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(Before you submit, please read the rules.)
The topic for this week is: The Simon Roberts Is Late For Vacation Special - No set topic! Tell us about whatever you want. Also, remember that you don't have to write just on this topic. You can send me a letter about anything that sparks your interest. You don't have to write in on this topic if you don't want to. You can pick a topic and write about it, or, if you have anything else on your mind about EarthBound or Starmen.Net, please, send that in too! Everyone is encouraged to write in about whatever they're thinking about. Mailbag letters do not have to be long. They can be whatever length you want them to be, anywhere between one sentence and 1,300 pages. Please do not copy and paste the entire text of "Crime and Punishment" and send that to me. Although I've read it already and enjoyed it, my email account would be quite sad. Use this form to send in a mailbag letter:
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The topic for last week's mailbag was: EBFGP - Are you enjoying playing EB again? This year, I kind of couldn't help myself, so I've actually beaten the game already. But I'm the exception that proves the rule! Tell us all about your rediscovery of this game of games. This week Simon is late for vacation so he didn't put in boxy witticisms or a new topic. Also there are some letters we missed. We'll pick those up next week.
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You know what, I really really like playing Earthbound but not once have I
tried playing along with you guys on the EBFGPs. I've been around since
before the very first one started and I can't figure out why I haven't done
it yet. It's not that I don't want to, just not sure why I never do. Blame
working 14-14-12s or perhaps doing stuff with the 4 year old but for
whatever reason, I haven't done one and probably won't get around to doing
it this time either.
On a completely different note, I wanted to say, Shadow is the man. I was recently at a RPG music remix site and listened to his remix of the Earthbound bus theme. Pretty sweet stuff. You gotta love the bus theme. Last note, tell AmzRigh that when I read the mailbag entry from the guy talking about Seektag in the last update I had the exact same reaction. What?! - Suikoden Guy  Even if you can't follow the EBFGP schedule to the letter, I think you should try to play some EB around the same time as everyone else does anyway. Maybe you'll start late and finish early, but at least you can say that you were on time for at least one GPP. Besides, you can beat the game inside of a weekend if you hurry, so you could start now and be there for the finish with us on Thursday. Give it a shot! --- SimonBob I started playing again maybe a full week before EBFGP got underway. Yeah, and I'm currently in TWOSON. So really, no worries about keeping the pace, sir. Go Shadow go. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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I'm playing EBGFP this year, yes. How can ANYONE resist EGFPB? EFGBP is like
the fruit of the soul! The pickaxe of the cheeseball! The something
something something something!
BAH I'M NOT FUNTIONAL YET IT'S ONLY 10 IN THE MORNING Anyway, I'm really enjoying EPFGB so far. It's really, really, really...fun. Like those Word Power things in Reader's Digest. Heh, I left the 'All That I Needed (Was You)' song on. All night. I'm trying to memorize it subconsciously. I'm addicted to Orbits. So, in conclusion, footwear is trippy. --What You need to lay off the Doc Martins. --- SimonBob I'd lay off too many of those tunes, man. I scared off many a pet dog by whistling the Saturn Valley theme. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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HEY,Im another fan. i wonder if i can create my own rpg just like
earthbound. please write back!
- al You sure can! Check out our PK Hack section for tons of great ways to make a whole new game out of your EarthBound experience! --- SimonBob I use to play dress up. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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I know this isn't the topic, but am I the man or what?
- Gauntlet You are indeed. Rock on, Gauntlet. Rock on and on, forevermore. --- SimonBob |
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Play again? As in: 'GAME OVER.. PLEASE PLAY AGAIN'? There would be no reward
for the effort and blood I put into my second attempt, yet my train of
thought had become derailed, and crashed into a FedEx van, slicing an
icrecream parlor equally into two halves. Maybe if I provided the harsh,
electronic mistress inside the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a
few hours of my time devoted to the game I might be able to escape from it's
wretched (albeit cushioned) fortress of pain (and slight happiness). So I
sat down, and decided that if I were to replay this game, maybe I should
make the best out of a somewhat forced activity; the house was already on
fire, I did not see how my input to society would change anything in the
long run, so I decided to stick with playing the game again.
