I grew up in the 90s and owned an SNES. However, I have no memory of Earthbound ever existing. I remember no advertisements, products in stores, or anyone ever talking about it. It was probably not until I played Smash Bros on the N64, but even then I hardly remember Ness in that game. I don't remember anyone talking about the game until the 2000s, when it seemed to be a niche but well-liked game online in certain circles. However, it seems that nowadays everyone loves this game and played it as a kid. Did I miss something? Did anyone here ever play it or remember it?
>>12333625I had the same experience, and I even was getting gaming mags in the SNES era. I found out from Smash 64 as well. It does look like a very shitty game just at a glance, I probably just glossed over it thinking it was shovelware.
>>12333625Unironically, no one gave a shit about this game until Super Smash Bros Brawl happened with that game having Ness, Lucas and Porky (as a boss) appear in it
>>12333625Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan) had a limited release and it was no a popular game. The game didn't have any memorable ads that featured the game well, so they're easy to miss. The "This game stinks" ads barely show the game off so someone quickly reading it will just see some text and keep reading without even seeing the title. It is the kind of game a lot of women and others like because it's quirky and quite easy so it became a cult hit over time. Now "everyone knows" it's a SNES classic.I guarantee you if I ask people who had a snes in 1995 who stopped playing games if they had heard of Earthbound there'd be a near 0% chance of it. It's only people keeping up with "retro games" like on /vr/ that have heard about it. I remember playing and getting bored of it on zsnes back in like 2003.
i remember the big ass box jumping off the shelf at babbage's. my brother bought it
It mostly became a thing when emulation became possible and people got to check out a much bigger part of the SNES library than they had grown up on. It's an English language RPG, so people that were into RPGs at the time were likely to give it a go, and word about it quickly spread through emulation communities.
>>12333625You were just a dumb casual who never looked at a gaming magazine or paid attention to the games in the display case.
It was a commercial flop, nobody played that game back in the day. It is one of those games that was rediscovered way after it flopped.
It came from a different timeline, the same one Sega Saturn came from.The merge of 2012 made a lot of mandela but also reverse mandela
>>12333625It's because it was a pre ff7 jrpg. I had the nintendo power woth the game featured and never read anything about it because at a glance it looked like some MC kids game for children, the type of game your mom buys you because she thinks children want to cosplay as children.
>>12333768Final Fantasy was huge pre-VII.>>12333753I think this must be it.
I mean it has a leg up on all the JRPGs that never came to America, which is most of them.
I got a copy before it spiked to hell, just as a JRPG enjoyer. I think it might be the local Blockbuster copy, either that or a GameStop pickup before they went to hell.
I remember hearing about it from a kid that I knew who was also in jRPGs, and there was some marketing buzz that had him excited, but at the time I was around 15 and more interested in smoking weed and finding girls than keeping up with new games. I didn't play it until several years later on ZSNES.
>>12333625My brother rented it when I was a really little kid. The only thing I ever knew about it was the photographer who said FUZZY PICKLES because me, my brother, and my sister all thought it was hilarious to say that any time we had our pictures taken.
>>12333641starmen.net was around since the first smash bros
>>12333896Every secondary thinks everyone else is a secondary too. Just ignore them.
Any LatAm bro ever saw Earthbound in stores back in the day?Nintendo had official distributors but I don't really remember seeing any EB in retail back then
>>12333641Ness was in 64 and Melee, too, you retard.
>>12333625>I remember no advertisements, products in stores, or anyone ever talking about itIt was very real. I didn't play it until after smash, but before smash I already knew about it through a few things.>big brother told me about the game (he might've tried it as his friends house, or just read about it in a magazine)>saw the giant boxes in stores>saw the scratch and sniff ads (and sniffed them)It seemed cool, just never got around to playing it until the early 2000s.
>>12333753>believing buzzfeed article baitouch!
>>12333842>15>smoking weedWhat ghetto are you from?
>>12334261This is a universally pretty popular time to start smoking weed in countries with a strong drug culture.
>>12333645This. Earthbound is notorious for having some of the worst marketing ever.
