1994, Game of the Year

[UnderwaterFunktown]

Jaicee said:

SvennoJ said:

I feel the same for Warcraft sitting at 2 votes. However with a lot of PC games, first one created the word of mouth, second one got the sales and popularity, Plus PC was still niche in the 90s compared to the popularity of consoles. Which was kind of a good thing as it allowed a lot more original games to flourish instead of already gravitating to certain templates and long lines of sequels. Those were there too of course, Ultima, Might and Magic and other long running series.

Earthbound might as well have suffered from the already so well established franchises on SNES. Metroid had already made a name on NES and GB, with the 3rd game having learned a lot already and creating a great platformer on SNES. And thanks to its sprite based graphics it aged a lot better than many early 2.5D / 3D games. But indeed, Earthbound showed that RPGs are so much more than just suited to fantasy settings. Yet in the end, pioneers are rarely rewarded as well as refined sequels and spin offs.

EarthBound was pretty funny. I think it broke some kind of record for volume of fourth wall breaks and parodies of RPG conventions. I don't really remember it tugging on my heart strings much though the way that some of my top favorites did that year though. All in all, I'd classify its ethos in the same territory as Super Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., and Splatoon. It's a Nintendo game that does for its genre what those other titles did for their's: infused it with the big N's trademark goofiness. That does have some innate charm, to be sure, and in this case some occasional punch too.

Also, wasn't EarthBound actually supposed to be a sequel? Like the Japanese title is Mother 2 and there was a game called Mother released before it on the NES.

Indeed Mother/Earthbound Beginnings came out in 89 (was my pick for the year) and was perhaps the real pioneer though it was a lot more barebones. Earthbound went a bit more all in with weirdness, but they're pretty similar in a lot of ways. It did eventually come to the west on the Wii U virtual console and later NSO, though the version I've played is the fan translation.