The Real World

My cousin is coming to visit. Yaaaay! We'll be seeing "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", possibly on IMAX. Due to this, however, everything is on hiatus. I won't be around to comment online (not even my usual weekly pop in and poke around session) and I've taken a break from writing OS (which is probably a good thing- little breaks help stop me from getting sick of it). Fortunately, I finished "Earthbound", so I won't be twitching with anxiety to get back to playing it. (Unfortunately, I am somewhat twitchy to play "Mother" and "Mother 3". But I'll get into that a little later.)

Pimpage

By , it's Startron, but not quite like you've seen her before! This is a bit of speculation as to what she'd look like in G1 style: [link]

shares several doodles of Fireant (her OC, bred from my OCs- does anyone need a chart yet?), including some of him with Blitzwing. Yes, there is slash- are you surprised? [link]

continues the Crack AU comic "Neverwas" with pages seven and eight: [link]

More from 's photo album. Plushie Kenny just wants to give Devlin a hug: [link]

Uh oh, that's not Devlin! [link]

And the moral is make sure you know whose tail you are grabbing or this could happen to you: [link]

Earthbound

On Monday, I beat the game.

Simply putting a little blurb under my usual "Fannish Blather" section just won't be satisfying this time. This game deserves more than that. I want to tell you why I love it and maybe- just maybe- convince you to try it. This game is a hidden, poorly known gem- perhaps the franchise was just too good to last.

What is Earthbound?

A game for the SNES- sorry, I don't think it's available for the Wii Console, but you can find a ROM. This game is a Japanese import (that takes place in America!) that Nintendo translated into English for the US market. It's actually the sequel to another game which was never translated (although fan translations are available on the web), called "Mother"- however, don't worry about that. You don't need to have played "Mother" to thoroughly enjoy this game (although now that I have played "Earthbound"- which is called "Mother 2" in Japan- I really want to play "Mother" and also "Earthbound's" sequel "Mother 3"/"Earthbound 2").

If you've played almost any version of "Super Smash Brothers", you're probably familiar with some "Earthbound" characters and don't even realize it! Ness, the hero of "Earthbound" is a playable character in most of them. I can't speak for earlier versions of SSB, but Melee features the arena levels Onett and Fourside (two of the quirkiest levels of the game- Onett has cars that will regularly drive by and hit you, Fourside is the rooftops of a city with a randomly appearing UFO above) and among its items are the mostly useless Mr. Saturn (a species of friendly and helpful aliens in "Earthbound") and the Homerun Bat, which gives a nasty smash attack if you do it right (or just plain old chuck it at somebody).

None of this really says what "Earthbound" is. It's hard to describe in a way that captures its spirit. The game is an RPG that leans toward soft sci-fi/paranormal more than fantasy. Its opening setting is idyllic America of a few decades ago as imagined by Japanese minds that wanted to create an affectionate homage- but before you're done, you'll have travelled to exotic settings inspired by Tibet and Egypt, not to mention a lost land of dinosaurs and a creepy alien base under Stonehenge. I mentioned aliens before, haven't I? Well, why don't we jump right into...

The Plot

You are Ness. (Actually, "Ness" is the default name for your character- just like how in the Zelda games, you can name yourself whatever you want but everyone knows the hero is called "Link"; in my play-through, my name was "Bee".) You wake up in the middle of the night because a meteor has crash landed near your home in the town of Onett. You go to investigate. Immediately, things just don't feel right. "Earthbound" is great at building atmosphere- something I'll talk about later- and the opening is appropriately creepy. The music is eerie, the police that have the area road blocked give you the feel that a conspiracy is being covered up- in truth, they don't even understand what's going on- and your friend Pokey (we use "friend" loosely here; he is your next door neighbor, making him a friend by proximity, as is so common in childhood), who went to investigate the meteor is missing. Don't worry, you find Pokey and get to the meteor pretty quickly. There, you meet Buzz-Buzz. He looks like a bee, sounds like a bee- he's not a bee. Something that really creeped me out is the certitude I felt that something transformed Buzz-Buzz into a bee. Anyway, this guy has a warning for you: ten years into the future, the world is darkness, despair, and destruction. Why? Giygas, a force of pure evil (actually, it's more complicated than that- and that makes it worse), has come to destroy the world. The only person who can stop him is- you guessed it- you, Ness! You have psychic powers, Ness. You must go around the world visiting eight "Your Sanctuary" locations. These locations are each a natural wonder where you will hear a piece of a melody that unlocks your true- impressively vast- mental capabilities. Buzz-Buzz doesn't stay with you for long- I don't want to spoil it, but he has a sharply ironic death and it was a sense of horror over that which probably drove me to dive into the game early on.

