## 2025-02-04 Dunno why but I woke up a few days ago and said "I think it's time I finally finish **Earthbound**," and here we are LMFAO. I've tried to finish **Earthbound** so many times. As a massive [[JRPG]] fan it feels like being into film but not having watched **Citizen Kane** or something. It's especially egregious given that I've played older games inspired by it, like **Dragon Quest III**. So it's not like it being the same age as me is an excuse. But I dunno why I haven't finished it! I've tried so, so many times, but this is the closest I've ever gotten. I've picked up the fourth party member for the first time ever, and am on my way to Scaraba, so I'm pretty sure I'm getting close to the end of the game. What's changed? The first is just my general mindset. I've been on a retro kick lately, thanks to my [[Less Doomscrolling More Silly Lil Tech Toys|silly tech toys]], so my palette is currently in the mood for stuff that I might usually find too annoyingly archaic to deal with. On top of that, those tech toys have changed the medium I engage with **Earthbound**, which is making it a lot easier to power through. ![[Earthbound-1738699290092.png]] Playing it on my various handhelds has made **Earthbound** a lot more approachable. It's easy to power one on, play it for a while, then throw it back in my bag or on my desk. You have to understand, before this I was emulating this game on a laptop in the mid 2000s - I genuinely think trying to play it on a console that feels like a console has helped me progress. "But Mint, you silly fucker," you might say, "why don't you play it on an actual console, like the Switch?" The answer is the second reason I've been able to progress through **Earthbound**, which is all the QOL that comes with a Linux-based handheld. I've got instant fast-forward, rewind, and save states. **Earthbound** is archaic even by the standards of other games from its genre in this era. Everything just feels a little too slow, but running the game at x8 speed makes grinding for levels or running back to a hotel to sleep take 15 seconds instead of 15 minutes. I'm also, technically, not playing **Earthbound**! I'm playing [MaternalBound Redux](https://github.com/ShadowOne333/MaternalBound-Redux), a version of the game with a metric boatload of QOL adjustments, like: - **Final Fantasy VI**-like controls - Unique sprites for every enemy in the game - A run button - Photosensitive HAcks - PSI Teleport anywhere - And more! It's really helped make the game more fun too! Anyways, I say all that, but how's the actual game, from my perspective as a guy in 2025? Honestly, it's pretty great! I'm impressed at how much it's held up, even despite those archaic aspects I mentioned (the inventory management in this game makes me want to claw my eyes out fr). The dialog is easier to appreciate now that I'm older than the last time I tried to play this[^1]. It's like finally getting the adult jokes in a Pixar movie you watched as a kid. The combat isn't very interesting, but it's fine. It's just **Dragon Quest**. If it ain't broke don't fix it, you know? What's cool about **Earthbound** is that it actually understands how to do quirky and whimsical. So many white guys have tried to match the game's quirkiness (while also being a metaphor for depression) that it's [straight up a meme now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YIIK:_A_Postmodern_RPG). Also maybe two of those white guys have been successful. Honestly I only really count [one](https://undertale.com/). It's truly lightning in a bottle when it comes to the **Earthbound** vibes. I think what sets **Earthbound** and that [that other game](https://undertale.com/) I mentioned is that their dialogue and themes are all delivered *earnestly*. If you can't be earnest about your themes the same way **Earthbound** is then I won't take it seriously. It's like how when you make a Build-A-Bear, even if you're in your 30s they'll still ask you to do the dance that brings the bear to life[^2]. You have to *mean it*, otherwise what's the point? **Earthbound**, by virtue of being an [[Super Nintendo|SNES]] game, doesn't have the ability to give all of its themes the treatment it deserves. I think **Mother 3**[^3] exists to fill those gaps (and rip your heart out in the process). But so far it continues to be emotionally fulfilling. I've head it breaks you the same way **Mother 3** does at the end of the game. I'm excited to finally find out! ## 2025-02-05 *Wow*! That a was great game! I found it hard to put down near the end, especially as my party got a