>>12334261It was the 90s and I was a head, I was the only nerd in my friend group. I remember people being shocked when they came into my room and I had a wall of books I had read. Besides, weed wasn't nearly as strong or expensive back then.
>>12333625It did pretty well in Japan, but had modest reach and sales in the U.S. Didn't completely bomb, but it really did not do as well as was hoped, which is probably why they decided it wasn't even worth releasing in Europe.I feel that the included guide is pretty telling that Nintendo Of America had very low confidence in it as a product and didn't know what to do with it. The emphasis on grossout humor in the marketing, while popular with kids at the time, both wasn't done too well and also somewhat mischaracterizes the game.SOME people did play it as kids back when it was new, but most of its appreciation in the west was later on. A so called cult game.>>12333842Did you like it?>>12333641Smash gave it new attention, but it already did so back on the N64.
>>12334468Weed was better back when it gave you just a little background buzz.
>>12333781Final fantasy wasn't huge pre 7. It was the best known game in a unknown genre.
>>12333625People who pirated the game as children in the 2010s or played a rerelease are now online and talking about old games.
>>12334468>It was the 90s and I was a headWhat happened to the rest of your body? Being just a head sounds difficult, so I get why you'd turn to drugs to cope.
>>12334650
>>12333625Earthbound didn't have a European release at the time, so if you're in the UK or anywhere else on the continent, you would only have played it if you imported it - which would have been prohibitively expensive.
>>12333625Bro what's Earthbound
>>12333625>I remember no advertisements, products in stores, or anyone ever talking about itNintendo Power had a bunch of advertising, and what few kids at school were actually into games liked it. Me and friend even read the player's guide it came with during recess.>Did anyone here ever play itOh, this is a troll post.
>>12333625Earthbound is one of those "games" that was actively popularized by blue haired pumpkin latte sipping millennial "journalist" polycules (after being indoctrinated to do so by their faggot uni professors). The same kind that pushed Anita Sarkeesian, Depression Quest and all that shit.No neurotypical heteronormative 90s kid ever as much as rented this dogshit.
>>12336450Man your timeline is all out of whack. That polycule journalist shit happened in the early 2010s, Earthbound was already getting well known after Smash, I remember in the mid 2000s random guys in high school playing it. The game didn't do great on launch, but it spread organically years later among people into games thanks to Smash Bros.
>>12336463Like you've got to keep in mind that emulators were getting big in the 2000s too, so people were trying a lot of old games they missed out on. Earthbound got attention due to Smash, but because people recognized it as a good and unique RPG it got popular.
>>12336463What year did that Smash even come out? I've never played one. Early internet had jRPG fans though, Earthbound was p. known if you were online.
>>12336501>What year did that Smash even come out?1999>I've never played one.You're missing out, they're super fun games. Give the series a shot.>Early internet had jRPG fans though, Earthbound was p. known if you were online.True, it always had fans and was known, especially to SNES RPG fans. I just mean there was a clear boost to its popularity online and off after Smash, and more people getting to try it on emulators.
>>12336501>>12337120As I recall it, Earthbound was known in the 90s and came up in RPG discussion sometimes, but other SNES RPGs were way bigger. Even among RPG fans online, people talked much more about Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, or even stuff like Lufia 2 and the Breath of Fire games. It wasn't until the 2000s that Earthbound's reputation rose to the level of those games.
>>12337132Though honestly, my memory could be off, especially since I only started going online much in the late 90s. Maybe someone else who was more involved online back in the day then has a better idea.
Thought this was funny
>>12337151>katherineim gonna go out on a limb and say that wasnt this person's name in 1995
>>12337151>children who had no clue what an RPG was respondedSome things never change.
>>12337231"Her" email address starts with "nic", so...
>>12338009nicegirlsfinishfast@ix.netcom.com
>>12337132The funniest thing to me is that nobody cared about Earthbound at all, and yet when the N64 was starving for any new RPGs suddenly Earthbound 64 was dangled like a carrot forever out of reach as THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING WHEN IT COMES OUT.
