playoldgames

First Released : 1994

First Played : 2024

Recently Played : 2024

This is one of those games I heard about when I was a kid and never had the chance to play, and now that I’ve looked into the game a little bit, I completely understand why. It’s a game with a very rough exterior, but underneath some unfriendly systems, and relatively unimpressive visuals (even at the time), it became one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

Earthbound is the story of a young boy, Ness, who recieves a message that the world will be filled with hate by Giygas, an alien, and to prevent this he must travel to fill a Sound Stone (iPod) with 8 tunes from around the world. It has a unique twist of that it’s set in a fictional version of the United States, and not just any United States, the 90s view that Japan had of the United States. And that view is very well realized. It has an incredibly unique charm to it, a really unique world that you want to spend more time with.

Let’s start by looking at the visuals. It is not the best looking game on the Super Nintendo, and that really is saying quite a bit. You would think that it would have come out relatively close to the beginning of it’s lifespan, but it didn’t. It actually came out just before Final Fantasy 6, which is a game that really juiced the SNES as much as you could. But despite being a first party Nintendo game, it looks very cheap. Playing the game today, you could say it’s heavily stylized, but that argument didn’t work. The graphics to my understanding are the result of wanting the game to look more like an American comic strip, which after reading that made sense, but not until I read it.

A real highlight of this game for me was the music. The guys who wrote the score for this game really loved John Lennon, and it shows. I guess there weren’t really a lot of eyes on videos games in the 90s, because I don’t think you could rip off The Beatles this closely today and get away with it.

There are a variety of things in this game that don’t age the best. Surprisingly, the visuals aren’t one of them. Like most older RPGs, the english translation can be rough at times, especially on things such as items. The game is also plagued with some classic old school systems like inventory size, non stacking items, and solved combat. I found myself using the Bottle Rockets to kill most bosses towards the end of the game. Save States are also incredibly helpful.

This game feels like Undertale’s father. If you are a fan of RPGs and a can handle an old game, this one is definetly worth your time. It has many experiences that you can really only get from taking the time to do them yourself. As far as old games go, it is relatively easier to play. SNES Emulation is pretty solved and its even on the Nintendo Classics Library.

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