In a desperate attempt to enjoy myself, I renamed the characters from their unimaginative and mundane labels to more humerous or unique names. Ness became Jeff, and after 40 minutes of thinking of a set of names, the rest of the crew were called 'Gwen'; I thought that maybe I should play the game rather than naming the petty characters. So, the plot kicked in, and, as you would expect, I managed to nail my face shut in an attempt to shield myself away from the horror of a poorly re-written script. Having said that, the nails did prevent me from seeing the graphics, which remind me of a quaint picnic in the park; of course, someone would forget the potato salad, and we'd all argue, and Uncle Dillis(?) would scream, and the kids would cry, making the car journey awkward. Therefore, I removed the nails. As I drew close to the end battle with Goygus I realised I'd.. experienced something. Something far greater than I had found at the bottom of the public pool; far far greater. And that was that I had become the controller, God if you will, of these little people, whol walk inside a box via another grey, smaller one. I was astounded. So I leaped from my now charred chair in a manner that caused my femur to fall apart. I finished the game; I had hoped I would be rewarded for my valiant attempt to conquer and already defeated game, this climbed mountain. Instead I got the same screen like last time and I was like 'whatev get air now k' So I'm sorry, but you must understand why I can't attend camp this year. Maybe next year. Maybe not. Probably not. No, definately not. - Hawaiian Only your second attempt? Dude, this is my... hmm. I've lost count again. Anyway, you remind me of the guy from Secret of Evermore who claims that we're all just sprites at the beck and call of our button-pressing master. Weirdo. *turns into a basket* --- SimonBob Blood? Yes, folks, just another reason why you should never use a third party controller. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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unfortuntly, i'm not playing it again, :( and if i wanted to catch up i'd
have to be amazing, which well... i am? meh, too much work.. (wonders if
you'll try to talk me into it)
- Wierdman Dude, did you not read my response to Suikoden's letter? You can totally catch up inside of a week. In fact, you'll probably start enjoying the game so much, you'll keep going and beat Giygas by Tuesday. Then you can laugh at everyone you've left in the dust. --- SimonBob uh uh doitman. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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I guess whenever I play earthbound these days, I remind myself of how the
game felt the first time through. I didn't know what was going to happen
next, but I didn't feel rushed. I was all, "Hey, I just thrashed a few
ranboobs, dad probably gave me enough money to order another large pizza.
Maybe I'll have a peanut cheesebar for dessert. Heh, 'ranboob.' "
Stuff like that. Now when I play, I realize the only way to keep it new is to be creative, so I try new things. Sometimes I find people say different things if you do tasks in a different sequence. For instance, if you show the "wad of bills" to each member of the runaway five in their dressing room before you liberate the from the clutches of Mr. Poochyfud, they say stuff like "Hey, where'd you get that money," and stuff like that. It's enough to make me happy. (It works with the diamond in Topolla Theater as well.) Last night I spent a few hours as Jeff in Winters, beating up baddies and selling bread rolls for money. I saved enough money to but paula's super whatever frypan early, so when jeff got to threed, I had the fry pan ready and now paula is dealing almost as much physical damage as Ness. You know, try new things, and waste as much time possible doing it. Oh, and it helps to hook your SNES up to a speaker system with surround sound. I have four speakers in my room and earthbound just spins and twirls and crashes and booms and dazzles my ears with its polyphonic magic. - Glenn W I have a new EarthBound experience every year. This year, I let Ness die in the Guardian Digger mines and got lots of experience for Paula and Jeff. Now everyone in my party is at least 10 levels above Ness. Magicant is gonna be fun, fun, fun! Your anecdote about surround-sound makes me want to hook up my SNES to my friend's big screen TV... :( --- SimonBob That's pretty amazing, Glenn. I do believe I'll try my hand at bread roll selling. In the meantime, as a fellow "Wad of cash" flasher, I th ink it's best we start donating to charities. :) - MikeTheEBGuru |
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This is my first time doing EBFGP, and I have to say that it's one of my
best plays through EarthBound ever. I got my SNES, my EarthBound cartridge,
my strategy guide, two pogs that didn't get eaten by dust mites, and a
printed-out sheet of challenges with a checklist.
I mean, the challenges are AWESOME!
