Known for it's pop culture references, wacky scenarios, and candid charm, this game is
hailed as a masterpiece by many gamers.
It introduced to MOTHER series to the west, and helped garner an extremely passionate
community from around the entire world.
This is the Earthbound Iceberg.
This Game Stinks!
Earthbound infamously had extremely poor sales in the US due largely in part to this ad campaign
with the slogan "This game stinks!" because the marketing included smelly scratch and
sniff stickers.
Understandably, most people took this at face value.
Though, with the advent of the internet later on, people's opinions began turning around.
sans is Ness sans is Ness is an absolutely bonkers and not at all realistic theory put
forth by MatPat from the Game Theorist YouTube Channel.
The theory posits that through many wild and loose connections, that the character sans
from Undertale is actually Ness.
This particular video became a laughingstock quickly after its release and became pretty
easy meme fuel.
Smash Stages Ness' inclusion in Smash was a big help in giving the Earthbound fanbase
a big boost.
Along with Ness, several items and stages were added from the series in Melee.
Onett, Ness' hometown has a faithful recreation with the drugstore and all.
Fourside has become even more of a sprawling city in 3D.
Maybe in the future, we'll see Twoson and Threed in Smash?
Smash Masterpiece In Smash Bros Brawl, an feature was added, called "Masterpieces" to
allow players to play a couple of minutes of the games that characters originate from.
Earthbound was available in the Japanese version only unfortunately.
When Smash Wii U released several years later, the Earthbound Masterpiece was made available
in all regions.
Though this wasn't the first time it was available on Wii U, since in 2013, it was added to the
Wii U eshop worldwide.
The game has also recently become available on the Switch alongside Earthbound Beginnings.
PK Starstorm 64 In Smash 64, there are actually sound files found in the game that reveal
Final Smashes were planned, but cut from the game.
We wouldn't see this feature until almost 10 years later with the release of Brawl.
One of the cut final smashes from Smash 64 was Ness's PK Starstorm.
[PLAY SOUND CLIPS] Ness in Kirby In Kirby: Planet Robobot, a
new copy ability was introduced called "ESP."
This copy ability is highly reminiscent of Ness and it's worth it to note that when using
the Ness amiibo in this game, Kirby gains this ability.
Mr. Saturn in Kirby In "Kirby Superstar" and its remake, "Kirby Superstar Ultra" among
the many Nintendo references in "The Great Cave Offensive" is a Mr. Saturn treasure.
Mr Saturn Font The font that the Mr. Saturns use to speak is actually based on the handwriting
of Itoi's young daughter.
The cutesy nature of this font was localized into the English alphabet extremely well and
is fondly remembered by fans.
Legends of Localization Like many other games, Earthbound was changed a good amount in the
localization process.
Things like Ness having a naked sprite while in Magicant, the Octopus Statue being changed
to a Pencil, and the removal of the Red Cross symbol from Hospitals are just a few of the
many changes made.
Clyde Mandelin, also known as Tomato, or Mato, is an extremely important figure in the Earthbound
community.
He's largely responsible for all major translation efforts including the MOTHER 3 English Translation.
He's written a book in his "Legends of Localization" series all about the changes made, so if that
interests you, I'd recommend taking a look at that.
Toby Fox Hacks Before creating Undertale, Toby Fox worked on a several other projects.
One of which was a Halloween themed hack for EarthBound released in 2008 for Starman.net's
Halloween Funfest.
The hack takes place after the events of the original game in an alternate timeline where
Ness doesn't return home to Onett after the final battle.
The main character is a guy named Varik, who is ripped straight from the "Brandish" series.
Most notably, the song Megalovania makes an appearance in this game, which is actually
the second rendition of it, since it made its debut in the webcomic Homestuck.
This is actually Toby's second Earthbound hack.
The first one was a winter themed hack called Arn's Winter Quest" with a protagonist named...
well, Arn and the plot is just kinda all over the place.
Happy Happyism The Happy Happyism Cult found in Earthbound is likely based on the KKK and
Aum Shinrikyo.
The KKK is a group of extremely racist individuals who act on the beliefs of white supremacy
that mostly operate in the Southern United States.
They are characterized by the white sheets and hoods that they wear, which likely inspired
the hoods that the Happy Happiests wear, though in the English translation, a little ball
was added to the end of the hat to more resemble a nightcap or party hat.
