This is like, the only one that's conceptually interesting, and yet, Scott manages to fuck everything up the most right in this one. Kind of frustrating given that it does manage to build a pretty decent atmosphere while also having the single best character that came from this franchise (the minigame sequences are also pretty soulful, even though you can certainly tell that its gimmicks are so unintentionally straightfoward that you just can't help but imagine scott writing them up and thinking to himself "goddamn ain't I clever?". Subtlety is certainly something this franchise is uncapable of providing anyway, but I digress).

Well, if I had to give some props, this one emphasizes the fundamentals of the first game to an extent that makes them actually more worth of paying attention; in Fnaf 2, checking the cameras was a mechanic that was pretty much reduced to just staring at a single room to prevent the puppet from attacking (and very occasionally checking the vents because otherwise, most animatronics you could deal without having to look for the cameras). On this one however you can actually feel the structure of the stablishment that you're in, so springtrap movement's are a lot more logical, and the audioplay mechanic demands you to understand this, you can't just press this anywhere on the map (and given how gloomy and grungy the setting on fnaf3 is, you actually have to put effort on spotting springtrap's location, so despite this game being technically the easiest of the franchise, at the very least it's never obvious).
The presentation is also perhaps the best of all games exactly because it reaches the maximum of it's design theory without just going straight up hokey like everything else that came after (I give fnaf4 a pass considering the fact the nightmare animatronics are just fragments of a dream, so their exageration makes sense, but the rest of the franchise...yeah, you just can't convince me that those things were once meant for a kids restaurant - some of them just look like torture machines no matter in which way you look at it). Plot wise, despite being a tad heavy handed on this department (although sister location would be a lot more in the future), I can't say it doesn't depict the most peculiar aspects of this franchise's lore because it's quite the opposite, this and fnaf 4 have the least convoluted narrative and that on itself gives a lot more credibility.

This is where my compliments end though. Aside from everything, it's still a fnaf game, which means...yeah, it's terrible and boring...but at least a lot more immersive than the rest.

Eu não saberia expressar em palavras exatamente o motivo, mas desde criança eu tive um fascínio grande na "não objetividade" quando se tratava de jogos. E mesmo hoje, quando me deparo com títulos renomados que flertam comigo de alguma maneira, sempre parecem carecer dessa real conexão que eu alcançava em jogos antigamente. Advinda aliás, de propostas que fugiam da própria intencionalidade da obra. Tais como GTA, Legos ou até mesmo Minecraft. Nesses títulos, eu simplesmente me sentia indescritivelmente entretido simplesmente por não fazer nada, e sinceramente, caso me perguntem sobre a história desses jogos de mim não irão adquirir nenhuma resposta satisfatória nesse quesito, pois o sentimento de imersão na contemplação é a única coisa que está estampado em minhas memórias. Não é de se impressionar, que as minhas principais discussões com a minha melhor amiga em jogos é por eu não respeitar a "objetividade" do jogo maioria das vezes, sempre querendo fugir dela. E quando eu contestava, eu justificava, e dizia que esse seria o motivo em questão que me afastava da constância de contato com o mundo dos games. Mesmo nessa ótica, eu sabia que ela não estava errada, mas o que eu não sabia é que faltava de fato ter contato com algum jogo que se conectasse comigo novamente.

Foi uma busca intensa por algo que eu de fato nem sabia que poderia existir. E assim, sempre tentando reanimar o meu fôlego nos games, ainda mirava em jogos que seriam de fato menos "esforço". Pois eu não queria objetividade, eu não queria nem mesmo linearidade, eu queria apenas uma fuga gratificante, uma contemplação, uma ação espontânea. E nisso, eu me afastava mais ainda desse cenário, cogitando até mesmo aderir à conclusão de que eu não servia para os jogos.

Tomado pela curiosidade despertada pela estética e pela esperança de que "Agora seria a hora", joguei esse jogo a qual escrevo. E como todas as obras, não vi nada sobre, como nunca vejo, apenas mergulhei. Mas como uma doce surpresa, esse jogo era tudo que eu mais queria... na verdade, esse jogo é até mais do que eu poderia desejar! Pois tudo que eu precisava estava dentro de 31 dias em uma cidade isolada à beira do mar. E talvez nesse ponto, caso você não tenha jogado esse título, você deve estar se perguntando aonde está a grandiosidade disso. E talvez minha resposta não seja satisfatória para todos, mas para mim, representa uma volta à minha infância. Sim, aqui a objetividade da qual denúnciei ter em outros jogos não está presente, pois ela cede lugar a curiosidade de explorar. O mapa, mesmo que singelo, está repleto de detalhes que enriquecem a experiência. As diversas atividades te deixam tão entretido à ponto de você ansiar que o dia não acabe, e isso faz você ferozmente querer ir atrás de poder fazer todas as side quests que te aguardarão no dia seguinte, pois aqui, o tempo é precioso. E não precioso de uma forma que te prenda, aliás, se você quiser, você literalmente pode zerar o game sem mover 1 músculo sequer. No caso, aqui digo que o tempo é valioso pois cada segundo é um deleite, cada conversa simples carrega um denso conteúdo e até um cenário se torna discretamente sublime.

