While I was growing up, it didn't really occur to me that video games were striving to become longer affairs. After all, there's only so many times you can play the same four levels of "Donkey Kong Jr." or something like that, before it gets boring and repetitious. But this game, FAR exceeds anything else the NES has to offer; mostly because it is EASILY the longest video game, both in terms of actual length and amount of game play needed to beat it! I mean, this game feels like it would be more at place on a Turbographx-16! THAT'S how long the game is! While the graphics aren't THAT impressive (probably because the game NEEDED the memory necessary for all the locations and enemies you fight within the game), the game more than makes up for it with incredible music, sound, controls, and a difficulty that starts off easy, but will ramp up pretty hard near the end! This game features the exploits of Ninten and his friends (who while they're SUPPOSED to be named Lloyd, Ana, and Teddy), since the game is set in 198X and I didn't know that prior to playing the game (I named them Simon after Simon Seville of "Alvin And The Chipmunks", Paula after Paula Abdul of late 1980's fame, and Slash after the lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses). While this game doesn't have much in the way of actual boss fights, you won't really notice it; due to the fact that the game has MORE than enough randomly generated enemy fights to make up for it (and trust me when I say, that it's in your BEST interest to fight in as MANY of them as you can, as OFTEN as you can!) The goal of the game is to travel America (or at least, a fictionalized version of it), to collect Eight Special melodies needed to complete a song, that can stop Giegue/Giygas from staging an Alien Invasion of Earth! While the game certainly won't make it easy to complete your quest, it's definitely rewarding to do so! Although, I do highly recommend having Ninten be at least level 37, and Lloyd and Ana at least level 34 to make stopping Giegue/Giygas as easy as possible! It may have taken 25 years longer than it should have, but the longest (and one of the most challenging) games for the NES is available, and is even more enjoyable than ever, thanks to the Nintendo Switch rewind feature (that you will probably use a LOT) to get the BEST results from your battles! I highly recommend this game to all video game players, wanting to know how the "Earthbound" saga got started. Enough said, true believers!
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