Aum Shinrikyo became infamous throughout Japan in the 1980s due to their rapid growth, attempts
at running for public office, and sarin gas attacks which resulted in the deaths of 13
people and injuries to almost 1 thousand.
While the Happy Happiests are just a comedic depiction of a fake cult, it's important to
remember what awful things that the groups who inspired them did.
Ok, Desu Ka!
At the very beginning of the game, when selecting customization options for the game, a sound
is heard when confirming each option.
[play sound clip] Thought by many to be pronounced "Bokista" this sound is actually the phrase
"Ok desu ka!"
This phrase can be translated to roughly mean "Ok, got it!"
Not only that, but this voice clip is actually of Shigesato Itoi himself and was recorded
without his knowledge.
This voice line also appears in the same capacity in MOTHER 3.
Cognitive Dissonance Mother: Cognitive Dissonance is not a rom hack, it's actually a fangame
made in RPG Maker with the Earthbound artstyle.
The game takes place in between MOTHER 1 and Earthbound and tells the story of how Giygas
descended into madness.
While the game is not an official release in the series, it is widely recognized as
an important addition to the fandom.
The Dismembered Beauty When Itoi was a child, he accidentally walked into the wrong movie
theater which was playing a mature movie.
"The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty" The scene that he saw depicted a woman
being un-alived on screen, which he originally mistook as her being violated.
In an interview, Itoi had this to say: "After I saw it, I went back home and was silent
and just really out of it.
I had received such a big shock that I worried my parents.
After all, a lady had been raped.
By a river.
In the movie.
When the guy grabbed her breast really hard, it got distorted into this ball shape.
It all hit me really hard.
It was a direct attack to my brain."
This experience would be the inspiration for the tone of the dialogue and music from final
Giygas fight in Earthbound...
Oh boy.
The Runaway 6?
The Runaway 5 is a Blues Brothers inspired band that appears throughout the game.
Though, despite being called "The Runaway 5" the band seems to actually have 6 members.
It's all the more confusing when you realize that the group's Japanese name is the "Tonzura"
Brothers.
Tonzura translates to Runaway.
Music Sampling Earthbound is chock full of music references and samples.
It would take an entire video to list all of them honestly.
Some of the most notable samples are from Beatles songs, which a few people have pointed
to as a reason why Nintendo was hesitant to re-release the game abroad.
The beginning of the "Magical Mystery Tour" song "All You Need is Love" is used for the
track "Crossover Time and Space."
Well, pretty much the whole song is just the sample repeating.
The beginning of "Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" from... uh "Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" plays during Megaton Walk.
Speedrunning Debug Menu Speedrunners have been able to break this game wide open by
accessing the debug menu.
This menu allows you to do literally anything you want in the game.
Add an item to your inventory?
You got it.
Go to max level?
Sure thing.
Warp to the end credits?
Yep it can do that too.
The two ways that runners have been able to do this is by trying to talk to a pixel inside
the tent in Threed and by performing the cliff glitch in Onett.
Rock Candy Glitch The Rock Candy item is used to randomly upgrade a character's stat by
1, but an unintended interaction makes it an even more powerful stat increasing item.
If one of your party members has at least one condiment along with a Rock Candy in their
final inventory spot all you have to do is enter a battle.
When in the fight whenever you eat the Rock Candy, instead of it being consumed, the condiment
will instead.
This can be stacked with many sugar packets, which double the effect, to boost character
stats to incredible heights.
The Cliff Glitch The Cliff Glitch allows Ness and his friends to pass through the barriers
along cliffsides to get to higher or lower ground much more easily.
I just sorta do it by walking up to a cubby looking shape in the cliff and then I rotate
the D-pad like crazy and then it works.
The glitch can be made even simpler by using a Skip sandwich, which increases your movement
speed.
Meteor Glitch When arriving at the Meteorite for the first time, there seems to be a possible
easter egg.
When Buzz Buzz flies out of the Meteor and the light appears, by pressing select on a
controller plugged into the second port, you can actually interfere with the light.
It's unknown if this is intended or not, but it's likely just a leftover from the debugging
phase.
