Wii Warm Up: Are you down with EarthBound?

I never played it as kid, didn't know of Ness until SSB, didn't play very much of it on an emulator, even though I had a friend who did and told me I should, but the more I hear about it the more excited I find myself becoming for the VC release, which had better be this next VC update.

Oh yeah, I got the game for SNES at launch. Probably the best purchase I ever made for the system. I played the hell out of it. My brother played the hell out of it. Then I lent it to my cousins who also played the hell out of it. Played it so much, the cartridge, though still in tact, no longer works.

Interesting story, my brother and I were so psyched about this game from reading about it in Nintendo Power, that when he told me he was going to buy it instead of me, I threw a spoon at him.. which dug a nice chunk of flesh from his arm.

Video games do turn people violent.. but not the ones you'd think.

Got the game at launch in the big box with the smelly players guide. It was truly a unique experience to play such a goofy game. I will purchase on VC immediately when the time comes.

Also, can't wait for the mother3 translation!!!!

I was in 4th grade when it came out, and a friend of mine got the game. He brought the strategy guide to school one day, and i flipped through it, instantly falling in love with the characters, the comedy, and the claymation figurines.

I didn't, however, like the musty smell of Ness. The monkey was okay though, surprisingly.

I got the game some time later, when i saw it used in a local game store for $10. I bought it, and realized that i was playing something special.

I haven't played it, but look foward to experiencing it on the VC...

I bought it at launch. I salivated over it from the moment Nintendo Power even gave us the slightest hint, and snatched it from its place awkwardly shoved into the bottom of the glass cabinets at Wal-Mart.

Bought it new in the giant box w/ guide for $8.

I was one of the few who got it at launch. If this doesn't make it to VC, it will be a travesty!

I first played it in high school when a friend let me borrow his copy since I was curious about Ness after playing Melee. I instantly fell in love with the game's quirkiness.

I've always been late to the party on alot of things and games. I just started playing Earthbound about a few months ago. I found through "Less than legal means" if you get what I'm saying. I love the game and would have still been playing if I hadn't bought my Wii and SMG. I would be willing to get it on VC and play it legit. If Earthbound comes out, Chrono Trigger is sure to come as well.

Picked it up used got the strategy guide, amazing game still dust it off now and then. Its quirky sense of humor and solid game play really made this a fun game. Never got the Homerun Bat.

I tried it on a roomates hacked xbox in college. I didn't get far enough to get into it though. I probably will try it again on VC. I have a few friends who are far less into games than I am who are rabid fans of Earthbound so I'm sure the peer pressure will be there to try it again.

I guess the $80 I spent on eBay a few years ago now looks rather silly. At least I got the guidebook with it.

Never got it at launch but I did rent it from Blockbuster that day it came out; I was surprised you rented the game with that huuuuge instruction book that had you smell Master Belch! We played the heck outta that game for hours on end. Heck, I STILL play that game, mostly on an emulator, but I do own the original cart. Not sure if it works anymore or not. Hope this really comes on the VC!

*gets ready to run* To be honest, I'm not all that hyped.

Why? First of all, I haven't played it and theres a lot of games I have that I want to release on VC. Second, way too much hype has started to bore me. People haven't shut up about it for such a long time I've begun to lose interest. Third, people told me such good things about StarTropics... I got it and quickly got frustrated and bored. And that's saying much, Kid Icarus was much harder IMHO and I loved it. And the same people who told me StarTropics was amazing seemed to love Earthbound.

Now, before you kill me, I will promise that, when I have the Wii points to spare, I will give it a try, and if I like it, I'll take this all back. Now please spare my life?

I'd never heard of Earthbound until a couple months ago when everyone starting hyping it as the best game ever. Probably because of SSBB.

I've beaten the game. It's actually very slow moving and almost painful to play at times, but people aren't kidding when they say it's great and that everybody should play it.. Play it! It's an experience to be had.

Earthbound is kind of a weird story for me. I rented it shortly after it came out, and thought it was really cool. I never got more than 2 or 3 levels (towns?) in, but I always meant to come back and finish it later. Having to start over after I returned the rental was really irritating, and I didn't get around to it until college, when I was on a big SNES emulator kick. Strangely enough, the same thing happened -- I got 2 or 3 towns in, and got sidetracked with something else and forgot about it. I don't think the game slows down there or anything, I just never manage to get the time to play it start to finish. Maybe I'll finally do it with the VC release (though more likely I'll just play it on my PSP -- portable gaming runs my world right now).

I was never really a fan of Nintendo, but Earthbound and Chrono Trigger are two games that I really, really want to play and hope that the VC makes them available.

But I'm also hoping that they do well enough on the VC that Nintendo or someone else notices that there's a sore lack of RPGs on the Wii.

