An American suburb, a kid, a telephone, and the feeling that something is off behind the curtains.

The profile of EarthBound Beginnings is that of a game you take with you, not one you savor. On the desert island it edges ahead of 77% of titles. The soundtrack follows, above average, which surprises no one. Attachment sits just past the middle. Then it sours: fun places it very low, ahead of only 15% of games, controller feel is no better and rests on very few votes, and art direction drops close to the floor. That is the whole tension: people want to keep it close, yet they do not really enjoy playing it.

Nothing unfair about that. This is a 1989 RPG that stayed invisible in the West for decades, with its slow battles, its wandering, its era-specific harshness. Criteria about art style or controller comfort speak today's language, not its own. What makes it great, the strangeness and the tone, is not what these questions measure.

So, who is it for? For you if you like odd RPGs, off-kilter moods, and games you approach as a piece of history. Much less so if you want something smooth and instantly pleasant in the hands.