Quirky Game, Quirky Speedrun - An EarthBound Any% Interview with Uko

EarthBound was a title that barely made it into the hands of players outside of Japan, putting it into a weird position that just didn’t see the popularity of other Nintendo properties. This quirky RPG known for its look at Americana and playing with RPG conventions did go on to be one the most beloved Nintendo franchises, where it later inspired indie hit Undertale. Being that the game is a fairly traditional RPG when it comes to the general mechanics, there is a different approach to playing it as a speedrun.

To get an idea of the sorcery that must go into a run, we talked to Uko, who recently broke the Any% record and was excited that the achievement had been done on their favorite game. Most of the information from this article comes from this leaderboard. 

For a bit of history, EarthBound was an RPG that released on the SNES in North America in 1995, with the game hitting Japan the previous year. The game was a later title in the SNES library, where it was quickly overshadowed by Super Mario 64 in 1996. EarthBound is known in Japan as Mother 2, the second game in what would become a three entry series. Mother was on the NES, while Mother 3 was slated to be on the N64 Disk Drive, but was eventually brought to the Game Boy Advance.

For many years, EarthBound had been the only title to see an English release. The first game was only recently put on the Wii U as EarthBound Beginnings in 2015. Asking for Mother 3 to be brought to English players has become a recurring joke. Even Nintendo has famously poked fun at the request and another entry is at this point a pipe dream.

However, any Mother fan probably knows about the easily available translations that can be found online, which has made the series mostly playable for anyone that needs English. In fact, the famous EarthBound Halloween Hack is what Toby Fox brought to the fandom and later rekindled that love with an orginal work of his own, Undertale.

EarthBound also has been more and more popular due to characters Ness and Lucas being in Super Smash Bros, which also has had several stages, soundtracks, and bosses that come from the Mother series. If it wasn’t for Ness being in the first Super Smash Bros on N64, many may not even know about EarthBound at all. This was before the flashpan effect that social media can have when trying to share information. 

All of this is what makes an additional entry to the series (or at the least a translation of Mother 3) so often requested by fans, not even to mention the quality and critical acclaim of each game.

Now, while EarthBound’s history is unique, the actual game still holds up as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. For those that have bested every challenge that EarthBound offers, the next logical step is speedrunning it, which can make it even more appealing for speedrunners. Uko is one of those runners, picking apart the game in such a way that random elements are cut out due to manipulations. These manipulations, when executed correctly, guarantee outcomes through specific actions and inputs. This technique is what makes the EarthBound Any% so short for a game that would typically take dozens of hours.

We got to know Uko through a Twitter interview, as well as covered some of the general approaches to speedrunning an RPG. We first asked Uko to tell their story and how they got into EarthBound.

“I was born in Houston, but I was a military brat as a kid. My father was in the Marines, and then the Air Force, so I did a lot of moving around. Especially after my parents split when I was 11, I felt pretty alone. Around that time I was looking into YouTube and found let's plays, specifically Chuggaaconroy. He's honestly probably the biggest catalyst for me being such a nintendo fan today. I found his EarthBound Let’s Play and fell in love with the game and the Mother series, and even today I find reasons to love it more and more every day.”

Speedruns have a tendency to create smaller, tight-knit, and welcoming communities. Uko eventually found a home with other EarthBound players. “Even after my dad quit the military and settled down in one place, I was still dragged around various parts of Texas throughout my high school career. I never really found a homely community of people until I randomly stumbled upon EarthBound speedruns.”

It wasn’t long after becoming a part of Twitch, that Uko started to looking into speedrunning EarthBound. “It was around the time Undertale came out that I got heavily into speedruns and Twitch, streaming light-heartedly myself. Through curiosity I found my way over to TGH and was inspired by his Undertale runs to get started on it myself. I moved over to EarthBound because mashing on a keyboard isn't one of my strong suits.”

We recently talked to TGH about running Celeste, but he does have a ton of prominence in the Undertale community for his runs there.

When compared to a more traditional speedrun, RPG running is often hard to compare. RPG speedruns for starters normally take a lot more time to dedicate to each run, as well as random battle elements that can prolong progress. Getting to the end in say a Final Fantasy game, isn’t as simple or straightforward as something like Super Mario World.

Although, there are some notable benefits to running an RPG. The anger that can be easily brought up after missing a trick or failing an easy jump isn’t as prominent. “Running an RPG like EarthBound has MUCH fewer moments of that rage,” said Uko. They further admitted, “I can't even play Mario casually without getting mad. With RPGs like EarthBound I can just chill, maybe even not take it all that seriously, and still have a ton of fun. Every run is unique due to the randomness, and I'm always learning more and more ways to get myself out of bad situations.”

Yet, when using glitches, the EarthBound Any% run does have a few specific routes and techniques, which can make it feel similar to a typical speedgame. Uko said that the Any% category that uses glitches “is a lot less random because around 90% of it is RNG manipulated. It's a lot closer to that platformer style of speedrun than it used to be. There's still a bit of pseudo-luck involved with some of the tricks, but ultimately it all falls upon your skill in execution.”

Uko then talked about their Any% record and how there is still some cleanup that can be applied to make it even faster. “I took the record even though I got into an extra fight, losing 20 seconds or so, followed by taking the final boss (Giygas) super slowly on purpose so that I wouldn't drop the manipulation, not knowing I was on record pace at all until I hit the button.”

Getting a record is always worth celebrating, but sometimes just being a part of a passionate community can instill that feeling of belonging that is worth so much more. We asked Uko to explain their connection to the EarthBound community. “The community I've found within the speedrunning circle has made me feel so welcome, loved, and appreciated. It really feels like what I do has meaning, whether or not people in my personal life really understand what speedrunning is.”

This confidence has led to further improvements on Uko’s life outside of gaming, “I started my first full-time job a year ago, I've been growing a lot stronger performance-wise, and it makes it to where I can set financial goals involving speedrunning. I saved up to go to my first GDQ all by myself and I'm planning to hit up RPGLimitBreak and SGDQ this summer as well. I'm also investing in improving the quality of my stream, but most importantly I'm doing what I can to strengthen my relationship with everyone that I’ve met through speedrunning.”

Being a part of a speedrunning community, can also help the runner cope with the negative sides of the hobby. “During rough times and bad runs, you're more likely to be able to grin and bear it and keep going despite all the rage and salt!” said Uko.

EarthBound continues to astound its players, even after all of these years. This is why video game preservation efforts are so important. Games like EarthBound deserve to be shared to future generations. Speedrunners often find themselves being a part of that effort unknowingly, learning deep secrets and hidden techniques, breathing new life into each game.

For Uko, EarthBound has been such an important part of life, enabling the ability to make friends and find belonging.

Find Uko streaming on Twitch.