Editing EarthBound (section)

==Plot==
''EarthBound'' begins sometime in the 1990s,{{Refn|The only reference to the year in the game is represented with "199X".|group=nb}} several years after the events of ''Mother'', in the fictional country of Eagleland, a parody of the United States. A young boy named [[Ness (character)|Ness]]{{refn|group=nb|Players are asked to name their characters at the beginning of the game. "Ness", along with all the other names for the playable characters in this article, are the default names.<ref name="USgamer: the deal"/>}} is awoken by a nearby meteorite crash<ref name="GameZone review"/> and investigates it with his neighbor, [[Porky Minch|Pokey Minch]],<ref name="IGN: 10 MMM"/>{{refn|group=nb|While named Pokey in ''EarthBound'', he is named Porky in the Japanese version. This also applies in ''Mother 3''. In Japanese versions of both his name is ポーキー ''Pōkī''.<ref name="IGN: 10 MMM"/>}} to find Pokey's missing brother, Picky.

When Ness and Pokey arrive at the meteor's crash site, it opens up: revealing a small, beetle-like creature from the future named Buzz-Buzz. He explains that in the future, an alien force named [[Giygas]] has enveloped and consumed the world in hatred and consequently turned animals, humans, and objects into malicious creatures.  Buzz-Buzz instructs Ness to collect melodies in a Sound Stone from eight Sanctuaries located across the game's world to preemptively stop the force,<ref name="Kotaku: Trippiest" /> but is killed shortly thereafter when Pokey and Picky's mother mistakes him for a dung beetle. (During the player's ascent to the meteorite crash, a man can be met who claims to have unearthed a golden statue called the "Mani Mani" which emits evil thoughts. This statue appears throughout the game, and is typically attributed to the evil forces of the game's world.)

On his journey to visit the sanctuaries, Ness stumbles upon Happy Happy Village: a village inhabited by a cult of hooded men in blue robes who worship the color blue. A young girl named Paula has been taken hostage by the group, who wish to utilize her psychic abilities. Ness subsequently rescues her, and faces the cult's leader: a man named "Mr. Carpainter" who has fallen influence to the Mani Mani statue. Subsequently, they arrive in the zombie-infested Threed, where Ness and Paula fall prey to a trap. Paula telepathically instructs precocious child scientist Jeff in a Winters boarding school to rescue them, prompting Jeff to escape the school with the assistance of his friend Tony. Jeff reunites with his father, Doctor Andonuts, who utilizes a flying saucer-like device called the “Sky Runner” to fly him to Ness and Paula’s location: freeing the duo. They continue to Saturn Valley: a village filled with a species of bizarre creatures called Mr. Saturn who are being enslaved by a group of sentient barf piles led by “Master Belch” to produce "Fly Honey". The group distracts him with a jar of the bizarre substance and defeats him, thus the Mr. Saturn assist the party by allowing them passage to the city of Fourside: whereupon Paula is abducted. Ness and Jeff rescue her after visiting a bar and entering Moonside, an alternate, psychedelic version of Fourside.

After making their way to the seaside resort Summers and consuming a “magic cake”, Ness has a vision of Poo, the prince of Dalaam, undergoing "[[Mu (negative)|Mu]] Training" before joining the party as well.<ref name="IGN: 10 MMM"/> This training entails Poo having a vision in which all of his body parts are ripped from his being before his senses are dulled.

The party continues to travel to the Scaraba desert, the Deep Darkness swamp, another village of creatures called the Tenda and a forgotten underworld where dinosaurs live. When the Sound Stone is eventually filled,<ref name="Tilden"/> Ness visits Magicant, a surreal location in his mind where he fights his personal dark side.<ref name="IGN: 10 MMM"/> Upon returning to Eagleland, Ness and his party use the Phase Distorter to travel back in time to fight Giygas, transferring their souls into robots so as to not destroy their bodies through time travel. The group discovers a device that contains Giygas, but it is being guarded by Pokey, who has been aiding Giygas all along and is using alien technology. After being defeated in battle, Pokey turns the device off, releasing Giygas and forcing the group to fight{{sfn|Tilden|1995|pp=116–119}} the alien, whose infinite power transformed him into an incomprehensible embodiment of evil and insanity. During the fight, Paula reaches out to the inhabitants of Earth, and eventually the player, who prays for the children's safety. The prayers manage to exploit Giygas' fatal weakness – human emotions – and defeat the alien, eradicating him from existence.<ref name="IGN: 10 MMM"/> In a post-credits scene, Ness, whose life has returned to normal following Giygas' defeat, receives a note from Pokey, who challenges Ness to come and find him.<ref name="Kotaku: Trippiest"/>