Earthbound

[gavinrendar]

I bought it knowing I was going to play it, then perhaps keep it or resell it. Those fretting that I bought it THEN asked if it was good, I am merely seeking opinions before I play it. No need to upset yourself. Remember, the going rate for the game is about 155. If I hate it, I'm out 10 bucks (shipping costs). Its a lot of money up front, but I still own a game worth what it is.

On a side note, I have a Super Mario RPG I may be looking to trade, should someone be interested. Otherwise I'll let another click-happy eBuyer take it from me

[Daria]

Call me crazy, but I don't get the point of buying a game just to resell. It's like renting with a $150 deposit. If you just want to test a game out, that's what emulation's for.

Not knocking you, or belittling your purchase. Personally I just like to know what I'm getting before spending that kind of cash.

As far as what I think about Earthbound, totally love the art style. I love that it's a game about children, and looks like it was drawn by children. When I last played it, which admittedly was over a decade ago, I thought the humor was too corny. But I'd probably enjoy it more.

[mobiusclimber]

The humor kinda ruins the game for me. I get that it isn't that serious of a game, but man... some of it is just dumb. (But then I'm not a fan of Working Designs' humor either.) Some of the situations are kinda surreal but not really in a good way. Bad Monty Python is how I usually describe it. My favorite part was the sunshine cult (or whatever they were called). And I thought the police being proud of their roadblocks was pretty funny. Other than that... didn't do anything for me.

[ReaXan]

I am trading my Earthbound cart for SNES, check the for sale forum

[Jorpho]

I bought it knowing I was going to play it, then perhaps keep it or resell it. Those fretting that I bought it THEN asked if it was good, I am merely seeking opinions before I play it. No need to upset yourself. Remember, the going rate for the game is about 155. If I hate it, I'm out 10 bucks (shipping costs). Its a lot of money up front, but I still own a game worth what it is.

Holy crap, man. It's a game people are willing to pay $160 for. What more do you need to know?

[gavinrendar]

I am trading my Earthbound cart for SNES, check the for sale forum

Where excactly do I find that? It does not seem to be in the standard Forum list (I'm new to digipress, so thanks for the help!)

[NayusDante]

You're too new for it to show up. It will eventually.

Oddly, I am the only person I know personally that really enjoyed Earthbound. I thought it was silly as a kid, but now that I'm older, it's neat looking at it as a parody of the western world. I wouldn't say that it's overrated, but I would say that people either get it or they don't. Comparing it to its contemporary RPGs is kind of missing the point.

At this point, however, wouldn't it be cheaper to import the GBA release and get the hardware to dump and patch it with a translation?

[o.pwuaioc]

I bought it knowing I was going to play it, then perhaps keep it or resell it. Those fretting that I bought it THEN asked if it was good, I am merely seeking opinions before I play it. No need to upset yourself. Remember, the going rate for the game is about 155. If I hate it, I'm out 10 bucks (shipping costs). Its a lot of money up front, but I still own a game worth what it is.

On a side note, I have a Super Mario RPG I may be looking to trade, should someone be interested. Otherwise I'll let another click-happy eBuyer take it from me

Actually, the going rate is $135 for cart only, and you can get it on ebay right now for that price or a little more.

[gavinrendar]

Actually, the going rate is $135 for cart only, and you can get it on ebay right now for that price or a little more.

Fine, I'm out 25 then. Haha. Sounds cool though. I don't want a game to compare to contemporary RPGs. I want something unique, quirky, different, and a bit crazy. Sounds like I got what I wanted. Can't wait!

[Jorpho]

At this point, however, wouldn't it be cheaper to import the GBA release and get the hardware to dump and patch it with a translation?

First of all, the GBA port (i.e. Mother 1+2) severely butchers the music. While Mother 3's music was specifically written for the GBA hardware, and the music of Mother 1 is sufficiently primitive that the GBA can easily handle it, the music of Mother 2/Earthbound was severely maimed in the translation, and Hip Tanaka's score deserves far better.

Secondly, while the Mother 1 component of Mother 1+2 has been translated, Tomato has made it very clear that beyond the little menu hack included in the Mother 1 patch, translating Mother 2 is a tremendous undertaking that he is unlikely to tend to anytime soon. I think there's one small group that might be attempting it, but it's still in its early stages (and from what little I've seen of it, it doesn't look too pretty).

[These first two points are all very thoroughly documented on earthboundcentral.net, btw.]

Thirdly, why go through all that trouble just to dump the cart when you can just download the ROM from somewhere and be done with it? (Actually, I think GBA carts might be dumpable with a DS Lite and a DS flashcart, but it's still too much trouble.)

[DigitalSpace]

That's $156 more than I paid for my cart only copy.

(Seriously. That was my best Super NES find ever... at a store that usually charges $20+ for Super Mario All-Stars. I'm still amazed that they missed the ball on Earthbound.)

[Zing]

I bought the game last year, complete in box, for $360. I was super excited to play it. I tried not to spoil anything for myself, so the only thing I knew is that it played similarly to Dragon Warrior, which was a good indication I would enjoy it.

It fell about as flat as a game could. I think what killed it for me were the battles. They were too random and too long. You can't have both. Dragon Warrior combat was balanced because there was a strong luck element, but the battles were usually over in 2-3 rounds. Combat in Earthbound can sometimes seemingly never end. Combine that with random attacks that kill party members in one hit, and it was just not fun for me.

I was also annoyed by the arbitrary inventory limit. It wouldn't have been so bad if the game didn't throw so many cool items your way. What's the use if I have to sell or store half of what I find? If I want to make use of the "bug spray", I have to carry it with me at all times just in case I run into a bug. Even then, it doesn't matter since spamming the default PSI attack seemed to be the best combat choice anyway.

Long story short, I knew I would never play the game again, so I sold it last December for $700. So, at least I got paid to try the game.

[vrikkgwj]

It's my favorite game of all time, but that's a bit much to pay for it.

[Shulamana]

Ended up selling my loose cart with label damage for $150, bought the boxed Ogre Battle 64 I was looking at as well as 23 early 90s issues of Nintendo Power and some other N64 games.

I will miss the game somewhat but I don't really regret my choice.

Hopefully the bubble will burst and I can get a new copy for cheaper in another 5-10 years.

[skaar]

Please provide us with the contact for the moron who bought your label damaged cart for $150, we all have shit to offload. Share the wealth.

[Shulamana]

Please provide us with the contact for the moron who bought your label damaged cart for $150, we all have shit to offload. Share the wealth.

Not horrible damage, but definitely obvious. I was worried how the sale would turn out because the guy sent me literally 6+ messages asking questions about the cart, shipping, if it was a reproduction or not (I mentioned it wasn't in the listing) AFTER the auction ended, but he left positive feedback within 6 hours of getting it in the mail so overall that's a lot better than most people I've sold to.

[Kim Possible]

Played Earthbound last year for the first time after hearing all of the hype. It is a well made game and fun in parts, but not my style of RPG. If you like silly, kiddie themes then and well made RPG's, then you are in luck. There isn't a ton of grinding and the game moves along pretty well, but it does that annoying thing where you are going along great and then you have to abandon your main character to play through a parallel plot to introduce the next character soon to join your party. I guess in the SNES era that was cool and groundbreaking, but by now it is played out.

A good game, but not $160.

[Kyle15]

I got Earthbound, Star Fox, and Jurassic Park 2 for $10 during Game Crazy's classic-plastic sale back in 2005. Had I known I was going to love it so much, I'd have gladly paid more. :P

[LordDarkrai]

I'm planning to get this in May or in June depends on how things go for bidding or finding an decent price for buy it now.