-->''You finally got here. This is the third "Your Tropes" page. But it's mine now. Take it from me, if you dare...''

You can view the main page [[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 HERE!]]

EarthBound/TropesAToG | EarthBound/TropesHToM | '''Tropes N To S''' | EarthBound/TropesTToZ
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[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:N]]
* NerdGlasses: On Jeff the GadgeteerGenius: the classic thick square frames, no less.
* NerfArm: Several of the earlier weapons are based on not-at-all dangerous toys. Examples include the tee-ball bat (which are typically made of thin plastic and hollow) and the yo-yo.
* NeverSayDie:
** No enemies in ''Earthbound'' 'die.' See NonLethalKO below.
** The Dept. Store Spook in Fourside goes out of his way to avoid pronouncing "hell":
---> You will be gone, and you'll be burning in... Well, you'll go to heaven!
** Similar to the previous example, An Insane Cultist finds a kid friendly way to tell Ness to "go to Hell"[[note]]Despite what it sounds like, this is an accurate translation of what was said in Japanese[[/note]]:
---> You strange unmasked fellow. Don't go to Heaven!
** The English localization did this, [[EnforcedTrope as per Nintendo's then-standards]]. They missed a part in the ending where [[spoiler:one of Poo's fangirls wakes up from "a dream in which Prince Poo died", in those exact words.]]
* NeverTrustATrailer: Probably one of the most egregious cases; the ads tried to make it look like a [[GrossoutShow Grossout Game]] from beginning to end....[[note]]The slogan for the game is "This Game Stinks", for an example.[[/note]] There's maybe ''two'' parts of the game with any kind of ToiletHumor, and even then it's never too over-the-top.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: Earthbound is the {{Trope Namer|s}}, after one of the enemies with the same name.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:Giygas's forces abduct Dr. Andonuts, Apple Kid and one of the Mr. Saturns, and lock them up in Stonehenge. This allows the three of them to meet and develop the Phase Distorter, the device that sends the party back in time to defeat Giygas.]]
* NobleShoplifter: In [[CrapsaccharineWorld Happy Happy Village]], there's a food stand with a sign saying they trust you to take what you need, as long as you leave the money. However, in this case, the player ''does'' have the option to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential leave without paying]], so this trope depends on the player.
* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: Fourside is very clearly designed after Las Vegas, Nevada, with it being an enormous, bustling city with heavy emphasis on tourism just on the outskirts of a desert, being Dusty Dunes Desert.
* NonIndicativeName: There's actually ''six'' members of The Runaway Five. {{Handwaved}}, as it's implied that the keyboardist was just hired by the house to play backup, and isn't an actual member.
* NoMeansYes: In Moonside, switching yes and no - one of the ways to make the area harder and to emphasize its weirdness.
* NonHumanSidekick: Bubble Monkey to Jeff for a time in Winters, taking part in any battles Jeff fights during that time.
* NonLethalKO: No one "dies" in ''Earthbound''. Instead, they:
** "get hurt and collapse" (player characters)
** "become tame" (animals, Sharks, Evil Eyes)
** "stop moving" or "are broken into pieces" (AnimateInanimateObject)
** "are totally scrapped" or "are destroyed" (war machines)
** "go back to normal" or "regain their senses" (angry/brainwashed people)
** "return to the dust of the earth" (zombies, mummies, etc)
** "melt into thin air" or "disappear" (gases/ghosts)
** "are defeated" (everything else)
* NonLinearSequel: Despite the first ''Mother'' game ending on a painful ToBeContinued (less painful if the player played the [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes unreleased English prototype]] and the much-later ''[[UpdatedRerelease Mother 1+2]]'', the only direct connection with prequel is Giygas. This game takes place in the vague year 199X rather than the specific one of 1988, but unless America exists separately on the other side of the globe in this version of Earth, there is no sign of the original setting (although it's generally assumed it's the same world since Giygas "strikes back"). Ness is sort of Ninten's LegacyCharacter, but beyond that only the general themes really remain.
* NonStandardSkillLearning: Spells are acquired by leveling up, except for the two tiers of Teleport for Ness. The first Teleport must be learned [[ItMakesSenseInContext from a talking monkey]], and the second one is automatically acquired after completing the Magicant level.
** Poo only learns PSI Starstorm after temporarily leaving the party to train with the Star Master.
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Porky (target: Ness).
