Should've know investing on Orange kid would be a waste when Purps said to invest on him
Don't worry, I was tricked as well.
At least I have a broken machine.
Should've know investing on Orange kid would be a waste when Purps said to invest on him
Don't worry, I was tricked as well.
At least I have a broken machine.
Yet another victory for orange kid
I thought I addressed this earlier, but I feel it might be important.
I mean, I'm loving the crap out of Earthbound, and if it's what the group decides, that's that, but I really want there to be a variety of games played, and if we move on to Mother 3, it just means we're doing even more of the same, and that prevents people who sat out because the game doesn't appeal to them from seriously getting involved the following month.
So I do ask that we consider at least branching out. Besides, most people seem to be wrapping up their EB soon anyway, so why not just play Mother 3 for the rest of the month?
I named the girl character Aizen the rest are their defaults
Huschel plays Earthbound - Part 7
! We start this session with Vick's quest to complete his training. Of course, it takes me three times to get through it because I fall for the messenger and I also don't want Vick's legs to get smashed. That sequence was kind of scary, actually. At least Vick has gained some valuable experience. And also Teleport. Which he uses to join Ianto and the gang. I think I need a name for them.
! Anyway, the Scooby Gang travels across the sea and arrives in a desert land. The pyramid to the south is sealed and my first thought is that I need five people to open it. A teddy is the only thing I can think of but eventually I visit the museum in Summers to gain some insight. More of that is gotten inside the pyramid. There is talk of invaders that return every 1000 years. Looks like it's that time of the millenium again.
! Next up: Fourside. The curator apparently has something to show to the Scoobies. In order to see it they have to watch a performance by Venus which seems to take an hour. And all that for access to the sewers. I'm not sure why that warranted an emergency call. Of course, it does lead to the fifth Sanctuary which poses little difficulty. Ianto collects some more music and an image of a baby bottle flashes in his mind. So what exactly is the point of collecting these melodies again? I feel like some exposition is in order. Not for Ianto and his posse though because these kids just go along with whatever people tell them to do without question. Case in point, Vick suddenly leaving in order to learn a new technique because some guy thinks it's a good idea.
! Moving on, the Fearsome Threesome gets a key to a tower that's about five feet away. The tower dungeon is pretty cute and when it decides to follow the others around it's just all kinds of adorable. I immediately try to Teleport away but the game won't let me. At least Dungeon Man is a heavy-hitter. And he makes it on one of those pictures too. Unfortunately soon after he gets stuck in trees forever which is heart-breaking. His farewell gift: a submarine.
! It takes us to Deep Darkness where Ianto teaches a monkey how to teleport and gets love in return. At this point, I randomly connect the dots that the Carrot key I found earlier might open up the cave at Dalaam. Which it does. But I want to get Vick back before exploring more. Good thing that his training is soon to be completed and all four of them arrive in a village of shy, frog-like beings. And the only way onward is by acquiring a book that teaches social skills!
! But that's for another session.
! KO Count: Still 10.
! "Well, if I cannot move, it's okay. Ianto, it makes me sad but I must say goodbye here, at my eternal resting place." - Dungeon Man
! You will never be forgotten. We'll always have that oasis in the desert. ;_;
reads Huschy diary
hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.
Can't finish cuz it would mean spoilers for me.
…continues playing from stupid LV 17 again :--------------------------((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Ok, status report:
! Finished Fourside/Moonside. The Runaway Bros. just took me back to Threek.
! I'm GUESSING I now need to fix the ship Jeff first flew into Threek on Next, but I stopped upon getting into the town.
! Current Levels:
! Ness: 45
Paula: 37
Jeff: 38
Oh my god!! I hate these damn sprouts, they just keep spamming PSI Magnet!!
Then when I get to Territorial Oak I don't have any PP left to use Lifeup. u_u
reads Huschy diary
hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.Can't finish cuz it would mean spoilers for me.
…continues playing from stupid LV 17 again :--------------------------((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
! Orange kid dies. :ninja:
Huschel plays Earthbound - Part 8
! Apple Kid calls again so Ianto can overhear his kidnapping. He also mentions an Eraser Eraser. Obviously our heroes' priority is to find Sanctuaries though so they travel to Dalaam instead. I have a good feeling about that cave. Sure enough, the sixth Sanctuary pops up quickly and goes down about as fast. Freeze is ridiculous. This time, Ianto has a vision of his mother when she was young. I wish I had paid more attention to the earlier descriptions cause this is starting to paint a picture. Oh well.
! Now that that's taken care of, let's see if Apple is still alive. In Winters, Simon hears that his bestest buddy Tony is missing now, too. There's alien abductions everywhere. Ardonut isn't in his lab either. What is happening?! Besides alien abductions, I mean.
! Stonehenge is a pretty annoying dungeon but eventually the Scoobies get to a room where all the missing people are held in tubes. For science, presumably. Investigating the tubes of hostages yields: "No problem here." I'm not so sure that's true.
! Because the last couple of bosses have been on the easier side, Starfire takes me by surprise and totally devastates me. Anya dies, Vick barely clings to life. When revive fails I almost feel like not even bothering anymore but then the boss doesn't do anything for 3 turns, revive works and a smash hit finishes the battle with everybody alive. Lucky!
