EarthBound Review

        Just recently, I got to play EarthBound (known in Japan as MOTHER 2) , a RPG game for the Super Nintendo. Before I sit down an played, I thought I knew all the lore that the fans admire; But as I came to play through the game, I realized I didn't fully knew it all.

     
         The game starts in a small town in Eagleland called Onett. In the town, A teenage boy named Ness' journey to save the world, along with his 3 other friends he meets through the game) , against Giygas. It starts with a Meteorite crashing down in his hometown and that's just the start of it. Throughout the rest of the adventure, Ness and pals encounter a bunch of things. Stuff like this includes the following: Hippies, Police Officers, an Insane Group of Cultist obsessed over the color blue, Mr. Saturns, and a plethora worth of other things.

       
         Among some of the enemies, I found it to be nice that all the enemies you face are not Dragons and other things that you'd find as typical RPG enemies. Instead, Enemies you come across throughout the game are the fore mentioned Hippies, Police Officers, and Happy Happist (the Insane Group of Cultist). I thought this was great since it gave you a feeling that you are not playing an RPG while actually being the true RPG at the core with the battling, Eight Xs, and EXP.

   

    When it comes right down to it, I can draw parallelism to the Grand Theft Auto series, in a sense. What I mean by this is that the fact that they both have parodies of everything and anything in the game. Because of this, I call "The GTA before GTA III". I know this sounds crazy, but believe me. Most of the things that are parodized in the game include The Klan (Happy Happist), The Blues Brothers (The Runaway Five), The Beatles (so many of these here. There's a Yellow Submarine, One member of The Runaway Five sings a bit of Money, The "Yes" or "No" day question in Onett), and others. I liked the game for this because it gave me a bit of "hahaha, I get the nod".

    Other than these little parodies, There where some other little things that gave me a good chuckle. Most of these I did post to my Miiverse (like the "Keep this board in mind." pic above). There were clever and I liked them.

     Another thing I liked about the game was it's Original score. A lot of you that has played the game will agree with me on this one. It's such a great achievement for this game of having probably the best OSTs in any video game even though it was a Super Nintendo game. Among others that where also apart of the game, These are my personal favorites...

Good Friends/Bad Friends

Franky

Your Name Please

The Runaway Five's Daily Show

Runaway Five To The Rescue

Smiles and Tears

      Overall, Experiencing the game for what it really was about all the way through was quite an enjoyable. There's a few characters that I liked (The Runaway Five) ; A few I hated (Pokey) ; and other great cast of characters that made this Japan Cult Classic an enjoyable ride all the way from the fateful night in Onett to the war with Giygas being over. It was a little more dark than I thought (especially with the whole thing at the end and the whole "Giygas" ordeal), but it's a great game none the less.

      In the end, This was probably the greatest Retro game I've ever played. I also got to feel the fire of the EarthBound fandom. And after experience playing the game all the way through, I'd like to admit that I'm truly now an EarthBounder. I'd like to thank Mr. Itoi for making this game and all the people over at Nintendo of America for localizing it plus deciding to re-release it on the Wii U via Virtual Console. 

MY SCORE FOR THIS GAME IS A SOLID...

10 out of 10.

  P.S.... Hey Nintendo of America, Please localize MOTHER 3 since we want to play it. ;D