so
this may come as a shock to you. this might not. but i have been an undertale and deltarune fan ever since I first heard about the games. i believe it was a sans simulator made on scratch (a half decent one if my memory serves) that introduced me to undertale, and from there i learned about deltarune through a youtube video comparing the differences between beating chapter 1 violently and as a pacifist (i still in my head think of deltarune as SURVEY_PROGRAM and i'm still mildly upset that chapter 1's charm and surprise, which were brought forth in large part because of that, got reduced heavily)
that's cool. so why am i talking about it.
because i'm going to be talking about a different, much older game.
Earthbound (or Mother 2, if that rings more bells for you) is among one of Toby Fox's greatest inspirations when it comes to both Undertale and Deltarune. The entire Mother series is, if i recall, but there is specifically some Earthbound paint over just the little ways Toby writes. Anyways, with my love for UTDR established, and a hearing about a great game (NEVER had i met a man who played earthbound and refused to glaze it), I set off an adventure, hunting for a SNES emulator (not hard to find) and an online copy of Earthbound (hereby referred to as EB for my fingers, and similarly not hard to find).
I was promised the world.
and that's. everything i have to say about the game.
would i reccomend you play the game?
yes. but only if you accept there will be hardship and struggle.
like real life, earthbound is only rewarding if you keep troughing through difficulty and trying to make it to a better place.
but if you do?
i promise you that you won't forget it.
this may come as a shock to you. this might not. but i have been an undertale and deltarune fan ever since I first heard about the games. i believe it was a sans simulator made on scratch (a half decent one if my memory serves) that introduced me to undertale, and from there i learned about deltarune through a youtube video comparing the differences between beating chapter 1 violently and as a pacifist (i still in my head think of deltarune as SURVEY_PROGRAM and i'm still mildly upset that chapter 1's charm and surprise, which were brought forth in large part because of that, got reduced heavily)
that's cool. so why am i talking about it.
because i'm going to be talking about a different, much older game.
Earthbound (or Mother 2, if that rings more bells for you) is among one of Toby Fox's greatest inspirations when it comes to both Undertale and Deltarune. The entire Mother series is, if i recall, but there is specifically some Earthbound paint over just the little ways Toby writes. Anyways, with my love for UTDR established, and a hearing about a great game (NEVER had i met a man who played earthbound and refused to glaze it), I set off an adventure, hunting for a SNES emulator (not hard to find) and an online copy of Earthbound (hereby referred to as EB for my fingers, and similarly not hard to find).
I was promised the world.
and at first i was immensely dissapointed.
EB's primary and unique feature with it's HP system is that it is a live counter. Instead of taking all the damage at once, characters take damage over time as you spend time going through animations and mashing through textboxes. This is a great mechanic and one of the great ways EB makes late game fights feel like less of a slog and more of fighting for your life.
i do feel like i would have appreciated it a bit more if i didn't have the shit kicked out of me.
(See below: Reason why early EB makes me mad)
it's infuriating when an RPG has barely anything to offer in it's earliest stages. I think EB has a very egregious early game. Everything kicks the snot out of you and it doesn't really stop kicking the snot out of you until you finally get a lucky kill on one of the skate punks and then level until it's not a one-sided murder whenever they run right up to you. i think EB, up until Paula joins your party is top ten most sloggiest experiences i've ever had in a video game. I'm also going to go ahead and say that designing your game around a guide you include with the game is horrible game design. if you DIE after interacting with the iron pencil, it breaks the sequence and makes you do the whole thing again (it's NOT HARD TO DIE EITHER. guide does not tell you this at all. i didn't even know the guide existed at this point, i was using hint man and he didn't have anything to say). this iron pencil ate 2 hours of what would have been 30 minutes of my life that i could have spent enjoying the good parts of EB! Too bad this game was invented before people knew how to make good games!!!!!
ok so that was my initial line of thinking. it is very unfair to earthbound to compare it to better games like Undertale and Deltarune. yep. cats out of the bag. sorry guys. i don't have to wait 5 hours for my video game to get good! but it is fairly unfair to EB to critique it as a modern game. It released in the era of RPGs where you fought monsters and sometimes capture them but mostly just fight them and mash buttons and grind (which EB doesn't really have a lot of in my experience). in that regard this must have been a breath of fresh air! but even so, you do have to draw a line where you say "how the fuck did they expect me to do that" and i drew that line very early.
so. my mood soured, i gained toby's most obvious inspiration for Noelle (she starts off with a very highly damaging and very strong freeze magic spell) and then. well, the game became far less awful. after all that apple kid nonsense and stuff, it felt. nice to understand what i was supposed to do for once. from there, i started enjoying EB with a lot less bitterness in the mouth. I very much enjoyed Jeff's intro sequence. i was straight up cheering! Woo hoo! Yay!!! I got through Threed without issue.
and then.
then the game reminded me that it could always go back to awfulness.
