EarthBound Beginnings
REPLACEMENT LONGPLAY
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Screenshot |
Player's Review
Set in a fictional version of 1988 USA, the game follows a young boy named Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on psychic powers to put an end to the paranormal phenomena spiralling the country into disarray.
Mother, unofficially known outside of Japan as EarthBound Zero, and later officially known outside Japan as EarthBound Beginnings, is a role-playing video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was developed by Ape Inc. and Nintendo, and published by Nintendo in 1989. A different version of the game, alongside a port of its sequel, was released on a single-cartridge compilation titled Mother 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance in 2003 as part of advertisement campaign for Mother 3. The first official release of the NES version in English-speaking countries was the 2015 release for the Wii U Virtual Console, under title EarthBound Beginnings. This game is the first title in the Mother series, which was originally not well known in the mainstream media, but gained a large cult following on the Internet, and heavily influenced such independently developed games as Yume Nikki, OFF, Lisa: the Painful, Undertale and many others.
This video game trilogy is notable for being one of very few in its era that had an actual professional writer behind its dialogue script and story. Mother series was designed and directed by famed Japanese copywriter and television personality Shigesato Itoi. It was named after John Lennon's song "Mother". Itoi could heavily relate to the song, which dealt with Lennon's experiences growing up without either of his parents; Itoi's own father was absent for much of his life. Because of this, he chose to isolate the role of Ninten's father as simply a voice on a telephone, a role that would be inherited by Ness's father in EarthBound. Another reason for choosing such title was its connection to the word "mothership", since alien invasion is a major event in the game. The logo design was inspired by that of the Elvis Costello record Blood & Chocolate. The artstyle of the overworld sprites were derived from the Peanuts comic series. Itoi also felt that "Mother" was a fitting title for the game, as it was noticeably more "feminine" than most RPGs. Throughout the whole trilogy, one of the main themes in designing those games was subverting players' expectations. In case of the first game, Itoi took a "masculine" genre of medieval fantasy dungeon-crawling RPGs dominated by games like Dragon Quest and tried to turn it into an emotional, "feminine" game where events take place in an offbeat parody of present-day America, where the player controls an asthmatic kid who fights with a baseball bat while traversing gigantic directionless open areas instead of maze-like dungeons, eventually reaching the final boss who you are not even supposed to fight in order to win, and where the genre does not singularly adhere to fantasy or science fiction tropes. Shigesato Itoi said in an interview that he has asthma, which causes him to cough when lying down; he would often play Mario when he was unable to sleep at night due to his asthma, and stated that he felt "indebted to Nintendo" and specifically wanted to work with them on Mother due to this. The protagonist of the game, Ninten, also has asthma, which was one of the first aspects of his character Itoi came up with. A proposal for the game was initially presented to Shigeru Miyamoto, who rejected it due to the commercial failure of other celebrity-produced Famicom games and the fact that Shigesato Itoi himself was not a programmer and already had a full-time job. Later, Itoi managed to get funding from Miyamoto. The game's development ended up being rushed, and the final area in particular was hardly playtested at all, which later led to it becoming infamous for its unfair difficulty, and Itoi himself later admitted that he only ever beat his own game by using cheats. The same developers who worked on Mother went on to develop Pokemon Red, drawing heavy inspiration from Itoi's ideas for Mother, especially in their design of Mewtwo, who is supposed to resemble Giegue/Giygas. Giygas, whose name was originally rendered in Japanese as Gyiyg, Giegue or Geek, is translated as Giegue in EarthBound Beginnings, but as Giygas in EarthBound. Gyiyg (ギーグ), is derived from ガギグゲゴ (ga gi gu ge go), part of the Japanese equivalent of alphabet recital, which Shigesato Itoi felt sounded particularly unpleasant (specifically the sound "ghee" ).
The game's soundtrack was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. Tanaka was a video game composer working for Nintendo who had previously composed for games such as Super Mario Land and Metroid, while Suzuki was a composer and musician for bands of many different genres. The NES was only able to play three notes at a time, which Suzuki has noted greatly limited what he was able to produce, as he could not create some of the sounds he wanted. An eleven-track album of orchestral and vocal rearrangements of the game's soundtrack was recorded in Tokyo, London and Bath and released by CBS/Sony Records on August 21, 1989. A novelization of the game was also released, written by Dragon Quest novelist Saori Kumi (Ineko Hatano), as well as a "choose your own adventure" playbook by Zelda novelist Akio Higuchi.
