"This game stinks!"

That was the marketing slogan for Mother 2 (Earthbound in the U.S.). Compared to Mother 1's "No crying until the end", it was clear that this series decided to take it's satirical nature up a notch for this entry. Just a look at that slogan alone should tell you what you're about to get yourself into.

Earthbound is a story about a young boy with PSI powers named Ness who, after investigating a meteorite that had just landed near his home, discovers that he, along with two other boys (a genius kid named Jeff, and a psychic prince from a faraway land named Poo) and a girl (another kid with PSI powers named Paula) are destined to battle a great evil being named Giygas.

The game plays similarly to its predecessor, except the HP and PP are like a slot machine now, rolling up when you heal, and down when you take damage. The game also has it's enemies in the overworld instead of random encounters. So while you won't be bombarded with enemy encounters every 5 seconds, you can get swarmed with enemies.

Back to talking about this game's satirical nature, it's one of the things I love the most about Earthbound. While I did enjoy the more serious tone Mother 1 had set, I liked the fact that Earthbound was willing to get a little ridiculous at times. Sure, Mother 1 had you fighting hippies and trees that explode, but Earthbound has that AND a dungeon ran by a pile of vomit that you can only access by doing nothing for three minutes AND a village of silly little creatures that speak in broken English but are somehow able to build a machine that travels through space and time AND a guy who is so obsessed with dungeons that he had a genius engineer turn him INTO a dungeon. You don't see many games that have that do you!? (I also want to mention the fact that this game was supposedly made to be played with one hand so that you can eat a slice of pizza with your other hand while playing the game.)

I only had a 1/128 chance of giving this game a five star review though. Seriously, I hate this 1/128 bullshit. Poo is a strong party member with good stats, but he only has ONE equipable weapon, you have a 1/128 chance of getting said weapon from an enemy, and once your done with the dungeon said enemy spawns in, you lose your ONLY chance to get the weapon. The other character's ultimate weapons are like this but at least they have more than one weapon available to them.

This is the third time I have beaten this game, and it still hasn't gotten old for me. This game is a must play for any RPG fan, though if you enjoy RPGs for the story, I must say that this a game that is known for it's charm and humor.

After having such a great time with Persona Q, of course I would have to play Persona Q2. Gameplay-wise, it's an improvement over the previous entry, but in other ways, I can't help but say that it doesn't really live up to the greatness of Q1.

The story is similar to that of Q1, the casts of Persona 3 and 4 are trapped (this time in a movie theater instead of a school festival) and they must explore the labyrinths this strange world contains in order to leave. This time, however, they are joined by the cast of Persona 5, as well as the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable.

One of my complaints about this game's story is that in Persona Q, you could choose which protagonist takes on the role of the "main character" so to speak. This meant that there was a Persona 3 side and a Persona 4 side to the story that allowed their respective cast to flourish. In Q2 however, the title of "main character" is automatically given to the protagonist of Persona 5, meaning that most interactions in the game, in some way or another, revolved around the cast of Persona 5 (if an interaction didn't revolve around them, it usually revolved around P3P's female protagonist, but I'll talk about that in a second).

One of the things I DID like in Q2 is the use of P3P's female protagonist. In game, when she "reunites" with the rest of the P3 cast, she finds that they are from another world, where she doesn't even exist. Although they are optional, there are side quests where she can bond with P3's cast and even perform unison attacks with them, showing that the bonds P3P's female protagonist has with her friends is still there, even if they haven't met her until now.

As for the gameplay, like I said, it's an improvement over Q1. More elements to use, party members having more diverse skillsets compared to Q1, all-out attacks now being able to be used when all enemies are knocked down instead of how many party members have boost.

One tiny problem I have is how you get personas in this game. In Q1, the game gave you personas whenever the hell it felt like doing so after a battle, it might seem like a bad thing, but they weren't exactly uncommon. In Q2, there are designated enemies that give personas upon defeat (replacing the rare golden hands in Q1). They're super bulky, but die instantly to an all-out attack. The problem is trying to knock them down, as they resist physical so you have to go through each of the 8 elements to see which one they're weak to. It's easy to tell early on from their names, but at the endgame you have to figure it out yourself, and at that point they already have skills that can screw everything up, if not just outright fucking kill you.

While the dungeons were still fun to go through, they were a step down compared to Q1's. My favorite dungeon from Q1 was the Inaba Pride Exhibit (I was shocked to learn it's considered the worst dungeon) because of it's puzzles, where you had to think things through. Q2 didn't really have any puzzles like that, they were all ones that took ten seconds to solve. Each dungeon had a theme/message to it, but they were just slightly differently worded versions of "be who you want to be, don't conform to everyone else's standards".

Even with all the problems/nitpicks I had with this game, it's still a really good game, even if I do think Q1 is better. I'd say you could play this game without playing Q1, but I'd recommend you play an Etrian Odyssey game and/or Persona game before playing, just so you know what to expect in terms of how the game works.