Legitimate criticisms of Earthbound

Legitimate criticisms of Earthbound.

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indirectly caused homestuck and undertale

Horrible inventory system
And the whole bike thing I guess

not an argument

Condiments
Aside from the rock candy glitch, what's the point?

You can't see your characters when they battle

BIKE
I
K
E

inventory system sucks
but overall it's a good rpg 2bqh

No kill streaks

Giygas isnt a hard final boss

Its really boring. The turnbased combat has a low level of player interaction; you're either easily winning every encounter or getting crushed.

The music is generally awkward and offputting.

There's very little character development. You're introduced to characters, they join your party, and then nothing happens.

>The music is generally awkward and offputting.
This is the only false statement from your post

Ness doesn't say "Fuzzy Pickles"

>The music is generally awkward and offputting.
you are wrong

No criticisms towards EarthBound, it's perfect

Mother 3 on the other hand, the last time I played I was so disappointed by how heavy handed it was trying to be, not to mention the updated item system even though the game's not nearly big enough or complex enough to warrant such a menu, the 16-hit system is cool but after a while it gets annoying because all you wanna do is walk through a zone and the fucking enemies gang up on you, and you can't run away so your only choice is having to fight them

Then there's the bosses, just lower their defenses/offenses and there you go, no challenge, nothing, the rolling health meter diminishes even slower so you have time to resurrect your partners that die because they're not high level enough, because instead of having few levels to go up but compensating in stats, the game levels you up but only increases 1 or 2 stats.

Trying to get to the hermit in the desert where you have to trade the monkeys the items.

Fuck that shit.

are there any other jrpgs similar to earthbound but newer/updated?

undermeme

>Then there's the bosses, just lower their defenses/offenses and there you go
I really feel like you can say the same about Earthbound plus some bottle rockets

The only real criticisms I can think of, to be honest. Other than that the game is pretty much flawless.

The inventory system sucks ass

Undertale plays nothing like earthbound.

I dunno, the first person view works for the immersion of the chill and trippy battle atmosphere

Bottle Rockets only show up very near the end of the game when there's only 2 santuaries to go and even then most people just use them on the bosses when they don't feel like fighting them

The game is pretty boring and weirdly curved difficulty-wise until you get to Winters.

Everything in this game was unnecessarily slow.

>saving requires you to go through unnecessary dialogue with your dad
>you're always being asked if you want to go to bed (quit the game) after saving, but this function doesn't do anything because you have to press the power button anyways
>money is earned from battles but you have to waste time withdrawing it from the bank to claim it
>the token teleportation spell isn't instant and requires you to run in circles
>no way to move sprint aside from using the bike which can't be used indoors despite some buildings being big as fuck

There's little/no interaction between the MCs despite that existing in the games before and after it in the series. The game would feel like an adventure to me if the main characters actually felt alive.
The inventory system is pure ass,
The battle system is pretty meh, some skills (really Paula's assists) feel like filler when it's just spam attacks buttons and kill whatever is in front of you.
Uselsss, filler things like condiments or dealing with money
Lot's of slow, dull moments like waiting in the waterfall, the desert or swamp. Or just plain obnoxious shit like the mole cavern or the monkey cave.


Personally to me it's 1 = 3 > 2

Pretty sure they first appear at Threed.

>you're either easily winning every encounter or getting crushed.
Fucking this. The difficulty feels very inconsistent.

no its Deep Darkness

Hylics.
It's batshit crazy but oddly entertaining.

Menus (saving, money, shops, everything) and inventory management are awful. It alone ruins the whole game.

Mother 1 is that good? I always though that it was a much grindy game with more inventory nightmare stuff.

To me at least, the worst it ever gets are Duncan's Factory and the end mountain.
Otherwise it suffers just from being a bit too archaic.

i kind of wish you could dash

It's clunky as hell, but it definitely doesn't ruin the game. The only time you need to fuck around with the inventory a lot is when you go to a new shop and there's a bunch of better new items to buy. That is really fucking annoying, but still not enough to ruin the game.

It's a great game. But yeah, there's definitely a decent amount of grinding. If you want to play it, I'd say get the hacked version of the rom with reduced grinding, it helps a lot.

