Thread 11914228

Why wasn't Earthbound a huge success when it came out?

>>11914228 (OP)
It was big enough in its homeland. It wasn’t in North America because the marketing was shit. This is known.

>>11914228 (OP)
why are you are making a bot tier thread?
fuck off back to /v/eddit

>Completely atrocious marketing
>Marketing wasn't clear on what game it was supposed to be
>Marketing said the game was awful and disgusting to try to market it to Garbage Pail Kids young boys
>Game is a touchy-feely RPG intended moreso for Peanuts and other Saturday morning specials audiences than who NoA thought would be buying it
>Game had a PHENOMENAL amount of contests, tie-ins and bundle-ins, including a Player's Guide in the box, meaning Nintendo lost a lot of money in their bad marketing
>The N64 was almost exactly a year off from release so hype was generating for the 3D console

The game came in an oversized box with a full color strategy guide included, so it was more expensive than other games.

>>11914228 (OP)
It looked like a kiddy game and not everyone understood it, even some reviewers. Read the Game Players review. I can only imagine the heinous shit a UK rag would have said about it.
The marketing makes it look like the game is just fart jokes which probably didn’t help.

The game came out the exact same time as Chrono Trigger. By comparison, Earthbound looked like something from 1990. It also came out between the launches of the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, which all the cool normies were interested in. And yeah, the marketing was shit. Not just that it made you think it was a game about poop and farts, but you didn't even know it was an RPG unless you read a review, and most reviews gave it low scores.

I was heavily into RPGs at this point, and even I skipped Earthbound. I didn't end up playing it until 1999 when I rented it from a video store.

>>11914239
Was that really necessary? Were jarpigs that foreign to NA?

>>11914268
No, Chrono Trigger sold well.

>>11914268
Nintendo REALLY wanted RPGs (turn based and action) to take off in NA so they’d always give them the premium treatment when they published. Illusion of Gaia and Final Fantasy had extended manuals that guided you through a huge chunk of the game. Dragon Warrior was given away as a gateway drug. They’d give them tons of Nintendo Power coverage too. A guide and giant box for EB is just the natural continuation of this. It’s a great guide btw, it’s presented as a travelogue.

>>11914268
Nintendo of America has always had a really fucking weird relationship with anything "too Japanese" even during very good PR spells like the Nintendo Wii where two Japanese guys show up at your door. It's even stranger because things that are overtly Japanese were still doing very well at the time like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger.

>>11914268
Boomer marketers had a perception that consoles were for children and children only played action games, while adults or teens who liked RPGs probably played on PC instead.

Box too big and ads too stinky.

>>11914239
RPGs being released with their strategy guides was the norm in the US and not just on SNES. This is also true for A-RPGs in Europe.

>>11914290
i heard the scratch and sniff chemicals used at the time are now known to be unacceptably carcinogenic. It's possible those ads have a body count.

I wasn't into RPGs back then, but I frequented vidya stores regularly and I don't remember seeing Earthbound for sale, I would remember such a big box.
RPGs weren't as popular outside of Japan in the 90s, platformers and fighting games were the zeitgeist.

The marketing was terrible and the localization lost about 75% of the soul so Americans didn't think it was as good as Japanese people.

>>11914228 (OP)
Low IQ Sega Genesis owners playing Madden 94 and General Chaos weren't paying attention to the kino taking shape on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

>>11914323
Odd thing to blame people that didn't even own a snes instead of snesfags that ignored it

>>11914332
That's an obvious low effort post in hopes of bringing console wars to the thread. Classic neo-/vr/

>>11914239
This also meant stores didn't want to stock them because they took up too much space on the shelves.

>Original not released in USA so no one knew about it
>terrible marketing
>strange concept and hard to convey to the audience
>terrible cover art
>first person RPGs seen as graphically primative compared to FF6 or Chrono Trigger
>no tv ads as far as I know

The most obvious is that the original wasn't released, so there was no hype for the sequel while there was in Japan. The marketing barely showed off screenshots of the game, or the characters, instead showing taglines about how the game stinks or smelly objects not even in the game.

The cover art should have been NESS with a bat and his friends fighting enemies to convey the adventure and combat, like the cover of Chrono Trigger did.

>>11914572
Chrono Trigger cover being actual Toriyama art instead of some weird shit that has almost nothing to do with the game is bizarre for that era. Especially considering the fact that CT came out in the US a bit before before DB exploded in popularity

>>11914580
If fan art submitted to magazines is any indication, anime in general was becoming pretty popular by 1995.

