Non-Flaws of EarthBound
(That's right. This little beaut is another retort to Stepinitch's articles about the flaws of EarthBound. As I'm mending this little baby, it's April 15, and there are a projected three total articles that deal with Stepinitch's work. I argued with myself whether I should send this in or not, but I feel it'll either have Stepinitch completely lose faith in the human race, or show that there are plenty of people willing to point out mistakes in articles. With that in mind, I submitted. There's plenty of repeated points, but I'd like to think I was less aggressive against the infamous writer.)
Plenty of games sweat the smell stuff, but EarthBound tied up plenty of loose ends up until the ending. Take out Pokey's letter, and you're just not left with too many questions. I wouldn't call EarthBound flawless, but local writer, Stepinitch, pointed out just a few things that I'd be willing to address on the game's behalf. Fire up that SNES, Stepinitch. Let's take a glance at a few problems of your recent articles.
"1. While playing Earthbound I asked myself, " What exactly is Ness defending and what is he defending them from?" The inhabitants of Onett seem perfectly safe to me. Although there may be Sharks, Runaway Dogs, and Coil Snakes rampaging through Onett, was there ever an incident in the game in which a civilian was attacked? (And when I say the word civilian, I am making a reference to all those who did not in some way dramatically help Ness and his party; i.e., a person on the street). I don't believe there to be any such incident and thus Ness is just wasting his time."
I'm going to ignore Threed's zombie attacks, and focus on something much more obvious. You're in Onett. You decide to strike up a conversation with those gimp hospital residents. In the second room on the second floor, she's there with here mother. The little red-haired girl. What does she say? "I was SMAAAAASHED by a mouse." Unless you meant actually seeing baddies in the act, that works for me because little girls, they don't deserved to be whacked by mice. When you consider exit mice are treated as items, an article on rodent bias could easily be considered more sensible. Sure most of the hostile mice are in the cave near Giant Step, but I hardly believe the girl was a spelunker, and there must've been an out of line mouse venture out at some point. Sure it's petty, but if you had to pay the hospital bills, you'd want some vengence too.
Since their second point is speculation about how time is scaled can neither be proven or disproven, I'll leave it. It's a different, zany dimension with an eclectic, but equally zany crew of characters that don't adhere to time, G.
"3. This 3rd example, but certainly not last (oh no, there will be many more to come, but in future articles) can be tied to example 2. Giygas controls Earth 10 years in the future. 10 YEARS. I wouldn't expect much change myself if I relaxed for a year or so. Why does Ness rush himself? This time period, how long does it go. Sleeping in makes a day pass. So if you slept enough days for 10 years to go by would Giygas control the world?"
If they can theorize, so can I.
Don Knotts had this answered many a year ago. "Nip it in the bud!" OK, he didn't invent the saying, but he perfected it, and guess what? It applies here. We don't know if there were more possible sanctuaries that weren't in jeopardy during EarthBound, but if there were, it could really add up over the years if Giygas was becoming consistently more powerful. Think about it. We don't know how long Giygas was around before Buzz Buzz visited, but I imagine he wasn't there very long if Buzz Buzz wanted to pull a Knotts and nip it in the bud. For the sake of things, I'll theorize Giygas got all eight sanctuary spots in under a year. Now, say that amount increases the same amount over a span of a decade. One could picture eighty(!) sanctuaries that Giygas would need before becoming mighty enough to dominate the world. If Ness pulled a "Mikey" and procrastinated the ways heroes don't, he would've been in for a considerably more daunting task. Basically, my feeling is that Giygas didn't control all of the sanctuaries in the world. I know Ness is only told of eight, and he probably could've drawn power from the ones that weren't under the control of Giygas. While this lends nothing short of a conundrum to the need for the sound stone and reason only eight spots are needed to visit Magicant, it's much more logical when you consider how Giygas could even become more powerful. I personally find Mani Mani more puzzling, but to each his own.
Time to address the second article points I can fire back on behalf of the game. That's right, I'm going to analyze the aptly titled "More Flaws of EarthBound".
