Heh, i just started Earthbound today.

It does seem a bit like No More Heroes, that is, a game which relies heavily on its distinct style and brimming cleverness to be memorable, but is not mechanically solid.

Though my verdict could easily change.

well written review. I like your style and your bias

You are no true Nintendo fan.

"Many of the level ups will net you barely any stat gains, so they are kinda a waste. But every now and then you also get a big level up that compensates for the ridiculously awful gains from before, so it's not as bad as it sounds at first."

There are far worse level up systems. This is a non-issue.

"As for battling foes specifically, it can be a frustrating experience depending on the dungeon. It also doesn't help that the cast of characters isn't particularly well-rounded. Ness is a powerhouse with by far the most HP and a good amount of PSI points. Paula is prone to dying with her low HP and her PSI attacks don't make up for her vulnerability. Jeff has no PP altogether, but he isn't strong either; he is a waste of a character slot. Poo is a piece of... actually, he is second best after Ness; good HP and PP, reasonably strong and can be used in different ways."

Paula's PK Ice heavily makes up for that, try to use Ness's skills in the final battle to see if it works well. PK Fire is no slouch either and she has other cool abilities as well. Jeff's bottle rockets are very useful for certain enemies.

"Where all of the aforementioned hurts is that enemies tend to hit your weaker characters more often. Occasionally you also find yourself in areas where you get bombarded with negative status effects, but the most frustrating thing is that your party has atrocious accuracy with regular attacks. When you have to hope that your characters actually hit the enemy, then there is something wrong. This is poised to lead to nasty situations on a regular basis, because your party repeatedly can't finish off enemies before they use status effects or strong attacks."

That is not true at all. It sometimes happens, but the equiped item is part of the reason. Ness has a couple of weapons that have very high attack but will fail to hit anything. The status effects ups the challenge significantly and are what make the battles rewarding.

Khan: "It does seem a bit like No More Heroes, that is, a game which relies heavily on its distinct style and brimming cleverness to be memorable, but is not mechanically solid."

Don't compare a masterpiece with NMH.

I just find it odd that everybody is suddenly obsessed with this game.

I'd buy it on the eShop, but I can already see Nintendo working on a complete remake of the game for the 3DS/Wii U....or if not a remake, a completely new game in the series that isn't part of the Mother trilogy.

They can only use Ness so many times in Smash Bros until nobody remembers who he is. Time to revive the series completely.

I didn't recognize you with that new aviaviaviaviaiviiiah.

It's good to see that there are some *Nintendo fans that aren't obsessed with the game.* I think the review is fair, and it's good that you mentioned the game "aging" Because your review is obviously from a modern standpoint. Which I like.

*Cough* Moreno! *Cough.*

well it was also my first playthrough , but i enjoyed it a lot , the battles have a lot of strategy and jeff isn't useless if you get his machines , he can break barriers ,the heavy bazooka is awesome too, and the story and characters are very entertaining but to each it's own i loved it and and i think it's very charming now i just hope to see the other ones come officially to the rest of the world

It has not. The battle system is really, really good, the characters are interesting and the moments unique and engaging. It certainly has a better battle system than Xenoblade and much better characters. And the story is more coherent.

And screw opinions. The music is phenomenal too. Have you played it yourself?

People went with unreasonably high expectations. It's a very old game and people thought of it as the new WiiU killer app.

I agree with this. 

Even when it was new the game wasn't amazing.  It was worse than your average RPG and the only thing that was standout about the game was the games world and a few quirks here and there.  Calling up the pizza place your sister worked at and receiving a delivery regardless of your location, holding the For Sale sign up in an area that people were in had someone run up to and try to purchase one of your items, taking the bus from one place to another as a sort of quick travel system.  The games mechanics were really unique and that was part of its charm.  

Once Ness was found to be a secret character, then on Melee where he was one of the original fighters, the game started to get extremely overrated(one of the best RPGs ever status from a lot of gamers that have played it.)  People praised the game all around, including the gameplay.  Then when next gen consoles released, more so after the release of Brawl.  The only people who could possibly think the gameplay was "amazing" are those that have never played another decent RPG in their lives.  Depending on how old the person is, they might not have.

It's a decent game, but one of the weaker games in the JRPG library.

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The review doesn't seem biased, so why is it listed as "A biased review."

1) It was pretty decent for what it was. Level ups where indeed frequent and it was pretty straightforward. Had you not been so picky on the stats you probably wouldn't have noticed.

2) You did not play correctly then. PK Ice was very useful in some battles and dealt tons of damage. She also had PSI Magnet that also stocked her with more PP. Magic Cakes are cheap enough and can be stocked sufficiently. The storage was limited and you often had to carry items that you did not need but it was certainly part of the challenge to manage what you needed the most. Jeff was the least useful indeed, but his bottles dealt uncompared physical damage.

3) Did you call Ness' mom when he was homesick and failed most of his attacks? I don't know. This is a matter of opinion then. It was a considerable challenge to have to deal with the status effects and I really liked that. There were instances where luck was on your side and enemies would fail too, so it was a 50:50.