>>11914635
If you look at the names and addresses of the anime art it’s always some Hispanic guy from San Diego or Singaporean guy from Toronto.

>>11914647
Tons of white girls were obsessed with Sailor Moon in the mid 90s. There was a brief time when I thought of anime as a weird girl thing.

>>11914228 (OP)
Youtube didn't exist

>>11914580
imagine if we had gotten something like this instead lmao

>>11914664
Earthbound needed this

>>11914668
say no more

>>11914673
Now this is marketing

>>11914673
Man the entire party can just go bare-handed like blackbelts in FF1

>>11914673
Call me Pollyanna one more time.

>>11914228 (OP)
Real talk - too expensive and the graphics werent good enough. Read any review from the time. Theres some cool effects buried in the late game, and it has a very good soundtrack but plebs be plebs.

>>11915071
>and the graphics werent good enough
Huh?

>>11915078
It looks like a first year SNES game from 1991. Keep in mind the PSX was out just a month later.

>>11914228 (OP)
>THIS GAME STINKS BLEUGH DON'T BY THIS
>Howard Lincoln trying so much to remove the chaoskampfian element because the baseball peddler wanted to appease to conservatives at Congress
i wonder why

>>11914673
>sales go up by 5 million

>>11914228 (OP)
>>11914230
It still probably would've failed in America. People weren't ready for weird-ass games like Earthbound yet

>>11914673
>inside the present, there was a Sword of kings!

>>11915126
Twin Peaks (no I'm not that anon who spams about Mark Frost in Link's Awakening threads) was popular in America at the time though, a game like Earthbound should've succeeded

>>11915138
Wasn't the Twin Peaks fever over by then?
Also speaking of that, this track is basically a cover of Laura's Theme
https://youtu.be/Wy59nw0E1Vc?si=79U5snjucOVZEOXd

>>11915162
It's extremely similar to the first part, yeah
>OH ANGELO

>>11915162
Oh yes it does sound similar
>Wasn't the Twin Peaks fever over by then?
Probably yeah but still. Also while we are at it the funny thing is that Mother 1 came out before Twin Peaks and iirc Itoi watched the show after Mother 2/EB had come out. I think Leder from Mother 3 is supposed to be a reference to the Giant from TP

>>11914673
EARTHBOUND
"Get on your knees and PRAY."

>>11915138
Ok but Twin Peaks isn't Earthbound. Not even the same audience even if they were similar

>>11914892
Would smash.

>>11914237
I still have no idea why they didn't try to lean into the Peanuts-like angle

>>11914673
What the fuck is this shit?!

>>11915720
Peanuts was more 80s and was more Mother 1's thing. Earthbound was more nickelodeon, which is what NoA was trying to do with the gross humor of their marketing.

>>11915880
Maybe I'm showing my age but I feel like peanuts/stand by me/kids coming of age stuff is pretty timeless, I mean even Pokemon references stand by me and that was '96-98

>>11915886
I agree, and there's still a lot of similarities between mother 1 and 2, but also mother 1 definitely has that Peanuts vibe (especially the in-game sprites, it's very obvious), while Mother 2 has decidedly a very in-your-face 90s style with the vivid colors and more wacky stuff.

>>11914673
you meme but I actually think having art of the entire cast on the box would have really helped get across what the fuck it was supposed to be

>>11914228 (OP)
No one ever talks about it but that retarded giant box with ugly art and the strategy guide must have been too weird for people. Just put the fucking characters on the box and fuck the guide.

>>11914673
>AWAKEN MY MASTERS

It looks like an NES game at worst and Mario Paint at best. A hideous and unappealing game.

>>11916003
Nigga is gonna kill himself if he sees DQV on the snes

>>11916003
>NES
There's many great looking NES games, but nah
>mario paint
Not sure how is that bad since you can draw anything on it?
IMO, Earthbound has a timeless 16-bit aesthetic. It's too colorful to be mistaken for NES.

>>11915130
>Inside the cartridge, there were four kings

>>11915886
>>11915880
The entire mother series goes from Pulpy to Quirky.
M1- Max Pulp
M2- Pulp + Quirk
M3- Max Quirk

>>11916021
I get what you mean.
Though my own categorization would be:
Mother 1: Peanuts
Mother 2: Nickelodeon
Mother 3: Ghibli

>>11916025
>Mother 3: Ghibli if it was cringe

>>11916028
Juxta-kun?