"2. I admit that I have lied. Instead of using a topic that I said I was going to in my previous article, I think I'll try a new one. "My Sanctuary"......yeah we all know them as those points located around the planet that produce power that Ness records. Fightin enemies to get to them...WAIT!! Fighting enemies......why? Giant Step could easily be reached by use of helicopter, as many others can be. Magnet Hill....jump over the wall around it Ness. Instead of risking your life fighting these powerful beasts, why not take a back door enterance? For a boy with incredible mind power...he's not very bright."
This could lend some credence with help of my previoius point. Giygas was ursurping the power of the eight spots before Ness could arrive on the scene, and they were being milked more than the Final Fantasy franchise because they were under siege by monsters that got their own ursurping funk on. While you need the sound stone (unless you get the urge to take down plenty of winged baddies in the beginning) to fight the monsters that have the sanctuary spot under siege, I just imagine that Titanic Ant would fling some of those insignificant antoids at Ness if he was somehow able to get his hands on a chopper. It'd be more dramatic, but it'd do nothing but show that those sanctuary bosses were there to defend it for Giygas. As simply as I can state it, the power was being ursurped. It's a funny word, and it proves that Ness is no Keanu in that he wouldn't be running around to avoid every boss in site. Besides, when you consider Ness defeats Titanic Ant with a low-quality bat, I think not facing the thing would be downright embarassing; don't you?
Conclusions that can be drawn:
(That's right. This little beaut is another retort to Stepinitch's articles about the flaws of EarthBound. As I'm mending this little baby, it's April 15, and there are a projected three total articles that deal with Stepinitch's work. I argued with myself whether I should send this in or not, but I feel it'll either have Stepinitch completely lose faith in the human race, or show that there are plenty of people willing to point out mistakes in articles. With that in mind, I submitted. There's plenty of repeated points, but I'd like to think I was less aggressive against the infamous writer.)
Plenty of games sweat the smell stuff, but EarthBound tied up plenty of loose ends up until the ending. Take out Pokey's letter, and you're just not left with too many questions. I wouldn't call EarthBound flawless, but local writer, Stepinitch, pointed out just a few things that I'd be willing to address on the game's behalf. Fire up that SNES, Stepinitch. Let's take a glance at a few problems of your recent articles.
"1. While playing Earthbound I asked myself, " What exactly is Ness defending and what is he defending them from?" The inhabitants of Onett seem perfectly safe to me. Although there may be Sharks, Runaway Dogs, and Coil Snakes rampaging through Onett, was there ever an incident in the game in which a civilian was attacked? (And when I say the word civilian, I am making a reference to all those who did not in some way dramatically help Ness and his party; i.e., a person on the street). I don't believe there to be any such incident and thus Ness is just wasting his time."
I'm going to ignore Threed's zombie attacks, and focus on something much more obvious. You're in Onett. You decide to strike up a conversation with those gimp hospital residents. In the second room on the second floor, she's there with here mother. The little red-haired girl. What does she say? "I was SMAAAAASHED by a mouse." Unless you meant actually seeing baddies in the act, that works for me because little girls, they don't deserved to be whacked by mice. When you consider exit mice are treated as items, an article on rodent bias could easily be considered more sensible. Sure most of the hostile mice are in the cave near Giant Step, but I hardly believe the girl was a spelunker, and there must've been an out of line mouse venture out at some point. Sure it's petty, but if you had to pay the hospital bills, you'd want some vengence too.
Since their second point is speculation about how time is scaled can neither be proven or disproven, I'll leave it. It's a different, zany dimension with an eclectic, but equally zany crew of characters that don't adhere to time, G.
"3. This 3rd example, but certainly not last (oh no, there will be many more to come, but in future articles) can be tied to example 2. Giygas controls Earth 10 years in the future. 10 YEARS. I wouldn't expect much change myself if I relaxed for a year or so. Why does Ness rush himself? This time period, how long does it go. Sleeping in makes a day pass. So if you slept enough days for 10 years to go by would Giygas control the world?"
If they can theorize, so can I.
