Is Earthbound/Mother worth playing?

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El Conserje

El Conserje

Not paid enough to clean your shit.
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Dec 21, 2020
I'm looking for a light/old RPG to play on my phone while at work, last one I played was Dragons Quest III (was closed to final boss but never finished). I have always heard very polarized opinions about Earthbound. Some people say it's pretty good and has a nice story. Other have said that the gameplay is bland and the narrative is quirky and exceptional. So I want to know what kiwis here think about the game.

Btw, if the answer is affirmative. Which one should I give a try?
 
Regarding the narrative, I wouldn't call it 'tarded, unlike YÜK, but it's definitely meant to be a sillier game than Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy usually are. So you're a boy from Eagleland which is blatantly America, traveling the rest of the US and a few other places in the world, beating up local dogs, hippies, taxis, melting clocks, stop signs, krakens, carpenters, Academy Award statues, and what not. You have psychic powers but that mostly lets you fire psychedelic lasers into the air. There's a bunch of walking potato men named Mr. Saturns who speak in a funny font.

Earthbound and Mother are two different games. Mother is the original NES game, which is somewhat more restricted [it's harder and blander] and the final boss is relatively lamer. Earthbound is the SNES sequel that has similar looking characters [but the new one is from Asia], and the story is technically a sequel but most of what happens in that game doesn't affect this one and it's just referential stuff mostly.

If you can save anywhere you want, Earthbound isn't that bad, since it's harder to make those Sierra mistakes where you might be hours away from the point where you messed up and need to restart, unlike Mother.
 
Eh. It has a nice atmosphere. The story itself is pretty boring. The gameplay is a disaster. Fights are a slog, multiple characters are heavily magic dependent with no easy way to replenish it in the field, the inventory system was quite possibly created by Satan, and most of the best items are ultra rare drops, more than one of which is permanently missable.

It's worth playing once, I guess, but there are better games from the era.
 
Earthbound (Mother 2) is dope. The biggest criticism you could make of it is that it's a reskinned Dragon Quest, and if you like any of the Dragon Quest games, you'll love Earthbound.

Mother 2 is the Japanese name of Earthbound. There are three games - Mother (Earthbound 0) for the NES, Mother 2 (Earthbound) for SNES, and Mother 3 for GBA. I'd recommend starting with Earthbound, which is a classic and amazing - Mother is a brutally hard NES game that's unplayable without a strategy guide, and Mother 3 is a work of art but it's depressing and its battle system rewards timing attacks so it's not the best phone game.
 
It depends. If you listen to the fanbase who adamantly tout it as the greatest game series ever, then you're probably going to be a bit underwhelmed. A lot of the series's strengths come from its characters, sound design and the overall plot, so if that's not what you like then you're not really going to enjoy the series.

As a certified Earthbound sperg I can say don't start with Mother 1/Earthbound Beginnings. It is very much like the very first Resident Evil game - good for its time, but has aged horribly. Earthbound is an absolutely superior sequel in every way but it is incredibly long and your first playthough will probably end up being 30-40 hours minimum - in return you get what is actually an extremely well-made final boss fight, great music and some pretty fun characters.

Mother 3 is the most user-friendly mechanics and difficulty wise, but it requires a slight bit of knowledge from Earthbound to get full context of the game's plot. It's my favourite of the three and while it doesn't pull its punches it doesn't ham-fist its themes as well.
 
Mother/Earthbound Beginnings: Like most people said, don't start with this one. I don't think it's as bad as some people have made it out to be. Yes, the gameplay is very generic and rudimentary, and the balance near the end is horrible, but there are some genuinely interesting things about the game for it's time. The overworld is massive and surprisingly open for it's time, and the graphics and music have an undeniable charm.
Earthbound: I freaking love this game even though I'll admit its flaws. I'd definitely say play it just for the experience.
Mother 3: Easily the best of the trilogy (and the one I played years later than the others, so nostalgia is no factor), at least as far as gameplay and story are concerned. A lot of the clunkiness of Earthbound has been fixed, like healing/reviving/inventory. It doesn't give quite the same "vibe" as Earthbound does, and it is a little on the short side, but if you're a fan of JRPG's you must check it out.
 
Yes, just stay far away from the hipster fanbase and the shitty youtubers touting it as a hidden gem and you'll have a decent time.
 
Earthbound is fairly servicable to play at least once, I've played it about a dozen times since release and still enjoy it as much as I did at the beginning. The only key issue is how fucking slow it is, and of course speedhacking the game affects the cozy music.

It's also one of the only games I've played in a long time that

allows you to go back into the main world after beating the game and talk to people to see how your actions have affected the world. Probably one of the best games I've ever played for that because it straight up gives you a nice conclusion to stop you from doing the "Oh I finished the main quest, now what?" that you get with modern sandboxes.
 
