"Breaking News: Big Earthbound Fan Plays Earthbound for First Time, is No Longer Earthbound Fan."

Jokes aside, with how much I've adored games like OMORI, Yume Nikki and the all of Toby Fox's work, this has always been a game that's on my bucket list.

I'd try to start it multiple times, but eventually get really frustrated by it; I'd tell myself it's just the early game that's bad, with how frustratingly difficulty it is.

So, for this one time, I powered through it, hoping to finally experience the entire game, and, well...

This is a 3/10 game with 10/10 moments.

For example: the battle system is pure dog shit.

Attacks miss more than they hit and it is so extremely basic with what you're able to do, there's no depth.

And you have to Constantly, throughout the entire game contend with enemies spamming status ailments and crits on you, with you often being unable to cure these ailments due to not having unlocked the appropriate Heal PSI, and not wanting to waste the inventory space on the specific item that heals it.

But also: Moonside is one of the most surreal and influential sequences of any game that's ever been made, it's genuinely so alien and creepy and it's executed so perfectly.

Another example: Navigation is needlessly slow, and often extremely frustrating with the constant spam of, not "Random Encounters" but basically "Forced Encounters" with how fast enemies can target you.

But also: that slow navigation adds to the tension and creepiness of certain sections, like Gigygas's lair or Moonside.

Example: Music is often really good!

But also: tracks like the dungeon man's music make me wanna rip my ears out.

Example: story is an incredibly barebones "chosen one defeats unspeakable evil", characters are barely given any amount of depths, dialogue from random NPCs is often grating (in my opinion at least), and the humor can be downright terrible with bosses like "big belch".

But also: Giygas is one of the most interestingly written bosses of any game that I've ever played, I'm not gonna go too further into it cause it's genuinely worth experiencing.

So in conclusion, this is a game of Extreme highs and Extreme lows, playing it is Awful, experiencing it is Amazing, I genuinely think you shouldn't play it, but I absolutely recommend watching a walkthrough of it, while I certainly felt really disappointed with it at the end, at the very least: it gives me more insight and appreciation of works that it inspired.

It has loads of charm and personality, and I completely understand why it's a major influence to lots of RPGs to come after this one. I really enjoyed the tone and overall vibe.

That being said, it's one of the most sluggish RPGs I've ever played, not only from the UI/UX side of things, but also from the game design side; inventory management is needlessly bureaucratic, item storage and money handling are tedious, walking speed is way too slow, menus take too long to show the contents or register your input, some of its mechanics are obscure and never explained.

Yes, it's an interesting game. It belongs in a museum.

earthbound really is something special, you don't need me to tell you that. it's full to the brim with quotable dialog, memorable moments, and a personality unlike anything before it. (after it? now that's a different story) and it doesn't matter if you already know about giygas or have seen the final battle in a video or something, the first time you play the game and fight giygas yourself, that ALWAYS sticks with you. i remember i was on the bus playing the game on my 3ds for the first time, and even still that shit hits like a train

Earthbound is fantastic, it's one of the most charming rpgs you can ever play, everything about it from the characters to the world and everything in between, the combat is quite simple so it would be fun even if you don't know anything about the genre.
My only problem with it is that the difficulty is kinda weird, the game throws a ton of random encounters at you and the bosses aren't that hard, which makes the bosses feel less important since dealing with the dozens of encounters before them is more of a problem than the bosses themselves

Honestly, I had heard a lot about Earthbound but somehow I managed not to spoil anything about the game and what a ride it was!

I can understand why this saga is so beloved: it has a unique charm. I don't know if it's because of the charismatic world it has, the story that grabs you from minute one, the incredible screen effects during combat or the humor that revolves around the entire game.

Also, one of the things that fascinates me the most is the rabbit hole that gets you as you progress through the story. How it gets weirder and weirder, more paranormal and more intricate. The feeling of experiencing a weird, unique and fun summer night is a constant throughout the game, and it's a concept that I really enjoyed.

Coming from games that drink from this one (like Undertale) have made me understand much better where the charisma of those games comes from. Yes, they bring something unique, but understanding the base I think adds points to the rest of the games that are inspired in one way or another by Earthbound.

Of course, I keep praying for Mother 3 to come out on NSO Europe even with a fantranslation. But one kid can only dream of it.

i probably didn't get the same emotional response that most people got out of it, but as it stands, this game has held up beautifully. idk if its itoi's writing or because earthbound inspired rpg is a genre, but this really holds up. combat is pretty engaging for the simple systems they have, but can often feel very easy or even somewhat frustrating when it wants to. i never really understood jeff's role in the party, i get hes supposed to be items but i always had long item droughts for him which is kinda frustrating. but the rollover mechanic is great though and help remove one-shot frustration.
wasn't 100% into overall story, thought a few of main characters were kinda bland and didn't really care about them, and a few can move into xd so random, also crazy that poo is only in it for like 5 hours and leaves for a while.
you know the dialogue writing and character design is amazing, even when there were times with slow progress there were interesting one-liners and gags happening so often that i didn't really mind at all, really gives the vibe of kids using their imagination a lot, love noose man and starmen, the game's never really laugh out loud funny but it makes you giggle goro.
the ending is amazing though, similarly im sending out a signal for everyone to pray for my brother who is so high rn.

Não da pra explicar a experiência que é jogar esse jogo, você se sente utilizando um alucinógeno pesado.

Psicodélico, comédia boa, trilha sonora é uma delícia, combate satisfatório mesmo que tenha me dado raiva em alguns momentos e eu amei os personagens.

Jogo maravilhoso recomendo para todos.

I've been replaying this game every year since my first playthrough back in 2014, and now I speedrun it! While casually the gameplay isn't the most indepth thing in the world it's still always fun and engaging to me. Speedrun wise, things are quite a bit more complicated and I've begun to appreciate many of the mechanics in this game a whole lot more. Ofc I love everything outside of the gameplay as well, story, characters, dialogue, and especially the music are fantastic and the game's artstyle has charmed me like no other. This is a game that I'll continue to play & replay for ages to come. It is my favorite game afterall.