Backlog Club: EarthBound Part Two - Bees, Backtracking, And Biscuits

I kind of ran into a similar problem with these games. The combat just doesn't feel right to me. I absolutely love everything else about this series, but the combat has been consistently irritating to me.

I actually really enjoyed the combat... starting uh... pretty much after Fourside. Which is like halfway through the game.

...

I mean, even getting Paula in the party alone was enough to make it feel better, but the game really needs a full party.

I could and will totally replay the game though, so it can't have turned me off that bad. I hope someday this club can make it to discuss the insanity of the end game, but we'll see. It's not necessarily fair to ask, but my gosh I do feel like it might be worth it.

As for favorite town, does Magicant count? ...Otherwise, it's probably Fourside or Dalaam.

I did manage to beat the game but because of me constantly grinding enemies to get rare drops I actually managed to hit the level cap.
I do understand why people love the game so much but I do agree that the beginning is a bit meh especially because there are barely any PP recovering items.

I feel like Earthbound's biggest issues are how slow and frustrating it is at the beginning, and how long the game spends in Fourside. The other parts of the game are much better. The parts near the end and the end are particularly great!

@GX_64 agree! As soon as you get past Fourside the pace really picks up

Have you considered maybe video games aren't for you? There are several thousands years of literature you haven't read.

These comments basically perfectly capture how I feel about Kentucky Route Zero. No matter how much I try to get into it I just can’t and have given up trying to force it. I absolutely love Earthbound, but can’t fault these folks given my own parallel experience.

I feel so uneasy recommending EarthBound to people these days. I just want to introduce something that means a lot to me to others, but in reality, that requires them to sit down and actually play a janky old 90s RPG. I love playing old RPGs but this isn't necessarily true for everyone.

Just started Poo's trial. Everything up to this point is just so random, I recall being given something and the NPC even said it doesn't make sense.

I am finding item management tough, holding items I don't think have any use, but worried I'll have to ask for it back. Then you use a status cure only to be infected the next battle!

And that leads onto combat, again with no healing items due to lack of space and I still have no idea what PSI Flash does, never works. And the amount of narrowly missing, infuriating!

Not giving up though.

Those are fair assessments. Playing Earthbound in 2022 is not the same as playing Earthbound in 1995 (er...'199X').

A bee it is
not...

Questions: I think the beginning is a bit of a slog and can easily turn away newcomers.

I don't think you can expect a lot of people to push through a slow start, people only have limited time and really need the first 2-3 hours to really grip them to dedicate their time towards it.

The only way I could probably convince Kate and Ollie to stick with it is to use an emulator with a speed up button and maybe auto battle for grinding.

I can't decide on a favorite location, but I absolutely adore Buzz Buzz and his untimely death.

Fuzzy pickles makes me feel too awkward around others.

Sad to hear y'all haven't been wowed with Earthbound so far. Maybe I'm just too easily pleased, but I absolutely adored the game playing it for the first time a couple years ago. Its zany humor and overall goofiness, its music, and just about everything in that game were phenomenal in my eyes. I get that not every game is for everyone, but I hope that as you continue through it your opinions change!

The backtracking never bothered me at this point of the game, probably because there's an incredibly tedious segment much further in the game that makes all the others feel quaint. With regards to unfriendliness to newbies, Earthbound's opening chapter is one of my favorites in any RPG because it teaches you how to manage the rolling HP counter without a handholding overlong tutorial. You really understand the weight of the mechanic and how to work it when it's just Ness and your failure leads to a game over. The item management can be annoying if you're spoiled by stackable unlimited inventories, but it's another layer of challenge I appreciate, having grown weary of finishing games with hundreds of unused elixirs.

But to the bigger question, if the game hasn't won you over by Fourside it probably won't. There's many amazing moments ahead (Magicant being my favorite) but at this point you've had a good fill of what the game offers. There's some bigger challenges ahead too, though some of them can be cheesed with the right item. Though Itoi's writing is evergreen and the efficiency is still astonishing as games continue to get more chatty while saying less, it is still at its core an old school JRPG. But hey, we live in an age where you can vicariously experience darn near any game ever, so there's that.

Firstly, I want to say thank you for getting me to finally play this game. I would have probably put it off for another few years otherwise. I would say compared to Earthbound Beginnings, Earthbound’s beginnings (confused?) are a breeze. I never felt I had to grind at all, but then I did make liberal use of the rewind feature. I think Earthbound would have been a little bit harder to love without modern day conveniences. This way I could really enjoy the quirky story and “take in the sights”.

