This Essay Sucks
You will note that I have admitted, right up front, that this essay sucks. I acknowledged this in the title even before I wrote the article, so you know what you're getting, and you've been duly warned. Officially.
Let us first pause in references to the essay contest topics of yore that have gone on before us, making tonight's events possible for everyone. This first topic pertains to what I, personally, would do to make Mother 3/EarthBound 2 a success in North America where EarthBound was a failure. There are two excellent choices here:
1. Force everyone on the entire continent, from Howard D. Pulfinkle Jr., who lives in a mobile home somewhere in Ohio with his third wife, two young children, and stuffed eleven-point deer (Mr. Pulfinkle is very proud of this deer, which he hit with his Buick in 1989 while he was fishing around under his seat for a Slim Jim he dropped), all the way up to George "W." Bush III Jr., who lives in a large estate about 10 miles east of the ghettos of Washington, D.C., with his first wife (we're pretty sure), two daughters, and Maurice the sock puppet, who is rumored to be a distant relative of our beloved Fred the Sock Puppet, Ph.D., to play Mother 3/EarthBound 2© for 20 hours or until the warranty expires, whichever comes last. (EDITOR'S NOTE: THE PRECEDING HORRENDOUSLY LONG SENTENCE WAS WRITTEN BY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS WHO HAVE BEEN DRIVEN INSANE BY EXCESSIVE CHLORASEPTIC CONSUMPTION AND A CHIN THAT WILL NOT STOP ITCHING. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME.) This will be tricky to implement since it would require the services of several dozen professional assassins AND Xodnizel, who was last seen in Idaho allegedly building servers out of legos and rubber bands.
2. We don't. Yes, that's right: We let it be a commercial failure. Here's the rub: Think of every game in the past, oh, 6 or 8 years that has been a commercial success. You want Mother 3/EarthBound 2© to be anything like that? Heroine dressed the way Tengu Man© always envisioned Paula? Jeff, or whoever plays the "nerdy gadgets guy" role, cursing a blue streak and making frequent references to drugs and prostitution while he shoots a man in Threed just to watch him die? Or -- and I beg your forgiveness for ruining your night's sleep with this chilling imagery -- pokémon? No, the better option is to keep the darn game just as EarthBoundy as EarthBound was, sales be damned. Look, the mass market isn't going to buy EarthBound. It didn't in 1995 and it surely won't now. So why in the Middle Earth should we pander to what the "gullible moron segment" (technical term) wants in its video games? Yeah, that's the thing -- what's the point in getting the game released if it's the kind of video game the public expects here in (Liar, please insert the current year here. I seem to have misplaced my desk calendar. Thanks.)? If it's gonna get done, it's gotta get done right. See, that's the rub right there, that's why it hasn't been released. Itoi isn't gonna get it get mangled like that... right?
OK, Gallup poll data shows, with a 3% margin of error, that 98% of those polled believe they've heard plenty enough of topic one for this lifetime. Now let's very briefly ramble about topic 2:
Blah blah nobody cares about EarthBound around here anymore blah blah these teenagers today are horrible blah blah blah it's angst angst angst everywhere you turn blah blah blah what the hell happened to the IF board anyway blah blah and the rest of the forums too while we're at it blah blah #earthbound has sucked since the Reagan administration blah blah blah I sure wish reid were more active blah blah there just isn't enough content to keep updating blah blah blah.
(The preceding has been a special presentation of the Encapsulation of Every Article I Ever Wrote Concerning Starmen.Net. Thank you for tuning in.)
Starmen.Net is fine. Really, it is. It's doing great. Thanks for asking.
Now, as for topic 3, which, if your attention span is as short as mine and you need reminded what it is, is about showing EarthBound to your friends. Unfortunately, back when I was our age I only had two friends, and even that was too many: now, I take the zen approach followed by the renowned philosopher Wally for balancing work and personal life, to wit, having no friends and doing no work, hence, perfect balance. (As an aside, who thought up the phrase "to wit" anyway? Do you think the term "twit" somehow formed from this? Cite specific examples.)
