679: Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū (Earthbound)

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū (Earthbound) for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

[DaMonth]

I had nothing to say about Beginnings but I have everything to say about its cooler little brother. And I think Nintendo knows Earthbound is the cooler little brother considering how everything in this game is just a better redo of the original released first in the States: boy with a sideways baseball cap and his girlfriend and his nerdy bestie, gathering up seven pieces of a melody to defeat an alien, the Americana setting, etc.

Except this time we have fun additions, like: psychedelic backgrounds for every fight, SMASH!!, a circus overrun by zombies, the Eraser Eraser, rolling health bars for a little dynamic tension in combat, cops that will club a child, a cool little Plesiosaur that gives you a ride, a spiritual mentor that rips off your limbs and mutilates you until you're nothing but a blind deaf mute bleeding stub on the ground worthy of enlightenment, a bike you only use for 10 minutes before you have to get off it to hangout with your girlfriend, a brat that's always trying to get in your way, a brat that's always trying to get in your way with money, a cool robot adventure where your brain has to be surgically removed from your skull and put into a machine on a one-way trip to an apocalyptic future to stop an incomprehensible mass of baby/uterus/death-shaped despair, a funny little village with big-nose dudes speaking funny, puke!

I prefer Mother 3 and its bigger narrative focus but this one is a close second for sure. Weird they put a 3 in the second game without ever releasing a first. So odd.

[Caligulas Horse]

I came to Earthbound during my student days, when I was having a bit of a hard time and seeking comfort in JRPGs. I'd always been intrigued following it's inclusion in Smash Bros Melee, but had never had a clear idea of what it was about or how it played.

It turned out to be funnier and far, far weirder than I'd ever imagined. Whereas a week earlier I had been battling ancient dragons and basilisks, I was now up against Piles of Puke, New Age Retro Hippies, and the fearsome, the dreaded, the abominable Unassuming Local Guy!

Admittedly the contrast from other JRPGS I'd been playing was a little jarring at first, I felt very underpowered in the early areas (like I was a kid with a stick or something!), and the more intense battle system, with it's rolling HP counters, took some getting used to. But despite these initial hiccups, I was always motivated to plough on to see more of this colourful and delightfully bonkers world. It never lets up, in the absence of a strong central narrative or characterisation, you're driven forward by a series of whacky vignettes and gags. It's so relentlessly zany that it's easy to forget why you began this adventure or where it's ultimately headed, you just have to take it one eraser at a time.

What makes it special, though, is that beneath the irreverent tone is a really sweet, sincere core. Small touches that involve you in the world, like allowing the player to name their favourite food, lends the game a personal charm (although, obviously as a stoner student I put that my favourite food was Dick for lols). And you grow to love all of the strange little characters and places you come across on your journey, all of which culminates in a brilliant finale that melted my wee heart. The idea of having the player directly contribute to beating the boss is ingenious, and I know that if I had played this as a kid it would have set my imagination wild seeing my name come up on the screen in that moment.

It is also looks amazing, super bright and colourful. And the soundtrack is as singular as the game itself, a weird mix of genres and sounds, with plenty of bangers. But I think I'm going on a bit here and will leave that for those more qualified to speak on it.

Really looking forward to this episode!

[Jobobonobo]

Like many Europeans my first exposure to Earthbound was Smash Bros, particularly Ness in Melee. Most Nintendo characters I had some recollection of, but this little kid was completely unknown to me. When I found out that his game never came out in Europe, then everything became clear. So, since I was also experimenting with emulation at the time I decided to try out his original adventure. My only experience with RPGs of any sort was the Pokemon series so the fact that you could see enemies on the field before battle was a mind-blowing revelation to me. As I have got more into JRPGs in particular, elements such as random battles I have learnt to tolerate but to this day any RPG that does not have them definitely lifts it up a good deal in my books.

Even though I was not hugely familiar with RPG tropes at the time I played this, I definitely noticed that the modern-day setting distinguished this from your medieval Dragon Quests and sci fi Phantasy Stars. Hippies, angry old women and taxis were also a nice departure form goblins in the enemy department. The combat system was also made more tense due to the rolling HP mechanics ensuring that you could defeat enemies before their powerful attack takes you down. Defeating enemies automatically if you were powerful enough also ensured backtracking was relatively painless which I think is incredibly forward thinking for the time this game was made, and I wish more games respected your time like this. Presentation is also top notch with trippy backgrounds making what is otherwise a static battle screen much more eye catching. The music is also fantastically varied with cheery tunes going through the streets, funky new age chill having a coffee with Mr Saturn or utter dread when facing up against Giygas.

