I played EarthBound in 1995 and thought it was bad.

When I played it as a kid I thought it was the shittiest RPG of all time. Especially compared to other SNES RPGs.

What am I missing? How is this better than Chrono Trigger and why should I care?

Does anyone even have spells?

It's okay to not like games. I don't like Mass Effect 2. I don't like The Last of Us but I'm not running around asking everybody if I'm missing something. If you don't like it, you don't like it and that's it.

Also: Earthbound is the best SNES game and possibly one of the greatest games ever created in my opinion.

@abendlaender said:

Prove it though

Isn't it hella weird and sort of funny? I imagine that has something to do with it.

To whom? And why should I?

To me. Because talking about video games.

What the hell is the matter with you?

Jk, yeah it's ok not like something you know, I personally fuckin love it, there's a unique charm to it, can't explain, and yes there is magic. it's called PSI.

I really can't give you a reason on why should you care other that saying it's a great game, has a great story and characters, some very nice humor and all in all a great experience.

I love Chrono trigger too, but they are completely different games(even being both jrpgs), each with it's unique qualities.

It has charm. And lots of it among other things.

Yes, they do. How long did you play? Although I do agree that the real brilliance of Earthbound only begins in the last third.

Earthbound is extremely quirky, like everything in the Mother series. Shigesato Itoi tackles themes video games simply never do and plays with the medium in ways I only saw Drakengard, Nier and Metal Gear Solid do. It's not for everyone, really.

You didn't like it, so what's the point? And how should I prove it? By saying "I love the game" over and over again? You can't "prove" a personal opinion.

The story is wild and crazy. To borrow a phrase - there is only one point in the game where you can have something crazy happen, say "It can't get any weirder than this." and be right; and that's the end of the game. It's also one of the very few RPGs that actually takes place is something that resembles a modern day real world. The humor and references in the game are many and often, to many, a delight.

As for mechanics - yes, people have spells. The fact that you don't know this makes me think you didn't play the game for more than maybe five minutes since you get your PSI powers incredibly early in the game.

Other mechanics, EarthBound does a lot of things that many other games don't do, haven't done since, and that are not only unique mechanics but they are interesting mechanics as well.

Rolling HP bars allowed for another layer of strategy in the game as rolling HP could allow you to save people who were critically injured but simply hadn't died yet (either by way of healing them before their health reached 0; where the healing would then pick up from the amount of health they were at when the heal was applied, or by means of finishing the fight before their HP reached 0.)

You also had the idea of 'sneak attacking' where either you or the enemy would approach from behind and could get an advantage in a fight (this is one mechanic that has been seen several other places.) Along with sneak attacks, however, there was a system in place where the game would recognize your level, compare it to the level of a monster in the overworld, and if you overpowered them enough for them to just not even be a challenge anymore they would actively run away from you. To go along with this, in the same sort of situation, if you were powerful enough, the game would recognize this going into a fight and simply auto-resolve fights and just give you the rewards for winning a trivial fight without actually having to fight it. These are all things that really should be implemented in many more RPGs, but aren't. In many games you still have to trudge through low level, meaningless encounters no matter how powerful you are.

EarthBound is a game I think a lot of people found to simply be charming. From the characters to the world to the music to the mechanics. It's ok if you 'don't get it' but I can't help but wonder if you actually gave the game a shot as a child or not or just brushed it off because it was different.

I'd also be curious to know why, exactly, you felt it was the 'shittiest rpg of all time.'

Edit: Also, the story. It's a pretty solid story with some subject matter that most games don't really bother trying to talk about at all, let alone in a 'serious' way. Not that EarthBound is a real serious game or anything, but, it does treat the general idea it's trying to get across as something genuine and not like some kind of throw away joke or something.

By the way this was a stealth-convince-me-to-play-EarthBound-thread!

Okay so how come the series never sold more than 8 copies in North America?

personally, i never played the game but the only reason I know of it is because of all the hype on the internet. The way I see it is there are games that people love, people don't get, and people hate. There is also this thing about the internet where people become "vocal" about things.

Few people who never heard of it until after the SNES run were willing to pay the overinflated price to get it. Now after Nintendo got smart and released it in the e-shop for $10 there is a lot more interest because of the normalized price.

As for Chrono Trigger it is a classic that I found later on and it did live up to the hype. That said it was like 1/3 the price at least. Now, without the price barrier it may be worth at least checking out for $10 because of the hype.

Earthbound may still be "the shittiest RPG" to you, but for others it might be worth the $10 price to see the hype if they believe that sort of game would interest them.

