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aka: Earth Bound

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  • Accidental Innuendo: Threed is known as "Threek" in Japanese, which was likely intended to be a combination of "three" and "eek". The name was changed likely because Nintendo of America feared some players would read it as "three K", or "KKK".
  • Adorkable: Jeff has thick glasses and wears a dork suit everywhere, but he also has an adorable woobie-ish side as well. He's well-liked by fans.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Orange Kid is presented as having a Small Name, Big Ego and being kind of a dick to Apple Kid. Later on in the game, though, he talks about Apple Kid having borrowed a book on Overcoming Shyness and how he wanted it when Apple Kid was done with it. Orange Kid may just be socially maladjusted rather than a spiteful Jerkass, especially since he's a good deal more polite to Ness.
    • A lot is also applied to Porky and Giygas, thanks in large part to just how much canon leaves up in the air about them for how important they are. We can't list them all, but you can probably think of a few off the top of your head.
    • The idea that Ness is actually a rather spoiled kid who wasn't ready to become The Chosen One, but had to adapt quickly. His mother makes him his favorite food anytime he feels like and lets him run off in the middle of the night without question, he gets homesick very easily to the point of debilitation, and many people describe him as chubby. No wonder his insane potential was buried under so much doubt and fear, as stated in his Magicant.
  • Aluminium Christmas Trees: One of the Fourside newspapers mentions that Lucky, a member of the Runaway Five, was a member of the state House of Representatives. This seems like another of the game's non-sequitur combinations of fun and serious, but many famous musicians have actually had very serious side-gigs. Most prominently, Sonny Bono of '60s duo Sonny & Cher served as mayor of Palm Springs, California from 1988 to 1992 and was elected to the federal House of Representatives in the 1994 midterms, one year before the game's US release.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: A big reason why it was a commercial failure back when it was released in North America for the first time. Its localization was poorly timed as it was released when the bar was set VERY high graphic-wise for video games, especially for RPGs. Its preteen to young adult target audience didn't take a second look at the "chibi" graphics and Toilet Humor from the marketing and assumed it was merely a kids' game. The "cool"-looking boxart tried to change this, but it fell on blind eyes.
  • Annoying Video Game Helper: Several
    • Porky during the night the meteorite strikes. He effectively is forced on you, but doesn't do anything of any value except railroad you into finding Picky at the top of the hill next to the meteorite. In battle, he's too busy trying to stay out of sight and attention of the enemy and let them have Ness than anything of value. "Helper" is a stretch, but at least he lets you know you're going in the wrong direction (of which there's only two directions and one will have him chew you out for trying to ignore your task).
    • King can be this, depending. He's not mandatory, simply suggested, but he functions a lot like the Runaway Dog enemy in that he may attack, or he may sometimes waste a turn by simply barking at the enemy instead of doing something useful whatsoever. He does help take some of the pressure off of Ness during the venture up the hill, but the 50-50 chance of him attacking or barking makes him unreliable at best, especially with Ness easily felled if he can't beat an enemy first. In addition, once you make it to the top of the hill, he gets scared and immediately bails.
    • The Bubble-Gum Monkey may be one of the worst cases of this. In battle, he's much like King in that half the time, he'll attack, the other half he'll scratch at his head and do nothing. The damage he causes is pitiful, being at best 10HP of damage, and he's not as good a support as King despite being extra damage when Jeff is weakest. However, his worst offense is that he functions as a member of Jeff's party, and frequently pauses and flails about before running to catch up with Jeff, leaving himself wide-open for back attacks, forcing Jeff to have to endure a turn of being attacked since the monkey is never a factor in enemy attacks. Spiteful Crows and Runaway Dogs aren't TOO bad with this as they deal low damage, but the Gruff Goats can easily destroy Jeff if he's not careful. And unlike King, the monkey is mandatory to take along, as he's needed to progress through an impasse in the Rainy Circle Cave.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Carpainter, the Arc Villain of the Twoson region, is very easy thanks to the Franklin Badge reflecting all of his lightning attacks back at him. He does have attacks other than lightning, but they're weak.
    • Mondo Mole won't attack at all if he is paralyzed, turning what would otherwise be a That One Boss into this. This makes him the only boss in the game that can be beaten easily with Auto-fight on if you paralyze him on turn 1.
    • Master Belch is this once the Fly Honey is used on him. Without the Fly Honey though, he's nigh impossible to defeat.note 
    • Thunder and Storm are already pretty weak, being vulnerable to PSI Freeze (which you have two users of), but on top of that, they're one of only two bosses weak to PSI Flashnote . At this point, Ness is highly likely to have PSI Flash β, which has a chance of insta-killing an enemy, allowing the player to beat Thunder and Storm with it on the first turn of the fight.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise: At the time of release, the game suffered from this: A JRPG set in the modern world, with weird enemies like sentient piles of vomit, animated parking meters and cups of coffee, and (of course) New Age Retro Hippies, plus with other twists on the JRPG genre like trash cans and random presents replacing treasure chests. The game was already a hard sell to RPG fans who were already used to medieval fantasy series like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. But it was the marketing (especially in America) that did the most harm: The advertisements exaggerated the adult humor and gross-out comedy (with an infamous Nintendo Power issue giving gross-out scratch-and-sniff cards for would-be gamers!) that it had little of, and explained even less of what the game was about other than the tagline, "This Game Stinks!". It also didn't help that it was released near the end of the Super Nintendo's lifecycle, while everyone was waiting for the next-generation consoles and especially their games. While successful in Japan, the game was a titanic flop Stateside, with many copies sold for ten dollars or less and often destroyed to make way for the next generation of games. Thankfully, years later, the game was Vindicated by History and today is one of the most recognized RPGs of the Super Nintendo era, and the premise of an Urban Fantasy RPG has since grown in popularity with games like the modern Final Fantasy titles, the Persona games or most notably the Pokémon series.
  • Awesome Music: The game has a superb soundtrack and picking just one depends on your mood at the time. Whether the touching melody of the sound stone, the lovably-idiosyncratic battle music, or the groovy tunes of the Runaway Five, EarthBound has some of the highest quality, most distinct songs in the SNES's library, if not the 16-bit video game landscape as a whole.
  • Base-Breaking Character: The Photo Man. Some like him for being a charming little diversion from the story who adds to the game's signature quirky atmosphere. Others dislike him for being a repetitive interruption to the gameplay who shows up too frequently; some detractors even concede that he would be more tolerable if his appearances were entirely optional.
  • Best Boss Ever: Giygas has become one of Nintendo's most memorable bosses and arguably one of the greatest final bosses in videogame history for a few reasons:
    • After what's been a relatively kid-friendly jaunt throughout Eagleland and beyond, you confront what can only be described as the best attempt at Cosmic Horror the SNES can muster. People not aware of Giygas are caught extremely off guard by how surreal and creepy Giygas is, a complete tonal 180 from the rest of the game.
    • The method to his defeat. Subverting common RPG Final Boss methods of the 90s, Giygas cannot be defeated simply by throwing your strongest attacks at him (though you are required to deal a certain amount of damage in one phase). You must use the overlooked Pray command, calling on the people of the world to assist you in the final battle. And even that isn't enough. After one more attempt where it doesn't look like it will be effective anymore, praying calls on someone else... The player. Damage against Giygas will pile up until suddenly you're dealing five digits worth of damagenote  and finish him off.
    • Giygas' dialogue. When you confront Giygas, his mind has eroded almost completely, and the things he says are scattered and nonsensical, describing how he feels good, or sad, or simply repeating Ness' name over and over. The fight ends up having a much more disconcerting atmosphere than any sort of threat could create.
