It’s time to review one of the most iconic Nintendo RPGs of all time. Everyone has heard of this title and for good reason. They really pushed the envelope on this game with the amount of crazy visuals and just having a generally weird world around the main characters. Games like Undertale would end up continuing in this same light. Without Earthbound you can argue that many games would not exist. It really has aged quite well.

The story starts with a meteor crashing in Ness’ home town Onett. He goes out to check it along with another boy named Porky. Porky ends up succumbing to the dark side and serving the dark lord Giygas while Ness is tasked with saving the world. He will need several allies including a genius, a martial artist, and a psychic expert. Can these kids really stop the end of the world though? Giygas is a being that exists across dimensions and all of time with seemingly unlimited amounts of power. That’s not an easy opponent to overcome but Ness won’t give up!

This is a game where you really need to cling to everything that you are told because it always ends up being a lot more important than you would have guessed. Sometimes you have to talk to a character multiple times and other times you have to go back to an old town to grab an item you may have missed. The game is quite vast and I’m sure I didn’t talk to a bunch of people/witness bonus content. The dialogue is all a lot of fun here. It has that absurd comedy type angle where crazy things are happening and people don’t have much of a reaction to it which is a type of comedy in itself.

The writing is quite excellent. I like how your father will call in from time to time to check on you and give you some money to get items with. It has a very “Are you winning son?” vibe to it and it’s great to have supportive parents here. Your Mom is always around to give you a fresh pizza and recover your HP as well. Your sister even contributes by giving you items and a place to store extra ones. These are little elements that just help make the world feel a lot more fleshed out.

There’s also a lot of room for fun theories about different characters and what’s going on. You could really make a whole franchise out of this which is why it’s a shame that Nintendo hasn’t kept up with making a bunch of Earthbound games. There is so much potential to them and I’m sure with modern graphics and everything they could really make this massive. This game took me close to 30 hours as it is. In general a nice advantage of RPGs is that the long story really lets you connect to the characters.

One of the playable characters doesn’t show up until you’re over 20 hours in for example which is really impressive. I had actually forgotten about him for a while even though in the intro you get to name all of the characters so in a way you know that they’re coming. It’s just a long wait and you’re busy doing a lot of other things in the meanwhile to really keep track. The final boss is super iconic of course and then you’ve got a lot of other creative enemies and even full concerts in game. Yes this is an ambitious title.

At times it can be easy to get lost or not know what to do next. Fortunately their are hint shacks around. The NPCs aren’t generally very helpful so otherwise you would have been in a pretty tough spot. Also some areas are very well hidden so even when you’re following a path, try to keep note of which path you didn’t check in case you have to use it later on. As you progress through the game you unlock some quality of life features like teleportation which is definitely worth the wait.

If I have any issues here, I would say one gameplay mechanic doesn’t age too well. This one uses the old Final Fantasy 2 type of mechanic where if your character dies they won’t come back to life even at an inn. You have to specifically go to the hospital to revive the character and that’s a lot of work since those are rarer to come up against. Again this is a quality of life feature that comes in later on once your character learns how to revive someone. That’s near the very end of the game though so it takes a while.

Also your storage is very small per character so you will run out a lot. This means you will have to constantly toss items out to make room for new ones or pay the storage fee to put in some extra back at home. I think they could have been more generous on that front. It’s only a mild annoyance to have to go in and toss stuff since you can only do this one at a time but still it’s something where a sequel can improve a bit.

The soundtrack is definitely excellent, there are a lot of really good tunes you will hear as you go through the adventure. The graphics are also really solid for its era. Like I mentioned earlier the game is very creative here both in the enemy designs and the effects. It gets a bit trippy with Giygas and the game is just so far ahead of its time that I’m sure the reactions to that boss must have been crazy.

In terms of replay value, there is a lot in terms of talking to people and such but there isn’t really a post game. Regardless the main campaign is long enough where that isn’t a problem. Additionally the game can be rather difficult at times so you will have to stop and train at different points. Don’t think that you will just be coasting by and the whole thing is a breeze because you will be in for quite the surprise!

Meanwhile the ending of the game is really intense. I don’t know if Mother 3 actually follows up on this or not but it’s really a high note. Yet another reason why Nintendo needs to license that game already. It would be so much fun to play through! The music gets rather tense and for a split second you’re wondering if the game is actually going to just keep on going. To date Nexamon is probably the only game I can think of that keeps on going after the long credits play and is the most realistic fake stop. I’d like to see more games do that and it only works in an RPG type game like this because you can have it trigger after 20-25 hours which would be realistic to end with.

Overall, Earthbound is a great game all the way through. It excels in every area and makes for a really fun experience. The gameplay is really smooth and the world is just so large. It feels like they crammed in a toooooon of content here especially relative to the average SNES game. It’s extremely impressive and the fact that it still holds up to this day is also something to be proud of. I would highly recommend jumping into this game as soon as possible. You will be having a lot of fun all the way through.

Overall 8/10