Mother / EarthBound Beginnings Is a Game I Want to Enjoy, But…
When you think of the term “cult classic”, what do you think of? Maybe a movie or TV show that never really got the respect you think it should have got back then. A piece of media that has gain a small, but very loyal fan base. A kind of fan base that understands what they are seeing is something only few can realize. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If there’s one game I can think of that is likely video game’s cult classic. It would be EarthBound for the Super Nintendo. So what in the world even is EarthBound?
EarthBound is a turn based Role Playing Game (RPG) created by Shigesato Itoi. However what made/makes EarthBound/Mother different than most RPGs at this time is that it is set in a realistic America. Most times in media we see America’s idea of what Japanese culture is but with EarthBound, it’s the other way around. As most RPGs at the time focused on more of a fantasy setting, EarthBound is set in a more modern realistic world. However it still has a very cartoon like friendly feel to it. So instead of items being magic potions and whatnot in most RPGs, your healing items might be hamburgers or other kinds of food. Instead of magical spells, some playable characters have telekinesis powers, or psychic abilities. This results for your elemental attacks such as PSI/PK Freeze or PSI/PK Fire. Instead of statues your character can gain in most RPGs like poisoned or confused, EarthBound you can get heatstroke by standing in the hot sun too much, smell something bad and get sick, or even get homesick if you don’t talk to your mother for a long period of time, preventing you from attacking. EarthBound without a doubt is a very witty game. Where EarthBound shines is it’s funny and very smart writing and story telling. There’s so many great moments in EarthBound that I can’t say them all here alone. One day I’ll take a more in depth look into EarthBound because there’s so much I want to talk about in this game.
However, what if I said that game was the second game of the series? You see, EarthBound was called Mother 2 in Japan. This of course begs the question, where is/was Mother 1 for the US?
Mother 1 was a game on the original NES that was going to be called EarthBound in the US. The game was translated and complete, however it was never disturbed and released in the US as it would have been one of if not the final NES game in the system’s lifespan in the states, as most of Nintendo’s focus in the states was on the Super Nintendo, trying to edge out their toughest challenge yet in SEGA with their SEGA Genesis. So sadly, the NES EarthBound game (Mother 1) was never released.
A rom was leaked years ago (under the name EarthBound Zero) from a build of a beta copy of the game. There was tons of speculation if the rom was legitimate or not. Either way if you were in the US, the only way to play it was to download the rom and play it on an emulator that had the English translation on it. That or learn Japanese and play the original.
However, on the June 14th, 2015 Nintendo direct, we were given a very shocking surprise. We got a trailer for the unreleased Mother game and that it was coming to the Wii U virtual console under the name “EarthBound Beginnings”. As someone who absolutely adores the SNES EarthBound (Mother 2), I was more than excited to at last try out the game that spawned one of my all time favorite series. I was excited for the game that has been in the dark for decades that we now get to see in the light and I was ready to enjoy this game…
… Then I didn’t.
I really did try to enjoy this game since I loved EarthBound for the Super Nintendo, so why can I not get into this game? I know many that do adore this game so I guess this review might be seen as my first “hot take”, but I do want to be careful with this as I don’t want to give the idea that Mother 1 is a “bad game”. There’s some good stuff in this and I fully understand why there are fans of it. I don’t want to paint the picture of “this game is awful” and want to make sure my message is more “this game wasn’t for me” or simply put, something that just never got its hooks in me. So let me try to make sense as to how and why I think Mother 1 was something I wanted to love, but in the end I failed to do so.
First of all, lets lay the foundation of what Mother/EarthBound beginnings is by starting with the game’s introduction.
The game gives a story of a young couple in the 1900s named George and Maria. The couple out of nowhere mysteriously vanished. Two years later, George returns and begins to do a study in private, Maria however never returned.