I think it's a worthwhile experience, especially if you're a classic JRPG fan. I think what a lot of people miss about EarthBound, or at least don't focus on, is that it's a massive parody of classic Dragon Quest (honestly it makes me happy people are bringing it up in this thread). It's basically taking the base mechanics of DQ and inserting them into a contemporary setting. Instead of enemies dropping gold, your dad puts money into your bank account. Instead of swords and shields, you wield bats and frying pans. Instead of a hero from a mythic bloodline, you're just some kid wrapped up in a bizarre scenario (a kid with psychic powers, but still just a kid). In a lot of ways, it's a clever subversion of the classic JRPG. Hell, the battle screen from the first Mother is startlingly similar to the battle screen from the NES DQ sequels.

mother 1 battle screen.jpg
This is Mother 1

dragon warrior iii battle screen.jpg
And this is Dragon Quest III.

A lot of people these days (mostly the retarded fanbase) focus solely on the series' silliness, which to me is only part of what makes the games so special. The games do carve out their own identity as time goes on (like EarthBound adding the psychedelic backgrounds and rolling HP counts), but I personally think they're all worth playing. You should start with EarthBound, since that is the most accessible and most well-known of the series.

Also, I personally really like Mother 1, but I am also very weird. I like the minimalist feel of the game and I don't mind the endless grind. For some reason I always found it more captivating than NES Final Fantasy. I also like how you can see some of the seeds that would later spring into EarthBound, but that's just me. I'd only recommend it if you liked EarthBound and you don't mind playing archaic 8-bit RPGs (and if you have a guide handy; the game is very hard to figure out on your own).
 
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Earthbound is alright, but needlessly clunky.

Keep playing Dragon Quest, you're literally standing at the door to that series' golden era. Every game from 4 to 11 (excepting 9) are masterpieces. Even 9 is okay. And 10 was a Nip MMO.
 
When it comes to snes rpgs ffvi and chrono trigger are better. PSX has also some good rpgs. Honestly RPGs are good games for phones because touchpad controls suck and they don't require some frame perfect inputs. AetherSX2 is getting good fast so your phone might even be able to run dragon quest 8.
 
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It's an alright game. It's a bit of a slog sometimes, but it's pretty fun. I don't really get the hype. Yeah it's got a different setting to typical jrpg and the story's trippy and weird as fuck but gameplay wise, it's pretty average.

Personally, I'd recommend Lufia 2 over earthbound, just for the dungeons. The game itself is pretty straightforward and kind of cliche, but the dungeons are awesome. They have Zelda style puzzles that make the dungeons really fun.
 
earthbound and mother 3 are cool. Every DQ game after the original trilogy is great, except for Swords/9/10/Gacha game/that weird DSIware game.

also, i'd just recommend picking up SMT games too at this point. It's easy enough to emulate all of them, except for SMT V but that's super recent.
 
I'd say EarthBound is worth at least one completion. Mother 3 is also definitely worth a look too. I personally prefer Mother 3 to EarthBound due to its improved mechanics but the story is more depressing. The music in both of them is quite good as well.

I can't say I'm all too familiar with SNES library to give any other recommendations for games besides Chrono Trigger.
 
The only one that matters is the SNES one so play that one.

One thing that's a little annoying is that you constantly get attacked by enemies.
However, even the devs knew that people would get angry so, if you get over a certain level, enemies who have no chance against you will stop attacking you, even start running away and, if you run into them, you will get instant exp without a fight.
Other than that, this is a good game.
Starts like a silly Goonies/E.T. type story and ends in an epic 4th wall breaking battle with a Lovercraftian abomination.
There's some good writing and worldbuilding in places, the humor and satirical elements are nice.
The art design is unique and you'll remember it for a long time.
It's also not that long.

Not as good as Chrono Trigger but still a good 90's JRPG.
 
I didn't expect so many answers to my thread, so thanks!. It was interesting to read your replies so far. As I thought, the games have mixed opinions, being the consensus tha Earthbound and Mother III are good for what they are (old jrpgs) but there are better games to choose from the SNES era.

I think I'll give a try to Earthbound, just because the "modern" setting seems very unique and their take of parodying other RPGs looks like fun. It's a shame that tarded and hispter games like undertale, YIIK, etc. and their communities have tarnished EB legacy. Anyways, if the game doesn't click with me, then I'll switch to Dragon Quest IV (or Chrono Trigger, but the later doesn't really persuades me yet, idk).

As for Dragon Quest III, thats actually the first one I try of the DQ series. I abandoned the game like a month and a half ago, so I don't remember a single fuck of what I was doing and I lost my rhythm with the quest progression. After dicking around in a dungeon, I realized it was the place where you pick up the Gaia Sword. I checked a guide, and the only thing left to do is to go to the volcano and kill the demon boss. Problem being my party is merely level 22 and they need to be at least level 45, so fuck saving the world lol. In retrospect, I don't know how I made it that far at low level.
 
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