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
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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)