This post is a remembrance of sorts where I recap the final events of Earthbound and discus the hidden themes and past behind it. I hope you enjoy it and learn something as well!

If that doesn’t convince you to read it, maybe this will.

Wow. Seriously, wow. This is really good -Chad Concelmo

After a grueling adventure in the enemy occupied Onett, the player is allowed a brief period of rest in Saturn Valley, before being sent away to the final area of the game, and the main topic of this post, The Cliff that Time Forgot. A literal point of no return in the game.



The music that plays in the cliff only lasts about two octaves before repeating but it extremely memorable and haunting. It’s a simple trombone solo reminiscent of the one in the intro of All You Need is Love. But there’s something that’s so… unsettling about it that, combined with the deep blackness surrounding you and the odd metal root at the end of the path, creates an eerie atmosphere that you want to leave immediately. As you wonder as to where Giygas is, another Phase Distorter arrives containing Dr. Andonuts and some Mr. Saturns.



He informs you that although he was correct, Giygas is on the Cliff that Time Forgot, he is there millions of years in the past and sending troops through a time warp. In order to fight him, Ness and friends will have to take a trip in the brand new phase distorter that can not only move through space, but through time. Before you set off on your merry way though, Dr Andonuts has one more piece of information to tell you. Living things will be destroyed in the time traveling process, thus making it impossible to send a person back in time. There is a way around this though. He can take Ness’ and his friend’s souls and transfer them into robots, however they may never be able to return to their bodies of things go poorly. After Ness and co agree to sacrifice their humanity to save the world from Giygas, Dr. Andonuts begins the procedure.



The Chosen Four wake up in exactly the same place you left but an immeasurable number of years in the past. Things have changed though. The small segmented cliffs are replaced by a far longer path, and the lush green is now a bland almost prehistoric grey. Even the infinite blackness under you is replaced by a murky grey mist. The music has become even more freighting then in the cave of the past in the present. I’m getting the chills now just listening to it. It’s segmented white noise that helps to create a strange and incredibly foreign atmosphere that reinforces how utterly alone you are. It’s just you and the forces of Giygas. Not even your trusty exit mouse can save you.



More important then the new music and scenery are the changes Ness and friends have undergone. The procedure was a success and you are now clunky, b-movie robots, all the same, expect for Ness, who is distinguished by his trademark red ball cap. The humor of this wares off once you fight your first enemy though. This is Giygas’ last stand and he’s not taking any chances. Ludicrously strong enemies like the Final Starmen and Binoic Kraken impede your progress. Despite these difficulties of these fights, nothing can compare to the battle that coming up.




As you reach the end of the path, weakened by the last remnants of Giygas’ army. You are greeted by a simple hole in the wall. A rather bland entrance to the palace of an evil mastermind. You enter.

The music is no longer music but a SFX of someone breathing. Breathing through the pipes you walk on.



Now here’s where the symbolism starts.



At the end of the path is a large mess of pipes and machinery. Notice how it almost resembles a human organ, specifically the cervix. Keep that in mind, it becomes important later.

As you reach the contraption you begin to wonder, what is that thing? Where is Giygas? Suddenly, the bulb like protrusion opens and reveals Ness face staring back at you.



Tangent: Due to a mistranslation, this face was never explained to US players, but the Japanese version of Earthbound, Mother 2, revealed that this “face” was the apple of enlightenment that is mentioned throughout the game as having given a prophecy telling Giygas to beware Ness.

The room starts to shake and someone you, or maybe just I, never expect to see again. Your next door neighbor Pokey Minch, who had been MIA since you found his wrecked chopper in the swamps of Deep Darkness.



Pokey explains how Giygas is no longer the master of evil, but the embodiment of evil itself, not a living being anymore, but an incredibly powerful semi-sentient force that must be contained in the Devil’s Machine so as it does not wreck havoc on itself and others. Giygas’ power has reached such a point that his body can no longer contain it and his mind can no longer handle it. Stuck in the Devil’s Machine, Giygas must endure the taunts and insults of Pokey, but I doubt he can even comprehend what he’s saying. He is focused on one thing, the thing that drove him to the point where he is a mindless, bodiless force now only useful as a weapon. Ness.