>>11916003
>>11915083
The fuck is this meme

Looks like it did pretty well to me. This is from its first few days, no less.

>>11915720
>>11915880
I would've gone with emphasizing the Spielberg influences

>>11914228 (OP)
The advertising for the game literally said: "THIS GAME STINKS!"

>>11914251
>Game Players
They got a bunch of letters over that review and Bill responded basically saying “nah it still sucks sorry.” He was always based

>>11916152
>berg

>>11914251
>>11916158
Man, this review isn't even that negative. Earthbound fans must have always been made of glass to get mad over this.

>>11915880
EB and Mother, according to Itoi are more based on the mid-century American sitcoms he grew up watching as a child - like Leave it to Beaver.

>>11916360
You gotta understand man, a 69% review score in a 90s game mag is like an F minus minus

>>11916381
It's funny to me that review emphasizes how for kids the game is in writing, while it seems other magazines were more like "oh this writing is TOO MUCH for kids, HOW DID THEY GET AWAY WITH IT [slidewhistle]"

>>11916384
>>11916386
Lmao there's no way this guy played past Onett.

>>11916386
GameFan magazine probably gave it the most praise. I don't think even Nintendo magazines gave it scores this high.

>>11916384
I liked Game Players, they had personality. But the magazine, especially during 1995 and beyond were absolutely obsessed with next gen and "grown up" stuff in games. They got incredibly dismissive towards 2D games in general and famously gave Yoshi's Island a pretty low score. They gave Toshinden like a 95% though lol

>>11916402
Gamefan, especially Nick Rox (note: Do not research Nick Rox), seemed weeby and "cultured" enough to understand EB.

the whole "america from japan's perspective" aesthetic isn't particularly appealing to americans. It would have sold 10x better if it had a traditional fantasy setting.

>>11916031
>muh epic bogeyman!!
You have /vp/itis.

>>11916004
Or worse: Tecmo's Secret of the Stars

>>11916348
put your trip back on and go back to /g/ ChudAnon

>>11916360
>7/10 music & sfx - "hops right along, but also lies there"
>5/10 innovation - "you've seen this before"
Criminy.

>>11916585
In this case juxtafag is real. Maybe you aren't him, but he caused fatigue against people who hate mother 3.

>>11914295
I scratched them and sniffed them after renting the game as a kid. Am I gonna die of canceraids?

I AM OLD.
I WAS YOUNG WHEN THIS GAME CAME OUT.
I'LL TELL YOU EXACTLY WHY.
AND IT'S NOT THE "THIS GAME STINKS" STUFF.
MOST PEOPLE ARE LIKE ME AND DO NOT FOLLOW VIDEO GAME ADVERTISING THAT CLOSELY.

The box (front or back) does not tell you it's an RPG. Not sufficiently, anyway. I loved RPGs. I saw this at the rental store several times. Had no idea until after Smash Bros 64 came out.

The artstyle that you get to see on the back of the box, looks extremely simplistic. So not getting into what the game actually is, hurts it even more in this sense. From a glance it looks like an edutainment game.

The box is FUCKING HUGE and it isn't immediately obvious why. This means they had to put it on the top shelf above all other games. And it seemed to me like it was something special you had to ask for, in order to rent it. Like it came with a peripheral or something. I was a shy kid that liked RPGs. As a shy kid, I didn't want to trouble people in that way. So I didn't.

The game was fucking EXPENSIVE because it came with that strategy guide. No one talks about this for some reason.

The game would've done fine if it were a normal sized box without a huge fucking strategy guide included. And if the front of the box were Ness beating the fuck out of a starman or a flying ufo with his bat, or something. Paula blowing something up with her powers. Jeff using a bazooka. These things. It was a perfect storm of missing the point of the thing you were selling.

Continued: >>11916628

See this? This is the boxart you want in most circumstances, guys. The advertising will not be the reason you failed, if you do this. Deviate from it at your peril.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btAdHSUBbj0

Continued some more: >>11916628 >>11916636

"But what about Final Fantasy? Their NES and SNES boxart wasn't very telling either" you may be asking.
Yeah, true. and they weren't SMASH successes until they had a guy with a big sword looking upwards at a monolithic nightmare with a high-contrast background, is all I'm saying.
Other stuff is involved, but don't fuck yourself on the packaging for absolutely no reason. I remember vividly what it was like, to never really see advertisements for video games, but be a huge consumer of them anyway.

