It’s fun seeing the stock of Earthbound, or Mother 2 for you purists, rise in popularity after all these years. Those raised in the SNES era remember it as a JRPG with lame ‘90s marketing, but most fans now see it as a masterpiece. Seeing Nintendo re-release this game multiple times is shocking, and we wish they’d do the same for other titles.
There is a lot to love about this SNES JRPG, from the urban setting to some of its wacky scenarios later on. Hardcore fans also love some of the body horror imagery we get throughout this story. Personally, this writer likes all of those things and one feature: instantly killing foes much weaker than you.
Battles in Earthbound are unavoidable and can be troublesome early on. Luckily, as players level up, they get more skills to deal more damage, making the grind worth it. Sadly, grinding will always be there, but at least the game has uniquely designed enemies and some fun animations.
Fights might feel grindy, but players won’t have to worry about wasting energy on weaker enemies that might pop up. After leveling up a bit, when you’re about to encounter a weak enemy, the gam assumes you’d wipe the floor with them, so battles don’t activate.
Considering how Earthbound was an SNES JRPG released in the ‘90s, we’re surprised more games haven’t copied this feature.
Undertale, a game heavily influenced by these Mother titles, did pay tribute to this mechanic in a pretty depressing way. If you decide to take the genocide route, killing all the monsters in your way, sometimes battle music will start before revealing that there’s no one left to fight in the area. Because that game is all about pacifism and being good to each other, this is a pretty dark way to pay homage to this mechanic, but one many gamers appreciate.
Some games have found unique ways to deal with weaker enemies that don’t break the pacing. Atlus’ Metaphor lets you kill weaker enemies with the real-time portion of these fights, so the RPG does deserve some credit. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Quick Battles are a good way to deal with these weaker enemies without wasting too many resources.
Beyond these examples, most games still make you fight these lesser enemies, showing that we haven’t learned much from Earthbound. The fact that this 90s SNES RPG is still sightly ahead of other modern titles shows how it continues to age like wine.
Fans will keep finding things to praise about Earthbound. Well, at least until Nintendo finally localizes Mother 3.