"OK, so its not the best SNES RPG, but its my favourite."

Just because a game didn't sell well, doesn't mean its good. Earthbound, generally, was a big, BIG flop in America. The original never made it to America on the NES, but this time, the SNES game did. Now, it wasn't bad or anything. I mean, it was great. It came in a huge ass box, that was great alone. But it came out in such a time where if an RPG wasn't by Square, then, no one would buy it. But those people that DID buy Earthbound were in for something great. Not every one liked it either, but Earthbound was a different kind of RPG. It was set in 199X, not some time a long time ago. It had baseball bats and frying pans as weapons. It had hippies and dogs as your enemies. This, is Earthbound.

So like I just said, Earthbound is a different kind of RPG. This game completely changed the RPG idea of having magic (although some did feature in the game), dragons and elves. Now, many disliked the idea, but I liked it. First hearing about Earthbound from Super Smash Bros (Ness, the main character featured in the game) I decided I had to play this game. The story line to Earthbound is almost identical to its predecessor, an evil alien from the future, Giygas, is trying to take over the world, well, in 10 years in the future. The prophecy tells of a Boy, his 2 male, and 1 female friends, defeating the Alien. A meteorite falls into the town of Onnet, in Eagleland, where Ness lives. He goes to check it out, and a warrior from the future comes to him, and he believes that Ness, is this boy. You must go on an adventure to collect 8 different music tunes, to form up one song, so you can connect your powers with the Earths powers (this will gain you a couple of levels). Then you can fight him. Pretty basic to those who have played Mother (the japanese name of the game), but its something different. Oh, and there aren't any crystals involved. Please note this is all explained within the introduction to the game.

Earthbound is played like a normal RPG game is. You have a birds eye view of the world, whilst your character, Ness and co trailing behind him, walk around. You can interact with different objects, via a menu. Pressing a certain button will bring up the menu, you can talk and stuff, or go into your inventory. You can save it by calling your dad with the telephone, its more or less like a classic save system, but with phones instead. Your money is gained by going to an ATM machine and using your card to deposit money put into your account by your dad, who puts it in the more you defeat enemies. Random battles are gone, instead, you can see the enemy on screen, allowing you to sometimes be tricky and dodge them. You can level up your characters, and the battle system is turn based, classical turn based. So far, Earthbound sounds like a pretty average, boring RPG game. So what makes it so good?

Earthbound is generally, a funny game. This quite obviously inspired the humour in the Mario SNES RPG game, as that was kind of funny. A lot of strange, goofy, wacky stuff will happen in Earthbound, something that isn't usually in a nintendo game. Also, the dungeons and towns are created great. There isn't a world map, instead, you just go through the towns, with the odd dungeon here and there for you to go through. Its great. One town your sticking zombies to zombie paper inside a circus, the next your trying to find someone inside a giant shopping mall (the power is down and crazed people are all over). Also, you can fight hippies. That makes this game better slightly.

The weapons and armour in the game has been improved as well. Nope, no more Magical Helmet of Fire Resisting Goodness, you get baseball caps, lucky charms and such other things to equip. Ness uses Baseball bats as his weapon, Paula, is the mage person, who uses Frying Pans, Jeff, the geek, uses guns (not machine gun like, but general ranged weapons) and Poo, the prince, uses nothing. I think there is a sword for him though. The magic is kind of classic though. Named PSI in Earthbound (your MP is PP as well). Ness learns pretty basic PSI, then the killer, special PSI. At the start of the game, entering all the things, you get asked what your fave thing is. Whatever you picked, will be the spell. So PSI Gaming for example, its Nesses special PSI spell, and usually kicks ass. Paula is the mage character though, learning the classic elemental spells and healing spells to name a few.

Each character in Earthbound is unique too. Ness is your all around, fighter of the group, he is strong, has killer PSI and is generally, that kick ass character. Paula is the mage of the group, her magic is very strong, but she isn't. She can also pray, which seems pretty useless, until the last boss. Jeff is the ranged person, replacing the archer. He does more though, he can fix electric stuff. A bit like Mega Man Legends, you can find some certain items, and if the two can be used together, Jeff can fix it into a certain item, which usually prove to be very helpful. Jeff is the only character unable to get PSI in the game. Poo can get some basic PSI spells, and is kind of strong (kind of). He can shape shift into most enemies you come across though, allowing you to get through some battles a bit more easier. This party is a great combination, and proves that the characters are well designed and aren't all the same.

Earthbound (wow, most paragraphs start the same) is generally, no short game. It may follow that classic 8 dungeons to go through, final dungeon, job done formula, but the more you play it, the more you realise it isn't. This game took me a long time to finish, its hard too (mainly the bosses) but it is quite long. It has a lot of stuff in it, because you don't get the tunes that easily. Sometimes, something will happen to distract you. Although Earthbound doesn't hold any sidequests at all basically, its quite long, and you may need to do some training up at the hard parts. Earthbound in one of those RPG games, like Shadow Hearts. Its all nice and easy for you, get to the boss, MEGA HARD!!! The first parts of Earthbound should be done easy, but the bosses aren't all that easy. OK, its not generally impossible to complete Earthbound without spending hours training, but I don't you will be able to do it without at least spending some time training up your characters. Still, its not that frustrating. Some non battle parts are hard too, sometimes I am lost at what to do. But hey, gamefaqs is here to help!

Graphically though, Earthbound isn't Final Fantasy. But, the graphic style, cartoon, suits the game pretty well in my opinion. Whilst it won't amaze you, the battle backgrounds, basically a huge amount of colours swaying around, which is cool. Battle sprites don't look amazing either. But its the game play that counts, but the graphics look good on Mother 3, which is the same style (but its on GBA and they're better). Musically, Earthbound is great. All the music is low quality (I think some one said NES quality, I certainly disagree with that big time). But the music is really catchy, fun to listen to, and really good, they even released a Audio CD. Which is great. I don't have it but I know a lot of the music in my head. The sound effects are so and so.

PROS:

Great fun to play.
Bright, colourful graphics,, good music.
All characters are unique.
Quite long.
New style of RPG!

CONS:

Not much replay value (I still play it from time to time though).
Graphics won't suit every one.
Some players may find story line a bit stupid.

THE RATINGS:
Graphics: 8.5/10
Audio: 9.2/10
Game Play: 9.5/10
Story: 8.5/10
Life Span: 9.0/10
Difficulty: 8.5/10
Multiplayer: N/A
Overall: 9.7/10

My Two Pence:

Now, my Overall is 9.7 and the above scores don't really add up to that much. But the game is just so great, it deserves that score fair and square. Some people prefer Final Fantasy, and I DO like Final Fantasy, they're a great series of games. But this game has a place in my heart, as one of my fave games of all time. Nintendo have a killer game here, shame it never sold well. Its great fun, you should play it. Play it now.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/06