I rented it from the local video store with the huge guidebook and have loved it ever since. I still haven't beat it so I look forward to it on VC, and my favorite thing to do in the game is name my favorite food after a certain female part that rhymes with wussy and bring pokey over for some dinner. Ness' Moms response is just priceless.

Never played Earthbound. Secret of Mana, FFVI, Chrono Trigger, yes, but not Earthbound.

SSB of course revived it with Ness, but I still had no clue or connection with the character. Again, with SSBB, Lucas was introduced and I didn't really care much.

But, upon playing Brawl and seeing the elements OF Earthbound (albeit breifly) in SSE and other parts of the game, I can see myself wanting to play it on VC.

"Of course, there's also the (very likely) possibility that Ness's appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series ignited your fandom."

Don't be fooled, that's what happened to the majority of these Earthbound fans.

Guy 1: *plays SSB* Who's Ness?
Guy 2: *thinks for 5 minutes to try to place him* Oh, he's from Earthbound!
Guy 1: What's Earthbound?
Guy 2: It's a SNES RPG. You mean you've never heard of it?
Guy 1: Nope.
Guy 2: Oh, that's too bad, because it's the best game ever. But I guess it's not you're fault that you're not hardcore enough to have played it, like me, because I'm awesome. Everyone knows the games nobody has ever heard of are the best games.
Guy 1: Did you really...
Guy 2: YES I PLAYED IT DON'T DOUBT ME! *goes home and immediately downloads game to actually learn more about it*

Honestly, if the love for Earthbound was actually sincere, it wouldn't have sold so horribly. The fact that Mother 3 had such a mediocre performance just proves it more.

honestly. I think Ness is an ugly, stupid character. But chances are it's because I played through 15 minutes of earthbound and decided "Wow... this game sucks..." It really hasn't aged very well. Or maybe it just starts off really slow and I should go give it another chance. Nintendo should release it on DS. That'd get me to play it... I hate turn based RPGs on TVs...

A friend of mine bought Earthbound when it came out. I was over at his place one day and he showed it to me and let me try it. I think I was helping him try and find the Sword of Kings for Poo or whatever his weapon was called. Anyway, I was hooked.

I ended up borrowing his copy when he finished it, because my family couldn't afford to buy me my own copy. I never did get the chance to buy it. :(

Ys I & II on TG-CD is much more deserving of this RPG love than some game no one actually loved except for street-cred.

I'd have an opinion on the game if Nintendo decided to ever release it again.

Until then, my life has been fairly Earthbound-less with the exception of SSB.

yes I'm getting it. and I didn't have it back then, but yes I am Getting it now

I used to rent it for the SNES when I was younger (it's a great game), picked up a copy (same one I rented) for cheap in the late 90s. Sits there with my other almost never played SNES games.

Got Earthbound in the big box for SNES (remember the scratch-n-sniff cards?), bought Mother 1+2 for GBA, and got Mother 3 launch day. I also have the Famitsu with the Mother 3 cover.

@roto13: Mother 3 suffered from being a GBA game in a DS world. It and Rhythm Tengoku were the last great games for GBA; neither of which were released in America. The way things are now, I think for Mother 3 to come out in America, it would have to be ported to DS and possibly even sold online only, which I don't think would even offset the cost and effort of an official translation. People could always stop whining and learn Japanese, but hey, that requires actually effort.

A game can have loyal, vocal fans, but unless they go out and buy multiple copies each, it's not going to help sales. Nintendo did their part, there was advertising for Mother 3 everywhere and the GB Micro box set (wish I'd had the cash for that) looked awesome.

One of my favorite games of all time. Spent many, many months in my youth playing and replaying and replaying this game. Will definitely purchase when it hits the VC, and I'm hoping to see the first and third game make their way here!

Wish I'd heard about starmen.net earlier...would've loved to help out early on!

Like many people, I had never heard of Earthbound until the original Smash Bros. came out. I even remember having a conversation in seventh grade with a friend about it that went something like this,
Friend: "So who are the secret characters again?"
Me: "Luigi and Jigglypuff and some guy named Captain Falcon and another one."
Friend: "Who's Captain Falcon?
Me: "I guess he's from F-Zero."
Friend: "That racing game on the Super Nintendo?"
Me: "Yeah."
Friend: "Well that's dumb. Who's the last one?"
Me: "I don't know. Some little kid named Ness or something."
Friend: "Who the hell is that?"
Me: "I don't know. I think he's from those old Nintendo Power comics."

