Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

It's a Close Encounter, Charlie Brown!

Many games develop cult followings, among them being EarthBound on the Super NES, known as Mother 2 in Japan, whose predecessor, Mother, saw its release on the Famicom back in 1989 in Japan. It was to see a North American release at the turn of the decade, even having a complete translation, although Nintendo ultimately put it on indefinite hold. Years later, a translated prototype of the game cartridge found its way onto the internet, finding distribution under the name EarthBound Zero, and later legally on the Nintendo Switch NES app as EarthBound Beginnings.

Like many other RPGs of the time, Beginnings features randomly encountered turn-based battles with various enemies. The player inputs commands for their three active characters and lets them and the enemy beat each other up in a round. Commands include normally attacking, using PP-consuming psychic powers, using items, or attempting to escape, a spell guaranteeing evacuation Ninten acquires eventually abounding. Winning battles nets all characters experience for occasional level-ups, not to mention money deposited into the ATM.

If the party dies, however, the game allows them to continue at the last save point, albeit with only Ninten alive (there are, however, rare places where the player can revive his allies free) and half of held money lost (not a problem since the game initially deposits money into ATMs). The battle system has various other perks; for instance, Loid can use rockets, bombs, and a few special weapons from his inventory, a few of which can be more powerful than his standard attack and can break after use.

Major issues include the incredibly variable encounter rate and a nasty difficulty spike towards the end, although the game is beatable without excessive grinding. A time also comes when the player only has a powerful character temporarily replacing Loid. The version of the game in the Nintendo Switch app has further perks like save states that can be incredibly handy. For instance, the player can undo situations where enemy attacks kill characters, a weapon Loid uses breaks, and so on. These overall make the gameplay more bearable.

The controls, however, could have used more work. However, some positive aspects exist, including the ease of the menu system and the ability to move and dash diagonally, rare for an NES RPG. Even so, the direction on the next plot points is poor. Moreover, the in-game overworld map is unhelpful, and many dungeons, especially the last, can be convoluted and difficult to traverse without referencing the internet. Here, though, is another area in which the Nintendo Switch version betters things, given the mentioned save state features to save progress anywhere. Generally, Beginnings isn't user-friendly, but things could have been worse.

The contemporary setting is a nice break from the RPGs with fantasy atmospheres, with positives like the introductory backstory and the revelation of why Ninten must travel the world to find the eight melodies Queen Mary of Magicant wants necessary to complete the game. His family backstory is also revealed, the ending being satisfactory and settling the fates of the various characters. However, the narrative isn't overly complex, which was the case with most RPGs then.

The soundtrack is the best aspect, with plenty of good tracks like the title screen theme, the first and second overworld pieces, and multiple battle tunes that prevent the music from becoming too repetitive, although the quality is sometimes inconsistent.

The graphics look okay, with decent scenery albeit small character sprites, black battle backgrounds, and inanimate enemies, Beginnings, as seemed to be the case with most RPGs of the time, somewhat getting the short end of eight-bit visual capability.

Finally, the game is short, about twelve hours long, with little to extend playing time aside from grinding, and not a fun experience alongside its other shortcomings.

To conclude, EarthBound Beginnings is an average Japanese RPG, given gameplay aspects such as its inconsistent encounter rate and unforgiving difficulty curve. However, the NES app, akin to video game emulators, somewhat makes things more bearable. The presentation is also of mixed quality; the story and soundtrack are surprisingly good, but the translation was poor even at the time of its canceled English release, and the graphics were average for a title of its time. Though a good slice of video game history, other titles deserve your time.

This review is based on a playthrough of the version included in the Switch's Nintendo Entertainment System app.