I've been dreading this one. It's not that I want to be a contrarian for the sake of it or anything like that, but Earthbound did not land for me the way it seems to with everyone else. I think a lot of that has to do with absorbing so much of this game via osmosis before I actually sat down to play it. Most of its gags, twists, and story beats were all thoroughly laid out to me long before I slapped the ROM onto my Retropie. So much of this game was known to me it was like I already played it, the only thing missing was actually pushing buttons on a controller, and by that point it felt like a formality.
Of course, this doesn't mean I think Earthbound is a bad game or anything like that. It's still fun, I really like its oddball sense of humor, and visually it's got a style that I think has yet to be properly matched by its many, many modern imitators. It's just that when you've seen a quintillion videos about Giygas it loses a little bit of its edge. Also, combat can feel kinda slow, definitely not my favorite JRPG battle system on the SNES, but I also understand that fighting is really ancillary to the true heart of the game: its story.
So, yeah, not much to say about this one. I never played it as a kid, in fact I don't think I was even aware of it until I saw Nes in Super Smash Bros., so I have no personal connection or nostalgia for this one. I played it because everyone hypes it up as one of the best games ever made, and I knew I wasn't going to share that opinion going in given how spoiled I already was. At that same time, this is probably the game I wish I could have a blind playthrough of. I bet if you have no idea what the hell Earthbound is, it would be an incredible experience, but in 2022 there's kids coming right out of the womb saying "Did you know Giygas was conceived due to a traumatic experience Shigesato Itoi had as a child, after walking into the wrong theater and witnessing a scene from The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty?"
I worry about the younger generation sometimes...
Of course, this doesn't mean I think Earthbound is a bad game or anything like that. It's still fun, I really like its oddball sense of humor, and visually it's got a style that I think has yet to be properly matched by its many, many modern imitators. It's just that when you've seen a quintillion videos about Giygas it loses a little bit of its edge. Also, combat can feel kinda slow, definitely not my favorite JRPG battle system on the SNES, but I also understand that fighting is really ancillary to the true heart of the game: its story.
So, yeah, not much to say about this one. I never played it as a kid, in fact I don't think I was even aware of it until I saw Nes in Super Smash Bros., so I have no personal connection or nostalgia for this one. I played it because everyone hypes it up as one of the best games ever made, and I knew I wasn't going to share that opinion going in given how spoiled I already was. At that same time, this is probably the game I wish I could have a blind playthrough of. I bet if you have no idea what the hell Earthbound is, it would be an incredible experience, but in 2022 there's kids coming right out of the womb saying "Did you know Giygas was conceived due to a traumatic experience Shigesato Itoi had as a child, after walking into the wrong theater and witnessing a scene from The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty?"
I worry about the younger generation sometimes...
3 Comments
I think it's funny that Earthbound suffers from a bit of "Undertale syndrome" in that fandom blurted out so many things about the game that it's hard to appreciate it from a personal playthrough. It's part of the reason I'm kinda afraid to play Earthbound, because part of me will just go "eh, I just remembered I hated JRPG mechanics" and all the beats bounce off of me leaving me to go "what even is this game to me now?".
Part of me wishes I could experience Earthbound in 1994 like I did with Undertale in 2015 prior to the fanbase exploding to 500 times it's own size and appreciating all the things about it before it was beaten over my head, but alas.
Part of me wishes I could experience Earthbound in 1994 like I did with Undertale in 2015 prior to the fanbase exploding to 500 times it's own size and appreciating all the things about it before it was beaten over my head, but alas.
i think earthbound is one of the few games i would ever say could be personally ruined for me by spoilers just because a huge chunk of what makes the game interesting is those unexpected subversions of what it seems like at the start. i think the main reason i like it so much is that i played it early enough that the giygas thing was all i was spoiled on and i still barely knew most of the context of giygas
Detchibe
1 year ago