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Well, despite this hack having some interesting features, I don't recommend playing it seriously. I played until the part where you fight the cops in the Onett police station. I stopped playing there because I was so early in the game and had already seen so many bad things that I felt it wouldn't be worth playing more. So...

THE GOOD:

• Enemies hit harder and are smarter, using new PSI skills to avoid being at a disadvantage.
• The need to use shield fits well with the increased difficulty.
• Unique sprites in the overworld, just like the MaternalRedux hack.
• Some QOL improvements like the omission of the Check and Speak options.

THE BAD:

• Remember when I said I stopped playing when I reached the fight against the cops? That's because you will start to notice the SMASH chances are very random and annoying in this hack. If you are unlucky, the enemy can SMASH you 2x or 3x in a row. Even if you use the correct strategy or if you are well prepared, it won't be enough if the game decides to SMASH you randomly.

THE UGLY:

• The author simply removed the red truck (a reference to Coke), which used to appear in Onett on the lower part of the city and was there even in the original US version. Here, it is simply replaced by the same white truck that appears in the upper part of the city. This initially doesn't seem like a big deal, but I checked the entire changelog and haven't seen this change being mentioned or a reason for it. This makes me start to think about what else the author could have done with other sprites in the game.

You either need to spam "PSI Flash Beta" or Brainshock everything you see, if it's possible. Personally, i didn't enjoy playing this rom hack because of it's "balanced" fights. For example, let's take "The Plague Rat of Doom" boss. Oh, look at that, it's attacking and your "Shield Enigma" won't do crap about it! + it's almost always smashes. It's probably mostly my issue, but i really didn't enjoy playing this rom hack. Wish me luck to even reach Giygas.

Most of the changes are awesome, but the balance is absolutely ruined. I'm halfway through and dreading playing any more because every single area is a grind now. Every single encounter is a chore and a massive drain on resources. It's just not fun.

I like the first bullet point of the romhack. "Game rebalanced to be more fair and less arbitrarily difficult." That point is a straight up lie. The game is way harder than normal EB.

Enemies are stronger while your useful PSI stuff gets nerfed and made more expensive. Have fun as you're now forced to grind each new area you encounter because the enemies are so heavily toned up in difficulty.

Earthbound already had decent balance and rather fair in its difficulty as long as you spent the time to grind a bit every now and then. I don't know how the developers of this hack screwed up the balance so badly while talking like they made the game more balanced.

Gave this a shot because I wanted to replay earthbound and felt like spicing it up with something a bit different. What a mistake that was. I just recommend maternalbound if you really want something fresh. It's got great QoL and doesn't butcher the game's balance like this hack does.

tl;dr: 0/10 | highly recommend against playing unless they revisit their idea of "balance."

I originally was lacking the patience and tried rushing through like in vanilla and complained to the point where this review was going to be nothing but negative, but with a better mindset and actually putting forth effort I realize that this was more or less the challenge I'm looking for. Still getting the hang of things right now and so far, the mod is good and the buffed difficulty is almost right. It really encourages you to use everything the game has to offer to come out alive during tough fights and use your items and abilities more wisely (hi shield). The grinding is a bit of an annoyance; slowing the pace of the game more than what I was expecting. I'm treating every single area like Belch's Factory and underneath the Tenda Village but without actually wanting to just grind them like crazy, because it turned into a 'need'. Great stuff and wanting to have this finished in about a week.

I know that this romhack has its flaws and I know a lot of people won't recommend but I believe in some ways this romhack is amazing regardless sure it's annoying to grind but at the same time vanilla earthbound is like a cake wake for those who want a challenge and it's not going to be their cup of tea I still think despite the flaws this an amazing romhack I love the callbacks to the original Japanese version and i like how some enemies who look tough but are a joke in earthbound actually pose a threat now and now you have to think wise and choose the right PSI

Every new area you have grind and grind, even some of the most basic enemies do too much damage. difficulty spikes are every 2 seconds, and you to cast lifeup about every battle. I do like challenging games, BUT in this game every fight is a burden. I do like the changes to everything else, like pk rockin being cheaper and jeff having a Tools option in battle, but the balancing of the enemies is CRAZY. If the game wasn't crazy hard it would be perfect.

