Earthbound/Mother 2 (SNES, 1994)(Maternalbound Redux Hack)
Graphics-7 Sound-8 Control-6/6.5* Challenge-6.5 Story-7
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-6.5 Originality-7
Overall Score-7
*w/ Maternalbound hack
+
Strange and creative ambience, Creepy retro sci-fi atmosphere, Trippy combat backgrounds and sometimes music as well
Humorous and quirky writing (good-very good dialogue overall - a step above the average RPG from around that time and roughly on par with the better western Adventure games; silly, nerdy, bizarre, third wall breaking, parody)
Interesting intro (wake up at night from a meteor fall and investigate, less interesting first town)
Non-random encounters (can see enemies outside of battle, see below however) - facing affects initiative when the battle starts and there's a bit of wiggle room as an enemy touches you
Some memorable characters and locations (Saturn Valley, Giygas, Dungeon Man, Pokey/Porky, Apple Kid, Moonside - odd opposite world (yes literally means no here) illusion where NPCs tend to teleport you around)
Two kinds of auto-fight features - for weaker enemies you don’t even need to enter the battle screen and they also run away from you (similar to Sword of Kadash (1985) or Dungeon Explorer (1989) where you can use scrolls/holy water for this effect, King's Bounty (MD, 1991) where underpowered enemy armies flee (making them disappear) after first moving into the player avatar, or Dungeon Master (1989) where enemies sometimes flee when their HP gets low)
Rolling HP system (your HP drains over time after taking a hit, if you finish the battle before all HP is drained then you lose less HP, mainly useful later on as it counts down pretty fast - from around mid-game onwards)
Mostly large towns (most NPCs have something worthwhile to listen to, pretty good visual variety)
You sometimes play as different characters and follow the story from their point of view for a bit (Jeff, Poo)
Teleport between previous locations (annoying to use though since you need a lot of momentum and have to dodge walls/objects - until you have the upgraded version)
Nice ending (in-game epilogue, some well made touching moments)
Lots of bizarre enemies
Good final boss fight (four phases, disturbing audiovisuals and dialogue, unusual way of winning)
Use teddy bears as meat shields
Blurs the line between friendly and hostile areas
Town maps for the first four main towns (marks your location and in towns marks most important buildings, no dungeon/hostile area maps)
Pretty good enemy variety
Can talk to (most) animals
Item stash (escargo express - a bit cumbersome to use though and can't be used in some areas)
Exit mouse (teleport to the beginning of a dungeon) - can only hold one at a time though and they are pretty rare until you can teleport
Some cool scripted events like the runaway five helping you during a boss fight in fourside)
A few interesting spells (pray (similar to prayer in Ultima) - random and usually beneficial effect in battle: https://earthbound.fandom.com/wiki/Pray)
A few decent puzzles (bubble monkey, spatial reasoning (holes in the rabbit dungeon and dungeon man), pyramid entry)
A few friendly encounters (butterflies restore MP/PP) - could've had more though
Ride bicycles for extra speed (only works when alone)/take the bus between some cities
Redux hack: Can teleport to all visited locations, run button (Battletech, Times of Lore, Quest for Glory), retranslation (minor changes it seems like), can equip via the goods menu, named NPCs during dialogue
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (can fight the mole boss before rescuing paula, can go to the desert right after beating belch rather than going into saturn valley although you'll have to grind, non-linear goldmine dungeon, can go to Scaraba->swamp->lava cave or the sewers and "rabbit" dungeon after reaching summers (or do scaraba etc. after the sewers but before the rabbit dungeon), )
Can't go to the underworld before the stonehenge dungeon due to how that part is scripted (can't find the book on shyness in the library without rescuing apple kid and having him tell you that it's there)
Can't attack NPCs or enemies that are in "guard/roadblock" mode and there's no moral nuance or choices the player has to make
Restart at the last place you saved and lose half your money if you die (unless you kept the money in your bank account). One save slot per game only
Mature themes (child abuse, night clubs, manipulation, corruption, Jeff’s neglectful father Andonuts etc.)
