THE SHORT: One of the freshest, most original, and memorable RPGS for the SNES, or many other systems. Lots of strangeness to turn some off, though.
THE LONG: Translated of course from the japanese game "Mother 2", Earthbound is set in modern time and features modern kids trying to save the world. The storyline is common so far, but tons of flavor is added in all kinds of ways. From the townspeople themselves, to the enemies you fight, to the events that unfold, Earthbound is a fun, solid RPG that's built around the typical RPG interface but with a style completely its own.
Controlling the main boy, players embark on a quest to discover what has caused a meteor to crash in town and why all kinds of strange things are happening as a result. Eventually three others are found and the story involves them all from there.
While this is so far traditional, the cartoony graphics and humorous tone keep things new. To get money, your character has to occasionally use the ATM machine. He sometimes gets lonely and has to call home. For food, he goes to malls and buys things like burgers with ketchup, etc. It's all fun and each stage of the adventure brings something weird and new.
The graphics get the job done, but they aren't anything special. The game is constantly at a sort of 3/4 overhead, tilted isometric perspective, and the characters are pretty small. In battle, it's the traditional non-moving enemies seen from first person perspective, like Dragon Warrior. The battles do have some trippy, colorful backgrounds though (especially fitting when you fight a New Age Retro Hippie. Which you do). The game has a very colorful, goofy art style that works well though.
Sound and gameplay are fine, with some of the tunes pleasant yet fast when they need to be, and everything feeling like it should.
All in all, it's a very entertaining game, and unique from the common RPG mold. Definitely worth a try, as long as you don't mind strange humor in your RPGs.
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