    • The music. The first Giygas battle theme starts off as an 8-bit throwback before seamlessly seguing into 16-bit metal, emphasizing just how important this battle really is. The rest of Giygas' battle themes, while not necessarily catchy or even music, per se, serve a different purpose: To highlight just how twisted and how much of a horror Giygas is. It all adds up to one of the most nightmarish final bosses Nintendo has ever produced.
    • Giygas as a character, especially if you're familiar with his backstory. While the majority of Giygas' contemporaries in the realm of video games were fairly simply and straightforwardly evil, Giygas himself was one of the earlier examples of a villain you could feel for. Between his parental problems and his degradation into the state he's in in EarthBound, chances are a good portion of players will actually end up pitying the poor alien.
  • Best Level Ever:
    • Moonside. It's a dark mirror of Fourside where the terrain is only visible by multicolored outlines, and the enemies inhabiting the area are all very surreal with unique abilities and challenging without being overwhelming. The NPCs talk in very strange ways, being creepy and funny in equal measure. Its dual nature as both unsettling and humorous is very well remembered for being the culmination of EarthBound's best-known aspects. It finally concludes with a confrontation with the Mani-Mani Statue, which has been a thorn in the player's side since Twoson.
    • Ness's Magicant is also a major highlight of the game. As the reward for finding the eight sanctuaries, it conveys a feeling of accomplishment by setting foot in there. As for the area itself, it starts out bright and cheerful, featuring a motley collection of NPCs who provide hints of Ness's past, and talking to anyone in the area causes the terrain's color palette to change. After the initial section, Ness gets to fight a selection of unique enemies with unique attack patterns while journeying to the center of his mind. It all culminates with a fight with three Krakens, which Ness and his friends fought earlier but Ness can make short work of alone, and a confrontation with Ness's Nightmare, a Mirror Boss using most of Ness's own abilities.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Even by this series' standards, anytime the photo-man shows up. Granted, even though the photos he takes appear in the ending credits, the game gives no explanation as to why or how he's taking photos of your party, not to mention where he comes from or how he can fly to and fro out of nowhere.
  • Breather Level:
    • The inside of Dungeon Man is sandwiched between the Pyramid, which is a relatively long level with somewhat difficult foes, and Deep Darkness, where the game does a Difficulty Spike. The dungeon is relatively short and many of the foes you face inside come from the Department Store; while they were challenging back then, you not only have gained more than a few levels since then, but have Paula with you (as opposed to just Ness and Jeff). There are also a few benches you can sleep on to recover your HP, making the dungeon rather easy.
    • Pink Cloud's enemies are pretty easy, even more so thanks to the Franklin Badge. The sanctuary boss, Thunder and Storm, also applies to this, which was mentioned above under Anti-Climax Boss.
    • While the mood of the place itself is anything but, Threed's enemies are easier to handle as you and Paula have more than likely soaked up plenty of EXP catching her up to Ness. It's also notable that the beginning of the game when Ness is going solo is considered by many to be the most difficult part of the game, and being that you have Paula leveled up by this point, the game in general is much easier in comparison.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • If you defeat the boss of an area or attain a high enough level, enemies will start fleeing from the party in fear. This makes Backtracking not only convenient, but incredibly satisfying seeing as how a sufficiently leveled-up party can easily pick off the now-weak enemies on the return trip.
    • After he taunts you throughout the whole game, many players relish the chance to beat the tar out of Porky when he shows up alongside Giygas. Perhaps the development team was aware of this, as damaging Porky enough is required to progress since Giygas is completely invincible in this phase.
  • Character Perception Evolution:
    • For years, Tony was mainly remembered as a decent, but mostly unremarkable one-off character whose purpose was mainly just to act as a vehicle for getting Jeff to join the main party. However, after fans uncovered a 2003 interview where director Shigesato Itoi stated that he wrote Tony as gay, the kid rapidly gained a major following among the game's LGBT Fanbase, thanks to his status as not only one of Nintendo's few explicitly queer characters, but also a positively-portrayed queer character from an era when that was hard to come by (among other things, his affinity for Jeff — re-contextualized as a crush by Itoi's comments — is never mocked or demeaned). Nowadays, he's one of the game's premier Ensemble Darkhorses, with fans commonly expanding his role in fanworks and shipping him with Jeff.
    • While Aloysius and Lardna Minch were never really popular, they were mostly met with apathy, their relationship with their children Porky and Picky was seen by many as dysfunctional at worst, especially since the English translation heavily played up Porky's rudeness and other negative qualities while toning down any apparent violence. However, increased attention towards child abuse in The New '10s alongside greater knowledge of the original Japanese script made their actions look much worse in hindsight, Aloysius in particular. In the original script, Aloysius spanks Porky after he and Ness bring Picky home from the meteorite, an action that, while once seen as a perfectly acceptable punishment for children, is now widely considered a form of physical abuse,note  then leaves his family behind except for Porky when the latter nabs him a job in Fourside. As a result, they are now hated by much of the fanbase, viewed as abusive jerks whose poor parenting helped turn Porky into the villain he was in both the game and its sequel.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The sign inside Onett's hospital:
    "Tombstone Sale: We have a special discount for those who died at this hospital. What do you want written on your tombstone? Onett Hospital Surgery Team."
  • Cult Classic: To the point where it was considered a Sacred Cow for a long time. Nintendo's decision to make the game available on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console services has brought in newbies who have been very willing to pick apart the game's flaws after having heard it hyped up so much, although it still maintains a strong fanbase of both old and new players.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Most notably, the Territorial Oaks on the way to Peaceful Rest Valley. You see, when you defeat these things, they explode. Now, when defeated with a party of more than one character, one party member is picked as the primary target for the explosion while the others receive lesser Splash Damage. But during your first visit to the valley, Ness is your only party member, so he's always the primary target. And explosions hurt, usually doing enough damage to kill Ness two times over in this early part of the game. Fortunately, the damage reels halt as soon as the "YOU WON!" text displays, but you're still likely to be taking a couple dozen points of damage for the road after every Oak you defeat. While Paula does join you for your return trip through the valley, she's a Squishy Wizard who comes in at level 1, meaning even the Splash Damage from the explosions can be deadly to her.
    • Almost everything in the occupied Department Store and Moonside are this; to make things worse, you don't have Paula at this point. Special mentions go to the Dali's Clock (which can freeze time mid-hit to get free strings of attacks) and the infamous Scalding Coffee Cup.
    • The Care Free Bombs near the entrance to the Sea of Eden. They only have around 500 HP, which is on the low end of average at this point in the game, but they have solid defenses and no exploitable weaknesses, meaning that nothing short of a Bag of Dragonite or a lucky strike with PSI Rockin Ω is going to get rid of them quickly. Now here's the fun part: they do NOTHING but chuck Bombs and Super Bombs at you every turn. These are defense-ignoring, 100% accurate, splash damage-inflicting attacks that regularly do north of 300 damage. Did we mention that you meet these little bastards in an area of the game where you're down to just Ness and your meat-shield buddy Flying Man (who's not going to live to see the end of the next round if you meet one)? One is bad news. Two is a game over waiting to happen.
    • From the same part of the game, there are the Loaded Dice. The only thing they do is call other enemies to the field; unfortunately, they tend to be things like the aforementioned Care Free Bombs, and Uncontrollable Spheres (which explode when killed). As you can see, the situation can quickly escalate beyond your control if he's not killed in at least the first two rounds.
