Within five minutes of starting Earthbound Beginnings, my baby sister’s kewpie doll came to life and tried to kill me, a hippie accosted me on a country road, and my father revealed that I was heir to an ancient reservoir of psychic power. This long-lost predecessor to the classic NES RPG Earthbound (also known as Mother in its native Japan) doubles down on a charming commitment to weirdness from the very first moments, and the resulting unpredictability unfolds into an engaging, entertaining story that eschews traditional high-fantasy RPG archetypes. Unfortunately, the whimsical tone is paired with a downright painful reliance on near-endless random battles that lock much of that fun behind walls of tedious grinding.
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