The Arsenal - Ness and His Friends (EarthBound)

Welcome to The Arsenal, where we highlight the best weapons and items a character can carry. In this entry, we’re taking a trip to Eagleland as we analyze the best weapons and items used in the SNES role-playing game EarthBound by the game’s main characters, Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Kai. (I refuse to call him Poo, so since “Kai” is one of the other default naming choices for the character, I will use that instead for the duration of this article.) Since most of the items in the game don’t have pictures attached to them, some generic pictures from Google Images will stand in for most of them.

So, what does Ness carry in that backpack of his? Let’s find out.

Here is The Arsenal of Ness and His Friends from EarthBound.

=

 

Best Weapon for Ness – Gutsy Bat

Obviously a big fan of baseball, Ness utilizes baseball bats as his weapon of choice and the best of these is the Gutsy Bat. While the Legendary Bat is technically stronger, with 10 extra bonus attack points than the Gutsy Bat, this bat also drastically increases the Guts stat for Ness, increasing the chance for critical hits. The Casey Bat is also way stronger than the Gutsy Bat, but it also misses most of its attacks. Having the strongest weapon in the world won’t do any good if you can’t hit anything with it. Sometimes, reliability beats out raw power.

Best Weapon for Paula – Holy Fry Pan

By far the strongest weapon for Paula, this piece of clobbering cookware also increases Paula's chance for critical hits by increasing her Guts stat by a few points. Aside from that, frying pans just seem to be a common choice for a good improvised weapon, as zombie games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising can attest to.

Just don't try actually cooking with them afterwards.

Best Weapon for Jeff – Gaia Beam

As the group scientist, Jeff has more of a preference for guns and high-tech weapons and this (presumed) laser gun is the strongest among them. After some work with a broken antenna and probably some other materials, Jeff can create the most powerful weapon in his arsenal. While it doesn't give him any additional stat boosts, it never misses. Whether that is because this is such a good weapon or because Jeff is such a good shot isn't that clear, but what is clear is that arming Jeff with the Gaia Beam will add some power to your party.

Best Weapon for Kai – Sword of Kings

Kai doesn't always use weapons. Having trained his body and mind in his distant homeland of Dalaam, he feels more comfortable using his own fists or his PSI powers during a battle. When he does wield a weapon however, the Sword of Kings is his weapon of choice. Though it's mostly because it's his only weapon, it does give him a little extra power during a fight.

(This next item is represented by the PK Yomega, an actual EarthBound yo-yo on sale on Fangamer. #NotSponsored)

Best Weapon for Any of Them – Combat Yo-Yo

While the previous entries talked about weapons that were exclusive to their specific characters, this entry talks about weapons that any of them can use. All four playable characters in EarthBound can equip a small variety of yo-yos or slingshots, but the best of them is the Combat Yo-Yo, having the highest stats of any of the other non-exclusive weapons. However, Kai's attack power decreases whenever he equips this or any other yo-yo, so, best to just focus on the other three with this one.

Best Attack Item – Bag of Dragonite

Known as Dragon Powder in the Japanese version, this item can transform the user into a dragon to unleash a powerful attack. This attack is so powerful in fact that it can even inflict damage on one of your allies if they're standing too close and the only enemy this doesn't work on is the game's end boss, Giygas. Dragons are well-known to be powerful creatures, so being able to become one and plow through enemies makes this a definite ace-in-the-hole for these adventurers.

Best Worn Defense Item – Franklin Badge

Found before Ness's battle with the Happy Happyist Cult to save Paula, the Franklin Badge is able to reflect lightning based attacks back towards their sender, which is good not just for Ness's fight against the cult's leader, but against any other character that uses lightning attacks. Over the years, it has become such a well-known part of the Mother universe, it was even made into an item in the Super Smash Bros. fighting games, now able to reflect any energy-based attacks, lightning or otherwise. That is one powerful shield.

Best Carried Defense Item – Super Plush Bear

Speaking of shields, this pumped-up teddy bear works better as one than you would otherwise think. In EarthBound, this plush toy is able to absorb damage from enemy attacks in place of the characters. It works a bit like the Substitute move in Pokemon, where a generic Poke Doll stands in for the actual Pokemon and just takes all the damage for a short time until it breaks.

Best Key Item – Sound Stone

Given to Ness close to the beginning of the game, the Sound Stone is one of the most important items in the game. Over the course of the game, the Sound Stone will collect melodies from the My Sanctuary locations that Ness and company will find throughout their adventure. After collecting all of them, he will be transported to the land of Magicant and come back with his inner potential unlocked. This item's purpose is basically to be a huge power-up for Ness in preparation for his fight with Giygas.

Best Jeff-Exclusive Item – Multi Bottle Rocket

Jeff is the only member of the main group with no psychic powers, but he makes up for it by being a mechanical genius able to use things that the other group members have no idea how to work. He has several items in the game that can only be used by him and the most offensively powerful of these is the Multi Bottle Rocket. Displayed in Super Smash Bros., where Jeff appears as an assist character, after Jeff activates this item, multiple fireworks rockets shoot up into the sky before flying down into an enemy and exploding, like small heat-seeking missiles.

