EarthBound

EarthBound is a very special game. Arriving late in the lifespan of the SNES, it flew under the radar of many gamers in the United States or was just too danged odd to stir their attentions. While it did not sell poorly, it was not the runaway success that Nintendo had envisioned and failed to justify the advertising they had spent—or misspent—on its behalf. Despite its lukewarm financial reception, or possibly because of it, EarthBound has become a fiercely beloved cult classic.

The game we got as EarthBound is actually the second game in a series. The Japanese title is Mother 2. If you paid attention to emulation back in the mid-to-late 1990’s you may remember the discovery of the first game—??Mother?? or EarthBound Zero—in a fully translated state which was dumped and spread throughout the then nascent Internet. It was a pretty big deal at the time.

So what sort of game is EarthBound? In terms of gameplay and mechanics it’s quite similar to Dragon Warrior (or Dragon Quest if you prefer). It’s an RPG in which the heroes and monsters take turns thumping on each other. There are hit points that must be maintained. There are items to collect. There are weapons to be equipped. In mechanics it’s scarcely different than the games that preceded it.

In setting though EarthBound is a fair shake different than a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. There are no swords nor potions. In their place there are baseball bats and hamburgers. Saving the game’s progress is accomplished by ringing the lead character’s dad on the phone—he’s perpetually away on business—and filling him in on everything that’s happened. He’ll also give you an allowance based on the number and strength of the enemies vanquished. It’s thoroughly modern… mostly.

False nostalgia

Despite being wholly developed in Japan, EarthBound is set in an idealized America. Director Shigesato Itoi has said that his goal with the series was to cultivate a feeling of nostalgia in gamers which makes the choice of location puzzling, at least to a Japanese audience. Strangely enough, it might just make perfect sense.

Asked to describe EarthBound gamers will alternatively use two terms: surreal and normal. Much like the choice of setting this seems contradictory. Those are two wholly different states of being, right? That’s like saying it’s both spicy and bland.

And yet…

Well, it is surreal. You fight parking signs and abstract art. You catch a bunch of zombies on a giant piece of zombie paper—it’s like fly paper, but for zombies. Said zombies are controlled by a giant pile of vomit that has a thing for “fly honey.” But it’s also normal. Money comes from ATMs. Pizza delivery guys bring a hot pie when you call them. A bicycle is a great way to get around.

I tell you, the nostalgia bit really rings true with me. Back in the heyday of the NES I would spend hours plotting out my fantasy games on notebook paper¹. Typically they’d be a hodge-podge of stuff from real life and stuff I made up (or stole from other video games). Saving progress with a telephone call and eating cookies to gain health would be exactly the sorts of things I’d include in my dream games. Playing EarthBound I’m filled with a sense of nostalgia not for my own personal life but for the made up life of my imagined video game heroes.

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¹ Lord! What I wouldn’t give to have those notebooks back. Sadly they’re long gone.