>>12333625Yes, the game got plenty of coverage in Nintendo Power (though it never had a cover story) and there was a famous (though perhaps misguided) "This Game Stinks" ad campaign that had the smelly stickers.Personally, I wanted to play the game but never thought it was using up a birthday or Christmas present for. The simplistic art style and modern setting definitely appealed to me.A new video store opened up in my down in fall 1996 and they had a copy of the game. I rented it and they even gave out the guide with it. I was immediately obsessed and it was one of my favorite SNES games. The crazy love people had for the game didn't start until well into the 2000s though.
Even during the hayday of the console wars, i met exactly zero people who had a console. More realistically, if they did, they did not talk about it. The idea of nerding out about a cutesy console game was completely unprecedented. You either talked about a gritty manly game, usually on pc, or you did not talk at all. Despite this, rom distribution was extremely prolific, on CDs and whatnot. There was clearly a desire to play these games, the culture just did not allow their discussion.Suffice to say, no earthbound in my childhood. Or anything else that I did not find on my own.But hey, at least I played some cool gritty games too. Soldier of Fortune and C&C Generals come to mind. (old enough to be retro, right?)
>>12333625It was famously a failure in the West, that's the second or third thing anyone mentions when introducing the game to people. There was a very dedicated and small online fanbase in the early 00s through forums and whatnot. Eventually with Smash Bros. including Ness, a few popular indie devs citing it as an inspiration, etc., the game grew a larger online following and now basically everyone who regularly reads about and/or discusses games online at least knows about it.
>>12336450That's a really long way of saying you got filtered. Get good kid.
>>12337151top kek
>>12338307This guy is Polish
>>12334261>anon outs himself as a sheltered churchboy no friend loser from a flyover stateyikes!
>>12333625I remember seeing it in walmart alongside Chrono trigger. My parents bought me pebble beach golfing instead.
>>12338859You can tell that it's another slavic country because HOMM didn't get mentioned
>>12333625Yes. I'm old and was in high school when it came out. I still haven't original boxed copy I bought in September 95. I loves it back then but it became retroactively popular so I never bring it up. But yeah, I loved it and got it the same weekend I got chrono trigger. It was all over Nintendo power
>>12333625This was my experience but with RPGs in general. Grew up with an SNES, almost all the kids I knew had one, but never stumbled onto an RPG. I learned what an RPG was through emulators in the early 2000s.
>>12340594It's fascinating how culture wasn't so uniform back then. I was playing RPGs before the NES existed. The internet and social media homogenized everything.
>>12340597In some ways it has, in other ways it has done the opposite. It's easier for less broadly appealing interests to develop with a level of seclusion from the big mainstream, because it's easier to access niche interests now (though the places to do so have become largely shit instead).I think that the big mainstream stuff has been very aggressively homogenized though, like the biggest budget games and movies haven't changed meaningfully in a decade, and in fact they have all started to take increasingly after each other so as to make themselves increasingly bland. Too budgeted, too advertised, too market researched and focus tested, the money people in the suits have effectively become the lead designers and directors for the biggest projects.In that sense, it's why a AAA game (or "AAAA" game) can legit see sales in the millions, but it's actually not enough because the game was too expensive to make, and the most generous take by the average person was "It's like, ok, I guess? The old one was better though." and that's WITH shameless monetizing. This is why the AAA industry desperately wants to increase retail prices to $100, and it's also why they're getting brutally mogged by a handful of indies who ask for like $20-$30 for a significantly better game.
>>12333625it only existed after CERN altered the timeline and the game has some coded easter eggs which are messages from the future disguised as npc ramblings
>>12340579CT and EB in the same weekend would have been too much for me.
>>12340934It was great. I was more excited about chrono trigger so I played it first. There was a ton of hype behind it at the time but I found it underwhelming. It wasn't bad but I was expecting something longer or more in depth since ff3/6 had set the snes bar for length, story, and complexity. I don't hate ct but I've always found it on par with ff2/4, which is disappointing considering its 4 years younger.But I loved earthbound and it was kind of a coming of age game because the first time my parents left me alone overnight was when I started playing it so I hooked up my snes to the downstairs tv, made pizza turned music up loud, snuck a few sips of vodka for the first time and had a great time. Probably top 5 nights of my life and earthbound was there
>>12333625I thought Earthbound was lame and gay. I could only appreciate it when I was unironically older and could """get it""", get it being that I could appreciate a game that didn't give me a sword, for instance.Like I never got into Pokemon because I'd rather play Zelda on my gameboy and listen to those sweet sound effects while blasting monsters.Earthbound was too esoteric for me at the time with its main battle screen being minimalistic to trigger your imagination, which I thought was something done for druggy reasons instead of weird Japanese reasons, which may not or may not be related.tl;dr 12 year old me thought it was for gaylords and the OST sucked. I only realized it was good years later
>>12342640That was the games problem, it was ahead of its time
>>12342820Somebody being too young and dumb to get something obvious doesn't make that thing ahead of its time.
