Shigesato Itoi's brainchild was known in the West as Earthbound, a quirky RPG that eschewed every role playing convention. Like L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carrol before him, Itoi lured ordinary children into a world of bizarre fantasy. Itoi realized the limitations of his technology and the infancy of his medium, opting for a breezy, existentialist humor. Deconstructing the console RPG into its fundamental parts, Itoi was able to bring RPG mechanics outside of Tolkien-esque storyboards and into a world closely resembling modern-day suburbia. Its hero wasn't a muscled he-man nor a femme half-elf, but an ordinary adolescent kid. Ness saved the world with a cracked baseball bat and a t-shirt rather than a broadsword and chain mail.
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