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Earthbound Beginnings: Difference between revisions

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Earthbound Beginnings (view source)

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Oh love.'' }}
 
In the late 1980s, [[Shigesato Itoi]] got ahold of ''[[Dragon Quest (Video Game)|Dragon Quest]]'', the first video game he ever played. Though he definitely enjoyed the game, as a professional writer, he couldn't help but be intrigued about the game's use of the unconventional medium to tell a story and say to himself, "I could do better". Several meetings with people from [[Nintendo]] and a [[Beatles]]-inspired name later, that's exactly what he did.
 
''MOTHER'' is a 1989 [[Famicom]] [[Eastern RPG]], the first installment of [[Mother (Video Game)|a series]] and the predecessor to the significantly more famous ''[[Earthbound (Video Game)|Earthbound]]'' and ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]''. Set in the year 1988, the story follows Ninten, a normal American boy. He's got a workaholic dad, a loving mom, and twin kid sisters. Everything is pretty normal and everyone is happy, up until the day [[Everything Trying to Kill You|his desk lamp suddenly attacks him]], another lamp attacks a sister and the other sister's doll starts threatening her.
 
Calling his dad after settling this, Ninten learns that psychic powers run in the family, and to learn more about it he has to get his great-grandfather's diary and learn about what happened many years ago, including what happened to his great-grandmother Maria. Meanwhile, strange phenomena are happening all over, and it's become quite apparent that an alien force is arriving. Just what connection does Ninten's family have with the alien invasion?
 
In the late nineties, a prototype for an unreleased English version was found by a collector and subsequently put on the internet as a ROM. This prototype version, named ''Earth Bound'' (with a space, unlike [[Earthbound (Video Game)|the more famous bearer of the name]]), contains a mix of technical enhancements, [[Bowdlerization]] modified maps to reduce difficulty, and a significant lengthening of the rather short old ending. Several other prototype cartridges have since turned up on eBay; [http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/09/earthbound-zero-prototype-info/ four legitimate ones are known to exist, with at least one more theorised to be archived at Nintendo of America's headquarters]. After several modifications to the ROM to make it playable on the widely-used NES emulator of the day, the game became widely known as ''"EarthBound Zero"'' to attempt to avoid confusion with its far more famous sequel. This page was located at that name for years, but was eventually moved to its current location.
 
