nope not me

I can definitely see your points and arguments, and no one is the same.

However, I seriously recommend that you play Mother 3 on some sort of emulator. It's better than EarthBound and addresses majority of your problems

-Music is incredibly catchy
-Better interface
-More intuitive (though you still may need to look up a walkthrough in certain section--the game is not perfect)
-You'll get a lot of game overs, but I felt like a lot of them were my fault imo
-Rhythm battles is the best addition imo and adds flair to battles, makes it stand out from the rest of the series.
-Better story and character connection (that is if you weren't spoiled from the internet by now. Even then it's still pretty good)
-Final boss is...actually meaningful and the way you complete it makes sense as opposed to the final boss in EarthBound
-I'll leave out that the game is very depressing. Like REALLY depressing and messed up in some sections. Actually a lot of it.

Mother 3 ain't perfect, but it's one of my favorite rpgs because the problems aren't enough for me to have a detrimental effect of the game. It's a very memorable game that stands out from the rest of the rpgs I've played. Certainly a 100x better game than EarthBound

Seems that those of us who gamed prior to the PS2 Generation, actually played games that did not hold our hands. 

Are you seriously gonna skip playing Earthbound because someone said it isn't his cup of tea? Why don't you try it first then make up your own mind?

You should get banned.... from Earth.

I though it was good but not to the point people made it out to be.

yeah, the gameplay sucks, there is alot of bs at the start and the item systems sucks hard. BUT the story is just great and the world feels so fuckn good.

Games typically age poorly. I tried playing it for the first time last year but just couldnt get into for many reasons you listed.

Its much like how Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (two games I really loved back in the day) are just unplayable now. I tried to play some Perfect Dark and it handled like ass.

I also played FF7 for the first time last year and found it to be a very mediocre game. These games were probably amazing years ago but right now their mechanics are just bad.

I agree with a lot of what you said. For me I did like the uniqueness of the characters, as well as the ones you meet in the game.

When it comes to actual gameplay, the item management was very tedious, I can't imagine anyone really being a fan of that.

Overall I took the good with the bad and enjoyed my experience.

I don't think that's fair to say. The vast majority of games I have played are from before the ps2 era. I don't have an issue grinding in games. But when Ness misses three turns in a row at level 75? That's ridiculous, especially when the enemies are rarely, if ever, doing the same. Perhaps I should have said that the game was more frustrating than difficult? Except for when I went back to Onett at the end of the game and the Starmen mobs would kill me in one hit. But that was only until I realized that one of Paula's shields could negate their Starstorm attack.  

I'm all up for a good challenge. Actually, I prefer a game to be challenging. But, again, IMO, Earthbound had an unfair challenge. And I was exaggerating when I said the game is more difficult than a low level Dark SOuls 2 run. I probably should have conveyed that better.