Earthbound – The End

–The End–

It has taken a long time to get here, but we are finally ready for our final battle with the ultimate evil, Giygas. We approach cautiously, and Giygas responds in turn by producing Ness’s face on his…um…eye? I’m just going to say eye, but in all honestly it looks like it’s something much different and it’s giving birth to a new Ness. Thankfully, Porky shows up out of nowhere. That’s certainly not a phrase I thought I would be saying, but he does manage to cover up Giygas for the moment.

Anyway, Porky starts ranting about how the Apple of Enlightenment foretold Ness and company coming here to defeat Giygas. However, Porky plans to ruin that prediction. Led by Giygas, he has fought his way ahead of us to show up here as well, which is something the Apple of Enlightenment never predicted.

However, all that effort has twisted Porky beyond Giygas’s original plans. In Porky’s mind, Giygas is no longer the wielder of ultimate evil, but has become the embodiment of evil itself. As such, he no longer has any control of it.

After that exchange, the battle truly begins, and I must admit, we didn’t get off to a good start. Apparently direct attacks on Giygas have absolutely no effect on him. In fact, they reflect back at the attacker. So it’s quite unfortunate that we started the battle with a very aggressive opening assault. This resulted in heavy damage and casualties on our side.

Following such a terrible opening, it’s going to take us some time before we can properly regroup. The next couple rounds are mostly filled with reviving, healing, and reviving again. All the while, Porky is over there discharging a very stinky gas on us. So basically he’s farting on us as we’re trying to recover. This causes no damage, or even status effects, but it does lower everyone’s defense.

We eventually regroup a bit and manage to send a few attacks flying. Of course, attacking Giygas is completely futile at this point. The same cannot be said for Porky though. He may be heavily armored at the moment, but that won’t protect him forever.

Once he has taken enough damage, Porky starts right back up with his taunting. He mocks us for calling ourselves heroes and claims it’s a gazillion years too soon for us to be trying to oppose Giygas.

He then comments that we must feel really stupid for not even knowing what Giygas looks like. So apparently what we’ve been fighting so far is not in fact Giygas’s true body. According to Porky, if we were to actually see Giygas we would be petrified with fear.

After this, Porky turns off the “Devil’s Machine” which has been housing Giygas thus far. Free of the device, the eyeball like apparatus we’ve been fighting disappears. The pipes that once connected to it also start to warp and fade away as well.

Now free, Giygas apparently can no longer think rationally anymore. He has apparently destroyed his own mind with his own incredible power. We can barely hope to match such power, and Porky gloats that we’ll simply become another meal for Giygas.

In his new form, Giygas has essentially lost any kind of physical body and is instead warping in the background. Even his attacks have lost all sense of logic to the degree that the party can’t even make out the attack’s true form. We just see a wave of energy coming our way and causing severe damage.

Thankfully, the attacks in this form are a bit more manageable. It also helps that Porky has left us for this portion of the battle and we’re only fighting Giygas now. As such we manage to patch everybody up rather quickly and manage to put up a decent fight of our own now.

Before long, Porky shows up once again to continue his verbal assault. He looks down on us as the only fools still fighting for justice even though, in his eyes, we’re nothing more than garbage waiting to be burned up with the rest of the trash. The very sight is bringing him to tears with laughter.

The taunting goes on that we must be scared to death in our current situation. He wouldn’t be surprised if any second we started calling out for our mother and father, begging for help because we’re about to wet our pants. In fact, he encourages us even try calling for help, because no one will come.

Once again, Giygas’s form changes and becomes even more unstable. With nothing left to lose, we go all out with our attacks. If we don’t win here, then what was the point of everything we’ve been through until now?

The battle rages on for nearly a half hour after this. We end up using nearly our whole supply of healing items just keeping the assault going. With resources growing thin, Poo is the first party member to fall. His equipment apparently isn’t up the task of deflecting Giygas’s instant kill attacks, and it simply isn’t worth it to keep attempting to revive him. So sadly, poo will remain unconscious for the remainder of the battle.

As we use up the last of our items, Jeff is the next to fall. Though his tech was impressive, he ultimately wasn’t up to the task. He too will sadly not see the end of this battle…

Ness and Paula are the only two that remain now, fighting the losing battle side by side. But even though Giygas seems to be growing more unstable by the minute, even now, they still can’t grasp the true nature of Giygas’s attacks.

Backed into a corner, and with little hope left of winning this battle, Paula takes a gamble and prays for help. We’ve actually mostly avoided using this ability for most of the game. I never did figure out its true mechanics, but the few times when I did use it, it was disastrous for everyone, casting multiple status effects to friend and foe alike. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time and something good will happen.

To our amazement, her prayers actually reached someone. It wasn’t god like we were hoping for, but it seems to have caught the attention of the Mr. Saturns, Dr. Andonuts, and Apple kid back in Saturn Valley. Sensing we were in trouble, they prayed for our safety.

This seems to be exactly what we needed to do all along. After receiving their prayers, Giygas’s defenses become unstable. Now vulnerable, Giygas changes form yet again. This may be the turning point to the battle we have been waiting for. With Giygas now in distress, Paula prays for more help from anyone that will listen.