Anyhow, since I don't have any interesting stories pertaining to showing EarthBound to my friends, I will need to resort to one of three tried-and-true Crunch Chronicles principles:
1. Make stuff up.
2. Tell irrelevant stories.
3. Tell irrelevant stories that I made up.
It was my old friend David Kenepp (you World of Warcraft players out there know him as TheNullifier: if you see him and you're not on his side, I would advise you to run, but it's already too late) who is filthy rich and purchased EarthBound when it came out, in the summer of 1995, and then he introduced me to it late that summer, in front of a little 14 inch TV out on the porch of my parents' camper in Gallitzin, PA. I'd never played an RPG in my life and had barely heard of one, but yeah, it was a cool game and I played it a ton and etc. You stopped reading this four lines ago, anyway, and I don't blame you.
So after the FBI started hanging around and David disappeared, I whacked his brother and took his EarthBound cart (no one's found the body to this day.) But alas, it was taken from me when I was betrayed by my ex-fiancée Clarisse, who rendered me unconscious with a fully loaded wine bottle to the forehead, took the EB cart, and ran off to elope with some Canadian guy with a wimpy French name like Pierre or something. But then they both got killed when an errant golf ball cracked the windshield of Pierre's BMW and they flipped into a ravine and burst into flames. The EB cart flew free, though, and landed in a passing train car that was transporting straw westward for some horses or something. After my painful breakup I'd taken to hitchhiking and sending out chain letters, and I happened to cross paths with my beautiful EB cart again in rural Tennessee. This was in 1996 and it took me until 1999 to find my way back to Pennsylvania, but it was all so worthwhile. I shared it with all my friends, which might be why I no longer have friends.
That reminds me: Have you ever THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION PENDING FURTHER REVIEW UNDER STATUE 8723064-B (CRIMINAL MEANDERING AND NONSENSE).
You will note that I have admitted, right up front, that this essay sucks. I acknowledged this in the title even before I wrote the article, so you know what you're getting, and you've been duly warned. Officially.
Let us first pause in references to the essay contest topics of yore that have gone on before us, making tonight's events possible for everyone. This first topic pertains to what I, personally, would do to make Mother 3/EarthBound 2 a success in North America where EarthBound was a failure. There are two excellent choices here:
1. Force everyone on the entire continent, from Howard D. Pulfinkle Jr., who lives in a mobile home somewhere in Ohio with his third wife, two young children, and stuffed eleven-point deer (Mr. Pulfinkle is very proud of this deer, which he hit with his Buick in 1989 while he was fishing around under his seat for a Slim Jim he dropped), all the way up to George "W." Bush III Jr., who lives in a large estate about 10 miles east of the ghettos of Washington, D.C., with his first wife (we're pretty sure), two daughters, and Maurice the sock puppet, who is rumored to be a distant relative of our beloved Fred the Sock Puppet, Ph.D., to play Mother 3/EarthBound 2© for 20 hours or until the warranty expires, whichever comes last. (EDITOR'S NOTE: THE PRECEDING HORRENDOUSLY LONG SENTENCE WAS WRITTEN BY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS WHO HAVE BEEN DRIVEN INSANE BY EXCESSIVE CHLORASEPTIC CONSUMPTION AND A CHIN THAT WILL NOT STOP ITCHING. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME.) This will be tricky to implement since it would require the services of several dozen professional assassins AND Xodnizel, who was last seen in Idaho allegedly building servers out of legos and rubber bands.