* NostalgicMusicbox: The final rendition of the Eight Melodies, just before entering Magicant. You get all sorts of adorable clips of Ness's childhood.
* NotCompletelyUseless: Poo's Mirror ability is usually ignored by many players, as most monsters are rather weak, and few monsters have anything that you'd want. There is, however, at least one exception. The Atomic Power Robots in the underground base can be mirrored, ''and somehow Poo can heal your party members without PP cost by refuelling them as if they were robots''.
* NotTheIntendedUse: The Teleport spell naturally will teleport you... However using Teleport Alpha in the Deep Darkness bypasses the swamp areas and thus you won't lose HP. So long as you collide with an object before you finish warping, you can trivialize what is normally a very annoying area.
* NowWhereWasIGoingAgain: Averted with the use of the Hint stalls. For a small fee, the man behind the Hint Stall will nudge you in the right direction about where you need to go.
* NPCRoadblock: The Happy Happyists' hideout contains a maze made of cultists; you have to talk to them or battle them to get them to move.
* TheNumberedThings: The Eight Melodies (not the same as the ones in the first game).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:O]]
* OddCouple: Ness and Paula.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Most of the cast thanks to the graphics style, as the adults tend to blend in even in a crowd of children.
* OminousMessageFromTheFuture: The events of the game are set in motion when Buzz Buzz comes from the future to warn Ness that Giygas has destroyed the world in the future and that a boy named Ness would defeat him.
* OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow: [[InvokedTrope Deliberately pulled off]] in an extremely rare example that ''[[Administrivia/TropesAreTools actually works]]'', since it's cleverly subverted into [[spoiler:only The ''Player'' Can Save Them Now.]] And not in the way you're thinking either.
* OnlyIdiotsMayPass: Plenty of {{Event Flag}}s enforce this.
** Threed is home of the game's ZombieApocalypse. Exploring the town, you may find that zombies are guarding part of the cemetery after fighting your way through it. You have to find them, and allow them to notice your presence, in order to advance the plot.
** After successfully completing a sidequest involving the Runaway Five, you are informed that a department store has opened in Fourside. To advance the plot, you must enter and leave the establishment, at which point [[spoiler:your female party member is kidnapped. To get the plot to advance any further from there, you have to kill the monster responsible, even though he does not have her anymore and there is no reward for defeating him.]] At that point, you will be able to visit a café that you may have visited earlier. But now, talking to people inside triggers a sequence where [[spoiler:a friend of yours winds up half-dead in a nearby alley.]] Then, you can go back inside and look at a seemingly blank wall you couldn't reach before.
* OpaqueNerdGlasses: Jeff, on both his clay model and in-game sprite.
* OutOfClothesExperience: Ness is naked in Magicant[[note]]Ness still has his hat on, but he has no clothes, so he's still naked[[/note]]. This was given a nice {{Woolseyism}} in ''Earthbound'' so that Ness is in his [=PJs=] instead.
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: Continuing the series-wide trend, the FinalBoss, [[spoiler:Giygas]] cannot be defeated via normal tactics. You must [[spoiler:use Paula's ''Pray'' command ten times before you, the player, defeat him.]]
* TheOverworld: Notably for a 90s [=RPG=], averted entirely. The player view outside of combat is always the same, and much of the world is directly linked by roads, like the real world. This contributes to the world feeling larger than in many genre contemporaries, which almost always used an overworld map to travel between towns and dungeons.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P]]
* PaletteSwap: Several enemies are like this, including a stronger version of the Territorial Oak, Foppies and Fobbies, and the Evil Mani-Mani/Ness's Nightmare.
* PalmtreePanic: The town of Summers is a beach side resort town. Being a popular tourist spot it contains a museum and restaurant.
* ParentalAbandonment: Ness's Dad communicates over the phone often enough, but is never home. Jeff's father hasn't seen him in ten years despite living fairly near his boarding school (and this is an eleven to fifteen year old boy) and seems to think nothing of it; his mother is [[MissingMom never mentioned]]. Poo's parents are nowhere in sight--affairs of state, perhaps? Paula is the only one of the four protagonists to have parents that are both alive and present.
* ParentalBonus: Oh God. Too many to list. A yellow submarine, the Runaway Five, the New Age Retro Hippie's battle music...
* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish:
** The one password was not of the "easily guessed" type, but was ridiculous nonetheless: It consisted of ''waiting three minutes''. Who would guess that?
