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I love this game despite it being maybe not that fun to play. The psychedelic banality of the normal-rear end world rules so much. The fact that almost everyone you can talk to has something funny or intriguing to say rules. Its pervasive good-naturedness even rules.Relin posted:The music in EB is so good because they lifted the melodies and etc. from real songs without giving credit. You're gonna freak out when you discover where "real songs" come from
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Jul 28, 2013 21:32
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Leofish posted:I remember the single only time it's happened in all my years playing this game... having a Bionic Kraken drop the Gutsy Bat, steps away fom Gyigas' room. I trudged all the way back to the Phase Distorter to save it, so that I could do the final dungeon AGAIN while SMAAAAAAASHING every fuckin' thing forever. That said, the Gutsy Bat is the cruelest joke in the game.
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Jul 28, 2013 21:52
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TheRationalRedditor posted:The game is like 2 decades old, you don't need to spoiler anything much less this. Apparently no one is reading the OP. quote:Keep Spoilers to a minimum and be sure to tag them.
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Jul 28, 2013 22:29
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I want some of that Mr. Saturn coffee.
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Jul 28, 2013 22:49
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I haven't played Earthbound before now but am reading through the topic so spoiler tags are appreciated. 
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Jul 28, 2013 22:53
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I was disappointed every Monday that this didn't come out when the Wii first came out and after the release of Brawl. I don't have a loving Wii U but I want one now, I never got to see the strategy guide as I played it in 2005, so I think it's a nice touch they added that. The Windows 8 version is alright but the controls are total poo poo.
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Jul 28, 2013 22:54
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Fun Fact: Here's how Giygas's weird scary signal sound when hes out of the Devil's Machine was made! To help explain the method, we will have to differentiate between Subtractive Synthesis and Frequency Modulation Synthesis. Subtractive means regular old waveforms (like saw, square, triangle etc) that are shaped with filters that let through high or low frequencies. If you think of electronic music from your youth or the sounds a NES makes, you're thinking subtractive synthesis. Frequency Modulation takes the simplest waveform, sine waves, and adds multiple of them on top of each other. The frequency with which the sine waves interact is then modified, creating usually sharp and rough sounds. If you think of kick-rear end basslines from pop songs or the sounds a Sega Genesis/Megadrive makes, you're thinking frequency modulation. The SNES had extremely limited capability to produce sounds and music on it's own, but had excellent capability to use sound samples. It's why most SNES music can sometimes sound a bit muddy or lo-fi. On the other hand, the Genesis had it's own FM modulation chip but very low sound bank capacity, which is why it lacked orchestral pieces and had very rough sounds if samples were used. Now, FM modulation is arguably more versatile than subtractive synthesis but has a sound world of it's own. I don't know if the sound was self-made or found somewhere, but the sound Giygas makes is very distinctively a two-wave FM modulation. I made recordings to showcase how the sound is made: 1. Start with a simple sine wave sound (like the whoo-ee-oo for Doctor Who!)  2. Make the sine sharper, either by modulating it with another sine or modifying the waveform.  3. Start modulating the first wave with a second, low-frequency wave. Lower frequency basically means lower pitch, and it gives a nice warble. Useful for bass line sounds.  4. Just a tad more!  5. A little bit and a Lowpass filter later we have a sound with a great stingyness in all pitches.  6. Now we need to find the notes that match. I used the original sound byte as a reference. Also add some gliding between notes.  7. A second layer is added with a similar, but slightly different sound.  8. Almost done! As the low quality of the original sound byte added some creepy charm, we're going to add a Lo-Fi filter to the sound.  9. The finalized sound is then made into a sample and played at different notes. Here we have the end result!  BTW I hate this loving sound. It always makes me anxious.
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Jul 28, 2013 23:48
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Leofish posted:I remember one playthrough I tried to get all the 1/128 items. It was the only time I ever hit max level. The one time I actually got the Sword of Kings played for about 5 minutes at a time before resetting to prevent that. A failed attempt on another run through left me at like level 70 and made the rest of the game a bigger joke than it already is. I also later found out you can use Jeff's Spy command to steal the item if the enemy would have dropped it. Not sure if that would make the battles any quicker, though.