Não é muito distante do que eu sentia quando passei meus ordinários dias na casa do meu Tio no "interior". Lá, minha única companhia era minha bicicleta, um condomínio inteiro para explorar e a minha energia que ali parecia inesgotável. Foi ali que cultivei as mais singelas memórias de uma parte da minha infância e me envolvi nas aventuras que sempre me acompanharão como histórias que irei repetir pro resto da vida. E esse foi um dos motivos que fez esse jogo me empurrar direto pra minha infância, e ainda melhor, de mãos dadas com a outra face da minha infância que vivi com os games que mais me marcaram.

Essa experiência é do mais alto cume catártico que eu já experienciei. A beleza desses momentos é mais intensa quando você se deixa levar pelas coisas a sua volta, como fazer que tudo se torne parte de si, se entregar à vida em uma conexão que te torna inseparável até mesmo das pessoas que com você interagem, com os conhecimentos, com as vivências e os aprendizados que te tornam mais maduro. Nesse jogo reside uma particularidade minha que chega a me assustar. E ter encontrado esse jogo me fez ter contato mais intensamente comigo mesmo do que qualquer meditação o faria.

Por fim, meu fervor por jogos voltou, ou bem dizer, até pela vida voltou. Reviver minha infância novamente foi fundamental para eu poder crescer definitivamente. E tudo por conta desse jogo. E se tem um apelo que eu possa fazer é que por favor, joguem esse jogo e se lembrem de mim, pois vocês por terem lido esse texto estarão conectados comigo quando forem jogar esse jogo, pois compartilharemos de vivências diferentes, mas que estarão conectadas pelo cordão da nostalgia, da alegria e da potência de vida que reside em todos nós.

Mastered shortly after launch before this game's community got annoying.

The game is incredibly short, as you might expect, and you'll be able to see absolutely everything in somewhere around 10 hours with little effort. It has an interesting premise with its battles but falls short with cringey dialogue, le quirky characters, a dumb plot, and annoyingly heavy handed fourth wall breaks. I can understand that many people may find all of these things enduring but its always just been kinda embarassing to me. It is clearly trying to appeal to people with a more immature sense of humor and I'm glad for all the people who like this kind of guilty pleasure, but I'm not gonna pretend this forgetful trash is a worthwhile game.

Esse jogo visa ser acessível a um público infantil sem qualquer experiência com plataformas. De longe o Mario mais fácil e um dos jogos mais tranquilos que já joguei. Não vá esperando mais do que isso caso você já tenha experiência mínima com videogame ou com Mario.

A parte ruim de ter esse público em mente é que o jogo se torna uma experiência pouco memorável e extremamente descartável. A sensação em retrospectiva é todo jogo do Mario desde New Super Mario Wii até Super Mario Odyssey serviu como "Introdução a um novo público". Esse jogo não cria identidade própria, mas até que funciona dentro dessa proposta.

3D Land não apresenta fases criativas e memoráveis como 3D World, servindo mais como um filler game para horas de espera do que um jogo bom por si só. O level desing é pouco inspirado tanto em temática quanto em estrutura, as mecânicas foram simplificadas ao extremo, mas funcionam em uma espécie de "jogo 3D com jogabilidade 2D sem ser 2.5D".

O que salva esse jogo de ser um sonífero são as últimas fases. 3D Land brilha muito do World 7 até o World 8, e os remixes posteriormente desbloqueados apresentam uma dificuldade elevada e mais criativade.

"It will always bring back the fondest of memories"

Let me start this writeup by getting something particularly important out of the way: Earthbound, as a JRPG, is largely unpolished. From the combat system to the dungeons, its gameplay loop is as exhausting as can be, reproducing many design vices from the time such as excessively obtuse paths, repetitive combat, restrictive inventory, and slow progression. There are commendable attempts to make up for these shortcomings, like the rolling HP meter, the different fighting styles for every character, the hint system, among others, but they’re implemented in a flawed way themselves so they don’t make that much of a difference, making the nitty gritty of the experience, the moment to moment gameplay itself feel frustrating at times and, frankly, a bit boring, specially early on.

