Pointless nostalgia: Earthbound

November 1, 7:06 AMPittsburgh Video Game ExaminerEric Keihl

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Pittsburgh Video Game Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Riveting Action!

Ah, childhood. An idyllic time with no cares or responsibilities... unless you happen to live inside a Japanese RPG. I'm not sure why it is, but the story of almost every single JRPG I've played demands that the fate of the planet and all who live upon it rest upon the shoulders of a pre-pubescent lad or lass who, by some freak of chance, happens to have the wherewithal to overcome all of the world's evils without ever stopping to drink a juice box or cry to his mother about a skinned elbow. That's certainly an awful lot to swallow, and it's only made worse by how seriously the games tend to take themselves, almost as if the game designers are unaware of just how absurd a premise having a child save the world is. Thankfully, there are a few instances of the genre that are willing to acknowledge (and even revel in) that underlying absurdity, the best example being the Hal Laboratories quirkfest Earthbound, released for the SNES in 1995.

At first, Earthbound might appear to be a run-of-the-mill JRPG without any subversive inclinations: its battles are completely turn-based (but mercifully not random,) your party of four characters gets stronger and gains new PSI (read: magic) powers by acquiring experience and leveling up, and the plot outline (defeat some evil with the help of a mystical rock!) could generously be described as dependable. Yet the more one plays Earthbound, the more one finds a game that's determined to take most of the standard RPG clichés and playfully twist them around, resulting in a unique experience that's immediately recognizable amid an often cluttered genre.

Consider the silent protagonist, Ness. Sure, he's The Chosen One (a mystical bee from the future tells you as much,) and he does have psychic powers, but he's still  a helluva lot more normal than your average savior of the world, as this hastily-made chart will demonstrate:

And the differences don't begin or end with young Ness. For instance, your arsenal of weapons is low on battle axes and crossbows but includes pop guns, frying pans, and bottle rockets. Instead of gulping down vaguely described potions and elixirs to restore health, you eat cookies, croissants, and beef jerky. And rather than battling evil ghosts and giant robots, you'll fight... well... evil ghosts and giant robots, but also ants, skate punks, runaway dogs, sentient puddles of vomit, and, worst of all, "New Age Retro Hippies." In short, instead of treating players to another cookie cutter world of steampunk or sword-and-sorcery, Earthbound lets us play in a bizarro version of our own reality, and the result is a setting that somehow seems even more bizarre for its (admittedly loose) connection to normal life .

But just because the game is heavy on the wackiness doesn't mean it's light on super-fun JRPG adventure. From the moment Ness is awakened from a sound sleep and discovers the meteor that crashed near his house, he'll find himself on an epic quest to collect the eight melodies (/ MacGuffins) and put a stop to the monstrous Giygas, an adventure that will take him from his quiet hometown of Onett to the very guts of evil made manifest. Along the way, he'll visit bustling cities (complete with pizza parlors and department stores,) haunted graveyards, snowy mountain peaks, dinosaur-infested jungles (Sam Neill cameo not included,) and, for some reason, Stonehenge. Best of all, everywhere you go an odd fellow who looks like Doctor Demento will come spinning out of the sky and snap a picture of you, so that you can reminisce about your travels at the end of the game and/or have him added to some sort of national creepy pervert registry.

Now, if any part of that description confuses you, let me assure you that for all of its psychotropic coffee freak outs, brainwashed cults who want to paint everything blue, and surprisingly non-educational museum exhibits, Earthbound is at heart a simple tale of a boy, his dog, a girl, a nerd, and a bald kid named Poo (tee-hee) forming a bond of friendship and teaching everyone an important lesson about believing in yourself and standing up for what's right... even if standing up for what's right means getting turned into a robot by a bunch of pink aliens with bows in their hair whose speech bubbles have a weird font and lack a coherent grasp of English grammar and then fighting a spider-robot-piloting spoiled brat from your hometown who has foolishly sworn fealty to a swirling void with a face. I think that's a lesson we can all take to heart, and it's that kind of uplifting message that really elevates Earthbound into the hallowed realm of the classics.