It’s the perfect time to give EarthBound Beginnings a chance

By now, just about everyone involved in the Nintendo sphere knows or has heard about EarthBound in some way, shape, or form. The game went on to inspire many of today’s popular indie titles, and it’s since become a cult classic among its fans. EarthBound – which is actually the second game in its series – was released in the United States in 1995. It didn’t sell very well, however, thanks at least in part to a poor marketing campaign. It turns out, selling your game with the tagline “this game stinks” doesn’t make people more likely to buy your product!

That should help explain why in 1999, EarthBound was already obscure stateside. That’s also why it was such a surprise that Ness was featured in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64 as an unlockable character! Much like how the Fire Emblem series later became popular as a result of the Super Smash Bros. series, EarthBound was brought a little bit closer to the spotlight as a result of Ness’ inclusion in the game. Then, in Super Smash Bros. Melee, game director Masahiro Sakurai actually considered removing Ness from the game in favor of Lucas, the protagonist of Mother 3 (which would have been called EarthBound 2 in the Americas). Unfortunately, Mother 3 was undergoing development hell at the time, so this didn’t happen. Ness remained playable in Melee, and Lucas was eventually added as a new fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The point is, there’s one major EarthBound character who never made it into Smash: Ninten, the protagonist of EarthBound Beginnings. This NES game was originally planned to release in America in the late 1980s, and was fully translated to English with some quality-of-life changes made to the game as well. This never happened, however, and the English translation presumably sat in Nintendo’s headquarters for decades. In Japan, this game is known as MOTHER, and its intended title for the Americas was “Earth Bound”. Therefore, if the game was released overseas as intended, what we now know as EarthBound would actually be EarthBound 2, and what we know as Mother 3 would be EarthBound 3. That’d make a lot more sense!

In 2015, Nintendo actually went ahead and released the “Earth Bound” prototype they had been sitting on for decades on the Wii U Virtual Console for the very first time. The game had been released in Japan back in the 1980s, but this was the first time it was available anywhere else. Its title screen still read “Earth Bound”, but to try and clear up confusion, Nintendo officially changed its name to EarthBound Beginnings instead. Fans had been calling it EarthBound Zero up until this point, which probably makes more sense if you’re going for a title that implies its status as a prequel. A couple of years ago, both EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings were made available on Nintendo Switch Online.

By now, everyone knows the kind of cultural impact EarthBound has had on the gaming world. It’s well-established that (menu navigation aside) the game holds up rather well even so many years later. But you never really hear anyone talk about EarthBound Beginnings, and to an extent, that’s understandable. Just take a look at some screenshots – the game looks (and feels) very dated. What’s the point in playing something so old?

I first played EarthBound in 2015, and Mother 3 not too long after, and I’ve played through both games at least 5 times each since then. I’d never played EarthBound Beginnings, though, because it’s difficult to get past its age. Everything’s small and scrunched up, the interiors of buildings are flat color – everything feels so primitive. And if you play the game without a guide or walkthrough, you’re likely to make no progress whatsoever for hours on end. There isn’t much direction here, if any at all.

Unlike its successor, enemies don’t appear in the overworld in EarthBound Beginnings. They’re random encounters, and some of the opponents you’re forced to fight are incredibly tough. Not only do you kind of need a walkthrough here, but restore points and rewinding are crucial – this game is tough. Many bosses require that you defeat enemies over and over again until you’re a high enough level to challenge them. In fact, most walkthroughs will tell you when you need to grind. Obviously, this isn’t much fun, as you’ll need to interrupt your enemy-grinding sessions by finding a place to heal every so often. Not to mention the fact that several of your new party members join you at level 1, which necessitates grinding as soon as they become a part of your team.

In a similar vein to its successor, EarthBound Beginnings’ menu system is incredibly clunky – but moreso here. Every time you want to withdraw money from the ATM, you can’t just talk to or check the machine like in EarthBound. You have to go to your Goods and use the Bank Card, and it’s easy to forget this fact and waste time trying to check the machine instead. Item management is tough due to each character’s limited inventory space, an issue that also persists in EarthBound to a smaller extent.

