Earthbound

Every gamer has a favorite game.  We find ourselves attached to that particular one for a variety of reasons, but for me it was an introduction to a world--an introduction to a genre that seemed to be made just for me.  I had never played a game quite like Earthbound back in 1995.  The idea of actions being abstract in games, or not things I made happen with buttons, was new to me.  Some people who play RPGs with the first-person battle perspective don't understand the appeal, and I totally get that.  It's hard when you're used to Mario jumping and landing on the Goomba to accept a game where that same event would have to be read.  Since I read a lot of books as a kid, RPGs clicked with me right away, and from Earthbound I would move on to Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and so many others.  For just over ten years, I made crappy RPGs with the OHRRPGCE, so deep ran my obsession with the genre.  Even today, I consider the RPG (in all its variations, mind) in a class of its own among video games; they are games that intelligent people play, and no matter how niche they get I wait hungrily for more to play.

Better RPGs have come out since Earthbound.  I'm not going to argue that Chrono Trigger or Persona 4 don't have more refined gameplay and better quality sound.  It's foolish to do so; a matter of objectivity.  However, you would not know that by observing the passion of Mother's rabid fanbase. (for those not in the know, Earthbound is Mother 2)  People who don't like Earthbound generally don't seem to understand why the fans do: I have read many reviews and comments from the other side over the years, and it seems that the game is quite polarizing.

Why is that?  Here's the thought I've had about it.  Consider an analogy: films are to animation as video games are to Japanese RPGs.   Most of us like movies on some level, but there are folks who think cartoons are for kids and they're silly nonsense no adult should take seriously.  No matter how much animation evolves, they will stick to this opinion.  Short-sighted?  Yes, but I wouldn't judge these folks harshly.  They grew up with or developed a different view of media than my own, perhaps from being pressured to mature quickly or feeling put off by something they saw in a cartoon early in life.  On the flip side, there are 30 year old men obsessed with anime about little girls and My Little Pony.  A wide spectrum exists there.  Now, consider that Earthbound (let's just say the entire Mother series while we're at it) is similar to a particularly niche cartoon, like an obscure anime series.  You don't start grandpa out on Welcome to the NHK!  You show him Cowboy Bebop first, then slowly drag him away from his comfort zone.

Kids, on the other hand, are another story.  I was nine years old when I first played Earthbound, and the funkiness of the game didn't faze me, nor did it faze many younger people who joined Ness on his adventure for the first time.  I took a course on Children's Literature during my final year of college, and one thing we discussed has stuck with me today: kids aren't bothered by weird, playful art styles.  Picture books are as diverse as it comes in terms of presentation, and children have active enough imaginations to get a kick out of everything from realism to abstract art.  This is one reason that animation gets away with bold experimentation and even crude stuff (Ren and Stimpy, anyone?): kids tend to accept the weird, the surreal, and fantastical without judgment. For example,  there's a section in Earthbound where a cultist, Mr. Carpainter, is trying to paint the world blue.  The Happy-Happyists quite directly resemble the Aum Shinrikyo cult and the KKK.  Many adults who play Earthbound report being shocked by this segment, but the whole thing didn't bother me in my youth, nor did it bother many of my peers.  Carpainter was clearly the villain, keeping Paula locked up against her will, and needed to be stopped.  I didn't think about the implications until many years later.  Even the final boss's grotesque, disturbing imagery did not make me raise an eyebrow, but on the internet this is one of the most hotly discussed subjects about Earthbound.  Children simply absorb weird material more readily, as long as it's presented in a way they can understand.  In fact, one of the genius things about the game is how one reevaluates it years down the line.  In short, since children have more active imaginations, it's easier for them to appreciate the game at its face value, and in fact, it's easier for creative adults to do so.  Time and time again, I notice that my science-oriented friends are the ones who don't think much of the game.  (Note: that's not intended as a blanket statement; if you like science and Earthbound you're rad, and if you're a poor English major like me who hates it, you are so hip it hurts)  Just like the medium of animation, games like Earthbound seem to appeal more to those with wandering minds.