! Apple tells me that the book about overcoming shyness should be in the Onett library so we fetch that and teach the Frog Village our ways. In return they offer some tea. Why, thank you…wait! Oh no...
On this session's vision trip we learn that Giygas is afraid of our protagonists. Pokey gets a mention which makes me wonder what makes him so important. Is he really just possessed by the Mani Mani? What is the Mani Mani? What is Giygas? Questions, questions.
! The dungeon under Tenda Village is more manageable than the last one and it contains the 7th Sanctuary. The first move is for Vick to use Freeze 3 which gets bounced back on him and almost kills him. Fortunately the enemy is not a fan of the barrier I put up and neutralizes his own along with it. After that it's just spamming strong attacks until the the boss gives in.
The next room has a freaky, shiny wall. It pretends to be Ianto, or it displays his thoughts, or it is Ianto, or I don't know. Something is going on here. My best guess: Ianto is Giygas and/or the Mani Mani and/or the Pencil Eraser.
! The 7th melody gets collected but this dungeon isn't over yet. On the following map, everybody's tiny except for the giant dinosaurs. Cute. This place is also the first one the Escargo Express cannot get to, as far as I have observed. They have always been a constant in this crazy world.
! Another cave, another confusing maze, another Sanctuary. Wow, the last four of these have been really close together. The final Guardian puts up a lengthy fight but not really a dangerous one. While getting the last melody, a flashback to baby Ianto occurs. The house is the same, his mother is there and even Hopper the dog. But it looks like it used to be located somewhere else...
! There's not much time to mull that over because suddenly Ianto and only Ianto gets transported to a location called Magicant. Standing on the world's eight focal points has created this place out of his mind. So why did it have to be Ianto? Why is Anya important? Where is the Mani Mani statue? All these questions and many more will still be on my mind when Part 9 rolls around.
! KO Count: 10
! "I lived in our house before you were born. Ianto used to be small and weak." - Hopper, the menacing dog
I went to youtube to listen to the Love Theme, and I should've known better than to read the comments. I spoiled myself on the ending x(
Huschel plays Earthbound - Final Part
! Magicent is filled with past enemies and acquaintances. And possibly other people too, I don't remember everybody here. Flying Man is definitely new and eager to tag along when Ianto tries to get to the center of this dream world. He encounters himself early on and gets an old red cap. The one his parents gave him when he was a baby.
! The enemies in here are maybe a little bit stranger than usual but it is hard to tell with this game. The boss waiting at the end is a being at least shaped like the Mani Mani statue but it introduces itself as Ianto's evil side. Our hero can defeat it byhugging itbeating it up and gains incredibly powerful in the process. He also seems to be talking to himself about fate, the Apple of Enlightenment and Giygas's downfall. It would sound encouraging if it weren't coming from a split personality.
! In any case, Magicant ceases to exist because Ianto absorbs it into himself. Is he binding himself to the earth here? Who even knows. All I know is that:
! "There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow,
for the land is one with the Ianto, and he is one with the land." - random association
! Ianto wakes up and the team travels to Saturn Valley where Apple, Andonut and Mr. Saturn have created the Phase Distorter. Andonuts mentions that Porkey stole it so I decide to port to Onett to check his house. He's not there though and the meteorite is still burning. Andonuts also says this with his son right there:
! "The Apple Kid…He is a most exceptional young man. Very different from other kids."
! Never change, old man.
! Turns out Porkey stole another Phase Distorter or something and the protagonists can just enter the one right there in Saturn Valley. Except it crashes immediately because it's lacking meteorite parts. Back to Onett which has suddenly become overflown with aliens since we've been here last five minutes ago. Not a problem!
! With the new enhanced Phase Distorter, the group is capable of travelling to the past. Of course not in human form because organic matter could not withstand the hardship coming with the trip. Robot bodies it is! And I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Or the fact that Ianto's father can send him money to the past.
! On their way to their final battle the group faces pretty strong and numerous random enemies and one unfortunate battle ends with another KO. Only fitting since that's how this journey started out.
! And then there's Giygas and Pokey. The utimate fight and the ultimate weirdness. Why is it depicting Ianto's face at first? Why is Pokey even here? Why is the combination of this surreal enemy and its sadness and pain so scary? It's all just very unsettling (I have read some theories since and those didn't help settling me).
! During phase three of the battle, Anya gets paralyzed which is why Pray suddenly sticks out to me as one of her few options remaining. Which is lucky because it seems like that is the only way to end this fight. The group reaches out to all the people they have met and helped on their journey and it's all very Spirit Bomby but it gets the job done. Once I, Phone Fraud decide to help out, that is.
! Hooray, the Big Bad seems to have been defeated and most people are getting back to their usual lives.
! Vick does what he does best, he disappears without much of an explanation.
Simon decides to stay in Saturn Valley and ships Anya with Ianto.
Ianto accompanies Anya back to her parents and then returns home himself.
! "Other dogs haven't figured it out but I know you guys saved the world."
That we did, Hopper. That we did.
! Cue the credits and all the pictures that have been taken during the journey. :)
! And a message from Pokey who is still out there somewhere…!