I found this hack really refreshing, playing a version of earthbound where I had to put my brain to use more than you have to in vanilla considering how easy that game is. The new tools menu for Jeff let me get actual use out of them for once and Poo felt like a wholly new character and felt much more unique rather than just being a worse Paula until becoming a starstorm bot. All of the new PSI animations and sprite work were a treat as well and I got so much more use out of status effects than I ever did before. The better condiment system was also a nice change, though I'll admit I still didn't really use them, it's hard for me to justify spending the inventory space on them. This, unfortunately, does come with some snags, the balancing can feel wonky at times (which I am aware is getting improved upon for next version), making some fights feel very exhausting unless you get lucky with a debilitating status. I'm also not sure if I'm misremembering or not but the enemy spawn rate seems *much* higher than it was in vanilla and that was probably my least favorite part of the hack, there were just so many enemies in some dungeons it made traversing them really sluggish because of the enemies higher difficulty. Some of the instant kill's late into the game like PK Beam gamma also frustrated me, but that's not a problem I have with this hack exclusively, I just don't enjoy those kind's of moves in any rpg. Overall though I quite enjoyed this hack and am looking forward to 3.0 whenever that is finished.

About this hack... It's a mixed bag, i personally like the new content and changes that brings this game closer to its overall better sequel gameplay and story wise, and it's a very nice way to revisit Earthbound after you're done with the 3 games and want something new, bringing a new challenge and motivating those who had enough with the series to come back for more.

However, i do not recommend it to newcomers who are getting introduced to the series now, this is mostly a "better" version of the original game, which adds more content and fixes to bring more life to it with new animations and changes, however, a big portion of those changes are not beginner friendly, as they often add more challenge into the package, and that is not good for those who are starting with the series and want a fresh experience, as an example, the continuous attacks from Mother 3, they're supposed to be a mechanic introduced in the third game, and only those who played Earthbound first would enjoy that change because it's a creative way to differ from its previous, more simplistic game. In Sanctuary Bosses, the attacks deal more than enough damage to completely obliterate the HP of your entire party which makes the pressure absurdly big and rather unpleasant, like the Plague Rat of Doom fight.

Some fights are really difficult and require exclusive strategy to the hack itself to beat, as an example, i was stuck on the Shroom and stopped playing the hack for a while because of that, and i didn't know about the Neutralizer, so i had to go the discord server just to see how i could beat it, and that is too much over the top just to see how you can beat a boss in a hack that changes the strategy completely, which is devastating for those who played Vanilla first.

I suggest adding guides on how to beat bosses like the Shroom or the Clumsy Robot.

But that's fine, honestly, after i learned how this hack treats you with its challenge, i eventually got used to it and had more fun than i had in the original game, the extra content made it a lot more interesting and fun, so i can't wait for the new version being worked on!

I'll start with the good.

The game has amazing new sprites, visuals, quality of life upgrades such as Jeff's tools not cluttering his inventory.

Gameplay wise though, this is not "rebalanced". It's not "less grindy" or anywhere near what some of the descriptions says. "Less arbitrarily difficult"??? A crow can murder you if you're not careful!

This is Mother 2: Deluxe (Hell Mode). Period.

First dog you meet in the game will kill you unless RNG helps you with misses and you not missing. Almost every single fight in the game is a "grind". Sure. If you figure out what PSI power to use in which order and then buff yourself and debuff enemies you might come out triumphant! If luck helps.

Almost every fight you will need to go back to heal. Remember when you first get Jeff into the party and for a while it's a bit of a struggle to keep him alive unless you really slow down and try to save him? This mod is like that for all members for a lot of the time.

And what's a bit disappointing is the dev and others quite literally just say "if you think this is too difficult you're just not good at games". Yep. Really. Reading back other comments when people politely asked for a "normal mode" to enjoy the upgrades they were answered with "no, it'll eventually have an easy mode, and it is easy not normal because the game is easy". Like someone needs to take the "shame" of picking "easy" if they can't handle it.

It's honestly kind of dismissive and condescending to players who just wanted to play the game as it was originally, with the amazing remaster level updates.