Can't use the run button while climbing
Can't play the in-game arcade games
Can buy a for sale sign to act as a moving store for NPCs (probably intended to get rid of items but a slightly bigger inventory would be better
Some NPCs act like tutorials
Somewhat random stat gains when leveling up (no manual stat distribution or spell choices)
Not much choice in what to pick for your next piece of gear (sometimes an accessory might give less DEF but a stat bonus or have some additional status def bonus (a few weapons do as well), slingshots and yo-yos miss more and ranged weapons don't get critical hits - can happen in the Mother 1+2 GBA port due to an oversight)
Mostly specialized chars (paula is the offensive elemental mage and can use pray, jeff can't cast spells but can use certain combat items+fix certain items and use spy/scan (which also steals items sometimes), poo is a strong spellcaster but can't equip weapons besides king's gear which is rare+has specific food tastes meaning some food heals him more while most heals him less+can transform (mirror) into an enemy during battle and use their abilities)
Several drug references
Pencil rocket 20x is OP
Ends on a cliffhanger (wasn't resolved until 2006)
-
Slow paced w/o the hack which lets you run (some grinding required even early on, can do the egg trick for faster money at least - buy eggs and wait for chickens to sell, some money grinding at summers for example)
Interface/control issues (very limited inventory (can’t stack items even w/ redux hack, quest items and gear take up space in the same inventory as consumables and jeff's combat items) - made worse by several useless items which aren't obviously so, can’t change battle message speed in-game and even on fast you can't press the button to skip ahead one message box at a time, many enemies move faster than you even w/ the hack+party NPCs also count towards the game determinining whether an enemy catches you or not+there are various narrow paths meaning you often can't avoid battle, somewhat slow menus, somewhat dated battle interface (sometimes hard to read messages with the small box+high speed, slow input), easily get stuck on the environment while moving around (doesn't automatically move your avatar along the wall or object), can't place markers on the map and it doesn't update with each quest related building you visit, no memory cursor during battle, have to go into the menu to unlock a door or show a ticket, the menu auto-closes after each item or spell used outside of battle+resets after buying or selling to the first prompt, can only buy/sell one of each item at a time, can't buy a piece of gear to replace a worse one if your inventory is full (logically should work but you have to have one empty slot for it), can't give certain items to party members, can't throw the bicycle away+can't share its usage between two chars, can't visually tell the status effect on an enemy by an icon or animation - have to wait for the message prompt during its turn, no quest log or journal feature - no side quests* but if you take breaks you might forget what to do, overly slow movement in the sewers and swamp, can't drop certain weapons for jeff like magnum air gun and baddest beam)
Tedious aspects (additional party members start at level 1, kinda low success rate for escaping - leads to some difficulty spikes, some huge and near empty areas, some conditions are very tedious to fix (mushroom, sun stroke, homesickness), depositing items via the delivery guy doesn’t work in some areas, ATM and reviving are rather tedious processes (can use items but the ones w/ 100% success rate are expensive (there are also the lifenoodles but they can't be bought+are pretty rare), otherwise have to go back to a hospital), no PP/MP restoratives until the desert besides Paula's battle spell which only works for her, the monkey cave dungeon in the desert (fetch, fetch, fetch!), don't regain MP when leveling up - butterflies are infrequent and MP restoratives rare, no store where you can sell stuff in Fourside (at first), unskippable in-game cutscenes (the photographer gets annoying and some are pretty long),exit mice are pretty rare and you can only carry one at a time, no secret herbs in threek/desert/fourside, overly low drop rate on the few rare items (1/128), slow stair climbing which there's a lot of in the pyramid)
Uneven difficulty curve (spikes: police fight unless you stocked up on hamburgers before going there (surprise fight), territorial oak flame attack, part after Saturn valley, Fourside dept. store, random enemy spawning amounts (sometimes a lot more than usual) although you can often go back and forth to respawn them, fourside dept. store blackout, kraken if it uses its strongest spells and you don't manage to freeze it, stonehenge/starman dungeon, magicant boss; dips: easy cult leader boss and pretty easy belch boss, easy "to shroom" boss, dungeon man dungeon, easy deluxe starman boss w/ pencil rocket 20x/multi bottle rocket)
Some trial & error (orange kid, sometimes lacking item descriptions and at shops you have to buy an item to examine it, some vague quests (zombies who do nothing but block your way in Threed until you head back to the hotel, finding paula after she gets kidnapped again, ), Jeff’s fixing ability is not explained in-game and can take several tries (sleep at inns) to succeed even if you have enough IQ, spy/scan sometimes lets Jeff steal an item from the enemy, sometimes a party member or the whole party unexpectedly leaves for a while without letting the player move their items)