Continued some more: >>11916628 >>11916636

"But what about Final Fantasy? Their NES and SNES boxart wasn't very telling either" you may be asking.
Yeah, true. and they weren't SMASH successes until they had a guy with a big sword looking upwards at a monolithic nightmare with a high-contrast background, is all I'm saying.
Other stuff is involved, but don't fuck yourself on the packaging for absolutely no reason. I remember vividly what it was like, to never really see advertisements for video games, but be a huge consumer of them anyway.

You NEVER wanted to waste a weekend on a bad rental choice. And the best rentals, became purchases. And the best purchases, became "the game I saw at a friend's house, that I eventually got"

>>11914647
>Singaporean guy from Toronto.
What the fuck...

>>11914653
They didn't become girls until the mid 00s

>>11916056
A display of ignorance and shallow judgment, which ironically is a great explanation of why Earthbound bombed. People tend to forget general audience is retarded.

>>11914389
I had a part time afterschool job in a local rental place and I remember trashing one of those big boxes and the stuff in it because it wouldn't fit on the shelf. We just wrote "Earthbound" on a clamshell box and put in its place.

>>11915138
Was it really? I feel like it more of a cult following thing than something that was popular with normalfag TV audiences.

>>11916628
>>11916636
>>11916646
This guy gets it, when you're a 90s kid and you only get to rent a video game for a week, once a month. You did not want to gamble your one choice to something "out of the norm" when browsing the shelves.

>>11917479
That’s grim. You had a collectors item on your hands. Funny enough I got my copy of EB from a rental place liquidating its SNES stock - box and guide included all for 10 bucks. They were slightly beat up but a pretty incredible find all things considered.

>>11917589
>not willing to take risks
>family not wealthy enough to get two weekly rentals
ngmi

>>11917628
Imagine your weekend getting nuked because you got blindsided by this piece of shit.

>>11917673
That was just part of being a gamer in the 90s. It made the weekly rental exciting. There were stakes at play.

>>11917676
>THAT'S LIFE IN THE BIG CITY BRO
>ADUHUHUHUHUHUH
>AHUHUHUH
>AHYUGHYUGHYUGH

>>11917683
Cool it with the antisemitism, bro.

>>11916360
>>11916384
These two reviews do a better job explaining why Earthbound was a failure. The other explanations here aren't very good, blaming it on "marketing". Ridiculous, RPG weren't exactly that popular in the West during this time, but put yourself in the shoes of someone in 1995, you had RPG that were cutting edge like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy being released on the system, you had Super Mario RPG to look forward too. What did Earthbound offer? You cannot deny that it looks ridiculously underwhelming compared to everything else on the market that was making waves. Even worse, try having to play it. The early portion of the game are legitimately dull, and if you had the options to play Earthbound or any other major RPG title at the time, which one would you honestly chose? The only thing that would keep you around was because of the charm of its setting, but first 30 minutes in, would you really think there was anything special about the game? No, Earthbound as a game benefits from hindsight. It benefits because a bunch of new fans unintentionally spoil themselves on elements that not a single new player who was playing Earthbound for the first time would be aware of in the first hour of gameplay in 1995.

The fact of the matter, is that Earthbound modern popularity is an oddity, a byproduct of getting continual exposure via Smash Bros, and because of the internet. So much so to this day, many Earthbound fans have never even touched the game, let alone even care about the other 2 games in the series.

>>11917818
>Ridiculous, RPG weren't exactly that popular in the West during this time
This can't be stressed enough.
Yes, RPGs were released and magazines gave them really good reviews and promotion, but the zeitgeist just wasn't there quite yet, it wasn't a mainstream genre.

>>11917846
That said, I think the Mother series is a good one and I enjoyed playing them in order in the 2000s, I don't think it getting acknowledgementin the west is inherently a bad thing. The problem it has is the same problems any "fandom" has.

>>11916021
For me it goes
Pulp
Quirk
Sad :(((((

>>11914268
Yes plenty of bullshit moments in EB

>>11914228 (OP)
I dunno why everyone's saying the marketing was terrible. The marketing I saw was a feature in Nintendo Power that emphesized exploring the world, traveling from city to city, letters Ness wrote to his mom back home about his travels. It felt pretty cool.

>>11917946
Because the internet NEEDS reasons to know why this or that didn't work better and they need to find hypothetic ways to save it.

>>11917946
Nintendo Power's coverage also spun the game as a potential threat to society for being a bad influence on its players.

>>11914239

Not for me, it wasn't. After renting it a few times as a kid, I picked up my copy on clearance at Best Buy for Five Dollars.

Five.
Dollars.

