I actually discussed in my review that there were a lot of gameplay-related elements that augmented the satire, as well is diminished it.
If you mean that there are plot-related stuff, I’m not really sure how that ties into your argument about your suggested theme for Earthbound. I’m not really proposing that the satire was bad, or that it even satirized RPGs that were, specifically, bad (in fact, Earthbound Zero was a Dragon Quest-style RPG back from the times when those were hip, so I doubt it’s trying to say that its predecessor sucked).
Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t mean that there were no jokes in the game. But rather than a deliberate “satire” of American culture, I think it’s just that Itoi likes to make modernity in general look a little silly. I think that’s a recurring theme in his work (he’s actually a novelist/intellectual/TV host, not a professional game designer). But it’s not really a biting satire – I think his portrayal of modern society in Earthbound is affectionate. That’s why I kind of like Earthbound more than Mother 3, which is much more weird, but without this lighter touch.
But I don’t think the overall tone of the game is satirical. Even in the early parts, the jokes about modernity are constantly accompanied by oddities that aren’t really relevant to the modern setting. They are not really “funny,” by themselves, but you laugh at them anyway because of the completely deadpan way in which they are thrown into the colourful setting. Like, for example, the black/white sesame seeds in the desert, or the pencil statues, or the moles who are all #3, or the fact that the meteorite is a giant pizza. And then, these odd/funny bits are also accompanied by bits that are just plain bizarre. Moonside and the zombies aren’t really that funny, but they are seriously jarring and disconcerting. So, as a whole, the game is really more of a weird trip than a satire or a comedy. It appeals to me because that trip unfolds in a way that is always unpredictable and constantly inventive, not because it’s always hilarious.
Wait, Earthbound’s battles aren’t flashy? What about the psychedelic backgrounds?
I finished EB with cheats (:kefka:) when battles started slogging and my overall impression was positive (mainly because of the setting), though the gameplay could be more streamlined.
What I really liked in EB was the music or at least the various remixes hovering online.
Have you read, SG, one overlong review that considers EB the best thing, including sliced bread? I think people who’ve read it know what I’m talking about. (If not, I’ll search for it).
One thing I want to mention before I speak towards your points, SG.
A theme does not have to be deliberate for it to be present, and the intention of the authors is irrelivant (this is especially true when it’s been translated, as Earthbound has been). All that matters is the examination of the text.
I haven’t played Earthbound Zero, but we’re not talking about Earthbound Zero. You have to examine each work as its own. To use a modern popular example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is full of juvenille humor and not really much serious subtext (besides the offscreen killing of Harry’s parents, of course). It’s also quite light in tone. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is from the same series, but you can hardly say the same thing. I’d say that Earthbound Zero is largely irrelevant to my arguments.
You say that there is absolutely no evidence that it affects them negatively? Ness becomes homesick if he doesn’t call his mother enough. This might not seem like it’s much to you, because it’s merely a status ailment in game. It’s difficult for us to think of it, because we become detached from the characters during the battle system. We don’t see our characters- all we have are abstract numbers representing the characters’ well-being. But picture it like this: Ness and co are being attacked by eldritch abominations. The rest of the party carries on, but Ness is just sitting there with his baseball bat in hand. I picture him sitting down, with a blank stare in his face… just letting these things hit him.
Why does he do this, when the other characters don’t? Because the other characters are used to being “adults.” Pauline works in her parents preschool as a mother figure when she’s barely older than the students. Jeff’s father, Doctor Andonuts, barely even recognizes his existence when he’s in the same room with him. He just sends him off to boarding school and forgets about him. Poo is too busy being a prince and attempting to attain enlightenment to even have a semblance of a childhood. Really, Ness is the only character that has something near to a normal family, even with his ever-absent father. And so he’s shunted off on a quest to save the world that he barely understands, moreso because everyone keeps TELLING him that he has to do X, and Y, and Z than for any personal reasons. And so he misses his mother and his sister, as is natural when forced to go on a life-threatening journey with little to no actual family support.
I can see where you’re getting that from. There’s definitely some kind of fucked up trauma that Giygas is experiencing. I’m wondering if there’s something lost in the translation that would make the end boss a little less confusing, but I personally wouldn’t be surprised if Pokey was Giygas’ murderer/abuser/rapist. Not a literal rapist… you know what I mean. I see him as the real villain in the story, due to his blithe neglect of everyone around him… including his parents (who mistreated him). I’ll agree that this isn’t the strongest point in my argument. I’d possibly have to replay it to see what Giygas actually said, rather than going on memory. I do remember it being one of the most terrifying bosses I’ve ever fought. I was really thinking that it might end up to be a hopeless boss fight for a while.
Ah, but this is the best ending that could possibly happen for Ness. His father might not be around, but he gets to return to life with his mother and sister. His destiny, which was thrust upon him, has seemingly ended.