It's a quirky, surreal, 'modern-day' RPG that tries to avoid the medieval-fantasy tropes of many other RPGs. If that isn't your thing, then that isn't your thing...

There isn't any way one person can absolutely prove to another person that a game is good. The best evidence out there would be the general consensus that it's a great game. There's your proof. But that still doesn't really matter. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. You did say you played it a long time ago. Some games grow on people. Give it another shot maybe? I will say this: one of the reasons people like it is precisely because it set itself apart from other SNES RPGs. It's very quirky and weird and kind of cutesy and minimalistic. Nothing at all like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest. It has its own thing going on for sure. That's why I liked it anyway.

• RPGs didn't become mainstream in America yet.
• A pretty bad marketing campaign.
• Simple, cutesy graphics that turned some gamers off at the time.

That's why nobody bought it except me and 7 other people I guess.

And Earthbound is still a great game today. In 2013. Earthbound was a game ahead of its time and one of the earliest JRPGs to take place in a modern setting. It's funny, weird, self-aware and surprisingly emotional at times. Not at all shitty.

A lot of it has to do with when it came out and what the market was like. It launched pretty much right around the launch of the Playstation, for context. Meaning it was very late gen. Cartridges also had very wide ranging prices due to things like cost to make, over all supply, etc. EarthBound was also a bit of a unique game in that they believed that Americans were so 'incapable' of handling a JRPG that they included a complete strategy guide with the game. All of this meant that the price on the game, even at launch, wasn't cheap (high cost to produce and limited quantity because of where it launched in the console's life plus the belief that JRPGs didn't sell well in America. There was a long period of time, after all, where FF6 (3) would run you near or over a hundred dollars for similar reasons, before that game got re-released on just about every platform.) The price didn't help sales, neither did the Playstation launching around then along with the hype for 'next generation consoles', plus JRPGs being something of a niche market meant that very few copies of the game sold, or, for that matter, were even available to sell in the first place. The fact, however, that cartridge only versions of the game were selling for around 150-200$ even recently should give an indication of how sought after a game this really was for a lot of people, as well as how rare those cartridges are. Now I have no idea what the WiiU re-release has done to those prices though.

Also it was a very late SNES game. Jeff mentioned on the Bombcast that it came out around the time people were starting to prepare for the next gen. Also if you're asking "if the characters even have spells" I really doubt this is the game for you.

You could take a lie detector test. I mean, daytime talk shows are already pretty terrible, I doubt an "I love Earthbound" episode of Jeremy Kyle could make them any worse.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions.

It's funny, in a way, that some people have just said "well, opinions are different for everybody". Have we gotten to the point where, instead of getting fucking pissed at trolls, we just tell them "it's OK, your opinions are valid"?

I need to play Earthbound someday.

I have to ask. Did you you play the game for more than ten minutes? From what I recall, you get your first PSI ability before Buzz Buzz even leaves your party.

I have never played it.

You come off like a troll with nothing really to say though. Seems like you're trying to start a fight. That is how I perceive your wording in your post.

Nobody is entitled to that opinion.

The game had to come with a strategy guide, that should tell you everything you need to know.

Oh and it's a JRPG... We all know how good those are!

Man, I loved that game as a kid.

I don't think I could ever replay it. I remember it being grindy as heck.

I might disagree with your assessment but it's still completely valid and I'm sure you are a wonderful human being.

I played it during the 90's and loved it. So there.

I didn't like it growing up either, but when I went back and played it in my late teens, something changed. I blame part of it on the internet, there were some parts where'd I'd get stuck for days, trying to figure out where the hell to go. As Patrick had experienced, with the internet readily available, this is a non-issue, you can look up where you're stuck and move on. Also the mechanics and tactics of how to play were terrible for a mere mortal child to pick up.

This is a weird thread.

Plenty of good reasons already mentioned. It also has an amazing player's guide.

Cool.

Yeah, I played it back when it came out and thought it was unique and basically OK, I guess. But I can't imagine wanting to play it now. I don't know, will the humor be funnier now that I'm an adult?

No one gives a shit OP.

The story's pretty good, for one. It knows what it's doing and explores myriad possibilities.

@l33t_haxor said:

I'm replaying it for the first time in 7... maybe 8 years, and that is definitely the case. I used to just think of Earthbound as an "OK" RPG, but now I'm absolutely loving it. I really do appreciate the quirkiness and the charm way more these days than when I was a teenager. I honestly makes me laugh out loud at a decent pace for a long JRPG.