! Final KO Count: 11
! ----
! So that was that. I had fun playing throughout but the wackyness that the game promised early on didn't really continue all the way through. Or maybe I just got too used to it all.
! And I feel like the story was not convoluted or complex enough. There were two instances of time travel so there was definitely opportunity for a twist or two. Plus, even at the end there was barely and explanation about the why of it all besides alien invasion. Will they now just return in 1000 years or have I beaten them foor good? What was Giygas's intention? Where did the fly from the future come from and why did it seek out Ianto? Oh, and the Mani Mani statue. Is it a tool of the aliens or just a separate source of evil/temptation?
! That's a lot of questions and I would have liked some of them to be answered. But oh well. Maybe Mother 3 deals with it...
Huschel plays Earthbound - Final Part
! Magicent is filled with past enemies and acquaintances. And possibly other people too, I don't remember everybody here. Flying Man is definitely new and eager to tag along when Ianto tries to get to the center of this dream world. He encounters himself early on and gets an old red cap. The one his parents gave him when he was a baby.
! The enemies in here are maybe a little bit stranger than usual but it is hard to tell with this game. The boss waiting at the end is a being at least shaped like the Mani Mani statue but it introduces itself as Ianto's evil side. Our hero can defeat it byhugging itbeating it up and gains incredibly powerful in the process. He also seems to be talking to himself about fate, the Apple of Enlightenment and Giygas's downfall. It would sound encouraging if it weren't coming from a split personality.
! In any case, Magicant ceases to exist because Ianto absorbs it into himself. Is he binding himself to the earth here? Who even knows. All I know is that:
! "There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow,
for the land is one with the Ianto, and he is one with the land." - random association
! Ianto wakes up and the team travels to Saturn Valley where Apple, Andonut and Mr. Saturn have created the Phase Distorter. Andonuts mentions that Porkey stole it so I decide to port to Onett to check his house. He's not there though and the meteorite is still burning. Andonuts also says this with his son right there:
! "The Apple Kid…He is a most exceptional young man. Very different from other kids."
! Never change, old man.
! Turns out Porkey stole another Phase Distorter or something and the protagonists can just enter the one right there in Saturn Valley. Except it crashes immediately because it's lacking meteorite parts. Back to Onett which has suddenly become overflown with aliens since we've been here last five minutes ago. Not a problem!
! With the new enhanced Phase Distorter, the group is capable of travelling to the past. Of course not in human form because organic matter could not withstand the hardship coming with the trip. Robot bodies it is! And I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Or the fact that Ianto's father can send him money to the past.
! On their way to their final battle the group faces pretty strong and numerous random enemies and one unfortunate battle ends with another KO. Only fitting since that's how this journey started out.
! And then there's Giygas and Pokey. The utimate fight and the ultimate weirdness. Why is it depicting Ianto's face at first? Why is Pokey even here? Why is the combination of this surreal enemy and its sadness and pain so scary? It's all just very unsettling (I have read some theories since and those didn't help settling me).
! During phase three of the battle, Anya gets paralyzed which is why Pray suddenly sticks out to me as one of her few options remaining. Which is lucky because it seems like that is the only way to end this fight. The group reaches out to all the people they have met and helped on their journey and it's all very Spirit Bomby but it gets the job done. Once I, Phone Fraud decide to help out, that is.
! Hooray, the Big Bad seems to have been defeated and most people are getting back to their usual lives.
! Vick does what he does best, he disappears without much of an explanation.
Simon decides to stay in Saturn Valley and ships Anya with Ianto.
Ianto accompanies Anya back to her parents and then returns home himself.
! "Other dogs haven't figured it out but I know you guys saved the world."
That we did, Hopper. That we did.
! Cue the credits and all the pictures that have been taken during the journey. :)
! And a message from Pokey who is still out there somewhere…!
! Final KO Count: 11
! ----
! So that was that. I had fun playing throughout but the wackyness that the game promised early on didn't really continue all the way through. Or maybe I just got too used to it all.
! And I feel like the story was not convoluted or complex enough. There were two instances of time travel so there was definitely opportunity for a twist or two. Plus, even at the end there was barely and explanation about the why of it all besides alien invasion. Will they now just return in 1000 years or have I beaten them foor good? What was Giygas's intention? Where did the fly from the future come from and why did it seek out Ianto? Oh, and the Mani Mani statue. Is it a tool of the aliens or just a separate source of evil/temptation?
! That's a lot of questions and I would have liked some of them to be answered. But oh well. Maybe Mother 3 deals with it...
! a lot of your questions are thing that aren't ever really answered and left up to theory and interpretation.
One question that does have an answer is the reason behind Gyigas, which you can discover from Mother 1.
! For the most part, this game isn't like other RPGs where they'll have complicated stories, and most of the weirdness that happens is there for no reason for the sake of the spirit of the game.
Nominations are now open for next month's Retro Game Party.
I am going to begin by nominating Final Fantasy VI.
I need a break from leveling up stuff
I'll nominate Shin Megami Tensei I.
How about N64 games? I don't know any decent emulators… but I would like to nominate Rocket: Robot on Wheels. It isn't on the virtual console either, so it may be a tad but tricky to find.
Since it came out on the VC recently, and I've always wanted to play it myself, I nominate Breath of Fire
I nominate [h=1]The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past[/h].
