EarthBound, also known as Mother 2, is the second installment of the "Mother" series of RPGS, as well as the only installment released outside of Japan. This game earned nearly universal acclaim, but strangely, it sold quite poorly in America. So poorly that Nintendo didn't even release the sequel, Mother 3, in America. As a matter of fact, the EarthBound demo that was included in the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was removed from the American version. That definitely doesn't paint a pretty picture for Mother. We'll probably just have to settle for the games in the series we already have, and likely the most popular one is, of course, Mother 2.
Not only does it look like the series
has come to an end, but it doesn't look like 'Bound is coming out on the
Virtual Console anytime soon. You'll have to just do it old school and
play it on the old SNES. But let's be realistic, since the sales were low,
the rarity of the game makes it sell for a high price... But... It's still
such a good game. Quite the conflict. Well, you know the game's good, right?
Now find out just how good it is.
STORYLINE - 8.9/10
Our main character - Ness - is not a knight or wizard living in the Middle Ages. He's just a normal adolescent kid living in the suburbs of Onett; a small town in the country of Eagleland. One night, while Ness is asleep, a large meteor soars through the sky. Upon crashing atop a hill near Ness' house, the kid feels a rumble and gets up to check out what happened. Walking out of the house while still in his pajamas, some police officers are already at the suspicious scene. Ness' bratty neighbor, Pokey Minch, is bugging the officers about the meteor. Pokey tells Ness to just go home, and that he'll tell of the meteor tomorrow.
Later on, Ness is awoken from his slumber once again by a knocking at his door. In comes Pokey, telling Ness about the dilemma he's in. While his parents were away, Pokey and his brother Picky went to check out the meteor after the police had left. While Pokey wasn't paying attention, he suddenly noticed that Picky was gone. If Pokey's parents come home only to find no Picky, he will get in trouble, so he begs Ness to help him find Picky. Ness accepts, bringing his dog, King, along with him. Once they go to the meteor, they find Picky behind a tree and start heading home. However, a strange, buzzing noise is heard. Suddenly, a tiny insect named Buzz Buzz pops out of the meteor. Buzz tells Ness that he has arrived from 10 years in the future - At that moment in time, a "universal cosmic destroyer" named Giygas has triggered the apocalypse to end all life. Buzz Buzz somehow survived this, and came to Onett to find Ness. Where Buzz Buzz comes from, there's a famous legend that tells of three boys and a girl who would save the world from Giygas's power. He believes that Ness is one of these people - though the 3 others remain unknown. Before saving the world though, Ness assumes he should take Picky home to get Pokey off his back.
Too late, though - When Ness and friends
arrive at Pokey's house, his parents are already home. Pokey's dad chases
the brothers upstairs for punishment. Meanwhile, Mrs. Minch notices Buzz
Buzz, and seems to get the impression that this cosmic messenger is a dung
beetle. She smacks Buzz Buzz to the ground, mortally injuring him. Before
he dies, Buzzy gives Ness a "Sound Stone". To defeat Giygas, Ness has to
visit the various "Your Sanctuary" locations. By doing this, Ness's power
would be channeled to the Earth and multiplied. The use of the Sound Stone
is to record the melodies of these sanctuaries. Buzz Buzz then passes away,
while Ness leaves to start his adventure.
No knights and dragons, no overused
plot elements...Sounds like everything's good here. The fact that it happened
in such an abrupt manner, however, is a tad bothersome. Er, well... I do
have to give it props for the events happening before Buzz Buzz's appearance,
the whole thing with Pokey trying to find his brother. The police scene
was a bit unnecessary, though.
GAMEPLAY - 8.5/10
Many reviewers have pointed out EarthBound's similarities to Dragon Quest... Perhaps the greatest thing that these two games share is the battle system. Like always, enemies roam about the overworld, waiting to ambush you and get you to fight them. Once that happens, you go to the battle screen. These battles are in a first-person view; a large sprite of the enemy appears on the middle of the screen, while panels that represent your party members appear on the bottom of the screen. Attack, defend, run away...Most commands should be familiar to those that regularly play RPGs. PSI powers, however, may be less familiar at first. PSI is, technically, just magic. A good variety of magic, for that matter. Use PSI Rockin for an strong attack that damages all foes, PSI Freeze to give a bone-chilling attack to one foe, PSI Lifeup to recover the HP of your allies, and so on. As you level up, you begin to gradually learn new PSI powers. But eventually, you'll mostly just be getting upgrades to your previous PSIs. Specifically, they gain Greek letters in their names as they become more powerful. Say you're using PSI Thunder - From weakest to strongest, it would go PSI Thunder, PSI Thunder Alpha, PSI Thunder Beta, Gamma, and Omega.
