"Hey! Parking meters! And you’re walking around! Ha ha! emocleW ot edisnooM!"

Man, there’s just so much I can say about this game. I have so many memories. This was my first RPG, probably because I was more attracted to the box. I mean, let’s face it: what ten year old wouldn’t pick the huge, colorful Earthbound box with the picture of a golden Starman on it over the small, bland, purple Final Fantasy III box with a little white creature on it? Yes, the box was big; it came with a player’s guide (why did they do that; so many gamers just breezed through this game because they always looked at the guide). This was probably the only game I remember (other than maybe Zelda: A Link to the Past) that I rented three times. I loved it as a kid.
Then, just about a year ago, the nostalgia came back, out of nowhere, probably after I had watched my friend play Final Fantasy VIII for like an hour, and hit me like a bolt of lightning. I suddenly wanted to play the game. I called the only person I knew who owned it and asked if I could borrow it. He refused, so I was stuck. (By the way, for those of you who don’t know, this game is, for some ungodly reason, very rare.) The nostalgia hung around over the weeks, but it faded as I figured I’d never play the game again. Then, possibly by some stroke of fate or by some divine intervention, I was wandering through a local flea market and saw the cartridge, without a box or player’s guide, sitting in a glass case. Quickly I forked over the five dollars the man asked for (quite a steal, I might add) and ran home to play it. Quickly the nostalgia returned greater than ever, and I played for the next several days straight. The nostalgia did not last as long as I had expected, and the game was not as impressive as I had remembered, but it was fun and a trip down memory lane.

Graphics: 5/10
For a game made in 1995, this game is absolutely horrid in graphics. It looks more like a sub-par first-generation SNES game. Everything is drawn at a 90 or 45 degree angle: buildings, streets, everything but some of the character sprites. Ness and his friends can only walk at 90 or 45 degree angles (which is fairly excusable due to the nature of a D-pad), and the uncontrolled characters walking around only walk at 90 degree angles. Shame on the development team.
To add insult to injury, the battle animations are, well, not. There is no battle animation at all! The only battle animation you will see is what comes from PSI attacks. On top of that, the battle backgrounds look as if they will create nostalgia for someone who attended Woodstock ’69. The backgrounds are just funky swirls and psychedelic patterns. Some of them look pretty cool, but nonetheless it only adds to the mystery as to the sobriety of the developers.

Story: 10/10
The story begins in Onett, a small town in Eagleland in the year 199X (enter your own date [maybe they figured no one would be playing this game after the 20th century]). Ness, our small-boy hero, is sleeping soundly in his house, which is to the north of the actual town, when a loud crash outside shakes his house and awakens him. The curious boy he is, he decides to investigate in his PJs without even considering what the public would think about a young boy wandering outside at night alone in his pajamas. After grabbing the cracked baseball bat out of an unopened gift box in your sister’s room (why would someone actually wrap a cracked bat as a gift? Why would you be rummaging through your sister’s room?), you head out. The police are blocking the road to ground zero (for obvious reasons), as well as the road to the town itself simply because the Onett police is famous for putting up road blocks even when someone even thinks about jaywalking and claim they are going for the world record. Ness, after speaking to his rather portly friend, Pokey, returns home to his mom, who for some reason, at midnight, has fixed Ness his favorite food (man, what a great mom) and scoots him off to bed. He is awakened later that night by a loud, annoying knock at the door. Everyone is awake but you and the dog, but no one will answer the door. Instead, you go downstairs and your mom tells you to answer it. It is Pokey, and he reports to you that he has lost his brother, Picky, at ground zero. He asks you to help him find Picky. When you find Picky at ground zero (it’s a meteorite that fell, by the way), a bee comes out of the meteorite and tells you that the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, Giygas, plans to destroy the universe (duh) and says that four boys and a girl must destroy Giygas. Well, to make an even longer story fairly short, Ness must gather all his power from eight Sanctuary locations around the world and destroy Giygas with three friends. As you can see by how wacky it all is already, this game will only get wackier. I love the story. Even though it is really nothing new generally, there are so many things that happen in your adventure to keep it interesting. You will rescue a telepathic girl, put an end to a cult that worships the color blue, save a town from a zombie invasion, beat up giant circus tents, rescue the Runaway Five (coughbluesbrotherscough) from debt, meet little stubby people with big noses (Mr. Saturn!), bring two love-struck sesame seeds back together, go underground to fight dinosaurs, travel through time, and many, many other things. It’s all crazy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sound/Music: 7/10
The music in this game is pretty good at some parts (some of the towns), but terrible at others (the final boss music *shudder*). Some of it, especially that of the towns, is actually pretty catchy and “hummable.” It is not really complex or beautifully orchestrated, but it gets the job done.
The sound, on the other hand, is somewhat despicable. It consists of nothing more than bleeps, bloops, cracks, and other sounds that sound like they could have come from my old Casio synthesizer (a cheap old piece of crap from like 1992 or something). You can look past all this to an extent, but a little more variety or even more quality would have been nice.