** This is later subverted by another character asking for the password. As the PlayerCharacter does not answer, he (or it) attacks ("someone so quiet is either extremely shy, or extremely dangerous").
* PatiencePlot: You have to wait 3 minutes at the waterfall in Grapefruit Falls before you can [[spoiler:enter Master Belch's factory.]]
* PhotoMontage: The ending credits show off all the photos the photographer takes of you at points in the game.
* PlaceOfPower: "Your Sanctuary" locations. Each restores your life to full, and getting them all give Ness a huge power boost.
* PlaceWorseThanDeath: Apparently, if you remain in Moonside for too long, you'll "end up frying your brain."
--> ''"Yes, you will. No, you will... not. Yes no, you will won't."''
* PlayableEpilogue: After the final battle, you are free to roam the entire world as you please, with no enemies in your way, until you decide to visit Ness's Mom. (Actually, if you ignore the Shattered Men in the Summers museum, they'll still be fightable in the epilogue, which if you purposely die crashes the game. And may trigger other glitches.)
* ThePlayerIsTheMostImportantResource: In the final battle, [[spoiler:your faith in the characters is what defeats Giygas.]]
* PlayingWithFire: The PK Fire series.
* PointOfNoReturn: A polite example is given near the end of the game. Upon finishing the Phase Distorter II, Dr. Andonuts tells Ness and his friends that they may not have a chance to return once they attempt to teleport to Giygas' suspected location, and stresses that you should make sure you have everything prepared and you have any and all items you may need. Once you use the Phase Distorter II, you can't go back and get anything you may have missed, so be sure you don't go without making sure you are, in Dr. Andonuts' words, "optimally outfitted". If you don't take this warning and don't prepare properly for TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, you'll put yourself in a really bad position.
** Funny enough, using the Phase Distorter ''III'' is a more hyped Point of No Return, given how Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo must transfer their conscience into robot bodies to survive their travel back in time. There's even a save point accessible after you cross this point, and it is probably best used if you are ''sure'' that you have everything you need to brave the Cave of the Past.
* PoliceAreUseless: Not only do the police not seem to be able to handle things like kidnappings and teenage gangs, they actively get in your way by setting up pointless roadblocks.
* PoliceBrutality: When Onett's police force is asked by an adolescent/teenage boy to remove a roadblock and help him get to the next town, they decide it'd be fun to take him to the back room of the station and beat him up. They quickly learn challenging Ness to a fight is a bad idea if you don't want your butt kicked.
* PortTown: The Town of Toto located right east of Summers is a port town. The player has to visit the town to board a boat to Scaraba.
* PowerfulButInaccurate: The Casey Bat has the maximum possible attack power, but also the lowest hit rate, actually giving it lower average damage than other bats available at the same stage of the game.
* PowerNullifier: Jeff's Counter PSI unit, which when used leaves an enemy unable to use PSI for the rest of the battle. His Neutralizer nullifies all status buffs and shields (for both ally and enemy), while his Shield Killer nullifies an enemy's shield.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: [[spoiler:How Giygas is defeated.]] In some way or another, isn't this trope the lesson learned in every ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' game?
* ThePowerOfHate: [[spoiler:Porky during the final battle.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Porky:''' ''"In this bizarre dimension, you four are the only force fighting for justice... And here you stand, waiting to be burned up with all the rest of the garbage of this universe... Haaaaah! That's so sad. I can't help but shed a tear."'']]
* PowerUpFood: Ramen noodles ''bring back the dead''.
* {{Prehistoria}}: The Lost Underworld is an area barely touched by time. It is full of dinosaur species and also the Tenda.
* {{Premiseville}}: '''One'''tt, '''Two'''son, '''Three'''d, and '''Four'''side.
* PronounTrouble: Due to certain lines of battle text being used by more than one enemy, we sometimes get lines like [[https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/zlCfzR-tP5AQ6M3W6_ this]]. Similarly, having Paula use the Ruler or Protractor will cause the game to refer to her as "he".
* PsychicPowers: Used throughout the game, both as a replacement for traditional RPG magic and as a plot point. The menu includes:
** {{Telepathy}}: Paula is particularly adept at it, calling out to Ness and later Jeff. Poo uses it as well.
** [[{{Seers}} Clairvoyance]]: Occasionally invoked, again most often by Paula, to justify knowing what to do next.
** [[MindOverMatter Psychokinesis]]: Several subtypes show up in combat, including pyrokinesis (PSI Fire), cryokinesis (PSI Freeze), astrakinesis (PSI Thunder), and psychic healing, as well as less easily defined attacks such as Ness's signature attack or PSI Starstorm.