Now I'd still "recommend" this mod. If you want a challenge and have the time it's a great mod. It just needs to be properly labeled. There was no "balancing" here. Your PSI powers cost more, heal less, enemies have more HP, more defense, more attacks, and steal more. Practically every opposing force in the game was increased, and every helpful decreased.

It _is_ still doable. And when you leave it and go back to other mods you even kind of miss having more of a challenge.

Onett and Twoson are the biggest hurdles because you only have one player. So if you're having a tough time try to get past that to give it a chance.

I'd rate this mod like an 7/10 for casual players. And a 10/10 for hardcore players that want a challenge.

Wow where to start with this pile of cancer...

The VERY beginning enemies can easily kill you over and over and over simply due to bad RNG (you'll miss attacks very frequently and the starting dog mob can easily 2 shot you).

The difficulty flow is absurdly stupid, picture dark souls style beating your face in but with turn based RPG mechanics.

You shouldn't have to visit an Inn after every. single. encounter. This is just poor RPG pacing.

Overall an absolute insult to the original, easy deletion.

New Sprite Work and Enemies.

Jeff and Poo have been reworked.

Bosses Now have Unique Strategic profiles that must be overcome by using a lot more of your resources than in the original game.

Will not be able to steamroll Enemies, you will need to out think them both on Grinding and Boss Fights.

Challenging Hack that puts pacing on par with a First time play through of earthbound.

I have beaten EarthBound many times, perhaps in the 10s-20s range in count (I've long since lost count). As such, I basically know the vanilla game inside out. How to defeat each enemy easily, how to demolish bosses in few rounds, it becomes easy after so many times of replaying my all time favorite game.

Which is why this is my all time favorite hack of literally anything. It breathes so much new life into the game that it feels completely fresh and brand new, like playing the game for the first time again. The difficulty has been ramped up, yes, but I think in a good and fun way. Every enemy can completely destroy you, but you have the tools to destroy them instead if you play your cards right. Most of the fun from this hack is figuring out how to win in the most effective manner.

What helps with this is all the buffed PSI and tools you are given. Many status PSI that previously were only useful for like, one boss, are now useful for everything until late game (where enemies have very high resistances). Jeff's tools are now in a separate menu like PSI is, meaning he has a lot more room in his inventory for food items and such. In fact, Jeff might be the most useful party member because of all the tools he brings to the table, and the fact the he is now the fastest party member in the game (Paula and Jeff swapped Speed stats).

There are some rather annoying bugs, but the creator is good at attempting to flatten them. I don't really know where else I'm going with this so I'll just skip to whether I recommend it or not. Basically yes, if you either know EarthBound extremely well like I do, or you are completely 100% new to the series/game. For everyone else, it's hard to recommend because of how hard it is. But yeah, good hack.

Summary of pros and cons in case you don't wanna read through my essay:

Pros:

• Amazing enemy variety, you actually have to adapt and take different playstyles for different enemies and areas.
• Incredibly good animations and spritework.
• New PSI to experiment with.
• A revamped Jeff with a new mechanic that makes him similar to MOTHER 3's Duster.
• Battles that encourage quick thinking.
• Restoration of censored elements. You can now see Ness' butt in all of its glory!
• Optional difficulty scaling for bosses.
• Unique overworld sprites for each enemy.
• Non-offensive PSI is actually useful now.
• New secrets to discover. I won't tell you about them though.

Cons:

• Struggles a lot to make a good first impression, very slow early-game.
• Difficulty scaling feels all over the place. You'll find large spikes and troughs more often than not.
• Jarring framerate drops due to overabundance of enemies.
• Some PSI can feel unbalanced sometimes.

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• INTRODUCTION:

As someone who tends to replay videogames frequently, I must say that this type of hack is definitely my favorite. I love going through games over and over and slowly see what I missed on my previous playthrough, I love getting a reminder of what my experience was like and, on the way, discover new things I haven't seen before because I played in a different way or simply due to lack of attention and/or knowledge about the game.

However, while this is true, it will eventually get stale. Each time there will be less ways to enjoy an adventure, and unless the game itself is so fun that you just can't get enough of it, things will feel repetitive because there's just no new things to see anymore. So, why not try out someone else's vision of the game? This is what this hack feels to me. This is what EarthBound taken to its limits would be like to the hack's author, and it certainly does feel like it.