Favourite location: DUNGEON MAN DUNGEON MAN DUNGEON MAN.

Finished Earthbound earlier this week and tried getting back into Dragon Quest XI and it all just seems a little… earnest to me now. Also 2 chunky JRPGs in a row is a bit too much to take so I’m interspersing it with some Rise of the Tomb Raider.

No Obra Dinn for me, hopefully see you next month.

Backlog count: 813 games, I need to do a Marie Kondo on that list.

I tried Earthbound on the wii u back in the day and though I’d heard lots of good things about it and I didn’t dislike the combat and vibe at all, there was nothing that kept me all that interested. The beginning wasn’t as much frustrating as it was just boring to me. Having to backtrack so dang much got me really bored of seeing the same places over and over, especially when it came to needing healing items and having to walk aaaall the way back for them. The humour and vibe also just weren’t anything exceptional. I fully agree with the point they make here, about how it probably hit way different back in the day and now we have more welcoming alternatives that use eartbound’s style.I tried Mother 3 and I really want to see what else that game has to offer so I think that’s the one for me.

I can't believe it, but I actually beat it, and I loved it. I used save states liberally because yes, there were multiple slogs, and the 90s jank is omnipresent. It was all worth it, and the ending was really impactful. It's amazing to realize how much Earthbound DNA is still echoing in modern games. I'm really glad I played it.

I bought this as a kid when it came out, and found it harder than the Squaresoft RPGs I was obsessed with. Sadly, I didn’t get real far, as times were moving ahead-and I was busy playing N64! Around 2006 I went and started a new game on the SNES. I loved it! The first few hours I definitely found to be the hardest, but after getting the 3rd and then 4th party members it really took off! Learning new powers was amazing too!
While this may not be in my top 5 games of all time, it does rank high! I’m glad to be able to play it again on <brag>original system and cart</brag>.

For what it's worth, after Fourside, the Difficulty spikes kind of level out. For me at least, the rest of the game features battles that you're generally equipped to handle without much grinding.

The South Park connection is accurate, Trey Parker specifically mentioned that he loves Earthbound and it was a big inspiration for The Stick of Truth.

I absolutely love this game but it's definitely a cult game that isn't going to appeal to everyone. I think this game actually benefits from loosely referring to a guide from time to time, since it can be a little confusing and cryptic at times. Remember, it was even packaged with one at the time of release. So much of what makes this game so special to me is in the final stretch, so I hope the writers can persevere

Also, that's the best sub header in the history of this site

Made it to poos trial as well. Love this game. Summers is awesome

Great format! Slightly shorter games would help. Looking forward to Oprah Din (or what it’s called) gone definitely sail with you!

I played it on the Wii-U in 2012, I don’t remember much backtracking… but I do remember it being tedious and having numerous difficulty spikes (damn you police officers in the arcade!)

However… I still loved it.

The fact that the game is a Japanese man’s (Shigesato Itoi) idea of what it’s like to grow up in America is hilarious to me. Every where you look there are American cliches… we all only eat Hamburgers!

Having played a ton of Super Smash Bros and constantly wondering who Ness was… and what the heck a Mr. Saturn is… It was great to see the source material.

Was tempted to give it up in Twoson but I pushed though. Been making slow progress but the fourth character just joined my party . . . and I've finally gotten my hands on a PS5 just the other day, so I think that's it for Earthbound for me. Not a horrible game but it never hooked me.

And I still hate the art style. If they'd made the exact same game but it looked like Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger, I would have beaten it multiple times back in the day.

This was very interesting. I played this for the first time ever and had a blast. I had an English patched version of the GBA ROM on my 3ds, so that's how I played, which helped because it stopped me from being able to use save states or rewind, which I may have abused otherwise, and instead just helped me to be cautious and strategic. Anyway.

The game itself has quickly become one of my all time favourites, and I didn't really struggle with it at all, but it could have been growing up with RPGs that helped. It actually seemed very forgiving. Things like not losing all your data from before your save point when you die, meaning not having to beat all bosses and minibosses in a gauntlet, and the rolling HP bar, meant a lot of flexibility.

I don't feel qualified to answer the first couple questions, since I enjoyed every moment of it. It was such a warm and cosy space, which only kept growing. The script and music and aesthetic were perfect. The fact that every person had something interesting to say made this game, since I like talking to everyone in RPGs, but boring writing discourages me from inhabiting the world fully.

