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Earthbound's Secret Evil

Posted by Bob Mackey

Earthbound may be one of the most heartwarming and beloved RPGs out there, but beneath its seemingly innocent surface beats the pitch-black heart of the devil.  Thanks to a friend who pointed me in the direction of this EDGE article, I'll think twice the next time I invite Earthbound into my apartment and/or bedroom.

So why, pray tell, is Earthbound so evil? To be fair, the game's dark nature only exposes itself to those who would dare bootleg--and they probably deserve it. Essentially, Earthbound does a series of checks throughout the game to make sure you're playing on a legit cart. But if you've purchased yours on the cheap from a sleazy bootlegger, well--maybe I should let this video explain the rest. Obvious spoilers for anyone who hasn't made it to the end of Earthbound:



You've gotta admit, there's no revenge better than that when it comes to video game pirates. It kind of makes me wonder why companies don't secretly "leak" copies of their games to the Internet that would do irreparable harm to the computers of would-be pirates. It could be something as simple as a hard drive wipe, or complex as the polygonal head of Ken Levine levitating around your desktop, screaming at you while exploding icons with his laser eyes. Gentlemen, you can only fight piracy with creativity.

Of course, this would only cause the pirates to fight back harder, but someone's gotta win this war of attrition.

Related Links:

Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Earthbound and Back Again
Entitled PC Gamers Whine about Rights


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Roto13 said:

Earthbound's secret is that none of it's fans have actually played it.

October 2, 2008 11:31 PM

Bob Mackey said:

How so?

October 3, 2008 11:23 AM

Roto13 said:

Because despite a huge amount of marketing from Nintendo, nobody bought it. Nobody mentioned the game until Smash Bros. came out and people started wondering who Ness was. Then the GBA sequel was announced and all of a sudden everyone wants to play it, because they're such amazing fans of the original. Meanwhile Mother 3 suffers from mediocre sales in Japan, where people actually bought Mother 2, and Americans can't figure out why the game hasn't gotten a North American release.

Well maybe "None of its fans have actually played it" should be "None of its fans have actually bought it."

October 3, 2008 12:12 PM

Bob Mackey said:

You're right about people discovering the game late--I gather that the majority of Earthbound fans first played the game through the wonders of emulation.

But in case my Earthbound loyalty is being called into question, keep in mind that I bought the game on its release date and proceeded to play if for that entire summer--and many more times after that.

October 3, 2008 5:22 PM

Roto13 said:

I wasn't talking about you specifically since I had no idea whether you bought the game or not. It's just that the amount of hype surrounding the game is a lot larger than the sales would reflect, and this is one time gamers can't blame marketing.

It just really bugs me that people keep talking about games like Okami and Zack & Wiki Earthbound and their low sales when they haven't actually bought the game themselves. Amaterasu took second place in her GameFAQs character contest bracket. So why are only a few people buying Okami? It's just hype. (That's not to say Okami isn't awesome. I bought it and I love it. I just wish more people would actually play it instead of using it as some kind of status symbol just for knowing what it is.)

On a side note, I haven't bought Earthbound, but I don't rave over it either and I don't complain about it's poor sales because that would make me a hypocrite.

October 3, 2008 6:00 PM

Bob Mackey said:

I think it's excusable to have missed out on Earthbound the first time around; in 1995, there was really no way of knowing what the game was about outside of Nintendo's awful campaign, and it was panned in virtually every gaming magazine.  I paid $72--American--for Earthbound 13 years ago, but that's only because I had been following news about the game in Nintendo Power's epic center.  Very few people knew what to expect.

I'm interested in this low sales of Mother 3 thing--can you back it up?  I remember the game being one of the most anticipated titles in Famitsu before it was released.

October 3, 2008 7:57 PM

Roto13 said:

The game wasn't a failure or anything, but when you consider the amount of hype around it, it hasn't done as well as you would expect it to. According to Wikipedia, it 338,000 copies in it's first two months, which isn't bad at all. But like you said, it was one of the most anticipated titles in Famitsu before it was released. With the amount of hype around it, I would have expected a lot more.

You know, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from Earthbound back then. At least, I think I did. I didn't actually play it until five years later, and at that point it was more or less what I thought it would be. (This was before people started going nuts for it in North America.)

October 3, 2008 9:17 PM

Ian said:

I played through Earthbound back in the day (sadly don't have a copy anymore, but I remember the amazing huge box and all the extras :).

Actually, I also have a cartridge of Mother 3.  I know I'm not the only raving Earthbound fan to have one either. ;)

October 4, 2008 12:35 AM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia's prized possession is a certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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