The Let's Play Archive

Earthbound

by Leavemywife

Part 65: That Irish Guy's Trivia Corner - Part the Second

Hey everyone! It's me again with...

Your Earthbound/Mother 2 Trivia and Censorship Sanctuary!
now with %100 better picture quality!
Part Two!


So, what are we going to be up to today you ask? We have two things: take a lovely tour of Onett, and enjoy some lovely eggs of creativity from this man's mind...



Keeichi Suzuki! The man behind the music of Earthbound! He had some guidance at times from Itoi, and had been musically influenced by many classic rock bands. Note, that while he composed for Earthbound and Mother 1, he did not work on Mother 3, although his work for Earthbound was so significant that Itoi and the composer for Mother 3 (Shogo Sakai) fully admitted that the goal was never to upstage Suzuki's music, but merely to compete and complement it. Badass. :rockon:

Anyways, last we left off at the top of a hill with two faeries with a meteorite that may or may not have been entirely unusual.



go away

So, there is a very good reason as to why I've been spraying indiscriminate derision upon this unpleasant man. And it's not just the paedo thing! It's been touched on ever so delicately so far at where the updates currently sit, but oh, you will understand in all due time.



And I'm not sure if it was pointed out earlier, but this is when you're supposed to get the hint that Mister Molester has something for you if you come back later. And you get the creepy "You-did-a-thing!" jingle on top of it!



This sequence is nifty.



These lines imply that Buzz Buzz is far more than he seems. That he is someone huge, someone revered by the many and scorned by the enemy. Hell, just with what we have here, we could make an entire game about who Buzz Buzz was and how he became a hero. But you know what? It's not necessary. We aren't given a bloody encyclopaedia and expected to read it to understand whats going on. We're given two lines, and with those two lines, we have a character more interesting, more mysterious, and more motivating than the majority of the sheer shit that's churned out today.  I need to make a special mental note, because something just clicked into my head that I can't make mention of until the very end of the game.  But anyways.





So you know how the whole "[Enemy] has become tame" thing that totally seems like an obvious censorship job? Well, I think it may just be an entirely intentional move. Not necessarily killing the enemy, just y'know, knockin' the Giygas outta 'em, as suggested more recently in the thread.



well shit, never mind. The mystery has been solved!

Buzz Buzz is Justin Bailey, the reporter from that one game, Catherine!

It's the truth!



So yeah, as brought up like a hundred time throughout the thread, this whole sequence was censored quite a bit, due to the whole, yknow, child abuse thing.




This seems to be a bit of a localization flub. Right now, it seems very plausible, especially since this usually gets read in passing after the whole child beating thing sounds like the Minch's loaned BrianNess' Nass' family a fairly solid and realistic chunk of money right? Leading possibly towards a bit of empathy for the Minch's? Well, it seems in the original that 'ole Alley here simply went "we gave you like a gazillion bazillion monies. grr! "
Prick.



Pokey's here in the original was far more With her yelling: "Eeek! A pesky toilet fly! Die and go to Hell!". Quite blunt, I like it.




Another instance here of NoA getting uppity. In the original script, Buzz Buzz said all sorts of things like how he is on his deathbed, how he was quickly approaching death, and other deathly things, but NoA was sure write around it though in order to not be some kid's first realization of the concept of death and have some kid...



Ending up like this little tyke here. Somebody's gonna get into mommy's Oxycontin and Prozac bottles!



what cmon just look at her
that shit ain't a natural smile



So, I'm not saying that this kid is, but as a bit of a hint towards a future piece of trivia, Itoi is incredibly progressive and tolerant when it comes to folks within the LGBT community compared to the majority of other writers, producers, directors, etc. within the video game industry and does not simply cry "ewww icky" or make the orientation the punchline of the entire character.



Anyways! Looking at the map here, there's a few things of note. First, as mentioned earlier in the thread...



Almost all instances of a red cross have been removed from the game. This is due to the fact that the red cross is a copyrighted symbol (Trademark? I'm never sure...) of none other than the Red Cross association. But who cares, the real badasses are the Médecins Sans Frontières anyways.



The other thing of note is that, this being a game almost fresh off the Reagan years of policy, most of the United States was terrified of the word "Drug", and that included the Nintendo of America. As such, the localization team tried to avoid the word as much as they could. While they obviously didn't scourge the game of it, they did take it out of some places such as the map.



Inside the drugstore, we find this quirky lil fellow!







nah, cuz i use the L button like a pro, bro



On the list of things that NoA was on a watch for, was religious references of any kind. In the original version, this dog was actually possessed by straight up (helpful) demon. So this nifty bit of 4th wall breaking was brought to you by CensorshipTM!





Ah... the days when milk was delivered... Truly a golden age fit for kings, eh?




I love it when game mechanics get a charming and non-bs in-world explanation.



A giant robot? Eh, it's cool, I got some Ambien, I'll be safe. Thats what a man on the internet told me!