So why such a flawed game deserves a five-star rating? Earthbound is very comfortably a five-star game for me simply because it is one of the most affecting, detailed, and poignant depictions of childhood in any art form in history. First impressions about it are bound to how crazy and unpredictable its style and presentation can be; without spoiling too much, scenarios range from fighting hippies and balding men possessed by “evil energy” to getting ambushed into a beating by policemen and stopping a cult of worshippers of the color blue, all those happening only in about the first 1/5th of the game. That is not even mentioning the writing, which can range from hilarious to profound in a dime, sounding awfully close to random and nonsensical but you just know there’s something there.

In the freeform nature Earthbound tells its story and presents its world lies the very core of its brilliance; if there isn’t much of a traditionally told narrative or a thematic thread to the game’s many aesthetic elements it’s simply because, in a vacuum, the entire game is ‘just’ about four kids playing around. Do you, reader, remember how you used to play with friends in your early youth? Remember all the stories your imagination used to conjure up, where magic (or PSI?) was real and anything from aliens, to bigfoot, to dinosaurs could show up? Remember how, in your young mind, all those elements would add up to something that made sense? That is exactly what Earthbound is trying to convey, and it does so with mastery.

The leading example for that is the game’s foes. They may all seem random, but I believe there’s a strong argument they’re mostly a representation of the many seemingly arbitrary fears and antagonisms you can have as a child, or even stuff a kid can use to represent those and fight them. Giygas itself illustrates that perfectly, an intangible being that embodies nothing but evil in its purest form, is not given form nor shape nor personality because it transcends all that, it’s the traumatic event from your childhood you can’t ever forget given life, the irrational fear of the dark you couldn’t explain if you tried, thus being the source of all the evils in the game. The character of Pokey is even more indicative of that, as a stereotypical asshole kid that, no matter what scenario or situation, can always be there to bother you.

In another brilliant decision to enhance the immersion on this childlike adventure, the game is very economical when it comes to information, leaving a lot of gaps to be filled by the player’s own imagination and experiences. That aspect manifests itself greatly in the UI, which has very little visual information, but the item names and descriptions drive the point home and can make room for interpretation (ex.: are all the items even real or some of them are a product of the kids’ imagination? Jeff’s items come to mind, does the kid really carry a heavy bazooka around?), while the pixelated graphics themselves greatly contribute to that, with colorful and expressive sprites but not very detailed ones, in a way that creates a surreal and dreamy atmosphere in which your mind will fill in certain features from characters and environments for you, particularly when it comes to the mostly silent protagonists, which can evoke the player and/or many a friend, relative, neighbor or colleague from their youth, with the musical aid of a beautiful soundtrack that evokes nostalgia through every note.

Even the confusion the player gets to experience plays a significant role in presenting the game from a kid’s perspective. Take the dialogue, for example, the adults usually speak in kind of a rude and detached manner, some of them mentioning the fear of their spouse leaving them or drowning their sorrows at the…cafe, which could sound out of place but in a game with so much wacky stuff those moments blend in nicely with the game’s usual confusion, precisely how a child would perceive them. Ness’s parents’ relationship with their son stands out in this area, with their interactions mostly sounding trivial, like their boy saving the world is just another Tuesday for them, which it most likely is.

That exceptional work in the artistic direction of the game, which meticulously crafted every bit with exactly the right amount of visual stimulus and info, allows for every experience with the game to be deeply personal, and its story and elements to have many different interpretations, with the themes of early youth, in or out of its North American setting, tying them all together nicely. Then it all comes back to the RPG elements; much more than a pastiche of JRPG tropes, with the funny status ailments and puns or whatnot, Earthbound cleverly uses that format to illustrate just how much the crazy stories and adventures we all used to make up as kids mattered and could stack up to even the most epic fantasies such as the Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons or the Dragon Quest games. Sure, as I mentioned before, the RPG mechanics are not perfect, and would really harm a lesser game’s enjoyment and reputation, but in this game those flaws do not matter, and why should they? The games we played as children were far from perfect, and could be just as confusing and frustrating, but don’t we all get the fuzziest nostalgic feeling while remembering them? Aren’t some of our most cherished childhood memories tied so closely to them?

This game is more than a work about childhood or one that evokes childhood, it’s a celebration of the experience of living as kid in the 20th/21st century, and how much the memories and events lived through that period of our lives are grand and exciting and meaningful and beautiful and fascinating!!! The seemingly small battles of choosing what items to bring in the backpack, taking as close to the amount of money you will use as possible, making loyal friends and acquaintances and conquering your inner fears are, and always will be important, and for highlighting that with such beauty and nuance, Earthbound is absolutely a masterpiece in the video game medium.