EarthBound Beginnings

Ah yes, the game that Nintendo had an official NA translation for but never bothered to release it until years later. Honestly going into this one, I was expecting for it to be quite a rough time especially considering this is the black sheep of the Mother series for a lot of people. So I am pleasantly surprised to say that I honestly quite enjoyed this game... though a lot of its problems are problems for a reason.

Let's start with the negatives. When it comes to EarthBound Beginnings, one thing sticks out pretty badly especially during the early game and some of the late game: the general combat gameplay. Now functionally it's not really a horrid experience, more just a standard one that gets a little more annoying due to the circumstances around it. One of the circumstances in question being the encounter rate and WHAT WERE THEY THINKING! This is one of the weirdest encounter rates I've experienced yet, you could instantly encounter an enemy a few steps after beating a previous one and sometimes you could go on for a long stretch without encountering anyone. I almost feel like the encounter rate is just straight up bugged or not implemented with good enough care. Another circumstance is the difficulty curve and wow there are a lot of spikes in this one. The two that come the most to mind for me are Mt. Itoi (of course) and the graveyard area in the earlygame. A lot of the enemies in Mt. Itoi are just straight up brutal and can give you a horrible time if you don't have EVE with you. The graveyard area is also a place where I died a lot since I just wasn't at the level of the zombie enemies that happen to roam it. It's a good thing that you still keep your levels and experience upon death so running into a wall until you break it is a valid option in this scenario. But yeah the encounter rate and harsh difficulty spikes are probably the main reasons why people do not enjoy the game, but underneath all that is just a very standard early turn-based combat.

The combat kinda sucks early game because you do not have a second party member yet and by the time you actually beat enemies there is no reason to ever use PSI so you just spam Auto battle the whole time. However, once you do get more party members the gameplay gets a lot more fun and you can apply actual strategy based on your party members. Ninten is pretty much the all-rounder that can hit hard and also have support PSI, Ana is the big offense PSI user of the group, Lloyd can use items to do massive damage, and Teddy is out for blood and is too powerful for the game. Other than a few glorified cutscene battles and the final boss though, there isn't really anything too special about the admittedly repetitive combat in either the positive or negative direction. It works well enough and sometimes that's all you really need and for an early NES game since the JRPGs prior to it are basically just some Dragon Quest [ドラゴンクエスト] and Final Fantasy [ファイナルファンタジー] games and it's not like those have aged particularly well either.

I'd probably be more annoyed with the combat if the game did not excel in other areas and this game has many positives. For starters, the aesthetics and especially the soundtrack are great. I can continue going through some standard combat if the music that's playing on it is this good. The area music is pretty great too and this extends to some very specific area themes too. The Magicant theme is very dreamy and magical, the graveyard theme is appropriately haunting and terrifying but also in a bit of a cheesy way which is appropriate as far as EarthBound is concerned, the going inside Mt. Itoi theme is super cool and sounds quite dangerous, and the Mt. Itoi theme itself appropriately sounds like "you are going to die here". I love a lot of the story or cutscene focused music too: the eight melodies theme is great and the guitar riff sounding tracks that happen in the very beginning of the game and when you ride some vehicles are great too. I especially want to highlight how terrifying the final boss track is too, I love the atmosphere created by it. One of the best NES/Famicom soundtracks for sure.

I also want to praise the writing because the game has a really good and often emotional story that's paced very well but it also does a very good job at being super lighthearted too. A lot of the NPC dialogue is just funny and quirky in a way that feels true to any Mother game. It really gives off an excellent vibe of going on a fun yet also important adventure, maybe with some friends along the way. And that vibe is fully warranted with a lot of the stuff you do in the game: you can meet friends, go to school, have a fun airplane ride, explore abandoned factories, visit a goofy monkey cave, warp to a weird magic world where you get attacked by exploding trees, get arrested for doing something shady at a club, and DRIVE IN AN ACTUAL TANK THAT SOME PERSON GOES "here lol just have it" DESPITE EVERYONE BEING A CHILD! A lot of the stuff you do in the game is just awesome and it is surprisingly cohesive with respect to what the writing wants to accomplish. The writing is just excellent all around.

The soundtrack and writing really make the game for me even in spite of its core gameplay having a few problems while not being too unenjoyable. I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot especially if you already are a fan of Mother.