So far, I've done 26 challenges, and my top five personal favorites were:
#5: Fight a Mad Duck. This took me a couple of hours. I finally got a Duck to get close to the ladder, but then I realized it couldn't come on. Furiously, I jammed on the up button and went INTO MR. SATURN. A bizzare bug indeed. If you go as high as possible, Ness can look around, but that's it. Fortunately for me, the Mad Duck then slammed into me as I was then climbing a Saturn and not a ladder. After I won I was stuck behind the ladder and I had to reset. Then I had to go to the entrance of Saturn Valley and look for Mad Ducks there. Killing rare roaches is loads of fun! #4: Combat a Criminal Caterpillar. I've done this before in various games, but this time he hit me with PSI Fire. Unfortunately for him, his flames merely took down 100 HP and lit Jeff's bottle rocket to boot. Then BAM! 10000 free EXP. #3: Give Slugs some thinkin' time. I've never bothered to let the slugs live, actually. Fortunately for them, I was also doing the "Get hit in the back" challenge so the six slugs had a chance to take down 25 damage. #2: Don't use any PSI when fighting carpainter. I didn't have to use any for his goons, either, as all I had to do was bash them in with an expensive bat and eat expensive eggs ($110!)*. Anyway, when I got to Carpainter, he started healing himself like crazy so I got mad and took out the Bomb from PRV and chucked it at him. That taught that guy a lesson. #1: WHO YA GONNA CALL?!?! I wanted to play Ghostbusters music while doing this challenge, but I play EarthBound at 5:30 AM and I would wake everyone up. Anyway, this challenge was really fun and really vague. I ended up running around the streets of Threed, screaming at enemies and waking up everyone anyway. A couple hours later my dad called. Then I yelled REALLY loud. All my relatives think I'm a nerd now. Anyway, my least favorite challenge was DON'T STEAL FROM TONY. I had to personally start a new file, get there, steal the cookies, erase the file, and then not steal in my EBFGP file. But, seriously, this was a really easy challenge. I've only stolen from Tony once, and that was in my first game. The only use of all those cookies is to get a Picnic Lunch. *Isn't it vaguely unsettling that you eat an egg with a chick inside? - Radiation #5: I did that for the first time this year too! High five! :D #4: CCs are easy to fight with the Flame Pendant. In fact, you can let him kill Ness and get lots of exp. for Jeff after the monkey caves. #3: 25 damage at the beginning of the game is at least a third of your HP. Ouch. #2: Psh! Carpainter will get totally thunderstruck if you leave him alone. Eat a few Croissants and you're home free. #1: That one was my brainchild from last year. It was totally the hit of the season. Thanks for keeping the tradition alive! *I never thought of that... eww, disgusting. --- SimonBob #5: I still haven't done it, but man, sometimes I like to gaze deeply in that bugger's eyes. #4: But they're soooooo cuuuuute. #3: At least of third of your HP? Maybe. But it pails in comparison to the time a nearby friend of mine took a football to the crotch after I got done in by those jabronis. :( #2: I never had a problem with Carpainter because of the mondo leveling up I got done by dismantling hordes of those cultist blokes. But still, a good potential patience test. #1: Nerd? Again, doesn't beat the time I played for the sole purpose of strolling around Summers for a half hour. At one point, my father came in, asked if I was playing "some Charlie Brown game" again, and I just kept walking. No objective, no reason. Pure boredness at it's finest. *No. :D |
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ok not gonna lie... ive got very little to say in the update so here it
is... go get ESPN 2k5 for xbox or ps2... its like the earthbound of sports
games... Estaban Loiaza is now wearing pinstripes in a deal that sent Jose
Contereas along with cash to the White Sox... Now as for EBFGP... not
playing this year... but i can always play for fun and i discovered that its
not whats on the outside that counts... but on the inside which is graphics
vs gameplay... so thats about it... nothin else to explain.. have fun with
this letter. See ya
P.S: haha didnt think i'd do it today... well now im an O-lineman and D-lineman... goodbye protection hello sacks - Steve-o Bah! RBI Baseball III was good enough for me and it should be good enough for you too! Ness wears a red cap, so obviously he's a Boston fan. Stupid Yankees. --- SimonBob Madden 2005. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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Ya wanna know something? I've been an Earthbound fan for years.
Unfortuneatly, I only found this site sometime last week, meaning I was a
little late to start the EBFGP.
However, good things do happen. It happened to make me want to play Earthbound again, and boy, have I ever. I quickly started playing the game, and I'm nearly at Magicant already. I forget about how fun this game could be. I've taken an immediate liking to this game again. So, thanks to this site, and more importantly, the EBFGP, I have started playing one of the best games ever. Thanks guys, you rock. PS~Where did you come up with the idea of the EBFGP? It's a pretty extensive thing, and I was wondering, who thought up of it and why? So, someone, e-mail me back with a response, okay? PPS~ BOING! :) - frenchtoast Hey, glad to hear we made a difference in your life. That raises the grand total of life-influenced people to twelve! Slow down, tho, we're not supposed to be so far in the game yet. The original idea of EBFGP was brought up by Tomato, who was concerned that hardly anyone at the site - not even head honcho reidman - had played EB in a really long time. He took his plan to EBounding, who created the original pages, and then everyone and I mean everyone totally played EB all at the same time. Yeah, it was pretty darn awesome. --- SimonBob Was and still is. While it not be the most effective way, there's only so many avenues of idears you can come up with to tell people, "Play EarthBound". - MikeTheEBGuru |
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"So in Spanish they say "butter peanut?" I'm going back to Canada where we
just speak languages that make sense.
