Developer: Ape & HAL Laboratory Platform: SNES The premise: Set in a modern United States suburbia, Earthbound is both a homage and satire of western culture. Main character Ness and his party must travel the world, collecting melodies in order to defeat the evil alien Giygas. It gets weirder: It's hard to pin down just one thing that makes Earthbound weird, because just about everything it does manages to subvert genre expectations. The real world setting is unlike any game before it, and it bursts with unconventional, goofy humour. Possibly the strangest moment of Earthbound comes in at the very end, during the climactic boss fight. In total contrast to the rest of the game, Giygas is absolutely terrifying, and suggestive of disturbing imagery that would be more at home in a mature survival horror.
