/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.1824001]

What do you guys think of Earthbound? I'm playing through it for the first time, and loving it. I'm already looking for games like it. Suggestions and opinion thread, basically.

[Anonymous No.1824024]

Tried playing it a few times, but I just can't stick with it. I don't hate the game, but it's just not for me.

[Anonymous No.1824030]

>>1824001
Dragon Quest.

[Anonymous No.1824031]

Finish Earthbound first before finding games like it. The full experience is much different than the early parts of the game

[Anonymous No.1824045]

>>1824001
It's a mediocre, derivative kiddy RPG that was overpriced at retail and is WAY overpriced today. That having been said it's an okay intro to retro JRPGs although Super Mario RPG is better IMO. Earthbound sticks to the basics more though.

[Anonymous No.1824085]

>>1824001
It's a really, really nice experience. A few people trash on it for being too simple, but the game was amazing to me and I'm currently playing through Mother 1 after beating it. Be prepared for some great memories of playing dat, 'cuz a lot of people remember the game really fondly. There's a surprisingly small but dedicated fanbase behind it. After beating the game you should check out the Rock Candy albums, all of the songs are remixes of songs from the game and I find that they're usually really good ones, too.

>>1824031
This pretty much, too.

[Anonymous No.1824125]

>>1824001
Its pretty neat for a Dragon Quest game with a psychic kid skin, but it really just is Dragon Quest.

[Anonymous No.1824132]

>>1824001
It was amazing when I was 10 years old
Played it again around 23
Almost 30 now and I tried to play it again, couldn't hold my interest for more than 5 minutes

[Anonymous No.1824210]

>>1824001
I played through it once probably 6 or 7 years ago, it was OK. I've tried to play it again recently and I just get bored with it pretty quickly. I guess the Dragon Quest comparison is pretty appropriate, since I've had pretty much the same experience with those, except I've never beat any. The quirky humor and whatnot of Earthbound was enough to carry me through the game once, but it doesn't interest me enough to do it again.

[Anonymous No.1824315]

>>1824210
Pretty much this. It's one of those games that are fucking amazing the first time you play it due to the novelty. It wears thin quickly when replayed.

[Anonymous No.1824380]

Okay so the game I wanna recommend to you isn't retro, but it has some similarities. The atmosphere isn't even close though, so if that's what you're going for, just forget it.

Check out a game called "Off".

[Anonymous No.1824412]

The end half of the game gets really wtf while the first half is pretty average, I can say from experience the game gets pretty special on acid haha, saturn valley and those trippy-ass battle backgrounds and music man
But yeah if the beginning half was as memorable and cool as the second half the game would be better, the first half is fine but cool shit like moonside, magicant, fourside, saturn valley, crazy-ass final boss, things like that don't come till later

[Anonymous No.1824552]

>>1824045
the only reason why it was overpriced back in the day was because nintendo is stupid and bundled the game with a guidebook

[Anonymous No.1824589]

OMG GUYS LETS TALK ABOUT EARTHBOUND

[Anonymous No.1825354]

I fucking bought this and I still haven't played it

I played Mother 3 and LOVED it but stiiiiiill haven't played Earthbound

[Anonymous No.1825541]

>>1824001
Little Big Adventure 2.

[Anonymous No.1825557]

calling this anon

[||D.II.II\/II.||D No.1825558]

Earthbound kind of sux. It has too many colors.
Not PIMPTASTIC.

[||D.II.II\/II.||D No.1825560]

Hi my name is pimp and my mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries!

[Anonymous No.1825561]

>>1825560
Stop stealing my name bro. totally not PIMPTASTIC

[Anonymous No.1825583]

>>1824132
You're dead inside, anon.

[Anonymous No.1825993]

>>1824045
As a fan of the series I can agree.
Everything about it is pretty good but, it lacks interesting gameplay. A hard mode patch would be pretty cool.
However mother 3 fixed the boring gameplay problem with the rhythm battles, and made things a bit more complex.

[Anonymous No.1826000]

>>1825557
Oh, man, Michael Jordan in Chaos in the Windy City!

[Anonymous No.1826015]

its an alright common game that gets hyped into oblivion as the second coming of christ and is sold for 1 million sheckels

[Anonymous No.1826019]

I think it's meh. I remember liking it a lot when I was younger because modern setting + psychic children cast + mundane weapons blew my mind away. I followed along with the hype till recently when I replayed it and found it mindnumbingly boring. I kept on playing for "the good parts" I remembered as a child and before I knew it, I was at the end of the game.

I think Mother 3/the sequel is much better. For me, all EB has going for it is its quirkyness and setting and that's just not enough to hold my interest anymore, especially since I've played it already. It still did get a few chuckles out of me though.

