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In this month's episode, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81), are joined by good friend and RF Generation site Director, Adam (bickman2k) to discuss his favorite game of all time, Earthbound for the SNES. When this humorous and cute RPG first hi the shelves, it went virtually undetected by gamers; now, years later, it has become one of the most talked about and beloved games on the system. We breakdown this title to see if the love is deserved, or if it's just another high-priced, scarce relic of bygone days. Before our gametalk, you'll want to tune in to the Concertcast, where we pick our Top 3 one-hit wonders whose amazing catalogs of music went virtually unnoticed. Be sure to log on to the forums to submit your picks. Will Earthbound first time players, Shawn and Rich's lofty expectations be met, or is this one better left in the goody case? Tune in to find out!
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on the games we play on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the games in more detail. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes and/or Podbean to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen, we hope you enjoy the show!
Episode 76 discussion thread: http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?topic=19383.0
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Continue reading Episode 76 RF Generation Playcast
This is my first blog post on RFGen, and I think I should start it off with a history of my favorite series, Mother or Earthbound. The first Mother game was released in Japan on July 27, 1989. It was an interesting RPG due to how the game was played. Insteasd of the redundant, over-used story of medieval times, it takes place in the present. I won't delve into much detail so I don't ruin the story though. In short it's about a boy named Ninten (CLEVER!) who has to recover the 8 Melodies in order to save the world from evil aliens and such. Then after recovering the 8 Melodies, Ninten fights Gyigig (or Giygas, whatever you want) and saves the world. The game was very succesful in Japan, but it failed to get released outside Japan because of the SNES being released and no one wanting to buy an NES game.
The series picks up with Mother 2 or Earthbound. This game was released in America and Japan, but strangely not in Europe. Once again, only a brief story description. You play as Ness, a boy living in Eagleland. A meteorite crashes on a hill in your town, Ness and his neighbor Pokey go check it out, and a fly named Buzz-Buzz comes out of it. It tells Ness he is one of the Chosen Four and has to save the world from Giygas (What a twist!). After Ness has a battle with a Starman, they return to Pokey's house. There Pokey's mom kills Buzz-Buzz and well, we seem to have been given another asshole. BUT! Hope is not lost for the story progresses. Once again, can't say much of the story lest spoilers are to be had. But what I can say is that Itoi did an accurate portrayl on American life and shows all the problems and quirks of it. This can be from the insane Ku Kulx Klan-esque cultists to the shady real estate agents. Can't say too much more about this game, so we'll skip to Mother 3 for now.
Ah, Mother 3, what I consider to be the best of the series. A fan translation for it has also recently been completed. Mother 3 takes place in the future in which the Pig Mask Army is pillaging the land and all that good stuff. What I particularly like about this game is that it is divided up into chapters for key parts of the story. But I will only talk about the 1st chapter and the 8th chapter. In the first chapter you play as Flint, a rancher I'm guessing and father of Lucas, and oh crap... SOMEONE SET THE FOREST ON FIRE! So now, Flint has to go out and find who caused the fire. Spoilers are coming up so...FAST FORWARD! Okay now chapter 8, in this chapter you are told by the bell ringer of your town that you're living in some kind of Orwellian utopia. But all is not well because you must defeat the evil Pig King who has caused all of the damage in the past. After along journey to New Pork City, the largest city in all the land, you must find the Pig King. So after climbing this huge tower in the center of the city you've reached the room which holds the Pig King. But alas! What's this? He seems to look just like Pokey from Mother 2? What kind of black magic is this?! But from what we have yet to find out is that Pokey was up to some dastardly shenanigans that involved time-traveling so now he's gotten old but is still a cheeky little bastard. So after kicking his ass your quest is finally over, good job, have a cookie. But now onto the useless trivia. This game was originally planned to be released on the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive system as Earthbound and Mother 64. But the project was scrapped until much later after the Disk Drive was a failure. Also, the Mother 3 fan translation I mentioned early on can be found at mother3.fobby.net .
Hoped you guys liked my first blog, and I hope to make many more!
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I am a huge Earthbound Fan, and each passing week where Mother 3 is not released makes me a sad panda. If you are interested as to how much I enjoyed Earthbound, why not check out its game page? Feel the love, and I hope that you've played the game.
What? You say that you have not? That's okay, many other people have not played this amazing game. Fortunately for you, Nintendo has apparently decided to release it for the Virtual Console, at least that's what the ESRB says. Personally, that makes me excited. Perhaps Nintendo will not be a whore and release Mother 3. I don't know, but I'll be content knowing that a new group of people will have the opportunity to try this amazing game.
ESRB Rates Earthbound For Wii VC [Kotaku]
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People are passionate over things. Food perhaps, women, we all have some passion or another. Well, the fine folks at the Mother (Earthbound) fan site Starmen.net have a passion for all things related to the series, and who could blame them? Earthbound is very much one heck of a game, and if you enjoy a combination of a trippy game and amazing RPG then here is a game for you.
So, with the predecessor that was simply amazing, why has Nintendo not released the latest incarnation stateside? Well, I wish I had an answer for you, and to be honest I was greatly saddened when it was not announced that it would be localized. However, the fine folks at Starmen.net have decided to do something about this travesty! Forget online petitions, they are going all out in their Mother 3 localization drive. Not content with the online petition method, they've called for action! Call Nintendo, Mail a Postcard or fan letter -- they want you to act and act now! With a combined effort from the fans, perhaps Nintendo will gain a heart to stop releasing games aimed towards three year olds and release a game that is truly unique.
Help starmen.net out, and perhaps Mother 3 will be llocalized into Earthbound 2. We can only hope that this will happen.
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