I nominate Pokemon Trading Card Game.
I nominate DK64.
LoZ:aLttP was one of the previous winners, so that'd make two games we've already played, if you're really up for that.
–--
I'll nominate Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, aka just "Lufia" in Europe because 1 was never released there.
I nominate Pokemon Trading Card Game.
Are you talking the physical TCG or is there a video game actually called this?
Are you talking the physical TCG or is there a video game actually called this?
There is a game boy color game based on the TCG. I'm sure that was the intended one.
Are you talking the physical TCG or is there a video game actually called this?
What Noqanky said.
The videogame based on the trading card game based on the anime based on the videogame!
And to this day it is still one of the best Pokemon side-games. I think it was made accessible to the 3DS virtual console at the end of last year and at the time came with a demo of ORAS.
And before I forget, to those who just finished Earthbound:
Even if it isn't here, I truly encourage each and every one of you to give Mother 3 a try. Where Earthbound aimed high and hit strong as well (imo), Mother 3 comes pretty much close to perfection and is to me easily one of the best games ever made, and one I would consider and example of how video games are definitely art. It's a game that deserves more exposure and love.
I love that Trading Card Game. Regularly replay it.
Mother 3 is definitely on my (short) list and that video was amazing. :D
Just Beat Earthbound last night.
Gonna sit down and do a full write up on my thoughts on the game when I have time, but suffice to say I loved it.
Nominations will be closed once I can get an admin to wipe the poll.
I guess I'll re-nominate Golden Sun, since I've been meaning to give it a replay anyways.
I would like to nominate Skies of Arcadia, but getting access to it would be an issue for some folks.
I've been slacking off, I'm only at the part where you play with Jeff… I'll try to finish until friday. :getlost:
Has Super Metroid won before? If not, I nominate it.
That would be good because I just downloaded the virtual console version thanks to club nintendo
Has Super Metroid won before? If not, I nominate it.
This game is already on my megalist of "Amazing Games Rin needs to play".
So being able to participate again next month without adding to my already massive list is a huge plus.
I third this.
The previous games are on the first page.
JUNE 2012: Final Fantasy VII - http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=35388
JULY 2012: Earthbound - http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=35664
AUGUST 2012: The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past - http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=35981
SEPTEMBER 2012: Spyro the Dragon - http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=36213
OCTOBER 2012: Sonic Adventure 2 - http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=36393
NOVEMBER 2012: Fire Emblem - this thread
FEBRUARY 2015: Earthbound - this thread (yay again) EDIT:Wow, it's been over 2.5 years since the previous Earthbound run (or 2 and a quarter years since the last game).
I really wanted to write more comments on EB, but the tension between wanting to play and wanting to write eventually gave way to the former, so instead I finished it. The ending is really fantastic, though, and I wanted to write about it as well as urge anyone who finished to do the same.
Spoilers, obviously:
! It's a testament to the strength of the ending that, despite all of the directionless stream of consciousness wandering that the game entails up until the finale, it manages to be an effective and even great anchor for the game's story.
! As you approach the final battle, you find yourself still caught in the game's weird flow, nodding in passive agreement to the strange things it has you do. You enter the phase distorter resolute to finally beat the game and that tension is dispersed as soon as you realize you're not quite there yet. With a straight face you are told that Giygas is actually in the past and that in order to get there, you have to implant your souls into robots and with an equally straight face, a blasé expression left by all the oddities you've faced prior, you take the only choice available to you. To you, the player, the character's actions are meaningless since it is only through them that you can move forward (in my unposted writeups, I talk a lot about this mechanism of using a player's drive to make them swim along the stream of consciousness). You, as a player, are putting in the effort necessary to finish the game. It's the game's acute sense of this that makes the final battle land so well.
! As you approach the Devil's Machine containing the being of ultimate evil, it mirrors the appearance of Ness. Before you can really contemplate the metaphorical significance, Porky crashes the party once again, letting you know that Giygas isn't a coherent being, but a formless evil born from a mortal shell that was torn apart by his maddening hatred. Now up until this final point, you haven't even seen Giygas, but have only heard rumors that his influence is what brought the world into chaos, so the meaning of this isn't immediately apparent, either. Cue the final battle sequence.
! The fight with Porky is a traditional one, where you unleash all of your power and hope it's enough to get you through the roadblock. The music is a highlight at does a brilliant job in messing with the player a little, starting with a very traditional-sounding RPG battle theme and then devolving into a distorted metal frenzy. As the fight comes to a climax, that's when Porky decides to clue you in to the real nature of Giygas. He opens up the Devil's Machine and then retreats to let you be consumed by darkness. Suddenly, the frantic music is… gone. It is replaced by ambience. The enemy in front of you is also gone... replaced by ambiance. You are now fighting the background.
! This is the point that pushes the fight into brilliance. This fight with Giygas is a narrative moment that cannot be expressed in any way other than a video game. While the story before was already a whimsical journey with no real coherence, the game was your grounding. If you didn't know what the story wanted to do, the game told you to move forward. When the story overwhelemed you with monsters, the game gave you ways to stop them. And now, as you stand at the end of the game, you realize that you're standing on a ledge and that it's crumbling away.