[Anonymous No.1826064]

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.

[Anonymous No.1826090]

>>1826064
>Gunple
I wouldn't really say Gunple was good. It tried to be like Legend of Zelda but couldn't quite fit the bill, having no real puzzle solving or thinking involved in the gameplay. And I definitely wouldn't compare it to earthbound. Apples and oranges and all that.

[Anonymous No.1826097]

>>1826064
Earthbound would probably be more entertaining if the game was similar to how it was portrayed in that picture. Imagine: an rpg centered around psychic children in an X-Com like setting, trying to survive in an outright alien invasion, traveling from village to village and city to city trying to outpace disaster.

[Anonymous No.1826120]

>>1826064
How do you pronounce "Giygas", anyway?

[Anonymous No.1826151]

>>1826120
I'm not sure. I've heard it pronounced Guy-gas and Gee-gas before.

[Anonymous No.1826180]

>>1826097
>trying to survive in an outright alien invasion, traveling from village to village and city to city trying to outpace disaster.
that is the game, only it's spun from the mind of a japanese developer who was tired of the muh serious dragons and princess story arch.

Realistically i'm not surprised this backlash in enjoyment is happening so strong now, being that prices have been consistently high for the cart over the last 6 or 8 years. People are slowly realizing not every game is for them, and most notably the popular ones everyone gushes over.

Fuck, if breath of fire 1 for snes had a serious jump in price i'm sure there would be threads every week complaining it "isn't worth it" or "highly overrated glitchy poorly translated" etc. Instead you have a modest JRPG with some basic transformations and sprites, small replayability and some major translation problems, but in it's entirety is just ok.

But slap a $200 price tag on it and every 'tube personality and follower will voice their garbled opinion on it daily.

[Anonymous No.1826184]

>>1826090
I really liked Gunple, it's an action-focused LTTP. Like I said the gameplay is different, but I was comparing it to Earthbound in style. Both are set in a parody land of sorts, both are aboutaliens turning creatures wild, both have wacky quirks all over the place, both opt for a simple graphic style, in both you're just some boy contacted by an alien.The atmosphere felt really similar.

>>1826097
Yeah, I don't know why they used that image. When I first played I was like "this looks cool", but it never happens. Does Giygas even attack the present at all beyond placing trinkets to screw with 1% of the population? Even the final boss is fought in the past, it's like they went out of their way to ensure the world never felt in real danger outside of the wacky hijinks in each city.

>>1826120
If it counts at all, in Japanese it's ギーグ/giigu, which would be like "giig".

[Anonymous No.1826195]

>>1826180
That's the issue see, the game itself is by no means bad it's just way overpriced if you wanna get your hands on a cartridge, which is why you just get it for ten bucks on virtual console.

[Anonymous No.1826198]

>>1824001
Play Mother 3, or you'll never be a man. It's like EarthBound, but 10 billion times better in every single way. It'll make you jizz your pants.

[Anonymous No.1826225]

>>1826180
>that is the game
No it isn't, a couple starmen and monsters doing nothing for the entire game is not an "alien invasion".

>Realistically i'm not surprised this backlash in enjoyment is happening so strong now, being that prices have been consistently high for the cart over the last 6 or 8 years
I don't think it has to do with the price, you can just emulate Earthbound for free. I think it has to do with the hype, people claiming it's a dark, surreal and emotional masterpiece of a game, the Giygas obsession, the needless theories, etc. That's what made the price go up to begin with. New players are intrigued and then discover a quirky setting with generic gameplay and just five minutes of 2deep4u "dark" material. That's assuming they even get to the end, because almost everything before that is quirky kiddy fare with DQ gameplay.

I mean even the earthbound wiki has giygas as the background and a dark color scheme to go with it, it's literally overhyping a tiny event in the game. I think that's why nowadays people who get disappointed with it end up disappointed, they expect something completely different.

[Anonymous No.1826232]

>>1826198
> Mother fan making bodily function jokes

Yeah this is why everyone who was older than 12 when Earthbound came isn't impressed by it.

[Anonymous No.1826241]

Every game in the Mother series had its strong suits. Mother for instance had what was probably the best atmosphere out of all of them, there was that constant creepy feeling of something not being right aside from the zombies and crazy people and it became more apparent and severe as the game went on.

Mother 2 had the better dialogue and pacing, which is why it was far better as an overall experience as opposed to a game as well as why it only works into the format of a game (I know there's a novel but I can't see it being as good since it would have to exclude NPC dialogue).

Mother 3 had the best gameplay and story. The battle system with rhythm while almost impossible and pretty shitty if you were on an emulator was a great idea when you could actually do it while playing the game. The story was also a great way to end the series off and was radically different from the past two games since it was separated into chapters. Though the pacing didn't make it really feel like the other two games and I blame the fact that it was separated into chapters and that the first three or four were more exposition than even build up.