Poisoning Giygas In MOTHER 1 + 2, there's a glitch that allows you to poison Giygas
and defeat him improperly.
The ending mostly plays out as normal, but during a fade out, you can see Ness' family
in the final area, definitely not where they're supposed to be.
Onett Barrier Skip The sprite limit In Earthbound is 22 at any given moment, and by abusing
this, you're actually able to despawn things like people, story events, and even roadblocks.
If you remove the roadblocks in Onett with this, you can skip the story you're required
to play out before leaving the town.
MOTHER2 Mother Squared is a remake of the Earthbound intended for release on PC currently
being developed by a group of dedicated fans.
The game has a revamped and more streamlined battle system on top of brand new, beautiful
visuals.
There's no current release date known for the game, but Earthbound fans are used to
waiting so I'm sure we could handle it.
The Guide Lies There are a number of errors and typos in the Official Earthbound Guide
packaged with the game.
Many of them are mistranslations or remnants from old MOTHER 2 terminology.
The most well known of the errors is that the book says the Kraken in the Sea of Eden
drop the Gutsy Bat, which is Ness' ultimate weapon.
The Gutsy Bat is actually dropped by the Bionic Kraken in the Cave of the Past.
Smiles and Tears Demo In the 2004 re-release of the MOTHER 1 soundtrack, an early version
of the iconic Earthbound song, "Smiles and Tears" is included.
EarthBound on the Gamecube?
In July of 2019, Yasuyuki Honne, the director of Baten Kaitos, revealed that he actually
had proposed a GameCube entry in the MOTHER series to Satoru Iwata and Itoi.
Back in the summer of 2003, he showed these concept images [show images] to the two of
them that feature an extremely crafty inspired artstyle, almost comparable to that of Yoshi's
Wolly World or Kirby Rainbow Curse.
The idea would be that Monolith Soft, who later went on to create Xenoblade, along with
Namco and Tri-Crescendo would all collaborate with Nintendo on this project.
Unfortunately, this game never made it past the initial talking stages, likely due to
Itoi's prior bad experience with 3D game development in regards to the cancelled MOTHER 64.
I can only imagine how cool this game might've been.
The 6th Strongest Mole Nearby the Drugstore in the Dusty Dunes Desert, there's a Mole
Playing Rough that always spawns in the exact same location.
On the surface, this doesn't sound too weird, that changes when you think about it more.
Normally, this enemy spawns very early in the game.
The Desert is much further in than that.
On top of that, a 100% spawn rate for any enemy in this game is not common, so it would
seem that this mole placement is deliberate.
To make a long story short, the Mole is placed there to prevent a game breaking bug from
happening.
Essentially, a flag in the game is turned on after random encounters that allows you
to be damaged by the "sunstroke" status.
If this Mole is not battled, getting into a scripted battle later on and losing will
make your game look like a jumbled mess of code as well as making your party stuck as
ghosts.
For a full breakdown of this really weird situation, check out this video by "Chaz."
Don't Care Names In the Japanese version of the game, when selecting "don't care" when
naming your characters at the beginning, there are a couple of references.
For instance, Ness can be Mario, Paula can be Peach, Jeff is Luigi, and Poo can be Kinopio,
which is the Japanese name for Toad.
There's also a set of names for the Beatles band members plus Yoko Ono.
Tony is Gay Though not explicitly stated in game, there are many moments in the game that
hint at the fact that Tony has a crush on Jeff.
He helps Jeff break out of school, he contacts the party more than once to ask if Jeff is
ok, and he writes Jeff a letter saying he misses him.
Itoi has actually gone on record to say that Tony is indeed gay.
He says: "I designed him to be a gay child.
In a normal, real-life society, there are gay children, and I have many gay friends
as well.
So I thought it would be nice to add one in the game, too."
From what I can find, Tony is one of the earliest respectful portrayals of a gay character in
video games.
Unfortunately, many early gay characters in gaming were relegated to ridicule or were
labeled as "bad people."
It's nice to see Tony was handled respectfully, even back in the 90s.
Earthbound is a game that may not have exactly gotten the love it deserved on release.
But, through its charm and zany nature along with Smash, Earthbound has been propelled
it into relevancy and it's now considered one of the quintessential Super Nintendo Games.
Fuzzy pickles everyone!
Thank you for watching!