--- SimonBob" Since when has French ever made sense? - Abbott Err, right. French became meaningless after the revolution. Thanks for the reminder, bro. --- SimonBob |
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I don't know if you were aware of this or not, but there is another SNES
game in which EB has a cameo.
In the SNES game "Kirby Superstar," Kirby stars in 8 different miniature
sized adventures, each with a different concept and story. In one, "The
Great Cave Offensive," Kirby goes through the caves collecting treasures,
the majority of which are cameos from various video games.
One of the treasures happens to be a replica of Mr. Saturn.
Great EB website!
-BJ Myers Not only that, but there's a hidden debug menu in EB that uses a Kirby sprite! Both games were made by the fantastic company HAL, so it makes sense. Now if only we could find Ness in a Mario game sometime... --- SimonBob Truth be told, I would've rather spent my time playing WWF Raw while my little sister was immersed in Kirby Superstar back in the day. To pay penance for that sin, I work here. :D - MikeTheEBGuru |
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Oh my god. EarthBound never gets old. I named the Chosen Four and friends
after the cast of Family Guy. I have also been playing along with my copy
of Mother 1+2. The EBFGP is great. I wish the battery in my EB cart could
last forever...
- kelim I tried to play along with Mother 2 once, but got hopelessly stuck when I mistook a Croissant for my Pencil Eraser. Oh well. --- SimonBob And hey, sometimes I crank up a Mother 2 commercial to get those, "hey, at least he isn't walking around for a half hour on that video game" look. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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I like the idea...
- thu_wood Yup, it's a good one. --- SimonBob |
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Summer funfest, eh?
For all of you who don't know (which is probably all of you ... I'm not memorable) I'm ness the mess, and I've been off and on for the past 3 years or so at different Earthbound websites ... I usually get distracted though, and continue to lead a non-EB life. Anyway, EBFGP has once again fuled my love for this classic game. I give this spiel so often, but I need to confess how much this game has moved me. No other video game has the power to sincerely make you laugh, and EBFGP really reminds me of that. I love the saturns, and I love Poo, and I love the talks you get when you drink coffee. I love the fulfillment you get when you finally defeat giygas, and when you mannage to drive your pesky rival away. I love the community that you guys have, and although I am not fully a part of it, I want you guys to know how much I appreciate this entire website, and everyone who helps run it, and even (and especially) just the normal members who come here every day. I love you guys, whether you know me or not, and I hope you realize how much you really love eachother. Once again, this is Ness the Mess signing off. - Ness the Mess Hey, it's Ness the Mess! I remember you sorta kinda. OH SNAP I just realized that I never drank the coffee in Saturn Valley! Stupid stupid stupid stupid! Gotta run! *zzzip* --- SimonBob Welcome back. And yeah, more often than not, EarthBound has made me want to give the bat treatment to any and all rivals I've had along the way. But all with the best of intentions, and and well you shouldn't really hurt people. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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Ok party peoples,
i've had Earth bound for five years and still haven't beaten it but i'm still in threed! - kyler daughery You have to raise your levels in the cave to Lilliput Steps (for Paula) and on the way to the lab (for Jeff) or else you'll get hopelessly stuck in Threed when all the tough monsters come after you. Good luck! --- SimonBob Kyler, Kyler, Kyler. Truth be told, I've left Pikmin and Metroid Prime hanging longer than I should've but you grab a good FAQ, and you get cracking, friend. |
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(Soapbox)
So everyone's having a good time rediscovering EarthBound, yes? I know I am. I never realized how much fun it was to play with low-level characters! I won't even be level 65 by the time I get to Giygas. I'll let you know how it goes... --- SimonBob (MIKEY'S CORNER) EB LINE OF THE MOMENT: "How can you smile like that in a dangerous place like this?" Always great to see folks getting back into what's driven us here. Luckily, the game's aged like a fine wine, but hey, don't feel bad. Imagine those nerds still playing vector graphictastic Star Wars. Oh ho ho ho hahaha. I need another vacation. - MikeTheEBGuru |
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This page was last modified on Fri 29-Jul-2005 19:55:03.
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