I would say, to stick through to the end, just use a walkthrough for things you get stuck at. For me, getting totally lost in an RPG isn't the fun bit, although I like to figure it out myself, if I can't, I'd rather just check so i can keep advancing. Also, worth grinding a bit inside the sanctuary locations after the boss fights, since the enemies all run away. But the best reason to stick with it is because the ending is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

My favourite location is hard, since there's such love and weirdness sprinkled into every part. Magicant is hard to beat though.

Buzz buzz is genius. It's such an awesome subversion of expectations, to have an ultra powerful ally just get swatted. It's hilarious, there's moments like it later like when you are assisted by the Runaway Five in a battle. My favourite part of Undertale was how it took tropes of RPGs and made fun of them and the player. Like causing you to solve puzzles for no reward. That gives me joy no chest full of gold could replace.

I didn't say fuzzy pickles. But it never failed to draw a smile from me.

It's worth beating. But I do agree it works best for people who have a lot of RPG fondness, and the humour apparently also isn't for everyone.

I'm glad to see some even-tempered responses to a lack of high praise for a classic.

I beat this on Wii U some years back as well, and while I do like the ending and wackiness of the game, I more often felt I was playing it to check it off a list rather than because I wanted to keep going. Still a good game though.

I might have nostalgia to blame since i played the early Pokemon games a ton as a kid, but i often find the early grind to be compelling. Every battle, tedious as it might be, leaves you a little bit stronger, a little bit closer to that next level up and those precious stat boosts, and better able to handle the next challenge.
I played Beginnings followed immediately by Earthbound several months ago (finally lost steam a few hours into mother 3) and i loved them. Beginnings was grind heavy at a few points, but i don't remember the same being true for Earthbound, but maybe i was just used to the combat by then.
I'm glad you all played it, even if you ended up being lukewarm about it by the end. In the context of when it came out, it was a masterpiece, but i feel like it's a good thing that later games have taken that foundation and built something even better with it

The rewind feature on NSO made the difficult parts less of a headache. It allowed me do things like; Try different decisions, scan enemies without costing a turn, and get free hints. I didn’t over use it, but it came in handy if you didn’t want to start all the way over after wiping out.

I think we've managed to isolate the culprits since everyone, including me 4 times now, stops at roughly the same point.

The item trading followed by Fourside.

The healing, pp shortage and inventory management hell all start to stack at that point. And it features one of the largest gaps between free save points and healing opportunities like hospitals.

I think crossing the bump is totally worth it if you know it's a bump. Have you not enjoyed yourself up to first getting Paula, you'll surely not enjoy yourself later!!

To me I had an amazing time till I hit the bump, and hear it's even cooler after. So it's time to strap back in!!

if you guys arent playing with the nintendo power players guide that came with this game, you are playing half a game and giving this masterpiece short shrift, at least and especially if its your first time through the game. it came with the game, and it gives just the right amount of guidance at each point of the game. it is part of the game, not a nice thing to have.

i have admittedly been playing this game since it came out when i was a kid. however, i will say that its not that hard, its not that long (for an rpg its short even,) and i beat it as a 10 year old with adhd and no internet.

i will also admit that i am a musician and a "music person," music is more important to me than videogames. the fact no one mentioned the music until the last little bit at the end (it's okay!) shows me that we arent all playing these games for the same reasons, and that really is okay!

thank you for giving my favorite game a try! ive recommended it to people my whole life, and to this day there have been 3 people who played it, beat it, and love it with me. its always there, a place we can always meet, relive the great moments together.

@garfreek

this is very true, fourside is the toughest part of the game.

after onett through fourside, it becomes a world tour, many short adventures in bizarre locales, and almost no backtracking i can think of.

and, since you get an inventory screen along with each character, inventory becomesmore manageable once you have a full party. people stress too much about the inventory anyway, theres never a point where you cant carry enough food items along with your key items, frankly.

also fourside is one of the most incredible locales ever in a game, from the MUSIC to the bizarre characters, corruption, plot twists... if you get to moonside and you are still not intrigued, i dont know what to tell you! i guess im just an old stoner but moonside trips me out!

i will say that when i was a kid i had a turbo controller, and that really helped with battles at the time. you spend alot of the time choosing "attack" and then cycling through the resulting text, so turbo on the "a" makes this really fast.

also, this game has the not nearly copied enough mechanic of being able to play most of the game with just the dpad and the L button, which means simultaneous right hand hot pockets am i right? why doesnt every rpg put "check/talk to/confirm" on L??

