Shattered Bound

I am a game collector who enjoys collecting and playing games. I enjoy looking at my collection, but there was one game that I did not have, but wanted to play so badly. That game was known as Earthbound. I would always hear from everyone about how it was one of the best RPG's for the SNES. My experience with the game though, was much different...

It all started with watching a playthrough of the game on youtube. I went online to look up information for it and I realized that Earthbound was a game I would love to get my hands on. It was a breath of fresh air from what I had been playing all year, medieval RPG's. Now, how was I going to get a copy of such an old game?

After a while of trying to find a good deal on Earthbound through the usual sites like ebay or amazon, I gave up and decided to wait for a better chance to get a good deal on the game.

There was a channel on youtube known as CornshaqGaming that I subscribed to. On this channel, Cornshaq would make videos of himself playing through some of the hardest games on the NES. After watching him over a couple of months he started to post videoes about wanting to trade for some games that he didn't have. One of the games that Cornshaq offered up for trade was Earthbound. I was very excited about this and immediately went to contact him. After some negotiating, I finally agreed to trade a couple of my rare SNES games for his copy of Earthbound. About a week later, the game arrived and I was excited! To my suprise, it was in perfect condition and the box came with it, something rare for an old game like earthbound.

I started to put the game in my SNES and turned on the power. The game started normally and I smiled as the staticy screen formed the words "The War Against Giygas". I decided to let the intro play out fully so I could enjoy it. As the intro began I noticed something strange though. All of the characters, including the main four had changed sprites—they were all modified to look sad. In fact, everyone in the intro looked depressed and carried a frown. I dismissed this as just the intro and moved on to start the game.

When I started my own file, I began naming my characters while Ness walked onto the screen He still had the same saddening look on his face that he did in the intro. When I named Paula, Jeff and Poo—I saw they too had that the same look.

Why did everyone look so depressed? ...Did the cartridge happen to get damaged?

After naming everyone, I saw the game start to scroll through Onett until it got to Ness's room. The meteor crashed and woke up my character. Unsurprisingly, Ness still looked depressed as I moved out of the room, visited my sister and got the cracked bat. She also had the same depressing expression as did my mom when I went downstairs to see her.

Was everyone in the game this way?

Despite everything that I had seen so far, the game ran perfectly fine and that was all that mattered for me. I was still able to talk to my mom as she had the same dialouge as she would have. I changed out of my pajamas and left the house. I went outside to also see the cops and everyone else with the same expression. I went to go talk to Pokey (as he was known as in the North American release of the game) and he lectured me on how I was bothering the police. After this, I walked home and talked to mom, then decided to go to bed in the game. The game continued as I went downstairs to answer the knocking door and talk to Pokey. After Pokey and King Joined my party, I left my house to go save Picky.

This is where things started to get strange.

Everything seemed fine up to this point—except for the enemies. Whenever Ness saw a enemy on the screen, the enemy would run away off the screen and disappear. I was unable to fight any of them, because even when cornered they would go through the walls to escape. They looked weird and gloomy as well, which made me impatient. I continued the game anyway without fighting.

After finding Picky and getting Buzz Buzz we started to climb down the mountain where we ran into the Starman Jr. I thought I was going to finally get to fight something so I could earn some experience points, but after Starman Jr threatened Buzz Buzz he disappeared too. Buzz Buzz just continued his dialouge as if there had been a fight anyway.

I was beginning to wonder if this was an anti-piracy measure. There was a possibility that I had traded for a pirated game.

Reguardless, I went to take Pokey and Picky back home to be punished. At their house, Pokey and Picky went upstairs once they were caught going out. Pokey's dad went upstars to scold the boys and an odd sound effect was suppose to play. Instead, I heard the sound of a young child crying.

It sounded like they were in distress.

After the scene where Buzz Buzz got smashed he began his final dialouge—though it was different this time. Before he faded away, he told me how I wasn't the chosen one and the whole world was doomed. I still got my sound stone though despite what he had said. Buzz Buzz acted as if there was a threat much bigger then Giygas and didn't even talk about him as he normally would. I left Pokey's house and travelled to Onett, only to see more depressed NPCs.

