Earthbound's amazing. Don't let the cutesy pixel art fool you --- there's a lot more to it than first appears. And the end game boss is, like, one of the most disturbing ever.
My only complaint is that it is a bit long. It'd be nice to have some cheats that would let you level up more quickly, in order to get through the story a bit more briskly. But even so it's totally worth playing, and has a killed soundtrack.
First time I played it as a kid, it took me about 4-5 days to play it start to finish. Now that I've played through it at least a dozen times since then, I can do it in about 2.
This is about normal for a SNES-era RPG.
The end boss is maybe one of the best end bosses I've ever seen in a game, the music is absolutely amazing, and the characters are wonderful.
I don't want to say anything more because not only will it be a spoiler, but it may not even make sense out of context... and once you play Earthbound, you will know exactly what I mean.
I still haven't played earthbound (iirc it wasnt published in europe) and I'm thinking of trying this romhack which apparently improves the controls. Can anyone whos played the original comment if this is a good idea?
The trouble with buying them legally is you can't mod them. Well, I guess you could buy it and then just to find a ROM and hack that and be morally in the clear.
Mother is basically unplayable in 2015. The encounter rate is beyond ridiculous. I'm a little surprised they released it unmodified. Shortly before the official Nintendo release this year, someone put out a great hack that makes the game actually enjoyable. If you're going to play Mother, play this version.
If we're posting romhacks, this super metroid hack is absolutely amazing. An entirely new tileset, an all-new much larger map, new mechanics, AI, it could be super metroid 2. Highly recommended if you enjoyed the original. Oh, and the ending. The ending!
I can't speak to the quality of that hack, but it does sound like a godsend. In the original, you have to open the menu to talk to someone (Menu -> Talk To) or to open something (Menu -> Check). Yes, they're separate commands. You can't talk to a chest, and you can't check a person. If you're too far away, it pop up a dialog saying "No problem here" that you have to dismiss and navigate the menu to try again. It's crazy annoying.
My only complaint is that it is a bit long. It'd be nice to have some cheats that would let you level up more quickly, in order to get through the story a bit more briskly. But even so it's totally worth playing, and has a killed soundtrack.