Earthbound came out in 1995 for Super Nintendo. The game was made by a company rarely seen called APE. This game is completely different from any other game you have ever seen. It's just like the real world, except for the fact that the heroes have super powers, evil lurks at every corner, and there are these thingies called Mr. Saturns! ZOOM! The setting is in a huge country called Eagleland.
The main plot of the game is that Ness, the hero, must save the world from the evil Giygas. He learns this on a mysterious night in 199X, when a strange knock is being pummeled on his door. It's Pokey, his next door neighbor. It seems that Pokey wants to go see the strange meteorite that just fell and he wants to take Ness. Ness goes and finds out that he can barely look at it! He goes to sleep and Pokey comes back, then telling Ness that his brother Pickey has gone missing. They recruit Ness' dog King and set out to find Picky. They go to the meteorite and find a strange talking bee (he is not really a bee, just trapped in a bee's body) who calls himself BuzzBuzz.
BuzzBuzz tells Ness that a gang of four heroes must stop Giygas. On the way back to Ness' house, the gang comes face to face with a Starman Jr., which BuzzBuzz zaps pretty easily. When the gang return to Pokey's house to drop off Pokey and Pickey, their mother steps on BuzzBuzz, almost destroying him. With his last breath he gives Ness the Sound Stone and tells him of his quest to defeat Giygas and how he must recruit three friends and stop Giygas forever!
Ness then sets out on his adventure.
There are a ton of characters, starting with...
Ness: The main hero of the game. He
wields a baseball bat and a yo-yo for weapons. He is pretty quiet and never
seems to talk except for making decisions through option listings. He is
from a town called Onett. Ness' main power is PSI. His best attack, PSI
Rockin', is a deadly attack that can kill even the strongest of
enemies.
Paula: A psychic girl that joins Ness after finding out that she is needed to stop the evil that plagues the world. Ness first meets with her when he goes to stop a clan of people dressed in all blue. Paula is quick with her frying pans and has psychic powers that cannot be matched.
Jeff: Jeff his the son of a brilliant
scientist, and the IQ of his father certainly flowed down into him. He
goes to a boarding school in Winters, a snowy part of Eagleland. He has
no PSI powers but is skilled with Bottle
Rockets and can turn junk into great
weapons.
Poo: No, he is not what you think, he is a prince from a country (I think its a country) called Dalaam. He is very skilled with PSI but cannot equip any weapons except for the King's Arsenal, a very strong set of weapons that cannot be matched by anything. He joins the party when he sets out from his country and meets up with them in Summers, another part of Eagleland. I think his exact words (or close to them were) "You are Ness, correct? I will join you." Well, I guess anything can happen to somebody in an RPG!
Mom: Ness' mother, the loving, caring, food-making parent that can make you food and even cure homesickness when you phone her. Her food is top-notch and restores all HP, MP, and status effects. She plays no other role in the game except food-maker.
Dad: The money-maker of the party. After you do a quest, beat a boss, or just about go to the washroom, he will give you a handsome sum of money. He is also used to save the game and always recommends that you "Hit the hay" after saving. His face is never seen, and details about him remain scarce.
Tracy: Ness' sister. She works part time at Escargo Express and can store a large amount of items for Ness, but cannot store things such as your ATM card or the Sound Stone.
King: Ness' dog. Not a key player, but he does help you at the start of the game, and about every other time you phone your Mom she is giving him a flee bath!
BuzzBuzz: Not that much of a main character, but he does save your life from the evil Starman Jr., tells you about your quest, and gives you the Sound Stone. I guess he is a main character
Apple Kid: The messy, red-obsessive, fat, ugly inventor of many things. He lives in Twoson and makes things for you in return for food. He lives with some mice called Exit Mice that can help you out of a dungeon. He is a key player in the game and makes very important things for you.
Orange Kid: The neat, orange-obsessive, skinny, handsome inventor of little or no things. He also lives in Twoson and can make things for you in return for money. He makes almost useless junk and is not very important.
Pokey: Your annoying, fat, lazy, weak,
backstabbing, food eating next door neighbor. He starts out nice, but works
for Giygas himself and is down-right evil! He is the only thing standing
in your way of defeating
Giygas at the end of the game.
Mr. Saturn: Mr. Saturn is not a person, but a species of small pink creatures with big noses that talk in a weird font and are very fond of saying ZooM! They help you by selling top-notch items and by turning you into robots for the sake of time travel.
