EarthBound

EarthBound, originally released in Japan as is a 1994 role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. (now Creatures Inc.) and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The second entry in the Mother series, it follows a young boy named Ness and his party of Paula, Jeff and Poo, as they travel the world to collect melodies from eight Sanctuaries in order to defeat the universal cosmic destroyer Giygas.

EarthBound had a lengthy development period that spanned five years. Its returning staff from EarthBound Beginnings (1989) included writer/director Shigesato Itoi and lead programmer Satoru Iwata, as well as composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, who incorporated a diverse range of styles into the soundtrack, including salsa, reggae, and dub. Most of the other staff members had not worked on the original EarthBound Beginnings, and the game came under repeated threats of cancellation until Iwata joined the team. Originally scheduled for release in January 1993, the game was completed around May 1994 and first released in Japan in August 1994, and in North America in June 1995. A port for the Game Boy Advance developed by Pax Softnica, bundled with Mother, as Mother 1+2, was released only in Japan in 2003.