Gameplay: 8/10
This game, deep down, is nothing more than bread-and-butter RPG with a twist. Instead of like a fantasy, medieval world, you are a normal kid living a normal life in modern-day Suburbia, but you have a gift: the power to channel your mind to perform special telekinetic abilities, also known as PSI. You find there are other people who can do this, as well, and you team up to defeat Giygas.
Earthbound is a turn-based RPG. It is not in real-time or anything like that. You go through the overworld doing your tasks, and occasionally you will come across an enemy. The enemies, though, unlike many other RPGs, are able to be seen. You will actually see a dog or a snake on the overworld, and once the enemy catches sight of you, it will chase you down. You can avoid enemies much easier this way, and I wonder why no other RPG has really chosen to implement this. However, the enemies are much faster than you, so unless you can hide behind a tree or something you’ll get approached. If the enemy and you both face each other when you meet, the battle will go on as normal. If the enemy gets you from behind, the enemy gets a free turn. If you get the enemy from behind, you get a free turn. Furthermore, if you are at a substantially higher level than a certain enemy, that enemy will not approach you but rather run from you, so you won’t find yourself wandering through Onett when you’re at level 70 and getting approached by pathetic Coil Snakes.
The battle system is not very unique, and is actually much less entertaining than that of Final Fantasy. This is because there is little to no battle animation. In fact, everything is told through a text box on the top of the screen. For example, the text box will say, “Ness attacks!” Then there will be a bad-quality sound of a swinging bat, then the text box will read, “20 HP damage to [enter enemy name]!” It is all fine and dandy when it comes to how the game functions, but it’s not at all flashy. You level up by getting experience by defeating enemies, and by doing so you get higher stats (strength, defense, IQ, etc.) and learn new PSI abilities. You get a certain amount of HP and PP (points that allow you to use PSI). If you are hit with mortal damage, your HP “ticks down” slowly, meaning that even though you are dying, you can still be healed as long as you can heal before the number reaches zero. This is hard to do early on when you have little HP, but later on it is almost a necessity.
At the beginning of the game, you get to almost fully customize the game to your tastes. You name yourself, you friends, your dog, your favorite food, and your favorite thing (which will be the name for your personal PSI ability). Throughout your adventure, you call your dad to save your game and get a report on your adventure status, and you can call your mom to cure your homesickness.
What really makes the game fun, though, is the sheer bizarreness of it all. You read the story section, so you already know how bizarre it is. Every person in the world has something weird to say, corresponding to where they live. For example, if you meet someone in Onett, they will probably crack something about the Sharks (the local gang) or maybe use a joke to convey a secret or game hint. If you talk to someone in Threed, the person will most likely report something about the zombie situation. If you were walking around the streets in Summers, some punk will probably tell you to scram and get your grimy fingers off his bright new convertible. If you are in Moonside (which must have been thought up while the programmers were on LSD), “no” means “yes,” and vice-versa. The enemies are even stranger. You will meet Annoying Old Party Men, New-Age Retro Hippies, UFOs, a myriad of different aliens, ducks, ants, dogs, crows, snakes, piles of puke, five moles who each claim they are the third-strongest, Noose Men, Starmen, dinosaurs, many different robots, cultists, lizards, flowers, fish, mice, slugs, Fobbys and Foppys (just had to put them in last because their names are so cool). If you don’t love this game because of the sheer bizarreness of it all, you really need to have your head checked, or at least you need to get a sense of humor.
The battle system is nothing new, but the game is just so darn fun.

Lasting Appeal: 6/10
Unfortunately, this is actually one of the shortest RPGs out there, lasting maybe 14-16 hours if you are a somewhat experienced RPG player and up to about 20 if you are less experienced. There is little replay value, simply because there aren’t very many secrets. There are some hidden weapons, and you may want to relive some of the hilarious moments, but other than that there is little to make you want to play again.

Challenge: Average
This is probably the best RPG for a beginner to start with. It has a small learning curve and it begins the game by practically walking you through everything. It comes with a player’s guide, which has its drawbacks, but can really help some of the novice players get used to the game. If you are new to the genre, pick this game up and not a Final Fantasy game, which is really for the more advanced RPG gamers.

Good Points:
-A small learning curve
-A classic RPG with a basic formula
-The game is one of the more hilarious games out there
-Entertaining storyline and side-quests
-Decent music

Bad Points:
-Too easy for many RPG gamers
-Not long enough
-Little replay value
-Sub-par graphics
-Poor sound effects
-No battle animation
-Some people may not take a liking to the low-brow humor

The Bottom Line:
A very hard game to find, but if you are able to find it, I recommend giving it a try. While it lasts, the jokes and side-quests are hilarious the first oh, say ten times you hear them. You may think of it as too easy, and it may seem more like an interactive comedy movie, but in my opinion it’s one of the more entertaining RPGs on the market despite its unoriginal gameplay. Just don’t spend too much in Moonside; that might be hazardous to your health.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/04