Earthbound, once a cult classic, now probably one of the most influential RPGs to ever exist. This isn’t my first time playing it, I played it on my 3DS back in 2017 I believe, but I don’t remember much of my original experience with the game. Since I played Mother 3 last year, and I played the original Mother a couple months ago, I thought it was fitting to replay Earthbound. Earthbound is a complicated game I feel. Is it an amazing game that deserves the status it has today? Of course! But at the same time, there were certain aspects of the game that I just never liked. Even with those aspects in mind though, Earthbound is still a spectacular game that is worth anyone’s time.
Earthbound’s combat is really something to me. I saw some reviews call it simple or basic, but I don’t really see it that way. Particularly, I really love the rolling HP system. Instead of HP immediately dropping from say, 200 to 150, it slowly rolls down from 200, to 199, 198, 197, etc, etc, all the way down to 150. What that means is that on the next round of combat, if you’re fast enough, you can heal that health before it gets to 150. This also works if a character takes enough damage to go down to 0, if you heal them before it reaches 0, they don’t die. This system is so unique, I’ve only ever seen it in Earthbound and Mother 3, and it’s still one that amazes me. There’s a unique sense of saving a character before they die, instead of just reviving them. The PSI abilities in combat are also great, though I primarily just used the healing and offense ones. I like the differences in how fire, ice, and thunder skills work, alongside the unique skills of Rockin’ and Star Storm. I probably should’ve used the support PSI abilities more often, as they would’ve given an edge in combat, though balancing PSI I always found a bit tough, so I often saved it for when it was most useful.
Another outstanding aspect of Earthbound is the general environment. I love how absolutely colorful it is, alongside each area having its own unique vibes. Either from a color palette, or what you actually see as you explore towns, dungeons, or just other locations, you can get the sort of vibe of that location. And I love the settings that the Mother games take place in. Mundane suburban environments, mixed in with some weird and fantastical elements, it’s all super fun and charming. While they had some of the frustrations I’ll explain later, Zombie-Infested Threed and Moonside were some of my favorite locations in the game visually. And adding even more to that, the music really adds to the entire environment too. Typing this right now, I have the store theme playing in my head, and though it appears throughout the entire trilogy, Snowman is still one of my favorite songs in the entire series. There’s something about the song that points to the beauty and the loneliness in a place such as Winters.
Earthbound itself doesn’t have an outright spoken story. It has moments that are, especially in the beginning and endings of the game, but most of the story of the game is written by you. The paths you take, the battles you fight, the hardships and the victories. The journey is yours to take, your path to walk on, your story to write. And I find beauty in that. Earthbound, though having an overarching plot, feels more focused on the journey which I think is another thing to point. Sure, Giygas exists and is threatening to destroy the world, but it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey to get there. You get to see so much of the individuals that make up the world, their daily lives, their struggles, and the general mundane and weird aspects of life. Dungeon Man is one of my favorite characters, especially in this aspect. This guy just wants to become a dungeon, and he’s able to, and there’s something really fun about that. And I think the hardships in the game are another point to the game’s strength (at times, yet again I’ll explain later). The game has noticeable jumps in difficulty, but honestly I find some charm in them. Having to struggle against difficult enemies, but never giving up. Trying again and again until you eventually succeed. And it gets to a point where the things that beat you are now just a pushover. There’s something to that that I really appreciate.