Fast forward 80 years (so 1980s America) where we get to play as a young child named Ninten (What a creative name). As you try to leave your room, the first room you start in. A lamp attacks you… Like I said Mother/EarthBound is not like most RPGs where you would have fantasy monsters and settings. Here you fight things like lamps, angry dogs, and even your common hippie. I’m dead serous. The Mother/EarthBound games are truly something else and I love them for this alone. Here we enter our first battle of the game. The UI is much in the likes to say Dragon Warrior at the time where it’s a first person point of view looking at the enemy that you are facing.
As standard, you have your heath and your commands like many RPGs. You also have PP that acts as this substitute to magic where Ninten can use his psychic abilities to do some special damage depending on the fight. Of course you don’t just get these right off the bat, you earn them by leveling up as in doing more battles. You can fight that does a standard attack, goods where you can use an item in your innovatory, Check to see the status of the enemy you are facing and their health, auto that puts the game into an auto attack mode, guard that bulks up your defenses, and run if you want to get out of the battle, but is not always guaranteed.
Seeing how weird things are happening in the house, you get a call from your dad via telephone. He tells you that it sounds like a Poltergeist and that your great grandfather studied these weird psychic phenomenons and that it might be worth talking to him. You also talk to your dad ala telephone to save your progress of the game. We now got our first main quest! Now it’s time to go out into the world.
One thing when you play Mother 1 that’s odd is being able to run. If feels very off balanced like the game is going faster rather than you. Apparently this was added to the US version of the game as there was a fear that US players would find the game too slow and boring I guess? If that’s the case then yeah I could understand that as the normal walk speed is quite slow. However this fast running comes at a price. The rate you run into random battles did not accommodate for this, so you will be running into random encounters… A LOT.
That’s one of my issues with Mother 1. There’s so many random encounters that it’s kind of ridiculous. There’s times you can’t take 2 steps without running into a battle. I get that random encounters are a part of RPGs of this era but it feels really unbalanced here and can become very aggravating when you’re trying to just get to the next spot to save or rest.
Another issue is the battles themselves. If feels like some battles are just a coin flip as to rather you are going to win or get a game over. It’s as if fate decides in some fights that you’re not going to win this. There’s times I will make it out of the home and play for a good half hour and make good progress, then once I game over next time I play, I don’t even get past the opening route because the hit/miss ratio is so intense. Mother 1 is the kind of game where I feel like you need to have more accuracy than power because if you miss even two or three times in the early game, you’re toast.
Later in the game it is learned that all the weird stuff is happening due to powerful forces beyond the stars (so aliens). Ninten’s adventure gets him to a mystical land known as Magicant. There he meets Queen Mary that tells Ninten to collect the 8 melodies need to stop the evil that will soon invade Earth. So the quest is on. As you go on, you will gain party members. Some stay for the long hall, others are just temporary.
One thing I will give tons of credit in Mother 1 is the music. It’s some of the best and most mystical tunes you can find on the NES. Tons of uplifting to strange music that really is a plus here.
There’s tons of different kinds of great characters, places to see, and great moments. It’s quite different than most RPGs in its time. There’s much to like here that there’s times I feel like maybe I gave up on the game too soon and it’s one of those games that is absolutely brutal at the start but if you stick with it, it gets better. There’s stuff I love about Mother 1 but man the issues with the battles are just too large of a pill to swallow for me. I’m glad in the end the US did get to officially enjoy this game. As it might not be a game I adore as much as others, I’m glad people at least get the chance in the US to at least see where the EarthBound series started.
Soon I want to cover Mother 2/EarthBound in the future because that’s the game I adore. Maybe one day I’ll even look at Mother 3 as well… Maybe when that game gets a US release… but after over a decade of waiting… who knows? Then again, I thought the same for Mother 1 and here we are.
In the end I’m glad I did get the try out the first Mother game, just to see the baby steps were for its sequel, a game I love. I don’t want to say I hate this game because again, I don’t think it’s a bad game, I just could not get into it. Kind of a shame really, but that might be more on me than the game itself. Give Mother 1 a try if you’re into old school NES RPGs, you might get what I’m missing.
