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EarthBound Infobox

EarthBound (known as Mother 2 in Japan) is the second installment in the Mother series. The second entry in the Mother series, it was first released in Japan in August 1994, and in North America in June 1995. A port for the Game Boy Advance developed by Pax Softnica, bundled with Mother (1989) as Mother 1+2, was released only in Japan in 2003. As Ness and his party of Paula, Jeff and Poo, the player travels the world to collect melodies from eight Sanctuaries in order to defeat the universal cosmic destroyer Giygas.

EarthBound had a lengthy development period that spanned five years. Its returning staff from Mother (1989) included writer/director Shigesato Itoi and lead programmer Satoru Iwata, as well as composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, who incorporated a diverse range of styles into the soundtrack, including salsa, reggae, and dub. Most of the other staff members had not worked on the original Mother, and the game came under repeated threats of cancellation until Iwata joined the team. Originally scheduled for release in January 1993, the game was completed around May 1994.

Themed around an idiosyncratic portrayal of Americana and Western culture, EarthBound subverted popular role-playing game traditions by featuring a modern setting while parodying numerous staples of the genre. Itoi wanted the game to reach non-gamers with its intentionally goofy tone; for example, the player uses items such as the Pencil Eraser to remove pencil statues, experiences in-game hallucinations, and battles piles of vomit, taxi cabs, and walking nooses. For its American release, the game was marketed with a $2 million promotional campaign that sardonically proclaimed "This game stinks". The game's puns and humor were reworked by localizer Marcus Lindblom. Since the original Mother had not yet been released outside Japan, Mother 2 was called EarthBound to avoid confusion about what it was a sequel to.

Although it was positively received by Japanese audiences, EarthBound sold poorly in the U.S., which journalists attributed to a combination of its simple graphics, satirical marketing campaign, and a lack of market interest in the genre. In the ensuing years, a dedicated fan community spawned that advocated for the series' recognition, particularly after Ness appeared as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series. By the 2000s, multiple reader polls and critics had named it one of the greatest video games ever made, and it became regarded as a "sacred cow among gaming's cognoscenti". It was followed by the Japan-only sequel Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. EarthBound was later made available worldwide on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, 3DS Virtual Console in 2016, the SNES Classic in 2018, and Nintendo Switch Online in February 2022.

EarthBound is one of Chuggaaconroy's favourite games, alongside Xenoblade Chronicles. He owns a large collection of EarthBound merchandise (including every game, eShop cards, plushies, and various other pieces of memorabilia), which was showcased in a vlog by fellow EarthBound fan Stephen Georg. Both Emile and Stephen were regular users on the fansite Starmen.Net. Emile Let's Played the game twice, first in 2008 as his debut LP, and later made a redux version of the LP in 2018. The latter LP briefly was effected by the 2021 EarthBound Copyright Claims, although the videos that were taken down were later restored.

Plot

EarthBound takes place sometime in the 1990s (being the only reference to the year in the game is represented with "199X"), several years after the events of Mother, in the fictional country of Eagleland, a parody of the United States. The player starts as a young boy named Ness as he investigates a nearby meteorite crash with his neighbor, Pokey, to find his neighbor's brother Picky. They find that an alien force, Giygas, has enveloped and consumed the world in hatred and consequently turned animals, humans, and objects into malicious creatures. A small, beetle-like creature from the future named Buzz-Buzz instructs Ness to collect melodies in a Sound Stone from eight Sanctuaries to preemptively stop the force, but is killed shortly thereafter when Pokey and Picky's mother mistakes him for a pest. On his journey to visit the sanctuaries, Ness visits the cultists of Happy Happy Village, where he saves Paula, and the zombie-infested Threed, where the two of them fall prey to a trap. After Paula telepathically instructs Jeff in a Winters boarding school to rescue them, they continue to Saturn Valley, a village filled with a species of creatures called Mr. Saturn, the city of Fourside, and the seaside resort Summers. Meanwhile, Poo, the prince of Dalaam, undergoes training called "Mu Training" before joining the party as well.

The party continues to travel to the Scaraba desert, the Deep Darkness swamp, another village of creatures called the Tenda and a forgotten underworld where dinosaurs live. When the Sound Stone is eventually filled, Ness visits Magicant, a surreal location in his mind where he fights his personal dark side. Upon returning to Eagleland, Ness and his party use the Phase Distorter to travel back in time to fight Giygas, transferring their souls into robots so as to not destroy their bodies through time travel. The group discovers a device that contains Giygas, but it is being guarded by Pokey, who has been aiding Giygas all along and is using alien technology. After being defeated in battle, Pokey turns the device off, releasing Giygas and forcing the group to fight the alien, whose infinite power is turning him into an incomprehensible embodiment of evil and insanity. During the fight, Paula reaches out to the inhabitants of Earth, and eventually the player, who prays for the children's safety. The prayers manage to exploit Giygas' fatal weakness – human emotions – and defeat the alien, eradicating him from existence. In a post-credits scene, Ness, whose life has returned to normal following Giygas' defeat, receives a note from Pokey, who challenges Ness to come and find him.

Let's Plays

Main article: EarthBound/Let's Play 01
Main article: EarthBound/Let's Play 37

Emile has played the game twice, as his first Let's Play in 2008, and as his thirty-seventh Let's Play a decade later.

 Trivia

  • Emile died several times in the second LP, while he had 0 (with the exception of when he did so on purpose) in his original LP.
  • In March 2023, on the 15th anniversary of Emile's first Let's Play video being uploaded, the YouTubeGaming Twitter page posted a tweet referencing the occasion, referring to Emile as a "now let's play legend."

References

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