It is, but it's so dug deep there you just accept it, just download the Easy Path from Starmen.NET or the ring patch for the GBA version and you're all set.

The worst part of the game to me is the Swamp and the caves predating Mr. Itoi, maps don't help either because wherever you go there's hordes of enemies on your ass

hylics is weirdly cool. i love the aesthetics

How incredibly slow the first 4 hours of the game are. Honestly, I think the game starts really going after you defeat the Clumsy Robot youtube.com/watch?v=FRr82tXZFto

There is a recommended hack that removes some of the grind. Haven't played it myself though.

Weapons staying on the inventory after being equipped.

Even mother 1 got this right what the fuck were they thinking

Inventory system. Bike. Party members hardly speak or interact aside from when you meet them and a handful of select scenes.

rats that always crit u and 1 shot u in the first dungeon

Came out on obsolete hardware.

Dad not giving you a fucking debit card

>The music is generally awkward and offputting.

The inventory system isn't very good, some parts of the game feel like a slog.

While I don't find the game boring, I will agree that the combat isn't well balanced early in the game, but I feel it evens out later.

>The music is generally awkward and offputting
I mean some of the tracks are intentionally that way, but most of the music in the game is amazing.

>There's very little character development
I'll give you that one, though I've never felt it hurt the game.

>turn based combat
even in 1995 this was pathetic

>inventory system
>fucking boring until you get Jeff
>Monkey Caves
>party members don't really say much
>Monkey Caves
>railroaded story is deus ex machinas up the ass, party members constantly going "Hey, we should go to X. I don't know why, I just have this feeling we should go there and nowhere else because everything is essentially locked out."
>Monkey Caves
>Monkey Caves

Standard bottle rockets

Multi-Bottle Rockets

-Inventory management is a pain, and places like the awful monkey cave seem designed to rub it in your face
-Lame boss designs including a giant rat, giant mushroom, giant mole, and a giant ant
-4 nearly silent main characters that don't really have character arcs or any interaction at all

Dumb sakuraposter

>bike doesn't have a passenger seat like those aniem bicks so that Paula could ride while holding you

They fucked up big time

>MLBs
enjoy your ban lol

It's fucking gay and the people that like it tend to literally be faggots.

It's good, but:
>Characters don't interact too much
>Only Ness has a pose during the Photos, making all the other characters look out of place
>Balance is wonky
>Inventory system and menus are mostly clunky
>Walking sprites are literally flipping the sprite.
>PK Teleport B doesn't actually require space to run, and is mostly just walking in a circle
>Condiments
>Bicycle is useless most of the cases
>Rotating Health is extremely fast and harder to keep up with compared to M3
>Some Battle music can get repetitive

>Rotating Health is extremely fast and harder to keep up with compared to M3
I prefer it in EB because M3 removed any grace period when you hit 0. You can't have those clutch victories where you kill a boss when you hit 0 and come out with 1 hp.

its not, but if it wasn't spoiled, you were led into making the fight dramatic as possible and a memorable experience.

RNG can and will decide whether or not you have a good time playing.
I got such shit stat gains one time that I had to grind to level 11 to beat the titanic ant.

How would you fix the inventory system? Would you steal a model from another RPG? Or just add a couple more slots?

A separate box for key items.

Why the fuck is this theme so good?

youtube.com/watch?v=I1QfIbLulf8

Make a separate bag all together for key items.

It has 0 replay value.

Literally no post game or side content in the game

Its TOO hard

>Game gives you a bike
>Shortly thereafter, Paula joins your party, making the bike useless

BRAVA EARTHBOUND.

BRAVA

And what the fuck was the point of the condiment system?

Oh man, waste a slot to carry a packet of salt instead of just having another hamburger!

When I think about it, this game actually kind of does suck. For an RPG, it has no replay value to speak of

99% linear with no side quests
No party organization to give certain characters priority over others
No unique equipment builds that reward smarter thinking, not harder thinking
No way to truly test your characters skills with the lack of a new game+ feature

Would have been nice to have, but this is give or take:
Alternate party members
Alternate endings
Monster/boss arena

At the end of the day, it's still a VIDEO GAME and not an "interactive experience". You don't cut Gone Home any slack(the hipsters that love Earthbound LOVE Gone Home as well), neither should you with Earthbound.

