EarthBound

When a meteor lands near his home town of Onett, a young boy named Ness joins his neighbours to investigate. At the top of the mountain behind his home, Ness is visited by a time-travelling beetle, and attacked by a metal-clad alien being. Only by finding good friends, and improving his latent psychic abilities, can Ness save the world from the evil intentions of the alien known as Giygas.

The second in the Mother series, but the first released outside of Japan. This RPG set in wacky modern-day Eagleland sees you playing as Ness, a young boy with psychic powers.

You start in the suburbs of Onett, but your adventure will take you all around the world. As you travel, enemies attack, and you will have to battle them using a menu-based system. Select the moves your characters makes, including attacks, psychic attacks or using items. Deplete the enemy's HP to win each battle and gain experience, making your characters stronger.

Each town that you travel to features new creatures to defeat and new people to rescue. Eagleland, and all of its inhabitants, are slightly surreal, and may need your help solving their problems.

System	Super Famicom / SNES
Developer	HAL Laboratory, Shigesato Itoi
Genre	RPG

Super Famicom / SNES
	27th August 1994
	June 1995
Super Famicom (Nintendo Power)
	30th September 1997

Cameos

Ness

Screenshot Required

While it has long been believed that Ness's name is based on the NES, this was confirmed in an interview with Shigesato Itoi:

"The production staff named the main character Ness, a pun on the NES in America."

While this confirms a NES link, the name is also an anagram of SNES, although this hasn't been confirmed as an intentional reference.

Japanese Mario Names

At the start of the game, when selecting names for the characters, you can select from a number of default names. In the Japanese version, one set of default names are characters from the Mario series:

Mario (Ness)
Peach (Paula)
Luigi (Jeff)
Kinopio (Poo)
Yoshi (Dog)

Note

Kinopio is the Japanese name for Toad.

Arcade Games

In Onett's arcade you can see three kinds of arcade games displayed on the miniature screens. One of them is Donkey Kong, and another is Taito's Space Invaders. It isn't clear what the third game is referencing, but if you have any ideas, contact NinDB.

The background music is made up of 8-bit arcade sound effects. Part of the music sounds like the music from Namco's Xevious arcade game.

Developer References

HAL Laboratory Sign

On the south side of Threed is a Billboard that reads:

"Located in the shadow of Mt. Fuji - HAL Laboratory"

This is a reference to HAL Laboratory, one of the developers who worked on the game. Their Japanese offices are in fact located close to Mt. Fuji.

APE Kid

In the Fourside department store, you meet a kid who says that one day he wants to work at APE Inc., one of the development studios who worked on the game.

EarthBound 2

In Fourside, a sign outside of one of the buildings says:

"Planning meeting for EarthBound 2"

Ruffini

Near the start of the game you meet a dog called Ruffini, who claims to be possessed by the spirit of the game's designer. He gives you tutorials on how to play.