In the early 1900's, a dark shadow covered a small country town in rural America. At that time, a young married couple vanished mysteriously from their home.
With those cryptic words begins MOTHER, EarthBound's moodier, more verbose, less scrutable older brother. In 1989 strange things begin happening to a boy named Ninten, who realizes he and his family are more involved in what appears to be an alien invasion than he could possibly have realized.
What follows is a cross-country adventure through the desert, the big city, ominous Mt. Itoi, and a dream world called Magicant. Ninten, a stand-in for the player, learns about friendship, and love, and—well, and singing, while also uncovering the true story of the mysterious disappearance of his grandparents and the strange vendetta of the alien Giegue.
It's famously a slog through random encounters and 1980s gameplay mechanics, but those EarthBound fans with the courage to get past the Podunk graveyard will be rewarded with a surprisingly complex story, an enormous, non-linear world to explore, and a look at characters and concepts that would later be refined or repurposed for the 1994 release of MOTHER's sequel.