EarthBound, also known as MOTHER 2, is the second game of the MOTHER series by Shigesato Itoi, developed by APE and Hal Laboratories. With it’s poor reviews and response at the time, the game essentially flopped in the American market for it’s simple graphics, satirical marketing campaign (Scratch ‘n’ Sniff cards anyone?) and at the time, a severe lack of interest for the Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) genre. I could also think it flopped due to the Japanese developers idea of what America was like in the 90’s and their idea of healing food as Burgers and Fries. Original concept right there.
As someone who recently just completed EarthBound, it is refreshingly different from the games of today. Where the market is flooded with high realistic looking graphics, movie-like productions and theatrical trailers; EarthBound was compelling for its simple pixel graphics and cute melodies, the game is a classic example of the RPG genre with everything to suit the tastes of each gamer – Action, Friendship, Love, Overcoming Fears and most importantly and a vital part of the game, Adventure.
Fate seems to bring four school aged children, led by Ness, who know nothing about each other or even why they are together, to band together. The must overcome an evil entity called Giygas who has enveloped the world into hatred and darkness, literally turning everything from people to fire hydrants into malicious creatures and his evil fleet of Starmen. Ness and his friends must overcome many difficulties and return harmony to the world by collaborating their powers and help from friends they make along the way, did anyone say Blues Brothers?
The game starts out innocently enough, you wake up from someone knocking at your door at a stupid time of night and your first adventure is discovering a meteorite that crashed a few miles away from your house with your cowardly dog and your next door neighbour. Nothing can go wrong from there right? …nope.
A lovely ride to Winters – only a mythical creature ride away
I think my favourite parts of EarthBound was it’s tongue in cheek way of referencing the real world, with things such as the Loch Ness Monster. Here, Tessie loves to give your characters rides on her back, provided that her friend the bubblegum chewing monkey, bubble monkey, is there perched on her head. Of course, the game tries to leave it ambiguous whether or not this is the real Nessie. However, friendly hotel attendants, that give daily news, reads you the headline of “Tessie in Lake Tess is cousin of Nessie”. She even has her own ‘Tessie Watching Club’ for those who try to spot her.
Despite the lighthearted moments of riding on a mythical creatures, visiting the Happy Happy people in Happy Happy Village and visiting magical palaces floating atop pink fluffy clouds, there are times where the game drags you down and was often monotonous where it felt like certain areas of the game were created for you to level grind, level grind, die a few times and grind some more to get your characters strengths and health points up. I also found that it was easy to forget what you’re supposed to be doing, but luckily, there are ‘Hint Men’ over various regions giving you a hint of what you’re supposed to do, but even so, hints can only go so far.
The most famous, and possibly most notable, part of the game is the end fight with Giygas. In fact, just googling ‘Giygas Theories’ will give you tons of results of what exactly you’re fighting with, but I’d recommend you to play the game first and then read the theories.
Giygas, Giygas, Giygas, Giygas, Giygas, Giygas, Giygas
Depending on your character levels, this boss battle can take as little as ten minutes or as long as half an hour – depending if you paid attention to the secondary character dialogue. But its definitely an interesting boss fight with three stages to it.
The ending of the game however, is quite satisfying and makes it worth all the annoying level grinding, dying, grinding some more and running out of HP every two turns.
There is quite a satisfactory amount of replay value for a game made in 1994 with areas you may not have discovered, items you forgot to unlock or just finding crazy characters with the weirdest dialogue – you have been warned.
Overall, this game is for the lovers of weird, screwed up plot lines, lovable characters, teddy bear huggers, pizza munchers and to those who enjoy posing for the random photographer that pops up in the most random places. This game is for you!
EarthBound is only currently available on the Wii U Virtual Console, so I highly suggest you check it out 
And when the Photographer comes, don’t forget to look at the camera and say, ‘Fuzzy Pickles!’.
