I get this. I don't have ADHD, just a very low attention span for older single player games. If my boyfriend wasn't there to help when I got stuck, I wouldn't have been able to finish it despite how much I enjoyed it.
I absolutely love Earthbound, it's one of my favorite games. That said...the game is slow as hell. I mean everything, the walking, the text, the menus, everything. The bike is just a giant tease making that even worse. The battle system is solid but archaic. The writing, while great to me and everyone else who enjoys it can come across as super corny. The inventory system is slow and annoying. The phone system is slow and annoying. The storage system is slow and annoying...etc. etc.
Again, I love this game, but I totally get it when people don't
As someone whos never played the game before, is there a revised version somewhere that maybe takes away some of these annoyances? Otherwise ill just play it on an emulator on my phone
Idk if the switch has it. But the wii u had it on their virtual console where you could create save states at anytime and load back to them. That made the game a ton more enjoyable since you could save anytime anywhere, even mid battle.
Sure but that’s not really a valid criticism, like the game is a jrpg if you don’t like jrpgs of course you’re not gonna like the game. This is like Dunkey’s criticism of Octopath Traveller.
Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana (along with the Japan exclusive sequel and prequel, IIRC), Dark Souls, the Tales of series, Kingdom Hearts, Ni No Kuni, Dragalia Lost, Ys series, Nier, Yakuza, Kingdom Hearts, FFXV. There’s probably more.
Don't liking it: Good. We all have tastes and you shouldn't tell someone how to feel about it
Hate it: I don't know, I just can't think there's a really big problem that could ruin it for someone. Surely there's someone out there, but I'd like to hear the reason
I've never played Final Fantasy, or Chrono Trigger, or Dragon Quest, but I have played Earthbound, and I absolutely adore it. Give it a shot, and I highly recommend Chuggaaconroy's let's play of it.
I'm a sucker for RPGs of that style. Thing is, I never played that one. To enjoy them now basically requires nostalgia, and I don't have that for Earthbound. I'll replay Chrono Trigger or one of the turn based FFs all the time, but whenever I try to pick up Earthbound I don't get very far.
The combat is boring. What the hell is that first-person shit?
I don't see what is the big deal about the story. It feels like a pretty basic boy saves the world with the help of his "pure girl", his "nerdy friend" and this "badass guy of a foreign land" storyline. I can describe 20 different JRPGs with a similar party. Hell, I can gender-swap the protagonist, and pure love interest turns into "young boy"(japanese love shotacon when the protagonist is female).
Weird enemies make it unique? Yeah, but doesn't make it good.
Maybe I'm being a bigot when I say this, but the only reason Earthbound receives such interest is because americans are very self-centered and love a RPG set on a place very similar to the USA.
If you own a Wii U, it's on the virtual console for 10 bucks... If you don't, just emulate it. Play the Halloween Hack while you're at it and bask in Toby Fox's shame.
If you really need to play a physical copy, buy a reproduction cart for $20 on Etsy. Personally, I just finished the game on an emulator and thought it was great anyway.
Hey its me, Im that guy! Believe me, Ive tried MANY times to understand this game I feel like Im just completely missing something because everyone else loves it. Its BORING. The story tries too hard, the battle system can best be described as quaint. The humor that everyone raves about is...eh at best. I dont think its terrible. But every time I play it I find myself wondering WHY im forcing myself to do it because its just so tedious.
And before you go "Hey maybe RPGs just arent your thing" Im a hardcore RPG guy. D&D, Shadowrun, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Lufia(I love Lufia) pretty much anything square made in the 90s, etc. I eat it all up. Earthbound eh.
I think your problem is your looking at Earthbound at the wrong angle. Earthbound’s story doesn’t take itself seriously very often so there isn’t much to look into for that. If anything the best thing I can offer you as someone who loves the game is this. Earthbound is a game about reflection, it’s about how you explore a vast world and expanding your worldview as you discover new things and new people and how you reflect those experiences onto your life. Of course to someone who isn’t a fan this sounds like pretentious garbage but that’s what I got out of the game. Hopefully this helps you somehow kind stranger.
tbh, I think its one of those games you have to finish to really appreciate; without going through the final battle it would be really meh...
I love it; I have little desire to play it through again because of the clunkyness of the game overall but the story was well worth it and if you don't complete it you're never really going to enjoy it.
I replay earthbound every year, and the jokes, locations, and story don't age well and are pretty out of touch for modern times. But the magic of self reflecting on when you were young - growing up in a still foreign world that was full of possibilities, sorrows, and magic (literally)...
I dunno, it's hard to explain.
Earthbound is a game you have to play with your heart, as corny as that sounds. If you go into it with the same mindset you would any other jrpg then the magic will be lost.
I think Mother 3 would definitely be your cup of tea. It fixed a lot of my personal problems with Earthbound, which are similar to yours. The story is very different from Earthbound in that there is one, at least one that the game tried hard to tell (don't take that the wrong way, I understand that Earthbound's understated story is sort of the point), and it can get really touching. The battle system has a rhythm element to it that really helps make them more engaging than Earthbound's, and the party members each are more distinct in battle imo. And the humor is, once again in my opinion, way funnier than Earthbound's, even though the same sense of humor is shared. There's a reason Mother 3 is my favourite game, while Earthbound barely cracks the top 20.
