Forever Funktastic: It's Never Too Late for Earthbound
Regular patrons of Starmen.net are no doubt familiar with the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay event, in which participants play through Earthbound simultaneously over the course of a month. Many of us wait with bated breath for the summer to roll around so we can be given the opportunity (or as some would see it, the excuse) to experience one of our favorite games once again. Now, by the time this article is posted, EB Funktastic Gameplay 2005 will have come to its conclusion. However, if you didn’t join in this year, you haven’t necessarily missed your chance.
Maybe you went on vacation to someplace like Deep Darkness and you couldn’t find a place to plug in your Super Nintendo that wouldn’t have resulted in a heartbreaking, yet strangely entertaining electrical fire. Perhaps you lost or even sold your copy of Earthbound (for shame!) and you actually care about the legality of emulation, refusing to download an Earthbound ROM on moral grounds. Or maybe you’re just flippin’ lazy, you new age retro hippie. Well, whatever the reason, just because Starmen.net is done with the Funktastic Gameplay event for this year doesn’t mean you have to be. Even in an age when you can pay bills, date, have tomatoes sent to your grandfather, and even get married without ever leaving your comfortable, most likely stinky computer chair, you don’t always have to do what the web tells you. (Well, not yet, anyway. It’s only a matter of time before they send out... THE ROBOTS.)
If you’re interested, there are a few ways to go about this. The first and most obvious is to look in the Funktastic archives, start at day one, and follow along with the original calendar. For some nostalgia and a few useful hints that were oddly missing from this year’s event, go to classic starmen.net at http://ebfgp.starmen.net/ebfgps03/ and play along with the 2003 version. (See? That one has been over for more than two years, and you can STILL play along with it!)
All right, that’s all fine and good, but what about if you don’t have the time to play every day? This is especially true this time of year with classes about to resume and precious few days of summer left. “But I never got a chance to wax my goat or protest the cancellation of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ by shaving off my eyebrows!” I can hear you yelling. “I need the rest of the summer to do those other thing!” And I agree with you. Never one to advocate missing out on summer or even, God forbid, truancy from classes, I’ve got the solution for you: play Earthbound at your own pace. You don’t need a calendar to tell you what to do! In fact, sometimes this approach is preferable to following the schedule of the Funktastic calendar, especially for Earthbound newbies, because it encourages exploration and discovery at one’s own discretion. Maybe the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay events have always felt like homework to you because of the semi-rigid scheduling and lack of breaks. Well, Earthbound should NEVER seem like work. You need to play it the way you will enjoy it the most. If that means straying from the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay calendar, then by all means, do it.
“That makes sense, but what if I hate pants?” I can hear some of your saying. “I can’t play Earthbound in my skivvies!” Don’t worry, fellow Earthbounder! If your eye offends you, pluck it out! And if your pants offend you, take them off! I too hate those accursed pants, and have sworn to only wear them when I have to. In doing so, I’ve discovered something: Earthbound is an equal opportunity video game. It doesn’t care if you’re black or white, Asian or Jewish, pantsed or pantless. Earthbound, my friend, is for everyone – adults, kids, and young women, too.
Lastly, I know that some of you have very little free time (myself included.) Do yourself a favor – just go back and play the game a little bit. You know that save file you never finished that’s been on your cartridge since 1997? It doesn’t matter where you last saved. Plug it in and give it a whirl. Or maybe you’d just like to start a new game and walk around Onett for a bit. Hey, that’s cool. Just grab the controller and reminisce for a while.
So, if you haven’t, don’t give up on playing Earthbound this summer just yet. As you can see, you’ve got plenty of options. Please, don’t miss this opportunity to relive your childhood and remember what makes Earthbound so great. Don’t worry about newer games; Madden 2057 and Grand Theft Auto: Kill Everyone You See City can wait. There’s only one Earthbound – and that’s why you came to Starmen.net in the first place, right? So whether you play it only every other Sunday or have regular Earthbound marathons, like the sign post in Threed says, just play it!