ManiMani Statue: A statue a main character? No, it's very much alive and causes many horrible things like turning Fourside into the backwards town of Moonside.
Giygas: An evil from beyond the year of 199X that has orchestrated the defeat of the planet by sending his henchmen to destroy the world. He lurks in a distant future and is the final boss of the game.
Mr. Cameraman: He is the greatest! A cameraman that pops up out of nowhere to take your picture. He always says "Say Fuzzy Pickles" before taking your picture. Hmm, what's the point of this character?
How the game works: Ness must journey to selected spots all over Eagleland to find sounds for the Sound Stone to record. Guarding each sanctuary is a boss. After you defeat the boss, you can record the Sound Stone, and Ness relives a moment of his childhood. The Battle Mode works almost like any other game, except one key thing that will save you. When a fatal blow is dealt, you life meter will roll down rapidly and in that time, if you can heal with something healing even the slightest of HP, your character will be saved. The more guts you have the slower your HP will drop. Moving around the game is very easy and there is nothing too complicated, except for the puzzles.
Scoring Note: This game will be graded on a scale of 7, and there will be a large amount of things to be judged.
Graphics: 3
Not the greatest of graphics, almost
the exact same as Earthbound Zero, for NES. You would expect more from
Super Nintendo but this game was brought out when some of the "Movie Games"
were brought out and most games around then had very bad graphics. The
graphics are good enough so you can understand
the game completely, and good enough
to hook you to the game.
Storyline: 7
Although it didn't make much sense at the beginning, it developed itself into one of the greatest RPGs for SNES. The storyline is unlike any other that has ever been seen, and is so unique that giving it anything less than a top score is an insult to Nintedo, APE, and to yourself!
Sound: 7
AMAZING! The songs still stick in my head! Da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da! The sound effects are also good, much more than you could ever expect from a SNES game.
Control: 4
For an RPG, the control is good, but not what you would imagine. The game was pretty good for this, but not being able to do some of the things in the game really got annoying, and having to wait three minutes at Grapefruit Galls and- Uh ahh! Sorry Master Giygas for giving away vital information... Um, good storyline!
Characters: 6
Well, the fact that you could use all your characters at once won me over, and the humor of some characters was killing me throughout the whole game!
Length: 7
It didn't take me so long to play, because I played it on EMU and had a speed-up to make the game go ten times faster, but beating it for SNES was soo long!
Environments: 6
Very good. The graphics for environments, the mountains, the water, and the buildings all looked great despite the poor character and battle graphics. There were also so many different environments, and no world map, a key feature to the game!
Battle Mode: 2
The battle mode resembles that of SMRPG and Chrono Trigger where Field Mode turns into Battle Mode when you touch an enemy. The battles have very poor graphics, and although the enemy/enemies look(s) great, you cannot see your character at all! You fight things like animals, insane people, zombies, robots, slime, and things like that, but enemies never die... no, they become tame or turn back to normal. In battling you can fight, use PSI, use an item, or use one of the character's special abilities, like Paula's Pray, something you need to use to beat Giygas. *hint*
Difficulty: 5-7
For game players that have played every Final Fantasy game this game is not that hard, but for people that grew up playing Mario games other than SMRPG, you're in for it! The game stretches very long and so long that you have to travel through time to make the game shorter! Puzzles are not that hard, but the battling part is pretty straight forward and easy.
Items: 7
There was an incredible amount of items to use. That's why they had to have the Escargo Express storage system, and even that fills up by the time you reach the Sea of Eden (you'll find out when you play the game). They have just about every type of food, so much that this game could be the set of a cooking show!
Fun Factor!: 7
I played the game on SNES when I first got it for 35 hours straight, and I was just a 7-year-old kid. If it could have that much of a hold on me then, guess what would happen now. I don't guarantee you will be up playing it for 35 hours, but you will be hooked on it once you first play!
Overall: 7
One of the greatest games EVER!
Recommendation:
If you can play this game, it's fun,
strange, funny, provides hours of fun, has a good story, and is one of
the greatest games of all time! It's one of the best games I have ever
played and is seconded only by Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, and
trust me, that's two hard games to keep up with! Also, if you find it in
stores but you not a fan of RPGs, you may want to buy it anyway and sell
it for a handsome sum of money!