Earthbound was released on the Wii U’s virtual console this month. It was a victory for Earthbound fans: the game they loved, that had inspired a cult following, was finally getting the recognition it deserved. Nintendo was promoting this game, acknowledging its existence, and allowing gamers both old and new to try their hand at Earthbound.
I must here make a confession: though I have played Earthbound multiple times, I have never completed it. Hell, I can’t even say that I’ve gotten to getting Poo as a party member, if I’m thinking correctly. But now, I, along with a few of my peers at Pixels or Death, are vowing to finally finish this game, that is loved by so many.
And after playing this past week, I believe I’ve gotten to understand both why I never finished Earthbound, and why so many people love it.
When I first played Earthbound, I was about 13 years old. I was in a phase of rediscovery: Whereas I had been able to grow up playing games of the Nintendo 64, Gameboy Color, and Playstation era, I hadn’t even been born when the Super Nintendo was out. I had decided to go back and try the games that are now considered classics – to understand where my roots came from, so to speak. Chrono Trigger, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI – I was finally experience and understanding why these games were held to such high standards, and why they held up so well, even years after they were released.
Eventually, I came to learn of the cult-status that surrounded Earthbound. On the outset, it seemed interesting enough: A group of kids team up to save the world, but in a Modern Day setting, where swords and guns were replaced by baseball bats and yo-yos. Good enough for me! I sat down, booted the game up, and got to playing. I ended up being being sorely disappointed.
“What the heck?” 13 year old me said in disbelief. This is what people were so happy to play? I couldn’t believe it. At the time, I could only consider Earthbound to be a Dragon’s Quest clone. And the humor made absolutely no sense to me, either. I couldn’t understand where the hype for this game was coming from. Why was this game held to the same level of adoration and devotion as Mega Man X? The combat was okay, the inventory system was cumbersome, and the humor was too strange to be funny to me.
With a sigh, I shelved Earthbound, passing it off as a game that I just didn’t understand.
You and me both, dude.
Well, 13 year old me turned out to be right about that part, at least. I didn’t understand why Earthbound was so loved. Now that I’m playing it again, I think I’m beginning to get where the charm lies. As I entered Twoson, and began to investigate the disappearance of a missing girl, a very clear thought struck me:
Earthbound is a game about seeing the world through a child’s eyes.
As I realized this point, I began to see it everywhere, from game design to plot. Whereas younger me found the fact that money was always short in this game to be a nuisance, older me recognized that a 13 year old was going to have a hard time scrounging up cash while saving the world (even though Ness’s dad seems to have an endless supply of money that he’s intent on not sharing in one go). I hated the fact that there were so few slots in my inventory, but realistically, how much could I really put in that yellow backpack of mine.
Beyond that, the dialogue in Earthbound further demonstrates that child-like view taken throughout the game. A Police Officer scolds Ness about this and that. Eventually, the text that scrolls down is simply “blah blah blah…” The droning, boring voice putting a kid who just wants to get on his way to sleep.
The adults are generally idiots, too. Police officers that don’t know what they’re doing (or aren’t doing anything at all), hippies that bum about in the streets, annoying old party men – more than any other game, Earthbound emphasizes why a boy is needed to save the world. An adult isn’t fit to do the job. Or any job, really, as I thought in disbelief while speaking to two parents who seemed oblivious to the fact that their daughter had been kidnapped. Hell, even Ness’s mom seems to have forgotten about the basics of child-rearing, which include not letting your child go on a crazy adventure to fight aliens!
This thing is only just getting started.
In both gameplay and story, Earthbound is a game about what it was like to be a kid. The joy of exploring your own backyard, and using only your imagination and what you have at your disposal to have an adventure. And though I’m not old enough to fully understand the nostalgia that wraps up the older gamers who play it, I think that, with each playthrough of Earthbound, as I get older and older, it will come to mean more to me.
Eight-Bit Samurai 