EarthBound

aka: Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū
Moby ID: 6676
SNES Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/18 8:50 PM )

Description official descriptions

In the year 199X, in the village of Onett, on the continent of Eagleland...

Young Ness was asleep one night when a loud crashing noise awoke him suddenly. As he rushes out of bed and up to a nearby hill, he encounters a strange meteor, carrying a single passenger: a mysterious insect-like being named Buzz Buzz. Buzz Buzz tells him that in the future, an evil alien being known as Giygas has conquered the world, and the only ones who can stop him are four young kids: three boys and a girl. Ness, of course, is one of the chosen ones, and he must find the other three children: Paula, a young girl with remarkable psychic powers, Jeff, a mechanical genius, and Poo, the young Prince of Dahlaam. Together, these four friends have the power to defeat Giygas and save the world from his chaotic reign!

EarthBound is a sequel to Mother. It is a top-down role-playing game in which the heroes travel around Eagleland and various other, exotic countries, trying to end Giygas' evil influence.

On the way, Ness and his friends will encounter a lot of enemies and battle them in turn-based combat. Unlike in the previous game, enemies are visibly walking on the screen. Each turn, each of the characters in the party can attack with their weapons, use a special ability (some characters have powerful psychic powers that can hurt enemies, heal comrades, and more; some also have some other, unique special powers), use an item or try and escape.

The game features "rolling HP meters" - when a character is dealt damage, it's not all taken away from his HP right away, but instead his HP decreases slowly; if the combat is ended quickly, even a massively damaging attack can leave a character with only minor injuries. By winning battles, characters receive experience and thus become stronger. If the player-controlled characters are strong enough, weak enemies will escape from them instead of trying to attack; when chased down, they will be defeated instantly.

Saving the game is done by finding a telephone and calling Ness' father. When the heroes defeat enemies, Ness' bank account receives money, which can be then retrieved from ATM machines throughout the game and spent in shops to buy better equipment or useful items.

Spellings

  • MOTHER 2 ギーグの逆襲 - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (SNES version)

127 People (109 developers, 18 thanks) · View all

Producer / Director
Written By
Music
Game Designer
Art Director
Sound Director
Program Director
U.S. Conversion Director
Translation Directors
Programmers
Sound Programmer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.3 out of 5 (based on 134 ratings with 10 reviews)

This game is pretty fun; try it out!

The Good
I liked almost everything about this game. Ill start with the music. The music of this game is very unique, and is very peaceful at times, very rockin' and hyper-active at other times. The battle music for each enemy is very good, and the over-world music for each land and place is very good too. Next thing is the story. The story of this game is very good, and it all ties together to make it very good in the end. It all flows together, and adds together nicely. The gameplay is next. The gameplay of this game is very much similar to early Dragon Quest games, but it is still very fun none-the-less. The attacks are very original and very fun to play with. How could you not like sending stars from the sky shooting at your opponents? The characters of this game are very fun to control, and they each have their own wacky sense of humor. When you play this game, it makes you feel like you are actually the main hero, who is formally called Ness.

The Bad
Okay, now, the graphics of this game aren't all nifty and aren't 100% going to make you go 'Wowza!'. The graphics aren't very good, but that shouldn't make you stay away from the game forever. Also, there are a couple of typos in the game, one of which is in a very important speech that says 'unverse' instead of 'universe'.

The Bottom Line
If you are ever offered this game, or want to buy this game, I would say get it. The amount of humor, creativity and greatness put into this game is sensational. I can't see why Nintendo won't give this game another chance. It's very well worth it Nintendo. Heck; it even has 2 sites devoted to it, and 50 Million Fan games that are being made, because fans can't wait any more! Shigesato Itoi, I give you kudos my good sir, for creating the awesome game that is, EarthBound.

SNES · by Quincy Phaeoile (2) · 2009

Greatly passes up Mother by far!