Your starting location- and also the town just by the first Your Sanctuary- is your home of Onett. Idyllic is a nice way to describe it- except that's only how it appears. When you seek out the meteor, you were attacked by dogs and crows. As you go on, other seemingly mundane things like ants, sprouts, and mushrooms will attack you. It's not because this game is weird (although this game is weird); it's because Giygas' influence is corrupting the world itself. You're not just fighting to save the Earth from being destroyed- you're actually fighting to preserve its natural goodness. The opening is a jarring warning; when the sun rises and you start exploring Onett, it's deceptively placid at first. That's because the game is going to ease you into increasing creepiness. Onett just has gang members and feral nature attacking you. Get to Twoson and you learn there's a cult in the town next door. Get to Threed and the damn place is covered in darkness and crawling with zombies. You wouldn't think the next major local- the city of Fourside- could be worse than that, but it is; Fourside has a much more subtle cloud of evil. To me, that's worse. You're getting deeper and deeper in and the farther you go, the stronger and more pervasive you find Giygas' influence.

Fortunately, you're not alone! Defeat- or rather, wake up- the cultists of Happy-Happy Valley (no, really) and you rescue Paula. She's psychic, too, (in fact, while Ness has the best stamina in battle, it's Paula whose attacks really kick serious butt) and committed to helping you on your journey. When you get into a jam in Threed, you'll get help and a third party member from Jeff. He's not psychic, but he's very good with machines. Good as in turns a broken harmonica into a death ray. Eventually, you also get Poo- a foreign prince who's also psychic and not too shabby with martial arts. Oh, did I mention that your mother actually knows you're out saving the world and is covering for you with your teacher? Call her on the phone regularly to keep Ness from getting homesick. Call your dad, too, because he'll "record your progress" (save) and also frequently deposit money into your bank account (which you withdraw at ATMs) so you can buy better baseball bats, frying pans, and ray guns to fight with. Damn, don't you wish your parents were like that?

Some Technical Notes on the Battle System

Let's put aside the plot for a moment and discuss some technical aspects of the game. It's an RPG, so you progress not just by getting to the next town, but by leveling up enough so that you are strong enough to defeat the enemies in the next town. Ugh, level-grinding. Fighting the same slugs and bugs over and over just to get the exp to ensure the gigantic rat at the end of the dungeon doesn't knock you flat on your ass after one turn. Right?

Extreme kudos to the game designers of "Earthbound"! The first thing they did was somehow- through sheer genius, I swear- pace and place out the enemies near perfectly. When you first get to an area, the local enemies provide a tough challenge. Stick it out and give it all you've got- within a level or two, you're powerful enough to take them on and eventually overcome them easily. So while the game challenges you constantly, you make decently timed-progress. Some points I found required level-grinding for me, but it wasn't for very long. For the most part, if I just kept going, I could get through it; fighting the enemies before me prepared me for boss fights that were still enjoyably difficult (I like my boss to be a boss) but not impossible. But, hey, are you the kind of player that enjoys insanely leveling up your characters so that you can defeat the boss in a single round? "Earthbound" rewards you, too, with the automatic win system: if you're powerful enough that only through deliberate stupidity could you fail to kill the enemy in a single turn, you don't even go to the battle screen. You just win and get the exp. Very nice considering how annoying and a waste of time it is to get attacked by something pathetic just because you're wandering through a town you initially visited in your earlier and weaker hours of game play.

What else is special and unique here? Your HP meter: it's an odometer. Let's say an enemy hits you for a whooping 200 HP. You don't- bam!- instantly loose that HP. Your meter starts rolling downward. So if that blow was fatal to you- took more HP than you have left- if you're quick enough with the buttons, you can use Ness's or Poo's healing PSI or an item to restore HP before it completely runs down and you pass out. Or if you kill the enemy and end the battle before your meter hits zero- hurrah, you're saved! Don't let that fool you into thinking survival is easy- but it's a very nice feature and something I've never heard of before.