** [[BarrierWarrior Psychic Barriers]]: Can be used to deflect or even reflect both physical and psychic attacks.
** PsychicTeleportation: Used by both Ness and Poo to travel the world without a plane ticket.
** PsiBlast: There are multiple psychic attacks to use, most of them are element based. However some of the more powerful attacks manifest as a colossal explosion of energy.
* PumpkinPerson: The [[https://starmen.net/mother2/ebdb/enemies.php?enemy=121 Trick or Trick Kid]], an humanoid enemy wearing a pumpkin who appears in Threed during the ZombieApocalypse.
* PunnyName: By the bushel.
** The first four towns are called '''One'''tt, '''Two'''son, '''Three'''d, and '''Four'''side.
** And what are those numbers added up? Nin'''Ten'''do! Although that might not have been intentional.
** And then there's '''Sum'''mers and '''Ten'''da (possibly also a pun on "tender"). Think about that for a while.
** The main character, named after the NES. Alternately, the main character's name is an anagram of the system he first appeared on (SNES).
** The bicycle shop in Twoson is called "Punk-Sure".
** One removed from the American version: the third town was originally named Threek, combining both the numerical theme along with a scream of surprise and alarm. Perfect for a haunted town. Nintendo had it changed to "Threed" out of fears that it could be read as a reference to the KKK.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Q]]
* QuirkyTown: Let's see here... how about '''all''' of them?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:R]]
* RandomDrop: The infamous 1/128 items are this. The list of enemies that dropped items at a 1/128 rate in this game is '''huge''', and most of those enemies dropped arguably worthless items. Some enemies that dropped valuable equipment at this rate had methods of expending your time...
* RandomEffectSpell: Pray, on the occasions when it's used outside of the final battle. Mostly it either does nothing or heals everyone a little bit, but it can also cause status effects on your part, revive everyone (including enemies), recover all HP and PP to someone, and other things.
** PK Flash, when it hits, may inflict crying (blindness), numbness (paralysis), feeling strange (confusion), or [[OneHitKill unconsciousness.]]
* RayGun: Some of the weapons Jeff can repair and use are these.
* RaygunGothic: The style of the Starman and the robots seems to be based around this.
* RecurringTraveler: the photographer who descends from the sky in certain places.
--> "Say 'Fuzzy Pickles'!"
* RecursiveCanon:
** One NPC wonders if the new video game ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' has been released yet.
** In addition, the newspaper headline in Onett after beating the FinalBoss is "Chief Strong finishes Earthbound, asks "'Where is the sequel?'"
* RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver: The bizarre void known as Giygas. The Ghost of Starman and Porky's business attire also suit this trope.
* {{Retraux}}: Giygas and [[spoiler:Heavily Armed Porky]]'s battle theme starts out with some UsefulNotes/{{N|intendoEntertainmentSystem}}ES {{chiptune}}-sounding music (ironically, nothing from ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', though, where Giygas actually just had an incessant screech as his "battle theme") before spontaneously jumping into [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic a progressive metal version of the same tune]].
* RevengeOfTheSequel: The subtitle of this game in Japanese is ''Gyiyg Strikes Back!'', though since the first game in the trilogy wasn't brought over at first, it was changed to ''The War Against Giygas!'' in English.
* [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts Rising Cost Of Health Insurance]]: Practically the {{Trope Namer|s}} (though not [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts its supertrope]]).
* RoadBlock: The game uses road blocks in the prologue to [[BrokenBridge keep Ness from going downtown, and later from going into Twoson]], under pretense that [[PoliceAreUseless the police]] are going for [[GuinnessEpisode the world record for how many roads they can close at once]].
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: The Plague Rat of Doom is a boss enemy who is also a huge rat, but the normal mouse enemies look larger than normal as well.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Poo is the crown prince of Dalaam, and one of the Chosen Four who saves the world from a BadFuture.
* RuleOfThree: Inside the mines, you'll fight [[EliteMook the third-strongest mole]], followed by [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment the third-strongest mole]], and then [[RunningGag the third-strongest mole]], and [[SelfDemonstratingArticle then...]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S]]
* {{Sampling}}: The soundtrack for ''Earthbound'' features a large variety of sampling throughout its soundtrack, with many clever and creative uses:
** "Your Name, Please," the character naming screen, includes a distorted sample of the theme song to ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' (which itself is John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell.")
