EarthBound Beginnings

EarthBound Beginnings, originally released in Japan as Mother, is a 1989 role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and Nintendo and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer. It is the first entry in the Mother series and was first released in Japan on July 27, 1989. The game was re-released in Japan along with its sequel on the single-cartridge compilation Mother 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. The game follows a young American boy named Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on psychic powers to put an end to the paranormal phenomena spiraling the country into disarray.

Writer and director Shigesato Itoi pitched Mother's concept to Shigeru Miyamoto while visiting Nintendo's headquarters for other business. Though Miyamoto rejected the proposal at first, he eventually gave Itoi a development team. Modeled after the gameplay of the Dragon Quest series, Mother subverted its fantasy genre contemporaries by being set in an offbeat parody of the late 20th-century United States. Itoi sought to incorporate standard RPG staples within the framework of a modern-day setting, parodying Western culture and Americana. As such, throughout the game, players use medication and hospitals to restore their health, utilize baseball bats and toy guns to fight enemies, and encounter aliens, robots, possessed objects, and brainwashed animals and humans. Mother uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system.

Mother sold around 400,000 copies upon its release, where it was praised for its similarities to the Dragon Quest series and its simultaneous parody of the genre's tropes, though its high difficulty level and balance issues polarized critics. A North American localization of Mother was completed and slated for release as Earth Bound, but was abandoned as being commercially nonviable. A finished prototype was later found and publicly circulated on the Internet under the informal title EarthBound Zero. Though many critics considered Mother's sequel to be similar and an overall better implementation of its gameplay ideas, Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com wrote that Mother importantly generated interest in video game emulation and the historical preservation of unreleased games.

In 1994, Mother's sequel, Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū, was released in Japan for the Super Famicom. The sequel was localized and released in America in 1995 under the name "EarthBound". EarthBound initially flopped in the U.S., but later gained a cult following. EarthBound was followed by the Japan-only sequel Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of EarthBound's U.S. release, Mother was released globally as EarthBound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console in June 2015, and was released alongside EarthBound for the Nintendo Classics service in February 2022.

EarthBound Beginnings is a single-player, role-playing video game set in a "slightly offbeat", late 20th-century United States as interpreted by Japanese author Shigesato Itoi. Throughout the game, the player fights hippies, undead zombies, animate objects and vehicles, extraterrestrial life, robots and mind-controlled humans and animals. The world is composed mainly of towns, deserts, swamps, forests, and caves the player must venture through. The game deliberately avoids traits of its Japanese role-playing game contemporaries: it does not strictly adhere to the fantasy or science fiction genres, despite numerous instances of each occurring within the game. The player fights in warehouses and laboratories instead of in standard dungeons, and rather than trekking from to each town on foot, the player is able to take trains to travel from area to area. Instead of swords, assault weapons, and magic, the player uses baseball bats, toy guns, frying pans, knives, and inherent psychic abilities. The game's main protagonists, Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana, are roughly 11–12 years of age. Lloyd and the game's fourth party member, Teddy, lack inherent psychic powers, unlike Ninten and Ana. The player can press a button to have Ninten "check" or "talk" with nearby people, animals, and objects. The game shares similarities with its sequel, EarthBound: there is a game save option through using a phone to call Ninten's father, an option to store items with one of Ninten's twin sisters at home, and an automated teller machine for banking money (ATM). The members of Ninten's party are all visible on the overworld screen at once, and are analogous to EarthBound's party members in style and function. Differing from the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, Mother's world map does not keep locations separate, instead connecting all areas in one game world. The landscape's structures are portrayed with an oblique projection, requested by Itoi at a programmer's suggestion.

Like the Dragon Quest series, EarthBound Beginnings uses a random encounter combat system. The player explores the overworld from a top-down perspective and occasionally enters a first-person perspective battle sequence where the player chooses attack options from a series of menus. On their turn, the player selects between options to fight, guard, check enemy attributes, run away, use items, or use offensive, defensive, or healing psychic powers. The player can also set the battle on autopilot with the "auto" option. Upon being assigned a command, the party members attack in an order determined by a random number generator and the character's speed status. Critical hits register with the series' signature "SMAAAASH!!" text and sound. If the enemy or character's HP reaches 0, the battle is won and the opponent becomes unconscious; if a character or separate enemy becomes unconscious, it can only be reversed by using PSI on that character or enemy. If every character becomes unconscious, the game transitions to a blank screen, where it asks the player if they want to continue; an affirmative response brings Ninten, conscious, back to the last save point, with half the money on his person at the time of his defeat. Upon winning the battle, the player may receive experience points, new psychic powers, and other points to improve their overall status. Enough experience points will increase the character's level, which somewhat determines the increase of the character's physical and psychic points. There is also a chance an item can be obtained after an enemy is defeated. Once the battle is won, Ninten's father deposits money into an account, which can be withdrawn from an ATM. In towns, players can purchase weapons, items, and food from fast food restaurants and department stores. Weapons and equipment, such as pendants, medallions, and bracelets, can be equipped to increase a character's strength and defense. Items can be used for a multitude of purposes, such as healing, clearing obstacles, and unlocking doors. Towns also contain useful facilities such as hospitals, where players can be healed for a fee; in one town, it is half of whatever cash the player has on hand at that moment.

In the early 1900s, a young married couple mysteriously vanish from their rural American town. Two years later, the husband, George, inexplicably returns and begins an odd study in complete seclusion. His wife, Maria, is never heard from again. In 1988, the home of a young boy named Ninten is attacked by a poltergeist. After Ninten fends it off, his father tells him that his great grandfather studied psychic powers, and asks him to investigate crises occurring across America. Starting off by resolving some in his hometown of Mother's Day, Ninten warps to the land of Magicant, where its monarch, Queen Mary, asks Ninten to collect the eight melodies of a song that appears in her dreams to play them for her. Ninten returns to Earth and befriends Lloyd, a child prodigy who is bullied at Tinkle Elementary School. The two travel to the town of Snowman to deliver a lost hat to Ana, a young girl with psychic powers. Ana tells Ninten she saw him in a vision, and joins the party in hopes of finding her missing mother.

Finding the parts of Queen Mary's song, Ninten is harassed at a live house in the town of Valentine by a gang leader named Teddy. Surrendering after a fistfight, Teddy joins Ninten's party to avenge the death of his parents, who were killed by wild animals on Holy Loly Mountain; Teddy forces Lloyd to stay behind. In a cabin at the mountain's base, Ana pulls Ninten aside and asks him to stay with her forever. The two dance and profess their mutual love for each other. A giant robot then attacks the group, with Lloyd arriving in a tank to destroy the robot; the robot is defeated, but it's already too late; Ninten and Ana are burnt, and Teddy is critically wounded; allowing Lloyd to rejoin the party. They take a boat out on a nearby lake, and a whirlpool pulls them into an underwater laboratory. In it, they find a robot named EVE, who claims to have been built by George to protect Ninten. When the laboratory floods and they are sucked back out into the lake, they leave for the mountain's peak. After an even stronger robot shows up and attacks them, EVE self-destructs to destroy it, leaving behind the 7th melody of Queen Mary's song. When the party makes it to the top of the mountain, they are greeted to George's tombstone, his soul providing the 8th melody. The party is then warped to Magicant, where Ninten plays the complete song to Queen Mary on an ocarina. Upon recalling the song, she tells Ninten the story of an alien named Gyiyg that she had raised and had loved as her own child. Revealing that she is George's wife, Maria, Queen Mary vanishes; Magicant, actually a mirage created by her consciousness, vanishes with her.