The Good
If you remember the hit Mother (Earthbound for NES) then you can get a picture of what this game is like. It's your same ol' preschool psychic hero saving the world except with better graphics, better gameplay, better story, and pretty much better everything. I was extremely pleased with the music. There's different battle music for all kinds of enemies and the other music is great too.

The Bad
Well, not much really. The only thing I can think is that it was a little too tough early in the game. I know part of RPG's is leveling up and getting stronger, and I'm a hardcore RPG fan, but it was a little to tough to beat some of the Shark Gang and the Robot thing. The Gang members could knock you out in three attacks if not less early on and if you didn't level up then you'd be losing each battle.

The Bottom Line
Excellent game for all you Role Players out there. (yah I'm talkin to you)

SNES · by Dason Rise (17) · 2003

Good game, if you don't mind the kinks

The Good
EarthBound (Mother 2) was pretty original for its time for being an RPG set in a modern world, while most RPGs at the time set in Medieval or "steam punk" environments. This makes it seem much more plain and simple, allowing you to travel, manage money, and find rest areas in the game (hotels, specifically). Humor is also a strength in Earthbound, with wacky characters like Mr. Saturns and the Bubble Monkey, bizarre enemy names, and funny comments heard from talking to various people and examining objects.

The Bad
Hate to be a heart breaker, but this game has some negative aspects. First and foremost, the game's graphics are pretty crappy. Now I know that the companies that developed this game spent 5 years developing the graphics to this game, but that was mainly because of the oblique perspective that the game is presented in. The battle sprites look really bad with all the pixel errors found in them, ranging from a few misplaced colors, to a completely ugly design, such as the boss Frank, and the Shattered Man. Also, some of the music is really bad (although there are a few kick-ass melodies in Earthbound that don't go into this complaint, such as "Threed Freed at Last" and the Summers theme), with some tracks having "electric farts" as percussion, and a bad choice of instruments. I found the "Monkey Maze" track particularly annoying with all the monkey screeches and a nauseatingly repetitive melody.

My final complaint is with the game's mixed difficulty. All too many times, I've found myself playing smoothly for a few parts of the game, and then getting frustrated with amazingly hard spots like the Fourside Department Store, and Magicant (You have to face a bunch of Krakens with just one freaking character!), which isn't good for a game targeted for all ages, because kids easily get mad over a game.

The Bottom Line
EarthBound is a funny, creative, and somewhat original game for its time. Released near the end of the SNES's era, it was rather obscure due to strange marketing, with the "This game stinks!" motto, which I think had a pretty negative appeal to the game due to its low sales in the U.S. It's technologically behind, though it was developed carefully and strenuously, but for all the bad sides to the game, it's positives make well up for it.

Bottom Line: EarthBound's for RPG nerds. An average gamer would hardly be interested in playing this game without having played other RPGs around the same time period. Nowadays the only logical way of playing the game is through emulation, since the rarity of the cartridge has made it worth around $100 and a horribly low chance of the game being released on Virtual Console due to the many copyright infringements unintentionally present in the game (find out about these from another source).

SNES · by Idkbutlike2 (18) · 2010

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Do sealed copies of the American Release exist? WiseNaydra Mar 30, 2023
Free Player's Guide? GNJMSTR (106) Jun 15, 2011

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The SNES version of EarthBound appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Advertisement

The game's advertising campaign in the U.S. was quite a disaster. Apparently, the higher-ups at Nintendo of America decided that "kids like farts!" and thus, the ads ran in the magazines all exaggerated the (few and far between) "toilet humor" elements of the game, making the game look like an endless string of burping, puking and farting. (The ads also included scratch-n-sniff stickers.)

The advertising slogan even said: "This game stinks." Who knows how much this contributed to EarthBound's low sales.

A webpage with more info and scans of magazine ads can be found in the related links section.