Before I continue, I have to say that, in its current state, this hack is not a replacement to the original game. You won't exactly find it to be capable of replicating the same feelings you had while playing vanilla EarthBound, because they work pretty differently. While the core combat mechanics stay mostly the same, you'll find the game's high difficulty to demand that you play things differently from how you used to play, and to pay a lot more attention to what sort of equipment you're using. In short, this game requires much more brainpower to get through than the vanilla version, and thus, you'll be thinking a lot more about what you're doing with your numbers.

• DIFFICULTY AND VARIETY:

For once, one thing I feel this hack does, is turn battles into a race against the clock. Enemies can and will deal huge numbers of damage to your characters (unless you play really tanky builds, which in turn will make you susceptible to getting outsped and hit by status) and will make healing something to be done just when you're about to die in order to make enemies waste attacks on characters whose HP has virtually hit zero, but due to how HP works in this game are still on their way to such number. That's the biggest example I can think of how this game changes things up, but there's much more different types of battles. Battles that require you to rush the enemy so they can't snowball too hard, battles all about maintaining the battlefield balanced, battles in which you want to get hit in order to reflect as much damage as possible to your enemies, you name it.

While I absolutely adore this, this will make more casual players feel stressed by this as there isn't a clear way to learn all of these new strategies and would make them avoid the hack altogether, sadly missing out on all of the cool content it has to offer, such as visual adjustments like enemy re-sprites, re-balanced and new PSI taken from other MOTHER games, restoration of censored elements, reworked characters (Jeff is incredibly fun in this hack) and, of course, a really cool post-game dungeon, which while a lot shorter than what I would've imagined, I think it's a great way to wrap things up. Don't fret though, I've heard there's an easy mode in the works for the next update, so if you want to see what this hack has to offer without getting frustrated at freakin' Onett, I seriously recommend you wait for 3.0.

• BALANCE AND TECHNICAL ASPECTS:

This is a 2.0 review however, so I must say that game balance feels like an issue in some places. Specially in Onett, Twoson and Fourside. Both Onett and Twoson will have you hiding like a child scared of monsters while you walk the streets getting stronger by drawing out enemies to fight alone due to how strong they are, they're not enemies you'd be fighting with a party of one, so it's very likely these areas won't give you a good first impression of the hack. If you're reading this before playing, don't worry, things will get smoother once you get Paula, so try to endure, but I feel like this part of the game can make people not want to continue playing. Fourside on the other hand isn't exactly the location I have trouble with, but the Department Store.

The Department Store is hell to get through, with enemies that you should not be fighting with a party of two. I think these enemies should be re-balanced with that in mind. Not only that, but some PSI can feel underwhelming. PK Fire specifically feels much weaker than it should. I find myself fighting enemies that resist it a lot, and when enemies don't, it feels like it doesn't deal as much damage as its cost would suggest. Yeah, I know, hits an entire row, but many times I end up thinking it would be much better to just focus fire on a single enemy to get rid of a nuisance for a turn and minimize damage.

Another problem I have with this hack is the sheer number of enemies you'll find. While this wouldn't be an issue to me as I do like to fight frequently, the thing is, the amount of sprites on the screen at the same time will make the game lag like crazy. Many times I've found myself just de-spawning enemies because going through them would otherwise be super tedious with the stupidly low framerate.

I must say though I'm very impressed about the Jeff rework. Seriously, how does the tool inventory even work? I'm really glad it exists and if I had a hat right now I would take it off. A̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶l̶s̶,̶ ̶P̶a̶u̶l̶a̶'̶s̶ ̶P̶S̶I̶ ̶M̶a̶g̶n̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶n̶-̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶P̶S̶I̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶f̶u̶l̶.̶

• ART:

On the topic of sprites however, I need to say that the spritework here is stunning. Not only do enemies have their own unique overworld sprite, but some of them have had their battle sprite re-designed. Big fan of the kraken sprite! This alongside the secrets the game has to offer makes continuing the playthrough an exciting experience that I personally looked forward to all the time while also enjoying the much more natural-feeling script that comes with the restoration of censored elements. You can truly feel this hack brings both the scripts and sprites much closer to Itoi's original ideas, while still showing enough of the author's creativity when it comes to their reinterpretations. Sprites in specific feel like a massive improvement and bosses that previously were just enemy recolors have new depictions that feel right at home.