    • The Ghost of Starman. They immediately use PSI Starstorm α, which will likely put 3/4 of your team down for the count if not healed quickly enough. After that, they'll count down and use Starstorm Ω. They also hold the incredibly rare Goddess Ribbon for Paula.
    • The Evil Eye. Their physical attacks aren't too bad, but they can also use Brainshock Ω, which has a good chance of confusing your party members, as well as glaring with their evil eye, which Diamondizes a party member. To make matters worse, they often fight alongside the Ghost of Starman.
    • The fittingly named Final Starman. Residing in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, this spiked Starman has very high stats and a wealth of annoying PSI abilities: Both forms of Starstorm, Brainshock Omega, Shield Beta, and Healing Omega. That's right, they can actually revive other enemies after putting your party on its heels. Think you can can just Alpha Strike this enemy with your own powerful PSI? They come pre-equipped with a psychic shield beta which will reflect your attack right back at you. They also tend to appear alongside the aforementioned Ghost of Starman, making them a deadly duo.
    • Rowdy Mice. They have a 50% Critical Hit chance, you encounter them very early in the game, and Ness is your only party member when you first encounter them. They make grinding at Giant Step mandatory, and you'll exhaust all of your health items by the second level of the cave.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Compare Tony's relevance to the plot to his appearance in fan art and fan fiction.
    • Fobbies are probably the most popular enemies. Possibly because they have some Ridiculously Cute Critter qualities to them, being a Waddling Head and all, possibly because they're a joy to see on the overworld, as "Fobby" is just another name for "big round sack of EXP."
    • Don't forget Mister Saturn, zoom zoom.
    • The Runaway Five's antics, jazz concerts, and their helping you in many occasions made them well liked enough that they gained substitutes in Mother 3 as the DCMC.
    • Master Belch was popular enough to make an appearance as a costume in Super Mario Maker along with the above-mentioned Mr. Saturn. Though that might be because he was the Creator's Pet to the American advertising team. Or because his boss theme has a few notes from Mario's 1-1 theme.
    • The New Age Retro Hippie is one of the more memorable enemies, due to having a unique model, a memorable and rare battle theme (Frank is one of the few who shares it), and for being one of the weirder foes in a game full of odd characters.
  • Epic Riff: The phasing synth riff from Pokey Means Business. When fighting Porky, after the 55-second mark, what had been an upbeat chiptune thus far, suddenly turns into the thrashiest, most intense heavy metal riff that the SNES can muster.
  • Epileptic Trees: The long running Giygas/Fetus/Abortion "theory", albeit with a single grain of truth involved.note  For a really in-depth analysis of the theory as a whole, go here, but beware of spoilers.
    • The theory revolves around the negative space in the background of later phases of the Giygas fight resembling a swaddled-up infant, although the whole "YOU WERE SENT BACK IN TIME TO ABORT A FETUS" element was introduced later. Interpretations of the Devil's Machine chamber as looking eerily like a woman's cervix didn't help matters... although, said chamber was composed largely of tubes/intestines/brain-looking stuff, which is not actually what the inside of a vagina looks like. While there's a decent chance that some of the visual symbols the theory cites were intentional, their presence is likely much more, well, symbolic, than literal.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: Yes, the Chosen Four successfully make it back into their bodies after stopping Giygas and can go back to their regular lives, but once you know Giygas' backstory, it can be a bit hard to not feel bad about his ultimate fate.
  • Even Better Sequel: To EarthBound Beginnings. The battle system is much better, the enemy encounter rate is more reasonable, among other improvements.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • Enjoys a mild one with Mother 3, mostly in terms of which one is the better game.
    • A larger and more volatile one is present with the Undertale fandom, due to the latter game having been brought up in nearly all EarthBound-related discussions since its release (as Undertale takes heavy inspiration from EarthBound and re-uses numerous gameplay elements and soundbytes). Many EarthBound fans have gotten sick of hearing about Undertale everywhere they go, to the point where some forums and comments sections will outright ban people for merely bringing the game up. Of course, this kind of behavior towards Undertale fans isn't unusual among other circles online (as the fandom has garnered a reputation for shoehorning the game into nearly anything, regardless of how relevant it is), but because of how great of an influence it was on Undertale, EarthBound's fandom is where this backlash is most prominent. It got even worse when Game Theory's infamous "Sans is Ness" video came into the picture, as several types of fanworks featuring Ness since then have started getting comments referencing Sans, which only leads to more annoyance for EarthBound fans, especially for those sick of Sans in particular being shoehorned into everything and/or hate MatPat and his videos.
  • Fanon:
    • Ness is almost always drawn with purple eyes in fanart due to his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl giving his Black Bead Eyes purple irises at the bottom. Ness' model in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and onward does away with the purple irises, but fans still draw him this way. Similarly, Ness is also commonly depicted in fanart as a bit on the overweight side, though nowhere near as much as Porky and more of a Puni Plush type to mildly overweight type of chub, mainly due to in-game dialogue suggesting the case.
      • There have also been quite a few fan depictions of Ness being a Big Eater or a straight-up Extreme Omnivore. This mostly comes from the fact that you can find foodstuff such as burgers in trash cans that are apparently good enough for Ness to heal him as much as restaurant-bought ones. If you see Ness with a burger in fanart, chances are he went dumpster diving for it.
    • In-game, when the party is turned into robots in order to survive time travel Ness is the only one with a distinguishable characteristic (his red cap); fanartists almost always give the robot versions of Paula, Jeff, and Poo a ribbon, glasses, and wire emulating his hair, respectively.
    • Paula's surname is commonly believed by the fandom to be "Polestar" due to Polestar being the name of the preschool her parents run. This was so ubiquitous that Paula's article on the EarthBound Wiki was "Paula Polestar" at one time despite there being no official material stating that her surname is Polestar. The Japanese spellings for both Paula and the Polestar Preschool suggest that Polestar is meant to be a pun on Paula's name, as Paula is spelled ポーラ (Pōra) and Polestar is spelled ポーラスター (Pōrasuta). There is official material however, though obscure and only in Japanese, that Paula does in fact have a surname, and it's Jones. At one time that was a little-known fact, and while it's still not common knowledge among fans, it's begun to become more well-known. But despite that, she is still widely referred to as Paula Polestar because unlike Jones, Polestar is distinct which makes it easier to find the EarthBound Paula in search engines and hashtags.
    • Speaking of last names, Jeff is near-universally called Jeff Andonuts by fans due to him being the son of Dr. Andonuts. But contrary to popular belief, Jeff is never actually called "Jeff Andonuts" in any official material; he is only called that in the English EarthBound Player's Guide, which at best gives it semi-canon statusnote  Unlike Paula's case above however, there isn't any hard evidence against Jeff's surname being Andonuts, so few people argue against it. Those that question it speculate that Jeff could have his mother's surname but as Jeff's mother is not even so much as mentioned in the game, it's not a common stance.
    • A popular theory is that Ness's Mother is really a grown up Ana from EarthBound Beginnings thanks to them both having blonde hair, blue eyes, and Ness's Mother holding a frying pan on her clay model, which is Ana's weapon. Given the fact that Ness resembles Ninten and Ninten and Ana being shown as an Official Couple by the end of the game, they also believe that Ninten is the father. Additionally, there are people who believe that Dr. Andonuts is Lloyd thanks to being geniuses with white hair and round glasses, and according to Mother 3, having a tendency to hide in trash cans. However, hard evidence implies this most likely isn't the case thanks to EarthBound being ambiguously set in the 1990s, and Beginnings is set in the 1980s. Even if one were to argue that the first game is set in 1980 and the second in 1999, that would make the 12-year-old Ninten and Ana just 31 by EarthBound, which would be a rather questionable age to be parenting a 13-year-old biological son, especially when you consider Ana's personality and the fact that she is the daughter of a pastor, it would be rather out of character for her. Additionally, the Famicom version of Beginnings concretely labels the events of the game as taking place in 1988, making the theory even more implausible, as the latest Ness could've been born is 1987, one year before Ninten and Ana even met. Nevertheless, the theory lingers. Some fans who are aware of that believe in the theory anyway because being related to Ninten (and therefore, Giygas himself) gives Ness a good reason to be The Chosen One lose-wise.
