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.

This is probably my favorite game of all time, I'm definitely aware of it's flaws and I will definitely get into them but I'd like to begin with the positives, I absolutely love the characters like Ryuji, Akechi, Haru, Iwai, Sojiro and Maruki. They're all really likeable and well written but the cast does have some stinkers like Makoto being so bland and such an obvious waifubait and Ann just being used for fanservice despite the themes of the first palace but they definitely have some redeeming qualities. I would also like to praise the absolutely gorgeous art style and music. I love both of these aspects so much, the menus feel so fun to navigate because they're full of life and just look visually pleasing and the music is definitely one of the best I've heard in a game, my favorites being: Take Over, Throw Away your Mask, Layer Cake, Life will Change, Ark, The days when my mother was there and many more. Also, can I just say how amazing the newly added palace is? The story is definitely at it's peak here and if the rest of the game had the same writing this game would be much more appreciated in the hardcore side of the Megami Tensei fanbase. Now then...I think it's about time we get on to the negatives


The combat, it is actually decently challenging in the first palace and the difficulty falls off so hard to the point where even a chimpanzee could beat the game. The only real fights that provided a challenge after the first palace was the 5th palace's boss and the secret boss in the third semester. it's the secret boss that makes me wish this game tested your knowledge of the combat because it's really fun using the tools you have at your disposal and building your persona roster and party. If this game was harder and didn't give you so many game breaking confidant abilities so early I think it would be more appreciated as well. Another flaw is that the writing can get really...bad at times...I don't want to get into spoilers but I'll give some vague ones: cartoonishly goofy villains, serious topics immaturely being used to make the game feel more "mature", fanservice contradicting the first palace's themes, blatant homophobic and transphobic jokes, not giving certain characters enough screen time to really shine and the humour can be so unfunny like the scene where Ryuji gets relentlessly yelled at by the cast even though he literally saved them (did you know they were planning on also adding punching animations for them to most likely beat up Ryuji? At least they knew when to stop...)


Now, you might be asking? Why are you giving this game 5 stars when it has these really obvious flaws? It's because this game has left a massive impact on me and I wouldn't be the same person without it. I love this game to death and hopefully atlus can improve with persona 6 and make it even better than 5...I am definitely biased towards persona 5 royal and I will be the first person to admit that but I think everyone should try this game at least once.