More of these, please!

I just finished playing one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen. Earlier this year my wife bought me Earthbound for the Super Nintendo and now that I beat the game I can safely say that I’ll never play a game that crazy again. Why? Because no one will ever make a game quit like Earthbound.

One of The Best Games Ever

For those of you unaware what Earthbound is, it is an RPG on the SNES that stars Ness, a young boy chosen to save the earth from a space alien named Giygas and his hoard of baddies. During the game he’ll get the help of Paula, a psychic, Jeff, a genius inventor, and Poo, a prince from a mystic village. When the game first came out, Nintendo did all it could to push for a successful US launch, hyping the game with incentives such as a free players guide with the game and scratch and sniff stickers to entice fans with the weird factor. And few people bought the game.

Just the game will run upwards of $75 online.

Why was this? Well, the game is crazy. It’s an RPG but it isn’t like any RPG you’ve likely played. It gets cited numerous times for replacing the usual swords and spears as weapons with baseball bats and frying pans, but that’s not the big difference I saw. No, the game constantly does things that make you go, “Huh? Did they really say that?” Characters will point out that they’re in a game all the time, even referencing you as the player, asking for your name specifically every so often. You can expect a whole lot of crazy to befall you on your journey around Eagleland.

Focus On the Story, Not the Graphics

The problem with the game then and even more now is its lack of high-quality graphics. Earthbound didn’t attempt to push the SNES anywhere near its limits in ways that Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI had done, so people brushed the strange game aside as an inferior example of a game. Honestly, if you take a quick look at screens you may think the game was made as a class assignment.

I wish I could find a meteor outside my house some day.

But what the game doesn’t do with graphics it does ten times over with story, pacing, music, and innovations. In a typical RPG battle your health bar will instantly go up or down when hit by an enemy or recovered by an ally. However, Earthbound has a different take on this with a counter system. If an enemy does a huge hit to you that’d normally kill you, your health points rapidly count down, but if an ally heals you before you die then your health goes back up. It makes for a very quick-paced situation every now and then but it sure helps to keep the game from being monotonous. Plus, this game can get tough if you aren’t careful.

Still, the game is forgiving by allowing you to keep all your progress when you die. I was so happy to discover that all experience and money and everything I did before I was killed remained even when I went back ...