In the lead-up to the [[Development Hell|long-awaited]] release of ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'', this game was rereleased in 2003 along with its immediate sequel, as ''[[Compilation Rerelease|MOTHER 1+2]]'' for the [[Game Boy Advance]]; it contained almost all of the modifications of the ''"EarthBound Zero"'' prototype, confirming that the prototypes were indeed the real deal. The port was [[No Export for You|only released in Japan]], though word has it that it was ''almost'' released internationally. In 2011, the ''MOTHER 1'' portion of the game received [http://mother12.earthboundcentral.com/ a fan translation] from the same team behind the ''MOTHER 3'' translation, providing a much more polished take on the script than the rather barebones and dry ''"EarthBound Zero"'' translation.
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=== This game has examples of: ===
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* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: ...sort of. The music that plays on the character naming screen? It's used as part of the vocal version of "Eight Melodies", the song that {{spoiler|you spend the game collecting, and use to defeat Giygas}}.
* {{spoiler|[[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas|Even Bad Aliens Love Their Mamas]]: It's Giygas's memories of his adoptive human mother, Maria, that end up defeating him.}}
* [[Everything's Better Withwith Monkeys]]: A singing monkey gives you a part of the [[McGuffin]]. Later you get to go in a cave full of monkeys. A majority of them lie to you.
* [[Everything's Better Withwith Penguins]]: In the beginning of the game there is a zoo with a penguin pen. Later in the game you go in a cave full of monkeys (mentioned above) and there is a secret room with a single lost penguin in it. In addition, Ninten's favorite animal is said to be the penguin, which is [[All There in the Manual]].
* [[Everything's Deader Withwith Zombies]]: Zombie mooks pop up time to time. In the early graveyard section of the game and in Rosemary Manor.
* [[Everything's Worse Withwith Bears]]: The bear, polar bear and grizzly bear enemies. The latter can kill you in one hit.
* [[Everything's Worse Withwith Wolves]]: The wolf, silver wolf and lone wolf enemies.
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Your first three enemies are two desk lamps and a doll. It just gets better from there.
* [[Fan Translation]]: At the time of the discovery of the English prototype, a group of fans had been working on their own fan translation; eventually, they were the ones who obtained the prototype and released the ROM to the general public, and for a while there were those who saw that as somewhat suspicious. Full story [http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/200407-earthbound.shtml here].
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* [[Moment Killer]]: Right after Ninten and Ana confess their love for each other, Teddy barges in the room and asks the pair why they are blushing. To be fair he does apologize for interrupting but did so because he was hearing odd noises outside, [[It Got Worse|and then a giant robot attacks them]], severely injuring/killing Teddy. Real moodkiller there.
* [[Mrs. Robinson]]: Mrs. Rosemary. Somehow this stayed in the English prototype in the middle of Nintendo's bowdlerization days.
* [[Never Say "Die"]]: Similar to the sequel, enemies "become quiet", "don't move anymore", etc. [[Justified Trope]] because you're not using real weapons (for the most part) and you're fighting possessed animals and humans, as well as supernatural beings.
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: Lots and lots of [[Random Encounters]], generally unbalanced enemies, a huge proliferation of [[One-Hit Kill]] moves, and too much [[Forced Level Grinding]] make this the hardest game in the whole series. Itoi even admitted to completely skipping over balancing it out because by the end, everyone was so tired.
* [[No Ending]]: The original release ended with {{spoiler|the aliens, defeated, leaving in their spaceship, and the party just looks at the sky and the credits play in the sky. It didn't tie up any loose ends and left some [[Fridge Horror]] / [[No Endor Holocaust]]. The prototype English version and later the GBA re-release significantly extended the ending.}}
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** Ninten and Ana have a dance near the end of the game, to relax (and to show them growing fond of each other). The tune that plays, "Fallin' Love", is ''extremely'' melancholy.
** The 8-bit version of the song is, but the soundtrack version has a typical romantic adult contemporary feel to it, but with no lyrics.
* [[Spell My Name Withwith an "S"]]:
** Roid/Loid/Lloyd. The first was the official Romanization in Japan, the prototype used the second, and ''[[Super Smash Bros]] Brawl'' uses the third.
** Also shown by {{spoiler|the main villain - his name is written "giigu" in katakana, written as "Giegue" in the localization, and is finally shown to actually be "Gyiyg" in the sequel. Eventually, Nintendo just made up a new English name for him ("Giygas"). But before that, he was apparently going to be called ''Geek.''}}
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* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: One of the first things that Loid does after joining your party is blow up the science lab.
* [[Sudden Downer Ending]]: Terrifying, emotional final bosses are a staple of the series. Though this is pretty much considered the lightest of them all.
* [[Taking You Withwith Me]]: {{spoiler|1=EVE is no match for R7038XX, but she explodes when defeated, instantly destroying the foe and leaving behind a [[MacGuffin]].}}
* [[Tank Goodness]]: A rental. Lloyd shows up in another tank to defeat the second R-series robot.
* [[A Taste of Power]]: The game does this ''twice'', both at the end of the game. Once with {{spoiler|Teddy}}, who can actually defeat the [[Demonic Spiders]] on Mt. Itoi without much [[Level Grinding]], and {{spoiler|who goes away if you activate a certain cutscene.}} The second time is with {{spoiler|EVE, who joins you in the middle of [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] and is insanely powerful and can defeat any of the [[Random Encounters]] in one blow. But if you backtrack, or go forward past a certain point, you are forced to fight a robot that EVE sacrifices itself to defeat.}}
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* [[Weapons Grade Vocabulary]]: Enemies can "attack" with Threatening Words and Swear Words, both of which decrease someone's Fight stat. Your party can get some words of their own to "attack" with, but they do nothing.
* {{spoiler|[[We Can Rule Together]]: Giegue gives Ninten alone a chance to board his mothership.}}
* [[We Named the Monkey "Jack"]]: [[Mrs. Robinson|Mrs. Rosemary]] renames her son [[Zelda II: theThe Adventure of Link|Buggerror]] after Ninten. Evidently she likes his namesake better than her own son.
* [[Westminster Chimes]]: The basis for the background music of Twinkle Elementary.
* [[White Magician Girl]]: Ana, the only completely straight example in the series (Paula has a similar personality but absolutely no healing powers, and Kumatora is a straight-up [[Black Magician Girl]]).
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