Earthbound

EarthBound (MOTHER2ギーグの逆襲 Mazā Tsū Gīgu no Gyakushū, officially translated as Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back!), also known as EarthBound: The War Against Giygas!, is the second installment in the Mother series, developed by Ape, Inc., Nintendo, and HAL Laboratory, Inc. and published by Nintendo. The game was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on August 27, 1994 in Japan and on June 1, 1995 in North America. It was designed and directed by Shigesato Itoi, with music by Hiroshi Kanazu, Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka.

EarthBound chronicles the adventures of Ness, a 13-year-old boy who journeys around the world using his psychic powers to collect eight melodies in order to save the future from an alien of pure evil, intending to sentence all of reality to the horror of eternal darkness.

Despite being successful in Japan, the North American version was released to a poor commercial response. Years later, the game is now lauded by gamers worldwide for its humorous depictions of American culture and parody of the RPG video game genre, and has since become a cult classic.

EarthBound was released on Nintendo's Virtual Console service for the first time on March 20, 2013 in Japan and July 18, 2013 in North America, and for the first time, Australia and Europe.

A sequel to EarthBound, titled Mother 3 was released only in Japan on April 20, 2006, and has yet to see a western release.