While music hasn't been changed, there's a couple of themes in specific that once went unused and found their way into the hack through a very interesting method. I'm not going to spoil it though!

• CONCLUSIONS:

This hack has not reached its full potential yet, but it still makes for a very enjoyable way to replay the game and feel like you're having a completely new experience, even if it's still a few steps away from truly being "MOTHER 2 Deluxe". It's different, yeah, but trust me, it's the good kind of different once you get the hang of it. I personally had a lot of fun with it and I'm excited for the next update, which I believe will truly be the definitive EarthBound experience and make this hack live up to its own name. For the moment, however, my verdict is that this is a really good way to revisit the game once you feel like the original one doesn't really have much else to offer to you.

If you played Earthbound so many times you know it inside and out, then Mother 2 Deluxe is for you. The story follows the same structure as regular Earthbound, although there will be a few extra surprises along the way. Aside from that, almost everything in Mother 2 Deluxe functions in a brand new way!

One thing worth mentioning is the emulator Mesen-S works best with this project. It's what I would recommend using to get Mother 2 Deluxe going without a fuss.

I've been a fan of this project for years, and I appreciate the efforts put in to breath new life into this classic. If you're looking for an Earthbound ROM that's true to Mother 2, but still has it's own identity, then I would highly recommend Mother 2 Deluxe.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Mother 2 had DLC? If so, then I highly recommend trying this hack! This version of the mod includes, an overall more challenging difficulty as compared to vanilla Mother 2,improved sprite work, new animations that weren't in vanilla Mother 2, new PK abilities while some older ones that didn't work well was rebalanced to work, plus more! Playing this rom hack leaves you with the feeling of playing through Mother 2 for the first time again with all the new content added to the game. I highly recommend any Mother fan to try this hack, especially folk that found Mother 2 to be a bit too easy as far as difficulty.

This hack has a LOT going for it. There's a lot of really neat ASM and QoL changes. Making Jeff's tools a second inventory basically completely fixes inventory management issues once you have him. Some small things like text displaying stat changes when equipping weapons are also very nice. I appreciate the attempt to make the game more difficult, and *some* of the attempts at improving your tools work out.

However, the early game balance is so legitimately terrible me and my friend, both people who have played Earthbound 10+ times, could not bear to continue playing. Onett is legitimately miserable, and Twoson and related areas aren't all that much better. Once you get Paula things feel a lot more natural (though I really wish she started at level 10 or so, just to cut down on grinding), but before that is a mess of grinding, enemies with WAY too much HP and damage output, and WAY too many enemies that steal your items and use PSI Magnet.

Some of these issues are persistent even with Paula. The constant item theft is asinine and makes grinding even worse as you constantly have to go buy new items, which makes you gain money much slower. Fights are way too long, with many singular enemies taking 5+ turns to defeat even after a decent amount of grinding in an area, grinding you simply didn't have to do in the original. Dying doesn't cause you to lose half your money, which is a welcome QoL change so you don't have to back and forth with the ATM as much, but it doesn't offset how much you have to grind and how obnoxious battles are. Many of your options feel like traps because they aren't powerful enough to keep up with the sheer HP and damage output enemies have.

PSI abilities are still all over the place. Flash still feels useless, as crying enemies still hit the majority of their attacks and bosses all have PSI Healing. Life-Up is nerfed, which is deserved, but food items are still just as needlessly expensive and enemies almost never drop them. Many PSI abilities have their costs considerably increased, which would be fine if PP restoration was like, a thing that existed at all. PSI Caramels are still extremely rare, and PSI Magnet is still useless (except when enemies use it on you).

In addition to these balance issues, this hack has a lot of needless text edits and localization changes, as well as strange palette changes and sprite edits, like making the Your Sanctuary (now called "Your Place") bosses have bloody parts to them. Many QoL features from Maternalbound Redux, like the run button and improved button layout, are also missing.

