Contact v. Earthbound

Maybe some of y'all have heard of the loving cult surrounding SNES RPG Earthbound (aka "Mother 2," its Japanese title, if you want to yield a few more Google search results and/or sound like a complete self-righteous RPG snot). It was a flop in its heyday, but big big love has smoldered since for its amazing humor, exciting gameplay and sort of transcendent elements (lol a self-righteous sezwhat?). I've played it through three or four times since I discovered it about 18 months ago (on an emulator, no way am I paying $60-80 on eBay for the cartridge). It's also coming out for the Wii virtual console. That deserves a toast from the world.

When I was in seventh and eighth grade, I discovered the Beatles, and after replaying all their albums so much that my blood is mostly composed of the drumline in "Ticket to Ride," I had all the fix I could get. Was there another band that was basically the Beatles, exactly as awesome and good, but not actually the Beatles because I had already memorized the Beatles? Badfinger? No. (A thousand times no.) Harry Nillsson? Very close.

And again, now, with Earthbound. Could I find the RPG equivalent of Harry Nillsson to Earthbound's Beatlemania? Promise was in the air, from the main Earthbound fan site no less, that the DS game Contact was Earthbound's freshborn spiritual kin.

Maybe you want to hear about Contact not as an Earthbound simile, but rather on its own merits. Too bad! As my poor husband can tell you, that besides early epidemiologist Joseph Goldberger, there is little I discuss more than I discuss Earthbound. So.

Contact, then. Here's what I liked about Earthbound, and how Contact compares.

• Battle system. In Earthbound, it was straight-up post-Dragon Warrior "you have killed X, you get Y gold and Z experience points." The unique element there was your HP went down on a little odometer-style meter: if one of your characters was totally slaughtered, you could stop them from hitting zero HP and dying by getting out of battle quickly. The battle system in Contact is most similar to the abomination of Tingle's Freshly-Picked Rosy Rupeeland (described in last post): you point at a baddie and they just kind of duke it out while you watch, occasionally using an HP-increasing item mid-battle. Grinding is boring enough, but it's practically a soporific when you don't even get to make any strategic decisions. Video games should only be a spectator sport when your brother or your boyfriend is hogging the controller. (NB: if you are dating this selfish man, it's nigh near time to pen a Dear John letter.)
– Pleasant similarity: In both Earthbound and Contact, enemies that can be defeated in one hit run away from you, so if you don't want to deal with the equivalent of the blue slime at level 53, you don't have to.

• Music: Contact has the most generic music that I can't remember having heard in a long time. (Help parsing that: the music in Contact is so nondescript that I cannot remember anything about it, or how it sounds, save that it is unremarkable.) I'm definitely not one of those people that buy game soundtracks or anything, but isn't it great when a game like Katamari Damacy comes out and the music is a fun, exciting knockout? When I was playing Earthbound, I'd fall asleep with those tunes in my head. I'd think of them at work and smile. If one is trying to achieve an Earthbound vibe, don't skimp on the music. Sheesh.

• Items, towns, NPCs. Earthbound's first three levels are Eagleton, Twoson (lols), and Threed. Contact attempts to do the same thing by calling its first level...Fort Eagle. Uh-huh. That's a Badfinger move, guys, not a Nillsson move. Similarly, Earthbound had parodies of typical RPG weapons: as a little American boy, title character Ness equipped items like frying pans and slingshots as weapons, things kids had access to. Contact does this by letting your character equip such items as a frying pan and a slingshot. I realize every RPG has "leather sword" or "spike whip," but if Contact is trying to be original, it shouldn't straight rip everything unique in Earthbound. In fact, I think all the "holy Hannah it's the new Earthbound" hype is born of this dullsville "homage" (aka stealing).
– Difference: While Earthbound's NPCs were idiosyncratic and hilarious or mysterious, the NPCs of Contact are not. You can kill them, however. That's novel.

• A weird need to encourage kids to play outside. Earthbound did this by having your dad call you periodically and remind you to maybe stop playing and go talk to your mom. Cute, weird, non-intrusive. Contact, however, does this by making journeys between "levels" long and dull. You travel from place to place on a sailing ship, and it takes upward of five minutes to get to wherever it is you're going. In the meantime, you get to stare at the stupid ship or occasionally check in and be told "we've got a while until we get there." Argh! It encourages me to get really mad. I believe a person can be killed in less than five minutes. Should a game be making me think this?

I haven't gotten very far in Contact. I can totally handle that it's not Earthbound – I knew it wouldn't be – but it has no excuse being completely passive and yawn-inducing. Go to charm school and earn some kind of certificate of goodness, Contact, and I'll try again.