The localization was headed by Phil Sandhop, who had previously worked on the English version of Final Fantasy. In accordance with Nintendo of America's content policies, all religious iconography, blood, breast nipples, cigarettes, and references to violence, alcohol or God were removed. Additionally, NPCs closely resembling Peanuts characters were altered to avoid potential legal prosecution. Several features and enhancements were added to the original, including a run button, several new in-game options, and an expanded ending. Holiday-based town names were changed, while some maps and graphics were redesigned for difficulty or aesthetic purposes. These changes were implemented by Sandhop, who rewrote the game's script himself, and then sent it to Nintendo Co., Ltd., where it was approved by Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Mother's development team before being programmed and sent back to Nintendo of America for further testing. Because of this, the changes between Mother and EarthBound Beginnings can be seen as improvements on the original game, which could not be initially implemented due to time constraints. Plans for the English release even included an American release of the Mother soundtrack CD, along with an 80-page instruction manual styled after a diary belonging to Ninten's grandfather, which would end on a ripped page after taking the player halfway through the game.
The English localization of Mother, titled Earth Bound, was planned to be released in 1991, but was abandoned as commercially nonviable. The reasons for this were cited to be: the supposed lack of market interest in the RPG genre in North America; the cost of Earth Bound's added cartridge size and supplementary materials, which made it difficult to promote and manufacture; the game's planned release being late into the NES's life cycle in light of the impending US release of the Super NES ( even though the game was initially planned to be released in 1990, but SNES marketing department themselves pushed the release into 1991 ). In 1994, after even more commercially successful release of Mother 2 for the Super Famicom in Japan, efforts were renewed to release Earth Bound in the United States and in Canada, but were shuttered due to the endeavor's perceived costs and also because EarthBound (Mother 2) was a commercial failure in USA, due to an expensive yet ineffective advertizing campaign (another failure of Nintendo of Japan's marketing department). According to Phil Sandhop's interview with LostLevels.org, "the Mother project and localizing it really opened up a few eyes at Nintendo. They began working closer with Nintendo of America and the other subsidiaries to produce artwork for games that would be appropriately received anywhere in the world and not need localization". The name Earth Bound would later be carried over as the English title of Mother 2, EarthBound, whereas that game was initially supposed to be released as Space Bound. A finished prototype of the Mother localization, titled Earth Bound, was eventually acquired in 1998 by Steve Demeter (of Demiforce romhacking team). This prototype was known as Earthbound Zero, due to Street Fighter Alpha's "Zero" that Demiforce added to the title screen before posting the prototype ROM online. The discovery of this lost game sparked interest in video game emulation and the historical preservation of unreleased games.
There is a very large amount of differences, big and small, between the Japanese and American releases of the game, which I'm not going to list here.
Compared to other titles in the series, Mother 1 stands out as the one with the largest game world, by a huge margin, and also as the most non-linear of the three. Actually, the size of this game's locations is considered as somewhat of a technical achievement, thanks to making the entire game world, indoor and outdoor areas included, into one single giant image file. I would even go as far as to say that it feels like the 1989 equivalent of a present day Bethesda game. However, despite the unusually large size, the world is not particularly populated, and most of the available area exists for the purpose of getting lost in it, which impedes progress and drains the party's resources. Progression is almost non-linear, and the game comes close to resembling a sandbox most of the time. Mother 1 also does not have the signature rolling health meter of the subsequent games. The battle backgrounds are also a simple black color instead of the iconic multicolored psychedelic backgrounds of Mother 2 and 3. However, the black background allows Mother to make enemy sprites more detailed, some of which are composed of overlapping sprites which imitate animation when enemies take damage or are defeated.
Overall, I think this game is much better than most people describe. After planning out my playthrough, I came to the conclusion that those who describe the gameplay in EarthBound Beginnings as outdated, unbalanced and kind of an unfinished mess by the end, never actually learned how to play the game. Frequent use of Repel Rings, for example, completely eliminates the most cited issue, that being excessively frequent enemy encounters. H2O Pendants halve incoming fire damage, which comprises at least a third of all damage you will receive during the game. The high difficulty can be completely negated by carrying and using several Breads, spread among party members, to instantly travel from dungeons to towns and back again, effectively giving you infinite heals and revives for a tiny price. Ana essentially gains unlimited PSI points once she learns PSI-Magnet, which happens pretty early. And so on.
In this longplay, I try to show everything in the game, so do not be surprised when you see me circling every area, looking into every nook and cranny, or protracting some battles. The excessive map exploration which you will surely notice also serves the purpose of gaining EXP, which I would have to do anyway in order to get all abilities. It is a better viewing experience to see the map during grinding than to watch me pacing back and forth on the same spot for extended periods of time while I wait for random encounters to trigger. Sadly, I still ended up having to walk in circles before the final boss fight, because even with all that exploration, I still ended up a few levels short of getting the ultimate psychic abilities. Alternative dialogue options, deaths and other scenes were edited in at the end of the video.