With the way we’re listing these flaws, you may think we’re trying to say that EarthBound Beginnings isn’t a very good game. That’s not necessarily true, though – the unreleased English translation actually added several quality-of-life changes to the game, which are all present in the Nintendo Switch Online version. Most importantly, it added a run button to the game that was not present in the Japanese original. This is an absolutely massive improvement; EarthBound Beginnings’ overworld is huge, and slowly walking through it with no way to boost your speed would’ve gotten old fast. The run button actually doubles the speed at which the game runs, and it makes navigation so much easier. The American version also expands the ending with additional cutscenes, dialogue, and context. The game ends rather abruptly in the Japanese version, which is not the case on the Nintendo Switch Online version.

All in all, playing EarthBound Beginnings is a challenge. You do need to use a walkthrough, you’ll probably wind up relying on rewind and save states (unless you’re really good at the game), and there will be times where you’ll have to spend an hour defeating enemies. But beyond the game’s age is something truly special, and it might not be quite what you expect: the story, and to a lesser extent the characters. EarthBound Beginnings is very similar to EarthBound in many ways, but its story is actually completely different. EarthBound is indeed a sequel to this game, meaning everything that happens in this game is referenced in the next.

It’s very difficult to recap this story in good time, but we’ll try! The main character’s name is Ninten, and even though he looks like Ness, the two are separate characters with no relation to each other. In the early 1900s (before Ninten was born), Ninten’s great grandparents, George and Maria, are abducted by aliens. Though Maria never returned, George came back to Earth a few years later with the knowledge of alien powers called PSI. George then devoted the rest of his life to studying PSI, and passed away many years later.

In the late 1980s, Ninten wakes up to find that objects in his house have been possessed by poltergeists. After defeating the poltergeists, Ninten finds George’s diary in the basement and sets out on an adventure. Along the way, Ninten meets Pippi, Ana, Lloyd, and Teddy, who all join his team at some point or another. He also learns that adults are once again being kidnapped by the very same aliens that abducted his great-grandfather George many years ago. Using a mysterious code present in George’s diary, Ninten enters a realm called Magicant, where he meets its queen, Mary. She tells Ninten to gather Eight Melodies hidden throughout the world, and this is what makes up the bulk of EarthBound Beginnings’ story – finding all of the melodies, some of which are incredibly well-hidden.

Ninten finds all Eight Melodies and returns to Magicant. Upon singing the song to Mary, he learns that she is actually his grand-grandmother Maria, whose lost memory is restored. She explains that she was kept with the aliens who abducted her, and they tasked her with raising an alien named Giygas as a child of her own. Maria would often sing the Eight Melodies to Giygas at night, which is why the song restored her lost memories. It turns out that Giygas is actually responsible for the alien invasion of Earth – when George escaped the aliens, he took with him the forbidden knowledge of PSI, which the alien race wanted to reclaim.

At the end of EarthBound Beginnings, Ninten and his party confront Giygas, who wants to exact revenge on the human race for stealing PSI powers from the aliens. Ninten is unable to defeat Giygas through sheer force alone, so him and his friends simply sing the Eight Melodies instead. After doing this for a while, Giygas finds he is unable to complete his invasion without feeling guilty and remembering Maria, so he returns home but claims that he’ll be back one day. All of the kidnapped adults are freed, and Ninten and his friends all return to their homes in peace. This sets up the events of EarthBound, in which Giygas loses his mind and becomes more of a force of nature than an actual defined character.

Again, it’s difficult to explain EarthBound Beginnings’ story in short form – that’d be an entirely different essay. But the plot here is actually quite interesting if you delve into it, and it makes this game a great candidate for a remake. We don’t expect to see any remakes for EarthBound games, to be honest, but if any of the three titles deserve it first it has to be this one. EarthBound Beginnings is as important to the trilogy as EarthBound or Mother 3, even though it isn’t always treated as such.

If you’re looking to give the game a go, remember to have a walkthrough handy just in case you get stuck. And also remember to have some YouTube videos ready so you don’t get too bored while you’re defeating enemies. But if you can look past its flaws, you can easily see this game’s potential – with updated graphics and gameplay, this could cement itself as one of the all-time greats. Despite its primitiveness, the soundtrack is also quite catchy – specifically, the overworld themes, which actually both have remixes that play on the Onett stage in Smash. Fun fact: the music track called “Onett” in the Super Smash Bros. series is not the theme that plays in Onett at all. It’s a medley of music that plays in EarthBound Beginnings!

Have you played EarthBound Beginnings yet? If so, how did you like it, and do you think it could benefit from a remake? Let us know in the comments down below. You can check out the official information page for the game right here.