My only real issue with this game is that there can be real difficulty spikes where the enemies can obliterate you if you are not careful, the Atomic Power robots being real nasty customers in particular so grinding can be needed more than I would have liked. But on the whole, Earthbound does so many cool and unique things in the RPG genre and I can certainly see why it has a cult following. I also have grown fonder of it simply because I recently played the original Mother and this game really did everything that game set out to do so much better and made me realise how much more fun I had with it overall. If you are someone who likes RPGs and want something a bit more out there in terms of aesthetics and design, Earthbound is certainly worth a go.

TWR: Say Fuzzy Pickles!

[Toon Scottoon]

I didn't play Earthbound until 2019. I can't believe I missed it as a kid of 12 when it first released in the states, or that all the kids in my suburban Chicago neighborhood seemed to miss it too. The North American box art with the gold Starman standing arms akimbo, the background a swirl of color like something from a LeRoy Neiman painting of that era, should have had us all fighting over who rode their bike home from the Ken's World of Video with the rental copy tucked under their arm.

Probably our ignorance had to do with the fact that the clutch of boys I spent my time with were not an RPG playing group, and so the first real 16 bit RPG I played was Chrono Trigger in 2019, and then Earthbound soon after that. I say this because my strongest memory of the game was the feeling many people had when they first visited an internet chat room and learned that they were into the same kinds of books and movies and games as someone on the other side of the country or the world, this time the signal broadcasting a love of Stephen King books, Steven Spielberg movies, and the Blues Brothers wasn't just posting from across a distance of miles, they were also posting from across the years and with such a quirky, comical bent that I found myself transfixed by the swirl of colored backgrounds and and emotions brought up by this game where my favorite food was pizza, and my character was on an adventure with my wife, my brother, our first dog, and some guy named Poo.

Three word review: Onett, Twoson, Threed

[NoMoreSpearows]

In the depths of Master Belch's factory live a series of small pink blobs. These little guys, even simpler to draw than Kirby, are Foppies, who don't put up much of a fight. They're susceptible to your spells, go down in a few physical hits, and ultimately vanish when their boss gets defeated.

My sister and I kinda love 'em.

It's odd that we'd be attached to them rather than the similarly-designed Mr. Saturns, who also work (albeit less voluntarily) in the factory and have both charming dialogue and an unfortunate circumstance to help with their likability, but Foppy wins out for a few reasons. For one, it's fun to say his name, the same way it's fun to say "Ranboob" or "Rowdy Mouse." For another, he's an enemy in EarthBound, and since he doesn't fall under the category of "terrifying abomination" or "someone going about their business" he falls under the only other one, "just a little guy." This is the best category to fall under.

Foppy isn't the best thing about EarthBound for most, and it makes sense; not everyone shares the strange bonds that can form between siblings and strange specimens. But I think everyone who has played EarthBound does have some sort of connection like ours, where an otherwise unremarkable enemy suddenly becomes a mascot of sorts for their playthrough, who you cheer whenever they show up. Maybe, for someone, that moment didn't come until they met Foppy's orange friend Fobby. If you're that person, please let me know; we have a lot to talk about.

[Girard]

As an American middle schooler with a Nintendo Power subscription, I was inundated with coverage of this game, and something about it captivated me in a way the other JRPG coverage in their 'Epic Center' section didn't. Maybe it was the charming clay aesthetic, or the playful contemporary setting. But I was enamored, and not even the smelly ad campaign could put me off.

I made the mistake of renting the game, getting extremely engrossed, playing through probably and third of it, and then having to return the cartridge knowing my save game was trapped in one of the handful of random copies of the game Blockbuster carried.

I didn't resume the game until I was a young adult in the late 2000s, having finished art school, and encountering writing that highlighted how weird, artful and affecting this strange game was. I wound up playing through the whole series via emulation, and found each entry affecting in its own way. The games' denouement especially have a way of mechanically surprising you and hitting you in the gut.