Mother, unofficially known outside of Japan as EarthBound Zero, and later officially known outside Japan as EarthBound Beginnings, is a role-playing video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was developed by Ape Inc. and Nintendo, and published by Nintendo in 1989. A different version of the game, alongside a port of its sequel, was released on a single-cartridge compilation titled Mother 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance in 2003 as part of advertisement campaign for Mother 3. The first official release of the NES version in English-speaking countries was the 2015 release for the Wii U Virtual Console, under title EarthBound Beginnings. This game is the first title in the Mother series, which was originally not well known in the mainstream media, but gained a large cult following on the Internet, and heavily influenced such independently developed games as Yume Nikki, OFF, Lisa: the Painful, Undertale and many others.
This video game trilogy is notable for being one of very few in its era that had an actual professional writer behind its dialogue script and story. Mother series was designed and directed by famed Japanese copywriter and television personality Shigesato Itoi. It was named after John Lennon's song "Mother". Itoi could heavily relate to the song, which dealt with Lennon's experiences growing up without either of his parents; Itoi's own father was absent for much of his life. Because of this, he chose to isolate the role of Ninten's father as simply a voice on a telephone, a role that would be inherited by Ness's father in EarthBound. Another reason for choosing such title was its connection to the word "mothership", since alien invasion is a major event in the game. The logo design was inspired by that of the Elvis Costello record Blood & Chocolate. The artstyle of the overworld sprites were derived from the Peanuts comic series. Itoi also felt that "Mother" was a fitting title for the game, as it was noticeably more "feminine" than most RPGs. Throughout the whole trilogy, one of the main themes in designing those games was subverting players' expectations. In case of the first game, Itoi took a "masculine" genre of medieval fantasy dungeon-crawling RPGs dominated by games like Dragon Quest and tried to turn it into an emotional, "feminine" game where events take place in an offbeat parody of present-day America, where the player controls an asthmatic kid who fights with a baseball bat while traversing gigantic directionless open areas instead of maze-like dungeons, eventually reaching the final boss who you are not even supposed to fight in order to win, and where the genre does not singularly adhere to fantasy or science fiction tropes. Shigesato Itoi said in an interview that he has asthma, which causes him to cough when lying down; he would often play Mario when he was unable to sleep at night due to his asthma, and stated that he felt "indebted to Nintendo" and specifically wanted to work with them on Mother due to this. The protagonist of the game, Ninten, also has asthma, which was one of the first aspects of his character Itoi came up with. A proposal for the game was initially presented to Shigeru Miyamoto, who rejected it due to the commercial failure of other celebrity-produced Famicom games and the fact that Shigesato Itoi himself was not a programmer and already had a full-time job. Later, Itoi managed to get funding from Miyamoto. The game's development ended up being rushed, and the final area in particular was hardly playtested at all, which later led to it becoming infamous for its unfair difficulty, and Itoi himself later admitted that he only ever beat his own game by using cheats. The same developers who worked on Mother went on to develop Pokemon Red, drawing heavy inspiration from Itoi's ideas for Mother, especially in their design of Mewtwo, who is supposed to resemble Giegue/Giygas. Giygas, whose name was originally rendered in Japanese as Gyiyg, Giegue or Geek, is translated as Giegue in EarthBound Beginnings, but as Giygas in EarthBound. Gyiyg (ギーグ), is derived from ガギグゲゴ (ga gi gu ge go), part of the Japanese equivalent of alphabet recital, which Shigesato Itoi felt sounded particularly unpleasant (specifically the sound "ghee" ).
The game's soundtrack was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. Tanaka was a video game composer working for Nintendo who had previously composed for games such as Super Mario Land and Metroid, while Suzuki was a composer and musician for bands of many different genres. The NES was only able to play three notes at a time, which Suzuki has noted greatly limited what he was able to produce, as he could not create some of the sounds he wanted. An eleven-track album of orchestral and vocal rearrangements of the game's soundtrack was recorded in Tokyo, London and Bath and released by CBS/Sony Records on August 21, 1989. A novelization of the game was also released, written by Dragon Quest novelist Saori Kumi (Ineko Hatano), as well as a "choose your own adventure" playbook by Zelda novelist Akio Higuchi.