The thing still runs, still have the whole package. Took out the scratch and sniff cards but they're in good shape.

>>11914267

Also around the same period, I asked the parents to buy a copy of Chrono Trigger when they visited the next town with a shop, using my own money which I'd saved up from allowance and kid stuff. They reported back or pre-ordered it or something, and said it's your money, but it's 90 dollars, are you really sure about this. I said yes. That's the one I got the most replay value back out of, worth it. So between the two it averaged out, the going start rate for a desirable SNES pak was like $40-60 bux around that point. I also wanted to get something because the parents had made a (rational, understandable) decision not to buy Doom for me around that point, which also worked out fine, based on stuff they'd been hearing in the pre-Columbine boomer news cycles. Chrono Trigger is the better game overall, but still not getting the edgy violent game stings slightly.

>>11918558
If you're talking about DOOM on the SNES specifically, you should thank your parents because you dodged a shotgun blast.

>>11917946
NP’s marketing was good. The stuff in other mags was bad.

>>11914572
>The most obvious is that the original wasn't released
why would that matter? If it was called Mother2 or Earthbound2 then maybe your argument would make sense.

>>11914237
>The N64 was almost exactly a year off from release so hype was generating for the 3D console

This was it. 3D console hype was through the roof at the time. The PlayStation was coming out just 3 months after this game was released. Normies had already moved on and were saving their money for the 3D consoles that Christmas. There were lots of really good games released at the end of the SNES's life that got no traction because of 3D hype. Even Super Mario RPG sold about 100,000-150,000 more units than Earthbound because it was released at the end of the 2D era.

>>11918004
If you were a kid in the 90's you would know that was a common tactic in advertising to boys.

I still have the pizza sir freshener and pogs for this game. So 90's.

>The game was expansive because it came with the strategy guide!

Please stop with this nonsense. The vast majority of NES and SNES RPGs in the US as well as A-RPGs in the Europe came with fuck huge manuals that acted as strategy guides and ofentimes with maps too

>final fantasy manual
80 pages

>dragon warrior III manual
83 pages

>secret of mana manual
around 50 pages

>ff3 manual
around 50 pages

>Terranigma and all the A-RPGs released in Europe
Pic related, fuck huge plastic because it came with the strategy guide

etc etc etc

>earthbound manual
67 pages

Of course not all manuals were of the same size but some of the ones I listed are the same as Earthbound or bigger.

Earthbound's manual/strategy guides was nothing special by western RPG standards, most of them were more or less like this. Yes Earthbound was more expensive than the average, so werze all western RPG releases.
Stop parroting bullshit without context.

>>11914228 (OP)
was any rpg in the US at this time a success?

>>11918868
Final Fantasy games had a presence in Nintendo Power's top pretty much all the time, be it on NES, GB or SNES

Dragon Warrior series did pretty good as well despite the handicap of being released late

>>11914664
>>11914673
I mean this is pretty much exactly what happened with Breath of Fire, they went for a Conan the Barbarian angle.
Capcom also had SquareSoft publish it because of their reputation for RPGs.

>>11918929
I always assumed Squaresoft of US seeked out BoF because of how long FF5 and 6 loclizations were taking and they needed a release

>>11917673
Weekend? I bought that from the bargain bin because my family was so poor. Despite it obviously sucking, I played it for years.

>>11919215
That is the saddest story I've encountered on this site..

>>11914239
It was more expensive because of the extra memory needed for rpgs. Final fantasy on SNES was also like $20 more expensive than other games. The big box was their way of trying to sell the game with a new IP (in america) because they knew the cost of the more expensive cartridge would hurt its sales.
Big box is a symptom of the cost, the hardware was the cause.

>shit style
>game is still shit never was good
>so called 'peak' game is actually fag slop for fag tards
>chrono sold well unlike this piece of shit

>>11918910
If you read the sales charts from Babbages in EGMs, RPGs also placed highly on those. I think RPGs were a popular niche if that makes sense. It also helps that there weren't a ton of RPGs released in the US. Due to the high costs of localization we only got a few and mostly the best ones. This also probably contributes to the hallowed tones people use when they talk about 16-bit RPGs.
However, I don't think the people who wrote into game mags or went to dedicated game shops like Babbages were the average gamer though. The masses were still mostly buying Mortal Kombat and Madden.

>>11918929
I read somewhere that it (or maybe it was Breath of Fire II's art) was drawn the way it was because Capcom was using the logic that boys of that age were reading comic books so making the box look like western comics at the time would have increased sales.