SHUT UP ALL OF YOU.GODDAMN YOU.This is the real reason it flopped.
>>12342835Yes, they had a bad cover and bad ads for it. They clearly had no idea how to market it. American cover. No context, you play as a Starman. i don't know what kind of game that is.
>>12342838And because of the big box size, it couldn't fit on the shelf like normal. So, it was usually on the TOP. WHERE KIDS COULDN'T REACH.It's the multitude of little things that go completely ignored.So exhausting trying to explain this. Everyone just sees the ad "This game stinks" and think they've solved the fucking case.MOST PEOPLE AREN'T PLUGGED INTO MEDIA LIKE THAT.FUCKERS.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>>12342640Magic mushrooms were legal in Japan until 2002. Pretty wild when you consider how tough their drug laws usually are.
>>12342838It also kind of looks like Ness is piloting the thing. I'm not saying that the toilet humor focus on the marketing was the right way to go but EB would have been a hard sell to US gamers in general in 1995. No idea how you would have marketed it.
>>12342835Probably a big factor. Ad in the weak marketing and nonexistant inertia and word of mouth, and very few people noticed it, or bothered giving it a chance if they did (and again, for much of that reason).>>12342843I think the marketing doesn't help towards those who DID read vidya rags. Not eyecatching, doesn't represent the game well, it was way too easy to just glance and page past it, which is what most readers did.The guide is cool, but the box needed to be conventional (or at least sized so it could be stacked right next to other games), and with a cover which gave you an idea for some of its content and style.Maybe the guide could have been reformatted or been made a mail-in item you got a coupon for.
>>12333649>Possessed Game Box appears.
>>12343261>No idea how you would have marketed it.WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.Why does anyone say this?This almost writes itself, jesus christ.Show Ness and the gang smashing robots, zombies and aliens with their various household items and psychic powers.That's it.That's all you would've had to do.We already had art of this.DRAW THEM FIGHTING.If for no other reason than to display the fact that the game is about things fighting each other, which is not the impression the box gave me, sitting there on the top shelf.
>>12342838I honestly like this cover.Psychedelic background, an uncommon strong late game enemy and the subtle detail of Ness being on the starman DX's reflector.It's a depiction of how the battles in the game look, and I like the way the Starman is drawn all shiny and powerful.Earthbound also rarely got any illustration work in the US, mostly reused the clay figures and in the case of Ness made a new, taller and skinnier one, but yeah I like it, it's both mysterious and intriguing if you didn't play the game and makes total sense once you've completed it and saw the enemy.
>>12342821I was in high school when it came out and I played it and loved it. I knew that it didn't have mainstream appeal then but I did think the future would be kind to it. I was never surprised when it finally got the attention it deserved years later. Sure, I didn't like the attention because it felt like my private game and like a bandwagoner if I said it was an all time favorite of mine. But I understand why it eventually became a cult classic...because the world wasn't ready for it in 1995
I think I have a vague recollection of one my friends maybe having it. Not that I specifically remember playing it, just I seem to recall arriving at his house and seeing a game on which in retrospect looked like EarthBound. When Smash Bros came out, I remember a friend of a friend talking about the game while we were playing. To this day I've never played it through to the end. I gave it a shot probably around 7 years ago, but only made it partway through before quitting.
>>12344062>display the fact that the game is about things fighting each otherNo it's not, the pictures on the back show it's about just walking around different happy places.
>>12344083It's just a good pose, too.
