History YMMV / EarthBound

** The cathartic pop as you instantly K.O. a weak monster, followed by the [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal triumphantly trilling trumpet tune.]]

** A popular theory is that Ness's Mother is really a grown up Ana from ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' 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 WeaponOfChoice. Given the fact that Ness resembles Ninten and Ninten and Ana being shown as an OfficialCouple by the end of the game, they further 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 [[PreachersKid 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. 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 really good reason to be TheChosenOne.

* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: It's a safe bet to say that one thing most people know about the game is its [[SurpriseCreepy infamous]] [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm final boss]]. Some don't even realize there's a whole cartoony adventure role-playing game juxtaposed against that jarring final battle.

** 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.

---> "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."

** Earlier on: Goddamned [[BanditMook thieving]] crows!

** Very far into the game, the 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 in the same area...

** The sewers in Fourside is surprisingly difficult. The Filthy Attack Roaches can use "continuous attacks" that can inflict multiple hits that are likely deadly to Paula, a SquishyWizard who's probably fallen behind in levels as a result of her time being abducted. The Stinky Mice can inflict deadly Smash attacks, even if their normal hits do ScratchDamage. 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.

** The return to Onett and The Cave of the Past that come afterwards are, fittingly for the penultimate and [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon ultimate dungeon,]] very hard. In Onett, Starmen and Mechanical Octobots abound, the former slapping you silly with hard hitting attacks, while the latter constantly [[BanditMook pilfer items from you.]] Items you were probably going to USE. (If it was a cheap item, less inventory tango for you.) Rarely, a Ghost of Starman jumps into the fray, which, as stated in the DemonicSpiders entry, will not be good for everyone's health. Evil Eyes are in the mix as well, which, while they don't hit particularly hard, WILL spam Brainshock, which is basically the equivalent of a Golbat using Confuse Ray on your whole party. The Cave of the Past takes all of that and kicks it UpToEleven. It's infested with two variant of Starmen; the Final Starman, which CAN use PK 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 fullly 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 Pokey afterwards....which is actually a cakewalk compared to the hell that came before, as it just boils down to paralyzing Pokey and letting loose (phase 1) and spamming Defend and Pray (phase 2.)

** 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...

** Mondo Mole, but only if [[AchillesHeel paralyzed]], which he very, very easily gets hit with. If you don't paralyze him though, he's ThatOneBoss.

** Any boss can be this really after getting access to Multi-Bottle Rockets, which can one-shot almost all of them, making them all nothing more than a joke. See GameBreaker below for elaboration.
** Assuming you're not just going to use a Multi-Bottle Rocket to take them out in one hit, Thunder and Storm are weak to PK Freeze, which both Paula and Poo can use, allowing them both to deal a ton of damage to them each turn. Rarely does this fight ever last long for anyone.
** The first part of the FinalBoss has a dual weakness that makes it hard to get hurt. [[spoiler:Porky is weak to Paralysis and Giygas only uses PSI. Paralyzing Porky and putting PSI Shield α or Σ (not β or Ω, which will cause you to get hit anyway) will make you invincible until the shield runs out. And note that Heavily-Armed Pokey takes 1/7ths of the normal damage from [[GameBreaker Multi-Bottle Rockets]], and they have a high chance of not working on Giygas, so it's telling that even with the Multi-Bottle Rockets out of the picture, the first phase of the final boss still manages to be easy.]]
** The final boss in general can be this, at least in terms of difficulty, [[spoiler:once you realize that his "incomprehensible attack" is actually just an alternate battle message meant to mask that he's using ordinary abilities—specifically, PSI Thunder β, PSI Flash γ, and a special PSI Freeze α reconfigured to target all opposing combatants—and these abilities do ''not'' bypass resistances and immunities granted by equipment. Just make sure Paula has the Franklin Badge and either a Sea or Star Pendant, put the Diadem of Kings on Poo, and Night, Sea, or Star Pendants on Ness and Jeff, and the main portion of the battle becomes ''very'' difficult to lose. Your mileage may vary on how much this actually detracts from the ''atmosphere'' of the fight, though.]]

