EarthBound (Mother)
Developed by Shigesato Itoi.
Core elements of Earthbound include:
RPG elements
PSI/PK (psychic) magic system
Earthbound Beginnings / Mother (1989)
During the early 1900s, a cloud forms over a small American town, during which a couple, George and Maria, are abducted. Two years later, George quietly returns, and begins a study of powers called PSI, while Maria was never to be found.
In the year 1988, Ninten, a young boy north of the city of Podunk, has his house wracked by a poltergeist. Upon defeating the poltergeist, his father calls and instructs him to go on an adventure to realize his PSI skills. He advises Ninten to find his great grandfather's diary left in the basement which eventually directs him to Magicant, a mystical world ruled by Queen Mary. Ninten is asked to travel to various towns and locations to find and collect Eight Melodies to complete a song.
Returning to the normal world, Ninten befriends a frequently bullied boy-genius named Lloyd, and a psychic girl named Ana who joins the party. In the town of Ellay, the fearsome leader of the Bla-Bla Gang, Teddy, attacks the group in the Live House, but soon becomes amiable after losing to Ninten and joins the party leaving Lloyd behind to rest. On Mt. Itoi, the party is attacked by a large robot R7038 but is saved by Lloyd in a tank. Teddy, however, is severely injured, forcing Lloyd to rejoin the team. The party continues to climb Mt. Itoi, and meet George's benevolent robot, EVE. Their quick ascent ends after EVE sacrifices herself to defeat an upgraded large robot R7038XX, however the wrecked EVE is revealed to contain a melody for Ninten to learn. At the peak of the mountain they find George's gravestone. Suddenly crystal fragments appear to teach Ninten the final melody. The party returns to Magicant to sing the full song to Queen Mary. She recalls the Melodies along with her adopted young alien child named Giegue, and reveals herself as Maria. Magicant, a result of her own conscience, disappears, along with Maria herself, leaving the children to face the alien threat at the summit.
At the top, Giegue reveals himself, expressing gratitude towards Ninten's great-grandparents for raising him, but reveals that George had stolen vital information that could be used against his race by hindering their plans. Giegue attempts to unleash an attack on the party, but the children sing the Eight Melodies to him. Giegue, recalling Maria and her motherly love, is overwhelmed by emotion, and departs from the Earth, vengefully promising to Ninten that he will return. The children free the captive adults from Mt. Itoi's summit; Ana is finally reunited with her missing mother; Teddy recovers and begins performing daily at the Live House in Ellay; the captive parents from Youngtown happily return to their children; Ana and her mother return to Snowman, with Ana promising that she, Ninten, and Lloyd will meet again; Lloyd returns to Merrysville and is treated as a hero by Twinkle Elementary School's students, effectively abolishing his bullied status; and Ninten returns home. Later on, Ana receives a letter from Ninten, expressing her wish to see him again upon reading it; Ninten then falls asleep in his bed now that the earth's crisis is over.
After the credits, his father calls, and while waiting for Ninten to answer, states that something has come up.
Earthbound / Mother 2 (1994)
Ness, a young boy from Onett who loves baseball, is awakened by a meteor that has plummeted to the earth near his home, whereupon he proceeds to investigate the crash site. When Ness gets to the crash site he discovers Pokey Minch, his friend and neighbor, who tells him to go home. Later, Ness is woken up again by Pokey knocking at his door, demanding help to find his brother Picky. They find him near the meteor sleeping and wake him up. The three encounter an insect from the meteor named Buzz Buzz who informs Ness that he is from the future where the universal cosmic destroyer, Giygas, dominates the planet. Buzz Buzz senses great potential in Ness and instructs him to embark on a journey to seek out and record the melodies of Eight “Your Sanctuary” locations (Giant Step, Lilliput Steps, Milky Well, Rainy Circle, Magnet Hill, Pink Cloud, Lumine Hall, and Fire Spring) to unite his own powers with the Earth's and gain the strength required to confront Giygas.
Ness travels to various towns and locations. He rescues a psychic girl named Paula from the Happy Happyist Cult and befriends a boy Jeff who is a mechanic and whose father Dr. Andonuts has a flying vehicle known as the Sky Runner. Both Paula and Jeff join Ness. The group discovers that Pokey is working against him. The three of them travel to Saturn Valley, a land populated by a strange race of creatures called Mr. Saturns. The group also meet a young prince named Poo from the far-off land known as Dalaam who was instructed to join them.
Upon activating the final sanctuary, Ness falls unconscious and enters a strange world composed of his dreams, Magicant. There, he encounters his nightmare. After defeating it, Magicant vanishes, and Ness becomes much stronger because he has conquered Giygas's influence over him. After awakening, Ness and the group return to Saturn Valley where Dr. Andonuts, has finished the Phase Distorter, a time-traveling device. Dr. Andonuts explains to the kids that the machine cannot warp them to the past in their current form since life cannot withstand the warp through time.
In other words, time travel would likely destroy their human bodies. To remedy this problem, Dr. Andonuts proposes to them to have their souls transplanted into robotic bodies, warning them that he doesn't know whether or not the process is reversible. Despite this critical warning, Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo are willing to take the risk. Now in the form of robots, Ness and his friends use the Phase Distorter to travel to the past where they encounter Pokey and Giygas, who, in order to contain his massive power, has been sealed inside the Devil's Machine.
