Frosted Mini-Wheats plays Earthbound for the first time

[FMW]

Hello folks!

 

I've never played Earthbound before, but I promised a buddy that I would. I've struggled with it and abandoned it twice in the very early game, so now that I'm attacking it again I'm gonna keep up a daily progress log here to help keep me motivated. I'll try to write funny and/or interesting things so that people actually have a reason to read this. Commenting and conversation is encouraged, spoiling things is not.

 

So this post is kinda just introduction and pre-game. Not much to talk about yet. The game did have a really nice "attract mode" though that it went into when I left it on the title screen. It played an upbeat little ditty and showed little shorts of the little Charlie Brown styled characters just walking around different places. It's a stark contrast to the grim looking and sounding "War Against Giygas!" still you see first. I wonder why they only showed one credit during this montage, there was certainly time and space for plenty more. The whole thing is kind of classy, you can view it here:

 

 

Edited May 18, 2012 by Frosted Mini-Wheats

[Yantelope V2]

I have also tried to play this game many times and failed every time.

[RockyRan]

The middle gets a bit boring but stick with it. The end more than makes up for it.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

The middle gets a bit boring but stick with it. The end more than makes up for it.

 

I was coming in here to post that I got to the middle and lost interest. >_<

[RockyRan]

The middle gets a bit boring but stick with it. The end more than makes up for it.

 

I was coming in here to post that I got to the middle and lost interest. >_<

 

Yeah. Despite it being one of my favorite games of all time I honestly couldn't tell you what happened in the middle third of the game because I really don't remember any of it.

[VicariousShaner]

The most experience I've had with this game was watching a rather entertaining speedrun. Against the point, I know, but I still got most of the gist of it.

 

I'll be sure to check on this thread.

[FMW]

Hey there everyone! I'm awful sorry that I left you guys out in the cold without updates there. I managed to mess up the emulator I was using and I lost my save file... very discouraging. But I finally got back up and at it. At the time of this posting I've cleared out the thugs in town and am grinding my way through the first proper dungeon on the way to Giant's Step. Here's what I've taken away from the experience so far:

 

1. Having a variety of different battle tunes that cycle around when you jump into battle should be genre standard. It's ridiculous that in these games (JRPGs) where you spend so much time in battle that so many games stick to a single looping track through the entire experience. That's annoying and doesn't cut it. This game has quite a few different battle musics and I'm still discovering more as I go.

 

2. This game has a feature where you automatically win battles that would just be a waste of your time because they're so easy. This should also be JRPG standard. Seriously. In a game where combat is all menus, easy battles are a complete waste of time. They aren't fun, they take time to load and go to the separate battle screen, there's no strategy... it's super annoying any time you need to backtrack in a JRPG. This game fixes that problem.

 

One kinda weird thing that happened already is the first boss... he's just a dude in this happy little town. He's named Frank. Up until you fight him, everything has been pretty positive and utopian in the game. Then the game announces "Frank brandishes a knife!". Says I, "What?? I have, like, a T ball bat! I don't even kill enemies, I tame them!". It was a bit... dark I guess. Just surprised me is all. Once Frank jumped into his weird steam tank thing then everything was safely back into the style of a little kids fantasy world.

 

P.S. I would like to make it clear that I will be posting spoilers. I don't have any yet, but when they come they will be discussed here. I'm a storytelling in video games enthusiast, so to me writing about an RPG without talking about the story is pretty pointless.

Edited May 26, 2012 by Frosted Mini-Wheats

[Mercurial]

I was thoroughly confused by the title.

[UnstableArk]

Stay the course. As much as I love the game, the beginning can be pretty brutal and tough to get into. It's all worth it in the end. Always be aware of the context, but it seems that saying that is pointless, since you seem to be doing just fine on that end.

 

If you thought that knife bit was crazy, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.

[FMW]

Okay! Update 3! I said daily updates and I'm gonna keep up! I've actually got some momentum going in this game now! Since I last checked in I cleared that first dungeon and moved on to the second town. Turns out there's nothing to do in Twoson though, so I just went east to the next town. This meant wandering through a section of wilderness overflowing with random encounters. This was a tough stretch of dungeon crawl because there are tons of dead ends and the enemies are pretty tough. I actually made it through on my first try, but I was poisoned and had used up all my HP, SP, and items. Even though I made it to Happy Town, I died before I could find a save point or place to heal. So I was sent back to try again. Lame. At least I kept my experience/money. It's painful to not make it through by such a narrow margin.

 

So that's the basic overview of events. As always though, I noticed interesting things along the way. Off the top of my head right now:

 

I played the NES prequel to this game before playing this one. In most ways, this game is a clear upgrade. Better graphics, better balance, better direction to where you're supposed to go (though it's still not great). The upgrade the original game needed most desperately was a map, and this game got one! My map stopped working once I left Twoson though, so that's a little concerning. I wonder if I need to get new maps as I progress through the game? Anyway, there is one area where Earthbound has yet to measure up to it's predecessor. The music for wandering around is inferior Seriously. Compare this from Earthbound:

 

 

to this from Mother:

 

 

The main Mother theme had better show up in this game, and sooner rather than later. The super slow remix they play in Ness' house doesn't cut it (and isn't even as good as the equivalent slow version in the original).