bunch of cool powers kind of all at once? I wish they were spread out a little more evenly across the level curve. It makes sense for Ness, but the rest of the squad, not so much! But yeah, I cruised through the final fourth of the game pretty all of last night and this morning. But, again wow! What a game! I can see now why this game rewired so many people's brain chemistry back in the day. First of all: the Dungeon Man segment is one of the coolest and funniest things I've ever experienced in a videogame. It is, in my opinion, **Earthbound** at its peak quirkiness. I loved reading the signs and hitting dead-ends. I loved how many healing spots there were, because Brick Man is a guy that loves dungeons but isn't evil - he wants you to relax on the way to your destination! It was all so cute and funny and honestly the highlight of the game. From there it was pretty much a rush to the last few Important Spots, with Ness getting a huge buff at the end of it all that turns a [[JRPG]] that's already a bit of a cake-walk into more of one. The game goes full Dungeon Crawler by this point, but I didn't mind it. It's where things start to get more serious, so it makes sense that we wouldn't be spending as much time doing funny haha bits. The ending did, in fact, get me, but not in the way you'd expect. I was thinking I was going to cry at something emotional, but in reality I was just kind of...*unnerved* and *unsettled*. Believe it or not, I did not know that **Earthbound** turned into a horror game by the end of things, but wow, it sure does huh? > [!Warning] > Spoilers for a thirty year old game ahead, you've been warned! --- So much creepy shit happens from Magicant to the ending! Fighting the darkness in Ness' heart, ripping your soul from your body and putting it in a robot so you don't get torn asunder by Giygas' nightmarish power, then the actual Giygas fight? And goddamn, *the Gigyas fight*. This fight is proof that the best horror is the stuff we don't see. I know Gigyas has a whole storyline in **Mother**, but I don't have any of that context, which makes it this strange, unyielding, incomprehensible force. Even its attacks are literally beyond comprehension! The weird music, the creepy dialogue, the trippy battle screen, even Porky's monologue...it wasn't a hard fight at all, but it was definitely a wild experience that I doubt I'll forget any time soon. But none of that is the best part of the ending. No, I'll tell you what was: # THAT ENDING Would you believe I didn't know? It's true. I did not know that the entirety of **Earthbound**'s ending is a two hour epilogue where you can talk to every character in the game, who all had new dialogue. I had no idea that you could travel *anywhere* in the game, now free of enemies, getting to enjoy the peace you created. It's so unbelievably fucking cool. Like. Holy shit! It's so cool! Pretty much every JRPG I've played rolls credits too soon after the final boss for you to pluck the fruit of all that labor. The fact that Ape Inc. and Itoi went to all this effort to do that is ridiculously impressive to me. It also is what led to the heart-rending sense of melancholy I felt as I finally took Ness back home. Something about **Earthbound**'s world really tugged at me in a weird way. Maybe it's the 1990s vision of (sort-of) idealized Americana that decidedly no longer exists. Like, Onett feels like what my mom was expecting when she first immigrated here a few years before this game came out. Instead we got. Well. \*Gestures at everything.* It's also probably the fact that going around and basically giving my goodbyes to everyone made the ending feel like more of an ending. The sense of finality was satisfying, but it made things all the more sad, too. I had a feeling that the photos being taken of you throughout the game would show up in the credits, but it was still satisfying to experience. As was **Earthbound** as a whole! It took me 15 years, but I finally finished it, and I'm really glad I did. Last note: that epilogue is so funny in retrospect. I have the benefit of hindsight, but imagine having to hang off of that cliff for *14 years* before finally getting to play the sequel. Yikes! No wonder **Earthbound** fans are so feral.[^4] --- ![[Earthbound-1738801937003.png]] Great post that [Momo](https://bsky.app/profile/hierarchic.bsky.social) made that sums up some of that melancholy I was feeling as well! [^1]: 21 years old, I think? [^2]: Source: ME I'M NOT ASHAMED ABOUT IT!!! CRINGE ISN'T REAL [^3]: Probably gonna replay this soon too tbh! [^4]: Affection. Mostly. s