If you could change how the phone worked, what would you make it do?

The fact that calling for pizza was such a cool idea and yet no one did it anyways is one of my biggest disapointments with EB.

Instead of adding new numbers to call and increasing the phone book of worthless numbers-it would be more productive if things in the game itself were changed to make the current numbers more useful.

The reason ordering pizza is not used in the game is because its just not necassary. If Eb was harder then this function of calling for a pizza when your stranded somewhere would really help alot. The ways Eb could have been increased in diffulculty as follows:

Harder enemies-they would have higher HP and PP, bigger stats and less weaknesses. Also, they would be smarter in that they would know that spinning something will not do squat to Jeff.

The areas where enemies appear would be longer and more complicated. For example, when going to the third your sanctuary location-the path leading to the trillionage sprout is a straight path that lasts for 3 minutes if your lucky counting the battle sequences on the way. Supposing you forgot to fight him earlier in the game, that dungeon would last-max-a minute. Instead this dungeon should have twists and turns, and maybe a few mini bosses so when you get to the actual boss you die-now thats an RPG.

Levels would be few and far between but would work better-basically im sick of getting level after level in Eb when all Jeff is getting each time is a one-point increase in HP and nothing else each time-how does that help me ever? If levels were obtained a fourth of the time, the game would be harder but more satisfying because all you needed to continue was just that one level that boosted your stats enough.

PSI attacks would be worthless-yes thats right, if the game put more an emphasis on weapon attacks, and resourceful item usage, then the game would triple in diffulculty, but I think for the better. Instead of having PK Rockin', PK Freeze, and PK Starstorm completely dominate the game's battles-those attacks should be either alot weaker or alot more expensive to cast, meaning that they would be a last resort or a boss only type of deal since youd be able to cast them once or twice just like Ryu's dragon ability in BoF 2. This means that you would actually use those Offense Defense Down and Up attacks way more often. You would also use shield attacks more often also. Now how much more fun would that be?

There are sooo many items in EB and I never use them, ever. I never need to stock up on food/statis recovery items or anything of the sort because PSI attacks do that and much more every time. I admit when I first played the game back in '95 I do recall using items alot more then I do now, only because I didnt completley understand what effects every single healing PSI spell did on a character...it actually took me till I was in the Cave of the Past as robots to figure out that Ness was able to revive a character. I was too used to playing games that had a spell for everything. But now that I have played 100 more RPGs and have beaten Eb about 34 more times, can I completely dominate the game to the point were I dont need any items at all. This is sad.

So this brings me to my point. If Eb was like what I stated above then ordering pizza would be something you would have to do all the time in hopes of ever surviving. This would also require the party to stock up on mass amounts of bakery and deli items thus also increasing the more latent areas of this game such as ordering pizza or using Escargo Express. Maybe if we are lucky, then we will get things like this in Mother 3, eh?

--Psionic Brawler





Congrats on writing a Letter of the Week!
You’ve voiced a lot of my more serious opinions when it comes to EarthBound. If there’s one thing that makes me not want to play EarthBound at a given time, it’s the challenge. There isn’t one. As much as I’d like to pretend that EarthBound is a challenging game, it’s not a challenge, just an experience. A wonderful, vividly entertaining experience, but no more than thus. That’s what I hope to accomplish someday in an EarthBound hack – a fulfilling and comfortably difficult challenge. With penguins.

--GuyInSummers

How about being able to call the camera guy? That way...you can start up a conversation...a very long one...and while your talking you can tell him to hold on (perhaps you left your oven on, or better yet, a squad of Starmen are at the door)...that way he will be so busy waiting for the phone, he would surprizing pop out of the sky!

Now think for a second...would calling people have to stick to good guys? Nope, it would be cool to call a bad guy.

It would be great to call Giygas. Especially with a cell phone! See if you did, you could prank him. You could call him and be like, "Hey is your refrigerator running?" and then when he turns around to check sneak up on him and SMAAAAAAAAAAAASH him! He wouldnt see it coming! Easy way to defeat Giygas! If that doesnt work, you could either try to make him pay the phone bill or...for a lack of better terms...RUN!!!

--DarthBelch





Calling Giygas definitely has promise. However, Giygas doesn’t have a refrigerator. He keeps his dairy products cold by quantum-warping them to Thorg, the dimension of perpetual ice. It’s a proven fact.

~GiS

Should been able to phone your best bud, Georgio Bus, for a tactical nuclear strike.