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Jul 29, 2013 00:11
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In terms of speed, luckily Starmen are the easiest hostile enemy to segregate and green swirl so with practice after you gain some levels you should never have to enter a combat screen, ie no spy use. I never let the area until I had lifeup omega anyways. Ps I spoilered the enemy because personally I remember the first time I saw them again I was like "oh poo poo!!!" because you really don't see em for a long time
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Jul 29, 2013 00:32
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Kikka posted:Fun Fact: Here's how Giygas's weird scary signal sound when hes out of the Devil's Machine was made! This is really cool. I'd love to hear more about how the SNES sound chip worked, because some games managed to do amazing things with it. The Dragon Quest III remake in particular had some of the most authentic-sounding orchestral music I ever heard in that generation. The sound chip itself was actually designed by Sony' Ken Kutaragi, who later went on to design the PlayStation consoles. Another interesting fact is that each SEGA console used the processor from the previous one as its sound chip, to make backwards compatibility cheaper. This didn't happen in the Dreamcast, though, because the SEGA Saturn's hardware was a mess.
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Jul 29, 2013 01:03
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That loving Sned posted:Another interesting fact is that each SEGA console used the processor from the previous one as its sound chip, to make backwards compatibility cheaper. This didn't happen in the Dreamcast, though, because the SEGA Saturn's hardware was a mess. Isn't that what Sony also did with the PS2 but finding out they could make PS1 games work wasn't originally intended and kind of a happy accident?
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Jul 29, 2013 01:25
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That loving Sned posted:This is really cool. I'd love to hear more about how the SNES sound chip worked, because some games managed to do amazing things with it. The Dragon Quest III remake in particular had some of the most authentic-sounding orchestral music I ever heard in that generation. You know, one thing bothers me. How did they make the sweet rhythm acid sound for the Kraken theme? The sound has that up-down lowpass filter that shouldn't be possible with the SNES hardware, unless they made each level of filtering a separate sound or underlaid a second sound and then changed volumes between the two? I think it's all fascinating. When you've got limits its really great to see how far they can be taken.
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Jul 29, 2013 01:38
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Kongming posted:Earthbound is not a grindy RPG to begin with, the only time in the entire game I grind out levels is the very beginning. Frank is near impossible at level 1-2 so it's pretty much mandatory, after that it's hard to be underleveled for anything unless you purposely avoid as many encounters as you can. You've got to level to 12 to PK Shield Alpha against the Starman Jr. 
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Jul 29, 2013 05:52
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While I feel that Mother 3 is far better gameplay wise (it's ten years younger, after all), the music is still fantastic and some of the lines are still great, it just doesn't have the charm that Earthbound does. Also, from the very beginning of the game, they keep hyping up this world-eating dragon if you talk to the right people, and then it turns out it's your entire mission to stop it. But you never get to actually fight it. The final fight is really cool for its own reasons but man that was a bummer. With how stupidly easy Porky was I thought there'd be a crazy final fight after him.
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Jul 29, 2013 11:14
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Mother 3 was too weird and too much of an emotional roller-coaster for me to really enjoy. Also, I despised the chapter system because of how it kept switching characters around until around Chapter 5 where you finally take control of the main character. This game has a long-rear end prologue, almost as bad as the one from Kingdom Hearts II. That being said, the game is great once you finally have control of Lucas.
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Jul 29, 2013 13:35
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Starhawk64 posted:Mother 3 was too weird and too much of an emotional roller-coaster for me to really enjoy. Also, I despised the chapter system because of how it kept switching characters around until around Chapter 5 where you finally take control of the main character. This game has a long-rear end prologue, almost as bad as the one from Kingdom Hearts II. That being said, the game is great once you finally have control of Lucas. I agree it has a long prologue, but at least you're actually playing the game and beating poo poo up. It's good fun with some cool boss fights. Comparing it to KH2's "watch ten hours of cutscenes and bullshit story before you can swing at something" is ridiculous. extremebuff fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jul 29, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2013 14:12
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Ascetic Crow posted:Beat that. Dakota. Everyone joins the 
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Jul 29, 2013 14:35
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Angry Diplomat posted:Everyone joins the They're on a mission from God. Gotta get the band back together to save the
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Jul 29, 2013 15:04
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Bobnumerotres posted:While I feel that Mother 3 is far better gameplay wise (it's ten years younger, after all), the music is still fantastic and some of the lines are still great, it just doesn't have the charm that Earthbound does. The dragon is pretty much a neutral entity, what is does when it wakes up depends on the heart of whoever pulls the needles. Lucas wasn't trying to stop it, he was trying to pull the needles to awaken it first so he can get reset the world to how it was before porky hosed everything up. Porky just wanted the dragon so he could destroy everything because he's selfish like that. The ending of mother 3 wasn't as good as earthbound but it was ok.