  • Friendly Fandoms: While, noted above, EarthBound and Undertale have a bit of a rivalry, parts of these fandoms actually get along quite well, again due to the number of nods to the former present in the latter.
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Via exploitation of a glitch, often dubbed "the Rock Candy Glitch" by players, you can get the Chosen Four to have insanely high stats. It goes as follows; if you use a food item that's at the way bottom of a character's inventory during a battle with a condiment also in the inventory, the condiment gets consumed, but the item does not. This means by keeping a consumable item at the bottom of the inventory, you can use consumables over and over in battle without them ever running out so long as you have a condiment to spare. Rock Candies raise a random stat permanently by 1, but by 2 when combined with a Sugar Packet or Delisauce. By (ab)using this over and over, you can raise their stats far beyond what is normally possible. If lucky enough with what gets boosted, you can make Ness as fast as or faster than the rest of the party, removing his speed drawback. But what truly makes this broken is what it does to HP and PP. The HP and PP gained from levelups is tied to the Vitality and IQ stats respectively. So after using this glitch to increase Vitality or IQ by a lot, the next levelup will boast insanely high HP and PP increases. Uses of higher level PSI techniques and their ridiculous costs (specifically, Ness's PSI Rockin') become a lot more negligible and spammable. You can effectively remove Paula's weakness as a Squishy Wizard by giving her HP comparable to Ness. HP and PP can become so high that the battle menus can't even display the numbers correctly, as it's not meant to account for numbers above 999. There are two drawbacks, one minor and one major. The minor is that if damage is taken while HP is over 999, the damage will be instant and immediately drop your HP to the amount of HP you'd have after you took damage. The major one is that if a stat increased over 255, the stat rolls over to 0, which obviously is not good.
    • Multi Bottle Rockets. These things can only be used by Jeff, and can deal up to 3000 damage, which is the highest damage roll any single attack has the power to deal in the game. Jeff can kill almost any boss in a single hit with them. If the damage rolls 3000, the only bosses it cannot OHKO are Diamond Dog and Electro Specter, the former having 3344 total HP and the latter having 3092.note  As a payoff for that, they were intended to be too expensive to buy in large amounts, but by the time you can buy them, money comes so easily that you have oodles of cash to spend on these things. The Bag of Dragonite is a similarly overpowered item, except that not only are there only 6 in the whole game, but Multi-Bottle Rockets are even STRONGER than them. Somehow, Multi-Bottle Rockets get even more broken when Jeff is equipped with the Rabbit's Foot, as their strength is relative to Jeff's speed.
    • Lifeup Ω makes the final portion of the game a complete joke. Using it heals the entire party by 300-500 HP for a mere 24 PP. Even at higher levels this will heal Paula, Jeff, and Poo almost completely, along with more than half of Ness' HP. The only catch is Ness' speed but post-Magicant it's hardly an issue.
  • Genius Bonus: The theme for the Cliff that Time Forgot is a sample of the opening of All You Need is Love by The Beatles, itself an interpolation of the French national anthem. When you travel to its alter-ego, the Cave of the Past, the music becomes a similar manipulation of the opening of Deirdre by Beach Boys. The two bands were notorious rivals who spent the 60s trying to outdo each other in terms of album strength.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the game had poor sales initially in North America, word of mouth quickly made it a cult classic. So much so that it became a big seller when it was released on the Wii U's Virtual Console. It's notable that EarthBound is a game on the SNES Classic in North America and Europe, but not in its native Japan.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Any and all exploding enemies.
    • Any mushroom enemy that inflicts Mushroomization. Which is nearly all of them.
    • Both Spiteful Crows and the Octobot family of enemies are Bandit Mooks that can steal any consumable item from the player's inventory, including highly valuable ones like Rock Candy, with no way of recovering them. These enemies also have high speed, meaning that not only are they able to outmaneuver Ness when they first appear, but they can also drag fights on by dodge-tanking attacks.
    • The Mobile Sprouts in the Peaceful Rest Valley aren't all that powerful, but they can summon more of themselves, heal their wounds and drain your PP, meaning that battles with them can be time-consuming and draining at low levels.
    • Also in Peaceful Rest Valley are the Li'l UFOs. They're not very durable, but their Speed is abnormally high for that point in the game, meaning they can also dodge-tank Ness's attacks, including his signature PK Rockin which would ordinarily one-shot it. They can also force you to waste Ness's PP by causing colds.
    • The Slimy Little Piles in Belch's Factory can immobilize a character for one turn, summon more of themselves, or inflict crying on the entire party, which severely reduces the accuracy of regular attacks. While crying does wear off after battle, curing it in the middle of battle is a waste of resources because they can just cause it again. They attack so rarely that they aren't much of a threat by themselves, but they often show up around enemies that do attack more frequently, making them an annoying enemy that makes other enemies more dangerous. And when they don't appear with other enemies, they can still cause battles to drag on and on because of their aforementioned abilities.
    • The Atomic Power Robots and Nuclear Reactor Robots. These things can fully heal themselves (or a single other enemy) every turn and explode when they are defeated, dealing huge amounts of damage. Couple that with some other enemies that share their areas, and you've got a Sadistic Choice between killing them first and leaving three of your party members on the brink of collapse or killing them last and letting their allies slowly chip the party down through attrition.
  • Goddamned Boss: Surprisingly enough, Giygas can be this trope. He doesn't do damage often, but he sure loves knocking out Paula in one hit with his incomprehensible attacks. Since Paula is needed to defeat Giygas, he'll turn from horrifying to annoying rather quickly.
  • Good Bad Bug:
    • Cited by EarthBound Central in 2009, there is a glitch on the bottom right pillar at the Threed tent. When you press the L button repeatedly, the game will do random things from generating scrambles of characters to even skipping to certain areas.note 
    • The Walk Through Walls AKA Staircase glitch. When a character has a status affliction that depletes their HP on the overworld reaches low health, a message will appear warning the player of this. If the message happened to show up when the player is getting off or on a staircase, collision detection gets disabled, meaning that Ness's party can now walk through walls. The direction at which Ness's party can walk in is fixed in the direction they were in when the box appeared. If at the correct timing, they can move wherever they want freely. The glitch is fixed by walking onto another staircase or entering a warp. As explained in the Tent Glitch's note above, every map in the game is connected, which means that the player can use the glitch to visit any area they wish. This glitch has many potential applications, but one notable one is it can be used to get Poo as early as when the player reaches the cave to Grapefruit Falls.
    • The Cliff Glitch is another means of going out of bounds. Because of the shape of certain cliffs, jiggling the directional pad on a corner can cause Ness to slowly squeeze through and make it out on the other side, which can be sped up by use of a Skip Sandwich. The most well-known use for this is that the player can skip Twoson, often used by speedrunners. The pro to using the Cliff Glitch to go out of bounds over the Staircase Glitch is that the player can still interact with things, such as the upper right corner of Onett's map. Checking it produces similar effects to the aforementioned Threed Tent glitch.