[Anonymous No.1826242]

>>1826225
>earthbound wiki
and what does the box, manual, game map and cartridge portray?

you said it yourself
>>1826225
>quirky kiddy fare with DQ gameplay.

you have nobody to blame on nintendos part for this, as they marketed the game for what it was.

pic fucking related

[Anonymous No.1826260]

>>1826242
I never blamed Nintendo, I blame the current fanbase overhype. Most people playing the game are not tracking down the cart (especially not with the current prices), they are not seeing the packaging beyond maybe the box, which is vague enough to make of it whatever you want to make.

[Anonymous No.1826540]

>>1826232
In his defense, Mother 3 is actually fairly decent. It takes itself more seriously (which I know doesn't mean much with the mother series but none the less) and has some good gameplay. I would personally recommend it, but I know it's not for everyone.

[Anonymous No.1826572]

>>1826184
>it's like they went out of their way to ensure the world never felt in real danger outside of the wacky hijinks in each city.
Oh My God, this. I was so let down that the actual adventure didn't live up to the promise set by the opening sequence.

[Anonymous No.1826674]

>>1826232
look, earthbound is a game you shouldn't take seriously. if you like a game with quirky humor. than good, earthbound is for you. if not, it's not for you.

[Anonymous No.1827204]

>>1826064
>which isn't all that useful due to the turn-based nature of the game. It's not implemented very well.

Is this nigga really serious? There are a lot of times I would have been instantly killed had it not been for the counter giving me a chance to kill the enemies faster than it could go to zero or giving me enough time cast a life up before my party member drops dead. If you game the system, you are able to fight against enemies stronger than you as long as you have enough HP to heal faster than they can kill you.

You also forgot the "auto" button which is a god send, you could finish most of the battles with it, without having to keep pressing commands and the only times I didn't use auto was in the boss fights or against enemies that do status effects

[Anonymous No.1827218]

>>1826064
Here's where I think you're missing the point. The game is a giant tongue in cheek parody of the genre. In that sense the game is well executed. You're supposed to be groaning at some of the dumb shit like clouds of enemies, but also shaking your head at the dumb shit the people tell you.

Mother 2 was a giant reboot despite the poor story links between the two, and I suspect the only reason they even thought about an HP bar was how to mess with a players initial perception of an RPG, while still being the same damn thing. Exactly like ATB. Making Mother 2 yet another "state of popJRPG" rather than a masterpiece on it's own merits.

[Anonymous No.1827791]

>>1827218
>The game is a giant tongue in cheek parody of the genre.
No it's not. A parody of the genre at that time would lampoon Dragon Quest-style cliches (and now would lampoon Final Fantasy-style teenage angst) instead of avoiding all of them and having a completely unrelated setting, story and plot progression. The Mother series doesn't parody anything from JRPGs, if anything it's meant to parody modern western culture, which couldn't possibly be more detached from the genre.

>In that sense the game is well executed.
It isn't. It has nothing to do with JRPGs outside of its gameplay, which is a wacky reskin and also has nothing to do with what you say they're parodying.

>You're supposed to be groaning at some of the dumb shit like clouds of enemies, but also shaking your head at the dumb shit the people tell you.
The cloud enemies were lame how? Visible enemies is one of the great things Earthbound did. And the people in Earthbound do say wacky stuff, but I never felt you were supposed to think "bleh, this is so dumb". It was more like "haha this is so random/funny." If it was a parody of the genre in that sense, you'd have a medieval swords and sorcery world with people giving you pointless hints and the characters reacting to it in some amusing way. That's a parody, NPCs being quirky is just the game being quirky.

>Exactly like ATB.
I disagree too. I dislike ATB, but it does provide for more strategic choices and gives the player the control over turn orders. It's not the "same damn thing" at all.

>>1827204
>You also forgot the "auto" button which is a god send,
Tons of RPGs have an auto button, it's not really remarkable.

[Anonymous No.1827920]

>>1827791
>Tons of RPGs
>Tons

[Citation Needed]

[Anonymous No.1827952]

>>1827920
I'm sure there are more examples, but right now I can think of the Breath of Fire, Lunar and Phantasy Star series, they all have auto buttons and they're all fairly high-profile RPGs. PS even sets it as as the default battle command for some of its games.

[Anonymous No.1828070]

>>1827791
How about Earthbound's auto-win battles?
I don't remember any other game where you could sneak behind an enemy to get a free turn, or the enemies sneaking behind you to get a free turn of their own, OR just getting close to an enemy several levels weaker than you and instead of a fight, getting a YOU WIN! message, with item drops and all.