! First, even though the lack of music and an enemy sprite makes it unclear what you're fighting, you can still be sure that you're fighting. Numbers appear on the screen and move up and down in accordance to your and the enemy's moves. Sure, Giygas's attacks have no form, but you realize that doesn't matter if you pay attention to the outcomes. He does have this habit of calling out to your main character, but it's easy to push that to the back of your mind. When enough damage has been done, though, Porky shows up to remind you that you aren't fighting anything, before disappearing again. The background and the ambience change to become more disconcerting. The things Giygas says to you become more disturbing and incoherent. There's something really visceral in the presentation of the scene that just immerses you in the darkness. Most importantly, though, your attacks stop having meaning.
! As a story, the game has drowned you in an abstract murk. Likewise with the audiovisual presentation. As a game, you have lost the one crutch that you had left. Furthermore, you are so far into the battle that you really don't want to lose for fear of having to go through all the rest again. In this way, the player is dragged into desperation. Itoi shows a really good understanding of how to push a player's buttons and, as an outsider, himself, has no fear in demonstrating that. You have to grasp around blindly to figure out what to do. It turns out that the only thing you can do, fittingly enough, is pray. The pray button was always pretty innocuous, never doing any one thing reliably: sometimes helping, sometimes hurting, sometimes doing nothing at all. In this moment, though, it is the only thing you have left. And like your mother's hand, you hold onto it tightly and hope it can get you through.
! After praying for the first time, you get a glimmer of hope. The ambience dies down for a moment to show you a scene of your friends responding to your prayers. This brief respite is swiftly ended as you are plunged back into your fight against an even more erratic background. Watching the contortions of Giygas is both kind of mesmerizing and nauseating and it adds to the atmosphere as the true nature of this fight is revealed: it is not a battle for dominance, but for survival. All you can do is keep Paula alive and keep praying, hoping that it will do more. Giygas's statements get creepier and creepier and his attacks show no sign of abating.
! After more fits of prayer, doing small but increasing amounts of damage to your amorphous enemy, his form and the music eventually turn more erratic, until they become almost like static. It is here that the fight reaches a turning point. You pray once more, with confidence that it's moving you forward, but this time, Paula has run out of people to pray to and her prayer is "absorbed into the darkness." The one thing you had left fails and it makes your heart sink a little in disbelief. But to the resolute player, or the player in denial or the player with just a little remaining hope left, the path forward is revealed to have never left them. You press the pray button one more time and the game notifies you that a mysterious figure is offering his prayer. Over several rapid fire attacks, this character is revealed to be you! It is by your hands that this battle is over.
! You, the player is the one who's been alongside the character in his journey the entire time, pushing him to make strange decisions and to keep going forward no matter what. It is you alone that is Eagleland's hope. This moment is really aware of what the game is and what it means to tie narrative to play. Video games are worlds that respond only to the player's touch, in different ways depending on the game. The game can direct you to do what it wants, but ultimately you have to do it before it changes. In a story-based game, it means that you are the most important narrative cog. Even before, as you pressed the pray button, it was really your motions and prayers that pushed Giygas to the edge. And here, at the final moment it is by your hand alone that the evil is defeated. It's a pretty powerful moment that leads to a satisfying conclusion as the static giygas fades away, the music gains back its form, everything fades to black and the game recomposes itself to tell you that "the war on Giygas is over."
! The ending scenes that follow feel emotional, in part due to the use of writing and music, but it is because you have put yourself into the game in that battle that you really start to feel for the game's world and characters. Before, to the player, it was a weird, if charming, mess of a place full of all kinds of strange, but only vaguely-related-if-at-all happenings that were easy to be a little distant from, but now the game has made you a part of that world, its reality starts to hit you.
! As you say your goodbyes to everyone, you are allowed to wander the world, free of enemies, and explore it while Smiles and Tears plays in the background. I spent some time in this play wandering around and talking to people, sme of whom have new lines of dialogue that you can only hear after the event. As their lives return to normal, you are given one more chance to be impressed by them. In particular, I was amused by the people in Twoson still talking about how great Orange Kid, while berating Apple Kid. I chuckled a little while I thought to myself, "if only they knew..." As soon as you return home for one final time and have decided that you are done with the game, it is over. The credits role, first reminding you of all the characters and then, to accompany the real credits, the photos taken by the mysterious photographer show up in the background. It's a really nice way to make you reevaluate the world of Earthbound with a new closeness to it all.
! And that's the end of Earthbound! There's a little sequel bait after the credits, with Porky still being missing and not completely out of the picture, but then a satisfyingly quiet "The End". The battle against Giygas is one of the most powerful moments in popular gaming that I think is really only rivaled, and in some ways surpassed, by the game's sequel. It's the sort of moment that an only be expressed as a game and the sort of experience that could only be delivered by a non-game developer. Having played the MM3D sequel recently, it is apparent that developers have to struggle to maintain a balance between delivering their vision and opening it up to the player. Itoi as an outsider, though, was unafraid to push the players to their limits to deliver them such an overwhelming experience.
! Even after all these years and plays, the ending still holds emotional power for me and it was a pleasure playing through again and once more saving Eagleland from the clutches of evil itself. I hope anyone who played along, veterans and newbies alike felt the joy that I did in beating the game.