The bike

ikr what a douche

Agreed, especially on the music which sounds dull and overly canned compared to most SNES titles.
I'm aware that it sampled and mimicked popular music, but the presentation is pretty shit overall. It's no Plok.

Sega Genesis master race?

Now that I'm replaying it, every song that isn't Onett that has a 'trumpet' in it sounds like shit.

>all these cucks in this thread who only played earthbound as a game and not as a story
>mfw they didn't develop a emotional attachment to the characters and ending

>that overly defensive autist who runs in to defend the game from all criticism while insisting everyone but him played it wrong

>mfw they didn't develop a emotional attachment to the characters and ending
I would be able to do that if the characters themselves felt alive, you can criticize Mother 3's hamfisted sadness but at least throughout the game the main characters all conversed with each other. Kumatora and Duster most.

I think even the dog might have more dialogue than everyone else in Earthbound.

Cave of The Past sounds really damn good if you fuck around with the music youtube.com/watch?v=id3wSmzE7Tg

Probably payed more than $100 for a copy, and then bragged about it to all of his Homesuck friends.

>emotional attachment to the characters
The only character you should be feeling any emotion toward is Pokey and the feeling should be mild annoyance. Ness and his friends are one-dimensional as fuck.

Too short

>an RPG needs to have replay value
>Alternate party members
>Alternate endings

yeah, no fucking thanks.

Boring trash honestly.
Uninterresting story, boring combat and boring characters.
Not very visually appealing but not a problem and a bit stylish.
A bit of the ambiance is cool and the idea behind the end is interresting but most of them it's just boring combat with wacky ennemies.
Probably one interresting hour for 20 boring hours ratio.
Games like Undertale are the same except without padding.

3/10

Wow, and here I was thinking this thread would actually have legitimate criticisms of the game.

When you get to the lategame your options for navigating battle are dramatically reduced. For example, encountering Ghost of Starman means you're almost guaranteed to get hit with PK Starstorm first turn, meaning you have to dedicate your first turn to Lifeup Omega or have a much harder fight.

Its graphics were genuinely under par for the SNES at the time.

Bear in mind, I'm not talking about the artstyle.

jeff's gay friend has more dialogue than paula and jeff combined

>monkey desert trade
>traffic jam
>sanctuary after happy happyists is easily missable
>inventory system is kinda limited
>game difficulty isn't very consistent
>poo can't equip anything except shitty yo yos and an item that never drops

That's all I can think of right now.

Game has a casual filter in the first five minutes.

I'm playing it through the first time now, just reached Fourside.

The backtracking can get a little tedious. Like, walking back to Threed was annoying. Also the inventory could be better.

Also fuck status colds holy shit.

That's a good point that no one tackles about

Intro to music theory has helped.
Too bad I forgot it all.

>and here I was thinking this thread would actually have legitimate criticisms of the game
Don't be that guy.

>He didnt get the sword of kings

Honestly, when I played EarthBound, the impression that I got, is that the game is not about the characters, really.
The game's cast, it's plot, the "little things" that happen in it, they're more about something between Itoi and the player.

I dunno if I'm too young, too out of some epoch to get it really, but when I play EarthBound the GAME, I have a hard time seeing EarthBound the EXPERIENCE, and almost all online dialog about it, is about the later, not the former.

All the great things in EB seem like they're only there as far as they need to be to make for a cool anecdote, nothing is much deeper than that; nowadays, lots of cult-hit things do something like that, like they're made for a cool tvtropes page, but I don't think Itoi meant that, moreso back in the day.

it's a meme game

There's not that much wrong with the game

>extremely limited inventory space, all it needed was a key item slot to solve it
>Default walkspeed is too slow
>no character development after party members enter your party (Mother 3 also has this problem)

I played it for the first time last year and most of it held up nicely.

Equestriabound did it all over again, but much better

The backtracking won't be a problem soon

fuck off horsefucker

>58 views
You made this yourself didn't you.

Do we really need to do this,can't we have an hones thread for once?

There are other threads in the catalogue, go bother someone else, if not no one at all.

game is like 15 years old and a cult classic but there still isn't a hard mode patch that makes the combat fun where you have to actually use all your abilities to win