Earthbound Beginnings/YMMV

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• Accidental Innuendo: "Just like your Mom, you never want to stop."
• All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game": If you're not Japanese and have heard of this game, you probably know that Giygas is the main villain. It actually isn't revealed at all until you get the final MacGuffin at the end of the Disc One Final Dungeon, and most of the plot is just you going around the world to learn a song for an ailing queen who you met after a bunch of weird stuff started happening in your hometown. Even the game guides have no information on Giygas, and he has no official art.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is George an awful man who stole knowledge man wasn't meant to know from Aliens and abandoned his wife? Was he a bold hero who stood up to forces that threatened to destroy him, his world, and the love of his life, whom he never wanted to leave behind? Is what eventually becomes of the Earth his fault? Giygas'? Porky's?
• Awesome Music: Plenty, but see The Power of Rock for more...
• Demonic Spiders: Nearly everything on Mount Itoi, especially the grizzly bears and their combos and One-Hit Kill "last blows".
  • The suits of armor in the ghost house in Halloween hit like a freight train compared to the other enemies found there, and take far longer to kill due to their high Defense and good HP and their immunity to PK Beam.
  • The Bombers found in Duncan's Factory have an explosion attack that deals heavy damage to your entire party. Hope you remembered to level Lloyd up before going there.
• Disappointing Last Level: Honestly, you could rename the trope Mt. Itoi Syndrome and get the same effect. The developers forewent any sort of playtesting for the area, and the only feasible ways to get to the final boss are to either grind for hours until your team is strong enough to stand a chance against the enemies there, or just run away from everything you encounter. If you choose to go the latter route, you'll want to bring several PSI Stones along to keep Ninten's PP high enough for 4th-D Slip, or else the trek becomes a Luck-Based Mission once his PP runs out and you start having to rely on successfully escaping enemy encounters the normal way.
• Epileptic Trees: Like its successors, a magnet for these, especially concerning Giygas. The backstory is more implied than spelled out, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Same thing with most of the setting, like Duncan's Factory.
• Faux Symbolism: Queen Mary, the ruler of a kingdom that appears to be a Fluffy Cloud Heaven. Plus she's the great-grandmother of the game's hero, Ninten.
• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment: Lloyd/Loid is a bullied kid who stole explosive from the factory. Back in the eighties, you were supposed to view him as The Woobie who likes fireworks. In this day in age though, where bully victims often resort to extreme measures when they finally can't take it anymore and all the terrorist attacks going on...
• Goddamned Bats: Plenty of these, too, especially since you can't skip low-level encounters like you can in the sequels.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight/Hilarious in Hindsight: Shigesato Itoi was known to smoke a lot. The Crow smoked in the original release, but after the unreleased English version Bowdlerised that, the change was also in MOTHER 1+2. Near the time MOTHER 1+2 was released, Itoi quit smoking.
• It Was His Sled: Like the sequel, the Final Boss is the most well known part of the game despite that fact that he seems to be intended to be a Walking Spoiler in the original.
• Jerkass Woobie : Giygas loved Maria very much, but was forced to lead the Earth invasion by his people for vengeance on George for stealing their PSI information. He killed her in attempt to get rid of his deep feelings of love for her, but that doesn't work.
• Player Punch: Giygas begs you repeatedly to stop when you fight him and start singing the Lullaby.
• Polished Port: The MOTHER 1+ part of MOTHER 1+2 is much more accurate of a port (and even received some updates) than the lower-quality MOTHER 2 side of it was. Despite this, it was MOTHER 2 that was the focus of the game's commercials.
• Sacred Cow: The only one in the series to avert this, due to Early Installment Weirdness.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The battle system may be the sole reason why this game is less popular than its sequels outside of Japan, as it's just a bad Dragon Quest clone in terms of gameplay (remember that the reason Itoi decided to make a video game in the first place is because he played Dragon Quest, so the similarity is inevitable).
• Sequel Displacement: Despite being the first Mother game, it's the most obscure. Notice how Ness, Lucas, and various references to their games are in the Super Smash Bros. series, but all this game gets is some music (most of which are used in all three games, or at least EarthBound) and a few stickers in Brawl.
• That One Boss: The game has only a handful of bosses, but the Dragon in Magicant stands out for his powerful normal attacks and devastating PSI. Even with a PSI-Block from Ana, it's still a very challenging fight.
• That One Level: Holy-Loly Mountain/Mt. Itoi, to some Duncan Factory due to it's massive size.
• Woolseyism: Many of the (Itoi-approved) changes Nintendo of America made in the unreleased American version, including the run button and an epilogue, were added to the game in Mother 1+2, a GBA port of this game and EarthBound.