I decided to go to the drug store and buy what I needed, but I realized that I couldn't afford anything. All the enemies had avoided me up to now and I had no money, so I just left. I decided to go and confront the shark gang despite my low level and headed towards the arcade. Once again, The enemys around Onett avoided me as I continued playing the game up to Frank. The boss fight against Frank and the Frankystein were skipped, just like the Starman Jr fight.

I wondered if I was actually going to play the entire game without fighting anything!

I went to get the shack key from the mayor of Onett and climbed up Giant Step to see that the first guardian wasn't even waiting for me. I recorded my first location and headed back.

Just as I was about to leave Giant Step, I hit some sort of invisible object. A blue swirl appeared and it looked like my first battle was finally going to start. I thought I had discovered a super rare enemy because this scene didnt appear in the playthrough I watched. When the battle started, I saw what looked like a recoloured Smiling Sphere from the Dusty Dunes area. The enemy was coloured dark red and the battle message said "The Lost Innocence begins to form". The music playing began to creep me out as it was the same that played when Poo meditated in Dalaam. Letters on the screen appeared spelling out,

"W H E R E ' S J A C O B ?"

I began to attack and only caused a measly 2 damage. I then knew that something was definately wrong with the game I was playing.

The Lost Innocence talked to me when it was its turn saying "Where's Jacob?" with slow-moving text like Giygas did. It kept on repeating this over and over, during its turn. During my turn, all I could do was hit it for 1 to 2 points of damage. On the next turn, it repeated the same text again.

"Where's Jacob?" "Where's Jacob?"

After 10 minutes of trying to kill the thing I got bored and ran away from the battle. Who was this Jacob suppose to be? Was this suppose to be a rare easter egg?

The game continued to progess like normal, though the enemies were still not fighting me. During any boss fight the game would just skip it and move on as if it never happened.

I decided to just play through and see what would happen. I was still interested in finishing the game despite the fact I had traded a couple of really good games for this broken cartrige. I really should of gotten a refund at this point.

After the event with Captain Strong, I left Onett still disturbed by Buzz Buzz's message from the beginning of the game. Was this game going to end with the world falling apart thanks to my "piracy"?

Before entering Twoson, I got into another invisible encounter with "The Lost Innocence". The fight scene repeated itself with the "Where's Jacob" text and that creepy meditating music. I ran away hoping that I wouldnt encounter that thing again.

Upon entering town I really couldn't look around. This was probably due to me not having any money again, thanks to not being able to fight anything. I just decided to continue on with what was left of the game anyways. Applekid asked me for something to eat so I handed him the only edible item in my inventory, a Hamburger that I found in a trash can back in Onett. He then asked me for 200 dollars which i didnt have, so I thought all was lost now. Then I remembered all the items I had gotten through the game so I decided to go ahead and sell them. I barely made enough money to do this, but I was glad that I could continue the game. I then went to Polestar Preschool and listened to the music while I was inside the building.

While I was enjoying it's cheerful sounding tune, I ran into The Lost Innocence again inside the building! This time I ran away before it could repeat it's creepy text.

Was this thing stalking me?

It was invisible, you couldnt see it on the screen and I had NO IDEA who this Jacob was. Plus it was really starting to scare me.

I just continued on with the game towards Peaceful Rest Valley (while I wondered about that monster).

I entered Twoson and didn't look around much due to the lack of money. I decided to just try and continue on with the main game (as best I could.)

My next encounter with The Lost Innocence happened on my return trip to Twoson after having rescued Paula. I was trying to make it back to Twoson before I encountered that demon stalker.

I tried to run away as fast as I could, but just as I was about to leave Peaceful Rest Valley I bumped into him again.

The battle this time though was a bit staticy and I was unable to run away on my first attempt. On my second attempt though, I was able to successfully escape. I almost had enough of the game at this point.

I wanted to finish the game as quickly as possible. Naturally, that didnt work out for me due to the constant stalking.

I ran into The Lost Innocence in Theed only to have a screen that became more staticy. I needed four attempts to escape him while the "Where's Jacob" text became slower and slower. The more I tried to run the slower those words got.

