Why is Earthbound so Greeeat?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Why don't they throw money at Nintendo? That's the only way you see games released (well, most of the time).

Well Ninty doesn't exactly take handouts and they're very anti-fan control or intervention. With good reason too, there are lots and lots of fans out there but rarely any smart ones or those who won't suggest stupid shit, and by that point it's a miniscule demographic.

[Opa Opa]

Well Ninty doesn't exactly take handouts and they're very anti-fan control or intervention. With good reason too, there are lots and lots of fans out there but rarely any smart ones or those who won't suggest stupid shit, and by that point it's a miniscule demographic.

I read a lot of the legal issues with Earthbound (thank's for the link irixith) and it really seems like there is too much trouble in porting games with a lot of necessary legal clean-up. I wouldn't want to pay all of the costs required to put a game on the Virtual Console and manage to maybe break even. When it comes to business you can't make the fans happy all of the time (which some people refuse to believe).

[Erik_Twice]

Earthbound is not great. It is good, probably the best traditional RPG I have played but it is not special. It is an SNES era RPG like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy where you kill mooks by pressing A, tough mooks with a mix of that and magic and you just hit as hard as you can against bosses with your magic/invocations/items.


It doesn't come to VC because it's not a big profit for Nintedo, those who care enough so as to remember an obscure SNES game like this one are few and they aren't sure costumers since they will prefer the original cartridge. Nobody in Nintendo is going to devote the resources or their time to get this game out, there's not enough interest.

The legal issues seem actually not very important but just looking at it with a team of lawers seem such a hassle that it is just not worth it.

[Nullface]

It's not great at all. Everyone just has their nostalgia goggles on when talking about it. It's a boring game and most people who praise it probably didn't even finish it. Same with Final Fantasy. You walk 3 feet and have to fight some monster that takes 10 minutes to beat. Repeat for 5,000 times until the game is over. RPGs are insanely boring to me and how anyone can play through one completely is beyond me.

[cubingmelons]

Why is Earthbound so great? Well, where to start?

First of all, the aesthetic took a much different approach to the JRPG style and threw out a lot of the standard conventions of fantasy storytelling and replaced it with bright cartoon-ish pastels and a modern locale. Instead of living in some small little town and getting recruited to some group of rebels opposed to the government / some evil force / god / whatever, you were just a kid in a small suburban town. Having played a bunch of JRPGs by that point, the game struck a real chord with me and I was interested from it first being announced. I read over all of the articles in Nintendo Power that were previewing it and I couldn't get enough. I bought it as soon as I could on a rainy summer day after having rented it consistently for the previous three weeks. I was hooked.

Another big thing is the writing. Shigesato Itoi is first and foremost a writer who wrote books and articles that people enjoyed. Someone else could make a MOTHER game but it just wouldn't be the same without Itoi's writing. It took a very lighthearted approach to the story and instilled a sense of childlike wonder and nostalgia through a Japanese view of post-war American suburbia. The games are about growing up and finding yourself in the world, akin to popular 80s movies like Stand By Me and The Goonies. They are full of goofy puns and absolutely ridiculous settings but that makes it that much more enjoyable.

The battle system is basically Dragon Quest, especially in the original MOTHER / Earthbound Zero. Earthbound took this a step further though and introduced a rolling HP counter which could drastically change the way you approach battles. It added a sense of urgency to battles where if you were dealt a fatal blow, you didn't immediately lose all of your HP and die, but it gradually rolled down, giving you a chance to either kill the enemy or heal yourself and continue the battle. MOTHER 3 took this idea even further and added a rhythm element to the battle system, letting you chain hits if you kept tapping the A button as you attacked to the beat of the music. The game had no random encounters to deal with, as enemies would be represented by little sprites on screen that would run at you. It also gave you the opportunity to attack the enemy from behind, giving you a preemptive strike in battle. If you were a lot more powerful, the enemy wouldn't even bother with you and would run away. On top of that, if you were that much more powerful, the battle would just end immediately and you'd get the XP from it without even transitioning to the battle screen. Like Chrono Trigger, it made a list of things I hate about most JRPGs and said "let's not do that!"

I'm upset that Earthbound will never come to VC, but I'm even more upset that MOTHER 3 will probably never have an official US release. Honestly I wouldn't even be surprised if Nintendo actually translated it but canceled it due to the phasing out of the GBA in favor of DS development. I'd love to see Earthbound Zero make it on VC but I don't think Nintendo is really interested in releasing it since it was never properly released to begin with.

Wow, that came out a lot longer than I was intending.

[chuckbanzai]

Fuzzy Pickles...enough said

[Reprise]

It's not great at all. Everyone just has their nostalgia goggles on when talking about it. It's a boring game and most people who praise it probably didn't even finish it. Same with Final Fantasy. You walk 3 feet and have to fight some monster that takes 10 minutes to beat. Repeat for 5,000 times until the game is over. RPGs are insanely boring to me and how anyone can play through one completely is beyond me.

Riiight... Apart from I experienced the game for the first time about 6 months ago, and I happen to think it's great. No rose-tinted nostalgia goggles for me.

[AppleQueso]

It's not great at all. Everyone just has their nostalgia goggles on when talking about it. It's a boring game and most people who praise it probably didn't even finish it. Same with Final Fantasy. You walk 3 feet and have to fight some monster that takes 10 minutes to beat. Repeat for 5,000 times until the game is over. RPGs are insanely boring to me and how anyone can play through one completely is beyond me.

[MrPopo]

It's not great at all. Everyone just has their nostalgia goggles on when talking about it. It's a boring game and most people who praise it probably didn't even finish it. Same with Final Fantasy. You walk 3 feet and have to fight some monster that takes 10 minutes to beat. Repeat for 5,000 times until the game is over. RPGs are insanely boring to me and how anyone can play through one completely is beyond me.

I am shocked that someone who doesn't like RPGs didn't like Earthbound.

[Dylan]

It's not great at all. Everyone just has their nostalgia goggles on when talking about it. It's a boring game and most people who praise it probably didn't even finish it. Same with Final Fantasy. You walk 3 feet and have to fight some monster that takes 10 minutes to beat. Repeat for 5,000 times until the game is over. RPGs are insanely boring to me and how anyone can play through one completely is beyond me.

I am shocked that someone who doesn't like RPGs didn't like Earthbound.

Heck, it's news to me that there are people who don't like RPGs.