--MadWilliamVane





No longer an option. Following recent trends, Georgio doesn’t sell nuclear weaponry anymore. Now he only uses all his reactors for electricity. You can tell by the huge signs on his active warheads stating “We do not have weapons of mass destruction.”

~GiS

To phone various buisness's is a pretty neat-o idea, but you didn't get that much out of it. Sure, you can order a pizza or two, but that's about it.

Now, if you could order a Magotty Milk-Shake from McWonalds, that would be different. More food should have been involved.

If you could, say, call a taxi to pick you up, it would have been less frusturating to walk to certain towns.(That is, before you got PSI Teleport)

If a phone conversation was, say, a mini-game, such as trying to pick the correct answers to questions, that would be Uber L33t!

The same amount of money was starting to get kinda annoying, so the price could'a went up as you fought and received more money.

Calling different place should also cost a different amount of cash. If you tried a trivia mini-game, you could just keep trying over and over and over and over and over and...

::10 minutes later::

and over again. Eventually, you would win. Do you see my point yet

If you had a cell phone and you could use it in battle, maybe you could call Everdred to come and kick your enemies, causing damage. Or you could call Apple Kid and he'd upgrade one of your items, such as if you had a Hamburger, he would come and make it a Mammoth Burger. But of course, the money would have to be balanced. Does everything seem yo revolve around money?

Maybe I went over the edge a little bit, but that would make the game more interesting. It was kind of Linear...do this, do that, fight...maybe a mini-game, such as the phone, could spice it up(with delisauce, of course!(.

--Blue Frost





Those are some pretty cool ideas! Actually, several of them could be well-implemented in a fancy-schmancy EarthBound hack. The phone-up quiz show is a cool idea, but maybe so you can’t just keep calling it, it can be a limited-time thing or something. Or maybe once you try once, you can’t call back for that particular show. A lot of people have also brought up the subject of making calls in the middle of battles, which is definitely a cool idea. You, however, had the unique idea of the Apple Kid upgrade system. That would be tricky to implement, but it’s definitely neat. Probably cheaper, too. No need to buy multi bottle rockets – just buy the Bigs, and get Apple Kid’s number, and start upgrading! Now this entire paragraph was written while I was talking to a friend, and quite frankly I didn’t so much as look at the monitor or keyboard while I typed, and I can’t say for sure what I just said. So please excuse any insanity.

~GiS

GiS is a theif for stealing this idea! But oh well. This is going to be lots of fun!

Hmm...well, after you get Jeff, you could go back to onett and see a bunch of cameras and stuff. In the center would be Mr. T. If you talk to him, he would say "Outta my way foo! Im filming for a comericial that gives out a number that could save a buck or two! (Ness writes down number)" Then, whenever you go to a payphone, you could choose ATT and phoning home would become free (but everything else you would still have to pay for, just not mom or dad).

Since everyone probably is gonna write that, i wrote more! In like a fourside hotel when u wake up, there would be a TV in ur room. If you checked it, it would say: "Welcome to the fourside shopping channel, the most evil and only channell in fourside! We offer every item worth offering, except the items we dont. So call us today! (Ness writes down number)" And at any phone you could call and get a list of all the items at burglin park and the prices. If you chose one, it would say something like "Okay, one of our repersentitives will show up shortly" and a guy would show up and would give u the item in exchange for the money you owe.

This is the last and funniest one. Alright, if you visit the Dr. Saturn 3 times he would say, "you know, i also do plastic surgery. Here's my saturn surgeon hotline number. (Ness reluctantly writes down number" Then, when you call he would say something like "Yay, a customer! (in his weird font). I mean, here is what I offer: Saturn makeover, tenda makeover, fat boy makeover (pokey) and Foo! makeover(Mr. T). If you chose one he would show up and a curtain would momentairly sheild you. Then Ness would end up looking like Pokey, Mr. Saturn, a tenda or Mr. T. Mr. Saurn would deman either $14 or piggy jelly as his toll.

Ok, and uh...thats it. Ok bye bye!

--Dr. Jelly Donut





Heh…sorry for blatantly robbing you of your idea. I meant to give you credit on the main page, but I sorta’ forgot. Anyway, you have incredibly unique ideas here, but the winner has to be the Saturn makeovers. Can you even comprehend how cool marching around as a Tenda would be?

