For fans of the game: Help me understand the appeal. I fired it up once on an emulator and played for like 15 or so minutes and was just completely "meh"-ed. Is it something that pays off later and you just have to play it for a while or what?
It's just a quirky RPG with western culture as understood by the Japanese. You fight with baseball bats and frying pans instead of swords and bows. Your enemies are zombies, cultists, aliens, and bike gangs. Your dad gives you your allowance which you collect over ATM. The towns you visit are called Onett, Twoson, Threed, and Fourside, because their only importance is the order in which they appear in the game. Depending on the version you play, you run around in your pajamas or birthday suit because you just got out of bed.
It's not a game you play so much for the mechanics, which are not bad, but not hugely novel. At the time, when all console RPGs were based on high fantasy, a quirky RPG based on a bunch of silliness was very different.
Thanks for the explanation - maybe I'll give it another try. I am totally open to quirky JRPGs. I think I was just measuring this one against Chrono Trigger (another quirky JRPG for the uninitiated, which oozes charm) - which I went into with a skeptical attitude and 10 minutes later was completely drawn into the story and felt like some kind of magical child. Didn't have the same experience with my 15 minutes of Earthbound, but maybe I just needed to give it a little time.
The story in Earthbound doesn't make a lot of sense. You play it more for the individual story elements than the actual overarching plot. Kind of like how the plot in The Big Lebowski is ultimately irrelevant.
Chrono Trigger isn't particularly "quirky". It's a pretty straightforward presentation of a somewhat different story. Earthbound plays with the medium in a way that games a decade later still aren't very good at (see the love for Undertale, which I don't think is all that good either but does paint the fourth wall in a way that feels fresh and original because of the relative rarity of it).
I'm not sure if the "message" of the game is easily translated if you weren't playing JRPGs in the mid-90s. But for example, the "bee" that is dying early on always manages another explanation (should you ask for it).
Its a very dry sense of humor, that would be lost on anyone who hasn't played many 90s era RPGs. Instead of a crazy innovative storyline, it is more of a long comedy sketch that makes fun of other JRPGs.
For example: when you get a "Bike" (fast movement) in the game, you aren't allowed to use it as soon as you get your 2nd party member (only one person can ride the bike at a time, duh). Fast movement is basically a joke in the game. Overall, the game is willing to mess with game mechanics as a joke in of itself.
Example 2: A giant pencil will eventually stop you in your tracks. To get rid of the giant pencil, you need to find the "Pencil Eraser". Get it? Its an eraser... that erases giant pencils. Pun pun pun...
Its more about quirky jokes and humor than overarching plot.
Itoi refers to the battle backgrounds jokingly as a "video drug". This is noteworthy because the dummied-out Video Relaxant item in EarthBound was originally known as "Video Drug" in MOTHER 2, even though the item was dummied out in that game, too. So apparently that's what "Video Relaxant" refers to: the battle backgrounds.
The battle backgrounds were all made by one guy, who Itoi says was a real background graphics geek. The guy spent two years doing nothing but working on the backgrounds! He says he thinks there are about 200 different ones.
Seconded. It has the same spirit of humor and quirkiness Earthbound does. To be completely honest, on balance I think Undertale actually pulls it off better than Earthbound does. With a little of Nethack's "the dev team thinks of everything" thrown in.
And as to the other commenter's suggestion to watch a playthrough, I know that's a hot-button issue for some people, but I do feel like it is a legitimate way to consume some story-based games. While I did purchase this game, I wound up watching a YouTuber play through it rather than play it myself. I can honestly say that if the "Let's Play" option were not available to me, I would not have retained enough interest in the game to have played it at all.
I think Undertale's worth playing, but with a big caveat: the first hour and a half or so of the game are taken almost entirely from the demo made a year or so before release. That first hour and a half is rough as heck. The game does get better past that point, but I know a lot of people who stalled out on it right there. Be warned if you don't have a high tolerance for early-game weirdness.
If you can't play it, then watch it. But if you can play it, PLAY IT!! The game has many moments that I think are better interpreted when taken at your own speed.
Oh wow, this is awesome. For xmas I built a game for my wife based on Earthbound (she's Paula walking around Fourside looking for things) using React. Seeing this makes me want to add battles...
225 / 15 Chaotic swirls and spirals that occasional form a momentary glimpse of Giygas' face creeping through. Damn, had no clue how procedural those backgrounds were. Whole new respect for the game on a different level now.