>>11918868
The final fantasy games, breath of fire, the phantasy star games and chrono trigger were all successful.

>>11914228 (OP)
Honestly, it's for the best. Let us have our own little secret thing. Normies just ruin everything.

>>11914237
>>The N64 was almost exactly a year off from release so hype was generating for the 3D console
Mostly this, honestly.

Like we can theorycraft all day about marketing and what 12 year old boys thought was cool circa 1995, but the bottom line is that it was right around the turn of the fifth console generation and the game already looked years years old when it was brand new. Plus it was an RPG in 1995, now imagine you're a parent and your kid likes RPG's, are you getting your kid Chrono Trigger or Earthbound?

>>11919735
Earthbound is way better than Reddit Trigger

>>11919740
More like CHADno Trigger is much better than Trannybound

>>11914228 (OP)
Too complex and original for normies. Imagine getting filtered out by a kid's game (for savant kids, that is). Normies are pathetic.

>>11919942
EarthBound only became tranny after Undertale fans invaded it.

>>11914228 (OP)
Saturn and PlayStation hype killed it. Panzer Dragoon was already circulating and you expect this crayola piece of shit to stand out? Even to nintendo kids DKC and squaresoft games were way more significant.

>>11919942
Earthbound is one of the most unique games ever made. It is commentary on life itself.

Reddit Trigger is just another square rpg slop like 50 others exists

>>11919991
Dude no one gave a shit about Panzer Dragoon

because this game stinks.

>>11916628
Jesus Christ grandpa, you can rest now.

>>11916628
iirc it was $69.99-$74.99 when it was brand new in the 90s at wal-mart or target.

>>11914673
add a jacked teddy bear and I'm sold

>>11914228 (OP)
Little to no gameplay makes it literally a visual novel. No changing characters, no choosing skills, no character growth, nothing. Just press button to continue. This is especially egregious when at the same time you have Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and even Final Fantasy games which were already including different gameplay mechanics.

>>11920378
>Little to no gameplay
How is it any differnt from any other jarpig?

>>11920904
Mainly customization. Simplest is asking the question "How is your run different from another guy playing the same game?" Of course there are other little things that can make the game a bit more engaging like Chrono Trigger's visible enemies, or adding some depth like Star Ocean's crafting system.

>>11914228 (OP)
FFVII was yet to release so generally jrpgs weren't part of the gamer zeitgeist

>>11920378
>including different gameplay mechanics.
The rolling HP meter and first strike system? You still had some options for how to play too, choosing to use more or less magic, defensive or offensive magic, more or less items.

I don't think the gameplay has anything to do with why it didn't sell well in the US anyway.

>>11916628
>MOST PEOPLE ARE LIKE ME AND DO NOT FOLLOW VIDEO GAME ADVERTISING THAT CLOSELY
Nigga...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ytQSGg3W-W0&pp=ygUbc3VwZXIgc21hc2ggYnJvcyBjb21tZXJjaWFs

>>11922001
That doesn't count as following it closely.
Everyone saw that commercial.

>>11919947
Earthbound is a simple game

>>11920378
>>11920943
Dragon Quest never changed the basics, and that's fine. Not all rpgs need to be needlesly convoluted.
That said, you're downplaying Earthbound's own spin on the DQ formula.
While Mother 1 was basically a Dragon Quest II clone (with better overworld movement), Earthbound changed things around with elements such as visible enemies on map (and the ability to sneak behind enemies, or getting caught by enemies), the rolling HP meters, and some other quirks like the condiment system (barely any people know about this) or Jeff's ability to fix useless junk into unique weapons.
So no, Earthbound isn't as barebones and simple compared to other actual straight DQ clones, which there are many (and it's not even a bad thing, Dragon Quest formula just works, sometimes less is more)

>>11914281
>presented as a travelogue
Damn, that’s awesome. I think the Escape from Monkey Island strategy guide was handled in a similar fashion. That’s such a clever way to handle something like a strategy guide.

>>11914295
>carcinogenic
Damn, so much for someday dishing out on a Larry 7 smell-o-matic or whatever.

>>11914673
And people say AI can’t make fun art.

>antiquated NES game on SNES
>in 1994, year of SM, DKC, FF3, BOF2, Hagane, etc etc
DOA

>>11922207
>Referencing the date of the Japanese release
Not. Gonna. Fucking. Make. It.

>>11922527
We all know everything took a year or two to come to North America. His point is still identical.

