EarthBound: King of the cult classics

Was this Super Nintendo RPG really so good I named myself after it? Oh yes, yes indeed. Earthbound’s solid fundamentals, unique setting and bizarre sense of humor have kept it fresh a decade later, and if you need any evidence just take a look at the fan community. Loyal legions of Earthbound fans are still alive and kicking after years of letter campaigns, call-ins and other ventures that have tried to bring more of Mother (as it’s known in Japan) to the West.

I picked up my copy of Earthbound new, in a battered case with player’s guide included. The only reason I gave it a chance was having read a bit about it in an older issue of Nintendo Power’s RPG strategy section. I took it home for something like $20, maybe less (I didn’t know at the time that the box was already selling for double that online), popped it in…and was struck by how bizarre it was. The plot opens with a meteor crash. Your first, temporary party, consists of your bat-wielding self, your dog and your near-helpless next door neighbor’s younger brother. You’re investigating the meteor that crashed uphill from your house. Your exploration leads to the revelation, delivered by a space bee from the future, that you’re the chosen one and have to save the world by questing and reuniting a party of heroes. The space bee is promptly smashed to death by your next door neighbor’s obese mother.

What.

From there it’s a whirlwind world tour, where you fight gangs, cops, cavemen, zombies, robots from the future, a cult, your own nightmare, dinosaurs…you get the idea. Earthbound throws everything but the kitchen sink at you. One of the characters in your party is acquired after you eat some psychedelic cake. You encounter strange pencil-shaped monoliths that can only be destroyed with an item called the Pencil Eraser. You have to bail a knockoff of the Blues Brothers out of bankruptcy. Every twist and turn gets weirder and more hilarious. Yet it’s all strangely sentimental too–the game’s not afraid to break the third wall from time to time, and at the halfway point even takes a few minutes out to recap your adventures in a unique “coffee break” sequence. And even strange little mechanics like having to call home and talk to mom or become homesick add that little bit of extra oomph that doesn’t just make EarthBound a weird game, it makes it a great game.

Sure, it has its flaws–I can still remember my endless frustration at the Scalding Coffee Cup enemies hitting everyone in my party for massive damage, or trying to acquire the elusive Sword of Kings by grinding enemies until I was leveled higher than necessary but had the blade in hand. Yet some of its functions–a rolling hit point counter that lets you buy time before fainting, and a built-in auto-battle feature–remain unduplicated. But the journey it takes you on, right down to the back-slapping and hand-shaking finale after the final boss falls makes EarthBound and experience for the ages. And I’ve never regretted having to explain to someone how I got my name.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Articles, Games.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.