EarthBound/Trivia

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• Beam Me Up, Scotty: Giygas never actually said "I feel... h...a...p...p...y...", although many people quote him on this. He said "I'm h...a...p...p...y..." and "I feel... g... o... o... d..." but he never actually said "I feel... h...a...p...p...y...".
• Development Hell: It went through a shorter but just as dangerous version of the trope. The developers struggled to make progress on the game even four years into its development, as it was riddled with bugs and was nowhere near completion. Enter former president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata, who started the game's programming over from scratch^, fixing most of the team's problems in a month, and completing its development altogether in just six months.
• Follow the Leader: The Tengi Makyou/Far East Of Eden, which shares this series offbeat humour, with hilarious writings, taking place in a fictional Japan based on exagerrated conceptions by the west. The fourth one even takes place in a fictional America, with hilarious results. The first game appeared after MOTHER, in 1989. It unfortunately shares its No Export for You status.
• He Also Did: The rock guitar heard in several parts of the game is played by M. D. Seegar. You know him better by his real name, Shigeru Miyamoto.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: One of the most infamous and bemoaned examples in gaming, generally attributed to being mired in legal issues as a result of background music with blatant samples of The Beatles, Our Gang, and Ric Ocasek, and an enemy that was inspired by the work of Salvador Dali. As a result, fans had to content themselves with a ROM of the game or track down an original cartridge — which, due to intense demand and limited supply, usually didn't (and still don't) go for less than $200 outside of garage sales and such (that price usually means the cartridge itself, too). Finally averted by the 2013 release for the Virtual Console. This is even lampshaded by Nintendo's press release, which says "You are not dreaming - This is Real".
• Killer App: Not in its initial release, but many people - fans of the series or not - are considering buying a Wii U for the sake of its Virtual Console port.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Ness was playable in all three Smash Bros. games before EarthBound was released in Europe's Virtual Console. He doesn't have as many spoilers as Lucas does, though.
• No Export for You: None of the MOTHER games have been released in Europe. And of the three MOTHER games, only this, the second, was released in the US, and even then only once until 2013.
  • The GBA compilation containing this game and its predecessor was only released in Japan, despite the fact that the original version of one game previously had a North American release while the other had a complete English translation that was only scrapped due to the age of the system it was on. As above, there was a brief consideration of releasing it in America, which didn't pan out.
  • Though at long last, it has been averted. Close to nineteen years after its release in North America, EarthBound finally saw a release in Europe via the Wii U Virtual Console.
    • It should be noted that while for MOTHER a straight script-dump from the NES prototype to MOTHER 1+2 would be possible, the same could not be said for EarthBound. After the release of the MOTHER 1+2 partial fan translation, in which the EarthBound half went pretty much untranslated, Tomato discussed why he wasn't going to do the EarthBound half properly: because both are so densely and strangely programmed, in completely different ways no less, that it's pretty much impossible.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Supposedly, the reason the game had issues being released in the US and Europe is due to copyrights concerning the name of an enemy (Dali's Clock) and two music tracks sounding like Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" (New Age Retro Hippie theme) and The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" (the Skyrunner theme). Apart from toning down the flashes during battles, the Virtual Console release has no changes from the original SNES release.
• Screwed by the Network: One of the most egregious cases in gaming. Only one third of the entire series ever made it to American shores, and the infamous marketing campaign ("this game stinks" was the marketing slogan) likely put a dent on sales. Even in Japan, this appeared to be the case, although it was finally released for the Wii U's Virtual Console in March 2013. However, it was also confirmed that EarthBound would finally be getting a Western re-release on the Wii U Virtual Console — in Europe too, no less! — with Nintendo of America engaging in a hearty dose of Lampshade Hanging. Not only that, but two years later, Mother 1 was released as well.
• Trope Namer:
  • Current:
    • Eagle Land: And, by association, its Snowclone: Eagleland Osmosis.
    • New Age Retro Hippie
    • Sound Stone
    • You Cannot Grasp the True Form
  • Former:
    • Wackyland: Formerly known as Magicant.
• What Could Have Been: Ness's dog King may have been planned to join him several other times throughout the game besides the beginning part. It's given away by an unused climbing sprite.
• The Wiki Rule: WikiBound and Earthbound Wikia.
• Word of Gay: Tony, confirmed by Itoi here.