And I’d definitely agree with SK: Earthbound isn’t “funny ha ha” all the way through. There are definitely some very disturbing and surreal elements throughout the game. Though, for some reason, I thought that the demon tent (or whatever it was called) was hilarious when I was twelve. My sister had nightmares about it.
Rig: Earthbound’s battles aren’t flashy when compared to other SNES era RPGs. The backgrounds were certainly interesting, but compare it to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III.
Nah, I do think you’re right that the entire game isn’t necessarily a satire. But, I do think that the tone of the game lends itself a lot more to humor than anything else. That’s why, personally, I found certain other things you mentioned, like the Blue cult and the zombies to actually be funny (it’s kind of hard not to find them a little funny when the first thing someone tells you as you arrive is "zombies and ghosts are on the loose here. Welcome to Threed). Other things, especially Fourside and Moonside, felt more frustrating than anything; while this is partly because it was a chore to play, I think that it felt like a drastic change from anything the game had shown you up to that point, and it was, to me, an unwelcome change.
I don’t agree that a translated text definitely skews the original message, and I especially don’t believe that with a translation from Nintendo, who took their American audiences a lot more seriously than anyone else in that era.
I haven’t played Earthbound Zero, but we’re not talking about Earthbound Zero. You have to examine each work as its own. To use a modern popular example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is full of juvenille humor and not really much serious subtext (besides the offscreen killing of Harry’s parents, of course). It’s also quite light in tone. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is from the same series, but you can hardly say the same thing. I’d say that Earthbound Zero is largely irrelevant to my arguments.
Sure, I admit it was my weakest point; that’s why I put it first. It merits mentioning though, the the games - from their aesthetic and style, to their narrative, locations, and even the progression of events in the game - are remarkably similar.
You say that there is absolutely no evidence that it affects them negatively? Ness becomes homesick if he doesn’t call his mother enough. This might not seem like it’s much to you, because it’s merely a status ailment in game. It’s difficult for us to think of it, because we become detached from the characters during the battle system. We don’t see our characters- all we have are abstract numbers representing the characters’ well-being. But picture it like this: Ness and co are being attacked by eldritch abominations. The rest of the party carries on, but Ness is just sitting there with his baseball bat in hand. I picture him sitting down, with a blank stare in his face… just letting these things hit him.
Why does he do this, when the other characters don’t? Because the other characters are used to being “adults.” Pauline works in her parents preschool as a mother figure when she’s barely older than the students. Jeff’s father, Doctor Andonuts, barely even recognizes his existence when he’s in the same room with him. He just sends him off to boarding school and forgets about him. Poo is too busy being a prince and attempting to attain enlightenment to even have a semblance of a childhood. Really, Ness is the only character that has something near to a normal family, even with his ever-absent father. And so he’s shunted off on a quest to save the world that he barely understands, moreso because everyone keeps TELLING him that he has to do X, and Y, and Z than for any personal reasons. And so he misses his mother and his sister, as is natural when forced to go on a life-threatening journey with little to no actual family support.
Barring the homesickness thing, I think all other things mentioned here are still covered by the vast majority of all JRPGs. As for homesickness…to be honest, I had to look up what you were talking about; I never experienced this during the course of the game, and I also only called Ness’s mom once. I think this is weak evidence.
I can see where you’re getting that from. There’s definitely some kind of fucked up trauma that Giygas is experiencing. I’m wondering if there’s something lost in the translation that would make the end boss a little less confusing, but I personally wouldn’t be surprised if Pokey was Giygas’ murderer/abuser/rapist. Not a literal rapist… you know what I mean. I see him as the real villain in the story, due to his blithe neglect of everyone around him… including his parents (who mistreated him). I’ll agree that this isn’t the strongest point in my argument. I’d possibly have to replay it to see what Giygas actually said, rather than going on memory. I do remember it being one of the most terrifying bosses I’ve ever fought. I was really thinking that it might end up to be a hopeless boss fight for a while.
Actually, there’s nothing really lost in the translation; the last boss’s dialogue was based on a traumatic experience of Shigesato Itoi, and you can read about it in several places on the internet. But, the abridged version is: When Itoi was young, he went to the theatre to watch a movie. He accidentally wandered into a really graphic movie that featured what he said was a violent rape scene, and this was very disturbing for him. Fans who looked up the movie determined that there was no rape scene, but more specifically, the woman in the scene was murdered during sexual intercourse. I guess if you were young, and you tried to piece together what you saw, a rape scene would be a reasonable deduction. But yeah, that’s all it was. There was no hidden message or anything - Itoi just wanted to make the player experience terror, it seems.
Ah, but this is the best ending that could possibly happen for Ness. His father might not be around, but he gets to return to life with his mother and sister. His destiny, which was thrust upon him, has seemingly ended.
Yet, ultimately, this ending says absolutely nothing relevant (if not just absolutely nothing, period) about the loss of childhood innocence. This is the big problem with non-deliberate themes in a story; sure, they might be there, and having your own interpretation is wonderful. However, if the author didn’t intend for it to be there, then the chances are incredibly high that whatever theme you might find will be very lacking in substance. You might have evidence to support the possibility of a recurring theme, but what does it matter if the story has nothing worthwhile to say about it? And, how often will a story say something worthwhile about a subject it’s not even writing about?
