EarthBound is love in a bottle, and the idea that people continued to question video games as an artistic medium a decade after its release fills me with disgust.

EarthBound is not a product on purpose. If it were feasible for him to do responsibly, I believe with my whole heart that Itoi would have given it away for free. It is the amorphous experience of a man's life, coagulated into a twisting mass of wonder, joy, terror and the cold, beautiful strength that is maturity. It features all of the childly insight of a Steven King novel and all the friendly comfort of a Dragon Quest. It is, in my opinion, the first true great artistic success of the medium, and I include the then-just-released Final Fantasy VI.

And yet... PLAYING it...

EarthBound, despite its divine importance and unlimited heart, fails to thrill with its more traditional video game trappings. Its dungeons, inventory management and combat are all rote and often frustrating. This helps evoke a nostalgia for the Dragon Quests of yore for those who grew up with them, but gives an unfamiliar or undesiring player little to latch onto. Honestly when I'm bogged down with the "video game" parts rather than exploring the world and its characters, I'm not having fun with EarthBound, and that happens to be a quite sizable percentage of the game. This is why I cannot give this, one of the most important, most beautiful games ever made, a full-throated set of all five stars. It cannot truly deliver on its gameplay fronts... at least not for me, someone who didn't turn to Dragon Quest until their 20's.

The next question I always ask myself whenever I think this about an RPG (and it rarely comes up elsewhere), is one of degrees. To what extent do these inadequacies Get In The Way? A game like Final Fantasy VII is too easy for its own good (from a modern perspective anyway) but its gameplay blazes by so quickly and smoothly that one barely even notices that all they did in that boss fight was spam the attack command. It does not Get In The Way, even if it doesn't maximize its potential. By contrast, in Persona 2: Innocent Sin, battles might be similarly trivial, but they are so incessantly drawn out and so disorientingly frequent that they DO become a damaging annoyance rather than just a missed opportunity. Earthbound, tragically, falls into the latter camp... if only slightly.

I can give full marks to Final Fantasy VI because its underbaked character gimmicks are so harmless that it's seldom even noticed that there's anything wrong with them. Like many Final Fantasy games, it's a smoothie that goes down easy. Conversely, every playthrough I do of Earthbound goes on a year long hiatus shortly after I get through the monkey caves.

I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I was not still constantly tempted to just give Earthbound the full score anyway. It is one of the most important video games ever made. I implicitly trust each of the children of EarthBound with my life... but my desires to play EarthBound never last long, and that has to count for something.

Edit: Nah, screw it. I've let other games get away with worse.

Writing: 4/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Art Design & Visuals: 4/5
Voices & Sounds: 3/5
Atmosphere & Immersion: 2/5

This game is extremely near and dear to me, I’ve played it 3 times and it made me nostalgic since my very first playthrough due to the feelings of childlike wonder I got while playing it. The mood ranges from calm to spooky to heartwarming to trippy and everything in between, the same can mostly be said for the visuals and music that elicit these feelings. The game is light on the story but the places you go and the people you meet make it feel like a real journey by the end where you do get some very simple yet impactful exposition about Ness, all of it is unique and unforgettable. There’s no game quite like it to me, it’s a real masterpiece.