Pokey informs the group that Giygas became so powerful that his mind was completely destroyed. The group defeat Pokey, who then shuts off the Devil's Machine and releases Giygas, trapping the kids in a chaotic dimension composed of his own indefinable being. Since Giygas is too powerful for Ness and his friends to overcome by fighting, Paula begins to pray, reaching out to the inhabitants of the Earth, including family members and friends, who all pray for their safety, and eventually, she reaches out to the player. The combined prayers of both Earth's inhabitants and the player reach Giygas and exploit his weakness, which turns out to be human emotions. As a result, Giygas vanishes from existence. with all the damage he had done to Eagleland and the rest of the Earth erased from history, the souls of Ness and his friends depart from their robot bodies, travel back to the present and return to their respective bodies. After bidding each other farewell, the heroes return to their homes.
After the ending credits, Picky Minch comes to Ness's house in the middle of the night and gives him a letter from Pokey that says "Come and get me loser. Spankety, spankety, spankety!”, with him and Ness pondering what has become of him.
Mother 3 (2006)
Some time after the events of Earthbound (Mother 2)
In the Nowhere Islands, twins Lucas and Claus and their mother Hinawa prepare to return home to Tazmily Village after visiting Hinawa's father, Alec, who lives in the northern reaches of the Islands. Before they can return, Tazmily Village is attacked by a mysterious military force known as the Pigmask Army, who bomb the nearby forest and start a forest fire. Hinawa's husband, Flint, is alerted to the fire and sets out to rescue his family. He finds Lucas and Claus, but discovers that Hinawa was killed defending them from a hostile Drago, a normally peaceful dinosaur-like creature. Later, Claus leaves the village to take revenge on the Drago; Flint attempts to follow him, discovering and defeating the Drago, which has been turned into a cyborg, but fails to find Claus.
In response to the Pigmasks' invasion, novice thief Duster is sent by Wess, his father and teacher, to the abandoned Osohe Castle to retrieve the mysterious Egg of Light. While there he meets the spirited young Princess Kumatora, but both he and the Egg are caught in a trap and vanish. At the same time a mysterious peddler known as Fassad, who works with the Pigmasks, introduces the concept of currency and sells television-like devices known as Happy Boxes to the townspeople, with the unwilling help of a monkey named Salsa whom he abuses. Salsa escapes from Fassad's control with the help of Kumatora, Lucas, and Wess.
Three years later, Tazmily Village has been taken over by the Pigmask Army, who have modernized it with railways, Happy Boxes, and other modern technology. Lucas hears rumors that Duster, who has been missing since leaving for Osohe Castle, is working as a bassist at the nearby Club Titiboo, and sets off with his dog Boney. While traveling there, he learns psychic powers from Ionia, who is a magic, benevolent, androgynous creature known as a Magypsy. At the club, he finds Kumatora working as a waitress, as well as Duster, who is suffering from amnesia. They join to recover the Egg and restore Duster's memory, but while attempting to board a flying Pigmask airship, a mysterious Masked Man shakes them off and sends them flying to the ground, separating them.
Lucas and Boney land in a haystack back in Tazmily, and learn from the Magypsies that beneath the Islands is a massive, sleeping creature known as the Dark Dragon. The Magypsies' purpose is to guard seven Needles that were placed in the dragon to control its power; whoever pulls most of the Needles will be able to use the dragon's incredible power to completely reshape the world. Because of this, the Masked Man is trying to find and pull the Needles. Lucas and Boney reunite with Duster and Kumatora and race to pull the Needles before the Masked Man. They race to visit all the Magypsies: Aeolia, Ionia, Doria, Phrygia, Lydia, Mixolydia and Locria—in order to pull the needles but only manage to pull three, with the Masked Man pulling another three.
The seventh and final Needle is located beneath New Pork City, the capital of the Pigmasks. Lucas and company travel there and meet Leder, another villager, who reveals that the inhabitants of Tazmily Village are the last survivors of a global apocalypse, who travelled to the Nowhere Islands as they were protected by the dragon's power. To prevent a second apocalypse from occurring, the survivors sealed their previous memories in the Egg of Light; Leder was given the role of revealing the truth if the situation called for it. He also reveals that the leader of the Pigmasks is Porky Minch, who travelled in time to the Nowhere Islands and began building an empire there, kidnapping inhabitants from other time periods to populate it, and transforming the local wildlife into twisted new forms.
Lucas and company set out to confront Porky and pull the last needle. While fighting their way to him, they discover that Fassad is Locria and was the Magypsy responsible for protecting the seventh Needle, who betrayed them and started working for the Pigmasks. The heroes confront Porky deep beneath New Pork City, but he seals himself inside an "Absolutely Safe Capsule" built by Dr. Andonuts; unbeknownst to him, however, Andonuts has tricked him, as the Absolutely Safe Capsule also renders the outside world safe by permanently sealing Porky within it.
Lucas reaches the seventh needle and confronts the Masked Man, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Claus. During the battle between Claus and Lucas, Hinawa's spirit speaks to the boys and begs them not to fight. This eventually causes Claus to remove his mask and commit suicide by casting lightning at Lucas's magic-reflecting Franklin Badge. Lucas pulls the final Needle, awakening the Dragon and destroying the Nowhere Islands.
In an epilogue set in pitch darkness, the game's cast reveals that they have survived and wish the player farewell.