Can't control the order in which your chars act out a turn - this leads to situations where someone acts after another character dies despite the rolling HP meter and being in the late game (which wastes the MP or item). Another example of this being a problem is against the atomic power robots which blow up after death - if the character using a shield spell acts last then that spell is a waste (actually it seems to not work against the explosion either way...)+those enemies heal themselves to full HP if you try to wear them down instead so it won't work (slime generator and monkey's love aren't quite reliable here, seems the only good strat if they're not alone is to take out the other enemies first as then the battle ends before their explosion does much damage)
Fake dialogue choices
Pretty cliché story at its core ("you are the chosen one", save the world from the evil monster) with some odd and/or nonsensical aspects (your parents (particularly your dad) immediately talk to you like you’re a hero about to go on an adventure and they have no problems with it (jeff's dad is even worse)+kinda weird how you have an ATM card as a 13 yo, the night club is empty when the Runaway Five are playing, the dialogue with Pokey at Fourside (your party doesn’t ask about Paula, Monotoli or anything while Pokey rambles about… yoghurt?, a 15 minutes long traffic jam), the police beat you up for using the key that the mayor gave to you – Wtf?, the cultists either help you or attack randomly in their temple, some rushed scenes like paula's reunion with her dad or jeff with his+Pokey's little brother is pretty much ignored)
Some slowdown
The tip guy is pretty useless+kind of expensive early on. He also doesn't appear in some later towns but is useful in parts of the mid-late game
Mostly non-interactive environment
Some backtracking (pencil eraser, to store items, to paula's dad, from saturn valley to desert, for another fresh egg (so happy happy village) at the desert cave with monkeys since the one you get will hatch befoe you get to use it, through dungeon man dungeon for the submarine)
Mostly boring dungeons (almost no puzzles, no damage tiles, pyramid is basically a straight line)
No party formations in battle (enemies have a front and back row at least)
Even the upbeat music often sounds subdued and some of the battle music is a bit annoying
Rough spritework overall (lack of shading and anti-aliasing), So-so or non-existent animation (the visual effects during battle are pretty cool)
Some palette swapped enemies
Notes:
-Minor item bugs (yoghurt dispenser is a broken bazooka?)
-Maternalbound Redux hack: https://gbatemp.net/threads/maternalbound-redux-an-earthbound-improvement-hack.542437/
-Guts affects crits, not luck
-*besides getting a Magic Truffle by trading The Insignificant Item with an NPC in the late game (it's also a rare drop in deep darkness)
-References and inspirations: https://www.reddit.com/r/earthbound/comments/7ey5j7/every_single_reference_and_easter_egg_in/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_oc9Ypcb2Q&list=PLdDAcOpsOcWSvDek45TdpPf60Lt4_ysVL
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-6.5 Originality-7
Overall Score-7
*w/ Maternalbound hack
+
Strange and creative ambience, Creepy retro sci-fi atmosphere, Trippy combat backgrounds and sometimes music as well
Humorous and quirky writing (good-very good dialogue overall - a step above the average RPG from around that time and roughly on par with the better western Adventure games; silly, nerdy, bizarre, third wall breaking, parody)
Interesting intro (wake up at night from a meteor fall and investigate, less interesting first town)
Non-random encounters (can see enemies outside of battle, see below however) - facing affects initiative when the battle starts and there's a bit of wiggle room as an enemy touches you
Some memorable characters and locations (Saturn Valley, Giygas, Dungeon Man, Pokey/Porky, Apple Kid, Moonside - odd opposite world (yes literally means no here) illusion where NPCs tend to teleport you around)
Two kinds of auto-fight features - for weaker enemies you don’t even need to enter the battle screen and they also run away from you (similar to Sword of Kadash (1985) or Dungeon Explorer (1989) where you can use scrolls/holy water for this effect, King's Bounty (MD, 1991) where underpowered enemy armies flee (making them disappear) after first moving into the player avatar, or Dungeon Master (1989) where enemies sometimes flee when their HP gets low)
Rolling HP system (your HP drains over time after taking a hit, if you finish the battle before all HP is drained then you lose less HP, mainly useful later on as it counts down pretty fast - from around mid-game onwards)
Mostly large towns (most NPCs have something worthwhile to listen to, pretty good visual variety)
You sometimes play as different characters and follow the story from their point of view for a bit (Jeff, Poo)
Teleport between previous locations (annoying to use though since you need a lot of momentum and have to dodge walls/objects - until you have the upgraded version)
Nice ending (in-game epilogue, some well made touching moments)
Lots of bizarre enemies
Good final boss fight (four phases, disturbing audiovisuals and dialogue, unusual way of winning)
Use teddy bears as meat shields
