Earthbound

Previously on AMC's Breaki... A crazy German's blog:

Memo to myself; potential blog posts:

- Codeword: Itoi

- Codeword: Meckern

- Codeword: RE

- Codeword: Bad
- Codeword: Aftermath

I wrote this last year.. just imagine. So many things have happened during the last months. It seems such a long time ago... *dramatic music starts playing*

And all that time has left a mark on my soul: I just realised that half, well, technically 3 fifth parts of my potential blog posts were bullshit. Thank you 2013's Crazy German, you are a good-for-nothing. You know, when you want something to get done well, you have to do it yourself and not leave it to the version of yourself from several months ago. Or something like that... Err... Ad break please!

Err.. Have we already chosen a flight company for our trip to London? If not, I'd like to make a suggestion...

Welcome back to our blog evening ladies and gentlemen! Today I'd like to seize one of my ideas for new yoursay posts from last term... It shall be the codeword Itoi! 

I'm pretty sure you already know that Itoi was a hint for Earthbound. I mean, it's so obvious. Sorry, I don't have the blood of a thriller writer flowing through my veins.

But just in case you didn't reach that crystal clear conclusion, let's start from the very beginning.

What is Earthbound? 

a) A game

b) An anime

c) Some weird physics stuff

d) Stop it, you never talk about anything else than the previous three possibilities, stupid nerd -.-

Try to guess! Come on, give it a try!

Of course it's...

Yep, a game. But as you already know, I never talk about the typical 08/15 football simulator or war game where you have to kill people and the more the better and that's all. Instead, I prefer to tell you (and I should warn you, today we're going to get really psycho) about much more sophisticated stuff like this:

Yes, that IS ACTUALLY an in-game screenshot

Good. Either I've got your full attention now or I have lost you forever. Anyway, what is this crazy game about?

Earthbound is an RPG (role-playing game) from 1994 that originally came out for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). In fact, Earthbound is the second installment of a trilogy called "Mother" in Japan, but neither the first nor the third game ever made their way out of Japan, which is quite a shame. I assure you, there are no games like Earthbound. It's like the hidden Don Quijote of the video game world. 

The protagonist, a thirteen-years-old boy by the name of Ness, wakes up one night because of the noise of a meteorite crash-landing at the mountainside near his house. He goes to investigate the place of the impact together with his neighbour Pokey. There he meets an alien realistically disguised as a bee, his/her/its/their name is, fittingly, Buzz-Buzz. Buzz-Buzz tells Ness about the future that awaits the world: Giygas achieves the control over the whole Universe. In fact, Buzz-Buzz has travelled through time, coming from that disgusting future to Ness' time in order to ask him to defeat Giygas while he's still vincible.

From that point onwards, it will be Ness' mission to travel from town to town, finding the so-called "Your Sanctuary locations" where he has to fight strong enemies in order to obtain mysterious melodies that remind him of his own infancy... Thereby Ness matures, discovers himself and prepares for the final fight that will determine the fate of the whole Universe. But he won't fight alone: during the journey he meets 3 other kids with special abilities that will support him on his adventure.

So, why is all that hogwash worth a blog post?

Two reasons:

1. It's hilarous.

2. It's magical.

Why hilarous? Well, the game is the definition of parody. It parodies everything. Beginning by ridiculing the video game genre of RPGs, going on with references to The Beatles and Mr. T until even laughing at something as big as the American culture and their society from the 80's and early 90's... It's marvelous. But, you know, 5 pictures are worth a 5000 words:

I follow that advice. Always.

That's an enemy I don't want to deal with in real life... I prefer dragons or monsters

One of my favourites. This game is so surreal... Dali would probably have enjoyed playing Earthbound

The answer is YES

Best Beatles reference ever made in mankind's history

And what about the magic? As I told you earlier, the adventure of Ness and his friends represents the process of growing up, going deep into yourself and find out who you are and what you really want. Actually, one of the locations you visit while playing is Ness' very consciousness. Literally. You go into his mind. It's fantastic.

And then... there's the end boss of the game: Giygas. In the final part, Ness and his friends have to travel through time, back to the past, so they have a chance to defeat Giygas. To do that, they need to transfer their souls into robot bodies, since organic material can't withstand the warp through time. Note the seriousness of a game that initially seemed rather childish. 

Eventually, they face Giygas. They face this:

This is Giygas. I guess there was a lot of incest in his family... look at those deformations...

This is the soundtrack that plays during the fight with Giygas... God, it sure sends chills up my spine listening to this alone at night with headphones..

What is Giygas supposed to be? Some people see a fetus... Some people see even... more things:

Seems legit...

I should as well mention Giygas' comments during the battle:

• "Ness..."
• "Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness..."
• "I...Feel...G..o..o..d..."
• "It Hurts...It Hurts..."
• "I'm so sad, Ness..."
• "Friends..."
• "You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack!"
• "Go B..a..c..k"
• "I am...H...A...P...P...Y..."
• "It's not right, not right..."
• "Ness!" 

Shigesato Itoi (Heureka!) is the director of Earthbound. He explained that Giygas was based on a traumatic experience that he had as a child when he accidentally stepped into the wrong hall in a cinema witnessing something that he remembers as a raping scene in the movie that was being shown in that hall. In fact, there's no raping in that film and it seems Itoi, as a child, wasn't prepared for such an exposure of eroticism leading him to interpret the events on the screen as a violent act against the female character in the movie. Put simply, Itoi digested his own personal childhood trauma by creating Giygas.

Can you see how much soul this game has? It's impossible to grasp the true form of this game (you see what I did there...) without playing it. And I know you're not going to play it. But it's a gem. And if, one day, you discover video games as a new media to be exploited by you, play Earthbound. It's very deep.