8 Years of Experience Points
The most difficult part was finding the cartridge. I mean, had it really been that long? Long enough that the EarthBound cartridge I once kept in a kind of security system reminiscent of Fort Knox was sitting under my bookshelf, collecting dust next to "Sewer Shark" for the Sega CD?
I got down on my knees, reached my hand under the Joseph Heller shelf, and... yes, that was it. I had forgotten what the cover art looked like, honestly, but as I looked at it it all came back to me; for the longest time, until I beat the game, I thought that Ness was actually inside the Starman in the picture, controlling him. It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally figured out it was a reflection. Such is the nature of misunderstanding things as an eight-year-old with only a copy of Nintendo Power to guide his videogame buying.
I rented it first, of course; the thing was, I had never played an RPG before. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that there was no punching, or jumping, or anything remotely similar. Not only that, but I had started playing somebody else's game. This led to several misunderstandings: for some time, I thought that the teddy bear was a party member and that the dreadlocked man who said "I'll be careful not to kidnap someone!" actually had kidnapped someone. Not only that, but I was convinced that all of the people in hockey masks belonged to some evil conspiracy... I mean, come on, when was the last time a good guy wore one of those?
So I returned the game, a little annoyed, and... forgot about it entirely for two years.
It was then, a little older, a little wiser, and a little better at reading comprehension, that ten-year-old Liar--not Liar then, of course--received a copy of Super Mario RPG as a gift. EarthBound was still my only experience with the genre, but I tore through Mario RPG, and it quickly become my favorite game. It was the perfect gateway RPG; it was funny, it had play mechanics that resembled platformers as much as they did Final Fantasy, and come on, it was a Mario game.
After I finally took Smithy, Culex and company out, EarthBound leapt out of the back of my mind. At this point, though, Super Nintendo games weren't easy to come by; the Playstation, Saturn, and brand new Nintendo 64 had taken up most of the shelf space, leaving a few piddling rows of Best Buy real estate to the SNES and the Genesis.
Some of you reading this, though, will know how it ends; for some reason, Best Buy still had a massive overstock of brand new copies of EarthBound. Looking to liquidate them, stores across the country had three or four copies apiece sitting on the clearance shelf for only $5; I'd imagine this startling clearout is responsible for a lot of people becoming interested in the game, and Starmen.Net as a result of it.
This time, EarthBound was... EarthBound. I got the jokes, I read the player's guide religiously, I--this was important--started a new game. Things in the game just worked.
It was a good experience, but it was 1997; there are a lot of things I enjoyed in 1997--Rugrats rings a bell--that I don't enjoy now. And so here I am, eight years and change later, and the Super Nintendo isn't hooked up in my room, the cartridge isn't under lock and key, but I'm writing about it. I'm writing about it for a site that gets thousands of hits a day, with a massive forum and a popular chat room. Let's face it, nobody shows this kind of devotion for Tetris. And maybe that's the mark of a great game; not that people are playing it ten years later--though many people are, thanks to the Funktastic Gameplaying--but that people remember playing it ten years later so fondly.
The most difficult part was finding the cartridge. I mean, had it really been that long? Long enough that the EarthBound cartridge I once kept in a kind of security system reminiscent of Fort Knox was sitting under my bookshelf, collecting dust next to "Sewer Shark" for the Sega CD?
I got down on my knees, reached my hand under the Joseph Heller shelf, and... yes, that was it. I had forgotten what the cover art looked like, honestly, but as I looked at it it all came back to me; for the longest time, until I beat the game, I thought that Ness was actually inside the Starman in the picture, controlling him. It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally figured out it was a reflection. Such is the nature of misunderstanding things as an eight-year-old with only a copy of Nintendo Power to guide his videogame buying.
I rented it first, of course; the thing was, I had never played an RPG before. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that there was no punching, or jumping, or anything remotely similar. Not only that, but I had started playing somebody else's game. This led to several misunderstandings: for some time, I thought that the teddy bear was a party member and that the dreadlocked man who said "I'll be careful not to kidnap someone!" actually had kidnapped someone. Not only that, but I was convinced that all of the people in hockey masks belonged to some evil conspiracy... I mean, come on, when was the last time a good guy wore one of those?
So I returned the game, a little annoyed, and... forgot about it entirely for two years.
It was then, a little older, a little wiser, and a little better at reading comprehension, that ten-year-old Liar--not Liar then, of course--received a copy of Super Mario RPG as a gift. EarthBound was still my only experience with the genre, but I tore through Mario RPG, and it quickly become my favorite game. It was the perfect gateway RPG; it was funny, it had play mechanics that resembled platformers as much as they did Final Fantasy, and come on, it was a Mario game.
After I finally took Smithy, Culex and company out, EarthBound leapt out of the back of my mind. At this point, though, Super Nintendo games weren't easy to come by; the Playstation, Saturn, and brand new Nintendo 64 had taken up most of the shelf space, leaving a few piddling rows of Best Buy real estate to the SNES and the Genesis.
Some of you reading this, though, will know how it ends; for some reason, Best Buy still had a massive overstock of brand new copies of EarthBound. Looking to liquidate them, stores across the country had three or four copies apiece sitting on the clearance shelf for only $5; I'd imagine this startling clearout is responsible for a lot of people becoming interested in the game, and Starmen.Net as a result of it.
This time, EarthBound was... EarthBound. I got the jokes, I read the player's guide religiously, I--this was important--started a new game. Things in the game just worked.
It was a good experience, but it was 1997; there are a lot of things I enjoyed in 1997--Rugrats rings a bell--that I don't enjoy now. And so here I am, eight years and change later, and the Super Nintendo isn't hooked up in my room, the cartridge isn't under lock and key, but I'm writing about it. I'm writing about it for a site that gets thousands of hits a day, with a massive forum and a popular chat room. Let's face it, nobody shows this kind of devotion for Tetris. And maybe that's the mark of a great game; not that people are playing it ten years later--though many people are, thanks to the Funktastic Gameplaying--but that people remember playing it ten years later so fondly.