The overworld, on the other hand, doesn't have many notable features. You walk around with your party, solving puzzles and picking fights with enemies. PSI Lifeup and PSI Healing can be used on the overworld though, which proves to be quite helpful when you're damaged and have no food left. Additionally, if you get in a fight with an enemy that you're significantly stronger than, the enemy falls at your feet and you may claim your EXP points.
The inventory system is one of the bigger complaints I have about this game. It's really quite crammed, especially at the beginning of the game, when you only have a lone Ness on your team. But even when you get all 4 of your party members, you'll still find yourself having to drop, use, or switch items in order to preserve inventory space. This may be because weapons, armor, and key items don't have their own individual sections in your inventory. With a lad named Jeff, this can be quite the problem.
Transferring over to my more nitpicky
complaints, there's a certain status ailment that I highly feared early
in the game. This effect sprouts a mushroom on your character's head, somehow
rendering them hard-to-control. Simply reversing your controls isn't enough
for this sadistic fungi; it swaps up your controls every 30 seconds or
so. While PSI Healing or a mushroom planter can save you from this, if
none of these are available, you’re in for one lousy experience. Not even
sleeping at a hotel gets these things off your head.
GRAPHICS - 4.9/10
Now HERE'S solid proof that graphics aren't required for a great game... But gosh, they're ugly. Let me tell you the worst part about these graphics - the character models. Many NPCs in the game have very few sprites - walking in various different directions, and that's about it, with a few exceptions. But I'm only referring to villagers and friendly people here, the enemies look just as bad. They suffer the same problems as the NPCs, but what bothered me is how little effort was put in to various otherworldly enemies. These alien creatures - they typically only appear as small, gray diamonds on the overworld. And in battle, they end up looking completely different.
And when I said different, I mean much
better. The enemies' battle sprites look great, the backgrounds are nice
and flashy. The special effects of various PSI abilities leave something
to be desired, though. And although the battle graphics look great, it's
the field visuals that really bring the score down. Plus, I'm feeling strict
today.
MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS - 8.6/10
I played Mother 3 before I played this game, and I was blown away by the music, to say the least. It was incredibly diverse, there was the Rhythm Combos system, and a certain, special something I'll bring up in the next paragraph. Now, when I played EarthBound, I was a tad disappointed by the music, possibly because I set my expectations too high. 'Bound's soundtrack - It's a little generic. But, just like the gameplay and graphics, the music's quality can be divided in to 2 categories: overworld and battle.
That "certain, special something" I just mentioned was what I consider to be the best part of the Mother series' soundtracks. Most games have just one theme for when you fight an enemy, another for a mini-boss, and yet another for an area boss. That's too few for EarthBound; so there are a bunch of different themes for all the enemies across Eagleland. I've always found turn-based battles to be - although deep and strategic - quite dull and repetitive. Numerous different battle themes make it so much more interesting. It definitely made me fight enemies more. When I saw a new opponent on the field, I would charge towards them thinking "Oooooh, what music does this guy have?" In this situation, Insane Cultists, Attack Slugs, and Shattered Men satisfy me greatly.
The overworld music? Well, um... It's
music all right. Yup. Some themes are good, some are bad. Others are unusually
above-part, while others are disturbingly poor. Some, on the other hand,
totally rock. Those that don't, they fail to- Hmm? Shut up! Th-Those do
not even remotely resemble synonyms! Pick up a dictionary.
LENGTH AND DIFFICULTY - 9.2/10
With the exception of the original Mother game, all titles in this series seem to get their length and difficulty just right. Some people wouldn't say that's the case with EarthBound, though; a lot of fans said that the game involved a high amount of grinding. I really didn't end up having to grind at all, personally, thus resulting in this category being placed in the 9 through 10 field. How satisfying!
Now although I didn't find the need
to grind, what parts of the game did I find to be the hardest? The battles.
For the overworld puzzles, you can probably solve them, and if all else
fails then you can pull up an online walkthrough. Those won't help you
as much in the battles, though. Mr. Starman DX, I refer to you, you little
scamp! Making me die and redo that long, painful dungeon again...But it's
okay, I forgive you, for I now hold a grudge against Mr. Ghost of Starman,
that PSI Starstorm-abusing man... Ahhhh, sorry, I'm rather hyper tonight.