So you see that red truck that Brian is about to get plowed over by? ...


They were originally CocaCome-Cola delivery trucks!



So, this fella here is talking about our Paedo Pal. And whaddya know? You know how Leavemywife was wondering whether Sir Sodomy was the kind of person who had to introduce himself to everyone in the neighborhood when he moves in? Apparently he was right, as everyone seems to know about that guys... personal vice.



yo, homie, i don't wanna hear about your drug problem and how you get your product



fuck man, you've been hittin the Sugar from Twoson too!?



no shit lady, I can see that

See what happens when you don't take out the word "Drug" from all the drugstores???

Say, that reminds me...



This here is the music that plays inside Drugstores and pretty much anywhere that's a shop.

Listen to it, feel it, enjoy it. So, you remember how I said Itoi was a fan of quite a few bands, and Suzuki had many influences? Well...

One of those bands happen to be The Beatles.

This is one of the first instances where it is readily apparent that the composer of the game and the creator allowed some inspiration into their music. This can be a bit of a sticky story since there's no musical licences bought for anything in the game really, so it's shown to be a bit of a stumbling block for anyone trying to translate the Japan Only Bundle Mother 1+2 as well as putting the game on the Wii's Virtual Console. But hey, all of that'd be icing on the already gourmet cake that is Earthbound.



As I'm sure that lady is definitely one to appreciate!

Moving on!



I like to imagine that the alternate ending is that Ness decides to ignore the whole saving the world thing. He joins the Sharks and wraps himself deep within the warm, loving embrace of infamous "Twoson Sugar". Whilst entangled deep within the throes of addiction, he then proceeds to beat every police officer in the city into the ground with a tee ball bat in order to scrape together enough for the next fix.

This is a nice game though so instead we're gonna fight a knifewielding mobster who says very nasty things.



Thankfully though the Ambien kicked in before he was able to break our bones or ever hurt my sensibilities.

And clearly he was not listening to the sweet music

This is more likely the first song people really recognized to be heavily influenced by another song.

Namely, this burnin' jive that rocks all the chickees and blasts us off this square earth and sends us straight down to kicksville. Ya dig, ya hep cat?



Also, apparently I didn't get the same good shit Leavemywife got, I couldn't get Frankbot to dream of Franky Sheep.



I like to think that Frank was going to be the protagonist, but then Ness came along and welp, its all history now!



Alright, show of hands; who knew that Frank could do this for you?

I had no idea either until I went back to talk to him cause I thought I missed a screenshot

So then, whats next?



crap. i must resist



i said i promised



cmon, they don't want hear you whine again. stay strong irish guy



GODFUCKING SHIT I SAID I PROMISED FUCK



JUST GIVE ME THE FUCKING KEY BEFORE I GO ON A FUCKING SOCIETAL RANT

Oh yeah, the mayor's name? Because the original Japanese name, G.H Pirkle, was an anagram for bald and that they changed it to B.H Pirkle over here, some people think that it stands for "Mayor Bald(y) Head(ed) Pirkle". Kind of a stretch, but hey, I think that's the best guess we have.



Well, that's it for this update! But what's that I see?

Your Earthbound/Mother 2 Trivia and Censorship Sanctuary!
BONUS SANDWICH UPDATE!

Time for a bonus update about sandwiches! Hopefully sandwich update can help to make up for falling so far behind Mr. Blazing Fast Leavemywife!



So, the Lucky Sandwich. $128 is a pretty hefty investment, especially at this point so early on in the game, in addition, no one likes to gamble with something like healing because if you need it, chances are you can't afford to fuck around with probability. I don't believe I can tell you it's worth it in a legitimate playthrough, only simply show you what you could be getting for your money. However, if you play with savestates, or are willing to use savestates for some amazing healing please, continue by all means! I will not disappoint.

First of all, there are precisely six possible outcome in a Lucky Sandwich.



Now, considering you can buy hamburgers which recover about just under the worst recovery outcome, (I'd say the 5 PP is the worst outcome, since it's not even enough to want to compete with other possibilities) right now for a helluva lot cheaper and they're reliable, I'd say go stockpiling hamburgers and especially trash burgers.

Now here comes the interesting part.

When does the game decide which possibility is inside the sandwich? The game decides seeds (decides) for the possibility when you buy the sandwich, after you pay for it, before it asks who you want to carry it. Once it decides what is inside the sandwich, it is set in stone. So you can savestate, buy a Lucky Sandwich, test it out in battle, and if it's not what you want, reload, and buy another one. This means you can completely cheese the game and fill your inventory up with full HP/PP items as long as you have the money.

So, I hope you had a great time learning about sandwiches! See you next time!


Attn: Leavemywife, should I put this bonus update in a separate post so you can link to it separately?

Edit: Well, crap, it seems that I was beaten by several days on the whole Lucky Sandwich bit. Hahaha, rather ironic that the bit that I was posting to make up for my slowness was completely invalidated by it. I suppose I could just delete it if you guys want?