>>12333625Its because everyone who played it as a kid now is young enough to have emulated it in the 2000s or 2010s. Earthbound was not commercially successful.Nintendo is honestly so dumb for not capitalizing on things like this. They have a lot of games that didnt do very well commercially but got popular through emulation later. Super Metroid is another really prominent one.
>>12333625It was sold in an oversize box with a strategy guide. You couldn't help but notice in a store shelf next to garbage like Pit Fighter and Jungle Strike. It was also rented out in video stores. I rented it and then later bought it.
>>12344851It's exactly the same game it was at release. People who played it enjoyed it, it's just less people played games back then. You are still dumb.
>>12345267The inverse of this is how Metroid games generally do ok, but never excellent in Japan, yet that they then are much more critically and financially successful in America and Europe. Super Metroid just isn't thought of as this big classic to the same degree by the Japanese themselves, who also thought Other M was pretty good, as opposed to its harsh reception in the west.Nintendo have been better at capitalizing on Metroid than they have on Mother, though Metroid has probably made them quite a lot more money, and has probably been an infinitely easier product to translate, market, and sell.
>>12345353It is, given its poor market performance it just wasn't seen or experienced by a lot of people in the west, but the market being smaller means that there was outright not the space and perception for a game like it at the time.Thus, he's ultimately correct, NOA and their target audience weren't ready for it in 1995.There may also be that part where kids thought that it looked too intentionally kid friendly at a glance (young kids want the games which older kids think are cool), so some people may have thought it looked lame and gay when they were younger, but then they gave it another chance when they were older and more mature, and maybe they found they liked it, and appreciated it in a way they simply couldn't as kids.
>>12342634Kino. Yeah, I played both games around the same time too. CT immediately captivated me and I think it's a great RPG gateway drug. It's a thrill ride summer blockbuster of an RPG but it's not as deep as some other games. I also started watching DBZ (the syndicated Ocean dub) around the same time and immediately picked up on the design similarities.I liked EB but it was more of a slow burn though I think I knew deep down I was going to like the game better. I remember blowing a lazy summer slowly playing my way through the game, talking to each NPC, trying out all the weird items and just soaking in the world. The ending was the first time a game ever got some sort of reaction out of me.
>>12345790The target audience, jRPG fans, was perfectly ready for it, the audience just happened to be smaller than it became later on. Us jRPG fans already long knew and discussed this game on GameFAQs. This is nothing to do with something being "ahead of its time".
>>12344062Really badass alien thing in the center. Is it supposed to be giygas or did I just forget what it is?
>>12345846Reflection of earth in its eye, so probably Giygas. That and the fact there's nothing else it could be.
>>12345846It's a standard vagina with teeth, the most basic of monsters for nerdmen.
>>12345824these larps are so funny
>>12345864I'm sorry you only experienced games on emulator zoomie
>>12345870sorry, but i'm not going to tell you where you messed up (in two spots). keep larping and making me laugh, kiddo.
>>12345883You're full of shit. I got CT in September 1996 for my birthday. DBZ started airing in syndication around the same time. I live in the US. Please don't tell me you think the show debuted on Toonami. EB I played for the first time around a month later in October 1996. A new video store opened up in town and they had a copy of EB. I rented it and enjoyed it but didn't really get into it until the following summer where I rented it multiple times.
I had it. Wore out the scratch and sniffs in the Nintendo power and then saw at the mall either shortly after Christmas or my birthday which is the only time I would have had money. I liked it but found the route to happy happy very difficult and it took me a long time to finish it even with the strategy guide. It’s the only non Zelda game my parents played. And I remember getting really horned up cause there’s like a postage stamp sized picture of a woman’s bare back in the Summer section of the strategy guide (no home internet yet, raised Catholic).
>>12345939The original dragon ball was out. I do remember thinking he had (kid) gokus hair but had no idea it had any sort of connection.
>>12333649I remember seeing it in stores in urop as well, I thought the box looked like shit and then I started seeing it talked about online many years later
>>12345939lol, you didn't even realize your most basic error.
>>12333625Nah I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power and seeing that big colourful player's guide on the shelf in Blockbuster. It was a commercial failure but it wasn't unknown by any means.Especially when Smash Bros. came out, obviously NP and other magazines were reminding everyone where the characters were from. That was 5 years after Earthbound release, I'd assume a lot of players played it soon after Smash Bros. came out like I did.
