699: 30 Years of EarthBound

Retronauts

Technology, Games, Video Games, Leisure

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Good Giygas, EarthBound is 30 years old!? Yes, and because we gave this cult SNES RPG the standard Retronauts treatment nearly a decade ago, this time around, we'll be taking a slightly different approach. To celebrate three decades of EarthBound greatness, on this follow-up episode we're digging into the fandom behind the game, and the communities that rose in the wake of its unceremonious 1995 launch. So this week, join Bob Mackey, Reid Young, Charlie Verdin, and Everdraed (all of Fangamer) as the crew looks back on the dusty message boards of the past and the modest empires that grew from them. You'll never look at a fuzzy pickle the same way again!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on Retronauts, I'm your host for this one, Bob
0:29.5	Mackey. And this week we are talking about Earthbound, an obscure little RPG that's come up a few times on Retronauts. So we last covered it 10 years ago back on
0:39.0	episode 69 of this new run. And now it's episode 699. And Earthbound is actually Earthbound has just
0:46.2	turned 30 years old. So enough time has passed to give this little game a few people care about
0:51.8	another look. And this time around, I have guests who built
0:55.2	their life around this game even more than me. They built an empire on Earthbound. And they even made
1:00.9	a little documentary about it. We'll cover that soon. Before I go on any further, who is here with me
1:05.1	today on this sequel to our original Earthbound podcast? Well, my name is Reid Young. I am the co-founder of Starman.net's and FanGamer.
1:13.8	And I believe, Reed, you were on our Pax 2020 live show.
1:18.5	We were covering TV games.
1:19.7	You were our pinch-in-upon.
1:20.4	That's right, yeah.
1:21.2	It was fun to get to be part of that.
1:23.4	And thankfully, you had notes because I was not prepared.
1:32.3	You just have to watch the footage of Elf, the Master System game, and just say whatever comes to your mind.
1:33.1	It's very easy.
1:36.8	That's right. And that's what I did. I got some mash references in there, too. It was good.
1:38.1	And who else do we have today?
1:47.2	I am Charlie Verdon. I am also a member of Fan Gamer, one of the founders and a person who has frequently played Earthbound to raise money for charity. Awesome. That's my little claim to fame. And this is your
1:52.4	first time at Retronauts, Charlie, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, I don't think I've been on this particular
1:56.2	podcast. I have been on several other podcasts to talk about Earthdown. We don't need to plug those.
2:01.3	This is... I refuse to plug any other podcast. It's not mine. But thank you. Welcome to the show, Charlie.
	...

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