Best Status Effect Item – Cup of Lifenoodles

An item that can revive dead or fainted characters is perhaps one of the best status effect items you can find in a video game. For EarthBound, that comes in the form of the Cup of Lifenoodles. Not only does this instant noodle dish bring back unconscious characters, it also cures any other status effects that characters could have. From poison to paralysis and even unconsciousness, this meal can cure it all.

(Believe it or not, this is an image from the EarthBound game guide. Yes, I have a copy.)

Best Enemy-Specific Item – Jar of Fly Honey

For this entry, we have an item that is used to help defeat a specific enemy. Found in Threed, the Jar of Fly Honey is used to help defeat the boss Master Belch. It happens to be his favorite food and if the heroes carry a jar into battle and toss it to him, he'll be too distracted eating it to fight back, so they are just free to beat the blob down and the fight will be an easy win.

Best Food for Ness, Paula, and Jeff – Kraken Soup

As expensive as this stuff is, it better be good.

This food item can be found at the restaurant at the beach-side resort town of Summers. It is the most expensive item on the restaurant's menu, but it's worth the price as eating it will fully restore all the HP for whoever of these three eats it, making it a very nice item to have as they're going on with their adventure. Hope they have some good thermoses to pack it in.

(Pictured: My best guess as to what this item looks like.)

Best Food for Kai – Brain Food Lunch

Another quirk between Kai and the rest of the EarthBound kids is that as he is not used to Western culture, any food he eats only recovers a standard amount of his health when eaten regardless of how much health anyone else recovers. The same does not apply when it comes to Eastern food such as this filling meal. Known as the Satori Lunchbox in the Japanese version, if Ness, Paula, or Jeff eat this meal they do recover a large amount of health, but for Kai, he recovers twice that. Make sure to pack plenty of these along with that Kraken Soup when facing a big boss.

Best Condiment – Jar of Delisauce

In EarthBound, condiments can be added to certain food items to increase their nutritional value, and with that, how much HP or PP they can recover. They include items like ketchup, salt, cream, sugar, and this special Eastern sauce. Found in a restaurant in Dalaam, this sauce can be added to any food and boost its effectiveness, where as the other condiments can only be added to certain foods. Versatility is the key here and it probably says something about how good this sauce is.

Best Medicine – Secret Herb

Remember how the Cup of Lifenoodles is able to cure any status effect, even waking up unconscious party members? This item is exactly like that except it's medicine instead of food. Not to dip into the realm of theories, but the Cup of Lifenoodles might even have some of these secret herbs mixed in with it. There is another medicine item called the Horn of Life that can do the same thing, but the Secret Herb is a little easier to get a hold of, so this item wins the slot.

=

What did you think of this article?  What EarthBound items did you think deserved a highlight? What characters do you think have an arsenal worth showing off? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!

10 Nintendo Series That Could Use Adaptations in Other Media

In an article I wrote a long while ago on a video game review site, I talked a lot about Nintendo and the difficulties they were having with their public image (and in a way, still are having). Some of the topics mentioned were how the Wii U has been doing this console generation, the scarcity of Amiibo figures, and their handling of Let’s Plays on YouTube. Towards the end of the article, I mentioned a comparatively minor issue, but one that stands out when you think about it.

Except for the Pokemon series and character cameos in movies like Wreck-It Ralph and Pixels, Nintendo doesn’t really do much with their characters and franchises outside of video games. Movies, TV shows, comics, official merchandise; there was a flood of it in the 80s and 90s and still a little bit in the early 2000s, but now, the flood has slowed down to a trickle. Seeing these franchises and their characters in other ways besides just the games can expand the influence these characters have on pop culture.

For this article, I will try to figure out just how some of Nintendo’s big franchises would work with adaptations to other kinds of media. I’ll be focusing on three main types: movies, TV shows/anime, or comic books/manga, how they would be presented in these mediums, and how likely they may or may not be for certain mediums.

1. Super Mario Bros.

When it comes to Nintendo properties to adapt, this would probably be one of the most obvious. Super Mario is so big that even people who don’t play video games have at least heard of it.  This franchise has already had comics, a few animated series, and that one movie from the 80s, but with a new age, people are probably ready for new adaptations. It has a basic story of two heroes (Mario & Luigi) rescuing the princess (Peach) from a monstrous villain (Bowser) in a magical land filled with magical power-up items, a wide variety of landscapes, and crazy creatures.

As long as producers don’t tweak the setting too much, like they did with the 80s movie, an animated Super Mario Brothers movie or show could work in modern times. As far as something like a comic goes, Archie Comics already has comic book series based on Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. It may not be too much of a stretch to imagine them producing a Super Mario comic series.

2. The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda is another obvious one that we may get from Nintendo if they decide to adapt their properties. The game is a story about a battle between good and evil in a medieval fantasy kingdom and a story like that could easily be adapted to movies or TV, especially in this day and age with works like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones being such big successes and Warcraft being one of the latest video games to get the summer blockbuster treatment.