2. We don't. Yes, that's right: We let it be a commercial failure. Here's the rub: Think of every game in the past, oh, 6 or 8 years that has been a commercial success. You want Mother 3/EarthBound 2© to be anything like that? Heroine dressed the way Tengu Man© always envisioned Paula? Jeff, or whoever plays the "nerdy gadgets guy" role, cursing a blue streak and making frequent references to drugs and prostitution while he shoots a man in Threed just to watch him die? Or -- and I beg your forgiveness for ruining your night's sleep with this chilling imagery -- pokémon? No, the better option is to keep the darn game just as EarthBoundy as EarthBound was, sales be damned. Look, the mass market isn't going to buy EarthBound. It didn't in 1995 and it surely won't now. So why in the Middle Earth should we pander to what the "gullible moron segment" (technical term) wants in its video games? Yeah, that's the thing -- what's the point in getting the game released if it's the kind of video game the public expects here in (Liar, please insert the current year here. I seem to have misplaced my desk calendar. Thanks.)? If it's gonna get done, it's gotta get done right. See, that's the rub right there, that's why it hasn't been released. Itoi isn't gonna get it get mangled like that... right?
OK, Gallup poll data shows, with a 3% margin of error, that 98% of those polled believe they've heard plenty enough of topic one for this lifetime. Now let's very briefly ramble about topic 2:
Blah blah nobody cares about EarthBound around here anymore blah blah these teenagers today are horrible blah blah blah it's angst angst angst everywhere you turn blah blah blah what the hell happened to the IF board anyway blah blah and the rest of the forums too while we're at it blah blah #earthbound has sucked since the Reagan administration blah blah blah I sure wish reid were more active blah blah there just isn't enough content to keep updating blah blah blah.
(The preceding has been a special presentation of the Encapsulation of Every Article I Ever Wrote Concerning Starmen.Net. Thank you for tuning in.)
Starmen.Net is fine. Really, it is. It's doing great. Thanks for asking.
Now, as for topic 3, which, if your attention span is as short as mine and you need reminded what it is, is about showing EarthBound to your friends. Unfortunately, back when I was our age I only had two friends, and even that was too many: now, I take the zen approach followed by the renowned philosopher Wally for balancing work and personal life, to wit, having no friends and doing no work, hence, perfect balance. (As an aside, who thought up the phrase "to wit" anyway? Do you think the term "twit" somehow formed from this? Cite specific examples.)
Anyhow, since I don't have any interesting stories pertaining to showing EarthBound to my friends, I will need to resort to one of three tried-and-true Crunch Chronicles principles:
1. Make stuff up.
2. Tell irrelevant stories.
3. Tell irrelevant stories that I made up.
It was my old friend David Kenepp (you World of Warcraft players out there know him as TheNullifier: if you see him and you're not on his side, I would advise you to run, but it's already too late) who is filthy rich and purchased EarthBound when it came out, in the summer of 1995, and then he introduced me to it late that summer, in front of a little 14 inch TV out on the porch of my parents' camper in Gallitzin, PA. I'd never played an RPG in my life and had barely heard of one, but yeah, it was a cool game and I played it a ton and etc. You stopped reading this four lines ago, anyway, and I don't blame you.
So after the FBI started hanging around and David disappeared, I whacked his brother and took his EarthBound cart (no one's found the body to this day.) But alas, it was taken from me when I was betrayed by my ex-fiancée Clarisse, who rendered me unconscious with a fully loaded wine bottle to the forehead, took the EB cart, and ran off to elope with some Canadian guy with a wimpy French name like Pierre or something. But then they both got killed when an errant golf ball cracked the windshield of Pierre's BMW and they flipped into a ravine and burst into flames. The EB cart flew free, though, and landed in a passing train car that was transporting straw westward for some horses or something. After my painful breakup I'd taken to hitchhiking and sending out chain letters, and I happened to cross paths with my beautiful EB cart again in rural Tennessee. This was in 1996 and it took me until 1999 to find my way back to Pennsylvania, but it was all so worthwhile. I shared it with all my friends, which might be why I no longer have friends.
That reminds me: Have you ever THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION PENDING FURTHER REVIEW UNDER STATUE 8723064-B (CRIMINAL MEANDERING AND NONSENSE).