Fourside Department Store is quite possibly the most awful and disgusting sequence i have EVER done in a video game. EVER. if i ever run a class on bad game design, i will make all of my students play this segment and write an essay on why it sucks.
So. envision an enemy that does almost all of your health in damage. it does this every single turn. jeff down to 10, ness to just above half. you move second because the enemies outspeed you. this is the fear mythical record will install in you. you'll be drowning in hospital visits, not least because your only real shot on beating the boss at the top (YEs THERE IS A BOSS TO FIGHT AFTER THE FUCKING ENEMIES THAT KILL YOU CONSISTENTLY ALL OF THE TIME) is keeping jeff alive so he can dump 3 rockets directly into the boss.
but mythical record isn't bad enough on it's own! you are also introduced to musica who 1. oneshots jeff with electric attacks and 2. CAN PUT YOU TO SLEEP BEFORE YOU GET TO MOVE
NEVER has an image resonated nor will resonate with me more than these stupid fucking evil pieces of walking talking bad game design appearing RIGHT AFTER THE GAME GETS GOOD! IT'S MADDENING.
when i fought musica mythical record for the first time, i realised that the glazers hadn't played the game in twenty years and had forgotten the segment which FUCKINGJAWELUFI QLWRGHQUPFHUEHGQUERGQERGQGEUHQP;GTOUEQGHQOE;HG
and then the game is fine afterwards. apparently moonside was hard? but i didn't really experience that. it's. it's just frustrating it took THIS LONG.
from there onwards, the gameplay improves with the aforementioned health mechanic. Battles are engaging. You are rewarded for reserving your TP, the spells you cast gain in power and with specer animations, and Poo, your fourth member, adds an additonal healer for whenever ness doesn't fucking feel like it that day, and with the exception of magicant (which i loathe the casey bat for not telling anyone about it's hidden and infuriating downside. rest in peace sweet birdmen), the rest of the game played out very nicely in comparsion.
wow. that was the gameplay. so like 4 out of 10. fuck this maaaaan. yeesh. i'm glad i grew up with games that recognise not to make nightmare segments.
moving on. with earthbound, in terms of dialogue. I was promised the world.
EB's primary and unique feature with it's HP system is that it is a live counter. Instead of taking all the damage at once, characters take damage over time as you spend time going through animations and mashing through textboxes. This is a great mechanic and one of the great ways EB makes late game fights feel like less of a slog and more of fighting for your life.
i do feel like i would have appreciated it a bit more if i didn't have the shit kicked out of me.
(See below: Reason why early EB makes me mad)
it's infuriating when an RPG has barely anything to offer in it's earliest stages. I think EB has a very egregious early game. Everything kicks the snot out of you and it doesn't really stop kicking the snot out of you until you finally get a lucky kill on one of the skate punks and then level until it's not a one-sided murder whenever they run right up to you. i think EB, up until Paula joins your party is top ten most sloggiest experiences i've ever had in a video game. I'm also going to go ahead and say that designing your game around a guide you include with the game is horrible game design. if you DIE after interacting with the iron pencil, it breaks the sequence and makes you do the whole thing again (it's NOT HARD TO DIE EITHER. guide does not tell you this at all. i didn't even know the guide existed at this point, i was using hint man and he didn't have anything to say). this iron pencil ate 2 hours of what would have been 30 minutes of my life that i could have spent enjoying the good parts of EB! Too bad this game was invented before people knew how to make good games!!!!!
ok so that was my initial line of thinking. it is very unfair to earthbound to compare it to better games like Undertale and Deltarune. yep. cats out of the bag. sorry guys. i don't have to wait 5 hours for my video game to get good! but it is fairly unfair to EB to critique it as a modern game. It released in the era of RPGs where you fought monsters and sometimes capture them but mostly just fight them and mash buttons and grind (which EB doesn't really have a lot of in my experience). in that regard this must have been a breath of fresh air! but even so, you do have to draw a line where you say "how the fuck did they expect me to do that" and i drew that line very early.
so. my mood soured, i gained toby's most obvious inspiration for Noelle (she starts off with a very highly damaging and very strong freeze magic spell) and then. well, the game became far less awful. after all that apple kid nonsense and stuff, it felt. nice to understand what i was supposed to do for once. from there, i started enjoying EB with a lot less bitterness in the mouth. I very much enjoyed Jeff's intro sequence. i was straight up cheering! Woo hoo! Yay!!! I got through Threed without issue.
and then.
then the game reminded me that it could always go back to awfulness.