The battle begins.

Tangent: I love how in Earthbound it doesn’t say Giygas and Pokey attack but instead Giygas and cohort attack. Cohort is a great word. :)

The music now is some of the best in the game. An intense 8-bit fight song accompanies this portion of the fight. After a full verse of this, it randomly switches to a metal version of the same song. Awesome and completely unexpected.



After you beat down Heavily Amored Pokey, he grows irritated and decides to unleashes his ultimate weapon. Giygas. The Devil’s Machine is the only thing containing Giygas and as soon as Pokey switches it off madness ensues.

The music is a combination of eerie high pitched synthesized notes and the gushing of gas out of pipes as Giygas is set free.



A red swirl appears. A face. A tormented face screaming in agony that is unable to remain static, and instead must shift and circle around the screen. Is it a gas that was being contained in the pipes of The Devil’s Machine? Or maybe Giygas is still an invisible power; he is just manipulating the gas of the Devil’s Machine into the forms you see. Or is it all your head? A vision of sorts that’s not really Giygas but is the only way Ness and friends can envision him. After all Giygas seems to exist on another plane of being then you do. You can’t even comprehend the means of his attack.



The music as the fight progress switches to more unearthly breathing, with a hint of synth in the background..

Tangent: Throughout the fight Giygas alternates between attacking you and saying, our more likely transmitting them directly to your mind, strange and down right disturbing things like: “It hurts…Ness… Ness...It hurts” “Ness.. Ness... Ness.. I feel G O O D.” “Ness… Ness... Ness... Ness... Ness...” "Ah...Ohh...Ah..." It is clear that he repast Ness’ name due to his obsession with the boy, an obsession so deep that it cost him his mind and body. But what’s with “It hurts and I feel G O O D? It turns out that, as a young lad, Shigesato Itoai (The creator of the Mother Series) accidently walked a violent adult movie entilted “The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty” playing at the local cinema that featured a graphic rape scene that deeply disturbed him as a child. He describes it as “a direct assault on my mind” (The basis of the attack you can’t comprehend?) So when Itoai was trying to come up with creepy line for Giygas to say, he remembered the thing that scared him most and used some lines from the scene that had traumatized him as a child. Hope you enjoyed that brief peak into the development of Earthbound ;)

After you deal a set amount of damage to Giygas, Pokey reappears to mock both you and Giygas. Pokey had betrayed all his previous masters (Mr. Montolli and Carpainter) when they became too weak, and Giygas is no exception. He laughs and calls him the "eternal idiot" and sit back again to watch Giygas devour you.

After Pokey leaves, it is impossible to defeat Giygas by any conventional means. You can still damage him but even if he runs out of HP the game is specially coded so that the death sequence will not be initiated. The only way to beat him is though Paula’s special command, Pray. The only clue the game gives you to use Pray is Pokey’s lines “I know you have telepathy or something, so just try and call for help. Go on call for help you pathetically weak heroes of so called justice. No one can help you now.”

The music for this final phase of the Giygas phase consist of a high pitched noise like the ones you hear when receiving an ear examination and a repeating static buzz that recurs, perhaps clueing you in the Giygas is getting weaker and less stable

At this point in the game, I spent about an hour hammering away at Giygas, until my party member left was Paula. She was out of PP so I used Pray hoping that I get lucky and it would revive the other three members of my party, or at least give me some PP back. I was shocked to find a cut scene playing, in which Frank, the mobster that Ness beats up, suddenly remembering Ness and praying for his safety.

The music during these is as beautiful and sweet as the moments they show, and suits Paula perfectly. In the background, Giygas’ static noises become both more frequent and panicked.

The game cuts back to Giygas who is dealt massive damage. The love of the heros’ friends is too much for him to handle and pains him even though he has no idea what just happened.

