EarthBound, released in Japan as Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū,^[a][1][2] is a role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

The second entry in the Mother series, it was first released in Japan in August 1994, and in North America in June 1995. As Ness and his party of Paula, Jeff and Poo, the player travels the world to collect melodies from eight Sanctuaries in order to defeat the universal cosmic destroyer Giygas.

EarthBound had a lengthy development period that spanned five years. Its returning staff from Mother (1989) included writer/director Shigesato Itoi and lead programmer Satoru Iwata, as well as composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, who incorporated a diverse range of styles into the soundtrack, including salsa, reggae, and dub.

Most of the other staff members had not worked on the original Mother, and the game came under repeated threats of cancellation until Iwata joined the team. Originally scheduled for release in January 1993, the game was completed around May 1994.

Themed around an idiosyncratic portrayal of Americana and Western culture, EarthBound subverted popular role-playing game traditions by featuring a modern setting while parodying numerous staples of the genre. Itoi wanted the game to reach non-gamers with its intentionally goofy tone; for example, the player uses items such as the Pencil Eraser to remove pencil statues, experiences in-game hallucinations, and battles piles of vomit, taxi cabs, and walking nooses.

Gameplay – EarthBound

For its American release, the game was marketed with a $2 million promotional campaign that sardonically proclaimed “This game stinks”. The game’s puns and humor were reworked by localizer Marcus Lindblom. Since the original Mother had not yet been released outside Japan, Mother 2 was called EarthBound to avoid confusion about what it was a sequel to.

Although it was positively received by Japanese audiences, EarthBound sold poorly in the U.S., which journalists attributed to a combination of its simple graphics, satirical marketing campaign, and a lack of market interest in the genre.

In the ensuing years, a dedicated fan community spawned that advocated for the series’ recognition, particularly after Ness appeared as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series. By the 2000s, multiple reader polls and critics had named it one of the greatest video games ever made, and it became regarded as a “sacred cow among gaming’s cognoscenti“.

^[3] It was followed by the Japan-only sequel Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. EarthBound was later made available worldwide on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, 3DS Virtual Console in 2016, the SNES Classic in 2018, and Nintendo Switch Online in February 2022.