    • The Rock Candy Glitch is this, more broadly known as the Condiment Glitch, and already mentioned under Game-Breaker above.note  What it didn't elaborate on though is that it works for anything that a condiment can be used on, although it's most notorious for being used for Rock Candies. For instance, you can effectively have infinite Brain Food Lunches, which can also be pretty useful. The glitch was fixed for the GBA port, but remains in the VC release.
    • Ness's inventory being full when Buzz Buzz goes to give Ness the Sound Stone will cause it to be given to Tracy for safekeeping. As long as the player doesn't speak to Tracy in person until all the sanctuaries have been reached, Ness won't have to carry around the Sound Stone, which despite not being in the inventory, the game still functions as if the Sound Stone is there. This is helpful since it's a Clingy Macguffin in a game with very limited inventory space. Every spot counts, especially while Ness is solo. This trick is pulled off by filling Ness's inventory with cookies and/or bread rolls dropped by Spiteful Crows and Runaway Dogs respectively prior to meeting Buzz Buzz and then keeping it full up to entering Porky's house.
  • Growing the Beard: The game is considered to do this for the MOTHER series in hindsight. The first game, EarthBound Beginnings, is considered to be decent for the time, but ultimately held back by the limitations of its console and criticized today for its Random Encounters and unremarkable battle system. EarthBound, on the other hand, introduced many of the definitive elements of the series, such as the Pre Existing Encounters, scrolling HP mechanic, surreal battle backgrounds, and more varied battle themes, all of which would make the game hold up to RPGs even into modern times and would be maintained and improved for Mother 3.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: At the end of the game, you can go back to Onett and read the newspaper. Among other things, an article in the paper says "Police Chief finishes EarthBound, asks, "Where's the sequel?" Likewise, a building in Fourside is reserved for a "planning meeting for EarthBound 2." The sequel would happen alright, but only in Japan and not without a 12-year Extremely Lengthy Creation along the way, leading the text to become the butt of jokes among fans in retrospect.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Between Jeff and Tony. It's mostly one-sided on the latter's part, as he was confirmed to be gay by the creator.
    • There's also this often-overlooked line from a boy in the clubhouse in Onett:
      "You're beginning to look like a man. You're so cool! I... I think I really like you. Well, you know what I mean."
  • Hype Backlash: It's so beloved in most circles that many players experiencing it for the first time now are left with a "is this it?" experience, as several of the games' mechanics have not aged well and the earliest parts of the game are easily the dullest.
  • Iconic Character, Forgotten Title: Many fans of Ness associate him much more with the Super Smash Bros. series instead of his own game, mainly due to Earthbound selling poorly when it was released, and the several memes involving him in Smash. This started to diminish thanks to the series getting Vindicated by History over the years, especially with the re-releases of EarthBound starting with the Wii U Virtual Console.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • Owing primarily to Memetic Mutation among other factors, Giygas's appearance and the inability to grasp the true form thereof — something hardly even hinted at until one actually reaches the final battle — are probably far more well-known than any other aspect of the game aside from Ness.
    • Porky showing up alongside Giygas at the end of the game is intended to be a huge surprise but thanks to his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mother 3 of which his appearance in Smash is based on this is relatively well-known.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Porky may be an asshole, but his parents are simply vile people. It's rather obvious that they're the reason Porky is so insecure and hateful and the catalyst for him turning to Giygas for comfort and later becoming a dictator in the future.
  • Love to Hate: Porky, non-stop. He's an irredeemable, cowardly brat that acts like a total jerk towards Ness and co. every chance he gets (despite Ness basically being his only friend) and was more than willing to team-up with Giygas to destroy everything just for kicks. And yet, the fanbase can't help but love how unapologetically awful he is. And that's not even getting into what he does in Mother 3.
  • Memetic Badass: Jeff Andonuts, due to a combination of his high intelligence and apparent knack for heavy artillery.
  • Memetic Molester:
    • A molestee in this case, Giygas.
    • Also, Lier X. Agerate, at least, that's the vibe he gives off when he asks Ness to follow him deep into his basement, alone.
  • Memetic Mutation: "You Cannot Grasp the True Form" of Giygas' attack!
    • Giygas himself. Whenever there's a scary Mind Screw on the internet, Giygas is usually mentioned.
    • Cursed Images but with Earthbound (and occasionally Mother 3) music”. Explanation 
    • WHAT/HOW Explanation 
      • The sanctuary guardian theme: Explanation 
    • Quirky EarthBound-inspired indie RPG about depression Explanation 
    • Ness' dad is a phone. Explanation 
    • "Hello, it's your dad." Explanation 
    • Pyromaniac Paula Explanation 
  • Moe: To be honest, most characters, especially the kids qualify, but Paula's sweet disposition, her obvious feelings for Ness, and her status as the team's psychic powerhouse makes her a standout example.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Porky Minch crosses it at the end when he unleashes Giygas to bring the universe into darkness.
    • Though you barely get to know the guy, and it happens very early in, there's still no going back after Porky's mom kills Buzz Buzz.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The satisfying sizzle and crack of PSI Starstorm colliding into an enemy.
    • The cathartic pop as you instantly K.O. a weak monster, followed by the triumphantly trilling trumpet tune.
    • The famous Smaaaaaaash!! sound effect, so long as it comes from an attack by Ness' party.
  • Narm: Any of the game’s many thrilling or tense moments can be seriously undermined when one of your main characters is named Poo.
  • Nightmare Retardant: The Cave of Winter, Giygas theme, and Cave of the Past songs get so used in .exe Creepypasta games that most people just find their overusage to be more annoying and boring than scary. Cave of the Past is also way less scary when you know it sampled "Deirdre" by The Beach Boys.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • Though he's talked up all throughout the game, you never see Giygas itself until the final battle. For better or worse, it's easily the most well-known part about the game.
    • Aloysius Minch shows up in exactly three scenes over the course of the game, two of them being optional, but he's still one of the most hated characters in the entire series. Lardna Minch is just as reviled as Aloysius, despite showing up even less. During their brief moments of screentime, both of them come off as unlikeable, greedy, abusive parents. Bonus points go towards Lardna for killing Buzz Buzz.
      • To a lesser extent, Picky, who, while weak, actually tries to help Ness in the fight against Starman Junior and establishes himself as the only member of the Minch family that isn't awful.
    • Buzz Buzz himself only appears a few minutes early in the game before being unceremoniously killed, yet he's also a source for Epileptic Trees for his identity.
  • Praising Shows You Don't Watch: Before it attained its Sacred Cow status, it was very common to see people constantly praising the game and talking about how awesome it was. Its sales figures (before it rose to triple digits in the second-hand trade that is) would tell you otherwise. This is so prevalent the satirical Video Game news website Hard Drive have an article that they retweet every now and then that makes fun of this phenomenon.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The photo-man will interrupt the game, sometimes next to enemies, to force you through about 60 seconds of "dialogue" that never changes after the second time he appears. While most of his photographs can be skipped with prior knowledge, there are a few that are basically impossible to skip.
    • "Homesickness" can be an inconvenience at certain parts of the game- specifically from around the time Ness leaves Onett to the when he absorbs the power of Magicant. There's no way of telling when Ness will get it, and if the symptoms pop up during a major battle, you're probably screwed. At least with other pain-in-the-butt status ailments like Mushroomization or Diamondization an experienced player can know what to expect and how to avoid it, but with this? No chance. The only thing good about the homesickness mechanic is that it adds a layer to Ness's characterization.
