Ah Earthbound... This cult classic Super Nintendo RPG was recently re-released on the Wii U virtual console and the readers of many of my favorite gaming websites were all aflutter with the news. Now I was a huge fan of RPGs when this game was originally released in 1994, but somehow I never got around to playing it. With so many in the gaming community crowing about the re-release and about how much they loved this game back in the day I decided to give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about. Anyone who reads this site regularly knows that I love me some retro gaming, but I was especially curious to see what I would think of an aging RPG that I had little first-hand knowledge of and absolutely zero nostalgic connection to. Here's what I thought...
One of the first thoughts I had upon starting the game was that the graphics are fairly underwhelming. I get the sense that they were trying to work a "wonder of childhood" sort of vibe with the clean lines and bright colors, but I found the look of the game to be rather dull. There were a few areas of the game that I found visually engaging (e.g., Moonside) but by and large the visuals are rather simplistic. Speaking of simple, let's talk about the battle system. I know that we're talking about a game that is nearly 20 years old now, but the battle system is fairly elementary even by 1994 standards. Static, non-animated enemies confront you against a wavy, psychedelic background in Dragon Quest-style menu based battles that grow old fast. The spells are the only visually interesting attacks you can pull off and there's frankly not much variety to those either. I give the developers credit for implementing non-random battles and the unique "rolling" HP meter, but these innovations don't really save the fights from their blandness.
I've got to tell you that the story of Earthbound is, quite frankly, fucking bananas. Many people seem to enjoy it, but this aspect of the game also left me feeling unimpressed. Now normally I don't mind a little absurdity in my storylines, but the plot of this game just makes no sense. Four minor children from modern day U.S.A. find each other through their shared psychic bond and unite to defeat drunk dudes, hippies, and an evil...baby...thing. I recently read an interesting interview with the man who did the lion's share of the game's localization, and I gather that this must have been a challenging title for them to translate, but the fact is that there's not a whole lot of dimension to the characters, and most of the interactions that you have with NPCs are obtuse and absurd. Seriously, the dialogue in this game feels less like it was placed there to help you and more like an endless series of bad jokes and tiresome puns. Again, I don't mind a little quirkiness, but it feels like this game doesn't know if it wants to be a coming-of-age tale or a sci-fi epic or whether it wants to be serious or silly or contemplative. It tries to be a little bit of everything and it ends up feeling like an unfocused mess with bizarre juvenile overtones. Meh.
I should say that I mostly enjoyed the music in Earthbound. Like most aspects of this game it's kind of all over the place, and several of the songs feel unintentionally sloppy and glitchy sounding, but I ended up digging quite a few of the tracks.
In the five or six days that I spent playing this game I nearly got to the end, but I ended up growing so bored and disconnected from it that I've since set it aside. Part of me wanted to finish for the sake of completion, but I've found myself feeling lighter and happier in the days since walking away from this mess of a game. The lesson here, of course, is that many popular games from the past just don't hold up unless you have some prior connection to them. Earthbound strikes me as one of those games that you just had to play back in the day. Even when I consciously try to remember 1994 and what other RPGs of the time were like, I keep coming back to the same conclusions. This story is too absurd, the battle system too basic, and the characters too bland. Sorry Earthbound faithful, I just couldn't get down with this game.
Grade: C/C-
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