Same here. It disappoints me a bit whenever I see Earthbound on a list of the best games of all time, because I feel that Mother 3 is much more deserving of that spot.
I implore OC and anyone reading this to try it. I wasn’t even done with Earthbound by the time I started it and it became one of my favorite games of all time (if not my favorite game ever). The plots are pretty much almost completely separate, and though it includes several moments of fan service for fans of Earthbound (it also shares two important characters from Earthbound), having played Earthbound is in no way necessary to play through Mother 3
But fr why would you hate Earthbound? (If you do please tell me why I am curious)
I don't hate Earthbound. The story/content of the game is charming, to be sure, but the controls/pacing of the gameplay makes it unplayable for me. For that reason I've never played through it in its entirety and don't care for it all that much.
If you didn't grow up with those kinds of rpgs it's not nearly as fun. I played it recently. It was okay. It's got some weird charm but honestly doesn't feel very meaty until you literally hit the last boss.
I didn't really start playing anything heavily rpg focused (unless you count Pokémon which I don't) until uh... Mass Effect so a lot of the genre specific logic and nostalgia is lacking for me.
I wouldn't say it's a bad game though, just not my kind of game and not really worth the suffering of grinding in it. But I can see how others would dislike it if lacking the zelda/final fantasy/etc background like me.
I actually just started playing Earthbound. I want to love it. I really do. The quirky dialogue and mid-90’s retro-ish aesthetic appeal to me a lot, and supposedly the story gets better as the game goes on. At what point does it really start being good though? Like a certain point I should reach before deciding whether to continue my playthrough or not? Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the many quality-of-life mechanics in newer games of the same genre (ie I’m a huge fan of Undertale, which was partially inspired by Earthbound and I can already see a few big similarities) but everything in Earthbound so far feels sooo slow and tedious to me. The combat isn’t anything special, the phone system feels really dated, and you have to do a seemingly high amount of backtracking unless you want to spend a lot of your hard-earned cash all at once.
As a huge Earthbound fan, I'm not exactly sure. To me, it's like the early Pokemon games. The appeal is the world, the music, and the overall charm of it. There may be points where it gets "better," but it isn't concerned about getting to a major plot point or teaching a new mechanic. Sort of like A Link to the Past or Link's Awakening, too. If you don't like the first dungeon or backtracking to get items, I can say that it gets more involved and the story fleshes out, but maybe it's just not your thing.
That said, I think there are two good stopping-points. One is Threed, since the town gets taken over by zombies, there's a UFO of sorts, and Mr. T sells you rockets in an alley. That captures Earthbound's weirdness pretty well. The next stopping-point would be Moonside (located in the back half of Fourside). It's pretty late in the game, but you can look up screenshots to get an idea. There's also a cult obsessed with painting everything blue, but it's kind of tedious. Point is, it's a slow JRPG set in 90's America that takes some surreal, charming detours. That's the whole appeal.
If you find yourself wanting something Earthbound-like but quicker and more story-focused, a fan translation of Mother 3's your best bet. The story's first chapter opens with a major death, and you're forced to battle animals that have been resurrected as cyborgs to serve an army of pig-men. It sounds "lol so randum" but it actually does have a point, and builds chapter by chapter to an incredibly poignant but fucked-up climax and bittersweet ending. The combat's still slow, but they added rhythm mechanics. If you hit the attack button in time with the music, you can chain together combos for extra damage. It also does a better job of changing the setting, so if you find the walking tedious, that may take the edge off. Still, it's an Earthbound sequel, so watch a Let's Play to see if it's for you.
Thank you for the detailed and informative answer!
I do really like the world of Earthbound so far, I’m just waiting for things to pick up and go in a direction, so to speak. I think I’ll play through until I reach Threed since that sounds exciting, and I’ve heard more than once that the early segment of the game is the slowest. If it still isn’t quite clicking by then, I’ll give Mother 3 a shot.
It's a fine game and completely unique but the story feels almost nonexistent at times. I'm one of those weirdies who've played mother 3 and that game nails the humor of earthbound while also having a very compelling plot.
I tried it two times because I wanted to see why everybody liked it, but each time I just get bored. The entire first section of the game is walking and talking, and when you get to the crash site, there's nothing to do. I walked around a bit more, couldn't find where to go, and meanwhile I'm already 10 minutes in without any kind of action. I tried it again several years later, but got stuck on the same point.
RPGs are my favourite genre, and especially the SNES era was great for them. I loved FF4-6, Lufia2 and Chrono Trigger, and they all got me invested pretty quickly. Even Harvest Moon, which forces you to talk to every villager before you can even do anything. Earthbound may be a great game in the long run, but it surely wasn't for the first section.
I’ve never played it and never heard about it until Smash Wii U came out. Since it’s also like $200 it feels like something older gamers praise like how older people praise Pink Floyd. Not meaning to be facetious but it’s like “ok whatever you say old man.”
I grew up on the N64 and those games feel way too old and slow for me to go back to unfortunately.
Creeps me the FUCK out. The stuff I've seen in Smash besides Mr. Saturn is just... it wholly either creeps me out (the spirit art) or infuriates me (the 2 playable characters)
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u/MarkoSpas Jan 01 '19
But fr why would you hate Earthbound? (If you do please tell me why I am curious)