EarthBound - Opinions

I don't have much to remark about EarthBound beyond what I feel was conveyed pretty clearly throughout my playthrough. The game has some good dialogue, but the gameplay has obviously aged. Playing Mother 3 first really makes it difficult to see EarthBound as the unique game it was when it was released, and since there have been so many quirky RPG's and indie games influenced by EarthBound, even the specific brand of weirdness that EarthBound is selling isn't too novel anymore either. As I played it, I saw so many things that I know Mother 3 does better that while I had a good time, I was cognizant of how rough this game is in comparison.

Additionally, for all the quirkiness that EarthBound has to offer, there's a degree of tonal whiplash that comes along with it that I wasn't expecting. The juxtaposition of the mundane and surreal is interesting, but that concept is something Mother 3 handles so wonderfully that I don't think anything can compare. Once again, EarthBound shows great potential here that I'm sure once appeared very novel, but even disregarding its legacy, the weirdness still feels unnatural, like a bunch of disparate things were being mashed together randomly by the developers rather than warped and mangled into a cohesive whole believably as they are in Mother 3. In the end, I think it's clear that while EarthBound will forever stand as a pioneer of modern game design and remain a cult classic, the milestones reached in 1994 have been surpassed by many others since then. EarthBound walked so that others could run.