Also, it's up to you if you want to treat battles as straight-forward "bash 'em til they stop" or employ some strategy. Eventually, Jeff gets some really good items (or rather, he makes them from broken things that he repairs overnight while you sleep at hotels) that opened my mind to the fact that there's more to battle than just hitting things or doing PSI attacks. He can suck HP from enemies (which gives HP back to him), break their sheilds, or prevent them from using PSI depending on the item employed. Paula and Poo can suck PP (your psychic points) from enemies who have it and refill their own stores of power- but enemies can do the same! (Ness, sadly, cannot suck psychic points from enemies. Would have been nice! But less challenging.) You can cast shields that deflect physical attacks or shields that deflect psychic attacks, but the shields are mutually exclusive- and enemies can do the same. Paula can also pray. This is interesting because it's a crap shoot: the effect can swing from minimally to extremely beneficial or completely bite you on the ass. Depending on the result, all of your party will have some HP or PP restored, one party member will have all of his or her HP restored, a ball of light will attack a random enemy... or everyone- friend and foe- who has been smacked down so far in the battle will be resurrected or a cloud of confusion will scramble everyone's senses so that half the time they attack allies! (For me, Ness while confused cast a healing spell on Giygas rather than Poo! Jeff also used the HP Sucker on himself, which hilariously accomplishes nothing as he gets the HP this baby siphons away from someone. However, I also got Giygas to attack himself. It really does work both ways.) Don't underestimate the power of prayer, but don't think it's a magic button either. Paula's praying sometimes gave me much needed power resources to survive and defeat a boss; it also sometimes killed the entire party via stupid during a battle I would have won if I had just had her bash like everyone else.

The Spirit of Earthbound

This game knows how to hit all the right buttons to get you emotionally. It's alternatively charming or creepy and does it with a transition that feels smooth even as it is jarring.

Yes, it's charming. There's something utterly adorable about a sweet little boy completely believing in himself and going out to fight C'thulu with a baseball bat. It feels appropriate that Ness has these incredible psychic powers because you know what? He's just a nice kid. You don't kill things in this game. When you win the battle, the animals you fight become tame, zombies return to "the dust of the Earth", and the human enemies "return to normal". That isn't because Nintendo is glossing over death as being too strong for children- it's because it's thematically appropriate. As I said before, the reason everything is attacking you is because Giygas is warping it to evil. So it's appropriate that you don't kill- you return to normal or destroy something that never should have been in the first place.

The game is uplifting. The world is basically good and people have goodness in them. Most of your human enemies are under the spell of Giygas, express true sorrow, and repent once you defeat them- because you've awakened them from their dreams corrupted into nightmares. The Your Sancutary locations are all beautiful, natural wonders- but not just is nature beautiful, what humanity creates can be beautiful, too. Technological genius as well as your inborn powers will help you defeat Giygas. The music is fantastic- and when you consider this is music for a SNES game, the music is actually phenomenal. There are many points at which it is the sound- not the visuals- that will give you a sense of wonder or joy or fear.

And, honestly, it's the above that makes this game so deliciously creepy at times. It's not just because zombies are scary or that's a freakin' barf monster you're fighting (seriously, don't fight Belch during lunch time) or this is the ultimate evil- it's because you have a sense that this is just so wrong. This shouldn't be happening. This is how it once was good or could be good: and that is for what you are fighting. This game gives you a sense of greater purpose rather than just defeat the Big Bad. And when you get to the Big Bad... well, let's just say the final battle with Giygas is freaky and disturbing not because he's the ultimate evil. It screws with your head and I'm shocked it hasn't given me nightmares yet. And while a wee spoilery, let me throw out there that the worst villain in this game isn't even Giygas, but something disturbingly more near and familiar...

In Conclusion

Play the game. I had more than just good a time: "Earthbound" is a memorable experience. And if you're like me- you like something with characters and themes that give you a lot to think about, open room for speculation and analysis- it will also give your brain quite a bit to chew on. Your mileage may vary- for me, the mileage is enough to merit an oil change and earn "Earthbound" a firm place in my mindscape. Seriously, I'll probably still be talking about this game and making references to it with my friends years from now.