This post rules
This thread rules
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Speaking of young-adult homesickness, Earthbound helped me cope with some of that last summer.
The apartment complex I had lived at for the previous two and a half years had just got bought out by new management, who (naturally) jacked up the rent by +$100, so all of my friends from that place decided to move to a bunch of different places. As for me, I decided to stay at school for the summer and work on campus, but since I made the decision at the last minute my options for apartments were limited. I ended up rooming with complete strangers at a place where I knew basically nobody. (To top this all off, I am legitimately terrible at keeping up with people after moving to someplace new.)
The game provided a certain degree of familiarity and warmth while I was adjusting to my new situation and gaining new friends IRL. Even though my previous playthroughs had ended by Threed, I was familiar with almost all of the imagery and locations in the game, from the meteor to the Devil’s Machine, thanks to a older sibling who was a super-fan (and the internet in general). This time, however, I was able to piece together the context of that all on my own terms and in my own time. It’s a very charming world, and the writing was much better than I had been anticipating.
On the other hand, my average conversation with somebody who walked in on me playing for the first time went like this:
“What are you playing? It looks like Pokemon.”
“Earthbound.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, the game where Ness from Smash Bros is from.”
“Oh yeah I heard that’s a good game.”
(Scintillating.)
I had a couple times where roommates would actually sit down and watch me play, but I can’t remember any of the conversations we had — well, except for how one of them was really creeped out by the Giygas fight.
The part when your praying and all your friends that you made pray in return struck a chord with my feelings of homesickness, nostalgia, longing, saudades, etc. That was especially true when Ness’s mom appeared. Tears welled up.
(The part where you, The Player, pray for success according to the game’s script — well, I knew it was coming — didn’t really do anything for me. I mean, I already pray for myself. I can’t speak for anybody else’s experience, but I didn’t really need a videogame to remind me about that.)
Dropping Paula off at her home at the end elicited similar feelings.
IRL I gradually became better friends with the people where I was living. It was great! (But due to some more poor planning on my part I had to move to another new place at the start of fall semester (ironically owned by the same greedy management company I mentioned before (ffffffffffffff—)) and restart that process again, but it was a bit less arduous that time.)
So yeah. It’s a good game; a good experience; a good place, etc. It’s good for the soul.
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Just chilling by myself in this thread with a cocktail and this music:
I have been randomly selected to dictate a game for an episode of the Super Nintendo Exploration Squad podcast, and I have chosen EarthBound! It’s going to be tough to figure out how to talk about this game I’ve been thinking about since 4th grade.
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as part of a hobonichi campaign to bring new MOTHER-themed merch (i think? not entirely sure), there was a big interview with shigesato itoi featuring a proeminent youtuber and a proeminent
v-tuber from one of the major japanese agencies.
i`m slowly chipping away at the written version, but seems pretty interesting so far
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should i google v-tuber sometime or just let that one go
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It’s just a streaming performer who uses an animated avatar in lieu of being physically filmed. It’s increasingly big business, but nobody likes my take that it’s basically just digital puppetry.
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Has anyone translated that interview yet? I’d be interested to see what Itoi has to say about these games in 2020.
the famous MOTHER2 sukajan will be available to purchase february
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I’m gonna have to start eating a lot of trash burgers to save up 88,000 yen.
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I just found out Keiichi Suzuki (one of the original Mother 1 and 2 composers) released an album recently where he revisited a bunch of songs from the first game:
He doesn’t quite bring the lovely naive vibe Catherine Warwick gave this material, but it’s still fun to hear what he does with this stuff. I really like the new version of Fallin’ Love And.
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Somewhat related, but does anybody else listen to Keiichi Suzuki’s band the Moonriders? I’ve only heard this one album so far but it’s really grown on me a lot.
For some reason (the dorky band name? the way some songs are on the Earthbound ost?) when I learned that one of the eb composers was an older accomplished rock musician, I always figured it was like, some reactionary post-Beatles rock. It turns out it’s very “modern”! It reminds me a tiny bit of INU, but more arty/European flavored, or I guess you could say it sounds like a lot of other bands circa 1980.
But I’m getting sustained enjoyment out of hearing it and trying to pinpoint the “mother vibe”. The moonriders remind me of eb battle music rather than the more lyrical eb town themes etc. And the musique concrete stuff…I always figured that was hip tanaka in eb, being the sound programmer that he is, he wanted to push the limits of the sfc or whatever, but it was definitely all this guy 
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Hey reference to INU will check this out later.
I’m really into their album “Don’t trust anyone over 30”, especially this track
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September Ocean is Jellyfish Ocean is a song title.
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If I were to localize the song name it’d be “The Seas of September are Seas of Jellyfish”
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oh i thought it said ‘September Seas are Craggy Seas’ and i was like “i mean yeah that might be the case”
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Huh, now I gotta wonder if Going Steady’s Don’t Trust Over 30 is a direct reference to that. Doesn’t sound like it s a cover, but huh.