** The aforementioned track also samples Vince Edwards as Ben Casey saying "infinity", sampled from [[https://youtu.be/Xjq1P5p3fso the opening of]] the eponymous TV series.
** The backing track of the Sound Stone music is Music/JohnLennon's "Give Peace a Chance", pitched down to a mud-like consistency.
** The bar ([[FrothyMugsOfWater or café]]) in Fourside samples the theme song to ''[[Film/TheLittleRascals Our Gang]]'' (which in turn is Leroy Shield's "Good Old Days"), and also contains a MIDI patch playing a portion of "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States.
** "Moonside Swing" is made entirely from the intro to Music/TheCars frontman Ric Ocasek's solo song "Keep On Laughin'", layered on top of itself in a form of proto-{{Vaporwave}}.
** Dungeon Man's "Megaton Walk" samples the opening drums from Music/TheBeatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)."
** The Cave of the Past's present-day music consists of a sample of the trumpet intro to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love"; once the party travels to the distant past, the music is made out of a sample of [[Music/{{Sunflower}} "Deirdre"]] by Music/TheBeachBoys (specifically the LyricalColdOpen).
** Their are other distinct samples, such as a riot on the title screen, and sounds heard in the final battle, that have not yet been identified. Several of these samples were tailor-made by the game's composers, Keiichi Suzuki, Creator/HirokazuTanaka, Hiroshi Kanazu and Toshiyuki Ueno, out of their own (heavily processed) voices or instruments. The famous "I miss you" during the game credits' final moments is Suzuki's own voice.
** The limitations of the SNES sound processing architecture and of the music tracker software used in video games at this time meant that the composers had to get very creative to actually fit all of these samples into the game's score, let alone getting the more than 100 pieces into the limited memory of the cartridge itself. Any effects, like a note bending its pitch, vibrato[[note]]a regular pulsation of the note's pitch, most often recognized in human singers and violin players; ''[=EarthBound=]'' is often cited as the first video game to incorporate vibrato[[/note]] or any oscillations like the dubstep-like low-pass filtering of the Kraken and robot fights, had to be planned out mathematically: each split-second of the note had to be pitched and sampled individually and then painstakingly entered into the tracker as text, line by line, to create the effect of one note changing. If it sounds pretty complex, The Nerdwriter made [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvIzIAgRWV0 a short video]] explaining how Creator/DavidWise's most famous songs for the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series were made in this exact same way.
* SayMyName: One of Giygas's attacks has him saying the hero's name over and over. Which can lead to a hilarious or disturbing results if one abused the HelloInsertNameHere feature.
* SchmuckBait: The Mysterious Woman in Threed.
* ScoldedForNotBuying: A few of the shopkeepers are like this:
-->'''Twoson department store tool shop:''' Are you here just to say hi? What a loser!
-->'''Summers shop:''' This place isn't for looky loos. If you're not buying, get out!
-->'''Scaraba shop:''' Why don't you buy something? I've got a family to feed!
* SchoolSettingSimulation: The game has [[BoardingSchool Snow Wood Boarding House]], where Jeff resides. You have to go around the school and collect items from the rooms.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: When Ness has to fight five police officers before he can get past a blockade, the fifth decides to flee after the fourth is beaten.
* SeeYouInHell: Amusingly [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] where a villain ''starts'' to say this trope, then admits that the heroes will probably go to Heaven after he kills them:
--> '''Dept. Store Spook:''' ''"This department store is gonna be your grave! Gwaaagh. You will be gone, and you'll be burning in... Well, you'll go to heaven!"''
** One Happy Happy cultist specifically tells you '''not''' to go to Heaven. [[http://legendsoflocalization.com/earthbound/happy-happy-village/#hell According to Clyde Mandelin]] the line was identical in the Japanese script.
* ShallIRepeatThat: ''{{B|lackComedy}}rutally'' {{parodied}} with Buzz Buzz, who does this with his ''[[AlmostDeadGuy last words]]'', [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential and will not die until you tell him to]].
* TheShangriLa: Dalaam, a [[FarEast far-eastern]] country located at the top of a high mountain (or floating continent).