Ah, but you keep doing things like reading outside the text. As I said, the original author’s intent does not actually determine the themes within the work. This is especially true if there are many hands on a project. The point is, he may have got Giygas from there. In fact, strong evidence supports he got it from there. But we are examining the text of Earthbound, and we cannot take outside sources into consideration, even the author himself.
http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Fallacy.htm <—It’s called the Intentional Fallacy, and I’m pulling it out because I finally have a fucking use for it! Err… I mean my college education was wonderful and totally not wasted time.
Okay, here’s the super abridged version of what I wrote:
That fallacy seems more like an opinion on analyzing work. It’s a cool, well-supported opinion, but I disagree with it.
I reject the notion that I ‘keep on’ doing things like this, as the entire concept of author intent was brought up by you. I did state my opinion on it in the previous post, but if you re-read it, I didn’t make any arguments - I just stated my opinion on the matter. A fallacy deals with a logical argument, not an opinion, so even if I accepted that fallacy as correct, I’ve only committed the intentional fallacy one time.
For the record, I DON’T agree with that fallacy, but let’s run with it for the sake of argument. What does it really prove, other than the last boss sequence MIGHT hold more meaning than the author intended? It still doesn’t necessarily lend any credence to your argument.
Furthermore, this completely skirts the main issues of my argument:
The majority of things you’ve mentioned can be said about a vast majority of JRPGs, excepting the ‘homesick’ ailment. However, I would argue that that’s a flimsy justification for your argument; it’s such a rare occurrence that I didn’t even get homesick one time throughout the course of the game.
None of the stuff you mentioned really says anything significant about your proposed theme. What am I supposed to get out of this narrative concerning the subject?
Geez, how did you manage to avoid getting homesick? I was getting homesick left and right when I played no matter how often I called home. (Hell, once I called Mom, got into a battle very shortly after, and felt homesick already.)
i have got to say i couldn’t stop playing it when i started and i cant understand why some people dont like it. it may be strange but its story is very solid as far as the whole saving the world thing goes .i loved every minute of it:hint:
You can’t understand it, even though I wrote several paragraphs about it at length?
Well, to be fair, I didn’t dislike it either. But, I definitely did not LOVE the game, and I outlined a lot of things in my review that were not very good about it.
GAP hit the nail on the head what I wanted to say after reading some of the first posts. I mean, the game is called “Mother.” The first time I saw the flashback sequence in Magicant I nearly choked for some reason or another.
Earthbound Zero is called Mother, too, and I guarantee you that all the things that GAP are talking about are NOT present in that game.
As for the soundtrack, it’s pretty cool. I like some of the fun ambient stuff they did. I think Earthbound Zero has more memorable compositions overall, though.
I’ll say that I enjoy Queen Mary’s song from Mother more than the Sound Stone collection from Earthbound. Though they’re both still really good, and I really like the sound-collecting element from both games. Though Queen Mary’s song had far more significance to the plot of Mother, where the Sound Stone only served to get Ness’s power level over 9000.
It’s just a shame that there was no music-collecting element in Mother 3. The music in the game tends to be really good anyway, but the music-collecting thing was one element you could probably say was unique to the series.
I’ve heard that the “Eight Melodies” song in Mother was printed out in various childrens music books. Ever heard the arranged album that was released around 1990? It’s hip.
By what GSM said, I mean about the part of children being treated as adults. I felt that it made sense that Ness would get homesick and think more about his home and family since he had a stronger connection than the other characters.
Even though the game doesn’t do much of a job to “show” it, i.e. deliberately running scenes saying “Wow, Ness, you sure have a nice family” or “I wish my folks treated me like yours” and the such.
It was the vibe I got, anyways.
Holy shit… I played this game , what seems like a long time ago (maybe 13 - 14 yrs?) I honestly don’t remember anything in exact detail about the major story… All I remember was that it’s an RPG , there is a hero() and a bad guy…
I need to replay this one so I can get all the other deap parts I missed … heh
Oh! I really enjoyed this game too…(Hades is going to disagree with me here I bet…)
Actually, I think that sounds fun. Earthbound felt too copy/paste in a lot of unnecessary ways, and I just find it really bothersome.
I get what you’re saying about what GAP said…but I just don’t agree with it.
It’s a stratech to say that Ness’s family situation was much different from Paula’s; other than that they ran a daycare center, it was still obviously a strong family unit.
The homesick thing, I think, is just a weaksauce argument. To give you an idea of what I mean, when GAP brought it up, I had to look up what he was talking about - Ness never got homesick in my game, not once! And to boot, I only called Ness’s mom once in the entire game, and it was really early (Twoson I think).
I just feel like there isn’t a lot of strong supporting evidence for this theory.
) and a bad guy…