Fun fact; apparently that 3 minute waterfall wait also happens to be the amount of time Instant Ramen takes to cook; it’s literally a Game Mandated Snack Break😭

The spirit of your ancient lineage breaks you and possesses your mind.  It's  a dark way of saying you have become an adult. That's what it is saying, to gain power you become just like all your ancestors and are posessed.  Poo is ultra serious and doesn't seem to experience Joy.  It's my interpretation that all the party members represent what is expected in life. Ness is childhood, Paula is relationships, Jeff is gaining knowledge. Poo is adult responsibilities and that expectation. I think Itoi was always trying to say that these things will be a part of your life but no life is complete if you cast off any part of what life is supposed to be. Don't stop being a child nor avoid being an adult.  You will become your parents, but you shouldn't become your parents trauma. Without love and knowledge of bottle rockets, you probably won't get far, or at least it will feel more like a grind.  Just believe in yourself and your friends and things will be kay-o.

In 2024 I was diagnosed with phase 4 cancer, I'm ok now, but I'm still receiving treatment, and that treatment is messing me up more my body, some things will stay with me the rest of my life, making my existence more difficult.

I was not having good thoughts about myself and there's so much rage inside me, I thought maybe, is not worth it, maybe living like this and have to endure all of this is not worth it.

Thanks for making this video, it reminded me all the nice feelings I had the first time I played. I too prayed for them, and for the people who I don't know yet, to be happy and safe.

I remember that I'm not this sick body, I'm the kind people I met, the stories I read, the games I played, I'm not this rage. It's just me.

Thanks again for making this, I'll play it again, so I can cry again and enjoy this message from a guy that decided to make a videogame when I was born, that I'll enjoy 20 years later.

I hope life treats you well y'all

My fave fourth wall break comes at the very end when the photographer sets up his camera and takes a photo of you, the player.

i don't... necessarily want to get into the details in front of a bunch of strangers on the internet, but the part at the end of this video about itoi reaching back in time to his troubled, lonely, younger self, to tell him that everything was going to be okay... i'm not too proud to admit that it made me cry.

You know, I never thought about how Gygas being an endurance test is kind of a reflection on how the terrible things in our world are kind of an endurance test as well. We have to overcome them to be there for the people in our lives.

There‘s a reason Gygas is specifically mentioned to manipulate people and everything in the world. He is the manifestation of the awful things people can do

The ending of Earthbound, when my name appeared on the screen with my deep desire that good would win over evil and that we all would be alright, I cried. I cried so much, I cried like never before.

I used to be a really lonely child raised in a house full of domestic violence and constantly bullied at school. I had no friends, no one to talk to and show my heart. The only respite I had was the wondrous worlds in books, movies, cartoons, and games.

And then, after going through a silly and charming game, Itoi talks to me. He acknowledges me and tells me that I'll be alright. At that moment I didn't feel lonely, I wasn't just some dissociating shade of a person. I was Lucca, and I would be alright.

Thank you for reminding me of that and making me cry. Yes, I accept it.

This entire video is the perfect description of how Earthbound made me feel back when I was a young teenager. I was severely mentally ill, wanting to die everyday because I couldn’t handle the pain anymore, but Earthbound saved my life. Ness’s journey is what inspired me to keep moving forward, he believed in me. Being a part of said journey as the player solidified that for me. The game itself, especially Ness for my personal experience, told me that despite the darkness and experiences I’ll face ahead, there’s always hope that you can make it out a stronger, better person.

Being a part of Ness’s journey, watching him grow through the power of love, hope and friendship, gave me the courage to believe in myself that I could continue living. Here I am now at 22 years old, still bonded to Ness as a character because his game and journey saved me from ending my life. Not only that, but those who love me did too, even Itoi, who knew what it was like to experience hardship and not know what to do, but encouraged the player to keep pressing on.

I accepted that life will continue to be difficult and that I’ll get through the hard times. I accepted that things can happen and that’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Everyday is a new learning experience and yesterday was a day long past, but not forgotten.

My mental health has been struggling again recently and seeing Earthbound videos pop up on my feed again is Ness telling me that it’s going to be okay. You’ve faced horrors beyond your imagination before, you can face and conquer them again.

Ness to this day is my favorite character of all time because of how his journey taught me the importance of life itself and how my existence changes the world; how I’m loved even if I don’t feel like I am at the time, it doesn’t change the fact that me being born into this world changed the universe’s movement and shape. I’m capable of many things because I’m my own, unique person. I can get through hard times because I have people who love and believe in me, even if I struggle to believe in myself sometimes.

Earthbound is my favorite game of all time for this personal reason and it continues to be as I grow older and experience what life has to offer me. I can’t thank Itoi enough for creating a game that saved my life, for creating a protagonist that I could connect with beyond realms of possibility and for triggering my own spiritual journey along the way.

The MOTHER series will always and forever be my favorite franchise and nothing can ever top it. Thank you for reading if you made it this far. I wish you luck on your own journeys.

This is one of the best videos talking about what makes Earthbound great. I didn't grow up with it, and hearing about how its impacted others and I like it, but this made me truly *get it*.