* NightmareFuel: See [[NightmareFuel/{{MOTHER}} here]].
** Giygas probably has enough fuel to have a whole subpage for himself.
*** [[spoiler:[[MadnessMantra NESS NESS NESS NESS NESS NESS NESS NESS NESS]]]].
** [[HopeSpot "Paula's prayer was absorbed by the darkness."]]
** The Boogey Tent can be a bit scary as its face appears out of nowhere when you approach it.
** Moonside and all of its surreality.
** Poo's Mu Training. An ancestral ghost that breaks your legs and tears off your arms, then removes your senses of sight and sound which leaves you with only your mind which he vows he will one day take as well, is a bit unsettling considering the cartoonish nature of the game up until that point. The eerie humming throughout the scene only makes it worse... and the fact that the game audio ''completely cuts out'' when the spirit takes away Poo's sense of hearing? Eesh...

* TearJerker: a given with the ''MOTHER'' franchise.
** When you play the first ''MOTHER'', and discover Giygas's origins, you just might feel sorry for him. Almost.
** [[SkywardScream They killed Buzz Buzz!]]
** When Jeff meets his dad for the first time in ten years, it is painfully awkward. Especially sad if you've been through something like that yourself.
** Let's just say the final song of the game, "Smiles and Tears" describes the ending perfectly.

** The [[spoiler: first]] Kraken. It has several ''massively'' damaging party hitting attacks that, if not [[OneHitKill 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. [[spoiler: By Magicant, while Ness will be leveled up enough to take them down in a few thorns, it doesn't stop them from being a [[GoddamnBats massive thorn in your side]] thanks to needing to reserve your HP and PP for Ness' Nightmare, as stated above.]]

** 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!

** 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 it ''again''. They also hold the incredibly rare Goddess Ribbon for Paula.

* EpicRiff: The phasing synth riff from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4z82byt5mA Porky Means Business]]. When fighting Pokey, 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.

** 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. 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 Rock Candy Glitch is this, already mentioned under GameBreaker above.[[note]]In a nutshell, if a character has a condiment, and an item is at the bottom of the inventory is used in battle, the item will be used without being consumed.[[/note]] What it didn't elaborate on though is that it works 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.

* Due to the Sound Stone being a ClingyMacguffin, many players aware of this glitch usually farm their inventory full before reaching the meteorite to meet Buzz Buzz, who eventually tries to give the Sound Stone to Ness, but notices his full inventory and gives it to his sister for safekeeping. It still works when taken to Your Sanctuary places, meaning that the player can free up one inventory slot for the majority of the game, provided that they don't speak to Tracy personally in Onett to pick it up until you reach all of the Sanctuary spots.

** The gauntlet consisting of the upper and lower floors of the Lost Underworld, and the LethalLavaLand preceding Fire Spring. The upper floor starts off by drowning you in Fobbies, which, like their weaker counterparts Foppies back in Saturn Valley, [[PinataEnemy 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 PK Flashes, which, thankfully, don't OneHitKill you that much, but tend to cripple you with Paralysis and Crying, making it harder to put them down. Oh, and their PK Thunders [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard tend to hit everyone much more often]] than it would if YOU used them, much like a certain [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue 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. [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers 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 [[SarcasmMode 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 StoneWall that, after transforming into Diamond Dog, hits harder and occasionally Diamondizes. And then...

** 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 comprised 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, [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolic]], than literal.

** A popular theory is that Ness's Mother is really a grown up Ana from ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' 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 WeaponOfChoice. Given the fact that Ness resembles Ninten and Ninten and Ana being shown as an OfficialCouple by the end of the game, they further 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 1990's, and ''Beginnings'' is set in the 1980's. 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 [[PreachersKid 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. 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 really good reason to be TheChosenOne.

