While I was away on vacation to Illinois, I had time in the car to level up to the maximum with my two star characters Ness and Poo. If you had seen my earlier post, you'll know I was aiming to power level, basically meaning my characters would be far stronger than they should be according to how they progress through the game. Well, I spent sometime fighting Fobbies before taking on Belch, and I raised my levels significantly. When I nearly reached Ness's top level, I received a spectacular surprise. Around level 85, he gains 150 HP and tons of attack power. This is what makes him the superweapon for the rest of the game.
When I finally took on Giygas, it was a fairly straight-forward fight to the death. Giygas's death of course. As you should know if you've ever played and beaten EarthBound, there are a few parts to the battle against Giygas. The first has you focusing entirely on his cohort and your former neighbor, Pokey. Attempting to hit Giygas results in a rather quick death. Giygas hits back with Ness's PSI Gaming attack regularly, which necessitates PSI Shield Beta. You don't want to reflect his magic attacks back at him since he'll just reflect them back at you again. I hit Pokey with everything in my conventional attack repetoire. Multi-bottle rockets, Ness's bat, Paula's frying-pan and Poo's... hands. Unfortunately I forgot to get the Sword of Kings for him. Even without it, his power was quite formidable.
After Pokey fell, it was time to turn my focus on Giygas. PSI Gaming Omega, Ice Omega, and Starstorm Omega as well as Jeff's bazooka brought him down quickly enough. That's when Giygas goes insane... The only way to beat him at this point is to hunker down, defend Paula and let her pray for help. Eventually she'll call on everyone you helped throughout the game, and for the knockout blow, she'll even call on the player to help pray for their safety. This is what finally destroys Giygas.
The end is amazing, and one of the best an RPG could ever aspire to have. Since I've played through the ending of EarthBound, I've hoped for other games with an ending as comprehensive and fun. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has yet to beat the game, but seriously, if you haven't you need to get to work... the game has been out for a decade!
I promised screenshots, and those will be in a seperate article chronicling a bit of my tour through Eagleland. Stay tuned!