    • Mushroomization is a status ailment that can't be cured without walking back to town. Since it can cause party members to randomly target each other instead of the enemy (with often lethal results), you can't ignore it. But the main feature of the ailment is an Interface Screw that makes walking around annoyingly difficult, so that trudge back to the hospital can leave you with all your hair pulled out.
    • Condiments to some. Not only are they impractical because said space they take up could better be used for another healing item, as well as generally taking up precious inventory space, it's all too easy to forget you have one in your inventory if you don't immediately drop it and end up accidentally wasting one of your healing items since they activate whenever you use a food item, regardless if it would work well with said item. The only time many players use them is to exploit the aforementioned Rock candy + Sugar packet trick.
    • Inventory management and Escargo Express in general. The $18 fee is a pittance and they're much faster than Mach Pizza, but you can't call them in some areas of the game, which happen to be the areas where you find a lot of good stuff you don't want to throw away or leave behind but can't carry. A surprising amount of items you'd think would be one-use, like the pencil eraser, aren't, so you have to find a place to call Escargo Express and engage in inventory tetris. And then, if you are at all conservative with item use you WILL run out of space by around Fourside. Not to mention that half of Ness's inventory is taken up by useless-in-battle stuff like his ATM card and the Sound Stone, although you can trick the game into sending the latter to Escargo Express by loading up on Cookies early game, you know, before you'd ever think to do so, that Poo requires all his own food... It never really gets better.
    • Your father calling you every once in a while (couple hours) to remind you to save your game makes sense on its original system, but it can get frustratingly annoying on the 3DS, whose virtual console is perfectly capable of letting you continue from the second you stopped playing. It can be annoying to start up the game and immediately get a message saying you've been playing a while and should take a break.
    • Newer players may become somewhat frustrated with the fact that pressing the "A" button, instead of being a generic action button like in most other RPGs on the Super Nintendo, instead opens a menu, where you have to choose the action you want to take. Doubly so if they don't know it's actually the L button that's the "action" button.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge:
    • A common challenge is to obtain every single Rare Random Drop in the game.
    • The T-Rex's Bat Challenge centers around grinding enough money to buy the eponymous item when playing as solo Jeff in Winters. The drugstore there sells powerful equipment for the rest of the party at high prices, with the bat alone costing $698. They're meant to be bought when revisiting the area with the full party, but it's possible to grind up enough money to buy them early. However, since Jeff can't access the ATM at this point, the only way to get money is to sell the items occasionally dropped by enemies in the area for anywhere from six bucks to one. The T-Rex's Bat is usually targeted (hence the name of the challenge) due to it being the cheapest equipment there, but similar challenges exist for grinding up enough money to buy the $1490 Non-Stick Frypan, the $2500 Coin of Silence, and all three at once.
  • Sequel Displacement: Despite being the second game in the trilogy, EarthBound is by far the most well-known thanks to being the only one to get an American release when it first came out. (It's also rather standalone enough that the international audience generally don't know it's the second game in a series, between MOTHER and MOTHER 3.)
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: Ness/Lucas is surprisingly popular as a ship due to the fact that they both represent the Mother series in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, despite never meeting each other in actual game canon, or even appearing in the same game in their home series.
  • Signature Scene:
    • Battles against the New Age Retro Hippies, minor mooks that could practically be the mascot of the game, both for their music and for summing up a greater part of the game in a nutshell.
    • Trippy as it is, both scenes where you're prompted to stop, relax, and have a cup of coffee while you reflect on both victories and hardship is rather sweet. Whether it's from feels or confusion, it remains a pretty memorable scene. Being set to a gentle but uplifting song helps.
    • The trek across the desert in Scaraba with Brick Road in your party, now known as Dungeon Man. Not only is it unconventional to have an entire dungeon as a party member, but Dungeon Man hits like a truck, and his design is one of the most iconic in the entire game; not to mention the Beatles-inspired music accompanying him.
    • The moment when you've completed the Sanctuaries, and hear the complete melody of the Sound Stone while a flashback to Ness as an infant plays in the background is spellbinding. All before you enter Ness' Magicant.
    • Mainly because it stands out so much from the rest of the game, the final battle with Giygas is easily the most well-known part by those that have not played EarthBound Beginnings. For those who have played through it, the method used to defeat Giygas doubles down on this scene.
  • Slow-Paced Beginning: While not as drawn-out as the first three chapters of Mother 3, fans will readily admit that the earliest parts of the game are both dull and frustrating gameplay-wise:
    • The "tutorial" section itself is thankfully very brief and contains very weak enemies that allow the player to get used to the combat system, but the very next point in the story requires you to fight the Sharks gang, enemies that provide a marked Difficulty Spike from the tutorial enemies, with Frank and the Frankystein Mark II being a spike even from his underlings. It doesn't help that Ness's only real action other than attacking and running at this point is restoring his own HP with PSI, meaning that the fights with the Sharks essentially amount to hoping they will waste their turn or do their weak attack and hoping they won't call for help or use their strong attack, and the Sharks themselves are the only real method available to grind for the fight against Frank.
    • The combat thankfully starts getting interesting once Ness learns the alpha level of PK Rockin, but the enemies in the Giant Step dungeon and the boss fights against Titanic Ant and Captain Strong and his men are still quite overwhelming, and the player will quickly learn that, in spite of its great power, they should not spam PK Rockin due to its high PP consumption.
    • Next comes a Breather Episode in Twoson, but the Early Game Hell comes right back in Peaceful Rest Valley, which is full of dangerous and/or annoying enemies. Most agree that once Paula joins the party, the gameplay finally picks up thanks to both a more reasonable difficulty level as well as Ness and Paula having a greater variety of actions between them, but to this day, several newer players can still be turned off by the early portions of the game.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Considering that much of the game parodies western settings and culture, this happens a lot, so much so that fans mistakenly thought it was a factor behind the lack of an international re-release before 2013.
    • The bass line and melody of the song played in the Chaos Theater sound almost the same as the bass line and guitar portion from The Doors' song "Cars Hiss by My Window"; while the Runaway Five, who first appear there, play a song resembling another Doors song, "The Changeling."
    • Overall, the Runaway Five are a parody of the Blues Brothers from Saturday Night Live, so their songs sound very much like those featured in their eponymous 1980 movie.
    • The music heard after waking up from sleep uses the same progression as "Good Morning Good Morning" by The Beatles.
    • The song that plays during battles with Frank Fly and New Age Retro Hippies is very, very similar to the guitar break between the second and third verses of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."
    • The Skyrunner's organ music is very close to a similar part in The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".
    • A few Pink Floyd songs end up being quoted in this game's soundtrack:
  • That One Boss:
    • The Clumsy Robot. He has surprisingly powerful and devastating attacks that seriously damage the group, and you only have Ness and Jeff for that fight. He has an annoying amount of HP, and can eat a bologna sandwich to recover his health, although that in itself is load of baloney, since it doesn't do anything. Not that it keeps first time players from raging at it. Its attacks can solidify the group. All in all, it's a long, incredibly annoying battle. Though, he is fifty percent weak to paralysis.
    • Ness' Nightmare, which is likely to be a Nightmare for the player. First, you can only fight it with Ness alone (unless you're lucky enough to keep a Flying Man alive up to that point, which is hard enough in itself), and second, it has a wide arsenal of Ness' abilities, tends to constantly use Lifeup and power shields on itself, before whaling on you with PSI Rockins, sometimes casting Rockin Ω, which will likely one-shot Ness at that point in the game. It's such a pain that most people find the most effective strategy with dealing with it is to stall it out until it has no PP left, and even then, doing such is a hard feat in and of itself.
