EarthBound

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Description

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 one 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.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "MOTHER 2 ギーグの逆襲" -- Japanese spelling
• "Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū" -- Japanese title

Part of the Following Groups

• Games with game altering copy protection
• Mother / EarthBound series
• Setting: Future now Past
• Theme: Psychic powers / Psionics

User Reviews

Lightheartedly poking fun, 16-bit style	SNES	prymusferal (25)
Awesome Game	SNES	KFactor (98)
Good game, if you don't mind the kinks	SNES	Idkbutlike2 (23)
This game is pretty fun; try it out!	SNES	Quincy Phaeoile (3)
Greatly passes up Mother by far!	SNES	Dason Rise (20)
Sweeeeet!	SNES	Vance (101)
A classic....	SNES	Andrew Douglas (10)
A game different even in this era	SNES	SlapHappy (19)
Earthbound Review	SNES	Blake Smith (6)
I hate Earthbound!!!	SNES	Andrew Taylor (8)

Critic Reviews

Nintendo Life	New Nintendo 3DS	Mar 12, 2016		100
Jeuxvideo.com	SNES	Nov 25, 2011	18 out of 20	90
Digital Chumps	Wii U	Jul 26, 2013	9 out of 10	90
Nintendo Life	SNES	Dec 20, 2009		90
Nintendojo	SNES	Feb 28, 2004	9 out of 10	90
HonestGamers	SNES	Dec 30, 2012	9 out of 10	90
Jaded Gamer, The	SNES	Aug 17, 2005	86 out of 100	86
Mega Fun	SNES	Jul, 1995	83 out of 100	83
All Game Guide	SNES	2007		80
Video Games & Computer Entertainment	SNES	Jul, 1995	6 out of 10	60

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Free Player's Guide?	2	Alaka (58149) 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

Related Web Sites

• 16-Bit Gems #10: EarthBound - A History (part 1) video (Roo of the Clan of the Gray Wolf's review of the history of EarthBound and it's related series.)
• 16-Bit Gems #11: EarthBound - The Review (part 1) video (Roo of the Clan of the Gray Wolf's review of the SNES game EarthBound.)
• EarthBound (Official game site for the Wii U version of the game. Includes an interview to Shigesato Itoi (the game's author) and a full digital reproduction of the guide packaged with the game in the original USA SNES release.)
• EarthBound Central (A blog that covers the entire Mother/EarthBound series.)
• EarthBound for Wii U - Official Site (official website (for the Wii U version))
• EarthBound's Marketing Campaign (Trivia about the failed marketing campaign of EarthBound. )
• EarthBound Walkthrough (A walkthrough for the game at Starmen.net. )
• Mother 2 vs. EB (Site devoted to listing the changes made to the game from the Japanese version (Mother 2) to the North American version (Earthbound). Some interesting areas including censoring of Hospitals and soft drink trucks (?!).)
• MOTHER Party (A Japanese fansite for the Mother series. )
• OC ReMix Game Profile (Fan remixes of music from EarthBound.)
• Player's Guide (Official Nintendo Player's Guide from original U.S. SNES release, now digitized.)
• Starmen.Net (One of the largest Earthbound fan sites. It contains information and media on Earthbound as well as other games in the Mother (Japanese name for Earthbound) series released and unreleased.)
• What Earthbound means to me. Shigesato Itoi (19 years later: game's author Shigesato Itoi memories and reflections on what EarthBound means to him.)