[FMW]

Update 4! Today I made it all the way through the peaceful valley and actually survived this time. On the other side was a new town with new problems. This game pretty much sticks to the classic dragon quest formula, I expect to spend most of the game moving from town to town solving each town's problems by clearing a dungeon or two. I also expect each town to have gear to buy that's one tier more advanced than was available in the previous town. In Happytown they have a problem with an evil cult that's brainwashing people and painting everything blue. It's a very unhappy cult. I thwarted them and rescued a girl who had been kidnapped for no better reason than to give me a cause to travel to Happy town. That girl has now been rescued and has joined the party. At level 1.

 

Well, I guess tomorrow is grinding day. She's gonna get 1 hit killed by everything.

 

So what noteworthy things did I notice during this stretch of play?

 

What is up with this story guys? It seems hell bent on not taking itself seriously, but it isn't a comedy either. On one hand, there's this evil Giygas dude and he's really evil and scary and actually is a real villain. He sent a robot to kill me from the future even! He's like skynet! Neither Ness nor I have been given a compelling narrative reason to be invested in anything that's going on. Ness was just told by a future bee that he's going to save the world and I guess he's just like "Okay, cool. I'll get right on that." The new party member, Paula, had a psychic vision that Ness is going to save the world so she's decided to tag along and help. That's cool I guess... but where is the investment? Stuff is just kind of happening with no rhyme or reason. My quest is to find 8 magic landmarks in the area to use my magic music rock to record the songs they'll sing for me upon arrival. What will I do with this song? Dunno. Does Ness or anyone else ever question what's going on? Nope.

 

Right now my motivating factor in continuing with the game is the fact that I said I would. Nothing more. It's an old JRPG with clunky menus and punishing combat and, so far, zero emotional investment. Some impressive audio/visual do not mask what I am judging to be shortcomings. And this is how unhappy I am before I spend a day grinding my new party member up to snuff.

[UnstableArk]

All will reveal itself in due time. There was a video I once saw summing up the story and what the designers were aiming for. In the end, it makes a lot of sense. I'll feed the video when you finish up, if you like.

[FMW]

I didn't do anything exciting in Earthbound this last play session. Crossed back and forth between Twoson and Happy Town doing some fetch questing and grinding. Nothing main story related. Doing the extra stuff is pretty much necessary though, because your level 1 party member isn't gonna cut it if you try and move forward right away. It's an annoying little artificial roadblock that you just need to work through. So I want to take today to talk about the user interface in this game. I haven't seen another user interface quite like it, so that's a good thing! The bad thing? It's kind of a train wreck.

 

Normally in an RPG overworld you have two key buttons: interact and menu. You use the interact button to open chests, talk to people, pick things up, put things down in their slots to clear dungeon puzzles... it's a convenient context sensitive catch all button. Examples of this are X in Final Fantasy X and A every Tales game ever. Earthbound doesn't do that. They have instead two different kind of interact buttons. There's "talk" which you use only on people and animals, and "check" which you use on everything else. This is kinda weird, but hey, not a huge deal on it's own. Put each of those on a button and I can cope. But that's not how it works. Take a look at this screenshot:

 

 

Even though you have two different interact functions, only one is mapped to a button. If you want to talk you need to hit the menu button (seen above) and select "Talk to". I don't understand this at all. There's an unused button in this game, why not just put talk on that? Why do you have two separate interact functions anyway? There has not been, so far, any overlap between things I "check" and things I "talk to". I don't see why I can't just have a single interact button then. This system of interacting has unecessary button presses and leads to frequent accidental use of the wrong interact, which brings up an annoying little text box (either "Nothing suspicious here" or "Who are you trying to talk to?").

 

Some of the other overworld interactions are unnecessarily clunky too. You get money from combat, but it's sent to your bank account. This means that you always need to have your ATM card filling an inventory slot (and inventory space is precious) and before buying things you need to figure out how much you'll need and withdraw that amount. It's also important to go back to the ATM and deposit your money before adventuring anywhere because there's a steep penalty applied to the funds you're carrying on you when you die. It's just extra steps and hassle, and I don't see any benefit over the standard system of having money go into the party's magical money pile that they carry with them everywhere.

 

General item management is a pain too. You can't equp from the standard inventory menu, you need to go into the special equip menu for, as far as I can tell, no particular reason. Limited inventory space is also a bother, as you inevitably collect more items than you can carry. You can have the escargot express service store items for you from any place with a telephone, but better make sure you visit the ATM first because you need to pay for that! You never know what items to keep with you either. Will Apple Kid come up with another invention? I still have his phone... but I could carry one more healing item if I store that and just gamble that I won't need it for awhile. Oh yeah, and you'll also need to visit the ATM if you wanna stay the night in a hotel to heal up, or to get a dead character out of the hospital. And since the game gives you clear incentive not to carry your money on you, I find myself making constant annoying ATM runs.

 

Tomorrow I will talk about positive things, I've been complaining for two days now. I stand by my words though, this UI is a mess.