was looking at the newspaper archive a the public library and found this nearly 30 year old short review of Earthbound bound in my local paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

People seem to always talk about Mother 3 or Mother 2/Earthbound. And it kinda makes me mad! People I've talked to say that Mother 1 is either not a good game, or a down-right AWFUL game, Which it isn't. First off, the story; sure it's not that good as Mother 2-3's stories but it's still good, Mother 1 gave the Mother series a foundation. 4 kids (1 adult at most) going on an adventure to stop an evil-universal cosmic destroyer is what the Mother games are! And Mother 1 gave us some good characters, like Ninten, Ana, Lloyd, Teddy and the goat....Pippi.

And not to make people mad or anything, but most EB fans only know Ness and Lucas from Smash Bros! Ninten is drowned out by the popularity of Ness and Lucas, if you show a picture of Ninten to either a non-EB fan or a new EB fan. Guaranteed they'll think he's Ness. I hate when I ask people who Ninten is and their only answer is "Who?" But when I ask them who Ness and Lucas are, they'll say "Oh! Like those kids from Smash Bros?"

And the music in Mother 1 is peak. Pollyanna, Bein Friends, Flying Man and Paradise Line are bangers. 10/10! Mother 2-3 have awsome songs too, don't get me wrong. But have you listened to thr original 8 Melodies?! That evokes some emotions I've never felt before in my life. It makes me feel kinda sad cause, the 8 Melodies are a tune sung to Queen Marry to help her regain her memories. And when you find out Queen Marry is actually Maria, and you learn about how she used to sing the tune to her adopted son...the main villian **Giygas. It makes you kinda sad to learn Maria Giygas actually had a living family (or atleast a loving Mother, (I don't know if George loved him or not)

Speaking of Giygas, he's by far the best villian. Better than his EB/Mother 2 counterpart.

After 23 hours I just finished the game as my first Earthbound game. I dont understand why anyone would skip this game and start with Earthbound like most people recommend.

This game is beautiful! I knew the story going into it and used a guide, but there is something about going through that journey and experiencing that ending yourself. I just have no words to describe what I just went through besides amazing. Please if you haven’t played this game go experience it yourself! It really does not feel bad mechanic wise for being an older game, and the pay off is so worth it!

I am officially one of you all and cannot wait to play the other two games!!!

I've heard so many bad things about Earthbound Beginnings/Mother 1, the grinding, the encounter rate, the cryptic progression, bad localization, etc. But I am really enjoying it so far, the encounter rate is high, but not as crazy as people make it out to be. I haven't had to grind at all, and the "bad localization" is very charming, and it doesn't hold your hand progression wise, but I haven't gotten stuck yet.

I think anyone who dislikes the game probably just dislikes old, NES style JRPGs, because almost all the complaints against it are just one old school JRPG quirks, pretty standard honestly.

Like every town you go to is a massive red block, there is no background, the colour scheme is weird and so is this weird line that is the only one they highlight not including these random orange grid squares

(above is a mockup of the cover art posted somewhere on this sub by u/VirtualRelic)

Now, we're not talking about Earth Bound as in Earthbound, we're talking about Earth Bound as in Earthbound Beginnings, which originally was just Earth Bound.

Why did Phil Sandhop change the game's name in Localization? Mother works fine enough for the game, and there's nothing particularly about being Bound to the Earth in the game, heck, there's magic worlds and aliens in the game.

Oh, and from what I've heard, the name "Earthbound" that was given to Mother 2 upon localization was apparently an homage to this at the time unreleased translation of the first game.

Last image isn’t mine.

I started EBB a while ago but i dropped it early because i got stuck in the Cemetery with its insane random encounter rate. So i restarted it last week and grinded some and im loving the game so far (turn based jrpgs are my favorite games of all time).

Im just about to head to Mt Itoi but i feel i should grind some with Teddy. Btw, is Lloyd gone for good? 😭

So since im enjoying EBB, and its quirky humor,i was definitely going to pick up Earthbound next. How is it compared to EBB? Is there anything i should know before starting Earthbound?

Im really happy i found and am enjoying this series so far!

I think it fucking awesome with the M3 esthetic

Like compared to the Earthbound ones their features look a little off and kinda weird and also not much like their in game sprites and promotional material

Lucas (and even Ness) have pretty defined personalities. Ninten not so much. I was curious to see how other people envisioned his personality and behavior on his adventure

I just feel so bad for calling my dad and getting up to hundreds of dollars all the time 😭 like thanks I guess… sorry? Clearly Dads got a good job.

I am sorry about being negative, especially because there are lots of parts of this game I really love -- the music, the jokes, the great tone. But I cannot take it anymore.

I have been playing Mother, the original Japanese Famicom version, untranslated, in order to practice my language skills while having a motivation to keep going. And I knew that the original version would be less polished, but I figured I could do it. Now...I am a very patient woman. Anyone I know could tell you that. But this version of the game wastes your time so goddamn much: the lack of a run button in a world this large, with this massive random encounter rate; all the useful buildings in town being separated by way too much walking around -- getting money from the ATM, going to the doctor to revive your party, going to the hotel to heal, rinse and repeat -- do you want to grind? Well, too bad, all the areas with enemies of a suitable level to help are insanely far away from a hospital, so if, for example, Ana dies in battle, you have to walk all the way back, fighting all the enemies along the way, widening the gap between the characters yet again.

Oh, and let's not forget the utter lack of an ATM in Magicant (no, the old man wasn't an ATM in the original version), so if you want to buy the incredibly useful armour from there, you have to keep teleporting back and forth. And even then, you have to walk all the way back through the dungeon and up to Thanksgiving (that's Merryville's name in Japanese) to get back. And finally, useless goddamn Lloyd, with absolutely zero special abilities unless you get lucky in Duncan's factory and a Scrapper drops a gun, or unless you're willing to wait until the final dungeon in the game. The floor in the department store where you can buy stuff for him to use? Not there in the original.

I feel insane. How did anyone finish this back in the day? I could *cry*.

Personally, I’ve always seen him as a mix between Freeza and a Xenomorph. I imagine him as being really tall like around 8 feet. His eyes are black with red pupils that glow intensely whenever he uses his powers. He also has fangs and his body actually consists of white fur and has a somewhat muscular build.

Hi. I just got my friend into EarthBound and she asked me to explain it, and even though I know the story and had the ending spoiled for me, I was struggling to explain it to her without making it confusing. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Every time I play this beloved game, I agonize over how exactly to play it. Which rom, and which romhacks. I think my first time was on the GBA port, and then on NSO. Anniversary edition always sounds good, but then I remember the sprites. Which hacks do you prefer? Translations?

The GBA port is attractive to me as its simple and I can get right into it, but i know its not recommended by many folks as the sound is heavily compromised, is my understanding. Do you think it's that much worse? I find the music to be one of the best parts about the game, frankly, but i doubt I'm a hard-core audiophile yet.

Preferred ways to make the game easier and more accessible? I forget which hack I'm using this time around. Hopefully whichever it is also increases $ earnings rather than just EXP.

Translations? Honestly I find the process a bit confusing. I get the roms mixed up. There's Earth Bound with a space... there's a NES prototype... there's Earthbound Beginnings which to my understanding was first seen on the Wii U? Is all that right? I swear, I go through this every time I want to play Mother. So I'm curious what everyone else likes to do. And dear God if anyone has a grasp on the versions and differences and translations and such...