This game is a masterpiece, Itoi has outdone himself.
Earthbound is reminds me of why I think games are art. This game for me, is more of a beautiful art piece than a game to me. The only reason I haven't given this game a perfect score is because...there's kind of no reason for me to go back to it, but I can easily see myself changing the score.
The gameplay is kind of barebones and has really strange design choices like the key items being able to take up your inventory space, I am fine with inventory management in games, it can force the player to actually use the items and not hoard them but counting key items? Yeah, no. Also, The goldmine in Dusty Dunes Desert was very tedious and felt like it dragged on forever, However earthbound does have some stuff that makes it feel more ahead of its time compared to the other RPGs around this time, for example, ditching random encounters in the favour of overworld enemies, this is a strength for earthbound as you can avoid them...is what I would have said if the enemies didn't have the same or even faster movement speed than Ness. Sometimes the location you're in is way too cramped and can't dodge the enemies and when you also take into consideration the escape system that 90% of the time doesn't work...Even if the execution was quite flawed, I'm really, REALLY glad they tried to do something different. The battle system is...Alright, it doesn't really have that much depth. The rolling health system is cool but I rarely ever felt like it affected the gameplay that much for me. Some of the enemies can also be really annoying like the enemies that explode when you win...thanks for punishing me for winning I guess?
What kept me coming back to Earthbound was just seeing what it wanted to throw at me. Earthbound feels like a meth trip at times and I absolutely love it and the ost? It's absolutely perfect, in my opinion. I don't think there is any SNES game that has a better ost than Earthbound. The bestiary in this game is so...weird too and I can't help but smile seeing the dumb shit you can fight like paintings, road signs, cars, clocks...I haven't seen anything like it before. The development history of this game and everything else surrounding it is so fascinating to me. I love this game and everything about it. The NPCs are actually worth talking to, they have genuinely funny dialogue that I haven't seen any other RPG inspired by Earthbound pull off even closely as well as it does. Just walking around the towns in the game and listening to the chill osts was one of the best feelings in all of gaming for me, I am a huge fan of the urban aesthetic this game has, even if it does kind of ditch it later in the game.
Thank you, Shigesato Itoi, for making this masterpiece of a game, I'm very excited to play Mother 3.
Earthbound is reminds me of why I think games are art. This game for me, is more of a beautiful art piece than a game to me. The only reason I haven't given this game a perfect score is because...there's kind of no reason for me to go back to it, but I can easily see myself changing the score.
The gameplay is kind of barebones and has really strange design choices like the key items being able to take up your inventory space, I am fine with inventory management in games, it can force the player to actually use the items and not hoard them but counting key items? Yeah, no. Also, The goldmine in Dusty Dunes Desert was very tedious and felt like it dragged on forever, However earthbound does have some stuff that makes it feel more ahead of its time compared to the other RPGs around this time, for example, ditching random encounters in the favour of overworld enemies, this is a strength for earthbound as you can avoid them...is what I would have said if the enemies didn't have the same or even faster movement speed than Ness. Sometimes the location you're in is way too cramped and can't dodge the enemies and when you also take into consideration the escape system that 90% of the time doesn't work...Even if the execution was quite flawed, I'm really, REALLY glad they tried to do something different. The battle system is...Alright, it doesn't really have that much depth. The rolling health system is cool but I rarely ever felt like it affected the gameplay that much for me. Some of the enemies can also be really annoying like the enemies that explode when you win...thanks for punishing me for winning I guess?
What kept me coming back to Earthbound was just seeing what it wanted to throw at me. Earthbound feels like a meth trip at times and I absolutely love it and the ost? It's absolutely perfect, in my opinion. I don't think there is any SNES game that has a better ost than Earthbound. The bestiary in this game is so...weird too and I can't help but smile seeing the dumb shit you can fight like paintings, road signs, cars, clocks...I haven't seen anything like it before. The development history of this game and everything else surrounding it is so fascinating to me. I love this game and everything about it. The NPCs are actually worth talking to, they have genuinely funny dialogue that I haven't seen any other RPG inspired by Earthbound pull off even closely as well as it does. Just walking around the towns in the game and listening to the chill osts was one of the best feelings in all of gaming for me, I am a huge fan of the urban aesthetic this game has, even if it does kind of ditch it later in the game.
Thank you, Shigesato Itoi, for making this masterpiece of a game, I'm very excited to play Mother 3.