Do you agree that EarthBound's beginning is a little unfriendly to newcomers?

if you arent compelled by the music and writing and art style, then id say why bother?
importantly, if you talk to every person in the game (and you should in any jrpg! thats the game, folks!) you will get mostly all the information you need about how to play the game, and how to progress.
however, if these newcomers arent using the players guide, thats like playing duck hunt without the zapper or something. its a hybrid game, the book is part of the game!

Do you think that it's fair to ask people to "push through" a tedious, slow, or difficult beginning to get to the good stuff?

there is not an objectively "tedious" game or part, the beginning of earthbound should be charming and compelling to take in. i dont really understand why people are having such a hard time with it except maybe they dont talk to all the people or use the strategy guide!

if you arent thinking "ive got to get to the next town, hear the next music, see whats around the next corner!" then you dont like this game! and thats fine.

in my opinion, onett twoson threed and fourside are good stuff! and it gets better from there.

How would you convince Kate and Ollie to stick with the game to the end?

kate, you are missing out on the incredible final 3rd of a pretty short game, all things considered. its the best feels ive ever gotten from a game, and ive thought about this game probably every day for going on 30 years. it inspires my graphic art, music, and writing heavily to this day.

ollie, i dont think this one is for you haha.

Which is your favourite town or location in EarthBound?

magicant, sea of eden, summers, dungeon man, saturn village.

What are your thoughts on Buzz Buzz?

buzz buzz is the ben kenobi of earthbound.

Do you say "fuzzy pickles" when posing for a picture?

no pictures, please.

I can only look at this game through the eyes of a kid born in the 80's. This was my absolute favorite game at the time with FF IV, Super Metroid and A Link To The Past in close tow.

What can be said about gamers born after the year 2000 playing Earthbound and being disappointed? The battle systems, item management and story archs that you have grown up using have probably conditioned you not to enjoy this game.

Grinding is party of old JRPGs like this. It takes a while to become incremental more powerful, you have to fill your inventory with hamburgers to get through that first boss battle in the back of the arcade, you have to wander around and talk to NPC to figure out what's going on and where to go best. And each NPC will have dialogue and things to interact with which was amazingly unique for it's time.

It the grinding in the beginning or lack of instant party deter you, don't play 90's JRPGs. They aren't going to hold you hand and they don't care if you get frustrated. That's part of playing the game. Maybe that sounds strange to some but getting stuck is a common feature in alot of old RPGs and it makes it even more rewarding when you figure it out.

Someone said something about how it reminds them of South Park when obviously they meant that South Park reminds them of this game, since it predates South Park.

I can understand why people who grew up on Minecraft and Undertale don't appreciate certain aspects of this game. It's daunting. It's not "just add player" instant fun like modern games that hold your hand or make you feel safe.

But for it's time this game was hands down the most unique and multi-faceted RPG I had played. It allowed your to name individuals and interests, pick "flavors", interact with almost anyone with unique dialogue, has unique fast travel...exc, and I believe still today has one of the best OST of all time.

Most old turn-based RPGs I've played are kind of a slog at first because you can't do much other than just attack, receive damage, and heal yourself. The battle systems only show their true colors once you get more skills and party members, and that only happens a number of hours into the game. This progression can be interesting, though, which is why I play old RPGs. The stark transition from slow start to explosive end pays dividends from a storytelling standpoint.

I think audiences back in the day more willingly put up with this slow-burn structure because, if you wanted interactive storytelling on a grand scale, RPGs were the only genre actually delivering on that, along with point-and-click adventure games. (And cinematic platformers, I guess, but there weren't as many of them.) Now we're regularly playing interactive prestige movies with near photorealistic graphics. Even something like Final Fantasy has basically become that. I don't know if it's better or worse. (Heck, after playing FF7 and FF7R last year, I actually liked the original much better.) But it's certainly different and going back does require an adjustment.