Slowly the encounters became more and more difficult and more frequent—the game became unplayable!

When I entered Fourside and went to talk to the people there, what they said caused a shiver to go down my spine

"Where's Jacob?!"

Everyone in Fourside was asking me this same question! I was unable to enter the museum, or buy a ticket to go see the Runaway Five. I really couldn't do anything. After a while, I tried to go back to Threed; while being pursued by the Lost Innocence. I wanted to check to see if everyone there was still fine after I had fixed their zombie issue.

Of course everyone in Threed would ask the same question as they did in Fourside.

It took me over an hour to travel from Fourside to Onett because of the continuous encounters with The Lost Innocence. No matter where I went, everyone would ask me the same thing. Even my mom would ask me that question that I couldn't answer.

I finally had enough and decided to reboot the game. Hopefully this would fix the problem I was having. Thankfully, I saved my game at the Dusty Dunes shop, so I wouldn't have to backtack too far. I turned on my game to realize my save file had been deleted—much to my frustration. All that was on the file select screen was a level 93 save with the main character named as "Jacob". I then realized that "Jacob" may have been a previous owner of the cartridge I now owned.

I was shocked. I wound up inadvertantly starting a new game without even noticing the previous save file was there in the first place!

I was nervous to load the file up, but I wanted revenge on The Lost Innocence and this could have been a way to do it. Especially if he decided to show up again on this file. I slowly hovered my cursor over the file and began to load the game. What happened after that terrified me.

I was in Ness's house while his house theme was playing and he was alone without Paula, Jeff or Poo. The house was completely wrecked while the furniture and walls were mouldy. Everything looked like it was completely ruined. immediatly, I wanted to talk with my mom to see if she was okay. I wish I didnt... Right next to the staircase I saw what looked like a skeleton of my mom laying there.

...I nearly lost my cool and freaked out.

I needed to get out of the house as fast as I could before anything else wound up happening. When I left the house, the outside of the house looked like it needed to be condemmed. The grass was brown and lifeless while the trees looked bare and dried up. There was no music playing in the background and it was erially quiet. I left for Onett to see what had become of it.

As I approached Onett the town's music began to play, though it wasnt familiar. The tune was forced and it sounded like it was being played with very old instruments. It was so depressing that I felt like crying. No one was in town, just skeletons that were blocking the entrance to some of the buildings. What houses I could enter looked no better than mine. While I wandered around what was left of Onett a message popped up on my screen,

"Do I still have a purpose?"

After that message I got attacked by an old face again... The Lost Innocence.

This time though,the screen was complete static with unreadable letters. His color was now grey and the meditation music had been replaced with 'Gygas is Fatally Wounded'.

I was FINALLY able to dramage that thing properly! The only thing it could now do was just cry during its turn. After a couple rounds, it asked me a final question on the screen,

"Do I no longer have any purpose?"

I lost it and continued my attack with renewed vigor. I wanted it gone! Finally, after a few rounds of battle, another message popped up,

"...So I no longer have a reason to exist."

The Lost Innocence then disappeared and I was returned to Onnet without the victory notice. The game had denied me the victory to a long fought battle. On screen I was unable to move my character who just stood there. He stayed put for 20 seconds before the game itself froze and the screen went totally black. I tried to reset the game and nothing happened...

I tried to blow on the cartrige.

...Nothing.

The game appeared to have died and I was was unable to play Earthbound! I was glad my experience was over at least.

After calming myself down, I went onto youtube to tell Cornshaq that he had traded me for a hacked cartrige. He apologized to me for his error and and admitted that he didnt check the game before trading it. Opening the box would have possibly damaged it and that was worth more than the game itself was. As we discussed it, I began to tell him about what went on during my time with the game and what I had experienced. Cornshaq told me that somone walked up to him and handed him the box because he didn't care about such silly things anymore. He was surprised to see someone get rid of something this valuable, but he took it anyway. Cornshaq promised he would send me another copy of Earthbound if he ever got a hold of it.

Later on during the night, I went to put the game back in the box. Starting a small fire in my fireplace with a bit of wood and paper, I sealed the game back in its pristine box and tossed it into the blaze. I watched it burn to ashes.