Curate of Curiosities

If we're going to make a proper writeup of this Earthbound-inspired RPG, then we'll have to see how closely it adheres to it's inspiration, starting with their respective intros. In this respect, I think that it's just one of the ways that this game wears it's inspiration on its sleeve.

Earthbound started with you being woken up in the middle of the night, then climbing up to the top of a hill with your next-door neighbor to see a meteorite, and finding out from a talking bug that you are the chosen one and it is your quest to save the world.

Its predecessor, Earthbound Beginnings, wasted no time in establishing just what you're in for: mere seconds after you start, you are attacked by an animate lamp in your own bedroom! What stands out here is that you are initially given no explanation as to how or why this happened; all you are told is that you need to discover the extent of the powers that you inherited from your great-grandfather, before being sent out into the world to deal with the hordes of ravenous wildlife that want you dead. However, it established two things, one, that there's a paranormal threat affecting small-town America, and two, that you have special powers that can be used to deal with it.

So how does this game's opening stack up?

First, you have a flashback to Alicia, the main character, helping her niece Dottie with a monster that has gotten into her house. It serves to establish the existence of psychic powers and paranormal horrors, just like in Earthbound, but also the bond that Alicia shares with her niece.

We are then given a montage featuring other characters that we will meet over the course of the adventure, notably including both party members and villains.

Then the story begins for real. Alicia is on her way to the town of Daybreak, but her driver acts like there's never been a town where she's going, just a rest stop.

And sure enough, when you reach the end of the road, all you see is a sheer cliff face. Of course, Alicia was expecting a town here, not a Looney Tunes gag, so this has to be more than just a simple wall. Just a little bit of psychic hocus-pocus and...

Boom. Now there's a door.

Now we're in some kind of red landmass with eyeball trees floating in a starry void.

Those look more like the monsters that harrased Dottie earlier.

And here's our first battle! We've got a rat with some kind of parasitic infection and a possessed lamp. (Hey, just like Earthbound Beginnings!)

Fortunately for Alicia, bats are very effective against both parasites and vermin.

The lamp, however, could prove to be a problem. Sure you could easily shatter the lamp, but the incorporeal entity inhabiting it, not so much.

Good thing that we have a Psi Pulse attack that's effective against ghosts.

Defeating the monsters causes them to leave behind a...10 yen coin? I never really pegged the creatures from beyond the veil as collectors of foreign currency.

Not unlike in Pokemon, monsters come in a number of types, with different strengths and weaknesses. The infected rat we fought just now is a Creep type, while the lamp with an indwelling poltergeist is a Spectral type, which explains why bats don't do much damage to it.

There's a door right ahead, which leads us to a pitch-black room.

An unexpected guest...one who appears quite strained! What's the matter, dear visitor?

What's this? Someone showing concern rather than hostility?

In whose realm has Alicia encroached upon?

That of some kind of monstrous, four armed sea lamprey.

This is Elothu. He is one of the Evocations, god-like entites that reside in a realm outside our normal reality. Fortunately, he is willing to not only offer us his aid, but direct us to one of his comrades who is stationed in Daybreak proper.

It isn't long before Alicia finds herself in another fight.

This time, there are three enemies, and although we should be more than capable of dealing with them on our own, our new partner has a different idea.

With that, Elothu empowers our Psi Pulse, giving it a health draining effect.

This mouth-shaped pool of water may seem unsafe, but is actually a healing spring.

And we've finally made it to Daybreak proper. As you would expect from a place that's been erased from the public consciousness, it's not any safer than the place we just left.

You are prompted at this point to select your difficulty. The very first time I played this game was on Lucid Dream difficulty, so this time around, I'll pick the next difficulty up. Hopefully, this won't make things too aggravating.

And that was the first 15 minutes or so of this game. You can expect future pages on this game to cover much more content at a time.