I believe that the title franchise Earthbound, originally Mother in Japan distributed by Nintendo, is familiar to many gamers. Today all three games are considered great Cult Classics and two protagonists of the series, Ness (Earthbound/Mother 2) and Lucas (Earthbound 2/Mother 3) are playable characters in the Super Smash Bros series.
In order to better explain what we can learn from Earthbound, I would like to talk about two specific topics: Technical and Social aspects of the game.
Technical Aspects
Earthbound is probably my favorite SNES game, and the reasons are pretty obvious: All the technical aspects that catch my attention in a game are very well executed in this title:
- The game’s soundtrack is spectacular! Even one of the game’s objectives is to complete a melody, very beautiful by the way.
- The combat system repeats the formula of most RPGs of the time, but innovates in the sense that your life is not removed in its totality when you receive damage, but your life bar gradually empties leaving space for you to try to perform actions as quickly as possible before you reach your tragic end.
- The playable characters have very well constructed stories and unique abilities, making the gameplay very dynamic and open up countless possibilities for combos and strategies.
- The NPCs are incredible, with dialogs that are funny, poetic, tragic, comical, complex and even nonsensical, making the environment around you as chaotic as the situations you will face later on.
- The game’s scenarios are very well done, are very diverse but the transitions between one and another make total sense, you sometimes need to move by bus, bike and even via Loch Ness Monster …
Social Aspects
Okay, it looks like the game is a lot of fun to play, but what will make me want to keep playing it? Doesn’t it seem a bit tiring to play another turn-based combat RPG?
First of all: NO, turn-based RPGs are wonderful haha! However, a game of this style does not live by fighting alone, so what Earthbound presents to you:
- An IMPACTING story, I won’t give any spoilers here, but the whole story of the game evolves until it gets very close to “WTF?” but the script knows how to work well with all the nuances established in the relationships between playable characters, NPCs and even your player, yes your presence is perceived by the game…
- The problems that permeate our society are present since the beginning of the game, the impacts of capitalism on families, abuse of authority, corruption, social inequality, drug use, racism… The game attacks all these issues, some with more subtlety, and others in an aggressive way, making the player uncomfortable for witnessing something so REAL in a fantasy world.
- The “silent protagonist” archetype is nothing new, especially for Nintendo, which has already produced great names such as Link and Chrono, but Ness has a very subtle difference in his quiet behavior. He is a pre-teen who lives with very present dilemmas, such as an absent father, a mother tired of waiting for better days, inexplicable powers that arise from him, and a social isolation outside his family nucleus.
- The combats have narration, not just numbers, this is a crucial factor of immersion in the game, even dialogs arise during some specific combats, this small detail puts the lovers of electronic RPGs and “paper” together in a very similar experience.
- And finally, the well-crafted Hero’s Journey. The protagonists of the Earthbound series have such rich journeys, experiences of self-discovery, confidence, questioning, and even defeats, the games are not afraid to punish the player or the characters, a very strong bond is created between the player and what is played.
Ok, ok… I was here just talking about how wonderful I think the game is, but the focus was to show what we can learn from the game, right?
Yes, Earthbound can teach many people, in many ways and for many purposes. For you who work/want to work with games, did you know that Earthbound was not such a roaring success in its time? It even went through silent boycotts that culminated in a total disdain for a remake and a belated introduction of the game in its original version for the Switch platform.
What keeps Earthbound alive are us, passionate gamers who introduce the game to new people, who create communities and even translate the games so that new audiences have access to them, the life cycle of a game depends on numerous factors, as with any work of art, games age, become history.
They are overtaken mercadologically by others and sometimes run over by a flood of titles with impeccable graphics, frenetic combat, and innovative narratives, but that’s not a bad thing, right?
For you who play and fall in love with stories, Earthbound teaches you a lot about ethics, morals, togetherness, self-knowledge, and most importantly, what is important to us and how far we would go to protect what we love? And for you who have never played, what can Earthbound teach you? I don’t know! Run and play and tell me what you think!