Goddamn do I need an editor…
I really wanted to write more comments on EB, but the tension between wanting to play and wanting to write eventually gave way to the former, so instead I finished it. The ending is really fantastic, though, and I wanted to write about it as well as urge anyone who finished to do the same.
Spoilers, obviously:
! It's a testament to the strength of the ending that, despite all of the directionless stream of consciousness wandering that the game entails up until the finale, it manages to be an effective and even great anchor for the game's story.
! As you approach the final battle, you find yourself still caught in the game's weird flow, nodding in passive agreement to the strange things it has you do. You enter the phase distorter resolute to finally beat the game and that tension is dispersed as soon as you realize you're not quite there yet. With a straight face you are told that Giygas is actually in the past and that in order to get there, you have to implant your souls into robots and with an equally straight face, a blasé expression left by all the oddities you've faced prior, you take the only choice available to you. To you, the player, the character's actions are meaningless since it is only through them that you can move forward (in my unposted writeups, I talk a lot about this mechanism of using a player's drive to make them swim along the stream of consciousness). You, as a player, are putting in the effort necessary to finish the game. It's the game's acute sense of this that makes the final battle land so well.
! As you approach the Devil's Machine containing the being of ultimate evil, it mirrors the appearance of Ness. Before you can really contemplate the metaphorical significance, Porky crashes the party once again, letting you know that Giygas isn't a coherent being, but a formless evil born from a mortal shell that was torn apart by his maddening hatred. Now up until this final point, you haven't even seen Giygas, but have only heard rumors that his influence is what brought the world into chaos, so the meaning of this isn't immediately apparent, either. Cue the final battle sequence.
! The fight with Porky is a traditional one, where you unleash all of your power and hope it's enough to get you through the roadblock. The music is a highlight at does a brilliant job in messing with the player a little, starting with a very traditional-sounding RPG battle theme and then devolving into a distorted metal frenzy. As the fight comes to a climax, that's when Porky decides to clue you in to the real nature of Giygas. He opens up the Devil's Machine and then retreats to let you be consumed by darkness. Suddenly, the frantic music is… gone. It is replaced by ambience. The enemy in front of you is also gone... replaced by ambiance. You are now fighting the background.
! This is the point that pushes the fight into brilliance. This fight with Giygas is a narrative moment that cannot be expressed in any way other than a video game. While the story before was already a whimsical journey with no real coherence, the game was your grounding. If you didn't know what the story wanted to do, the game told you to move forward. When the story overwhelemed you with monsters, the game gave you ways to stop them. And now, as you stand at the end of the game, you realize that you're standing on a ledge and that it's crumbling away.
! First, even though the lack of music and an enemy sprite makes it unclear what you're fighting, you can still be sure that you're fighting. Numbers appear on the screen and move up and down in accordance to your and the enemy's moves. Sure, Giygas's attacks have no form, but you realize that doesn't matter if you pay attention to the outcomes. He does have this habit of calling out to your main character, but it's easy to push that to the back of your mind. When enough damage has been done, though, Porky shows up to remind you that you aren't fighting anything, before disappearing again. The background and the ambience change to become more disconcerting. The things Giygas says to you become more disturbing and incoherent. There's something really visceral in the presentation of the scene that just immerses you in the darkness. Most importantly, though, your attacks stop having meaning.
! As a story, the game has drowned you in an abstract murk. Likewise with the audiovisual presentation. As a game, you have lost the one crutch that you had left. Furthermore, you are so far into the battle that you really don't want to lose for fear of having to go through all the rest again. In this way, the player is dragged into desperation. Itoi shows a really good understanding of how to push a player's buttons and, as an outsider, himself, has no fear in demonstrating that. You have to grasp around blindly to figure out what to do. It turns out that the only thing you can do, fittingly enough, is pray. The pray button was always pretty innocuous, never doing any one thing reliably: sometimes helping, sometimes hurting, sometimes doing nothing at all. In this moment, though, it is the only thing you have left. And like your mother's hand, you hold onto it tightly and hope it can get you through.
! After praying for the first time, you get a glimmer of hope. The ambience dies down for a moment to show you a scene of your friends responding to your prayers. This brief respite is swiftly ended as you are plunged back into your fight against an even more erratic background. Watching the contortions of Giygas is both kind of mesmerizing and nauseating and it adds to the atmosphere as the true nature of this fight is revealed: it is not a battle for dominance, but for survival. All you can do is keep Paula alive and keep praying, hoping that it will do more. Giygas's statements get creepier and creepier and his attacks show no sign of abating.
! After more fits of prayer, doing small but increasing amounts of damage to your amorphous enemy, his form and the music eventually turn more erratic, until they become almost like static. It is here that the fight reaches a turning point. You pray once more, with confidence that it's moving you forward, but this time, Paula has run out of people to pray to and her prayer is "absorbed into the darkness." The one thing you had left fails and it makes your heart sink a little in disbelief. But to the resolute player, or the player in denial or the player with just a little remaining hope left, the path forward is revealed to have never left them. You press the pray button one more time and the game notifies you that a mysterious figure is offering his prayer. Over several rapid fire attacks, this character is revealed to be you! It is by your hands that this battle is over.