    • The absolute earliest of these is, for many players, likely to be Captain Strong. Both because he strikes after battles against four of Onett's finest cops(there were five, but the last one bails while the getting's good), and because he does a lot of damage, and can increase his offensive power. If you think you're getting past him without a LOT of prep...well...you're wrong.
    • Mondo Mole can be this. His offense is high enough as it is, but he's fond of buffing it with Offense Up, at which point he'll likely be able to take out a SHIELDED Ness in only a couple of turns, much less Paula whose HP and defense are guaranteed to be far below Ness'. To make matters worse, he's highly resistant to ice, making Paula's main single-target offensive option useless, as she'll still be doing less damage than Ness' normal attacks with her PSI Fire. That leaves her with PSI Thunder, her only option of hitting him hard and that's only if you're lucky enough for it to actually hit. To top it off, he's also capable of using Lifeup and PSI Shield, essentially making your new party member useless in this battle. It's no wonder the player's guide warns you it may take a couple tries to beat him. However, as mentioned above under Anti-Climax Boss, you can avoid all of this by paralyzing him, as he's highly susceptible to paralysis, and being paralyzed renders him about as threatening as a potato.
    • The first Kraken. It has several massively damaging party hitting attacks that, if not one-shotting a party member will at least leave them very close to death. You'll pretty much be using either Ness or Poo as a dedicated healer throughout the fight and even if Paula is boosted up on stat boosting items and Jeff is spamming Big Bottle rockets, the Kraken still takes a long time to go down because of its massive amount of HP. Worse still; you can't even abuse its status weakness since near all its attacks are PSI based and paralysis only stops physical attacks; it might buy you a turn at most but it doesn't majorly help when near everyone's HP is scrolling down to death. It's little wonder why most walkthroughs will recommend using one of the sanctuaries to grind at before facing it. Worst part is, it's possible to encounter it way before you're expected to, when your characters would be grossly underleveled for dealing with it. By Magicant, while Ness will be leveled up enough to take them down in a few turns, it doesn't stop them from being a massive thorn in your side thanks to needing to reserve your HP and PP for Ness' Nightmare, as stated above.
  • That One Level:
    • Peaceful Rest Valley. While the game itself is subjected to Early Game Hell, no more so does it apply than here, so much so it's as if the localization team realized this, and intentionally gave it an Ironic Name to troll the player.note  As for why Peaceful Rest Valley is so bad...
      • The most infamous enemy found in this locale is the Territorial Oak, which explodes on defeat for more damage than Ness likely has HP at this point. The only realistic solution is to flee - either out of combat, as the oaks are mercifully slow, or from battle if you get caught, as any damage the oak does to you while you try to escape will probably be less than the explosion if you choose to kill it. While the explosion isn't likely to outright kill you unless your HP were low to begin with, since the battle will mercifully end before your rolling HP reach zero, it still does enough damage to make it a drain on resources, and is guaranteed to destroy a Teddy Bear, if you decided to take one with you.
      • In addition to Territorial Oaks, it has several other Goddamn Bats in the form of quick-moving enemies on the overworld that use rather unpredictable movement patterns. Two of them, Lil' UFOs and Spinning Robos, can inflict the Cold status, which isn't that dangerous but eats up either 5 PP for a Healing cast or a Cold Remedy that takes up inventory space.
      • Mobile Sprouts are not particularly powerful, but in addition to being able to summon more of themselves in battle, they can also use PSI Magnet to drain Ness' PP. If you have extremely bad luck, it's possible to get into a fight with one and by the time you're done fighting its damn offspring be completely drain of all of Ness' PP.
      • Besides the above hazards, Ness is still alone, enforcing the same Early Game Hell issues that have existed up to this point.
      • It's also a trap for first-time players in that they may have "upgraded" Ness's bat for a Yo-Yo or Slingshot: Weapons that do have higher attack power but have much lower accuracy.
    • The gold mine in Dusty Dunes Desert is a lengthy and confusing maze that is easy to get lost in without a map. The bosses by themselves aren't particularly threatening, but to clear the area, you must defeat all five of them, and because the dungeon is so large and confusing, you're likely to revisit their spots over and over again. In addition, two of the enemies found here have the ability to poison your party members, necessitating that Ness waste his precious PP to cure it. One of the areas thankfully lets you pick up an Exit Mouse, letting you leave whenever you want, but said room is very deep into the dungeon.
    • The Department Store in Fourside is another infamous Difficulty Spike. All the monsters there have ridiculous offense at that point in the game, especially the Scalding Coffee Cups, which attack your entire party. Making matters even worse, this is at the point where Paula gets kidnapped, and you are left without your PSI powerhouse to help you through the level. Also, the enemies not only can be paired in such a way that they can KO your crew in a few hits by putting both your party members to sleep and then whittling your HP down to nothing. This scenario can occur the instant you step off an escalator, with literally no possible chance of avoiding it, as the enemies will swarm you while you're still riding it. It's so hard, the first several times through, you might not even make it to the boss, and even then you might lose to him as well.
    • The sewers in Fourside leading to Magnet Hill are surprisingly difficult. The Filthy Attack Roaches can use "continuous attacks" that can inflict multiple hits that are likely deadly to Paula, a Squishy Wizard who's probably fallen behind in levels as a result of her time being abducted. The Deadly Mice can inflict deadly Smash attacks, even if their normal hits do Scratch Damage. The Stinky Ghosts are highly resistant to Physical attacks and can inflict Possession on you. The boss isn't that bad, but good luck reaching him without losing anyone or running out of PP.
    • Deep Darkness. It's a maze level filled to the brim with water that can slowly kill you since Ness and co. can't swim, with large areas filled with said deep water, and even when your head's above the water you still move at a snail's pace while some of the enemies in the area (especially the Hard Crocodile and electric eels) not only have full movement speed but also move faster in the water. It also doesn't help that more than 60% of the map is covered in water, and while you can use Teleport α to move across some of the bodies of water faster there are plants everywhere that will stop you just short of dry land, and you fight the area's boss in the deep water that damages you over time. Thankfully you only need to go through Deep Darkness once.
    • The gauntlet consisting of the upper and lower floors of the Lost Underworld, and the Lethal Lava Land preceding Fire Spring. The upper floor starts off by drowning you in Fobbies, which, like their weaker counterparts Foppies back in Saturn Valley, pose about as much of a threat as big, overinflated orange balloons stuffed with EXP. However, after that come the demonic spider duo of Uncontrollable Spheres, which hit hard and explode, and Conducting Spirits, which, like the Conducting Menaces back in Dalaam, love to spam PSI Flashes, which, thankfully, don't One-Hit Kill you that much, but tend to cripple you with Paralysis and Crying, making it harder to put them down. Oh, and their PSI Thunders tend to hit everyone much more often than it would if YOU used them, much like a certain OTHER Thunder. Electro Specter isn't too hard, in fact, he's downright tame compared to what comes next. Then you have to beat up the dinosaurs on the lower floor, who all have shields and high HP. Except the Wetnosaur, for some reason. And after this comes the trek to Fire Spring, which is crawling with Evil Elementals, which are easy to kill, sometimes even getting autofragged to a sneak attack, and Soul Consuming Flames. which are NOT, as they constantly "spit fireballs" (actually PSI Fire α, β, or γ in disguise.) Oh, and you can't tell which is which by the overworld sprite. For more fun, the Psychic Psychos make their debut here. The normal ones aren't too hard to handle, but the Major Psychic Psychos can spit out attacks all the way up to PSI Fire Ω. And then comes Carbon/Diamond Dog, who, as the name implies, is a Stone Wall that, after transforming into Diamond Dog, hits harder and occasionally Diamondizes. And then...