Now, I want to elaborate on what I foreshadowed multiple times already, those being the frustrations I had with Earthbound while playing it. To me, Earthbound is a near perfect game. It does so much right, and so much perfectly, but the things that I found frustrating were really frustrating. I think particularly the thing that frustrated me the most while playing the game was constant status effects that were happening. Now this is obvious exaggeration, but it felt as if every other turn one of my party members was afflicted with a status of some kind. I don’t know if I missed important information that would help me counter status effects, but unless I had the right level of PSI Healing, there wasn’t really a way for me to counter it. And most of the status effects in the game are just really annoying. Crying and Feeling Strange were the most common ones, where accuracy is lowered and attacking wrong targets respectively. Those are fine, but can be a little annoying, especially the latter. I found the most frustrating one to be Possession, as not only can it hurt your party members, but it can prevent a party member from acting one turn. And in cases where it prevents your healer from healing, you’re just screwed for that turn. I think ultimately the thing is that the status effects themselves are fine in isolation, one of the final bosses, Diamond Dog, had a really nasty status effect which works as basically an instant kill, but what made it work was the environment in which it was found. With random encounter enemies constantly using status effects on you, it becomes a lot more frustrating, and at least for me, not in a good way. This leads into my second general frustration, which is the nature of enemy encounters. I think Earthbound improved upon Mother’s method of enemy encounters. Gone are random encounters, but now enemies appear in the overworld, and if you collide with an enemy, combat begins. I found myself unlucky, and constantly found swarms of enemies, and since enemies are faster than the player characters, you can’t escape from them easily once they see you. I ultimately think either lessen the amount of enemies that can spawn, or make it easier to flee from them before battle, and the problem is solved. My last frustration is one that isn’t exclusive to Earthbound, as it’s a pet peeve that I find persists through nearly every RPG I’ve played. Being unable to flee from combat I just find bad, innately. I make this point every time, but there’s already a built in punishment to fleeing battles, since you won’t get any items or experience points. Punishing the player by allowing the enemies free attacks on them is just insult to injury at that point.
I want to make a point with my frustrations though. With what you can probably imagine, they’re all chance based occurrences. Status Conditions, Encounter Rates, Flee Rates, all of these are things that are all tied to chance. While these are frustrations I had, and I can’t discount them, I also imagine I just ended up being really unlucky during my time playing it. It was to the point that I was worried I was playing a pirated version of the game somehow, though that wasn’t the case. I can’t guarantee anyone who plays this game will run into the same issues I did, and hey, maybe you’ll be able to overlook what I couldn’t.
At the end of the day, even with the frustrations I had, I still love and appreciate Earthbound. Its charm, music, environment, everything about it aside from a small list of things is absolutely amazing. It’s no wonder that so many games get this inspiration from the Mother series, let alone Earthbound. The ending of the game is absolutely beautiful, and I’m glad I stuck through it to the end. Though of course this isn’t my first time playing Earthbound, I’m glad I revisited it after so long.
Earthbound’s combat is really something to me. I saw some reviews call it simple or basic, but I don’t really see it that way. Particularly, I really love the rolling HP system. Instead of HP immediately dropping from say, 200 to 150, it slowly rolls down from 200, to 199, 198, 197, etc, etc, all the way down to 150. What that means is that on the next round of combat, if you’re fast enough, you can heal that health before it gets to 150. This also works if a character takes enough damage to go down to 0, if you heal them before it reaches 0, they don’t die. This system is so unique, I’ve only ever seen it in Earthbound and Mother 3, and it’s still one that amazes me. There’s a unique sense of saving a character before they die, instead of just reviving them. The PSI abilities in combat are also great, though I primarily just used the healing and offense ones. I like the differences in how fire, ice, and thunder skills work, alongside the unique skills of Rockin’ and Star Storm. I probably should’ve used the support PSI abilities more often, as they would’ve given an edge in combat, though balancing PSI I always found a bit tough, so I often saved it for when it was most useful.
Another outstanding aspect of Earthbound is the general environment. I love how absolutely colorful it is, alongside each area having its own unique vibes. Either from a color palette, or what you actually see as you explore towns, dungeons, or just other locations, you can get the sort of vibe of that location. And I love the settings that the Mother games take place in. Mundane suburban environments, mixed in with some weird and fantastical elements, it’s all super fun and charming. While they had some of the frustrations I’ll explain later, Zombie-Infested Threed and Moonside were some of my favorite locations in the game visually. And adding even more to that, the music really adds to the entire environment too. Typing this right now, I have the store theme playing in my head, and though it appears throughout the entire trilogy, Snowman is still one of my favorite songs in the entire series. There’s something about the song that points to the beauty and the loneliness in a place such as Winters.
