Anniversary: EarthBound Turns 25 In The USA, And A Whole Generation Feels Old

I have 4 kids, my oldest is 6 years old. I was 26 when she was born. My "feeling old" moment already came this year on her 6th birthday.

In any case, I didn't have an SNES when this game was easily obtainable. I didn't play it until it came out on Wii U, when I was in my 20's. It's a great game, but I want all 3 Mother games on Switch. That would be glorious.

Heard the hype, played (and beaten the game) still don't see the appeal. Sorry.

If Nintendo is taking this long to release an earthbound collection for switch, despite hearing all the fans requests, means they probably won’t do it. Nintendo fans have been asking Nintendo for this for years. It just won’t happen.

Is that meant to be 'groan-worthy' instead of "grown-worthy", or am I missing something?

My dad picked this up used at Target in 2000 for less than $20. Fun game, had read about it in Nintendo Power. Got it on WiiU then sold it for $80 in 2013 to a used game store. The clerk was incredulous that I wanted to sell it to his store when I could set up an ebay account and a paypal and make $120 in a week. I wanted novelty gaming candy, energy drinks, and Magic the Gathering cards that day though. Lol. Have it on SNES classic now so, I even have the full experience of the SNES controller again.

Anybody else get to play this as a kid? I was lucky enough to rent it from a store called Dave's Video. No exaggeration, it changed my little life.

My first exposure to Earthbound was on the Wii U VC. Lovely, quirky game, definitely one of the best of the 16-bit era IMO.

Even though I was already a legal adult by the time I got around to playing it, I was able to borrow my friend's SNES to see what game that one weird Smash Bros charcter was from. I immediately felt a strong sense of nostalgia, except this was the only time I'd ever seen the game before.

I loved every moment of that game EXCEPT the last area. Without spoiling anything, I was not able to get through to fight the final boss, and never got closure.

Until I entered the wonderful world of emulators and save states (Don't be mad! This was well over a decade ago, and I buy everything legit now!) But after finally beating one of the most heartwarming and clever endings to date, I was moved to tears. Which is something that happens extremely rarely to my jaded ass apathetic heart.

From a technical stand point, it's by no means the perfect videogame. But the game aspect itself is only the vessel that's used to convey this vivid world and bounty of solid puns.

Happy birthday, you magnificent game! I remember renting this one Friday, eating pizza and watching TGIF. One of my favorite childhood memories, as was my next birthday when I got it and stayed up all night playing it and eating birthday ice cream. I still run through EarthBound every few years or so and it's as magical as it was when I was 10.

@Incarna if you played Earthbound 25 years ago... you’re over 30.

Little too much reading in that game for the below-five crowd.

@Fido007 I think it's nostalgia, how different the story is compared to other games, and the history of RPGs at the time. For years, RPG usually meant a fantasy medieval realm, possibly with fantasy technology, and here's a game that's set in modern times with a kid protagonist, just like the expected player base. Mindblown!

Now mother is old enough to be a mother lol.

I actually just best this game for the first time last week! It had been sitting on my 3DS for years, and I finally managed to get to it because of quarantine. It's a shame it took so long for me to get to it! I really enjoyed it - aside from the inventory and excessive menuing haha

@technotreegrass it really was a trip going from Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country to Earthbound. I don't think I even knew what an RPG was. That's the kind of experience that you can't replicate.

I am shocked that the game has retroactively achieved "classic game" status because when I was a wee bairn nobody knew/cared about it.

Maybe Shigesato Itoi will announce something for his project today!

MOTHER still lives on in our hearts.

@IronMan30 play the fan translation mate. Dont wait for Mother 3 because it wont ever come

@Losermagnet exactly. I feel like the majority of Nintendo fans havent even played Earthbound at all. It hit its prime in the early 2000s with emulation

@Apportal_SMM2 honestly real mother fans have already played it and have accepted that it wont come to switch. That's how you find out if someone's played it or not

@technotreegrass cant be nostalgia no one bought the game at launch

So happy I picked up a SNES Classic so I could play this game. It was one of the most unique, quirky but enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had.

@technotreegrass I guess it's one of those 'you had to be there' experiences. I grew up with chrono trigger and super metroid, those games are great for anybody even starting today, I suppose I just missed that boat.

@PickledKong64 I will play it that way. Then, we'll get the official translation. Lol

Mother 3 is all I want.

What a beautiful game. I just beat it last week. It’s truly amazing.

@Fido007 I think it varies from person to person nowadays, but playing it as a kid in the 90s offered a different experience than playing it for the first time as an adult. Personally, I think it still holds up and is my favorite game (heck, it's one of my favorite things). Everyone should at least try it, but it's very idiosyncratic.

