Only touching upon its disturbing presence. Doubly hard because it’s so unlike anything you’d heard to this point.Īt this point, Giygas was still only hinting at horror. This track slams the player with its power. I’d never heard anything like this in any game at the time it released. Instead of the usual tone of music, Giygas’ fight music is a hard, driving metal track, something I’d never heard in an RPG at the time. The music is a major contributor to the game’s quirky feel, and once again, Giygas upsets everything with its presence. Earthbound is full of upbeat tracks, playful tunes, and catchy music. When you begin to fight Giygas, there’s another violent shift in tone, accomplished here through the music. Even when speaking about the monster, the game shifts its tone in a disturbing way. There’s something eerily serious in his description in a game filled with oddball dialogue from its characters. A far cry from roughing up nasty road signs and feeding jars of honey to living puke monsters. He has become the embodiment of Evil itself…which he cannot control on his own,” says the game of its core villain. “Giygas is no longer the wielder of Evil. Your overarching foe, Giygas, as it turns out, is malevolence given form. A sound like a giant’s breath fills your ears. When you find the beast’s lair, you walk along what seem to be intestines to reach it. The music here rises and falls, almost-shrill heights and rumbling lows mixing together to create a menace that hasn’t much been present in the game’s playful soundtrack, either. Steel gray and white surround you in a kind of unsettling purity and emptiness. Gone are the bright towns and vibrant lands, and instead, you walk through a sterile space. The final area, and the walk to Giygas, marks a strong shift from the bright, colorful places of Earthbound. And you know I enjoy horror when I don’t see it coming. I don’t know if there are many things out there that could have prepared me for something so cosmically terrifying, though. So I wasn’t mentally prepared for Giygas, the final boss, despite things getting a little dark at the end of the game. When you’re playing through something that focuses on so much silliness, it’s hard not to feel like that tone will continue throughout the entire work. That tone would get me to let my guard down, though. The game has a levity that still feels fairly unique. It’s also rare that I come across worlds so colorful and characters so outright bizarre and humorous. And even when it isn’t, I rarely find myself fighting cranky old ladies, violent hippies, and evil fire hydrants.
Facing sci-fi baddies or sword-and-sorcery foes is still, arguably, the most common RPG experience. That cheerful, lighthearted vibe is what made Earthbound stand out in the SNES era, and honestly still makes it a unique experience in RPGs even today. Maybe a little intimidating, but nothing serious. The game’s bright, colorful locales, goofy NPCs, and funny enemies made it feel like your final foe would just be something silly, too. There’s all manner of nods that something evil is behind all of the bad stuff going on. Interplanetary enemies murmur about their powerful master. A strange statue seems to appear wherever trouble rears its head. Not that the game didn’t hint at sinister things happening throughout it. Giygas serves as a dramatic turning point in the game’s atmosphere. But then you face Giygas at the end and the game’s whole tone takes a drastic swerve into terror. And you do so by leading a group of children into the fray, having them fight comical villains, cartoonish monsters, and oddly-aggressive humans. Deal with a crew of moles who all feel they’re the third best. Defeat zombies by laying sticky paper in a circus tent. You battle against a cult built around painting things blue. Earthbound’s Final Boss Turns a Cheery Game Into Pure TerrorĮarthbound is relentlessly cute, charming, and silly.