Earthbound itself doesn’t have an outright spoken story. It has moments that are, especially in the beginning and endings of the game, but most of the story of the game is written by you. The paths you take, the battles you fight, the hardships and the victories. The journey is yours to take, your path to walk on, your story to write. And I find beauty in that. Earthbound, though having an overarching plot, feels more focused on the journey which I think is another thing to point. Sure, Giygas exists and is threatening to destroy the world, but it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey to get there. You get to see so much of the individuals that make up the world, their daily lives, their struggles, and the general mundane and weird aspects of life. Dungeon Man is one of my favorite characters, especially in this aspect. This guy just wants to become a dungeon, and he’s able to, and there’s something really fun about that. And I think the hardships in the game are another point to the game’s strength (at times, yet again I’ll explain later). The game has noticeable jumps in difficulty, but honestly I find some charm in them. Having to struggle against difficult enemies, but never giving up. Trying again and again until you eventually succeed. And it gets to a point where the things that beat you are now just a pushover. There’s something to that that I really appreciate.
Now, I want to elaborate on what I foreshadowed multiple times already, those being the frustrations I had with Earthbound while playing it. To me, Earthbound is a near perfect game. It does so much right, and so much perfectly, but the things that I found frustrating were really frustrating. I think particularly the thing that frustrated me the most while playing the game was constant status effects that were happening. Now this is obvious exaggeration, but it felt as if every other turn one of my party members was afflicted with a status of some kind. I don’t know if I missed important information that would help me counter status effects, but unless I had the right level of PSI Healing, there wasn’t really a way for me to counter it. And most of the status effects in the game are just really annoying. Crying and Feeling Strange were the most common ones, where accuracy is lowered and attacking wrong targets respectively. Those are fine, but can be a little annoying, especially the latter. I found the most frustrating one to be Possession, as not only can it hurt your party members, but it can prevent a party member from acting one turn. And in cases where it prevents your healer from healing, you’re just screwed for that turn. I think ultimately the thing is that the status effects themselves are fine in isolation, one of the final bosses, Diamond Dog, had a really nasty status effect which works as basically an instant kill, but what made it work was the environment in which it was found. With random encounter enemies constantly using status effects on you, it becomes a lot more frustrating, and at least for me, not in a good way. This leads into my second general frustration, which is the nature of enemy encounters. I think Earthbound improved upon Mother’s method of enemy encounters. Gone are random encounters, but now enemies appear in the overworld, and if you collide with an enemy, combat begins. I found myself unlucky, and constantly found swarms of enemies, and since enemies are faster than the player characters, you can’t escape from them easily once they see you. I ultimately think either lessen the amount of enemies that can spawn, or make it easier to flee from them before battle, and the problem is solved. My last frustration is one that isn’t exclusive to Earthbound, as it’s a pet peeve that I find persists through nearly every RPG I’ve played. Being unable to flee from combat I just find bad, innately. I make this point every time, but there’s already a built in punishment to fleeing battles, since you won’t get any items or experience points. Punishing the player by allowing the enemies free attacks on them is just insult to injury at that point.
I want to make a point with my frustrations though. With what you can probably imagine, they’re all chance based occurrences. Status Conditions, Encounter Rates, Flee Rates, all of these are things that are all tied to chance. While these are frustrations I had, and I can’t discount them, I also imagine I just ended up being really unlucky during my time playing it. It was to the point that I was worried I was playing a pirated version of the game somehow, though that wasn’t the case. I can’t guarantee anyone who plays this game will run into the same issues I did, and hey, maybe you’ll be able to overlook what I couldn’t.
At the end of the day, even with the frustrations I had, I still love and appreciate Earthbound. Its charm, music, environment, everything about it aside from a small list of things is absolutely amazing. It’s no wonder that so many games get this inspiration from the Mother series, let alone Earthbound. The ending of the game is absolutely beautiful, and I’m glad I stuck through it to the end. Though of course this isn’t my first time playing Earthbound, I’m glad I revisited it after so long.