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Jul 29, 2013 15:30
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Kikka posted:Fun Fact: Here's how Giygas's weird scary signal sound when hes out of the Devil's Machine was made! This whole post is amazing. I had no idea that was how it was done  and you're right about it making you feel anxious, I'm pretty sure that's the exact feeling Itoi wanted to convey for him. If you know of any other soundbyte style stuff used in the game, I'd love to hear about it.     and here are some particularly awesome "Movie Posters" by KurkoBoltsi on DeviantArt
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Jul 29, 2013 15:31
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DrManiac posted:The ending of mother 3 wasn't as good as earthbound but it was ok. It would have been better without the walking around "everyone is fine!" epilogue, to be sure.
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Jul 29, 2013 15:38
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I think one of the things I love most about Earthbound is that it manages to appeal to absolutely all ages in different, equally great ways. As a kid, it's an awesome game about kids like you going on a grand, goofy adventure. As a teen or young adult, it's still an awesome silly adventure, but it's also a little bit of a nostalgic love letter to childhood innocence and that feeling of everything being new and weird and wonderful. Then you grow up and have a kid and you go back and play Earthbound and it's still beautiful and nostalgic and reminds you of how amazing childhood is and how incredible it is that you created a human being holy poo poo and now you get to watch your little one be a child and share in that wonder again, but there are also moments when it's strangely gripping and kind of terrifying and sad, because it's about children going out alone into a dangerous world to fight for what's right and give up some of their innocence and grow up through bravery in the face of hardship, suffering, and solitude.   
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Jul 29, 2013 15:48
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Wow, gently caress Moonside.
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Jul 29, 2013 17:32
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Paper Jam Dipper posted:Wow, gently caress Moonside. If you know where to go you only need to spend about 2 minutes there and get into 2-3 fights. The boss is super easy, but, yeah, gently caress those fire hydrants.
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Jul 29, 2013 17:38
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Not sure how long it's been there, but on Miiverse there's now an Earthbound announcement community with no posts on it. I wonder what they're going to use it for?
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Jul 29, 2013 18:20
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Bobnumerotres posted:If you know where to go you only need to spend about 2 minutes there and get into 2-3 fights. The boss is super easy, but, yeah, gently caress those fire hydrants. What made it worse for me was the mole hole, where every single snake poisoned me and every fight took three attempts to run. First time the game got tedious for me. So going from that to a Moonside where I'm getting chased every three seconds just made me say blah and quit.
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Jul 29, 2013 18:31
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Rhinoceraptor posted:It would have been better without the walking around "everyone is fine!" epilogue, to be sure. Whaaaaaaaat. That was probably my favorite part, especially because it's so ambiguous. It plays in so well with what the needles do, because the heart of the person who pulls them determines whether the world is reborn or completely destroyed. And the ambiguity there is asking you to do what Lucas was trying to: to believe in the goodness of people and that things can turn out okay, even though everything is horrible right now. You never really see anyone, you get no real indication that everyone really is okay--the game is just begging you to believe that they could be. And also I cried like a baby when they thanked me by name, especially because I totally forgot the game asks you to input your name at the beginning. It was by sheer chance I put in my real name and not some stupid joke.