23:00 😢 its so frickin metal that you get to be the one who helps them in that moment in a video game, the connection that brings is so dang special

15:11 clever :D

I like the fact that everyone is still talking about Earthbound to this day as one of the greatest games of all time.
It really is revolutionary and one of the kind games ever.

23:45 i love how until the words “will create a video game” that it could be a statement about anybody, and thats why Mother is such a good series, it tells you, in no uncertain terms, to stop resisting change, but to resist the mandated loss of childhood that everyone was forced into for decades, Itoi is doing what many of our fathers wouldn’t or couldn’t. He’s taking lost children by the hand, kneeling down to level with them, and telling the truth: Every little Thing is gonna be alright, and as a young adult, as in 20, i don’t think i can express how badly i needed the tears Earthbound provided, i emulated the game while squatting homeless in 2025, and it saved my life, so even though he’ll never know. Thank you, to Mr Shigasato Itoi, copywriter, artist, musician, author, Father, and Game developer, you and the effort of those you worked with is what kept me strong when i was weak. Thank you.

One of my best friends passed away a few weeks ago. I ve been triying to acept this. Now watchi g s this i just realised i have to acept this, for the love we had each other, i acept this. This is good triumphing againat evil.

I whish you luck

It's funny how Earthbound pushes the boundaries on how dark a kid's game can get but it opens your mind when you're used to more linear games

This is the greatest Earthbound video essay I have ever watched. Thank you.

As you said, Shigesato Itoi is famous in Japan for writing extremely concise, emotionally resonant advertising copy and slogans. You could even connect that to the influence and importance of haiku, the traditional Japanese poetic form built around very strict structure and very few words.

And this is where I flip the script on you and declare EarthBound a great game ruined by its ending, at least in the West.

I’m starting to get old, so I was already a teenager when the Super Nintendo came out. I played basically every RPG on the system that was translated into English, and I finished all of them with every character at level 99 (so this obviously doesn’t apply to Super Mario RPG).

Now imagine the scene. I reach Giygas with every character at level 99. I can’t kill him, and he can’t kill me. And I’ve always been an extremist when it comes to games. I don’t read guides, walkthroughs, or ask for help. I want to figure everything out myself.

So I fought Giygas for hours and hours. I thought maybe the joke was that the fight was intentionally endless, and that it would eventually stop after one hour… maybe five… ten… twenty. I thought I had tried everything.

I knew about Paula’s Pray command. But as I said, I had played the game so thoroughly that I had never encountered a single moment where that feature actually felt useful. And because EarthBound constantly jokes about everything, I honestly thought this was just one more joke from the game.

After spending more than 30 hours stuck at the ending, I finally had no choice but to look online.

I was crushed when I found the solution. It genuinely crushed my soul.

Later, I learned that this was apparently caused by a translation issue. An NPC before the fight was originally supposed to hint much more strongly at the solution (he does in the Japanese version), but the nuance was lost in translation, partly because of Itoi’s famous obsession with concision and implication.

I still believe EarthBound is one of the most influential RPGs ever created. But that ending left a sour taste in my mouth that never completely went away.

Thank you for putting into words what this game has done for me for decades.

Fuzzy pickles.

I absolutely did not know what I was getting into, way back in the day, when I rented Earthbound because it had a strategy guide bundled in.  The way it hit me right in the feels was incredible.  The coffee and tea scenes were a shock, it was like having the game set itself aside and reassure me directly, a reminder to look back and see the progress I made.  Not just in the game, but in life itself.  And the finale, the prayer...  My first time through, I wasn't able to beat one of the bosses.  So I had continued the save file of someone else, and then it asked for the player's name, and it just felt...  WRONG to put my own in.  I set it down, and went back to my own file, and was determined to see it through instead of skipping steps.  It made the ending so much better, I'm so glad I did that.  It was MY journey, the whole way through.

I totally did fall for the "Your master is calling for you" trick at the meditation scene the first time, though.  Twice, actually, and was frustrated he wasn't saying anything.  "Why did you call me here if you're not gonna actually say anything!?"  And then it was on the third try that I realized what was up, heh.

"[...] it's not afraid to lean into a genuine emotional honesty."
Just one or two days ago I watched a video on Super Paper Mario and I was reminded of EarthBound. And now with this video I'm thinking back to Super Paper Mario again.

Both of these games are completely unapologetic in what they do. Pranking the player as well as having serious moments.
Super Paper Mario plunges the player into a huge debt and makes them pay it off through slave labour, or sends them back through a level to type in the word "please" to an NPC five times to get a an exceptionally convoluted code to progress. But Super Paper Mario also has its villain succeed in erasing an entire world where the heroes are too late, portrays the family drama of a daughter finding out she's not their parents' real child and her parents then grieving over losing that child, and how the lack of acceptance of love between two people can cause damage and pain.

Both Super Paper Mario and EarthBound know exactly when they want to be silly and when they want to be serious, and they never backpedal in any of these moments. No comedic bit is afraid to impede the player's gameplay or put them at a disadvantage, and no serious moment is broken up by a wacky quip. They do it all to make the player genuinely feel something.