/vr/ - Retro Games

Earthbound doesn't appeal to me at all. I did play it as a kid, I forced myself to beat it, didn't like it then, tried to play it again twice, still don't like it now.

Gameplay wise it's just a Dragon Quest reskin. That's really it. It has two original (as far as I know) mechanics: auto-killing enemies when you're much stronger, which is a great mechanic due to the lack of world map, and the rolling HP counter, which isn't all that useful due to the turn-based nature of the game. It's not implemented very well.

Story-wise I like the idea of a modern setting with quirky stuff going on tied to a dark threat, but Earthbound is so focused on being quirky that it forgets to make sense. The overall plot is incoherent, even the much-beloved final battle has this random wacky unexplained context (robot bodies, devil's machine, apple of enlightenment, prophecies, it's like a proto Chrono Cross dump of deus ex machina). The subscenarios are also designed to be as wacky as possible instead of making sense within the game. It's just a very bland story that focuses on how weird, random and adorable it is to make you forget it's not actually that good.

The graphics were bad. I understand perfectly that they were a throwback to the NES era and whatever, but Mother 3 had the same style and it did look good. I guess it's part of the quirky thing again.

Music is the only thing that's constantly good if you're into the jazzy style it has. A+ all around.

Something similar? I honestly think that in style, Gunple is similar but far exceeds Earthbound. The plot premise is the same, only Gunple is set in the wild west. The graphics are Earthbound style done right. The story is wacky, but actually makes sense instead of just being estorically quirky. The gameplay is different (it's pretty much Zelda), but to me it felt like the atmosphere Earthbound was going for done right.