Earthbound is like a cartoon in a striking number of ways, but it's like a cartoon that only an enthusiast of the medium would appreciate, and furthermore, only a person without rigid expectations about what makes an RPG good.  It's classically designed and inspired by its Dragon Quest ancestors, like every anime influenced by the works of Osamu Tezuka: casual television fans probably don't even know who Tezuka is despite his far-reaching influence. Earthbound also has a creative visual style that doesn't conform to the standards of its genre, not unlike South Park: somebody who doesn't watch a lot of cartoons isn't going to appreciate the DIY spirit or stop-motion imitation of South Park's aesthetic.  Lastly, Earthbound is post-modern and a little silly, which are qualities many cartoons share and are things that audiences who don't care for animation might not accept immediately  in other environments.  Within the group of people who do play RPGs, there are dissenters as well.   To them, Earthbound just seems like a clunky, archaic RPG with bad item management and characters that never talk.  The qualifiers these players seek in what they perceive as good RPGs don't exist in Earthbound, so they will not enjoy the game for what it is.  How can they?  I understand their feelings and I respect them; however, I absolutely do not agree with them.  

Shigesato Itoi designed Earthbound to be a specific way, he accomplished it wonderfully, and the result was a video game that is a daring and unprecedented creative work and has shaped my experience with RPGs ever since.  Now that I have played so many classics in the genre, I can speak with agency about its respect for predecessors, particularly Dragon Quest III.  It's no secret that the Mother games use a battle system stolen straight from Dragon Quest, but III is the clear major influence, with its world-traveling quest for orbs through the use of a musical tool.  (Earthbound's central plot involves collecting eight melodies in to the Sound Stone from locations all over the world)  Travel and exploration are a huge part of the appeal of early RPGs, and Earthbound spares no expense, shifting through a wide variety of locations from small towns to deserts to wintry regions.  There is a more linear narrative in Earthbound, which shows the same evolution that other RPGs underwent in the early 90s.  Japanese RPGs did this in order to focus on storytelling, and Itoi masterfully melds the wandering narrative with the linear.  By keeping the villain in the background (ala Lavos), the player is focused on exploration of the world until the bitter end, and his experiences culminate in a satisfying ending.

Photographs of the party taken through the game appear during the credits in the order they appeared, allowing the player to reflect on the weight and significance of Ness's adventure.  Reflection returns as a theme over and over, mostly obviously through the game's infamous "coffee break" sequences that recap the story and inspire you to press on.  Another method, which is more subtle but equally powerful, is the use of backtracking.  Several times, the player must return to previously visited areas, only things will have changed.  Onett taken over by Giygas's minions late in the game, Threed free of the zombies, Saturn Valley with new and helpful technology.  Returning to previous areas with new skills and experience is a tradition that goes all the way back to Dragon Quest I, which made the player travel from the starting castle after reloading every save, establishing his progress and development when facing weak monsters from early in the game.

While Earthbound does respect tradition, where it might succeed more is in its daring and small innovations.  At the time, Earthbound was one of the few RPGs that showed enemies on the screen before the player fought them, allowing him to evade battles or try and sneak up on things.  Weak enemies are vanquished before the battle begins, speeding up backtracking.  These changes are simple ideas that do not get in the way of the game's challenge: they simply offer an out for a player low on hit points or real-world time to play.  To this day, many RPGs still do not show enemies on the map screen prior to combat, which confuses me.  I know from experience that games are easier to code the other way, but it's a really nice feature that should be used more often than it is.  Another innovation that I love in this game is the rolling hit point meter.  By shaking the status boxes when you get hit and showing the numbers quickly trickle down, Earthbound's battles provide a lot of tension regardless of how challenging they truly are.  These are neat twists that don't appear in other games at all, which baffles me but I suppose they help to keep the Mother games unique.

Some of the game's interesting ideas don't even involve combat.  Jeff, your scientist friend who can fix broken tools overnight, gets much of his characterization and battle use from doing so.  ATM machines allow you to safely store money and fit better in the game's universe than Dragon Quest's banks.  The mushroomization status effect reverses your control scheme.  Ness can get homesick and need to call Mom to recover.  The list goes on and on.  All of these details seem small, but they add up in making Earthbound feel organic and fully realized.  One of the most powerful of these fresh ideas comes in at the start of the game's final area, the Cave of the Past.  The heroes are forced to give up humanity, transferring their consciousnesses to robots in order to survive a trip to the past and face Giygas.  This scene didn't hit me emotionally until replaying as an adult, but it hits like a brick now.  Watching the heroes destroy themselves, just as we discover Giygas has destroyed himself in body and mind and become an entity of pure insanity, and suddenly be a squad of lifeless machines is harrowing to say the least.  This one snippet of an idea leads to a powerful, cathartic joy when the characters' souls return to their bodies after the battle.  It's a fairy tale ending to a situation that should have been hopeless, one brought upon perhaps only by the player's prayers, which must be offered to defeat Giygas in the amazing climactic battle.

That battle, of course, deserves mention of its own.  To this day, I consider it the greatest moment in any video game to date.  Itoi throws out everything you expect to see in a final battle.  Giygas is not your strongest enemy up to that point.  He's not even threatening if your equipment and psychic skills are up to par.  Giygas just wastes away, begging for death and pleading to Ness for it to come, no longer in control of his actions.  The heroes are hopeless to win against an entity with no discernable form, and it is only through the Pray command that you are able to make progress.  The first several prayers call back on the importance of friendship suggested all the way at the start of the game by Buzz-Buzz: the characters you have helped along the way start breaking down Giygas's defenses.  And finally, only the player's wishes are able to finish the job.  I mentioned that Earthbound introduced me to the idea of abstraction in video games, and this is where the idea pays off.  The player, who entered his real name earlier in the game at its command, literally defeats Giygas.  Itoi drives home the point that no matter what actions heroes at the beck and call of buttons perform, it is you, the player, who are making choices and accomplishing feats.  Your own power and imagination are able to conquer an unbeatable foe, one that represents nihilism, despair, and fear.  Giygas's incomprehensible body suggests that he is an idea, and the only thing capable of winning against such a thing is a real human mind, not a character in a video game.

The use of the player as an important part of the game is its most fascinating post-modern element, though the game revels in such ideas throughout.  With so many tongue-in-cheek fourth wall breakers and references to the modern world, that nearly goes without saying.  One of the more memorable areas, Brick Road's Dungeon Man, is a clever idea in that vein.  The creator of the dungeon, perhaps representing a game designer, has sacrificed himself and become a living dungeon you must navigate, populated with terrible map design and a few of his favorite toys, among them a submarine becoming important later in the game.   I can't help but think there's some parallel here with the heroes eventually assuming robot form.  Itoi may be suggesting that abandoning one's life for selfish, recreational, or wicked pursuits is inherently destructive (The Dungeon Man gets trapped between two trees, noting that he could be stuck there forever) but it can be necessary for a good cause.  This idea seems very popular in Japanese art that I've seen (giant robot anime and Kaiji are two examples).  It's a testament to Earthbound's success as a work of literature that I am still discovering new ideas to explore in it, and believe me, I have glossed over several huge parts of the game.

Earthbound is a game truly like none before it, and still one of the strongest pieces of interactive storytelling out there.  While it's not a game for everyone, it nonetheless has a timeless quality that is worthy of any patient player's attention.  With a style all of its own and a diverse, wonderfully memorable soundtrack, Earthbound separates itself from the pack of RPGs and proves that a truly gifted writer like Shigesato Itoi can make a game compelling beyond its shelf life.  Whether you end up loving or hating it, you need to play Earthbound: my favorite video game of all time.

10