Eightbound

EightBound is a Final Fantasy experience, roughly a year and a half in the making.

With this patch, Polinym and Mareeta have transformed EarthBound into a brand new Final Fantasy game, celebrating the first nine games of the series. All nine games receive equal representation through content in the game, including less popular titles like II and III.

All menus, text, commands, items, enemies, and magic have been converted into Final Fantasy terms. The battle system was also adjusted to make battle more frantic, fast-paced, and exciting. Instead of mashing the A-Button through several sentences, the messages now get right to the point and fly by before the player’s eyes.

The entire story of the game has been rewritten as a comedic parody of both EarthBound AND Final Fantasy. The story is based around Final Fantasy VIII. Squall and his friends must grow their power to stop Ultimecia, the terror of the time-space continuum. Along the way, they meet many familiar faces from across the Final Fantasy series.

In EightBound, many of the frustrating and poorly balanced segments of EarthBound have been revised, rebalanced, and made more fun. Grinding is no longer required at all, except at the end of the game to deal with the abundant post-game content.

At the same time, EightBound was also made MUCH more difficult compared to EarthBound. Bosses will take serious time and effort to defeat, and there many, MANY more bosses the overcome. Strategic thinking and thorough knowledge of the battle system are required to win the more difficult fights. This difficulty is not just increased stats, but each and every boss was carefully designed to be unique with specific strengths and weakness which the player must learn. So many bosses were added, in fact, that the game also features a new BOSS RUSH mode, with three paths of difficulty. In Boss Rush, players must use their end-game power to overcome a series of boss fights in a row.

Like any good Final Fantasy game, EightBound features its unique “gimmick” to the fighting system. Players can make use of “Spell-Casting Items”, which grant players new moves when used in battle. These Spell-Casting Items, like the Judgement Staff, Sylph Magicite, Nepto Scale, and more, can be arranged on party members as the player chooses.

Players will laugh, players will cry. Players will throw their controller at the screen in frustration. Anyone can get into playing EightBound, but only true masters will be able to make it out alive. EightBound truly has something for everyone.