On top of all this, there's a pseudo-softlock in Jeff's section. If you don't grind on the dogs and crows (either because none spawn or because you dodge them) you get locked into the Brick Road area which has enemies that are *far* too strong for you to fight reliably. You have no healing or combat items, except for the small few you start with. It took us almost 30 minutes of trying these fights over and over until we were able to just barely win enough of them to level up a couple times and get through the area.

Overall, I really struggle to recommend this hack in its current state. It's possible that it will improve in the future, but the balance in its current state is far too frustrating in the early game. It's possible it gets better after you're done with the single-character sections, but we could not bring ourselves to play long enough to get past them.

Without a doubt, the beginning seemed like a fairly simple hack. But I gave it a try and I don't regret it because it improves many aspects of the original game. Difficulty doesn't feel unfair either and instead inspires you to keep playing. I recommend it for any RPG lover.

With 2020 marking its 25th anniversary, fans now have an exciting and challenging new way to experience the world of Earthbound again.

One of the fundamental pillars of the experience of Earthbound - colorful and memorable enemies, bosses that make you smile or laugh with their one-liners, and not to mention the incredible battle music - is often marred by a lack of difficulty and a sameness that carries throughout most of the game. PSI abilities that impart status effects can be largely ignored. Shields can be ignored; after all, why use a shield when you can simply do more damage that turn instead to end the battle sooner? The lack of challenge presented by combat takes away from the gravity of the Chosen Four's quest and their goals overall.

Mother 2 Deluxe seeks to address these longtime qualms held by fans and reworks many areas that may have stagnated over the years. Enemies now provide a healthy amount of challenge, bosses require strategy and forethought in order to succeed, and character abilities have been augmented in such a way to differentiate roles in battle while still feeling true to their original designs. The script has been reworked to better match the tone and feel of Itoi's original work, and fans of the series will be delighted to see extensive visual enhancements in the way of enemy sprite enlargement, unique enemy overworld sprites, tie-ins from both Mother 1 and 3, and much more.

Perhaps most interesting is the new Your Place upgrade mechanic. Most players know that in Earthbound, it is possible to skip Lilliput Steps, Milky Well, Magnet Hill, and Pink Cloud until whenever it is convenient for you to clear it. What used to be a cakewalk resulting in often one-shotting the boss is now far more interesting. The dungeons grow as you progress through the game, and provide not only upscaled stats for the enemies but brand new enemies as well. This feature alone provides replay value for curious players, as the order in which you tackle the dungeons will vary your experience greatly.

Smaller quality of life improvements improve the flow and feel of the game. Jeff's tools are now extremely useful and exist in their own unique inventory. Equipment now display relevant resistances in a customized window as well. Most items in the game now feel different in their use cases and will require some thinking regarding their implementation.

Overall, I cannot recommend this version of the game highly enough. If there ever was a hack that could breathe new life into a time honored classic, this is it.

The Mother/Earthbound series as far as games go isn't what I would call challenging. Sure they aren't "journalism mode easy of course" but nothing really stands out as difficult for this series. Even Mother 1/Earthbound Beginnings isn't that hard as far as what NES games can pull really.

The re-balanced difficulty was already a high point about this hack's history in the past and now 2.0 is a much more different beast than the older versions. Messianic's gone above and beyond the quality of their previous versions in it. It is still a very good challenge and most of the where bad luck might be the only reason why you lose have all been mostly removed (besides a few fights like Ness' Nightmare where Flash could ruin your day no matter what now even with a Star Pendant for example).

To talk about the good and new stuff. Stuff this newer version of the hack offers:

Liliput Steps, Milky Well, Magnet Hill, and Pink Cloud now "level up" if you leave them alone in game. As in there are 4 versions of each foe in these places that get stronger as the game goes on, maxing out at levels so they could be a challenge to a party ready for Fire Spring almost (Fire Spring is still the last one you will visit now still for this hack no matter what unlike base EB). These are worth playing as well cause the foes have new drops as well. Goddess ribbon from a certain foe at the hardest Pink Cloud anyone (goddess ribbon is good in this hack unlike vanilla EB).