The localization was headed by Phil Sandhop, who had previously worked on the English version of Final Fantasy. In accordance with Nintendo of America's content policies, all religious iconography, blood, breast nipples, cigarettes, and references to violence, alcohol or God were removed. Additionally, NPCs closely resembling Peanuts characters were altered to avoid potential legal prosecution. Several features and enhancements were added to the original, including a run button, several new in-game options, and an expanded ending. Holiday-based town names were changed, while some maps and graphics were redesigned for difficulty or aesthetic purposes. These changes were implemented by Sandhop, who rewrote the game's script himself, and then sent it to Nintendo Co., Ltd., where it was approved by Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Mother's development team before being programmed and sent back to Nintendo of America for further testing. Because of this, the changes between Mother and EarthBound Beginnings can be seen as improvements on the original game, which could not be initially implemented due to time constraints. Plans for the English release even included an American release of the Mother soundtrack CD, along with an 80-page instruction manual styled after a diary belonging to Ninten's grandfather, which would end on a ripped page after taking the player halfway through the game.
The English localization of Mother, titled Earth Bound, was planned to be released in 1991, but was abandoned as commercially nonviable. The reasons for this were cited to be: the supposed lack of market interest in the RPG genre in North America; the cost of Earth Bound's added cartridge size and supplementary materials, which made it difficult to promote and manufacture; the game's planned release being late into the NES's life cycle in light of the impending US release of the Super NES ( even though the game was initially planned to be released in 1990, but SNES marketing department themselves pushed the release into 1991 ). In 1994, after even more commercially successful release of Mother 2 for the Super Famicom in Japan, efforts were renewed to release Earth Bound in the United States and in Canada, but were shuttered due to the endeavor's perceived costs and also because EarthBound (Mother 2) was a commercial failure in USA, due to an expensive yet ineffective advertizing campaign (another failure of Nintendo of Japan's marketing department). According to Phil Sandhop's interview with LostLevels.org, "the Mother project and localizing it really opened up a few eyes at Nintendo. They began working closer with Nintendo of America and the other subsidiaries to produce artwork for games that would be appropriately received anywhere in the world and not need localization". The name Earth Bound would later be carried over as the English title of Mother 2, EarthBound, whereas that game was initially supposed to be released as Space Bound. A finished prototype of the Mother localization, titled Earth Bound, was eventually acquired in 1998 by Steve Demeter (of Demiforce romhacking team). This prototype was known as Earthbound Zero, due to Street Fighter Alpha's "Zero" that Demiforce added to the title screen before posting the prototype ROM online. The discovery of this lost game sparked interest in video game emulation and the historical preservation of unreleased games.
There is a very large amount of differences, big and small, between the Japanese and American releases of the game, which I'm not going to list here.
Compared to other titles in the series, Mother 1 stands out as the one with the largest game world, by a huge margin, and also as the most non-linear of the three. Actually, the size of this game's locations is considered as somewhat of a technical achievement, thanks to making the entire game world, indoor and outdoor areas included, into one single giant image file. I would even go as far as to say that it feels like the 1989 equivalent of a present day Bethesda game. However, despite the unusually large size, the world is not particularly populated, and most of the available area exists for the purpose of getting lost in it, which impedes progress and drains the party's resources. Progression is almost non-linear, and the game comes close to resembling a sandbox most of the time. Mother 1 also does not have the signature rolling health meter of the subsequent games. The battle backgrounds are also a simple black color instead of the iconic multicolored psychedelic backgrounds of Mother 2 and 3. However, the black background allows Mother to make enemy sprites more detailed, some of which are composed of overlapping sprites which imitate animation when enemies take damage or are defeated.
Overall, I think this game is much better than most people describe. After planning out my playthrough, I came to the conclusion that those who describe the gameplay in EarthBound Beginnings as outdated, unbalanced and kind of an unfinished mess by the end, never actually learned how to play the game. Frequent use of Repel Rings, for example, completely eliminates the most cited issue, that being excessively frequent enemy encounters. H2O Pendants halve incoming fire damage, which comprises at least a third of all damage you will receive during the game. The high difficulty can be completely negated by carrying and using several Breads, spread among party members, to instantly travel from dungeons to towns and back again, effectively giving you infinite heals and revives for a tiny price. Ana essentially gains unlimited PSI points once she learns PSI-Magnet, which happens pretty early. And so on.
In this longplay, I try to show everything in the game, so do not be surprised when you see me circling every area, looking into every nook and cranny, or protracting some battles. The excessive map exploration which you will surely notice also serves the purpose of gaining EXP, which I would have to do anyway in order to get all abilities. It is a better viewing experience to see the map during grinding than to watch me pacing back and forth on the same spot for extended periods of time while I wait for random encounters to trigger. Sadly, I still ended up having to walk in circles before the final boss fight, because even with all that exploration, I still ended up a few levels short of getting the ultimate psychic abilities. Alternative dialogue options, deaths and other scenes were edited in at the end of the video.