* ShaveAndAHairCut:
** When banging incessantly on Ness's door doesn't work, Porky tries this, although it is mixed with various other random knocks. Your dog remarks on how annoying it is.
** [[spoiler:Picky also does this in the PlayableEpilogue after the end credits.]]
* ShiftingSandLand: The Dusty Dunes Desert located between Threed and Fourside midway through the game and is by far the biggest area seen yet. Later on the group visits Scaraba, an arid desert town with an Egyptian feel.
* ShipTease: * Numerous [=NPCs=] as well as arguably ''the game itself'' [[ShipperOnDeck ship]] Ness and Paula in ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994''. Also, what was Paula going to say to Ness that she "forgot"?
* ShockAndAwe: The PK Thunder series.
* ShopliftAndDie: In Happy Happy Village you can choose to pay whatever you want, if you pick $0 a nearby man will attack you. Though you can attack the storekeeper as a BallisticDiscount.
* ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow:
** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] when Ness's sister Tracy says that she got his homework covered. Also one conversation with Ness's Mom on the phone she says "Your teacher came by looking for you, I covered for you"
** A girl in Fourside's Department Store asks if Ness is skipping school too.
* ShoutOut:
** Many, a good majority of them to Music/TheBeatles.
** The Hint booth looks unmistakably similar to [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Lucy's psychiatry booth]].
** The game guide packaged with the English language release of the game adds in a few that aren't in the game itself, such as saying the Onett arcade has ''VideoGame/KillerInstinct''.
** A potentially subtle one to ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' that some might miss - the Phase Distorter 3 can only send back inorganic objects to the past, a reversal of ''Terminator'''s time travel only being able to send back organic life.
** The two lead members of the Runaway Five are basically Jake & Elwood Blues - they actually wear black suits in Japanese, it's suspected the colored suits in the English version were to make them different enough to avoid legal hassles.
** The eighth Your Sanctuary boss' second form, Diamond Dog, is likely a reference to the Music/DavidBowie album ''Music/DiamondDogs''.
** The Lost Underworld level features a massive underground cavern full of dinosaurs, no doubt a reference to Jules Verne's ''Literature/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth''.
** If you listen closely to the ambience in the Onett arcade, you can hear musical themes from Nintendo's ''VideoGame/{{Sheriff}}'' and Namco's ''VideoGame/{{Xevious}}''.
** The name of the item "Monkey's Love" is a reference to Gwaelin's Love, an item in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI''.
** In the Japanese version, Jackie's Cafe is called Borges's Bar, after Argentine author Creator/JorgeLuisBorges.
** When bosses use a thunder spell, it says they use a "crash boom bang attack", which seems to be a reference to the lyrics of "[[Music/JohnMellencamp Rocking in the USA]]".
** There's arguably a subtle indirect one in that you take a boat from the port town of Music/{{Toto}} to reach the equivalent of [[DarkestAfrica (Darkest) Africa]] by way of Scaraba.
* SinglePaletteTown: The Happy Happy Village, everything is blue, blue...
* SinisterGeometry:
** Giygas's robots appear in the overworld as blue octahedrons (presumably they're inside; there's an unused capsule sprite that might have been originally used, same as the Starman capsules from ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'').
** Giygas's stronghold, the Cave of the Past, is a chrome wasteland of of geometric cliffs.
* SkippableBoss:
** Many players don't even realize they can just not fight Everdred.
** With some chicanery, even Starman Jr can be avoided (lure an enemy into view before visiting the meteor, then fight it and die intentionally to spawn back at home and bypass him).
** Downplayed with four of the Sanctuary Guardians: Mondo Mole, Trillionage Sprout, Plauge Rat of Doom, and Thunder and Storm. They and their dungeons are balanced for when you can first fight them, but can be ignored for most of the game. Once the Tenda overcome their shyness, you'll gain access to the seventh Sanctuary and the area containing the last one, and the plot will come to a halt as you're expected to gather all of the melodies. If you've skipped any of these four, you'll have to go back and take care of it, but you'll probably be very overleveled and take them down quickly.
* SkeletonKey: The "Bad Key Machine" allows Jeff to open all of the lockers at his boarding school for some helpful items. This also proves useful later on when he crashes into Ness' and Paula's cell, where it turns out the "Bad Key Machine" works on their cell door too.
* SkewedPriorities: The miners in the desert go mining for gold. They instead find an incredibly-valuable diamond, ...which they instead give to you as thanks and because it wasn't gold, which they resume their search for.