PSI/Skills are more balanced amount the party. Ness learns all the physical shields and they are very good in this hack just cause of the damage being higher on the foe side and also cause they block special attacks (as in stuff that isn't PSI but like a bomb blast of course), Healing Alpha is now vanilla Beta for healing and Gamma is now Omega (but cheaper). The new healing Beta hits the full party with beta. Flash is super deadly on foes (a bit too deadly on foes for the higher levels, almost a win button if a foe is weak to flash). Hypnosis still isn't good but paralysis for those it works on is still great. Ness' order he learns PSI is more useful as well. Shield of light is level 4 for example.

Rockin is unchanged damage and mechanic wise but made cheaper than Starstorm on average now. Which you'd think with Ness' end game PP pool that would break the game and even break the game before hand but this is actually a bit of a nerf because foes in DX are faster on average than vanilla so it actually is harder to fight with Ness but that is easily fixed by end game. So yeah, Ness' slow speed is a real disadvantage to him in this hack unlike in vanilla EB. This does help work with his main party role of trying to be the healer though so its sort of in character role really. And yeah the character role of Ness going god mode in end game still means you won't have to really worry about fighting with Ness there but the struggle to get there will be harder since base Ness is so slow making the dodge rate of foes a real thing.

Ness weapon wise does have some help for the start of the game where they are most useful yo-yo and slingshots have new traits to them in this hack in general. Yo-yo weapons hit a row of foes and slingshots pierce shields. This is somewhat useful for the start of the game yes but when your party gets stronger and Jeff gets shield killer or neutralizer they are sort of made a non useful anymore (trick yo-yo and combat yo-yo are sadly not needed still). So yeah Ness really ends up with a bat still but that is fine. This brings up that Ness' party helps with damage and combat more than he does as well for this.

Paula gets a super buffed Thunder and learns all 4 levels of it. Thunder does 2x damage vs metal foes (great when tons of end game foes ARE metal) and hits more. This is on top of it breaking psychic shields of course still. Granted Thunder only does 1 damage vs energy foes which there are a lot of so Paula gets to play around with the elements some to try and find what works best still. Fire is the odd one out because it really is just bad for the party to be hit by it vs foes usually but Fire is cheaper now to help that. Offense up and Defense down are useful. Mother 2's stat boosters are rather worthless minus sudden guts pills but DX makes them useful by giving a point of buff between Mother 3's ranges (so not as broken as casting 3 rounds of them but very good). Naturally all these changes to psi means making foes stronger as well of course. So moves that are just psi attacks are tons more deadly now which brings up Jeff's role.

Jeff's tools have all been changed so that they are better. I mean the broken ones are nerfed of course. Bottle rockets are nerfed so they aren't win buttons. Bazooka's location order is made so you aren't getting something broken just by going to Magnet Hill at the game's 1/2 point (I mean Bazooka is still uber good on its own, replaces Jeff's normal attack still. But the reduced power does maybe let you think if it would be worth it to reduced defense some, and heavy bazooka is Jeff's uber drop now instead of Gaia Beam which the broken part for that is bought and fixed sooner). Jeff is also packing vanilla Paula's base speed now to help the tool use while Paula is a bit slower (which doesn't really affect her combat use cause she is a spell caster and they don't go off speed). Slime Generator hits a row of foes. Shield Killer doesn't miss. Neutralizer is even buffed even if it is the same thing cause stat buffs are more dangerous now and a new status situation is a thing in this hack that makes it very important for some battles (you won't beat Rainy Circle easily w/o it). Jeff's other tools are for reducing damage and he has a new one that uses offense down on foes. Shields are still the best for keeping the party safe but this does help because you could use it to reduce the damage and let you keep psychic shield or DX's refresh status on!

So yeah speaking of refresh now. Pu in this hack. Loses PK Freeze, Thunder, Shields. Gains PK Beam, Refresh, and Speed up. All with animations now for this version if you have played an old version before! Pu now has his own party role instead of just being a Red Mage of sorts. Learning other PSI in the series isn't the end of it though since 2.0 isn't the final version of this hack just so you all know.

Yeah balance wise for this. I got through Deep Darkness after just getting to level 55 with Ness for example on a blind play. And really only ended up grinding more cause the RNG wouldn't give me the old Sword of Kings after at Stonehenge. The drop rate is no longer 1/128 for this but rather 1/64 which is a bit more doable. But those rates could cause you some trouble still.