Fourside Department Store is quite possibly the most awful and disgusting sequence i have EVER done in a video game. EVER. if i ever run a class on bad game design, i will make all of my students play this segment and write an essay on why it sucks.
So. envision an enemy that does almost all of your health in damage. it does this every single turn. jeff down to 10, ness to just above half. you move second because the enemies outspeed you. this is the fear mythical record will install in you. you'll be drowning in hospital visits, not least because your only real shot on beating the boss at the top (YEs THERE IS A BOSS TO FIGHT AFTER THE FUCKING ENEMIES THAT KILL YOU CONSISTENTLY ALL OF THE TIME) is keeping jeff alive so he can dump 3 rockets directly into the boss.
but mythical record isn't bad enough on it's own! you are also introduced to musica who 1. oneshots jeff with electric attacks and 2. CAN PUT YOU TO SLEEP BEFORE YOU GET TO MOVE
NEVER has an image resonated nor will resonate with me more than these stupid fucking evil pieces of walking talking bad game design appearing RIGHT AFTER THE GAME GETS GOOD! IT'S MADDENING.
when i fought musica mythical record for the first time, i realised that the glazers hadn't played the game in twenty years and had forgotten the segment which FUCKINGJAWELUFI QLWRGHQUPFHUEHGQUERGQERGQGEUHQP;GTOUEQGHQOE;HG
and then the game is fine afterwards. apparently moonside was hard? but i didn't really experience that. it's. it's just frustrating it took THIS LONG.
from there onwards, the gameplay improves with the aforementioned health mechanic. Battles are engaging. You are rewarded for reserving your TP, the spells you cast gain in power and with specer animations, and Poo, your fourth member, adds an additonal healer for whenever ness doesn't fucking feel like it that day, and with the exception of magicant (which i loathe the casey bat for not telling anyone about it's hidden and infuriating downside. rest in peace sweet birdmen), the rest of the game played out very nicely in comparsion.
wow. that was the gameplay. so like 4 out of 10. fuck this maaaaan. yeesh. i'm glad i grew up with games that recognise not to make nightmare segments.
moving on. with earthbound, in terms of dialogue. I was promised the world.
and again, at first i was not the most impressed. For those who need a refresher, EB follows Ness and the friends he slowly accrues through the game's story, with the eventual end goal of defeating Giygas, who's Psychic influence is overwhelming to the point where his mere precense drives the wildlife crazy and even some of the people (like the happy happy villagers, extra cranky ladys, and so forth.) i enjoyed Pokey (or porky if you want to call him his proper name) and his comically childish and bad attempts to do anything, and moving around onett i only really grew attached to Frank (who just stabs you to death which is. slightly funny). Twoson had even less people that i enjoyed interacting with, and happy happy village failed to get laughs out of me due to the frustration i was having with the game at the time (green green was something i SHOULD have laughed). see the gameplay segment for how much i think EB's gameplay really knocks down it's other elements. it's only when i got to threed, and i completely finished the place for when i had my first tastes of enjoyment. The townspeople were happy, very happy i saved them. There were some who seemed to praise me heavily, others who thought they could have done it better. I think i started liking Earthbound, here. As the game became not miserable to play, i wasn't as mad and i could finally begin to appreciate the world more, the 4th wall jostling as many characters in the game acknowledged they were in EB, the characters who would go out of their way to do ridicolous shit (like the woman who stops you, says "i need to apologise" and then doesn't do anything else, Dungeon Man who follows you while being a fucking dungeon and also complusively adds Brick Road to the end of all his signs, Porky's dad in Fourside who fucking laughs at you in front of you despite his beef being with Ness' dad), Mr. Saturn in general, and more of the characters as I just made my way through the game. I think it was around Summers where i stopped going "i've got to get back to earthbound, i've sunk too much time into it" and started going "when am i going to get to play earthbound again". I started thinking about the game and how much I wanted to progress. I finally made it all the way to Magicant, the scene where Ness was a baby gave me many earned tears, and Porky's line here "Let's be friends forever, all right?" hurt on a visceral level. I've had many friends who have turned out terrible people or have cut ties with me and I usually end up missing the bond that was there.
