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.
Revision 1.1: Fixed game-breaking bugs. Game is now playable past Irvine/Selphie section.
Revision 1.2: Fixed yet another game-breaking bug. Completing the game 100% is now fully possible. Also, Culex is here now.
Revision 1.3: Added tons of new stuff like item icons, modified some enemies, enhanced some battle moves (e.g. Meteo Sword now strikes 5 times instead of 2-3), two new bosses added, fixed a ton of issues with flags/boss spawning, and so forth.
PS: Use rom expand to 6MB (48MB) before you patch the rom. Use
http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1120/.
================ THANKS FOR PLAYING EIGHTBOUND ===============
See also this nifty EightBound trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxxsQAmXhOs
This EarthBound hack was created with love and care
by Polinym and Mareeta. The project was completed over the course of
a year and a half. A series of revisions, new ideas, and improvements have
changed the hack in order to become what it is today.
As stated previously, EightBound is an complete hack that
makes EarthBound into a Final Fantasy game. The battles, menus, text,
themes, enemies, bosses, weapons, characters, and items have all either
been converted into Final Fantasy equivilants or into something new from
Final Fantasy.
We, Polinym and Mareeta, hope you enjoy this game and have
fun completing all the challenges. Do know that EightBound is not perfect, and
does have some bugs or oddities. If you encounter any bugs or glitches that make
the game unplayable (not counting slight graphical hiccups or weird quirks that
do no interfere with gameplay), please let Polinym know immediately so the issue
can be resolved.
Also, you may notice a Gaiden chapter to EightBound entitled
"EightBound Regal". It is a sidestory to the EightBound canon, but it is
also meant as a joke. We do not advise that you play this unless you want to
have a bad time. Heheheheheh....
May the light of the crystals shine on you forever... :)
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Database match: EarthBound (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20180813-062835)
File/ROM SHA-1: D67A8EF36EF616BC39306AA1B486E1BD3047815A
File/ROM CRC32: DC9BB451