Tangent: Love defeated Giygas once before in the original Mother or Earthbound 0. I’m not going to spoil the details in case you want to play it. You can not find a translation patch for the Japanesse ROM at starmen.net. Back to the fight!

Again Paula, with more friends, like Tony and Runway 5, praying for the Chosen Fours’ safety, each prayer dealing massive damage against being that has tormented you throughout the game.



All of this love and all of these prayers is too much for Giygas and finally he (it?) is wounded!

The music is now comprised of more frantic and even fearful static noises and mechanical whirring and bloops as the whole room is being destroyed by Giygas’ insane rampage.

Finally, Paula prays one last time, to a person who’s name is blanked out, bu slowly revealed to be you! The player! (There was a reason that I wasn’t referring to Ness as you ;3) The text of the final blow reads “(Inset players name here) prayed for the kids, never having even met them before.” With out a doubt, the greatest and most satisfying moment in gaming. You the player actually are responsible for beating the boss. Not the character you play as, but you. Unbelievable. I remember the first time I beat him, I rushed to tell my thoroughly confused parents that I not the characters had beaten Giygas, as happy as can be.

You’ve done it! Giygas is fatally wounded! The passive red spiral is now a mess of smaller faces all screaming out in agony as the music reaches its peak and becomes a mess of mechanical noises and static as all the machines in Giygas’ lair are destroyed by his desperate attempts to preserve his “life” if it can even be called that anymore. And now for the most disturbing moment in gaming until Eternal Darkness came out and started pretending to mess with my TV.

As Giygas slowly dies, his swirl sprite is replaced by a repeating pattern of smaller off colored swirls. A scary pattern at first glance, but an even more freighting if you look closely. You see, the black gaps between sprites form a shape. The shape of an infant.



Remember the cervix? If you reflect on Pokey’s monologue and Giygas’ lines throughout the fight, you realize that Giygas has the mind set of an infant almost. He’s not fully aware of what is going on, only that something is attacking him, and his survival instinct kick in. He can't be held accountable for what he's doing, and in essence you’ve just killed something primal and instinctive, that isn’t even self aware. Something almost innocent, despite it’s past wrongs. Congratulations! You’ve just aborted a cosmic fetus!



Was it the right thing to do? Of course. Giygas was far too powerful and with Pokey controlling him, he was an unstoppable force of evil. But it’s still sort of sad when you reflect on what you've done.

Giygas is designating now and a new track begins to play. A whirring sound as the screen begins to flicker and static appears and covers your robot eyes.

Tangent: Listen closely to the noise in the background of the last track. Hear anything. Try to hear someone saying something before reading on.


You hear anything. I personally hear a voice saying “Get me out of here!” I didn’t hear it the first time I played EB, but when I was replaying it several years later, I distinctly heard it and nearly fell out of my chair in fright. I like to think that Giygas might have had brief moment of sanity at the end, where his self awareness is restored and he realizes what is going on and the hell that he’s forced himself into. Perhaps he's speaking to himself, perhaps even pleading with Ness to end his torment. A friend of mind hears it as “Get us out of here!” and swears that he hears a girl as well, leading him to think that it must be the Chosen 4 trying to escape the mess that used to be Giygas’ lair. Is any of this intentional? Most likely not (why would it even be in English in the first place?) but it hopefully gave you the spooks, and by doing so set the tone of GIgyas' last hours. Hope you enjoyed!

Pokey reapers one last time to give his last soliloquy "Ness! Now, I...well...It's going to seem like I'm running away. But perhaps I'll just sneak away to another era to think about my next plan. It's a good bet that we will.
see each other again...All right! I'll be seeing you! So now which one of us do you think is the cool guy?!" Does Pokey even realize how evil he is and the consequences of what he does? He talks to Ness like a schoolyard Rival who just bested him at marbles. Perhaps he does realize his own evil and thats why he gets so much pleasure from his acts. What a delightfully horrible character.

As the fight ends you are left with a sole image of our heroes fallen robot bodies.



And then this cutscene below starts to play.