About

EarthBound is a Super Nintendo game released August 27, 1994 in Japan and June 5, 1995 in North America. The game was not released in European/PAL regions.

The game was created by Shigesato Itoi, who is the brain behind the Mother series, which EarthBound originates. He's considered to be a pretty big celebrity in Japan, especially after the success of his first game Mother (released in North America years later as EarthBound Beginnings). The late Satoru Iwata later joined development as producer, before he became president and CEO of Nintendo. The music was mainly composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirozuku Tanaka.

The plot revolves around a young boy named Ness, who was born with psychic abilities. He must travel the world to collect fragments of energy/melodies stored within 8 magical locations, called "Your Sanctuary". He must do this to save Earth from an alien threat who is attacking from multiple points in spacetime. Along the way, Ness teams up with three other kids; Paula, a girl from a town closeby who also has powerful psychic abilities, Jeff, a boy from up north who is a skilled inventor, and Poo, a prince from a faraway kingdom trained in a form of psychic martial arts.

While the game sold well in Japan, it recieved poor sales in the US. This was due to abyssmal marketing strategies, as well as the game not fitting well into the American demographics at the time. However, about a decade later, many people relooked at the title and realized how groundbreaking the game was. It is now considered by many to be one of the best video games of all time, and is one of the biggest inspirations for the indie RPG scene for many years now, especially in the US.