>>11914281
Also Nintendo was hosting it on their site, not sure if they still are, but the fact you could download it from there was very cool

>>11914228 (OP)
It did well in Japan, it's failure in America came about because of a few things. Awful marketing, being more expensive than the average SNES release at the time, and NA already being a market where RPGs weren't nearly as popular as they were in other markets all contributed.

>>11914673
I don't remember this Weezer album.

>>11922142
DQ has a job system starting from 3. that's one of the biggest form of gameplay for JRPGs.

>>11916360
What a dumb faggot

>>11916360
>July 1995

Again, people looking at this and not understanding the negativity lack the context.
Just look up more reviews from 1995 and you'll see the same negativity about many, many, many 2D games. Reviewers had seen Daytona US, Virtua Fighter, and more importantly, the PSX and the Saturn. *Anything* non 3D was getting shat on for "looking like 8-bit games" and being "old stuff you've already seen", no matter how good the game was.

It's like people complaining about Sony of US not allowing 2D games to get released on the PSX in the first couple years. This is why, reviews like thist! People have forgotten this because now "pixel art" is "soul" and trendy. In 1995 a lot of people didn't want to see 2D anymore, it was seen as backwards.

Picrel are reviews of Dracula X for SNES.

Now check out Earthbound reviews and do a CTRL+F search for "1995" to see actual reviews of the time

https://www.mobygames.com/game/6676/earthbound/reviews/

You may check out other SNES game reviews from 1995 (or after) and they're all the same with the exception of DKC3 which was probably paid reviews (or not wanting to shit on the one paying for your ads), but even those sometimes had snarky comments like "some might think this is oldschool/we have seen all this before" etc

Where should I buy English repros for the gba if I wanted to play physically? Aliexpress? Or is there a better option?

>>11914239
There's also regular boxes, I know because I've seen them multiple times on youtube.

>>11914294
Ahh Terranigma, Trump's favourite rpg.

>>11914337
You mean classic usenet chad.

>>11923305
The only official regular sized Earthbound boxes are these "FOR DISPLAY ONLY" boxes. They did not come with a copy of the game, and as their text would imply they were meant for store displays, not consumers. Any other regular sized Earthbound box you see is a bootleg.

Oh and I guess the MOTHER 2 box is regular sized, but I take it that's not what you are talking about.

>>11923331
Maybe I didn't see them but that's strange, I would swear I've seen them, I've been on a binge of Chase After the Right Price lately.

>>11923282
The difference is Earthbound really DOES look like an NES game. The difference is that the only graphical flair Earthbound has is colorful mode 7 backgrounds during battle. It's an ugly, minimalist game otherwise.

Here's a review from the same issue. Still images, menus, 2D, Super Nintendo... w-w-what?! Why aren't they rating it as bad as Earthbound?! Where's the anti-2D bias!?!?

>>11922527
Oh sorry
>antiquated NES game on SNES
>in 1995, one year after SM, DKC, FF3, BOF2, Hagane, etc etc
DOA

>>11923342
Also for fun here's that 1 star review of Dracula X from Next Gen you cite... and they aren't slamming it for being a 2D game. They're slamming it because it's a 2 years too late inferior rehash of a better Castlevania game.
Added bonus: Another Koei published game with simpler, worse 2D graphics getting a better score. Oh that EVIL anti-2D bias!

>>11923342
Earthbound's battle backgrounds do not use Mode 7. Not every impressive visual effect on the SNES is done with Mode 7. Mode 7 is an actual setting on the PPU that is used for a very specific type of visual effect involving affine transformations. People should stop using Mode 7 as a buzzword.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjQik7uwLIQ

>>11923342
This review literally says "it's almost the same we've been seeing for years

>>11923351
Complaining about a game looking like it's "2 years old" is precisely the same thing as what I was talking about (Dracula X is on par with the best looking on SNES, a 1993 game wouldn't have looked like this and it looks better than Rondo especially when it comes to the backgrounds which make a point of not sticking to the old "square tiled based bg" formula)

Also what's your point exactly? Are you saying that because unrelated review B doesn't have anti 2D bias that somehow nullifies the anti 2D bias of review A? That's not how it works. I never said "all" reviews were anti 2D in 1995, only that many were. What you're doing is cherry picking and decide to only look at what you want to look so that it fits your pre-determined idea rather than looking at the big picture. Are you also going to pretend that a lot of 2D games weren't getting released in the west on PSX during that time period?