>>12337231Earthbound may have existed then, trannies didn't
>>12346694They most certainly did. There's nothing new.
>>12345939The most basic error the other anon mentioned was giving him a (You).
>>12346808>thinks (You)s are upvoteshello newfriend, here's your dopamine
>>12345870Zoomers know how to emulate? Every time I tell one they don't need to pay Nintendo anything they gasp in shock and become scared.
>>12346549Must have been imports from the U.S, because Earthbound wasn't released in Europe back then.
>>12346703They did, but they were MUCH less common back then.
>>12348206The ones I know emulate old Pokemon games on dodgy iPhone emulators
>>12348285Lol, yeah, I've seen that, I'm just being cheeky about zoomers having statistically awful tech literacy.I actually have to commend the kids who figure how to play fast shooters like Doom and Quake on goddamn touch screens, I tried that in the 2010s and deemed it impossible, yet they actually do it well.
>>12348468You'd be shocked what humans can adapt to.
>>12333625explain this then
>>12350347laser projection technology
>>12336450goddamn idiot, it was smash brothers + emulators
>>12350347frasier wasnt real
Poo comes in so late into the game that it feels like he's in a rather odd place for advertising and themeing as one of the chosen four.
>>12333625I grew up in the 2000s, but had hand me down and older consoles. (I was 10 when I asked my parents to buy me a SNES for my birthday, in 2007 lol)Anyway, nope I had never heard about Earthbound until it was internet popular. Except for yeah, Smash.
>>12334630>Didn't completely bomb, but it really did not do as well as was hoped, which is probably why they decided it wasn't even worth releasing in Europe.I didn't read this before making my post here >>12351640That's why I didn't hear of it, it didn't exist in my country.
>>12333625it sold like ass and was rare, even used games stores often didn't have it. most of us emulated it i think. snes9x came out and it ran pretty well, which a lot of games really didn't at that time.
>>12333625it wasnt a seller. I only got into on an emulator years later. the nips didnt translate Mother 3 because of the snub Earthbound received.
>>12351428Is it really that late?
>>12353130its pretty late and he also leaves temporarily pretty shortly after you get him
>>12353418I love the game, but the pacing starts to falter after Fourside, like the game looked at its watch and is trying to hurry things up. Also, yeah, the awkward part where Poo fucks off for a while not that long after you get him.
I had a copy. I rented it first, enjoyed it, asked my parents for it for Christmas, played through it a dozen times, kept the guide book until it literally fell apart, was extremely hyped that Ness was in the first Smash(I was the only one of my friend group who knew who he was), and recently sold the game for $150 at a local game shopPic related, my copy of the EB guide and my pants leg. Sorry most of you all missed out
>>12353736>pacing starts to falter after Foursidethe game is definitely at its best when you are going town to town
>>12354140>recently sold the game for $150 at a local game shopkek, broke-ass bum
>>12353736I think I struggled to understand that the point of EB was treating it like a globetrotting adventure, you were supposed to feel unsafe in foreign lands but come to realize their villages and homes have equivalent warmth and safety, which then gets you to broaden your horizons. Saturn Valley might be a very stark introduction to this as it's the first proper town not ran by humans, but I don't blame anyone for getting whiplashed and cultural shock when finding the arms dealer in Deep Darkness or coming across Tenda Village. I think because it lacked those obvious beats of 'safe village' that actually felt that way to the brain, you like me may have thought it went off the rails. I also believe that both>I was myopic to miss this point initiallyand>it was intentionally designed to make you feel that way
>>12353736I love EB the whole way through but yeah....it loses something when you get away from the more...domestic settings. I also really like the part where Jeff is wandering through Winters at night.
>>12354412that's more hobo than bum
>>12344062would
>>12355207Hobos are just bums that hitch rides on trains.
>>12333625I remember the big box at a store and wondering what it was but it didn't look appealing so I never really cared about it until Smash Bros 64
>>12355657Hobos work, bums don't. Glad I could educate you on American history.
>>12357356I bet you're a pussy
