or use a guide by the side)? It's get obnoxiousness if one character starts to cry and I chose to use healing alpha instead of healing beta wasting a turn and some PP, all because I couldn't memorize what spell does what. Also equipping weapons. Mostly Ness is affected by this, but it's still irritating. Some weapons miss a lot more than others. Do you see a lowered accuracy indicating that is the problem? No. Use a damn guide that anyone that bought it in the US back in the day got. Just irritates me. And now the most irritating thing ever, the damn self-destruct enemies. In Final Fantasy, bombs for example will self-destruct on you if you push them into the danger zone without finishing them giving you a tactic of giving all to avoid damage. Here, if you kill them they will self-destruct on you, making you taking damage whatever you do (if you aren't over leveled so you kill them without a fight). And guess what, the end-game is riddled with them, draining your HP and PP all the way to the final boss. It just frustrated the hell out of me. That's not good gameplay, cause I can't do anything against it, except run. Also the teleport mechanic means you either need a straight line or big area to run around in to activate it. More often then not I run into something, waste my PP and need to redo it. Small things like that is probably why I'm not overjoyed, and the hype around it probably didn't help. Maybe a second playthrough in the future without month long absence make me appreciate it more. Again, don't kill me!