    • ...since you've (likely) visited all of the Your Sanctuary locations, Ness and Ness alone is immediately taken to Magicant. You start off in a small town-like area where you can buy things and heal, but the level itself is brutal. Numerous dangerous enemies, most notably the Care-Free Bombs, are here, and the narrow path makes avoiding fights luck based. Your only possible help comes in a Flying Man. Five live at the end of the town, and one will join you at a time. They're helpful for a while, but they'll likely get killed halfway in, and if you want to get another one, you'll have to go all the way back to the town. Once you finally reach the end, you're taken to the boss's lair. The area has three Kraken - the same that was a boss fought with the whole party - in the way, and the boss itself can use PSI Rockin Ω and a variant of Flash that can instantly kill you if you're not protected with the Night Pendant. And to make it all worse, the only phone is at the town. If Ness ever runs out of health before beating the boss, you're sent right back to town to do the trek all over again.
    • The return to Onett is a fitting difficulty spike to justify Ness's massive buffs in Magicant. Mechanical Octobots abound, which are able to constantly pilfer items from you. Items you were probably going to USE. (If it was a cheap item, less inventory tango for you.) Evil Eyes are in the mix as well, which, while they don't hit particularly hard, WILL spam Brainshock, which can cause your party to start attacking each other with PSI powers at random intervals. Worst of all are the Ghosts of Starmen, which, thanks to their constant use of Starstorm, will not be good for everyone's health.
    • The Cave of the Past takes all of that and kicks it up to eleven. It's infested with two variant of Starmen; the Final Starman, which CAN use PSI Starstorm, but doesn't use it as much, and the Ghost of Starman, which is self explanatory. In addition to this, you have Ultimate Octobots, too, which do one thing: steal early, steal often, at least in comparison to how much the Mechanical Octobots did. There's also a Bionic Kraken. For some reason. And last, but not least, the Nuclear Reactor Robots get thrown into the mix, which, as stated, can heal enemies and themselves fully and often, and they EXPLODE. Thankfully, they're the only exploding enemies there. Needless to say, you're gonna get VERY tired of the Kraken of the Sea and Battle Against a Machine themes. And then there's Giygas and Heavily Armored Porky afterwards....which is actually a cakewalk compared to the hell that came before, as it just boils down to paralyzing Porky and letting loose (phase 1) and spamming Defend and Pray (phase 2.)
  • Toy Ship: Ness and Paula; Tony and Jeff.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: It takes a lot of looking, especially since he gives you a ton of hell through the whole game, but Pokey winds up becoming this if you pay enough attention. On the surface, he's a bratty child who effectively becomes your worst nightmare and bullies you through the whole game in one fashion or another. Looking deeper, however, it becomes obvious that Aloysius and Lardna treat their children horribly, and finding Picky reveals that the younger brother is not only more mature, but is also less of a coward and more prone to helping than fear for himself. There's also Pokey's presence in Ness's own Magicant, implying Ness DOES have some feelings towards his neighbor and desires to be his friend despite their clear animosity towards one another for obvious reasons. A lot of this comes across as Pokey being an abused child lashing out at the world for how he's been treated and demeaned all his life, lacking any real chance to grow and overcome his issues, and with only Ness actually understanding (or possibly fruitlessly hoping) that all he really wanted was someone to at least care for once.
    • The ending to Mother 3 makes this even worse as both this game and that game shows, Pokey never returns to Onett, never coming home again, and winds up sealing himself away to live all of eternity in isolation, where he can never be hurt again...but can also never have anything truly good happen to him either to make up for his shitty hand in life. He may have done horrible things...but remember this is a kid probably about 13yrs old like Ness going through all this...
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Giygas, of all characters, despite being referred to as "he" throughout both this game and its predecessor. An NPC even remarks that he's heard that Giygas might be female, although the Japanese version of this line is very clearly a joke about how Giygas managed to accrue so many followers, with said NPC speculating that Giygas is a beautiful woman who recruited them through sex appeal. Once you actually get to Giygas, the lack of anything resembling a physical body leaves the situation completely ambiguous to anyone who didn't play the first MOTHER, which is probably most English-speaking fans, especially before 2015. Although, to be fair, it's not as though Giygas' appearance in that game is especially-gendered, either, thanks to the small size of the sprite and Giygas' nature as an alien. The fact that his loving adoptive mother refers to him as, well, "him", is probably a good indicator of his gender, though.
    • Adding to the confusion, the work of a certain Japanese fan has begun a proliferation of fan art featuring Giygas as female, with (possibly) Non-Mammal Mammaries, no less.
  • Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: According to localizer Marcus Lindblom, Giygas' name is officially meant to be pronounced "gee-gus" (with hard g's), matching his Japanese name, Gyiyg (pronounced "geeg," again, with hard g's). However, thanks to an ad where the announcer mispronounced his name, English-language fans often assume that it's meant to be read as "guy-gas." Some fans also prefer the "guy gas" pronunciation because it sounds cooler and more intimidating.
  • Vindicated by History: In 1995, EarthBound had poor sales and received mixed reviews from critics in North America. Today, it's regarded as one of the greatest RPGs for the SNES and one of the best games of the 1990s. It's telling that when the game was finally released on the Virtual Console, it quickly rose to second place in the Wii U digital shop's "recent best sellers" list in America. It was beaten only by Donkey Kong, which at the time was on sale for thirty cents... and then it surpassed Donkey Kong while it was still on sale. It also topped the same chart in other countries. Furthermore, a large Miiverse community quickly formed around the game composed of both old and new players.
  • Watch It for the Meme: Many gamers, especially in countries without an official release, first heard about this game from Super Smash Bros., but what made some of them curious to play it was the infamous Giygas battle which became hot on the Internet.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For all its happy-go-lucky goofiness, EarthBound gets notoriously dark sometimes. What other SNES game can you think of that involves stuff like religious fanaticism, police brutality, rape symbolism, dismemberment, and a nightmare-inducing Eldritch Abomination? Then again, many a fan agrees that this is one of the game's best features. Averted on the Wii U Virtual Console, it got a T rating instead of the old E rating.
  • Woolseyism:
    • Barring the Bowdlerisation, this game had a really good localization. For example, the fan favourite enemy New-Age Retro Hippie, often cited for his quirkiness and hilarious name, was originally just 'Carefree Man' in Japanese. A lot of the Japanese wordplay had to either be repurposed with an English equivalent or thrown out for and replaced with a joke that fit the situation. Most localization edits (both for the good and for the bad) are covered in depth by Legends of Localization, both on their site and in a dedicated book about the English release of EarthBound. At least one change makes sense, since instead of "Cafe", the JP version had "Bar". Kids aren't allowed in bars in America, you know (well, maybe a Bar and Grille...).
    • One of the cultists in the Happy Happy Village was shivering in fear ("buru buru", which sounds a lot like their chant) in the Japanese version. In the localization, he's trying to whistle instead ("blew blew").
    • The Camera Man in Japanese tells Ness and co. to say, "cheese sandwich," when he takes their picture, which is a decent play on words, but in English, he tells them instead to say, "fuzzy pickles." This serves to not only be a unique, one-of-a-kind Funny Photo Phrase, but also ended up becoming somewhat of a catchphrase for the western EarthBound community because of how charming a phrase such as "fuzzy pickles" is.

Alternative Title(s): Earth Bound

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