Blurs the line between friendly and hostile areas
Town maps for the first four main towns (marks your location and in towns marks most important buildings, no dungeon/hostile area maps)
Pretty good enemy variety
Can talk to (most) animals
Item stash (escargo express - a bit cumbersome to use though and can't be used in some areas)
Exit mouse (teleport to the beginning of a dungeon) - can only hold one at a time though and they are pretty rare until you can teleport
Some cool scripted events like the runaway five helping you during a boss fight in fourside)
A few interesting spells (pray (similar to prayer in Ultima) - random and usually beneficial effect in battle: https://earthbound.fandom.com/wiki/Pray)
A few decent puzzles (bubble monkey, spatial reasoning (holes in the rabbit dungeon and dungeon man), pyramid entry)
A few friendly encounters (butterflies restore MP/PP) - could've had more though
Ride bicycles for extra speed (only works when alone)/take the bus between some cities
Redux hack: Can teleport to all visited locations, run button (Battletech, Times of Lore, Quest for Glory), retranslation (minor changes it seems like), can equip via the goods menu, named NPCs during dialogue
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (can fight the mole boss before rescuing paula, can go to the desert right after beating belch rather than going into saturn valley although you'll have to grind, non-linear goldmine dungeon, can go to Scaraba->swamp->lava cave or the sewers and "rabbit" dungeon after reaching summers (or do scaraba etc. after the sewers but before the rabbit dungeon), )
Can't go to the underworld before the stonehenge dungeon due to how that part is scripted (can't find the book on shyness in the library without rescuing apple kid and having him tell you that it's there)
Can't attack NPCs or enemies that are in "guard/roadblock" mode and there's no moral nuance or choices the player has to make
Restart at the last place you saved and lose half your money if you die (unless you kept the money in your bank account). One save slot per game only
Mature themes (child abuse, night clubs, manipulation, corruption, Jeff’s neglectful father Andonuts etc.)
Can't use the run button while climbing
Can't play the in-game arcade games
Can buy a for sale sign to act as a moving store for NPCs (probably intended to get rid of items but a slightly bigger inventory would be better
Some NPCs act like tutorials
Somewhat random stat gains when leveling up (no manual stat distribution or spell choices)
Not much choice in what to pick for your next piece of gear (sometimes an accessory might give less DEF but a stat bonus or have some additional status def bonus (a few weapons do as well), slingshots and yo-yos miss more and ranged weapons don't get critical hits - can happen in the Mother 1+2 GBA port due to an oversight)
Mostly specialized chars (paula is the offensive elemental mage and can use pray, jeff can't cast spells but can use certain combat items+fix certain items and use spy/scan (which also steals items sometimes), poo is a strong spellcaster but can't equip weapons besides king's gear which is rare+has specific food tastes meaning some food heals him more while most heals him less+can transform (mirror) into an enemy during battle and use their abilities)
Several drug references
Pencil rocket 20x is OP
Ends on a cliffhanger (wasn't resolved until 2006)
-
Slow paced w/o the hack which lets you run (some grinding required even early on, can do the egg trick for faster money at least - buy eggs and wait for chickens to sell, some money grinding at summers for example)
Interface/control issues (very limited inventory (can’t stack items even w/ redux hack, quest items and gear take up space in the same inventory as consumables and jeff's combat items) - made worse by several useless items which aren't obviously so, can’t change battle message speed in-game and even on fast you can't press the button to skip ahead one message box at a time, many enemies move faster than you even w/ the hack+party NPCs also count towards the game determinining whether an enemy catches you or not+there are various narrow paths meaning you often can't avoid battle, somewhat slow menus, somewhat dated battle interface (sometimes hard to read messages with the small box+high speed, slow input), easily get stuck on the environment while moving around (doesn't automatically move your avatar along the wall or object), can't place markers on the map and it doesn't update with each quest related building you visit, no memory cursor during battle, have to go into the menu to unlock a door or show a ticket, the menu auto-closes after each item or spell used outside of battle+resets after buying or selling to the first prompt, can only buy/sell one of each item at a time, can't buy a piece of gear to replace a worse one if your inventory is full (logically should work but you have to have one empty slot for it), can't give certain items to party members, can't throw the bicycle away+can't share its usage between two chars, can't visually tell the status effect on an enemy by an icon or animation - have to wait for the message prompt during its turn, no quest log or journal feature - no side quests* but if you take breaks you might forget what to do, overly slow movement in the sewers and swamp, can't drop certain weapons for jeff like magnum air gun and baddest beam)