Paula’s voice echoed out to Summers and catches the attention of the Runaway Brothers. Without truly knowing why, they also started praying for our safety.

Still Paula continues to pray for help. Her pleas find their way home where her father hears her voice. Gathering the whole school together they too prayed for our safety.

As Paula prays, her voice carries all the way to Winters where Tony suddenly feels anxious about his friend Jeff. Together with the rest of the classmates, they too begin to pray.

Even in the distant land of Dalaam they can sense that their Prince Poo is in danger. Wishing the feeling to be just a dream they begin to pray for our safety as well.

Not only friends, but former foes are even sensing our danger. We need look to further than Frank back in Onett. Recalling Ness’s Shining Face, Frank too begins to pray for us.

We then turn our attention to Ness’s house. With the sky darkened and monsters everywhere, they know all too well the danger Ness and company are in. Feeling uneasy, no doubt from mother’s intuition, she prays for her son and his friends.

At this point, Giygas becomes unstable almost beyond recognition. The prayers are affecting him more than we could have thought. He is far from defeated though as Ness uses the last of his strength keeping the two of them alive for the fight.

As the tension builds, Paula forces herself to continue praying. But at this point, she can’t think of anyone else to pray to. So she prays to anyone that will listen, anyone willing to help us fight off this ultimate evil. Sadly, her effects are in vain, as the prayer was absorbed by the darkness.

She refuses to give up now and she begins to pray even harder. She doesn’t make a clear connection, but someone she’s never met begins to pray for them as well.

The battle spirals out of control from here as the mysterious person continues to pray harder and harder. As the connection becomes clearer, we see that it is us, the player, the writer and you readers here at DeadPark.com praying for the safety of our heroes.

With our combined power, Giygas is dealt a massive blow. This single attack is enough to defeat the ultimate evil and send it spiraling out of control.

Porky however simply can’t admit defeat, coming to taunt us one last time before running away. But with the power he has already gained through his own adventures, he threatens to return sometime with a new plan of his own. Then we’ll see which of them is really the coolest.

With that, Porky disappears as Giygas crumbles into an indiscernible mass. Eventually he can’t even sustain this much and collapses into himself, hopefully never to return again.

The battle may be won, but the four of us aren’t exactly in the greatest of shape. Just as Dr. Andonuts said, it doesn’t look like we’ll be capable of making it back to our bodies, even if we have defeated Giygas. As the battlefield quiets, the souls of the children start to rise out of the robot bodies one by one.

Amazingly, the souls find their own way back to their bodies in Saturn Valley. As the souls float down the children awake once again in their human bodies. So it looks like we may have a happy ending after all.

With our battle won and our adventure over, we all begin to go our separate ways. The first to leave is Poo who must return to Dalaam and use his new found experience for the good of his country. He says his farewells and then disappears in a puff of smoke.

Jeff is the next to say his farewell. He thanks us for allowing him to tag along, and he’s happy to have been able to put some of his studies to use. Strangely he also comments that if Paula and Ness were ever to get married, he’d be willing to come over occasionally to fix our broken electronics for us.

He doesn’t return to the Boarding School however. Instead he chooses to stay here with Dr. Andonuts, who he finally starts calling Dad. The two of them have a lot of catching up to do now that they accept each other as family. Dr. Andonuts is also one of the smartest people alive, so Jeff will surely benefit from his expertise.

Now that only Ness and Paula remain, she asks Ness if he would be willing to escort her home. With Giygas defeated and our adventure over, she needs to return to being just a normal kid again.

Before we head on our way home, we go around and say our farewells to everyone as well. It has been a long adventure, and they have all helped us in their own way. We’re going to miss them all.

With everything said and done, we quickly teleport away to Twoson and escort Paula back to the Polestar Elementary School where she lives. Paula is hesitant to leave, saying goodbye several times before slowly walking away and inside.

We of course check in with her parents before we leave, we don’t want to be rude after all. Her parents are very accepting of our relationship. Actually they’re a bit too accepting. I don’t think Ness even accepted the relationship. But Paula’s mother is happy that we live so close by, and offers to make pizza for us whenever we come over. Her father is also amazingly accepting of us dating his daughter, going so far as to suggest we sleep over sometime. Sleep in his room of course, it would be inappropriate for Paula and Ness to actually sleep together.

Finally, Ness returns home as well. The monsters that once roamed the streets are gone now, and the skies have cleared. Everything seems to be back to normal for a change. We head inside where our mother is waiting, she asks us to tell her all about our adventure and the screen fades to black…

Before the credits roll, the game goes through a cast call of all the characters we’ve encountered in our adventure. I love when games do this. Sometimes it’s the only way you ever learn the names of some of the characters.

Once more, the Photographer shows up, this time facing the fourth wall, and takes our picture for a change. With that, the staff credits roll and show off all the pictures taken throughout our adventure.

After the credits, Ness is awoken in the middle of the night by a loud knocking on the door. We rush to answer it and find that it’s Picky with a letter from his brother Porky. Apparently Porky wanted one last taunt in before the end.

And at long last, our adventure truly comes to an end. Or has it? … Yes, it has. At least this game has. Thank you for joining us on this adventure. I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me.