~GiS

This is my first letter, and I am a tad nervous, but that is all besides the point. On to the question

Ever get tired of hearing that insane violin music inside of Dungeon Man? Well then don't! After the Runaway Fives Debt is payed off in Fourside, and as long as you have the reciever phone, you can get a Dial-a-song service, which will play to you're reciever phone.

Now, you're probably asking, "Oh PSI Clark, just how does this miraculous thing work?" Well, the Runaway Five give you their number right before they leave Fourside, and at any payphone you call them and request any song from a town, boss, or major event to be played over you're reciever phone instead of the normal music, but it does cost a minimal fee of $5.00. Once you are done listening to the music, you can turn of your reciever phone, (yes, your reciever phone DOES have a power swich), but the music won't be back when you turn it back on.

So, that basically sums up my first article, I think I did a good job didn't you?

--PSI Clark





Anything to end the evil Dungeon Man music is worth it to me. I’d rather listen to the Pacman Eats up All the Dots than to the Dungeon Man music. And you all know what happens when I’m exposed to the Pacman song. Especially Aquas. I miss Aquas radio; he used to torture me with the Pacman song…and the MONKEY CAVE MUSIC. *dies*

In regards to your question, yes, you did a great job and I look forward to your next letter.

~GiS

I can't really think of any but it would be nice if your reciever could give outside calls. And I guess calling the police would be nice, like if you just finished a battle and you have 2 hp and Paula, Jeff, and Poo are dead. And you have no recovery items. That's all I could think of hope I helped.

--Akuma





Ah, the classic Cell Phone idea. In fact a reality thanks to Hack Powa. Current advances in hacking are now leading to calling cards, long-distance plans, and real imitation static interference.

~GiS

Back in tha' day (in the old skool way) a hacker named BlueAntoid fixed up the Receiver Phone so it could send messages as well as receive them. It was cool to be able to ring up Mach Pizza and Dad right before fighting whatever BA renamed the Petrified Royal Guard, but it also made the game kinda easy. Still, I was too lazy to play properly, since I was less concerned with the rpg elements and more with the stuff BA changed. Also, it was balanced by a five-dollar charge every time you used it. It was funkay. Ahh, to be young and hackerish again...

Of course, phoning some folks up from just about anywhere would still be cool if you could phone more than just your family and favourite foodstuff venues. I suspect that a phone system in EB would be similar to the one in Pokemon Gold/Silver: you would put people's names down if they asked you to, and they would call you with tips or something. But it wouldn't be tips, since tips cost hard cash in EB, and we don't very well want to put Hint Man out of business, do we? So here's my better solution: major characters like Frank, Carpainter, and Monotoli could show up on your list, and you could call them up for the time of day if you wanted. How cool would it be to give Brick Road a ring and find out that he's still trapped in the palm trees, or to get Everdred's answering machine once he's left Twoson? Pretty darn cool if you ask me. In the meantime, your major call centres (Dad, Mom, EE, M to the P) can be cut off by an "out of satellite range" message. I think that neat little loophole would save our meandering difficulty problem.

As long as we're talking about Everdraed, I want to mention that I got an interesting message from him by saving Paula and then letting her die en route to Twoson. He says something to the effect of "You're being hailed as a hero, but have you really done anything? No." The depths to which this game goes is amazing at times.

So, back to phones. I think the black phones should've been eradicated. Unless you were flat broke, it should've always cost a dollar. That'd teach you to fear and respect your ability to save your game, plus it would've made more sense. Why do you get to just tramp into some hotel and demand phone service for free? I can see doing it once, if it was just an emergency, but repeated calls to someone who's probably long-distance? I guess the Eagleland hotels weren't hit as hard by the economic recession as the rest of the nation.

As far as your conclusions go, I think you should expand them if anything. Ideally, they would be a composite final thought based on all the ideas received in the week's mailbag. But I know how tough it is to fill it every week, since it's similar in many respects to my own Latest Excuse box. So keep on truckin', GiS.

ps. I feel like a hypocrite for dissing Zeth's long letters and then writing my own long letter. Oh well, rules were made to be bent.

--SimonBob

Utility-wise, they really needed a condiment carrier of sorts. When Rock Candyin', teleporting to Scaraba/Twoson and buying them one at a time was just a pain in the...foot.

And since the Runaway Five were always a bit short on dinero, why didn't they just use their shaggin' wagon as a decked out taxicab?

I think it would have been appropriate if Paula's name would be added to the phone list at the end of the game. That way Ness could just stay home & chat after he ordered a pizza.

