Get down with Earthbound, plus hear highlights from the rest of the legendary Mother series.
Celebrate Mothers Day with a simple click
SHOW NOTES
00:00 – Onette and Sunrise (Earthbound)
11:16 – Introduction (Mother)
12:54 – Approaching Mt Itoi (Mother)
13:42 – Eight Melodies (Mother)
23:20 – Paula’s Theme (Earthbound)
24:31 – Megaton Walk (Earthbound)
25:15 – The Skyrunner (Earthbound)
27:11 – Pokey Means Business (Earthbound)
30:29 – You’ve Come Far Ness (Earthbound)
38:36 – Welcome to Mother 3 World medley (Mother 3) 42:20 – Oh Buta Mask medley (Mother 3)
45:28 – Funky Monkey Dance medley (Mother 3)
58:03 – Because I Love You (Earthbound)
Fun fact – this episode was recorded two months ago. I was about to post it in March, then realized an Earthbound episode would be PERFECT for Mothers Day, and then posted the Mighty Switch Force episode instead.
Thanks so much for doing this one – Earthbound is easily my most favorite classic game soundtrack. I wrote about why it’s my favorite in an article a few weeks back: http://www.pixelitis.net/features/pixelitis-picks-our-favorite-videogame-soundtracks
So many nostalgic memories of playing this one ever since I got it for my 8th birthday in March of 1997. Funny enough I originally wanted Lufia II for my birthday, but my dad was intimidated by its $60 price point and opted instead for the $40 Earthbound at Toys R’ Us. To this day I’m grateful for that frugal decision.
A bit of a correction: Keiichi Suzuki wasn’t the only composer for Mother 1 & 2. Hirokazu Tanaka (of Metroid fame) co-composed both games, with Hiroshi Kanazu & Toshiyuki Ueno pitching in for Mother 2.
Brett: You need to play Earthbound. Right this instant. Just do it. You’ll love it. Buying the game used on eBay isn’t always too pricey; you could easily find ones in the $50-75 range. You’d be in possession of one of the greatest SNES games of all time. It’s a humorous JRPG that makes a satire out of Dragon Quest and RPG tropes, and America. It also has one of the creepiest final bosses of all time. It’s a must-play for any gamer.
“You’ve Come Far Ness” is one of my all-time favorites from Earthbound, but it’s so hard to choose from the hundreds of tracks this game has. Just to name a few of my favorites: “Snowman,” “Buzz Buzz’s Prophecy,” “Deeper into Ness’ Subconscious,” and of course, all of the Runaway Five music. You know a game takes its music seriously when they have an in-game band doing performances of their own!
I also did a drumming rendition of “Pokey Means Business” because it’s so damn metal \m/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afQsDHbKMXs . My alarm has been set to “Bed & Breakfast” for months. You’ll only see Breath of Fire trump this sort of fanaticism.
Also I think you’d be interested in all the Beatles and other artist samples the game has (and probably why it’ll never come to Virtual Console): http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/earthbound-legal-issues/
Mother/Earthbound Zero has great music, but the game is more difficult to get into thanks to the constant amount of grinding you have to do. I particularly like the Intro that was played in this podcast, really moody, nostalgic kind of song. Other favorites include “Battle with a Dangerous Opponent,” “House,” “Pollyanna,” and “Wisdom of the World.”
Mother 3 was a fantastic game as well and stronger story-wise (Aside: Brownie Brown also made the GBA Sword of Mana). It remains one of the few games that have legit made me shed tears during the ending. Musically it captures the essence of the previous Mother games perfectly. Sakai did a wonderful job here. Some favorite Mother 3 tracks: “Mind of a Thief,” “F-F-Fire!” “Love Theme,” “Monkey’s Delivery Service,” “Natural Killer Cyborg,” and “Master Porky’s Theme.”
I absolutely loved that musical combo system in Mother 3 – Each character had his/her own instrument sound when performing the combo (Duster’s was the bass guitar, Kumatora’s was electric, etc.), and there are so many variations of every battle theme that timing each one is really different.
Alright this was a lengthy comment but when it comes to games like Earthbound and Breath of Fire you’ll open me up like a can of worms. Thanks again, excellent podcast episode (should’ve been 5 hours long :P)
As far as I know it doesn’t cost anyone any more for long comments, there’s just less chance of people who don’t really care about what you’re saying reading all of it. I say say what you want, interested people will read it, anyone else doesn’t matter.
dude… is that you on those drums?
nice!
Yeah that’s me. Thanks 🙂
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YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
Thank you guys for doing this one, the Mother series has some of my favorite game music ever.
DOWNLOADING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
Great Episode. I haven’t played Eathbound, but I recently bought an SNES to play some older stuff and I really want to play this. The price from the cart is astronomical so I bought a USB SNES controller and I might try and play in on an emula….erm a legitimate cart.
Sweet Music. Also thanks to Grimm for hosting.
