These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Earth Bound
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 awesome battle music, or the groovy tunes of the Runaway Five, EarthBound's music is very high quality.
Crazy Awesome: The game itself. Let's see, 10 year old blowing up starships? Yep. A pile of barf functions as a boss? You betcha. A coffee cup being one the deadliest enemies in the game? Pff, c'mon, get creative!
Demonic Spiders: Most notably, the trees on the way to Peaceful Rest Valley. You see, when you defeat these things, they explode. Now, later in the game, they'll explode on one character, and the characters next to him will receive smaller damage. But here, Ness gets it all. And explosions HURT, usually doing enough damage to kill Ness in this early part of the game. Fortunately for Ness (and the player), he is a Determinator (see Main tab).
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 Omega 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 I 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.
Ensemble Darkhorse: This series is the Ensemble Darkhorse of Nintendo games.
Also, compare Tony's relevance to the plot to his appearance in fan art and fan fiction.
Fobbies are probably the most popular enemies.
Epileptic Trees: The long running Giygas/Fetus/Abortion "theory", albeit with a single grain of truth involved.*
That being the inspiration for Giygas was the sick, disgusting feelings that Itoi felt upon accidentally seeing a certain scene in a movie. Most believe he remembered it as a rape scene, but the interview where he mentioned this didn't specifically say, and the movie believed to be one he saw didn't actually contain any rape.
Just to clarify, the final battle takes place between Mother, where Giygas was a full-grown alien, and the start of EarthBound.
To further elaborate, the theory revolves around the background image in the later phases of the Giygas fight looking like a child in its mother's womb. The "YOU WERE SENT BACK IN TIME TO ABORT A FETUS" element was introduced later. *
First Installment Wins: Averted; 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.
Forced Level Grinding: A little, mostly just to get Ness and Paula's levels up early in game.
Game Breaker: The Rock Candy + Sugar Packet trick. (Ab)Using this leads to characters with erroneously higher stats than they normally would have.
Multi Bottle Rockets. As a payoff for their immense power, they were intended to be too expensive to buy in large amounts, but by the time you can buy them, this is simply not the case. Jeff can kill almost any boss in a single hit with them, and they are even more powerful than the Bag of Dragonite, of which there are only 6. They are even stronger when combined with the Rabbit's Foot, as their strength is relative to Jeff's speed.
Any mushroom enemy that inflicts Mushroomization. Which is nearly all of them.
Earlier on: Goddamn crows!
Very far into the game, the Nuclear Reactor Robots. These things can fully heal themselves every turn, and explode when they are defeated, dealing huge amounts of damage. Couple that with some other enemies in the same area..
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 Captain finishes EarthBound, asks, "Where's the sequel?". Well...
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.
Th-the Boogey Tent...it's bad enough as-is, but isn't there a slit in between its jaws, and around that, the inside of his mouth colored slightly differently? Like there's something inside his mouth that he just hasn't swallowed yet?
One word: Ambush!
Why hasn't anyone mentioned MOONSIDE yet?! IT IS FREAKIN' SCARY!
"Homesickness" can be an inconvenience at certain parts of the game. 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.
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.
Scrappy Level: The Third Sanctuary is one, mostly thanks to a large number of mushroom enemies that attack before the party can move and that are hard to take out in one shot with fire attacks at the normal level you encounter them. And you don't even get to sell the mushrooms for $50 at the nearest hospital.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Believe it or not... Giygas. Giygas is referred to as "he" throughout the game, but an addition to being an alien, an NPC even remarks that they can't be sure of "his" gender because no one has ever seen "him". Adding to the confusion, the work of a certain Japanese fan has begun a proliferation or fan art featuring Giygas as female.
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.
Woolseyism: If the US translation has something good, it's the incredibly awesome enemy names.
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. Most localization edits (both for the good and for the bad) are covered in depth here.