--Cabeza





Can you name one single real-life service that provides delivery of condiments? :/

Then again, this is EarthBound we’re talking about.

~GiS

First of all, I would like to say that I am now fully recooperated after that Pac-Man incident...ahem.

EarthBound is no doubt an "off the beaten path" RPG, and phones were just one of the many inventive ways this was shown. Phone uses ranged from saving, to making club reservations, to ordering pizza, but with only five numbers in his contact book, Ness never used the phone very often. This was disappointing, because of all the phone services that ARE offered in modern times. To begin, Ness could have called a psychic hotline which could have:

a) Told Ness where he needed to go next. This could have essentially replaced the hint man, since nobody used him anyway, but they would have had he been a mock up of Ms. Cleo.

b) Given fun little fortunes at different parts of the game which would have put more humor in the game.

Either way, the running rate would be upwards of $50 a call, because everyone knos getting in touch with celestial beings is no mean feat.

Another great phone service could have been calling people who aided you on your quest (i.e. Apple Kid, etc.) It seemed annoying to me that during the middle of thwarting Spinning Robos, Apple Kid would give Ness a ring like he was not doing anything at the moment. However, Apple Kid had purposely only given you a Receiver Phone, so that you could not interrupt him while he was doing important work. AT any rate, the ability to call various people you meet (The Captain, Everdred, and maybe a Mr. Saturn) could put a new twist on the game and even develop some good side quests.

To put a new aspect into the game entirely, they could put in a stock market. This would mean building banks which would handle transactions, and make going to an ATM machine less awkward ("Ok, all four of us need to jam into this ATM room so I can get some money for a Peanut Cheese Bar!") What does all this have to do with the phone? Well, you could call the bank to get stock prices on the go, so that way you would know if you needed to make a stop there to earn big bucks.

However, many of the suggestions above are added features, and are not found in EarthBound. However, there are still numerous places you could have called in EarthBound:

Chaos and Topolla Theatres (for seat reservations) Onett Police Force (hear news about the Sharks and where the new roadblocks will pop up) Stores (perhaps stores might occasionally run out of a certain item. The phone could serve to preorder the item, or see if it has arrived in stock yet)

And of course, there would be a vast majority of other prospects already included in the game that could make ample use of the phone system.

In short, the phones could have been used for a lot of things, but maybe it was better that it was not. This kept the game more "plot-focused" (or as much as EarthBound could be) as opposed to headin out for side quests every five minutes. I suppose both methods could have been great, but only if implemented correctly. If anyone could have implemented it in a spectacular manner, it would have been APE.

--soursurfer





The stock market idea has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. That would be so cool for an EarthBound hack.

~GiS

WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CALL THE HINT GUY!!

Think about it. You'd call a 900 number, pay $20 for every ten seconds you look at the message, and you'd get some vague junk that doesn't really help. How cool would that be?

And we should be able to prank call people. Like Pokey's parents (I can't remember their last names).
Pokey's Dad: Hello? Who is it?
Ness: ...
Pokey's Dad: I can tell by the way you breathe that you owe me money. It could be a thousand dollars, or more!
Ness: ...
Paula: Hee hee.
Jeff: What if someone catches us?
Pokey's Dad: I WANT MY MONEY!! .

That would be fun. Really fun.

--Crono





Heh, I think that prank-calling is as EarthBoundy as it gets. Especially pranking enemies, how cool would that be?

~GiS

Hey GiS,

Phoning home (and for pizza and such) is great and really cool, but it's a little out of date. I think it should have cell phones where you can call anyone in your phone book, including Paula's parents, Poo's guardians, Jeff's friend, Dr. Andonuts, Apple Kid, etc. And each time you meet them you can store their number in your phone book.

More specifically, I think you should be able to go to hotels and reserve nights, and if you don't you don't get to sleep there! What would be more realistic then that? And when someone is unconscious (sp?), you should be able to call the paramedics for an ambulance and instant medical help. Imagine, Poo gets knocked out and all you do is dial 911. Calling Dr. Andonuts or Apple Kid would give you info on the latest inventions and what to expect. And a Help Hotline would be cool, instead of the Hint Man. *grrr that evil Hint Man that overcharges*

Ahh, the possibilities being able to call people other than your mom. How cool would that be?

--PsiNess





Now, that would make so much more sense. How does the mangled body of an unconscious group member magically get to the hospital? On that subject, how come if you kill off a group member and leave them dead for days, the nurse still says that they were “just brought in”?

~GiS