I won’t say much about comics here since, in a way, it already has some recent comics in the form of the manga adaptations by Viz Media. Not all of the games have been adapted (no Twilight Princess or Wind Waker for example), but some of them have. In those Viz manga though, the writers give Link a bit more of a personality besides the silent protagonist from the games and speaking lines to match beyond his usual grunts and yells. If the producers of a movie or animated show decide to have Link talk, they may want to take some notes from these manga.

3. Metroid

As one of Nintendo’s more mature and action oriented series, the story of intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran seems like a perfect fit for a summer blockbuster or an action-packed comic series. Seeing Samus Aran in live-action exploring a planet and battling monsters with her Power Suit’s various weapons would be a big treat for viewers, whether they’re fans of the Metroid series or they just love action movies. As a TV show, it may not work as well. The Metroid series up to this point has mostly had Samus as its only prominent character, so producers would have to change a lot about it to make it work. Not to say that a Metroid TV series would be a bad idea, but there would be some changes that fans would have to accept.

4. Star Fox

Star Fox would probably be one of the best Nintendo properties to adapt. The game is about the Star Fox team, led by Fox McCloud, piloting their Arwing space jets to fight against the forces of Andross and other forces that threaten the peace of the Lylat System.

As one Internet reviewer pointed out, a Star Fox movie would be an action filled space fight story, like a sci-fi version of Top Gun starring anthro animals. A premise like that would easily work as a TV show or a comic book as well. They could have Andross as the main villain for the first movie or the first season, then bring in other villains or create new ones for the team to fight in subsequent ones.

5. EarthBound

EarthBound, known as Mother 2 in Japan, could make for an interesting animated series. Colorful and lighthearted on the surface, but with a deep story and dark themes underneath, the general story is about a brave kid with psychic powers going on an adventure in the modern world to save it from an alien menace, helping people along the way and meeting up with other kid heroes, meeting up with other kid heroes and helping out people along the way. It could be worked as a sort of cross between Adventure Time and Teen Titans, with focus on both the different environments and action-packed combat.

6. Animal Crossing

The Animal Crossing games as they are would probably make an okay slice of life series. You’re a person moving to a quiet forest town inhabited by different animals, and become the mayor of the town if you’re playing New Leaf, but otherwise, there’s no real plot. The games continue with you making friends with the townsfolk, participating in town events, improving the town, and generally enjoying small town life. A manga or comic could even be possible with this kind of premise. This, however, may not make for a very interesting movie unless things were changed or characters are added to create a type of conflict.

7. Kid Icarus

The way Kid Icarus is presented with its recent game Uprising, it seems good for just about any kind of adaptation. With another story pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil, the flights through the sky our angelic hero Pit takes when assigned a task by Palutena followed by his traveling on the ground towards his objective are filled with action and the dialogue between Pit and Palutena or the several other characters in the story has lots of humor and personality. The basic plot is simple enough that kids and younger teens can follow it without a problem and the personalities of the different characters in the plot are complex enough that older teens and adults can still be engaged by them.

8. Fire Emblem

This may actually be one of the tougher series to adapt and still keep original. Focusing on a war between different kingdoms in a medieval fantasy world in its different incarnations, Fire Emblem places focus on the interactions between different characters as they fight through different battles. The problem here may be in how people not familiar with the series may see it. With its setting it can easily be compared to other medieval works, like Game of Thrones or Nintendo’s own Legend of Zelda series. If a producer doesn’t emphasize how it is different from these other works, it may be seen as a copy of these other series. An adaptation of Fire Emblem can still potentially be good, but a studio would have to really work at making it stand out.

9. Xenoblade Chronicles

This is a game series that may be hard to adapt, into a movie anyway. For a TV show or a comic, it might work, but not for a movie. It has a very deep story and engaging characters, but that may be the problem. The Xenoblade games have such long stories that stretch over such a long time period that adapting them to movies would mean cutting out significant portions of it or splitting it up anthology style. An anime series or manga would probably be able to tackle this without sacrificing too much of the story.

10. Splatoon

As Nintendo’s most recent big hit, a lot of people are talking about Splatoon. The game turned shooters upside down with its non-traditional gameplay, eccentric characters, and colorful atmosphere (figuratively and literally). The game is split between two different gameplay compnents: the single-player mode and the online multiplayer mode. In multiplayer, you have two different teams competing against each other in Turf War battles or other game modes. In single-player, you guide your character through several different stages to recover the Great Zapfish stolen from the city of Inkopolis before the city runs out of power. Whether an adaptation focuses on one of these or a cross between both, Splatoon could make for an interesting anime, comic or western animated show.

These are only ten of various Nintendo series that Nintendo has available to work with and there may be a follow-up article here discussing more Nintendo series. What do you think? Which Nintendo series do you think should expand outside of video games? Let me know in the comments and thanks for coming.