* SkyscraperCity: Fourside. You have to find your way to the top of the biggest one in the city too.
* SlippySlideyIceWorld: The town of Winters which is Jeff's hometown is stuck in a perpetual winter since it is located far to the north.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Paula is the only female character of the main party.
* SnowyScreenOfDeath: Right when you start up the game, a bloody red static screen is shown, displaying "The War Against Giygas!" [[spoiler:As soon as you defeat Giygas, the same effect is displayed, ending the battle.]]
* SnowySleighBells: Jingle bells ring through the theme music for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UtKQ4InhUE Winters]], where Jeff and his father reside.
* SoftReboot: While ostensibly a sequel to ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', this game feels more like a re-imagining of that game, as three of the four party members and much of the game's overworld resemble that of ''Beginnings'', but direct references to the plot of ''Beginnings'' are next-to-nonexistent, and even Giygas, the single returning character from ''Beginnings'', might as well be a completely different character and even gets no reference to his backstory.
* SongStyleShift: [[spoiler:[[http://starmen.net/mother2/music/142-%20Earthbound%20-%20Pokey%20Means%20Business!.mp3 The first form of the final battle's theme between Giygas and Porky]]]] starts out as an 8 bit tune and then shifts into [[TechnicalDeathMetal prog-death metal]] after around a minute.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Mostly played straight, but for a moment at the beginning when Giygas, in a moment of being pretty clever, decides to [[NoNonsenseNemesis just kill the last hope]] by sending [[WarmupBoss Starman Junior]] at the start of the game. Thankfully, [[CrutchCharacter Buzz Buzz]] was able to defeat his attempted assassin and live long enough to pass along his message and the SoundStone.
* SoundtrackDissonance: Some of the (great) music in this game is so out there, it is hard to tell what kind of mood the composer is trying to evoke.
* SpellLevels: The tiers for PSI powers are given by the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma, and omega (with sigma used for a few targets-all spells).
* SpidersAreScary: Lampshaded. The Arachnid! and Arachnid!!! are two of the only enemies to have exclamation marks in their names.
* SpikesOfVillainy: The Starman Deluxe and the Final Starman are respectively stronger versions of the Starman and the Starman Super [[RecycledINSPACE WITH SPIKES!]]
* SpinningOutOfHere: Like in ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', teleporting requires rapid, uninterrupted acceleration before zooming off to the destination, so areas with limited space to build speed require moving in circles to avoid crashing. One teleport ability requires the player to turn manually, the other one automatically makes the party move in a tight spiral.
%% * SpoiledBrat: Porky.
%% * SpoiledSweet: Paula. She is famous and her dad totally babies her, but she is very serious about saving the world no matter what it takes.
* SquishyWizard: Again, Paula. Her PK Freeze spells rip enemies into shreds, but her HP is so low that even two hits of PK Thunder obliterate her. Hell, often her HP during the endgame can be maxed out by Lifeup ''β''. Though, you can actually get Paula to gain Normal Levels of HP to make up for her weakness, [[GoodBadBugs through the use of the Rock Candy Glitch.]]
* StatusEffects: As well as many non-standard ones. Characters can be affected by sickness, heat stroke, ghostly possession, homesickness (in Ness's case -- this happens at random, and it's cured by calling Mom), mushroom growth, the common cold, uncontrollable crying...
* StartOfDarkness: [[spoiler:Giygas isn't the only one with an origin story.]]
* StatusBuff: The Offense Up and Defense Up PSI, which temporarily raise the party's physical attack and defense, respectively. Jeff's Defense Spray temporarily raises defense for one party member, while his Defense Shower raises defense for the entire party.
* StatusBuffDispel: Jeff's Neutralizer targets ''all'' buffs active in battle, both ally and enemy.
* StereotypicalNerd: Jeff, with his suit and bowtie, his glasses, and penchant for [[GadgeteerGenius making advanced gadgetry]].
* StockNessMonster: Tessie, a friendly monster who resides within Lake Tess in Winters.
* StylisticSuck: The music that plays while exploring Dungeon Man is a mess of high-pitched violin screeches and a man trying to sing along. Dungeon Man claims to have written it himself.
* SurprisinglyCreepyMoment: Most of the game is a gloriously strange and funny romp through childhood, and then [[spoiler:you enter Giygas's lair.]]
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