Dungeon anatomy – A Giant Step in the right direction

All right, let’s get through this shack and get to where we’re going to.

Giant Step is the first official dungeon in Earthbound, and several new elements come to light with the introduction of some new BAD DUDES!! All of them are rodents.

Rowdy Mouse’s thing is that it has a really high critical hit rate. So you’ll be bashing away at him like everything’s alright, being all like “No, thank you” to recovering HP, and then SMAAAASH!! Now you’re in critical condition and hoping you get the first action in on the next turn! Rowdy Mouse is here to punish you for being lazy.

Attack Slugs consistently attack in very large groups, prompting you with a decision: to either defeat them all with physical attacks, or using 10 precious Psychic Points to take them all out at once with Ness’ PSI attack move.

The worst dudes, though, might be these guys. Black Antoids usually attack in pairs. They do consistently more damage than other baddies in this damn cave, and they know Lifeup Alpha, the same recovery skill Ness has. Take these guys down fast.

So a beautiful thing about Earthbound is that all enemies can be seen before you fight them. There are no random encounters! Earthbound may be one of the first games to introduce the concept of gaining or losing the advantage in battle based on how the battle is initiated. If you tag the enemy’s back, you get a bonus turn! If the enemy gets the drop on you, you have to suffer a turn without any input.

If you haven’t figured it out by this point, Giant Step is the place where you may notice that some enemies move about differently than others. Some come out you in arcing paths, some careen wildly, some even teleport toward you at set intervals.

For the jerks in Giant Step: for every step you take, they take two toward you. With this in mind you can anticipate how far you can go before a battle is initiated, how far away you can lure a sole enemy to overwhelm them, how close can you get to loot, how far away the nearest exit is. You ain’t just walking around like some schmuck – yer ALWAYS thinkin’!

The other big difference between Giant Step and previous challenges, like finding Picky and the siege of the arcade, is that you have no idea where you’re going.

You find Picky somewhere you’ve been before, and you can SEE Frank Fly in the lot behind the arcade. But you don’t know for sure what lies at the other end of the cave behind the shack.

OH, BUT I DO

Titanic Ant is the first really tough fight of the game, every turn asking yourself, should I heal NOW?” PROTIP: At this point in the game, it’s better to hold onto that PP for healing than for attacking. This is especially true fighting Titanic Ant, who can suck away your PP with PSI Magnet. What a Titanic DICK! Though you will want to open with one PSI Rockin’ attack to get rid of the Black Antoids flanking him.

Once you do it, you gain access to your first Sanctuary.

And then you get to enjoy a walk back to town as all of the vermin cower – enemies will literally run away from you in fear.

Feels good, man.