We're also forgetting to mention Giygas, and i'm pretty sure you've heard a million praises for Giygas, but it's really impossible to say why he's one of the greatest final bosses without playing the game yourself. He's collapsing under his own psychic weight, his mind broken and ruined, only able to say odd dialogue like "...I'm h...a...p...p...y..." and "Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness...", his attacks are impossible to comprehend and the imagery is confronting.
you've seen this before.
and it's spawned theory upon theory about what Giygas and what he represents is
I am not qualified to speak on that, but it makes fighting Giygas feels especially strange, even by the standards of Earthbound.
Giygas affected me especially, more than anything else in the game for a great reason. Whenever I played a video game, i usually do little irl things that correspond to the games, whenever i casted PSI Freeze, i twisted a wrist and snapped my fingers, whenever Ness got the final kill with his bat i would jut my jaw out to the side. So of course,
When the game said I started to pray. I realised I had pressed my hands in prayer. I had tears streaking down my face as I was both read aloud Giygas' final cries and prayed that I was going to beat him.
I don't think I ever felt more relief in my life when i read
The War against Gigyas is over.
I think i can only praise Earthbound's story and world, to which in some aspects I think are a cut above UTDR (which was not something i intially thought i would think about this game, see my thoughts on Early EB)
I would reccomend struggling through Early EB for this. Geniunely. Ok. Last thing to touch on. Again, I was promised the world...
We're also forgetting to mention Giygas, and i'm pretty sure you've heard a million praises for Giygas, but it's really impossible to say why he's one of the greatest final bosses without playing the game yourself. He's collapsing under his own psychic weight, his mind broken and ruined, only able to say odd dialogue like "...I'm h...a...p...p...y..." and "Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness...", his attacks are impossible to comprehend and the imagery is confronting.
you've seen this before.
and it's spawned theory upon theory about what Giygas and what he represents is
I am not qualified to speak on that, but it makes fighting Giygas feels especially strange, even by the standards of Earthbound.
Giygas affected me especially, more than anything else in the game for a great reason. Whenever I played a video game, i usually do little irl things that correspond to the games, whenever i casted PSI Freeze, i twisted a wrist and snapped my fingers, whenever Ness got the final kill with his bat i would jut my jaw out to the side. So of course,
When the game said I started to pray. I realised I had pressed my hands in prayer. I had tears streaking down my face as I was both read aloud Giygas' final cries and prayed that I was going to beat him.
I don't think I ever felt more relief in my life when i read
The War against Gigyas is over.
I think i can only praise Earthbound's story and world, to which in some aspects I think are a cut above UTDR (which was not something i intially thought i would think about this game, see my thoughts on Early EB)
I would reccomend struggling through Early EB for this. Geniunely. Ok. Last thing to touch on. Again, I was promised the world...
i do want to preface this section with EB's music not being spectacular for the early parts of the game. That's really just because all of the themes are the battle themes, sancutary guardian (which has the meme "what?" soundbite. here's the track in case you don't know. it's 20 seconds in.
) and the UFO ambience track, which are fine but honestly don't hit me. addendum there's also franky theme (
) which is a nice one. but it's really only okay. Onett had an okay theme but the game really had me sold music wise at Twoson
This is Twoson's town theme and I think it's in competition for one of the best tracks in the entire game. It just has this really nice homey feel to it that really just makes the track pop out and feel really nice to listen to.
I'm going to go through tracks that i really like
this one plays when Ness is a baby in a flashback. it really elevates the scene. tearjerker. honorable mentions go to the your sanctuary themes after you beat a boss. they're this but weaker (because this is the complete version)
this one is the only one i would say gets dramatically better in game. you start up with weirdly 8-bit music against Porky and Giygas, before the music suddenly becomes infinitely more sinister and turns into Megolovania's uncle after the 8-bit.
another great town theme. most of the town themes in this game are great but fourside stands out. it's like twoson but really adventurous.
this plays at the end of the game and it's a really nice song to go with a great segment that undertale very much took for itself.
I'm going to go through tracks that i really like
would i reccomend you play the game?
yes. but only if you accept there will be hardship and struggle.
like real life, earthbound is only rewarding if you keep troughing through difficulty and trying to make it to a better place.
but if you do?
i promise you that you won't forget it.