Don Knotts had this answered many a year ago. "Nip it in the bud!" OK, he didn't invent the saying, but he perfected it, and guess what? It applies here. We don't know if there were more possible sanctuaries that weren't in jeopardy during EarthBound, but if there were, it could really add up over the years if Giygas was becoming consistently more powerful. Think about it. We don't know how long Giygas was around before Buzz Buzz visited, but I imagine he wasn't there very long if Buzz Buzz wanted to pull a Knotts and nip it in the bud. For the sake of things, I'll theorize Giygas got all eight sanctuary spots in under a year. Now, say that amount increases the same amount over a span of a decade. One could picture eighty(!) sanctuaries that Giygas would need before becoming mighty enough to dominate the world. If Ness pulled a "Mikey" and procrastinated the ways heroes don't, he would've been in for a considerably more daunting task. Basically, my feeling is that Giygas didn't control all of the sanctuaries in the world. I know Ness is only told of eight, and he probably could've drawn power from the ones that weren't under the control of Giygas. While this lends nothing short of a conundrum to the need for the sound stone and reason only eight spots are needed to visit Magicant, it's much more logical when you consider how Giygas could even become more powerful. I personally find Mani Mani more puzzling, but to each his own.
Time to address the second article points I can fire back on behalf of the game. That's right, I'm going to analyze the aptly titled "More Flaws of EarthBound".
"2. I admit that I have lied. Instead of using a topic that I said I was going to in my previous article, I think I'll try a new one. "My Sanctuary"......yeah we all know them as those points located around the planet that produce power that Ness records. Fightin enemies to get to them...WAIT!! Fighting enemies......why? Giant Step could easily be reached by use of helicopter, as many others can be. Magnet Hill....jump over the wall around it Ness. Instead of risking your life fighting these powerful beasts, why not take a back door enterance? For a boy with incredible mind power...he's not very bright."
This could lend some credence with help of my previoius point. Giygas was ursurping the power of the eight spots before Ness could arrive on the scene, and they were being milked more than the Final Fantasy franchise because they were under siege by monsters that got their own ursurping funk on. While you need the sound stone (unless you get the urge to take down plenty of winged baddies in the beginning) to fight the monsters that have the sanctuary spot under siege, I just imagine that Titanic Ant would fling some of those insignificant antoids at Ness if he was somehow able to get his hands on a chopper. It'd be more dramatic, but it'd do nothing but show that those sanctuary bosses were there to defend it for Giygas. As simply as I can state it, the power was being ursurped. It's a funny word, and it proves that Ness is no Keanu in that he wouldn't be running around to avoid every boss in site. Besides, when you consider Ness defeats Titanic Ant with a low-quality bat, I think not facing the thing would be downright embarassing; don't you?
Conclusions that can be drawn:
- There a few few inconsistent points in Stepinitch's article, but I'm sure they'll be fine because they've got such an original internet handle, they stick to their ideals, and they only missed a few tangible things the game actually reveals. Overall, good stuff, Step.
- I can write as many complaint articles as I want, and they'll still get ignored in favor of the Crunch Chronicles. I could've sworn I called dibs on complaining about submissions, but they're about as redundant as my retort articles, and you better believe things have improved.
- EarthBound shouldn't be taken too literally. It was the 90's, the 16-bit era, and something you just can't accept at face value. Kinda like the WNBA. "It's more technically sound than the men's game; of course it'll be successful!"
- SimonBob rocks articles more than mullets rock the culture and heritage of West Virginia.
- Jack Bauer would so Tito James Bond.
- I am going through debate withdrawal, but by the looks of this, you could already conclude this. I promise a bit more light-heartedness in the next article.
- UPDATE!:I should learn to submit my articles faster.
That's about it from this end. Remember, theorize about the game until we get that new Mother 2 staffer (feel free to guess who I've got my fingers crossed for), keep unloading articles on PappyCat as if you had a vendetta against her (and be amazed at her great work ethic to boot), and yes, support the Arena Football League because a) they need the money, and b) I will never watch the NHL playoffs. Lets say they gave two of EarthBound's more charismatic enemies, Everdred and Frank, shows. Sure Everdred's show would be great, full of haiku, and he'd have better hair than most of the guys from Twisted Sister, but it'd ultimately be the NHL of EarthBound talk shows because Frank is simply more charming, charismatic, and he's one handsome pseudo mafioso. The guy could give The Leno/Conan connection would lose more money than the NHL or WNBA, and why is this? Frank has more swagger in his burger-flipping pinky than Geraldo Rivera has in his whole sand-mapping body.
