Hot Coffee, Haggard Censors
In today's Grand Theft Automated world, it's a little weird to think of EarthBound as a game in which most people wanted desperately to skip the hot coffee scenes. Even without taking the obvious reason into account--the main characters are thirteen, for goodness' sake--a cursory glance at Tomato's seminal M2EB will tell you everything you need to know about Nintendo's position on sex and violence, circa 1995.
To summarize... well, Grand Lend Rickshaw: Vital City would be a lot less provocative than the version that actually came out, for one.
Those on the outside of the EarthBound Obsession Field often fault EarthBound for its pedestrian story, but given the restraints under which Itoi and company worked it's a wonder they managed what they did. Consider: the characters were young, so there's little FFVII-level angst to be wrought, or Star Ocean romance to visit upon them. (Think about it; Ness's probably only a year or two past receiving daily Cootie Shots.) Even if they had wanted to make Ness and Paula denizens of Hot Topic, rather than the Osh Kosh B'Gosh outlet, they would have had trouble. Not only is it difficult to display ready-made-vintage t-shirt slogans on sprites ten pixels across, but come now--the censors took out the crosses, do you think they'd let Ness wear a "My Bloody Valentine" wristband and spend the entire game crying?
And then there's the matter of, er, crying; see, it requires... well, dialogue, generally.
"Ness, why are you crying?" Paula asked.
"..."
"That's horrible!"
See? It doesn't have a lot of emotional gravity, and since the game's writers very consciously went for the silent protagonist approach, they could only show Ness's character growth through other people. If Ness suddenly pierced his nose and replaced Mr. Baseball Cap with Mr. "...Trails of the Dead" Beanie, I'd at least like to know why.
So, rather than get into another tired debate about Jack Thompson next time CNN runs a stock clip of Grand Theft Auto and talks about the moral decay of entertainment, think instead about the constraints the developers of EarthBound worked under to deliver a decent story. And try the tea, instead, it's got a little less double entendre.
In today's Grand Theft Automated world, it's a little weird to think of EarthBound as a game in which most people wanted desperately to skip the hot coffee scenes. Even without taking the obvious reason into account--the main characters are thirteen, for goodness' sake--a cursory glance at Tomato's seminal M2EB will tell you everything you need to know about Nintendo's position on sex and violence, circa 1995.
To summarize... well, Grand Lend Rickshaw: Vital City would be a lot less provocative than the version that actually came out, for one.
Those on the outside of the EarthBound Obsession Field often fault EarthBound for its pedestrian story, but given the restraints under which Itoi and company worked it's a wonder they managed what they did. Consider: the characters were young, so there's little FFVII-level angst to be wrought, or Star Ocean romance to visit upon them. (Think about it; Ness's probably only a year or two past receiving daily Cootie Shots.) Even if they had wanted to make Ness and Paula denizens of Hot Topic, rather than the Osh Kosh B'Gosh outlet, they would have had trouble. Not only is it difficult to display ready-made-vintage t-shirt slogans on sprites ten pixels across, but come now--the censors took out the crosses, do you think they'd let Ness wear a "My Bloody Valentine" wristband and spend the entire game crying?
And then there's the matter of, er, crying; see, it requires... well, dialogue, generally.
"Ness, why are you crying?" Paula asked.
"..."
"That's horrible!"
See? It doesn't have a lot of emotional gravity, and since the game's writers very consciously went for the silent protagonist approach, they could only show Ness's character growth through other people. If Ness suddenly pierced his nose and replaced Mr. Baseball Cap with Mr. "...Trails of the Dead" Beanie, I'd at least like to know why.
So, rather than get into another tired debate about Jack Thompson next time CNN runs a stock clip of Grand Theft Auto and talks about the moral decay of entertainment, think instead about the constraints the developers of EarthBound worked under to deliver a decent story. And try the tea, instead, it's got a little less double entendre.