But since then, like alot of people, I've come to love Earthbound. I admit I've never actually played it to completion. But that's true of alot of games. (It's a chronic thing with me. I don't know why. I've played every Fire Emblem [again, thanks Smash Bros.] that's come stateside, but I've yet to finish one.) But I'm still a big fan of Mother. Especially the music. The Mother 1 vocal soundtrack is amazing. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, as far as I'm concerned, is as good a game composer, if not better than the great Koji Kondo. The man gave us the music for Donkey Kong, Balloon Fight, Duck Hunt, Dr. Mario, Kid Icarus (Once again, thanks Smash Bros.), Metroid, Pokemon, and of course, Mother. I hope like hell Starmen.net is successful in their campaign.

I bought my new copy back in '96-'97 from Walmart. It was in the big box. w/ guide. There were three copies sitting on the clearance shelf marked down to $15 or $11. So I took a chance and I have NEVER regretted it once. My copy of EB is still in my SNES as I typed this. I MIGHT get EB on the VC, just to show support.

I borrowed it from a friend and ended up buying it. After I beat it several times, I lent it to a friend (in exchange for Killer Instinct) who left town shortly after. ;_;

I rented it a few years ago to write a GameFAQs guide for it, and as soon as it's released on VC I'm buying it and revising the guide.

I didn't buy it, sadly, but I did rent it at launch and pretty frequently for a long time thereafter. I wanted to play it as soon as I'd read about it in a Nintendo Power feature about the game they ran at the time. It was one of my all-time favorite RPGs at the time and still is.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

I first played the game I imagine it was the summer after it was released, I borrowed a friend's SNES and played my heart out when I rented it, getting about to the 5 moles before I had to return it.

That Christmas I was as happy as could be when I found an SNES and a huge oversized Earthbound box under the tree, smelly cards included.

I think I even have the Earthbound POGs stored away somewhere from the Nintendo Power Club.

I had not heard of the game until SSB and I loved Ness for some reason and had no idea where he was from. Looked it up and it turned out to be the huge cult classic that it is. And I've played a bit of it on emulators and such and love it, but I am saving the majority of the game for that hopeful VC release!!! :) COME ON NINTENDO!!!

I remember that thing being $70 as a child. I didn't quite grasp the concept of RPGs back then (even Super Mario RPG, homg), so it kinda settled as I remained in the early times of Twoson...

Then SSB came out when I was a wee bit older (12th birthday) and I'm like "lol it's that kid from that game" and that prompted me and my younger brother to try and play it again.

We felt mildly retarded for not noticing the infinite AWESOME this game contained. I would love to get the VC version, b-but that's the problem when you have a hard copy of the game...you kinda don't wanna pay for it twice. But yet, EathBound needs our support...argh! I'm having this dilemma with Mario Kart 64 and Star Fox 64...favoritest games ever, but already own 'em... :|

I've been a member of Starmen for a few years now.
My good childhood friend turned me on to EB and we still enjoy the game (and the others in the Mother series) into our 20's. It's like a great book or movie, it just never leaves you. EB's emotional and epic story lines and great dialogue make this one, very different, RPG stand out from the hundreds and hundreds of RPGs out there.

I can wait to play Mother 3 again...in English!

I've finished Earthbound probably close to 10 times over the years in both the SNES and emulators when our SNES was gone. I list it at my top 5 favorites. and no, not for street cred.

I've been itching for an english sequel, prequel, remake, or VC release for a long time. I'd definitely download it on VC to support the game, even though I can play it for free anytime.

I played through 3/4 of it on an emulator about 7 years ago. Fun game.

I don't really understand the elitism shown here about "knowing" Earthbound earlier than other people. That's really creepy guys, you should talk to a professional about that.

That said, I was introduced to Earthbound on my best friend's SNES probably 13 years ago when it came out. I'm not sure where he would have gotten it, but chances are it was straight off the shelf at Wal-Mart. I wasn't interested in RPGs at the time so I didn't pay it any mind, but I've enjoyed it since then. Never getting all the way through it emulated and never owning a SNES, I can't wait to see Earthbound on Virtual Console. I WILL be putting my +1 buyer into the statistics when/if the game releases!

I learned about Earthbound from Super Smash Bros. Melee and Starmen.net. Starmen.net is a really crazy fan site! You should watch this video about them called PK Scream'N: http://youtube.com/watch?v=26Mn6RQ0kwY it's really funny.

As a gamer, I loathed RPGs for a long time. But two, well three, RPGs change my fews on the genre completely and forever.
The are Super Mario RPG, Final Fastasy 4(FF2,U.S) and of course Earthbound.
...so to skeptics of Earthbound, to whom may read these word and the words of others that protest the greatness of Earthbound: Fear not.
You too will soon enjoy beating a "New Age Retro Hippee" when you download Earthbound via Virtual Console!