>>11922142
It's not that the condiment system is unknown, but that it doesn't add much value.
You have very limited inventory space per character, especially Ness who has to carry the most key items.
Instead of carrying a condiment to pair with each food item and improve the healing effectiveness of that item, it makes sense to just carry more of that healing item.
Whilst condiments would be cost effective, money is a non-issue with Earthbound as you earn absurd amounts over time.
There's also that one party member can use a food item on another party member, and it's the receiving member that needs to be holding the condiment, as well as the thing that Poo doesn't get much HP recovery from food except for the Brain Food Lunch.

Earthbound's recovery system is primarily focused on using PSI / PK and your PP pool, with Jeff being the exception who must contribute using items instead.

>>11923646
>have very limited inventory space per character,
That's another aspect of Earthbound I do like. It encourages item spending and not hoarding, a problem with most RPGs

>>11923646
>it makes sense to just carry more of that healing item.
i guess it would make sense that it would make more use out of your turn if you used it during battle

>>11924003
Ah, yeah I suppose, it's turn optimisation, though again with limited inventory it's at the expense of reduced healing opportunities.

I guess that at most, it helps provide strategies for low-level runs or something? Earthbound runs are broken as hell anyway even without major out of bound exploits.

>>11924137
you can use sugar or delisauce with rock candies for an extra boost, that's useful but most people are probably unlikely to figure it out on their own. otherwise it's probably supposed to be a bit of a novelty that has some use but isn't meant to be heavily focused on. use some seasonings if you find them, maybe buy a few if you come across a vendor selling them, but not really meant to have a lot of focus.

the game has a lot of random things that are just meant to be fun little additions rather than worrying about minmaxing. the game isn't really that hard most of the time anyway so it's alright to just play around a bit with some of the mechanics for fun.

>>11914228 (OP)
>saw this game massively marked down on clearance
>looked cool, might by it
>check Nintendo Power just in case
>somebody took out a 2 page ad to warn me that the game stinks
Dodged a bullet!

>>11924660
It's the worst. There aren't even graphics. You get in a fight and it's like "Ness swings the bat! The Stray Dog whines!". That's not a video game, it's a fucking book.

>>11925297
Welcome to JRPGs, faggot

>>11925523
>Is that an attack animation? AAAAAAAAH HELP ME ITOI

>>11916628
For me, I literally didn't even know that it existed. >>11925297
Play a video game

>>11925557
NTA but Mother series uses a first person perspective, in most games with this perspective you just watch the screen flash, maybe flash red if red attack or blue if ice attack and that's it. In Mother 1 that's the case (though it also has the awesome Smaaash!! Crit which always feels good due to good sound effect and cool special font), but Mother 2 and 3 have a lot of cool animations for differenr kind of special PSI attacks or buffs.
Trying to say EB is bad because it lacks attack animation when it's on first person is dinigenuous.

>>11925589
>dinigenuous
You get a gold star for trying, I guess. I wonder how many words in your post were only spelled right by accident.

>>11925297
this. no sane kid back then would play a game like Earthbound, which not only looked boring but also extremely "kiddy". only hipster manchildren with historical revisionism thought otherwise.

>>11925696
See, I discovered the game by pure chance on a ROMs CD with a bundled emulator from a UK car boot sale waaay back.
Just launched the game out of a list of at least a hundred by pure chance, and played it start to finish.
For a game that never launched in Europe, I would've been one of the very few who knew who Ness was in Smash 64.
The battles being text heavy isn't a problem, an absolute fuckload of kids were playing Pokémon on the Game Boy, and they were largely static screens with pretty basic animations. Earthbound by comparison has a lot more detailed enemy sprites, trippy backgrounds, and really flashy special attack animations.

Honestly it being "kiddy" isn't the problem, they went for a somewhat Nickelodeon style marketing campaign and it's not far removed from a Nickelodeon cartoon.
It's more that nobody knew how to market inherently Japanese games internationally in the 90s, it took a generation growing up on Dragon Ball Z and gradually more Shonen merch-pushing anime like Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and stuff like Toonami blocks for games like Earthbound to find an audience.

Honestly if they'd tried launching Earthbound in Europe, I think it probably would've succeeded.

>>11926021
like I said, that's you observing the game retrospectively.

>>11925557
>he's a number 1

>>11926212
>VIDEO game
>don't make any effort on the video half
>your game bombs
>surprised pikachu face

>>11925610
Great argument.

People who stop to point out typos on others' posts stutter when talking IRL

>>11926021
Artistic games always do better in Europe. America is the land of commercial slop.