All this talk about Earthbound and related disappointments made me hungry for a Skip Sandwich DX. I ate the sandwich with a mayo packet and began remembering what parts of Earthbound I liked best.
Earthbound is an unsettling game for a number of reasons. First, the party consists entirely of kids, and even though kids have a deserved reputation for never shutting up, Ness and his pals are quiet, stoic and very much focused on the task at hand. Second, the threat they're up against is ethereal, but Giygas' influence on the grown-up world is unmistakable: adults' greed is amplified, corruption amongst authorities is rampant, and there's that one town with the whole cult thing going on.
The third and possibly most potent reason for Earthbound's dark humour is its masterful blending of innocent colour and mood-setting music. If something bad is going down in a scenario, the sound will tell you before the visuals do. Any game that starts you off investigating an unidentified falling object in the dead of night with disjointed alien percussion as background music is a game that's not going to deliver warm fuzzies if it doesn't bloody well feel like it.
Obviously, Earthbound isn't meant to make your heart stop at any one moment—final battle excluded, maybe—but I've come to think of the party's visit to the town of Threed as Resident Evil Crayola.. Zombies and ghosts have taken over the city, but they're pretty goofy looking critters (less so with Handsome Tom and Smilin' Sam; sorry, I hate puppets). Even so, the darkness surrounding the town is oppressive, and the background music hardly indicates that Ness and Paula are attending a kids' Halloween party.
What's more, it quickly becomes apparent that the citizens are fighting a losing battle. Everyone who's left is slowly being herded into the centre of town; the outskirts are crawling with the undead. They're closing in, slithering around the broken-down circus paraphernalia litters the town's greenery. The “haunted circus” angle is an oldie, but it's definitely a goodie. As was stated earlier, Earthbound is all about mixing innocence with corruption—but whereas most games and movies make sure said innocent themes are trampled into the ground by the adult world's stinking grown-up realities, Earthbound lets innocence triumph. After all, it's shy and quiet Jeff who saves Paula and Ness in their greatest time of need.
Until that moment, though, Threed belongs to the dead.
Related Links:
Unsolicited Scares: Terranigma and the Desert
Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console
Earthbound in 3D