Earth Bound (NES) Playthrough
274A playthrough of Nintendo's 1989 RPG for the NES, Earth Bound.
Though a prototype of the US version of the game was leaked several years ago, it wasn't officially released in English by Nintendo until 2015 when it appeared on the Wii U Virtual Console as Earthbound Beginnings. The localization was finished in 1990, but the release was delayed and eventually canceled. This video is of Nintendo's original localization, not one of the many hacked/edited revisions that have appeared over the years.
Earth Bound (Beginnings/Zero) was originally known as Mother on the Famicom, and it was the first game in Shigesato Itoi's highly acclaimed trilogy of role-playing games. Mother 2, renamed Earthbound for its release in the west ( • EarthBound (SNES) Playthrough [Pt. 1 ... ), was its direct sequel.
If you're familiar with Earthbound on the SNES, a lot of this game will seem familiar as well. It takes place in modern day America, it uses a Dragon Quest-style battle system, it has a wickedly random sense of humor, and it is a far darker game than it initially leads you to believe.
Neither the storyline nor the world are as fleshed as you'll find in the sequel, but by NES standards, there's a lot of good stuff going on here. I loved that the world has no seams or loading points in it - it might look simple, but imagine that you can roam their entire would map without once running into a screen transition. It's incredible what something so small does in making the world feel like more than a collection of disconnected hubs that you walk between. The story is pretty unfocused throughout, but it does have enough threads to hold it together, and it throws a giant curve ball at you near the end. That last boss is one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen in an NES game!
Mechanically, it feels like a Dragon Quest clone from the late 80s, but it's so much more than that. There is some heavy grinding, backtracking, and a couple of insanely annoying mazes (the weapons factory, anyone?), but the game is short, its sense of humor helps the slow bits along, the soundtrack is awesome, and it comes across as heartfelt and subversive in some really unexpected ways.
Overall, while it's obviously not as polished as the SNES game, it is every bit as iconic, and it's equally as well loved in its homeland. You don't often find a game that carries a tagline like "No crying til it's over," but then again, games like Mother are an incredibly rare breed.
It's brilliant in its absurdity and surprisingly human in its portrayal of... well, I won't spoil that. Just watch it. Or better yet, go play it.
You can also find my video of the GBA port here: • Mother (GBA) Playthrough [English] - ...
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