One things for sure, the game is incredibly quirky, and it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Some of the items are silly, but that's kid of the whole point, but I will agree that the items are kind of my one complaint with the game, a lot of items are pretty useless, imo, and they can end up taking a lot of your inventory.
I actually liked the phone system, and while being homesick was a little annoying at times, it kinda helped bring a little immersion into the game.
As for the characters, I personally think they're all simple, yet entertaining. Each character is unique in their own ways, all in personality, appearance, and the way they battle (though I could argue that Paula and Poo feel similar in battle.) I do agree that there should've been more dialogue between the characters, and I don't think Ness should've gone the silent protagonist route.
Finally, maybe it's just me, and I don't wanna sound like I know everything, but I don't think the game was that hard, if anything, it was a relatively smooth experience.
You mentioned how your characters miss a lot, that could be because of the weapons you're using. I know there's a weapon called the Casey Bat for Ness, which has a lot of offense power, but extremely low accuracy. With that said, I guess I can also agree that the menus aren't the greatest either, mainly when it comes to equiping weapons. I wish it could show how a weapon affects your accuracy on the equip screen.
EarthBound isn't for everyone, and no game is perfect, but I still think EarthBound is one of the best games I ever played. I can respect your opinion, and if you didn't think EarthBound was great, then hey, more power to you.
"Just for comparison Uncharted 4 was 20x bigger than Splatoon 2. This shows the huge difference between Sony's first-party games and Nintendo's first-party games."