There are a few glitches in this. Enemy spawns could show up off map or not trigger to join their allies for example at battle start (you will see it in Stonehenge easily). Also for giving each foe an overworld sprite it actually made some fights easier in some situations. Ghost of Starman and Final Starman are foes you don't want to mess (really all Starman foes are tbh in this) with but because of how their sprite works you can pretty much make them fodder if you approach them right. Of course if you do get sneak attacked by them teleporting...good luck. Granted Starmen are a plus and minus situation. There are still mostly easier battle approach options. Human foes and foes like the reactor robots due to having somewhat easy to sneak up on or run away from sprites make dealing with them a lot easier.

But yeah those are minor issues. There are a few glitches (don't let Jeff hold the Franklin Badge when fixing the Shield Killer at this time). Plus I'm also one that likes certain localization changes compared to what they officially were (well hit and miss) but yeah that is a minor thought again.

This hack and its version is great. I didn't even go anywhere near into all the features and stuff in it with this essay. 2 thumbs up!

IT STINKS!

Played the previous versions, but never felt like adding a review. With version 2.0...so many new things have been added ! First off, you will notice that enemies are smarter with new tactics. Really like the new order that you learn 'PSI' skills. Was surprised that the "Your Place" battles become harder the longer you wait to challenge them. Plus there is a whole bonus dungeon and hidden debug room to discover. I think one of the problems, in battle, that I had was PSI-Flash killing my party. While you can do the same to enemies...you can get a game over out of no where. With that said, if you want to challenge yourself give this hack a try !

This is a yes, with caveats type of recommendation. I love Earthbound and have played it a number of times over the years since I played it in middle school. This mod does a good job of making the game challenging and requiring you to consider your approach to enemies, which is exactly what I hoped for. I think the phase 2 of the final boss might have been a little ridiculous because of the way stats work and since there is sometimes no way to prevent them, the fight felt like it came down to luck. Bedsides that, I enjoyed the combat difficulty a lot.

The changes made to make it closer to Earthbound were fine I suppose. I had not played Earthbound in about 10 years so I could not really tell you what had changed specifically on that front. I still enjoyed the characters and the quirky world as much as I remember it so I don't think the changes detracted from it.

Now, the downsides. Hopefully the developers sees this and can find a way to fix them. Also, I bounced between using BSNES and SNES9x for my playthrough and the bugs seemed to occur in both emulators. Nowhere in the documentation did it specify and emulator to use.

• The Sky Runner always looked like a clump of random sprites in both emulators, which made it hard for me to find it initially. Not game-breaking though.

• The second area of the Stonehenge Cave was completely screwed up visually. It did not make it so you could not navigate but it definitely looked wrong.

• Some of the items with long names "Expensive Bottled Water" or "Lucky Rabbits Foot" did not behave properly in menus, often times just closing the menu when certain actions were taken with them instead of doing what it should. I could usually work around it by using the give command or changing equipment in battle but it was annoying.

• The biggest problem I saw was at the end of the game, where you must talk to Ness's mom to get the credits to roll... well, Ness's mom was not where she should be so I could not truly finish the game. I had to watch the credits on Youtube.

So, there you have it, for a difficulty mod, it's great but breaks a few other things in the process.

I've played Earthbound so many times that I could give you a very detailed walkthrough from memory. As such, you can imagine my joy when I saw this rebalancing hack pop up in the RHDN queue.

That part of this hack is amazingly well done-it is difficult, but it's nothing you can't overcome with a bit ingenuity (or leveling). There were parts that were much more difficult than the original, but in a good way.

However, I won't lie, I thought a lot of the restored Japanese version material wasn't nearly as good as the US version. I know the hack creator wanted to give us a definitive experience, but I think after playing this hack, I really liked almost all of the US changes more than the original Japanese versions. Not the fault of the hacker certainly, but just something to keep in mind while you're playing the game.

My final verdict is that you should play the hack anyways. The rebalancing is easily worth the price of admission, and if you like some of the original stuff from the Japanese version more than me, you might not even have any complaints! An absolute must for Earthbound vets replaying for their 100th time or so.