Ness (EarthBound) was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 17 December 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into EarthBound. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

body.skin-vector-2022 .mw-parser-output .skiptotalk,body.mw-mf .mw-parser-output .skiptotalk{display:none}.mw-parser-output .skiptotalk a{display:block;text-align:center;font-style:italic;line-height:1.9}.mw-parser-output .skiptotalk a::before,.mw-parser-output .skiptotalk a::after{content:"↓";font-size:larger;line-height:1.6;font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output .skiptotalk a::before{float:left}.mw-parser-output .skiptotalk a::after{float:right}Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the EarthBound article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find video game sources: "EarthBound" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · TWL · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk

Archives: 1: 555 days

EarthBound has been listed as one of the Video games good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

EarthBound is part of the Mother series series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 1, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
April 3, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
April 13, 2008	Good article nominee	Not listed
July 9, 2014	Good article nominee	Listed
January 29, 2015	Good topic candidate	Promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 4, 2014. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that EarthBound's "religiously dedicated" fan base* translated its sequel when Nintendo would not, and brought the game's localizer into the media limelight?*
Current status: Good article

Video games: Nintendo High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Video games, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of video games on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Video gamesWikipedia:WikiProject Video gamesTemplate:WikiProject Video gamesvideo game articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is supported by the Nintendo task force.

This article was a past project collaboration.

This article has had a peer review which is now archived.

Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks:

Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks

AfDs

Koopa Troopa (3 participants)
Super Mutant (9 participants)
Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad (3 participants)
Police Trainer (0 participants)
Turboraketti (4 participants)
Beam Invader (2 participants)
Sephiroth (14 participants)
The Boss (Metal Gear) (1 participant; relisted)
Silfade (2 participants; relisted)
List of Fate/Grand Order characters (10 participants; relisted)
Balloon Brothers (2 participants; relisted)
Enigma Engine (3 participants; relisted)
ClanLib (5 participants; relisted)
Dan Gelber (game designer) (6 participants; relisted)

Merge discussions

Other discussions

No major discussions

GA Review[edit]

GA toolbox
Reviewing
Templates Criteria Instructions

This review is transcluded from Talk:EarthBound/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 20:12, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I remember this game, it was interesting. I'll leave down the some initial comments tomorrow morning.

Note: There are numerous "cite error"s in the references (I count seven), it would be more efficient if these were fixed before or during the review. Thanks! ☠ Jaguar ☠ 20:12, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oops—must have done that right before the nom. All fixed now. Thanks for the heads up czar ♔ 21:06, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for addressing them, doing the review now. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 20:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

Initial comments

Lead

"As Ness and his party of four, the player travels the world to collect melodies en route to defeating the evil alien force Giygas." - just a query here, most video game leads often start of with "the player assumes the role of [protagonist]...", would if be worth putting this in here? Such as the player controls Ness and his party of four or do you think it should be left like this? Just a suggestion?
"The game's expensive "this game stinks" marketing campaign was based on crude humor." - do you think it would be best to better describe this campaign by saying that it included 'scratch and sniff' advertisements in the lead?
The lead summarises the whole article well, complying per WP:LEAD

Development

"Its sequel, Mother 2, or EarthBound, was developed over five years[12] by Ape (later Creatures[13]) and HAL, and published through Nintendo." - how about something like Its sequel, Mother 2 (EarthBound outside of Japan) was developed over five years by developers Ape (later Creatures), HAL and published through Nintendo.
"The game was originally scheduled for release in January 1993 on a 12 megabit cartridge. It was finished around May 1994 and the Japanese release was set for August 27, 1994" - was there a reason why it got pushed back a year and a half? (delays etc)
"He worked alone, with great latitude, and in direct contact with the headquarters" - the Japanese or American headquarters?

References

There are no problems with the references other than a few citations are out of place - they should usually be at the end of sentences however this is no problem and it doesn't affect the GA criteria. The article is well referenced.

On hold

This article is beautifully written, I've read through it all and could not find any copy editing issues with the latter half of the article despite this review feeling short. It is well referenced and the prose is in good standing, showing signs of the GA criteria. Once those minor issues have been addressed this article will have a good chance at passing the GAN. I've also corrected a few minor problems myself, if it helps. Thank you ☠ Jaguar ☠ 21:00, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Jaguar, thanks for the review and the compliment—I appreciate it! I made a few changes from your suggestions and I think it should be good now. Some responses: I prefer the current phrasing of the lede sentences you mentioned. I'm aware of the precedents, but I'm personally not a big fan, especially when I find a better or more suitable way to phrase it. I'd keep scratch and sniff out so the lede can stay lean. No extra details on why it was delayed but it's usually due to bad estimates. If the delay was notable enough, someone would have published about it. I believe, though, that the citations were fine where they were. End-of-sentence cites often makes verifiability harder if the sentence is a mix of multiple sources. czar ♔ 21:21, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Close - promoted

The article now meets the GA criteria, thank you for the extra work! The lead summarises the article, the prose is of good quality and all the citations, like you said, are better off like they are. I agree with you on the current phrasing of the lead, it's better off the way it is and I wasn't sure myself if you liked my suggestions on the lead. EarthBound is also in depth and well focused, to be honest this article already looks like FA material as its cult status already has a lot of content. Just saying! Regards ☠ Jaguar ☠ 12:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate title[edit]

I played EarthBound on the SNES Classic Edition and noticed that it says "Earth Bound: The War Against Giygas!" on the title screen. Worth a mention in the article, perhaps? --85.164.241.158 (talk) 13:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@85.164.241.158 No, this is like a bit of info about the game. Not an alternate title. And I think the actual title screen shows bits of the gameplay, with the title "Earthbound" floating above. 100.4.161.76 (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Information[edit]

In the gameplay section of the article, it is stated that EarthBound uses random encounters, like MOTHER. This is not true, but I'm afraid I might be misunderstanding the use of words here. Anyone have an explanation? Club On a Sub 20 (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Road to FA[edit]

I'm considering potentially taking this article to featured article status in time for the teased, Christmastime Tim Rogers megareview. I'd be checking the ref changes since the 2014 GA review (has it really been a decade...), incorporating the ((Refideas)) sources above, and re-writing the § Gameplay section from reliable sources but if there is anything else sticking out that needs addressing before going to FA, wanted to start a thread here. czar 02:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]