It's very difficult to review this without looking at Undertale or Deltarune or LISA or any of the other countless games inspired by this - from a modern day point of view there's not a lot here I haven't seen before. In 1995 this must have been completely bizarre, and I start to get exactly why this is a cult-classic rather than a straight up classic.
Let's go right into the story - this story. It exponentially gets weirder and darker as it goes one, while the team follows a very simple task - go to 8 special locations. Whilst they calmly go about this task, we have zombie infested towns, KKK-esque cults, diamond dogs, a lost underworld filled with dinosaurs, A DUNGEON WHICH IS A MAN AND ALSO JOINS AS A PARTY MEMBER - it's so dense with strangely wonderful characters but they all make sense in the world's context. Everyone just goes about their business and it just works! The translation job does most of the heavy lifting with choice lines throughout, and the music is equally as odd as the game. Such a great scenario and a well written story.
The gameplay has aged, however - what may have been fine in 1995 isn't great now. The inventory system is dire (and I still hate it now when implemented in a Toby Fox game), the movement of this game just sucks - I hate the decision to just stop when you hit an angled wall rather than just...move up against it? It's also painfully slow to do anything in the overworld - travelling is slow, going in/out buildings is slow, battle transitions are slow, menuing is a chore. Combine this with the amount of enemy spawns (it really gets ridiculous at the end of the game) and dungeons start to take a while.
Which brings me to the battle system. I love this battle system. It injects the EarthBound weirdness in some great ways - I like that status' are just...things like crying or having a cold. Then there's the ticker system, which is just fantastic, and I can't think of another game that has it. Saving a doomed ally by healing as their HP ticker goes down - that is such a good feeling. Outside of Ness' massive level jump from Magicant, I never felt overpowered, and there's a great selection of PSI moves. I loved Jeff's weapon system, though it introduces it far too late in the game for my taste.
But the whole game is just a precursor to what is my favourite part of it; the final battle with Giygas. I wasn't sure if what I'd heard was hyperbole, but goddamn did it live up to expectations. The final hour of EarthBound is oppressively dark, with the music and the background and the Prayer system - it felt on another level to the rest of the game. And then the epilogue, where you have free rein of the world with no monsters, is the complete opposite in feeling. Suddenly there's no cares other than soaking up the atmosphere.
There's not much more to be said outside of everything else - it comes across as a near 30 year old game in some areas, but in others it feels like it's more recent. Yes it's painfully slow and could trim the fat in a few areas, but what RPG from near 30 years ago isn't like this? I finally checked this off my bucketlist and was not disappointed - I came in expecting a cult-classic and left with a classic added to the list.
Let's go right into the story - this story. It exponentially gets weirder and darker as it goes one, while the team follows a very simple task - go to 8 special locations. Whilst they calmly go about this task, we have zombie infested towns, KKK-esque cults, diamond dogs, a lost underworld filled with dinosaurs, A DUNGEON WHICH IS A MAN AND ALSO JOINS AS A PARTY MEMBER - it's so dense with strangely wonderful characters but they all make sense in the world's context. Everyone just goes about their business and it just works! The translation job does most of the heavy lifting with choice lines throughout, and the music is equally as odd as the game. Such a great scenario and a well written story.
The gameplay has aged, however - what may have been fine in 1995 isn't great now. The inventory system is dire (and I still hate it now when implemented in a Toby Fox game), the movement of this game just sucks - I hate the decision to just stop when you hit an angled wall rather than just...move up against it? It's also painfully slow to do anything in the overworld - travelling is slow, going in/out buildings is slow, battle transitions are slow, menuing is a chore. Combine this with the amount of enemy spawns (it really gets ridiculous at the end of the game) and dungeons start to take a while.
Which brings me to the battle system. I love this battle system. It injects the EarthBound weirdness in some great ways - I like that status' are just...things like crying or having a cold. Then there's the ticker system, which is just fantastic, and I can't think of another game that has it. Saving a doomed ally by healing as their HP ticker goes down - that is such a good feeling. Outside of Ness' massive level jump from Magicant, I never felt overpowered, and there's a great selection of PSI moves. I loved Jeff's weapon system, though it introduces it far too late in the game for my taste.
But the whole game is just a precursor to what is my favourite part of it; the final battle with Giygas. I wasn't sure if what I'd heard was hyperbole, but goddamn did it live up to expectations. The final hour of EarthBound is oppressively dark, with the music and the background and the Prayer system - it felt on another level to the rest of the game. And then the epilogue, where you have free rein of the world with no monsters, is the complete opposite in feeling. Suddenly there's no cares other than soaking up the atmosphere.
There's not much more to be said outside of everything else - it comes across as a near 30 year old game in some areas, but in others it feels like it's more recent. Yes it's painfully slow and could trim the fat in a few areas, but what RPG from near 30 years ago isn't like this? I finally checked this off my bucketlist and was not disappointed - I came in expecting a cult-classic and left with a classic added to the list.