Does it make the Review more entertaining? Perhaps these caffeinated antics
simply waste space- Ok, look, Starmen are strong, got it? Even though a
lot of them are just normal enemies, keep in mind that bosses are not the
only toughies you're gonna come across.
REPLAY VALUE - 5.1/10
...And here's where the Mother series falls flat - with replay value. As soon as you bring an end to Giygas's reign of terror, you're free to explore all of the Eaglelands. Yeah, I had my hopes high for this, too. I was quite disappointed to see that it's just the world of EarthBound, only with a great fraction of the fun taken away. First off, all the enemies have vanished, making it impossible to trigger a battle. So you can forget about getting that Gutsy Bat or Sword of Kings, you'll have to start a new file if you want them. There is still one remaining enemy in a place you'd least expect, but that's still not enough to keep one even close to being satisfied.
My second complaint about this re-exploration is the music change. Loved the theme of Onett, maybe Winters Caverns, or perhaps Dusty Dunes? Tough luck for you then; you'll be listening to a boring Fourside remix the whole time. With a few exceptions, that is. But I've still come to loathe that song.
This boring dimension can be avoided through preparation, however. This might give you very minor spoilers, but... In Saturn Valley, right before you enter the Phase Distorter, save and copy your game's data in to another file. Of course, it is also possible to escape the ending scene using a GameShark. I love you, walk through walls code~
The Gutsy Bat and Sword of Kings I mentioned
earlier...If you do one of the above forewarnings, they're probably gonna
be some main focuses during your sidequest trek. The Sword of Kings and
Gutsy Bat are dropped by Starman Supers and Bionic Kraken, respectively.
However, there's only 1 in 128 chance that you'll get said item from defeating
the enemy. Getting the Sword of Kings is a pain as it is, but the Gutsy
Bat is the ultimate patience-tester; For one thing, Bionic Kraken are quite
rare. Plus, they can't be identified on the overworld. But those are pretty
much the most famous ones; There's a lesser-know weapon for Paula called
the Magic Fry Pan, which Chomposaurs drop, and the Gaia Beam for Jeff which
can be dropped by... Uncontrollable Spheres, I think? Other enemies drop
more miniscule items on very rare occasions, like Attack Slugs may very
rarely drop Bombs. These kinds of items, however, are nothing worth seeking
out.
FUN FACTOR! - 8.4/10
Those of you with a good amount of patience, you won't have much trouble seeing the greatness of this game. Those without much patience will have to learn to deal with the slow pace of the game. Now I'm pretty much in between those benchmarks, so I did find the slowness of the game somewhat irritating. And the fact that you can't run makes it even moreso. Of course, I played it on a rom, so whenever there was a long and/or boring part I could just speed the game up.
Besides the slowness, though, the game
is very fun. EarthBound, it has every kind of atmosphere you could ask
for - Delightfully weird, generic RPG-esque, unsettling, and scary - Oh
yes, scary when you get to the final boss. The otherworldly, staticy music
makes it unusually frightening...but it IS cool music. Anyway, well, that
boss is good for those who like to be freaked out every once in a while.
There's the bizarre part of things that conquers most of the game - I'm
particularly fond of the "Happy Happy Cult", who live solely to worship
the color blue. The New Age Retro Hippie enemy seems to have become popular
among the masses, though I don't really see why. No matter which atmospheric
variation you may encounter, there's always at least a bit of oddity put
somewhere in it. And that is something to be appreciated.
OVERALL - 89/100
This game comes so close to achieving "must-have" status, but the replay value and graphics make it a game you could live without. However, I don't recommend you go on with your gaming life without playing it; this is a brilliant game indeed. There's a reason it's become a cult classic, y'know. And quite frankly, I love this game - EarthBound, the most original RPG in ages, the magnum opus of a fantastic franchise, and one of the SNES's best. You know you want it, right? Now there's the issue of getting it.
Check Ebay or Amazon, and you're gonna find EarthBound selling for incredible prices. If you try finding a garage sale or a flea market with the game in stock, your hopes are too high - It will take you ages to find one of the very few game cartridges scattered around America. In this case - If you're willing to take the legal risks - emulation is a very good option. The game's only a few clicks away, there's no cost, and most emulators allow you to speed up the game. Emulation was what I instantly chose, but I repeat - Only if you know what your doing is illegal, and that you're downloading it at your own risk. But, in the very slim chance that you get in trouble for this and get thrown in jail, at least you and your cellmates will have an awesome game to play- Providing the cops let you bring your laptop.
...
For the paranoid - No, I don't think prison is a valid punishment for emulation.
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