OK after a lot of planning and consideration about how I should spend my month of July, I turned to some retro video games. More specifically something I haven’t played yet. Focusing on the 16-bit era helped in choosing the RPG I want to play. I wanted to find something challenging, that I could make even more difficult. Setting up rules I have to follow that are nor built into the game. More importantly, the game had to be amazingly creative. Obviously from the title of this post, I came across Earthbound for the Super Nintendo. This entire month of July is going to be boring, so I’m gonna challenge myself a little more with Earthbound. First, a little set up to what Earthbound is about. Story, gameplay, and characters. Yes, this will be spoiler free with just the basics of the plot. Earthbound is about a prophecy from ten years in the future that tells of a psychic boy and three of his friends that can save the world from an evil known as Giygas. The main protagonist and playable character you first control is Ness. He goes through eight levels of dungeons along this game to defeat Giygas. Along that journey, he meets three other kids/companions. Paula, Jeff, and Poo. Together they must defeat Giygas. Gameplay is standard turn based as an RPG with magic being replaced with psychic powers. You get an overworld view of everything in dungeons, towns, and cities. The random encounters aren’t all that random. You can quite literally see the enemy you’re about to fight on the overworld screen. Enemies consist of humans, super sized insects, animals, and sometimes in boss battles you will encounter enemies that SHOULD be inanimate. This game is filled to the brim with witty dialogue and challenging stages. So I asked myself, “how can I make this as difficult and sweat inducing as possible?” Here are the rules I”m going to follow as I play through Earthbound this month:
1. Must fight every animal and insect seen on the overworld screen
2. Can’t purchase healing items; must find them on my own

I think that’ll do, I may add rules as I go, but for now this challenge is gonna be called, “Crikey’! No food?!?!”

I’ll let you guys know how this goes at the end of the month