Tedious aspects (additional party members start at level 1, kinda low success rate for escaping - leads to some difficulty spikes, some huge and near empty areas, some conditions are very tedious to fix (mushroom, sun stroke, homesickness), depositing items via the delivery guy doesn’t work in some areas, ATM and reviving are rather tedious processes (can use items but the ones w/ 100% success rate are expensive (there are also the lifenoodles but they can't be bought+are pretty rare), otherwise have to go back to a hospital), no PP/MP restoratives until the desert besides Paula's battle spell which only works for her, the monkey cave dungeon in the desert (fetch, fetch, fetch!), don't regain MP when leveling up - butterflies are infrequent and MP restoratives rare, no store where you can sell stuff in Fourside (at first), unskippable in-game cutscenes (the photographer gets annoying and some are pretty long),exit mice are pretty rare and you can only carry one at a time, no secret herbs in threek/desert/fourside, overly low drop rate on the few rare items (1/128), slow stair climbing which there's a lot of in the pyramid)
Uneven difficulty curve (spikes: police fight unless you stocked up on hamburgers before going there (surprise fight), territorial oak flame attack, part after Saturn valley, Fourside dept. store, random enemy spawning amounts (sometimes a lot more than usual) although you can often go back and forth to respawn them, fourside dept. store blackout, kraken if it uses its strongest spells and you don't manage to freeze it, stonehenge/starman dungeon, magicant boss; dips: easy cult leader boss and pretty easy belch boss, easy "to shroom" boss, dungeon man dungeon, easy deluxe starman boss w/ pencil rocket 20x/multi bottle rocket)
Some trial & error (orange kid, sometimes lacking item descriptions and at shops you have to buy an item to examine it, some vague quests (zombies who do nothing but block your way in Threed until you head back to the hotel, finding paula after she gets kidnapped again, ), Jeff’s fixing ability is not explained in-game and can take several tries (sleep at inns) to succeed even if you have enough IQ, spy/scan sometimes lets Jeff steal an item from the enemy, sometimes a party member or the whole party unexpectedly leaves for a while without letting the player move their items)
Can't control the order in which your chars act out a turn - this leads to situations where someone acts after another character dies despite the rolling HP meter and being in the late game (which wastes the MP or item). Another example of this being a problem is against the atomic power robots which blow up after death - if the character using a shield spell acts last then that spell is a waste (actually it seems to not work against the explosion either way...)+those enemies heal themselves to full HP if you try to wear them down instead so it won't work (slime generator and monkey's love aren't quite reliable here, seems the only good strat if they're not alone is to take out the other enemies first as then the battle ends before their explosion does much damage)
Fake dialogue choices
Pretty cliché story at its core ("you are the chosen one", save the world from the evil monster) with some odd and/or nonsensical aspects (your parents (particularly your dad) immediately talk to you like you’re a hero about to go on an adventure and they have no problems with it (jeff's dad is even worse)+kinda weird how you have an ATM card as a 13 yo, the night club is empty when the Runaway Five are playing, the dialogue with Pokey at Fourside (your party doesn’t ask about Paula, Monotoli or anything while Pokey rambles about… yoghurt?, a 15 minutes long traffic jam), the police beat you up for using the key that the mayor gave to you – Wtf?, the cultists either help you or attack randomly in their temple, some rushed scenes like paula's reunion with her dad or jeff with his+Pokey's little brother is pretty much ignored)
Some slowdown
The tip guy is pretty useless+kind of expensive early on. He also doesn't appear in some later towns but is useful in parts of the mid-late game
Mostly non-interactive environment
Some backtracking (pencil eraser, to store items, to paula's dad, from saturn valley to desert, for another fresh egg (so happy happy village) at the desert cave with monkeys since the one you get will hatch befoe you get to use it, through dungeon man dungeon for the submarine)
Mostly boring dungeons (almost no puzzles, no damage tiles, pyramid is basically a straight line)
No party formations in battle (enemies have a front and back row at least)
Even the upbeat music often sounds subdued and some of the battle music is a bit annoying
Rough spritework overall (lack of shading and anti-aliasing), So-so or non-existent animation (the visual effects during battle are pretty cool)
Some palette swapped enemies
Notes:
-Minor item bugs (yoghurt dispenser is a broken bazooka?)
-Maternalbound Redux hack: https://gbatemp.net/threads/maternalbound-redux-an-earthbound-improvement-hack.542437/
-Guts affects crits, not luck
-*besides getting a Magic Truffle by trading The Insignificant Item with an NPC in the late game (it's also a rare drop in deep darkness)
-References and inspirations: https://www.reddit.com/r/earthbound/comments/7ey5j7/every_single_reference_and_easter_egg_in/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_oc9Ypcb2Q&list=PLdDAcOpsOcWSvDek45TdpPf60Lt4_ysVL