I came to EarthBound embarrassingly late. While other kids were experiencing it in 1995 when it launched in North America, I was busy with more “mainstream” SNES titles—your Final Fantasies, your Chrono Triggers, games that all my friends were playing and talking about. EarthBound wasn’t even on my radar, lost in the shuffle of a particularly packed year for RPGs.
It wasn’t until 1998, during the twilight years of the SNES when the N64 was already established, that I stumbled upon EarthBound. I was at Electric Avenue, this local used game store that smelled perpetually of stale pizza and teenage desperation. The owner, Larry—a bearded guy who looked like he’d been teleported straight from a 1970s prog rock concert—had a habit of setting aside games he thought customers might like based on their previous purchases.
“Got something weird for you,” he said, pulling a cartridge from behind the counter. “Trade-in from yesterday. Kid said it was ‘too boring’ because there weren’t enough swords.” He snorted, clearly offended on the game’s behalf.
The cartridge looked different from other SNES games—oversized, with a label featuring this bizarre, colorful, almost abstract art. “EarthBound,” I read aloud. “Never heard of it.”
“Twenty bucks and it’s yours,” Larry said. “Trust me, this one’s special.”
Twenty bucks was a significant investment for my 19-year-old community college budget, but something about Larry’s conviction and the cartridge’s unusual appearance intrigued me. I handed over the cash, tucking the game into my backpack between textbooks I was definitely not reading with the same enthusiasm.
That night, I fired up EarthBound with zero expectations. The opening sequence was… strange. There’s a meteor crash, a kid in pajamas, a time-traveling fly from the future. No princesses, no crystals, no spiky-haired amnesiac with a giant sword. Just a regular kid named Ness in a baseball cap, living in a town called Onett that looked suspiciously like suburban America. The first enemies I encountered weren’t dragons or zombies, but stray dogs, spiteful crows, and—most puzzlingly—New Age Retro Hippies. I distinctly remember thinking, “What the hell kind of RPG is this?”
The battle system seemed deceptively simple—a standard turn-based Dragon Quest-like setup, but with rolling HP meters that kept decreasing after you took damage (giving you a chance to heal before your character actually collapsed) and psychedelic backgrounds that looked like someone had fed an acid trip into the SNES graphics processor. The music was equally quirky, abandoning typical fantasy orchestral fare for jazzy riffs, pop melodies, and samples that sounded like they belonged in a completely different genre of game.
I nearly gave up after an hour. It was just so… different. The humor felt odd, the combat seemed basic, and I couldn’t figure out where this story was going. But something made me stick with it—maybe the $20 investment, maybe Larry’s insistence that it was special, or maybe just the sheer novelty of playing an RPG where ATM machines were save points and hamburgers restored health instead of potions.
By the time I reached Twoson, the second town, I was starting to get it. EarthBound wasn’t just weird for the sake of being weird—it was deliberately subverting every RPG convention I’d grown accustomed to. The modern setting wasn’t a gimmick; it was integral to the game’s identity. The seemingly simplistic graphics masked incredible attention to detail and personality. The straightforward battle system had hidden depths with status effects like “feeling strange” or “homesick” that I’d never seen in other games.
And then I met Paula, rescued from a cult (!) called the Happy Happyists (!!), whose members were dressed in blue hoods and obsessed with painting everything blue (!!!). This wasn’t just unusual—it was genuinely unsettling in a way fantasy RPGs rarely managed. The cult leader, Mr. Carpainter, wasn’t some ancient demon or dark wizard; he was just a guy who’d been corrupted by a supernatural force, leading ordinary people into bizarre behavior. Something about the mundanity made it more disturbing than any traditional RPG villain.
The first true “what the actual hell” moment came when I reached Moonside, an alternative version of the city Fourside where everything is neon-colored, people speak in contradictions, and reality itself seems broken. Walking through Moonside for the first time was gaming’s equivalent of a fever dream—disorienting, visually overwhelming, and logic-defying. “Yes means no, no means yes” repeated the inhabitants, while black men in business suits randomly teleported me around the map. I played this section late at night in my dimly lit apartment, and I remember feeling a genuine sense of unease, like the game was messing with my perception beyond the screen.
This was when I realized EarthBound wasn’t just an RPG with a modern setting—it was psychological horror disguised as a colorful Nintendo game. Behind the cute graphics and quirky humor lurked genuinely disturbing concepts. The Happy Happyists were essentially a murderous cult. The zombie-infested town of Threed confronted you with your neighbors turned into shambling monsters. The Mani Mani statue induced hallucinations and corrupted people’s minds. Even the game’s primary antagonist, Giygas, was presented not as a conquerable villain but as an incomprehensible cosmic horror beyond human understanding.
What really hooked me, though, wasn’t just the weirdness—it was how the game balanced this unsettling content with genuine heart. In Winters, I met Jeff, a boarding school student whose father had abandoned him. In Dalaam, I encountered Poo, a prince who undergoes a training ritual that involves having his limbs, ears, eyes, and even his mind taken away. Behind the bizarre presentation were themes of loneliness, abandonment, growing up, and finding your place in the world.