! You, the player is the one who's been alongside the character in his journey the entire time, pushing him to make strange decisions and to keep going forward no matter what. It is you alone that is Eagleland's hope. This moment is really aware of what the game is and what it means to tie narrative to play. Video games are worlds that respond only to the player's touch, in different ways depending on the game. The game can direct you to do what it wants, but ultimately you have to do it before it changes. In a story-based game, it means that you are the most important narrative cog. Even before, as you pressed the pray button, it was really your motions and prayers that pushed Giygas to the edge. And here, at the final moment it is by your hand alone that the evil is defeated. It's a pretty powerful moment that leads to a satisfying conclusion as the static giygas fades away, the music gains back its form, everything fades to black and the game recomposes itself to tell you that "the war on Giygas is over."
! The ending scenes that follow feel emotional, in part due to the use of writing and music, but it is because you have put yourself into the game in that battle that you really start to feel for the game's world and characters. Before, to the player, it was a weird, if charming, mess of a place full of all kinds of strange, but only vaguely-related-if-at-all happenings that were easy to be a little distant from, but now the game has made you a part of that world, its reality starts to hit you.
! As you say your goodbyes to everyone, you are allowed to wander the world, free of enemies, and explore it while Smiles and Tears plays in the background. I spent some time in this play wandering around and talking to people, sme of whom have new lines of dialogue that you can only hear after the event. As their lives return to normal, you are given one more chance to be impressed by them. In particular, I was amused by the people in Twoson still talking about how great Orange Kid, while berating Apple Kid. I chuckled a little while I thought to myself, "if only they knew..." As soon as you return home for one final time and have decided that you are done with the game, it is over. The credits role, first reminding you of all the characters and then, to accompany the real credits, the photos taken by the mysterious photographer show up in the background. It's a really nice way to make you reevaluate the world of Earthbound with a new closeness to it all.
! And that's the end of Earthbound! There's a little sequel bait after the credits, with Porky still being missing and not completely out of the picture, but then a satisfyingly quiet "The End". The battle against Giygas is one of the most powerful moments in popular gaming that I think is really only rivaled, and in some ways surpassed, by the game's sequel. It's the sort of moment that an only be expressed as a game and the sort of experience that could only be delivered by a non-game developer. Having played the MM3D sequel recently, it is apparent that developers have to struggle to maintain a balance between delivering their vision and opening it up to the player. Itoi as an outsider, though, was unafraid to push the players to their limits to deliver them such an overwhelming experience.
! Even after all these years and plays, the ending still holds emotional power for me and it was a pleasure playing through again and once more saving Eagleland from the clutches of evil itself. I hope anyone who played along, veterans and newbies alike felt the joy that I did in beating the game.Goddamn do I need an editor…
Little tidbits I want to share
! - When you get to control Poo you are told to go to this mountain to meditate and pray and it leads into one of the weirdest fights ever where the game teachers you that the only way to advance is by letting this enemy take away your limbs and your senses and destroy your physical reality completely.
Then it's amazingly called back in the end when you are informed that the only way to advance to defeat gyigas is by making the ultimate sacrifice and doing exactly the same, and at least for me, I thought immediately of that previous instance and knew what the only answer was.
! - During the whole part with praying, you see the scenes of all the friends and allies you've made in your journey and it is super moving, but then the one that killed me. The last one before the player has the creepy music end completely and instead it just shows you home, and the eight melodies start playing as your mom starts to worry about you. And it just really really nails down the emotion and the point home of how during this entire adventure what kept Ness grounded was all the constant parental love and care throughout the story, down to the mechanics of saving, homesickness and even the game asking if you wanted to take a break. Your parents were constantly present and caring. So when that scene happens and the eight melodies play … that shit killed my feels.
! - Something that I saw someone bring up but I didn't initially get is how fucked Porky was by the events in the game. At the beginning of the game the difference between Ness and Porky is made super clear, particularly porky going back home and getting beat up by his dad while for ness his home environment was that of sheer comfort and support. Now, we jump forward to the end and we see that just like Ness and the others he also went into the phase distorter for his own purposes, but while Ness and co. got the benefit of knowledge and friends to find alternative ways for their bodies to not get effed up (by going as robots), Porky didn't have that benefit and his body has been pretty much completely fucked over, to the point he's even blue.
Frankly, I just overall love the character arcs and meaning behind the "bad guys" in mother games. With Porky, he's no more than just a little bully, no worse than the common bullies from an elementary school that pick on others and see them as losers due to their own insecurities and their own need to boost their own sense of self-worth due to not getting it at home. However, the tragic thing about porky is that he got caught up in all these much greater evils going around, like cults and the sheer hatred and anguish of gyigas, so that behaviors that are really just cries of attention from a child wound up being considerably evil and fucked up. And you see the toll on him as the game advances, he becomes much more fucked up and nasty as the game goes on and is even picking on Gyigas, because WHAT A LOSER that bastard had so much anguish and hatred in himself that he went and was overcome by it.
