A Nintendo community
by the fans!
           
  Forum main
 + 
EarthBound (Nintendo SNES) discussion [game]
 
EarthBound on the SNES
9.14/10 from 44 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for EarthBound on the SNES!

To start, please add this game to your log, add it to your collection (if applicable), and (when you are ready) rate it using the link above!

Reviews:
EarthBound Review (Nintendo SNES) (10.0)  by  
Because EarthBound is an amazing RPG that I love above all others, I thought I'd start up the game thread and throw in some of my favorite reviews of it.







Man I love this game. Just beat it again a week or so back for the 2nd time this year and somewhere in the range of 20+ in total since '96.



URL to share (right click and copy)
09/30/12, 03:06    Edited: 05/12/14, 16:55
 
Why not sign up for a (free) account?
   
 
I have a question about something that happened towards the end of the game.

How did Dr. Andonuts and Apple Kid follow Ness through to where the Phase Distorter took them? Ness used the Phase Distorter to travel to the Lost Underworld (I think), but then Dr. Andonuts used another Phase Distorter to follow him? And the second Phase Distorter could travel through time? How does that work?

I'm assuming the broken Phase Distorter was the same one that Ness used to travel back to the past.
08/09/13, 23:48   
@Secret_Tunnel

Because Science thats why.
08/10/13, 00:39   
@Secret_Tunnel
YESSSSSSSSS! It's so awesome to see somebody become a new EB fan.
I often worry that people will hate it just for spite, or that maybe the EB community has hyped it too much.

YAY!

I'm about halfway though my VC playthrough and I'm having so much fun. I have gotten a little too used to the save state feature though. It's funny, because I've beaten the game so many times. I suppose I will always look for the easy way out, even in familiar situations.
08/10/13, 03:37   
@Secret_Tunnel There are also some translation goofs near the end of the game, so if there was some stuff that seemed confusing or wasn't mentioned before, then it may be from a botched translation.
08/10/13, 04:38   
Coming from Tim Schafer, @TimOfLegend, on Twitter:

Tim said:
Earthbound has renewed my faith. Not in the games industry, since it was made so long ago. But my faith that I can still enjoy things. :)

Cute!
08/10/13, 20:20   
Someday I'll play Earthbound and I'll understand it's weirdness.... maybe.

09/27/13, 01:20   
@DrFinkelstein That isn't Earthbound, that's Mother 3. Or did you just mean "Earthbound" as a series?

And he should be this site's mascot!
09/27/13, 01:30   
@Mop it up

I just meant the series. I've never played Earthbound or Mother 3 but I would like to see what the series is about some day.
09/27/13, 02:11   
Plowed my way to Fourside and saved. I think I played for 4 hours straight to try and catch up. I got song 3, then went back and got song 2. Twas quite a trek.
09/27/13, 05:06   
We completed EarthBound as our fourth official Epic Center game a couple weeks ago; Breath of Fire II is next, cleanin' out the fridge. You'll notice our "leaderboards" below which were tracking the progress of the participants. If you missed the EC run, and you'd like to play on your own as if it were being done LIVE! for you, simply click on WEEK 1, WEEK 2, etc. and follow along that way. This, of course, is also the destination for the continuation of EarthBound in the Epic Center, for those (like Koovaps, woo! YOU CAN DO IT.) who did not finish as they maybe hoped they would.



Earthbound is a game that a lot of people fell in love with many years ago, and as a result has ridden a Tsunami-level wave of hype since then. Outrageous prices on eBay and the game's rarity fed the legend, and the lack of localization played into that as well. Because of these factors, Earthbound became -- bar none -- the absolute Most Wanted game on the Wii's Virtual Console. And on July 18th, 2013..it arrived.

I have not had the pleasure (or displeasure? We'll find out..) of playing this game, and was turned off by the way it looked in my Nintendo Power as a youngin'. We've heard whispers through the screams of "it's so good!!" that "hey, alright, it isn't for everyone," and hopefully we'll put that to rest, together, in this very game club.


Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8


EARTHBOUND

Dungeon Master(s): chrisbg99 / TriforceBun

Completed EarthBound: You Did It!
Zero
TheOldManFromZelda
chrisbg99
DeputyVanHalen
Ludist210
Hero_Of_Hyrule
Dark Weres
Mr_Mustache
VickiL


Week 3 Complete!
Koovaps


------

Thats it! If you join up late, let us know how you like it!
11/10/13, 00:37   
Edited: 11/10/13, 00:38
An obsession with EarthBound mixed with an obsession with Minecraft:



I have nothing to do with this other than being amazed by the level of detail. People make some mind-blowing things in Minecraft.
03/10/14, 16:39   
I might have to give Earthbound another shot at some point, if only for research purposes. I didn't like what I had played of it before, but maybe now that I'm older I can appreciate it more.

I didn't think it was a bad game, but it just felt like a game that was all style and no substance. The only thing that really jumped out to me about the game was the ticking HP meter, which I thought was pretty cool, and it'd be cool to see more games do it.
03/10/14, 17:10   
@PogueSquadron

I'd be interested to hear what you think of it, because first-time (older) players Lou and Myself loved and hated it respectively.
03/10/14, 22:56   
All in all I remember the game just being a huge chore. It's hard to think about dropping $9 on a game I don't have very fond memories with.
03/10/14, 23:05   
@Mr_Mustache

As we have all noted, your opinion on Earthbound is moot. Okay? Okay.

@PogueSquadron

I don't get where you'd think it was a chore? If anything the game never really bogs down since grinding is made pretty simple. I suppose if you have trouble figuring out how to work the inventory system, things could get bogged dow.
03/18/14, 15:52   
@chrisbg99 Hmm, I don't know, I was 12 at the time so my memory is fuzzy. I think I just remember it being a chore at the beginning beause it was really difficult, and once that difficulty spike was over, it was just kind of uninteresting.

Also, maybe this is super nitpicky, but I don't like RPG battle systems where I can't see my characters. That's a little TOO old school for me.
03/18/14, 16:06   
@PogueSquadron

Funny, I was 12 or 13 when I first played it back in '95 and as my first real RPG experience I never felt like any of it was a chore. I was taken in by weird world, the gameplay, the music; basically the whole package.
03/18/14, 16:14   
At some point in the game I felt like it was mostly style over substance. If you aren't taken in by the charm of the world, it just feels like any other RPG to me. The music, the humor, the visuals, etc. just never won me over.

Edit: I can delete these if anyone wants. I don't mean to take up the official game page with criticism.
03/18/14, 17:07   
Edited: 03/18/14, 17:07
Just beat the game!

I've given some of my opinion on RFN, but here are some more thoughts. Which may or may not make sense out of context.

I played through it very quickly but I loved it, despite the problems I raised on the show. I loved it for the tea-drinking sequences, the funny dialog, the crazy little touches like putting the player's name in the credits. Loved it for my favorite line in any game, the guy near Stonehenge, you know the one: "You kids don't look very bright..."

But I still never really loved the gameplay. The rolling health IS a nice touch and made a lot of battles pretty intense, and I won't take that away from it. But the limited inventory is annoying until the end.

I can't praise the unique touches like Praying, which never did much to help me in regular battles, the gadgets which never worked on bosses, the Mirror ability that I never got to work either... And I didn't like that my bottle rockets or monkey love were useless against the last boss, but somehow Bag of Dragonite did damage. There is no rhyme or reason to when and where items will work, and that made them useless to me.

And the constant status effect that only one character (for most of the game) can cure was almost a dealbreaker for me. It's really annoying.
04/09/14, 05:27   
@Guillaume

I'd say you nailed it. The battle system felt pretty typical to me; they dressed it up well enough to disguise it, but it really wasn't anything special in the grand scheme of things. I adored the game's world though. If they ever put out a Mother 4 with a better battle system and the same awesome wacky story, that would be phenomenal.

Come to think of it, is Mother 3's battle system any better?
04/09/14, 06:13   
  Forum main
 +