The game’s creator, Shigesato Itoi—primarily known in Japan as a copywriter, essayist, and TV personality rather than a game developer—infused EarthBound with his unique sensibilities. This wasn’t a game created by committee or market research; it felt like a direct transmission from one person’s imagination, unfiltered by corporate concerns about marketability or genre conventions. Years later, I would learn that many of the game’s elements were inspired by Itoi’s own childhood experiences, including a traumatic incident where he accidentally wandered into an adult film as a child—which horrifyingly explains the final battle’s disturbing imagery.
My first playthrough took about 35 hours, spread over several weeks of late-night sessions. I didn’t have the internet at home in 1998 (it was still a luxury for many), so I couldn’t look up guides or walkthroughs when I got stuck. This meant I experienced EarthBound exactly as intended—figuring things out by talking to every NPC, exploring every corner of the map, and occasionally bashing my head against puzzles that seemed inscrutable. The pencil statue eraser? Found it by accident. The Milky Well? Wandered around for hours before stumbling upon it. This was gaming before GameFAQs rendered secrets obsolete, and it was magical.
The game’s presentation constantly surprised me. Battles against the animated iron statue began with a museum-like photograph and description. The Runaway Five (an obvious Blues Brothers homage) would perform concerts that you watched from the audience. A photographer would occasionally drop from the sky to take your picture, creating a tangible record of your progress. These touches broke the fourth wall and reinforced the game’s playfulness while simultaneously building its world.
And then there were the enemies—my god, the enemies. Where other RPGs gave you slimes and goblins, EarthBound gave you New Age Retro Hippies, Unassuming Local Guys, Extra Cranky Ladies, and Abstract Art (literally animated paintings). Fighting a traffic light that had been possessed. Battling sentient piles of puke. Taking on the Putrid Moldy Man. Each encounter felt like a joke with a punchline, yet they never undermined the game’s underlying sincerity.
The battle backgrounds deserved special recognition. Instead of static backdrops or simple animations, EarthBound featured wildly scrolling, psychedelic patterns that looked like they were designed by someone with access to visual effects technology from ten years in the future. How the SNES pulled these off is still something I find technically impressive. Each enemy had their own background pattern, creating a unique visual signature for every battle type. These weren’t just aesthetic choices—they contributed to the game’s surreal atmosphere and made even routine encounters visually interesting.
By the time I reached the final battle against Giygas, I was completely invested in these four kids and their journey. The final sequence—where Paula prays for help and the player is directly addressed by name (using information from your save file)—broke the fourth wall in a way that was genuinely moving rather than just clever. It suggested that the connection between player and game was itself a form of love that could defeat cosmic horror. Pretty heady stuff for a cartridge I’d picked up on a whim.
When the credits rolled and I watched the characters return to their lives, I felt a strange melancholy. Not just because the game was over, but because I knew this experience was singular. There wasn’t going to be another game quite like EarthBound. In an industry increasingly dominated by sequels and franchises, it stood alone, defiantly weird and profoundly human.
I tried explaining EarthBound to my friends afterward, but my descriptions fell flat. “So you’re a kid with a baseball bat fighting… hippies and businessmen?” It sounded absurd without context, like trying to explain a dream that made perfect emotional sense while you were in it but becomes nonsensical when articulated. Eventually, I stopped trying to convert others and just cherished the experience privately.
Years passed. The SNES gathered dust as new consoles took its place under my TV. College, early career struggles, relationships—life happened. But EarthBound lingered in my memory in a way few other games did. Occasionally I’d catch myself humming the Onett theme or remembering the bizarre dialogue of the Tenda tribe. When I moved apartments during grad school and was ruthlessly donating or selling possessions to save space, the EarthBound cartridge remained in the “keep” pile without hesitation.
In my early thirties, during a particularly rough patch—dead-end job, relationship falling apart, general quarter-life crisis vibes—I found myself digging out my old SNES and that EarthBound cartridge. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was seeking comfort in something familiar, but I decided to replay it. I expected to enjoy it through the rosy lens of memory, to appreciate it as a quirky artifact of my youth.
What I didn’t expect was how differently it would affect me as an adult. The themes of childhood versus adulthood, of maintaining innocence in the face of corruption, of finding your tribe of like-minded souls—all hit harder from the perspective of someone who had accumulated some life scars. Ness’s homesickness, which had seemed like just another status ailment during my first playthrough, now felt like a poignant commentary on growing up and leaving safety behind.
The game’s underlying message—that even ordinary kids with baseball bats and frying pans can confront cosmic horror through courage and friendship—felt less like an adventure game conceit and more like a philosophical position on facing life’s inherent absurdity and cruelty. Itoi wasn’t just making a weird RPG; he was crafting a playable essay on finding meaning in a confusing world.
