EarthBound

This is the best video game ever. It's so unique and isn't like any other RPG. It's inventive in every way imaginable. Sure, bore yourself to tears with the contrived RPGs with sorcery and dragons and such, but you don't know what you're missing here...

I first got Earthbound in 2016. I got a Wii U. And I wanted games. So I was scrolling through the EShop and found Earthbound Beginnings (Mother, Earthbound Zero) and Earthbound (Mother 2). What I didn't know was that the game was a huge frickin Cult Classic. This game holds a special place in my heart. And I want an animated series and 3D Reboot.

Earthbound, AKA Mother 2, proves that you don't need great graphics to have a great game. (Although the backgrounds in the fight scenes look pretty cool...) The game is very fun, and has a lot of ORIGINAL humor, which is definitely a plus in my book. And in the English version, they even kept the characters' original names. Well, King the dog was originally "Chibi," but oh well. In Earthbound, you'll face off against lots of goofy bosses, like a pile of barf named Master Belch, and a giant mushroom called... well, "Shrooom!" There are also characters like the chubby inventor, Apple Kid, or the blues band called the Runaway Five. Or how about enemies like evil hippies or demonic petunias?

This game didn't sell well when it first came out, because people cared more about graphics, and avoided the game because of how it LOOKED. If you can find this game on EBay or your local pawn shop, get it. You'll be glad you did. Oh, and be sure to get the Player's Guide, which was packaged with Earthbound, because it's very helpful, and has a lot of funny reading material in it, plus Earthbound scratch-n-sniff cards!

I have a soft spot for odd things and this game appealed to me ever since I first laid eyes on that larger than average, game box while at a supermarket (back when there were VHS tapes and old cartridge games you could rent). I observed the box many times, wondering why it was that size. When I finally got chance to actually play it, I realized why, it's crammed full of surprises that a guidebook was needed for it to cram it all in (I wouldn't read it all the way through if you like great surprises). On the surface it looks childish since you are controlling a bunch of kids, but if you look deeper there's plenty of offbeat mixtures of humor and darkness in a modern world. Being an RPG fan myself, I had to play through this to see everything, which you really have to do to fully appreciate its style. Even when you beat it once, you'll want to play through it again and again to catch everything you missed the time before.

All in all, Earthbound is a high-quality game. Okay, so the graphics weren't mindblowing. I didn't find a problem with them in the numerous times I played it. Some of the enemies are done pretty well. The game storyline is also quite extensive, traveling all over the "world" to 8 important sites. Good characters and some interesting tangents (Moonside, Ness's Mind. . .) make the game even more interesting. My main two gripes: The item storage is extremely limiting, compared to other RPG's, and going through the pyramind/the desert/dungeon man is tiresome. But that doesn't make it uplayable, so I'm going to get up, erase some erasers, and kick some alien butt.