Copy protection

The cartridge has a built-in copy protection with nasty effects for pirates. If a hacked game (which bypasses the first layer of protection which would simply prevent the game from starting) is played, there are a lot more random encounters in the game world. If a player endures this, it will freeze during the final battle and delete all save games. More information can be found on the fansite EarthBound Central.

Development

Shigesato Itoi, the creator of EarthBound, added a few personal details to the game.

Firstly, Ness's father never appears in person. According to an article from an issue of Edge magazine (either a classic feature on EarthBound or a review of Mother 3), this was inspired by the fact that Itoi's own father was absent for a great part of his childhood.

Secondly, the dialogue of Giygas was inspired by a traumatic childhood experience where Itoi mistakenly walked into an adult movie theatre and caught a glimpse of a sex/rape scene in the 1957 movie Kenpei and the Dismembered Beauty.

Version differences

  • At one point in the Japanese version of EarthBound, Pokey and Picky are punished by their dad for coming home late. He takes them off-screen, and a noise is heard resembling hitting/slapping. If you talk to Pokey afterwards, he complains that his "butt hurts." When Mother 2 was translated for the US, the "hitting" sound effect was changed to a shorter, more comical effect, resembling "yelling". When you talk to Pokey afterwards, instead of complaining about his butt, he whines that his dad took away his dessert privileges.
  • In the Japanese version of the game, at a certain point, the main character Ness is nude. This was changed to having Ness appear in his pajamas for the North American release. However, on close inspection of the strategy guide (page 111), there is an image of Ness in the nude on the bottom left of the page. This was an obvious oversight on the part of Nintendo of America.
  • In Peaceful Rest Valley, you'll encounter a large statue of a pencil blocking your path. At that point, you'll receive the Pencil Eraser and Apple Kid will jokingly warn you about using the machine nearby a place that sells pencils. In the Japanese version, the statues aren't pencils but instead octopus statues. So in the Japanese version, Apple kid will joke about using the machine nearby a "Takoyaki" (grilled octopus) restaurant which wouldn't make sense to some United States players.

Extras

The game included a card of scratch-'n-sniff spots, featuring monsters from the game.

Manual

EarthBound was packaged with an Official Nintendo Player's Guide, which also doubled as its manual. Because of this the box was far larger than any other SNES game box.

References to the game

  • Jeff appears as an assist trophy in the Wii game Super Smash Bros.: Brawl.
  • Ness appears as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. fighting games. However, he uses moves he didn't learn in EarthBound, such as PK fire and PK thunder.

Song

At the end of the last song, Ending 3 - Smiles and Tears (5:05), during the credits the words "I Miss You" are digitally spoken, presumably by Ness.

Information also contributed by Calpis, CaptainCanuck, Chris Chidester, colm52, JudgeDeadd, KFactor, Mark Ennis, MegaMegaMan, Sciere and Warren McHenry

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Twister: Mother of Charlotte
Released 1986 on ZX Spectrum
12 Labours of Hercules IV: Mother Nature
Released 2015 on Windows, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch...
Dungeon Master: Chaos Strikes Back - Expansion Set #1
Released 1989 on Atari ST, Amiga, 1990 on PC-98...
Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut
Released 2014 on Windows, 2015 on PlayStation 4, Wii U...
UniWar S
Released 1980 on Arcade
Scorched Earth
Released 1991 on DOS
EarthBound Beginnings
Released 1989 on NES, 2015 on Wii U, 2022 on Nintendo Switch
3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night
Released 1996 on Windows, Windows 3.x, Macintosh
Giant Monster Counter Attack
Released 1986 on Arcade

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 6676
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.

New Nintendo 3DS added by Michael Cassidy. Nintendo Switch added by Rik Hideto. Wii U added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Iris-chan, chirinea, Hitman23, Freeman, CaptainCanuck, Havoc Crow, LepricahnsGold, Patrick Bregger, Thomas Thompson, Victor Vance, FatherJack, click here to win an iPhone9SSSS.

Game added June 10, 2002. Last modified February 21, 2024.