Earthbound(Mother): 1 - Runaway Five! :)

Known as "Mother" in Japan, released in the U.S. as "Earthbound," this game series is an incredible one!

Ness is obviously an iconic character, maybe more so than the rest of the crew. In Earthbound, you're taken on an adventure RPG ride that is among the first of it's kind, yet still timeless!

Fighting takes turns and who goes first is ultimately decided by the game mechanics like your character's speed among other variables. Deciding what to do each turn could be your greatest accomplishment in a battle... or your demise. That is the beauty of these types of games though; It all comes down to what you decide. Don't worry though! If you do meet your "demise," you'll only black out and somehow end up in the lobby of the hotel at the last town you were in... No big deal! LOL

You'll use your psychic abilities along the way! These range from healing, to targeted damage, to group damage/healing/etc. There are psychic shields and various other abilities. Try out the game! You can find all of these out and enjoy yourself at the same time. :)

Items can be bought/found/won as you play through the game. There's a nice feature that will light up the character tile and make it blink, if the item you're currently hovering over is stronger than the one you currently have equipped. A useful feature for those who don't want to get too technical with the stats and comparing them. Understandable.

You earn money (For the most part.) indirectly, through your Dad. As you level up, beat creatures, move through towns and such, he will deposit money into your bank account! When you call him, he will tell you how much he's deposited, how much exp you need to get to the next level, and he is how you saved the game in the original version. (The emulator auto-saves for me now. A handy feature!)

Although the story will generally be the exact same for most games you play, the 2nd/3rd/4th/etc time you play them... but it has a decent replayability factor just about as good as most games do. This is enforced, in my opinion, by things like the damage of most things being a range as opposed to a static value. This means a part of your success (or failure), is in part due to luck and not skill. This is further fortified, again, in my opinion, by the added bonus of critical hits. When you get lit up by a critical hit, it can stop you dead in your tracks. Even if you're prepared for the most part, the tides can quickly shift and you can find yourself taking mortal damage, scrambling to heal before your health hits 0. (This game gives you time to act while your health is dropping down to 0! Pretty cool feature!)

All-in-all, every game has it's flaws and it's strong points and every person has their own criteria for what makes a game great or easy to come back to and still enjoy. This is just one of many games I will be covering, so if you're not on board with this one, don't worry, there will be many many many more. ;)

Among other encounters, you meet a jazz group known as the Runaway Five! You help them out and they help you get to Threed, one of the many towns in the game! This clip shows their performance. :)