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Jul 29, 2013 18:32
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Earthbound's tone is really something else, especially compared to other RPGs, both western and eastern. Most have pretty straightforward narratives and tonalities. Most attempt to evoke a mood of dread, menace, or peril, but strange as it sounds, none come close to Earthbound's ability to pull it off. Firstly, the modern setting helps pull the player in, with its familiarity. A house in a small town, a boy with his baseball cap and faithful dog, along with his next door neighbor. However, its obvious that quite quickly that things are a little off, and the surreal quality of the game becomes apparent. The graphics, in their colorful simplicity, are both friendly yet impersonal. Contemporaries of Earthbound, such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, have emotive and varied sprites for their characters, as well as dialogue that attempts to be inclusive to the player. Character beats and quirks make the various cast more personable and easier to get close to, so to speak. Earthbound, however, has a very limited set of sprites, and less dialogue for any given character. Every main character and NPC has only one or, if they're lucky, two expressions. Many have little to no back story worth telling, and those that do feature throwaway stories summed up in a line or two of dialogue. This impersonal delivery I think actually allows the player to project onto the game easier, just as one can relate to a silent protagonist in certain cases to one that has a voice. So you get attached to this goofy, blasé world that's riffing off standard jRPG tropes and weird American pop culture references, going on a standard hero's journey across the world and collecting the macguffins. Then you get to Giygas. Giygas is straight up Lovecraft. He's not Cthulhu or Dagon or any of the minor entities, but he's in fact the biggest, baddest of them all: Azathoth. For those not in the know, Azathoth is Lovecraft's prime deity, a mindless, "nuclear chaos" (nuclear meaning central in this case, not "nuke"), also described as a "blind idiot god" that sleeps, contained by monotonous, tuneless piping. Should he awaken, he will end the universe. His form and actions are incomprehensible to the human mind. He is served by another deity, Nyarlathotep, who (unlike other deities in Lovecraft's mythos), walks the earth, fulfilling the wishes of Azathoth. Nyarlathotep can be seen walking as a human, manipulating and deceiving those around him in a distinctly human fashion. It could be said that Pokey, in his way, is in fact Nyarlathotep. He uses Giygas to his own ends as much as he serves Giygas'. Which is basically to spead chaos, build his own power, and side with the strongest thing around. There's something so bizarre and unique about a distinctly Lovecraftian game, with a legitimate eldritch horror as the main villain. The surreal feeling of the entire game just drives home the malice that slowly reveals itself as you progress. I've never seen anything quite like it in videogames.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:15
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I like when the little slime guys burp
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Jul 29, 2013 22:18
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Help Im Alive posted:Not sure how long it's been there, but on Miiverse there's now an Earthbound announcement community with no posts on it. Would be awesome if they announced Mother for the 3DS virtual console.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:37
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Harrow posted:Whaaaaaaaat. Mother 3 endgame spoilers I was thinking about the Great Dragon yesterday, and it seems to me that it would have come out as something of a chimera of good and evil (in tune with the rest of the game.) Considering that Lucas pulled out half of them and Claus (roughly) the other half. I feel like yeah, everybody was okay. But they're in a completely different world now, and we can't see them because we don't exactly know what that world would entail. I do feel like the final fight was a bit of a letdown/was trying to coast on the tails of EB. But I think all Mother endbosses work the same way; Brute force is a guaranteed failure.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:44
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blurry! posted:Earthbound, however, has a very limited set of sprites, and less dialogue for any given character. Every main character and NPC has only one or, if they're lucky, two expressions. If I can express the nitpickiest of nitpicks, I hate the fact that only Ness poses for photos.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:51
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Maybe it's because that only Ness can see him. 
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Jul 29, 2013 22:53
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Or that the others are just so weirded out by a man falling from the sky. 
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Jul 29, 2013 23:05
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Starhawk64 posted:Or that the others are just so weirded out by a man falling from the sky. But you'd think they would be used to it after the 50th time. Maybe Ness is the only photogenic one, through thick and thin. Curious, does Ness' ghost do anything if caught in a picture?
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Jul 29, 2013 23:13
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ETB posted:But you'd think they would be used to it after the 50th time. Maybe Ness is the only photogenic one, through thick and thin. Doesn't the game end if Ness dies?
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Jul 29, 2013 23:18
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Help Im Alive posted:Not sure how long it's been there, but on Miiverse there's now an Earthbound announcement community with no posts on it. You just know they're going to shove the ROM onto a disc and sell it with an artbook for 40 bucks down the road.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:22
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ETB posted:But you'd think they would be used to it after the 50th time. Maybe Ness is the only photogenic one, through thick and thin. Nope, he just stares blankly at the camera if he's dead/diamondized.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:35
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Arrrthritis posted:Mother 3 endgame spoilers Claus pulled out half of them and one of the magypsies specifically says that his heart is neither good nor evil due to him being a cyborg I think pokey is the best villain of any SNES rpg. He does some pretty horrible poo poo, but it all pretty much goes back to him being a lonely fat kid in some bad situations. DrManiac fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2013 23:59
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I would like to nominate Earthbound for Grooviest Boss Music '013 And Also All Years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TVX0T8HR5o
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Jul 30, 2013 00:00
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