@-wc-

Not talking to NPCs is a stumbling block many people encounter with older titles. In today's games — partly because virtual cities are so densely populated now you can't expect players to talk to everyone — important NPCs are clearly singled out with an icon or in-world signposting. So modern gamers are conditioned to ignore all NPCs that aren't marked as quest-relevant. Today's games also have mountains of disposable sidequests, flavor text, and lore, because they have memory space to spare — in comparison to the 90s, anyway — so they can throw much more content at the player. This means the critical path has to be highlighted more clearly. To compound this issue, there are more games available now competing for our dwindling time, so developers are — rightly — terrified of losing players if they can't figure out where to go next. So they just point them in the right direction, sometimes with literal arrows. (Unless it's an open world game like Elden Ring or Breath of the Wild, where every direction is valid, so there's less navigational frustration. There's a catch to this, though: if every direction is valid, there's less to "figure out." You tend to walk around aimlessly. It's fun, too, but a different sort of fun to navigational detective work.) In this context, 90s games that expect you to talk to every NPC, made for audiences that knew they had to do this, are in a problematic spot, because modern gamers are sidestepping all the hand-holding, all the tutorials, and all the hints. For me, "figuring out where to go" is one of my favorite game challenges. (Hence the avatar.) I like what 90s games were doing and regularly discover new gems. But I understand why design trends have shifted, even if I don't celebrate the reason.

@-wc- moon side really messed with me! 😂
I had so much fun. I'm finishing octopath traveler and jumping back in! I've got my mini-snes ready to go! 😁❤️

(And you're name being WC seems really fitting for Earthbound l! 😂😂)

@Takoda that game has a totally different vibe. And it's largely story driven while Earthbound is more about seeing the sights.

Mother 3 has a way tighter battle system and doesn't need any grinding, Earthbound needs way more grinding.

Just finished Earthbound last night, never played before. I used save states but did not find it too much of a chore. I think I am more forgiving of older games but I really enjoyed it . I also feel glad to have played a game that has inspired so many of my current favourites. Thanks Backlog Club!

@garfreek

LOL that really is my name and i named ness "WC" on my first play! 😀 cheers

im curious, are you a fan from way back or did you first enjoy it more recently?

@Beaucine

wow! thank you for the well considered and artfully articulated reply!

you put into words much of what ive noticed about new games on a gut level but hadnt quite worked out. what you say makes me sad on one level, but on another level i guess im relieved that its "not just me." games really have changed in these ways over time while i stayed the same!

i do notice when i play a new game, i do not feel an indeed am not compelled by the game to do anything but stay on the neon path amd not waste time with NOCs, and so on, as you say. every game seems to have me "go through the motions" in a very guided way. its just not a game, to me!

to me, if you dont get stuck in an RPG, its not a game. its like if tetris gave you the exact piece you obviously needed each time, and youd have to go out of your way not to get a perfect stack every time.

the worst, for me, is the pop up prompts i see every time i try a "AAA" game, especially on playstation. i dont even bother learning the controls, because the game prompts me to press X when i get to the door to open it, press ∆ to talk, etc etc. this isnt fun, guys! its like they all played OoT way back and learned all the wrong lessons from its design (which is brilliant.)

anyway you already put it better, thanks again!

@-wc- pre-wiiu. I tried emulation, but it froze on me in the traffic jam of dusty dunes!

I’m only in Threed, not overly thrilled with the grind but going to persist as I am really enjoying the general tone and humour. Although for some reason whenever I think about the game I hear Golf Story music in my head. I guess the latter was probably influenced by Earthbound to some degree.

Yes I do agree it’s a little unfriendly to beginners but probably wasn’t in the 90s, when you got a new game and it was basically all you had to play so you were happy to just pootle around in the game’s world for hours on end. I don’t think it’s unfair to ask the gamer to stick with it, but of course many gamers nowadays will just get fed up and bail, as I have done with a few other games.

I’m not doing next months game so will endeavour to finish this by the end of the month, as well as more slay the spire of course (although I seem to have hit a wall at ascension level 5 with most characters)

Just finished this, and gotta say... what a weird game. Not just in good ways either. It feels like a game that, at least played for the first time in 2022, gets by almost exclusive on the strength of its... idk, "vibes." The blend of Americana pulp sci-fi pastiche with classic RPG trope parody still hits right, at least for me. I think it would hit better if I had any sort of hands on familiarity with the Dragon Quest series, though even without that, the "vibes" (for lack of a better term) are still really excellent. And the game is graphically very pretty, which is another plus.

That said, despite its strengths, the game still felt lacking in some key areas, even (oddly enough) in comparison to its overall far inferior NES predecessor. The battle system felt a bit undercooked; and, for some strange reason, the buff/debuff effects felt much less impactful than they were in Beginnings. Additionally, even for its time, the inventory management, equipment, and environment-interaction systems feel dated.

And then the story... I've got some big issues with the story. The meat of the narrative--the various sub-quests that make up most of the gameplay--are all very solid; no real complaints there. But the bones--the overarching structure, the motivations/goals/mcguffins/etc. that would ideally give the significance to the meat--is severely lacking. Specifically (spoilers for both Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings):