Thanks to everyone that voted! We have our first Game Club! There were 32 entries and the winner was randomly selected.
The game selection for the month of July: EarthBound
Play how you choose: classic hardware, emulation, etc.
This thread can be used to discuss our time playing the game, questions, etc.
Having never played Earthbound before, but having heard so much about it, I started playing this afternoon. Played it for about 90 minutes, so these are very much just first impressions (with no spoilers).
- Had a lot of difficulty getting past the character naming. Asking for one character name is hard enough… this wants FIVE 😱
- I love the atmosphere of it. It feels like an 80/90s American highschool movie. Chirping insects, spooky music, great!
- Combat initially feels simple, as expected, but I’m not deep enough in it yet to say more.
- After following the obvious sign-posting, I found myself free to explore, then immediately got lost. No idea what to do next, in the way that old games tend to have. I think the key is to speak to everyone and interact with everything, and something will shake itself loose. Interesting to contrast how hand-holdy modern games are in comparison! Not sure which I prefer…
Overall, I’m enjoying it and excited to play more. I’m trying not to read a guide… we’ll see how long that lasts!
The guide was packaged with the game and is in the style of a travel guide/magazine. Not only is there no shame in using it to help figure out where to go next, it’s an enhancement to the overall experience!
I emulated earthbound for the first time recently on my phone. I only own a repro cart because I wanted to actually play it before I bought it. I just dumped the ROM from that.
Anyways, I can’t believe I took so long to play it. I do not like JRPGs, don’t care for the SNES Final Fantasy or mystic quest.
But earthbound was great. It didn’t take itself too seriously at all during the story but still made you care about the characters. Any time the runaway five (of which there is six of them) appear, it’s an absolute treat. The game doesn’t really explain the mechanics well but it’s not overly complicated so you can beat the game without really needing to know what IQ, Guts, Speed or Luck really do.
The only thing that I didn’t like is that the game teaches you early on that Paula’s pray ability is basically a 50/50 shot of helping you or hurting you but then it’s required later on in the game. It took me awhile to figure out how to beat an important battle because of that. Though in hindsight it should have been obvious.
I want to play earthbound beginnings here pretty soon.
The only JRPG on the SNES that compares to earthbound is SMRPG imo
I played Earthbound Beginnings in the form of the 25th Anniversary Edition a few months ago. I really did enjoy it and it was amazing to see how many elements of Earthbound originated with that game. I will say that I thought they made the game too easy with the rebalancing. I kind of just breezed through it, except for a couple battles. Something in between that and the original would have been perfect.
Earthbound is without a doubt amazing. Can’t wait to fire it up on my Miyoo and play along this month.
One of my best Earthbound memories was a pad of scratch and sniff stickers I somehow stumbled into along with it. There was one particular smell that I think was supposed to be the ‘gross’ one. Every couple of years I’ll run into a place or situation where I catch that scent dead on. Always makes me laugh and I’m glad it’s not common enough to make it less special.
Is it the sweaty young male Ness scent?
I’m a BIG Earthbound fan. I don’t know if I have the bandwidth to replay it this month, but for those that are, here are my “notes”:
- The pacing leaves something to be desired until you hit the third town. It feels a little bit of a slog, but it’s great once you’re past it
- Talk to people! Knock on doors! Read signs! It’s such a ridiculous game, don’t miss the ridiculousness
- For what it’s worth, try remembering the context the game came out in. While there’s a decent amount of games out now that have taken inspiration, this really was one of a kind for a long time
- Check out the amazing strategy guide. I don’t know if it’s vital per se, but it’s such a fun document that to this day I still enjoy referencing it. Related, what happened to all the fun manuals/strategy guides with custom art and everything? Such a loss.
Hope everyone enjoys as much as I do!
Aren’t there only four towns?
The short version: no.
Slightly longer version, with extremely minor spoilers
There’s four (or five) towns with numbers in their name, but there’s a bunch of other locations. The pacing is a little wonky in the very beginning in part because you’re still assembling your party
I dowloaded the rom on my steam deck a few weeks ago. Because of this post, I’ve just started the game!
I just played this (again) recently. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t yet. One of my favorite games (and series). I’ll be following everyone’s progress!
Earthbound is one of those games I played halfway through 10 times, but never finished. Of course I didn’t have a copy when I was a kid.
Maybe finally time to play it
I really need to finally play this game
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