Regular patrons of Starmen.net are no doubt familiar with the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay event, in which participants play through Earthbound simultaneously over the course of a month. Many of us wait with bated breath for the summer to roll around so we can be given the opportunity (or as some would see it, the excuse) to experience one of our favorite games once again. Now, by the time this article is posted, EB Funktastic Gameplay 2005 will have come to its conclusion. However, if you didn’t join in this year, you haven’t necessarily missed your chance.
Maybe you went on vacation to someplace like Deep Darkness and you couldn’t find a place to plug in your Super Nintendo that wouldn’t have resulted in a heartbreaking, yet strangely entertaining electrical fire. Perhaps you lost or even sold your copy of Earthbound (for shame!) and you actually care about the legality of emulation, refusing to download an Earthbound ROM on moral grounds. Or maybe you’re just flippin’ lazy, you new age retro hippie. Well, whatever the reason, just because Starmen.net is done with the Funktastic Gameplay event for this year doesn’t mean you have to be. Even in an age when you can pay bills, date, have tomatoes sent to your grandfather, and even get married without ever leaving your comfortable, most likely stinky computer chair, you don’t always have to do what the web tells you. (Well, not yet, anyway. It’s only a matter of time before they send out... THE ROBOTS.)
If you’re interested, there are a few ways to go about this. The first and most obvious is to look in the Funktastic archives, start at day one, and follow along with the original calendar. For some nostalgia and a few useful hints that were oddly missing from this year’s event, go to classic starmen.net at http://ebfgp.starmen.net/ebfgps03/ and play along with the 2003 version. (See? That one has been over for more than two years, and you can STILL play along with it!)
All right, that’s all fine and good, but what about if you don’t have the time to play every day? This is especially true this time of year with classes about to resume and precious few days of summer left. “But I never got a chance to wax my goat or protest the cancellation of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ by shaving off my eyebrows!” I can hear you yelling. “I need the rest of the summer to do those other thing!” And I agree with you. Never one to advocate missing out on summer or even, God forbid, truancy from classes, I’ve got the solution for you: play Earthbound at your own pace. You don’t need a calendar to tell you what to do! In fact, sometimes this approach is preferable to following the schedule of the Funktastic calendar, especially for Earthbound newbies, because it encourages exploration and discovery at one’s own discretion. Maybe the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay events have always felt like homework to you because of the semi-rigid scheduling and lack of breaks. Well, Earthbound should NEVER seem like work. You need to play it the way you will enjoy it the most. If that means straying from the Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay calendar, then by all means, do it.
“That makes sense, but what if I hate pants?” I can hear some of your saying. “I can’t play Earthbound in my skivvies!” Don’t worry, fellow Earthbounder! If your eye offends you, pluck it out! And if your pants offend you, take them off! I too hate those accursed pants, and have sworn to only wear them when I have to. In doing so, I’ve discovered something: Earthbound is an equal opportunity video game. It doesn’t care if you’re black or white, Asian or Jewish, pantsed or pantless. Earthbound, my friend, is for everyone – adults, kids, and young women, too.
Lastly, I know that some of you have very little free time (myself included.) Do yourself a favor – just go back and play the game a little bit. You know that save file you never finished that’s been on your cartridge since 1997? It doesn’t matter where you last saved. Plug it in and give it a whirl. Or maybe you’d just like to start a new game and walk around Onett for a bit. Hey, that’s cool. Just grab the controller and reminisce for a while.
So, if you haven’t, don’t give up on playing Earthbound this summer just yet. As you can see, you’ve got plenty of options. Please, don’t miss this opportunity to relive your childhood and remember what makes Earthbound so great. Don’t worry about newer games; Madden 2057 and Grand Theft Auto: Kill Everyone You See City can wait. There’s only one Earthbound – and that’s why you came to Starmen.net in the first place, right? So whether you play it only every other Sunday or have regular Earthbound marathons, like the sign post in Threed says, just play it!