Further series spoilers:
! >! and if you come from mother 1 and go into mother 3 the whole tapestry becomes even more fantastic. Mother 1 left gyigas overwhelmed by the fact there was so much dissonance in his heart that he could not punish George's actions and destroy earth due to all the motherly love he felt, and all that frustration and failure just seem to have materialized into a hatred he could not overcome and destroyed him. Porky inherited that pain and hatred, having lost everything as a result of being caught up in all this evil and is left alone across time and space with a destroyed body and no context of anything outside him. Nothing has any worth to Porky but his own might and it leads to the point where the knowledge of a way to completely destroy the world and get rid of everything completely takes him over. The idea of completely wiping out everything but himself, because the whole world has become a joke to him and the only thing constant in that is his own self-aggrandizement. And the same exact themes wind up explaining the other bad guys of Mother 3, but I can perhaps wait until we maybe sometime play that.
And while the three games then wind up being tied together by the themes of motherly love and how the world itself gives that to us just as much as mothers, the villains are all tied together by the same anguish and emptiness of having to face an empty life devoid of that love. And the whole time they are painted as evil, as hate-worthy, and awful awful people that cause all the pain you experience in the game. But the game still leaves enough story and hints and context for you to realize that their actions were just as much a result of their own pain, emptiness and sadness.
FUCKING BRILLIANT
I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish before the end of February.
[hide]I'm currently Jeff and making my way towards Ness and Paula.
Gotta say: Paula's PSIs are awesome! I can OHK so many enemies, and I don't even use as much PP as Ness with his PSIs.[/hide]
Okay poll going up. Hold on to your Butz.
Recently played Link to the Past, so I voted for all the others. Everything else I've either never played/beaten before, or I've been contemplating replaying (FF6).
Voted Golden Sun. Excellent game with probally the coolest take at puzzle based dungeons. I'm not looking forward to the story if I play tho. It's really talky.
Damn, to late again for adding Little Big Adventure.
I'll guess vote for Lufia, since i've never got the chance to beat it.
I voted on Golden Sun, cause I picked it, and Super Metroid since I've heretically never played it. There's four other games on the list that I haven't played, but they're all RPGs and, despite picking Golden Sun, I'm not in too much of a mood to do RPGs two months in a row (though who knows, they may be much better experiences than I'm thinking). Of the remaining: DK64 is a game that I think gets worse every time I play it, Rocket is pretty underrated but I haven't played it for a while and don't know how it's aged (I guess that would make the replay interesting, though), Pokemon: TCG is RNG the game (though I do have a partially-worked through save file on an emulator I could continue with) and Yoshi's Island I've played enough.
Oh shit, maybe I should nominate Yoshi Story next month if no one's overplayed it. That game has such a strange design sense that was hit or miss with folks, but I loved it (let's face it, any quest to retrieve the Super Happy Tree would have my undying support). I guess that's getting ahead of myself, though.
Voted for Breath of Fire since I nominated it and really do want to play it. Grew up with BoF II and loved it, and I've always wanted to play the first one. So yeah, no clue if I'm even gonna like it or not.
And I wish I could jump on the Golden Sun hype train with the rest of you, but I played it for the first time a few months ago and, as good as it was, I really don't feel like playing it again so soon.
Oh shit, maybe I should nominate Yoshi Story next month if no one's overplayed it. That game has such a strange design sense that was hit or miss with folks, but I loved it (let's face it, any quest to retrieve the Super Happy Tree would have m undying support). I guess that's getting ahead of myself, though.
Not the greatest game, but I really enjoyed it as a kid.
And dat music.
All the current frontrunners I'm ok with, tho I'd greatly prefer Super Metroid right now I think as it's the only of the frontrunners I haven't beaten.
Tho, playing Golden Sun again wouldn't be a BAD thing by any stretch, plus, I could play that on my trip because I actually have that on my 3DS Virtual Console. I'd prefer tho to play the one I haven't beaten.
I really loved that 'choose your adventure' style in Yoshi's Story, though. I'm disappointed that not many games past the N64 era (or really beyond Yoshi's Story and Star Fox 64, unless I'm missing some) tried it, though I guess games from that time had the perfect length to support it.
Also, the sound, art and general presentation are super charming. The gameplay itself is on the easy side (unless you're going for an all melon run), but it left a big impression on me when I was younger and has held up pretty well over the years.
Yeah, Yoshi's Story, while easy, is charming and adorable as hell. The music is easily the most memorable part.
If we play in a future month tho, I'd probably go for an All Melon run just to make the game a bit more interesting.
It's amazing how much mileage the soundtrack got out of reworking the same melody for every level. Seriously, though, I still hum some of its configurations of the Yoshi theme to myself in moments of quiet.
I'm honestly never in the mood to play much of Nintendo's biggest retro franchises. Just not my thing. Whatever you guys choose tho. I'm in no obligation to actually play what gets voted for.
Voted for Breath of Fire since I nominated it and really do want to play it. Grew up with BoF II and loved it, and I've always wanted to play the first one. So yeah, no clue if I'm even gonna like it or not.
It's the worst RPG I ever played in my life. If you were like me and played and enjoyed every BoF after 2 and go back to one… It's just. Terrible. I would not wish this game on anyone, but ehhhh... If you forgive the fact the game was originally made to cash in on genre while it was popular with almost no plans or hopes of sequels, then it's a quite a trip.