"Paula got the monkey's love."

This game rests upon, more than likely, the thinnest line between adoration and abomination a game has ever seen. Final Fantasy 7 and Ocarina of Time may be the most debated games on Gamefaqs, but those discussions are mainly about whether or not the games are absolutely great or just good. Very few people actually hate either of those games. Not so with this gem. For every person who fell in love with the game, there's another who is completely disgusted with it. I happen to fall in with the former.

There was a game on the Nes entitled Mother. Nintendo had every intention of releasing it here, as is proven by the fact that a translated prototype is floating around somewhere, but for some reason it never came to be, which is a shame. Nintendo, thankfully, got its act together the second time around, and released the second game in the Mother series stateside as Earthbound.

If you've ever played an Rpg before, the battle system won't be anything new. At the start of each combat round, you'll select an action for each character. The options are all traditional turn based combat options, such as attack and item, and with the exception of your lead character, everyone else will have a special that, in almost all situations, is useless. Magic has been changed to psychic powers, or PSI, in Earthbound to fit the atmosphere. Characters will gain new PSI spells throughout the game, some more useful than others, but there isn't anything fancy. You've got your basic attack spells, one of which you get to name, and then your basic recovery and status spells.

Battles place your characters at the bottom of the screen, unseen to the players other than a box displaying your name and current HP and PP. Enemy sprites are placed front and center on a snazzy, colorful background that moves around, once more aiding the quirky atmosphere of the game. Battle animations are non existent. You'll get messages, some of which may make you giggle, whenever you attack or get attacked. Enemies are completely off the wall. You won't find any Black Knights or Devil Necromancers in this game, but you will find Enraged Fire Plugs, Big Piles of Puke and Major Psychic Psychos, all of whom feel completely normal to the game after playing for a while. Absolutely nothing in the game, inside battles or outside, takes itself seriously.

Instead of a normal, unlimited inventory, where a single person can carry 99 of every single item in the game at once, Earthbound restricts you to a limited inventory space for each character, where you have to manage not only their equipment, but story items and food for recovery as well. Your sister works at a storage service, and as long as you have access to a phone, you can call her up and have her hold items for you. Outside of your sister, you can call other people throughout the game, most notable your Dad.

Enemies don't just drop fat, leather wallets after every battle. Whenever you call your Dad he'll deposit money into your bank account, an allowance, as well as allow you to save and take a rest from the game if you desire. The amount of money you get is directly related to your battles like any other game, but Earthbound takes a different approach as to how you obtain it. You can also call your Mom who, I've been told, helps stave off the Homesickness status effect, but I've never been inflicted with the status effect to begin with. And, of course, you can have some pizza delivered. Pizza may be pricy compared to normal recovery items you'll find around, and you'll rarely need to purchase any of your recovery items to begin with, but sometimes you just get a hankering for Pineapple and there's nothing you can do about it.

The soundtrack is by far one of the best video game soundtracks I've ever listened to. Reviewing music in video games has always been hard for me, because I just don't care one way or the other about most of it, but Earthbound is one of a few games that I felt the need to actually own a CD of. Each town in the game has unique music, usually fitting the overall feeling of the town. Pharmacies and Motels have separate tracks from the main town. The Runaway Five play a jazzy song for you a few times during the game. The entire soundtrack fits perfectly with the game. It's easy to listen to and it doesn't detract from the rest of the game, but it simultaneously can get stuck in your head, or have you backtrack to other towns to hear some of your favorite music while you tell yourself there was some other reason to go there. Sound effects, however, aren't anything special. The only two I actually remember as standing out are Buzz Buzz's buzzing, and the sound accompanying a Smash attack. Outside of those two, the rest of the sound effects aren't anything special.

The game looks exactly how it plays; lightly. The graphics are by no means stunning, but they fit the game exceptionally well. Compared to other games of approximately the same time, Earthbound at first seems like a step back, but the wonderful use of colors and the modern setting of the 1990's is a nice departure from the gloomy, medieval castles and caves that plague most of the rpgs of this generation. Your party doesn't consist of the dark knight, the thief, the mage and the cleric. Instead, you get a boy with a baseball bat, a girl who likes to get kidnapped, a nerd from a boarding school and a prince named Poo. The enemies you'll find throughout the game are also of a hip variety, hip being the appropriate adjective for a New Age Retro Hippie. Enemies range from people to robots, moles to ants, and from “What the hell is that?” to “Is that a pile of puke? It is!”

The story is no less strange. You play the role of Ness, a kid from the rural town of Onett. Everything up until this point in your life has been just peachy. You're dreaming dreams of lamb and sheep when all of a sudden WHAM, BANG, BOOM! You rush downstairs to see what's happening, only to find your mother is already awake. She doesn't have any idea what's going on, so she gives you permission to investigate. You shuffle off to the scene, only to be met by a squad of officers and a fat kid. A meteor has fallen just a small distance from your peaceful town, it seems. The cops don't seem too phased by it, but after all they are waging a street war against The Sharks, a gang of nerds who have mercilessly taken over the only arcade in town. After obtaining all the information from the authorities that you're going to get, you go back home, to catch up on your sleep.

You no sooner shut your eyes than KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! You just can't catch a break. The fat kid, Pokey, is at your door and seems to have misplaced his brother, Picky. He wants your help in locating his brother. You agree, but your Mom makes you take your dog along as well. After searching, you inevitably find Picky sitting under a tree, right next to the meteor. Before you can take him home and finally go to sleep, a strange buzzing is heard. Would you believe that, a bee named Buzz Buzz has come from the future to warn you of the evil Giygas, and you're the only one who can stop him! That's nice, but you're not about to go stopping evil before you get your beauty sleep, so you head home once again, this time with Buzz Buzz following. However, sleep is just not in your future, as an evil henchman from the future, namely the Starman Junior, transports down for a fight. You're scared, but the bee smashes him with no trouble. Alright! You have a future-bug with amazing powers on your side! You only have one more stop before you can get some sleep, and that's to drop off Pokey and Picky. Their parents are, naturally, upset, and Dad spanks them. Mom, however, mistakes Buzz Buzz for a dung beetle, and squashes him. So begins your adventure…

Earthbound doesn't carry much in the way of difficulty, outside of item management. Quite often I'll find myself with items that I just don't have the room to hold them with. Enemies can be evaded, some easier than others, so if you've already power leveled you can frolic through the enemies as though they weren't there. If you do happen to accidentally engage an enemy that you're just too much for, odds are you'll get an automatic win. The game determines that it's just a waste of time to force you to click attack over and over, so you win and get the experience. Enemies, when too weak to take you on, may run away from you so you don't even engage in battle to begin with.

There's little to no reason to play through the game a second time when you're done. There are no hidden story branches you can uncover, or extra dungeons available. Everything is as it was the first time through. You might want to eventually come back in the future if you really like the game, just to remember why you liked the game so much, and it will probably be just as fun as it was the first time through the game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/05