I imported it when it came out. Oh my word. I can't describe how refreshing it was to play an rpg that wasn't fantasy or sci-fi! The art style was so unique. Crap, but utterly adorable. Like THQ had finally managed to figure out how to make a decent game!

It also has a 'classic video game moment' (like Halo's melee attack). When you get a random encounter with a really low level mob, you automatically win. Like, one of those moments you thought "Why don't all games do this!??!" So it has that too!

The manual was glorious and read like a travel brochure. I really hope we get an Earthbound remake with the Link's Awakening engine that can bring that Tourist Guide to the screen. It's what it deserves, because it's one of the kookiest games ever, with such a big heart.

Given the lack of a UK release at the time for a long while I always wondered why people loved Earthbound. It didn’t help Ness remains one of the worst characters in Smash Bros.

@shonenjump86 have you played the fan translation? Super easy and accessible to play

I'll never forget looking for ocarina of Time(it was sold out) at kb toys, and seeing that discount bin full of snes and nes games. Plenty of copies of earthbound, chronotrigger, and other now sought after carts

You guys wanna talk about feeling old? I was 13 when snes first came out. I'm old enough to have a daughter that's a mother.

As for earthbound's 25th it would be nice if Nintendo would help us celebrate by adding Earthbound to the switch either on that Nintendo online thing or a stealth drop on the eshop but Noooooo it's too much to ask! Oh well my modded wii should take care of that.

Just gimme the Earthbound Saga (Mother 1-3) in a Link's Awakening Remake style –––– or (much, MUCH better) in "Mother" official Comic Pollyanna cover art! So long, and thanks for all the fish 3>

Reggie, Gamestop is a lost cause. There's so little time in this world, spend it doing good things... BRING US MOTHER 3!

I admit to not knowing much about Earthbound until the first Smash Bros. I recall seeing box art for it beforehand. But that was about it. I will say I can't think of anyone I knew growing up who played video games being that into RPGs in general. My dad would buy the odd RPG now and then. But I just don't recall that much fanfare over Earthbound or the Mother series in general until much later

I was 13 when this came out, and it was the first RPG that I really played through and through. I loved everything about it, from the oversized box (it came with the strategy guide packed in) to the quirkiness of the characters and gameplay, to its deceptively heartwarming and deep story. I occasionally find myself humming the tune the instruments play, and it always takes me back.

But yeah, thanks for the reminder that I'm pushing 40. I sure needed that today. :/

@IronMan30 one of my 'feeling old' moments was when I realized that GTA: Vice City's setting is closer to it's release date than the current year. GTA VC takes place in 1986, released in 2002. So that is 16 years in the past for it's release. But it has been 18 years since it's release.

I only played Earth Bound really late since I am European and I only got to enjoy it till it was released on 3DS.
It does a great job of capturing that 90's American pop-culture zeitgeist with a sprinkle of really great nostalgia evoking music.
As the AVGN stated, it's a coming of age story, for that time it was ground breaking I suppose.

The first RPG I played was Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, followed by Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, then Earthbound. Earthbound stayed with me the most because I was turning 13 when the game came out, so Ness and his life in the suburbs and going on adventures was a lot more relatable to me than the fantastic worlds of FFVI and CT--it made me imagine I could be a Goonie and Link in the real world, especially because I loved looking up cryptzoology and studying things like ESP. I was basically living what Millennials and Edgers only know as Stranger Things well from my already longing for the 80s that I brought into the 90s thanks to Earthbound.

My avatar has been waiting for this moment.

I rented this game in 1995 from a video store because it had a huge box. This game was so much different than what I was playing at the time (Donkey Kong Country and Mega Man X, probably) that I was completely weirded out by it, but wanted to see more and more.

I often site Final Fantasy VII as my first RPG, but this was actually it. Just realizing that!

Finally beat it on Wii U in late summer 2015 and had a bittersweet moment seeing Mr. Iwata’s name in the credits, given how much he did to save this game back in the day and how, sadly, he had recently passed away.

@Losermagnet I basically had the same exACT experience!

@PickledKong64 I’ve heard of it, maybe I should take a look.

@onlyonemello Glad to hear it. That oversized box may have raised the cost of buying the game but it really made it stand out on the rental store shelf.

I was lucky enough to have my grandma buy the rental store copy for me when they transitioned their product to newer games. I still have that same cartridge.

@Losermagnet Haha again, pretty much the same experience! I TRIED to buy the rental copy of Earthbound when the store went out of business, but no luck. I often wonder where that specific copy ended up haha.

For a long time Earthbound was my white whale — unobtainable and mythic. Glad the official digital copy exists now on the WiiU, but still would like a physical copy!

I remember picking up a copy in the bargain bin at Babbages for 99 cents! In '98, don't know that they expected the cartridge to eventually be worth 100 bucks! Either way, finally got to play it then and have loved it ever since!