M-m-m-m-my… MY REQUESTS, ELSTON!!!! FORUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the comment, info, and correction Patrick! Nice drum cover as well!
Haven’t listened yet, but since this isn’t in the tracklist…
I rented Earthbound when it came out, but never bought it. It was probably too expensive, and I had other expensive Super Nintendo and Genesis games to buy instead, I’d guess. I did enjoy it, though I don’t remember too much about it.
It took me a second to get what made it related to mother’s day.. Your word-smithery just doesn’t stop.
How amazingly fitting for mothers day! While I can’t vouch for my mom liking this I sprung from her and this is great in my book. Funny story regarding both mom’s and Snes when I was 8-10 ,not sure the exact age my mom won some money from one of those Mcdonald’s Monopoly contests. Being the awesome mom that she is she let each of us kids pick something we wanted. (Since it was between Christmas and birthdays this was a massive deal) I ended up getting Super Mario Rpg which to this day I don’t regret a bit.
Fine cast sir.
One of your hosts has the most irritatingly cracky teenage voices I have ever heard in my life. Stop talking. Christ.
You shut your indecent whore mouth. That’s Henry MotherFucking Hank The Tank Gilbert.
AND what.
Henry Gilbert has more nicknames than us and is therefore better than us. Those are the rules.
Some of the earliest gaming memories for me, still think about it today. thanks guys.
lmao there’s a part near the end that was totally the fucking TalkRadar ad break music all along
oh LMAO I FORGOT ABOUT COLIN’S BEAR ANIMATION!
Great episode. Nice job, Grimm!
Makes me really want to go back an replay Earthbound (I never finished it), and having never player Mother or Mother 3, it was nice to hear the music.
Keep it up guys!
to this day i have no idea how i missed earthbound.
i guess it was, the summer before my senior year in HS and i was all super distracted.
I’ve since made up for it.
and love love love the brilliant game play
it’s quite possibly the best rpg ever.
nothing in earthbound is unnecessary. all of the parts of the game make sense and have a use.
it’s a near perfect game.
YES!
This reminds me of my shame at never playing Earthbound. Damn does it have some nice music tho gonna have to uh buy that game and then play it on an emulator. Yeah thats the ticket.
Thanks for the great show always a delight!
I wish Nintendo would concede to sell me these games in some form. Damn but they would look good in 3d.
OK, I’m gonna have to play this game, now. This music is amazing, and after hearing so many of these tracks during segment breaks in TDar and Laser Time, I finally know where they’re from.
hey brett, you should totally do an iridion 3d/ 2 episode, that game had goddamn amazing music.
Earthbound is just great.
You are doing a good job Bret! 🙂
…also how about a Soul Blade episode? The intro song is the cheesiest but also the greatest!
YES!!! I heart you Brett
LETS ALL HUG BRET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANKSSSSS
This episode was fantastic
I just want to console Henry, I also never noticed the Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres naming. Of course, here in Canada we don’t learn Spanish.
I played Earthbound briefly, but after listening to this I think I want to give it a serious go.
Ironically, this episode made me want to spend Mother’s Day repeatedly calling my dad in hopes that he randomly deposited a bunch of cash to my bank account.
Thanks for making all these VGMpires, Brett (and the rest of you guys). I should have known Mike Grimm would pop in for the Mother episode considering how much he liked it.
I’d forgotten how good Earthbound’s music was, but as soon as it started up it came back to me, especially the part about how completely different is from everything else. You hear Earthbound, you know it’s Earthbound.
Keep up the good work, Brett. I love how much passion you’ve got for these games; that has helped me enjoy episodes for games I never even played (plus the fact that the music is pretty awesome).
I played Mother 3 last summer and now I feel more than ever that I really should play Earthbound during the upcoming one. The Mother 3i is probably one of my favorite vgm-albums, I can listen to it at almost any time and it fits in perfectly with whatever I’m doing. And I loved Bretts reaction to it, “Wow!”. Yep, it describes it pretty well.
Great episode. Love it when I recognize one of the tracks from an old TalkRadar promo!
The way Pokey’s theme goes from 8-bit to heavy skull fucking metal BLOWS MY MIND.
I never knew that shit about the Pokemon. Also, fantastic episode.
great episode fellows. love the Mother/Earthbound songs and cool discussion of this enigma of a series.
Brett, please tell Henry thank you for not making me feel like the only guy in the room who never realized that the first 3 legendary birds were spanish numbers. 😛 Also thank you Brett for doing this, a part of me screams with delight every time a new podcast shows up on itunes. 😛
Every minute of this episode was awesome – but I especially enjoyed everything Brett said about colin’s bear animation.
I only recently played Earthbound (well, I tried once before, but only got as far as Threed). It was very fun. I did use a guide to help, but it didn’t lessen the experience for me. It was still this quirky, unique experience.
Even before I played the game, though, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack arranged in the album “Bound Together” for…a long time. So much so that those versions are the versions I think of first!