** “[[NightmareFuel Cursed Images]] but with Earthbound (and occasionally ''Mother 3'') music”. Videos on Website/YouTube showing bizarre images with The battle HUD and music from the two aforementioned games in the background. Probably inspired by the games' many, many weird enemies and the fact that the things in the cursed images would probably fit right in among them.
** [[FlatWhat WH]][[BigWhat AT]]/HOW [[labelnote:Explanation]]A meme involving mysterious or bizarre occurences set to the "Sanctuary Guardian" theme around the 0:21 mark. Also used to lampshade disturbing occurrences like the "Disturbed Tom" meme.[[/labelnote]]

** [[GoodBadBugs Via exploitation of a glitch]], often dubbed "the Rock Candy trick" by players, you can get your characters to have insanely high stats, with HP so high (higher than 999) that the game doesn't even know how to display it properly. The glitch happens as follows; if you use a food item 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, and by several extra points when combined with either a sugar packet or delisauce. By (ab)using it over and over, your characters will have erroneously high stats. If FridgeBrilliance sets in, getting kids hyped up on sugar would totally add a new level of depth to the game.

** The Rock Candy Glitch, also mentioned under GameBreaker above. Basically if you put a sugar packet together with a Rock Candy in your inventory, you'll get a 2 stat increase instead of 1 stat increase which is very useful for the stats that get upgraded, especially with Vitality or IQ, as it can raise your HP or PP significantly. But, when you use a Sugar Packet to consume the Rock Candy, a glitch occurs where only the Sugar Packet gets consumed, the Rock Candy will still stay in your inventory as long as you keep using a Sugar Packet to eat it. So basically, you can give everyone ridiculous amounts of HP and PP with this glitch per level up, making uses of higher level PSI techniques and their ridiculous costs (specifically, Ness's PK Rockin') a lot more negligible and spammable. The stuff you can do with this is crazy, like you can effectively remove Paula's weakness as a SquishyWizard and give her HP comparable to Ness if you want. And if you're diligent and lucky enough, you could even do stuff like make Ness as fast or faster than the rest of his party. You can even get your HP meter to go up into the Thousands, though, doing this will glitch out the HP Meter a bit, as the game never intended for someone's HP to go past 999 in vanilla game, so if you take damage while your HP is this high, the damage will be ''instant'' and immediately drop your HP to the amount of HP you'd have after you took damage, instead of rolling down. This was taken out in the MOTHER 1+2 release, but remained for the VC release due to the VC using the SNES version of the game.

** The Walk Through Walls / Staircase glitch. When a character has a status affliction that depletes their HP on the overworld reaches low health, a message will appear warning them of this. If the message happened to show up when a player is getting off or on a staircase, collision detection gets disabled, meaning that Ness's party can 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 freely. The glitch is fixed by walking onto another staircase. 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 Rock Candy Glitch. Basically if you put a sugar packet together with a Rock Candy in your inventory, you'll get a 2 stat increase instead of 1 stat increase which is very useful for the stats that get upgraded, especially with Vitality or IQ, as it can raise your HP or PP significantly. But, when you use a Sugar Packet to consume the Rock Candy, a glitch occurs where only the Sugar Packet gets consumed, the Rock Candy will still stay in your inventory as long as you keep using a Sugar Packet to eat it. So basically, you can give everyone ridiculous amounts of HP and PP with this glitch per level up, making uses of higher level PSI techniques and their ridiculous costs (specifically, Ness's PK Rockin') a lot more neglible and spammable. The stuff you can do with this is crazy, like you can effectively remove Paula's weakness as a SquishyWizard and give her HP comparable to Ness if you want. And if you're diligent and lucky enough, you could even do stuff like make Ness as fast or faster than the rest of his party. You can even get your HP meter to go up into the Thousands, though, doing this will glitch out the HP Meter a bit, as the game never intended for someone's HP to go past 999 in vanilla game, so if you take damage while your HP is this high, the damage will be ''instant'' and immediately drop your HP to the amount of HP you'd have after you took damage, instead of rolling down. This was taken out in the MOTHER 1+2 release, but remained for the VC release due to the VC using the SNES version of the game.

* ItsEasySoItSucks: Averted. ''[=EarthBound=]'' is almost as easy as ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' and is by far much easier than ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'', albeit with [[EarlyGameHell a relatively difficult and unforgiving first few hours]], but the game is so bizarre and fun that hardly anyone complains.

* NightmareFuel:

** [[FlatWhat WH]][[BigWhat AT]]/HOW [[labelnote:Explanation]]A meme involving mysterious or bizarre occurences set to the "Sanctuary Guardian theme around the 0:21 mark. Also used to lampshade disturbing occurrences like the "Disturbed Tom" meme.[[/labelnote]]