Seven years ago, Nintendo released a video game entitled EarthBound. This game seemed to be pretty normal. The only thing that stood out about it to the naked eye was that it came in a gigantic box that included a Player's Guide. This game, however, turned out to be very far from normal. It turned out to be much, much more.

To the casual gamer, there was absolutely nothing special about EarthBound. In fact, the normal gamer would pick it up the game, play it for a couple minutes, and say, "This game is terrible." Most people dismiss it for its outdated graphics or how "childish" it might have seemed. Most gamers never even tried the game. This was mostly due to Nintendo's horrible, horrible advertising campaign. Due to this, EarthBound did not sell well.

However, there was the occasional gamer who could see deeper than the "horrible" graphics of the game and would actually give the game a chance. Such a player would realize that there was something special about EarthBound. At the point that a player actually started giving EB a chance, he was hooked. Once a gamer started playing EarthBound, he would realize that it was one of the greatest games of all time.

But what exactly made EarthBound so great? Well, that is the purpose of this series. In future installments, I will dissect EarthBound piece by piece and show just what made it so great. I will not only talk about the obvious aspects (such as story and gameplay), but even some of the smallest details (such as specific locales and enemies). This series will show exactly why there are thousands of people like myself stick around sm.net and the hundreds of other EarthBound-dedicated websites. This series will truely show just why EarthBound is so great.