By this time—around 2010—the internet had transformed EarthBound from commercial disappointment to celebrated cult classic. I discovered entire communities dedicated to analyzing its mysteries, translating its Japanese predecessors and sequels, and creating fanart and music inspired by its aesthetic. The cartridge I’d casually bought for $20 was now selling for hundreds on eBay, though wild horses couldn’t have dragged me to part with mine.
Learning about the Mother series as a whole added new context to my EarthBound experience. Discovering that it was actually Mother 2 in Japan, that there was a preceding game for the Famicom that never officially made it to North America, and that Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance remained Japan-exclusive despite fan petitions—all this expanded my appreciation for what I’d stumbled into. EarthBound wasn’t just a weird one-off; it was part of a vision that stretched across platforms and decades, united by Itoi’s unique sensibility.
The fan translation of Mother 3 was particularly revelatory. Playing through this sequel (via methods I won’t detail here) showed how Itoi’s storytelling had evolved to tackle even more mature themes—capitalism, grief, ecological destruction—while maintaining the series’ trademark blend of humor and heart. It made me appreciate EarthBound even more as the middle chapter of a trilogy that began with childhood innocence and ended with the bittersweet complexities of growing up.
The localization changes Nintendo made when bringing Mother 2 to North America as EarthBound became fascinating discoveries. References to religious cults were softened. The red cross on hospitals was changed to avoid trademark issues. Alcohol references became coffee. Some of the more explicit visual elements in the final battle were altered. Yet somehow, despite these changes, the game remained profoundly weird and occasionally disturbing. It made me wonder what the uncensored Japanese version must have been like if this was the toned-down version.
The soundtrack deserves special attention—it’s one of the most innovative audio experiences on the SNES. Composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka created a score that sampled from pop culture, classical music, and even ambient sounds to create something wholly unique. The Moonside theme with its disorienting bleeps and bloops. The coffee break music that sounded like elevator jazz on acid. The battle themes that incorporated everything from hip-hop beats to Beatles-esque melodies. Music in EarthBound wasn’t just background; it was an essential part of the game’s identity, shifting from playful to menacing to heart-wrenching.
What’s remarkable about EarthBound’s sound design was how it used sampling techniques more common in contemporary music production than video game composition. This explains why certain tracks sounded so different from typical SNES music—they were literally incorporating techniques from outside the gaming world. The beach theme sampled Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The Monotoli building music borrowed from the Beatles’ “Mr. Moonlight.” These weren’t just inspirations; they were direct audio references integrated into the game’s sonic landscape, creating an additional layer of connection between EarthBound’s world and our own.
The game’s enemy designs revealed additional depth upon closer examination. The Starman enemies were clearly inspired by Starman from David Bowie. The Plague Rat of Doom was a nod to British comic book character Nemesis the Warlock. Even the infamous New Age Retro Hippie was a play on Japan’s perception of Western counter-culture. These references created a tapestry of cultural in-jokes that rewarded players who caught them while remaining entertaining for those who didn’t.
My EarthBound cartridge now sits in a protective case on my game shelf, not just because of its monetary value but because of what it represents—a completely unexpected journey into what games could be when freed from convention. I’ve played thousands of games since that first EarthBound playthrough, many with better graphics, more complex systems, and larger worlds. But very few have matched its perfect blend of whimsy and dread, its willingness to be genuinely weird while telling a story of surprising emotional resonance.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to introduce my nephew to EarthBound through the Wii U Virtual Console (thankfully, Nintendo finally made it officially available again). He’s a kid raised on Fortnite and Minecraft, games with vast worlds and endless possibilities. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to this 16-bit relic from 1995 with its turn-based combat and text-heavy dialogue.
“This is… different,” he said after about 20 minutes, in that carefully neutral tone kids use when they’re trying not to hurt your feelings.
“Give it one more hour,” I told him. “If you still don’t like it after fighting the Titanic Ant, I won’t make you play anymore.”
By the time he reached Twoson, he was pointing out details I’d never noticed even after multiple playthroughs. “Did you see that the hotel music changes when you sleep?” “Why does that guy say ‘fuzzy pickles’ when he takes pictures?” “Is Mr. Saturn supposed to be an alien or what?”
He eventually played it all the way through, texting me theories and discoveries throughout his journey. Watching a new generation connect with EarthBound was deeply satisfying—proof that its appeal transcends its technical limitations and dated references.
What makes EarthBound timeless isn’t its graphics or even its gameplay mechanics; it’s the humanity that permeates every aspect of its design. In a medium often obsessed with power fantasies and dramatic stakes, it dared to suggest that everyday life could be just as strange, frightening, and beautiful as any fantasy realm. That childhood friendships could be as powerful as ancient magic. That humor and horror aren’t opposites but complementary aspects of the same bizarre experience we call existence.
For a game about fighting cosmic horror, EarthBound’s ultimate message is surprisingly optimistic: even in a world of inexplicable strangeness and looming darkness, connection matters. Love matters. Having friends to share the journey matters. Twenty-five years after first playing it, that message still resonates with me. Not bad for a random used game purchase that smelled faintly of pizza and teenage desperation.
