EarthBound
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50 free EarthBound trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
EarthBound sold poorly when it reached North America in 1995, then grew into one of the most loved role-playing games ever made. Instead of knights and castles it offers suburbs, shopping malls and payphones, a hero in a cap and striped shirt, and a final boss that still unsettles players today. This quiz covers the whole adventure: Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo, the towns they pass through, the items and enemies they meet, and the strange figures along the way, from the gentle Mr. Saturn to Pokey and Giygas. It also goes behind the scenes to the people who made the game, its music, its odd American marketing, the Player's Guide that came with it, and its neighbours in the Mother series, EarthBound Beginnings and Mother 3. It suits anyone who has finished the game once, with easier questions for players who know Ness mainly from other games and harder ones for fans who remember every boss. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the questions can be printed for a quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which gimmick did Nintendo build into magazine ads for EarthBound's 1995 launch in North America?
Scratch-and-sniff panels
Scratch-and-sniff panels gave off foul smells on purpose, and GamePro said the ad drew more reader complaints than any other it ran that year.
Q 02What does a pirated copy of EarthBound do to the player during the fight with the final boss?
Deletes the saved game
Deletes the saved game: the copy protection resets the game near the end and wipes the file, after first flooding the pirate's playthrough with extra enemies.
Q 03In EarthBound, the maze builder Brick Road fulfils his dream by having himself turned into what?
A dungeon
A dungeon, and a walking one: he travels with the party as an ally for a while and keeps a submarine inside him that they borrow to sail on.
Q 04What is Master Belch, the burping boss who commands the zombies in EarthBound, actually made of?
Vomit
Vomit: Master Belch is a large living pile of it who leads smaller piles, and he comes back later in the game under the new name Master Barf.
Q 05To survive the trip back in time to fight Giygas, EarthBound's heroes move their souls into what?
Robots
Robots house the four friends' souls because time travel would destroy living bodies; Dr. Andonuts's Phase Distorter then carries them into the past.
Q 06How is Giygas, the cosmic destroyer and final boss of EarthBound, finally defeated?
By prayers for help
By prayers for help: Paula calls on the friends and family met along the way, and the last plea reaches the player in person.
Q 07In EarthBound, who deposits prize money into Ness's bank account after every battle the party wins?
His father
His father pays in the winnings from afar, so the cash has to be drawn from an ATM before Ness can spend any of it in a shop.
Q 08Ness, the hero of EarthBound, became far better known as a playable character in which other Nintendo series?
Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros. has had Ness on its roster since the first game in 1999, and in Europe, which never got EarthBound on the Super NES, he was known mainly from it.
Q 09Which 2015 indie RPG was made by Toby Fox, who built EarthBound ROM hacks as a teenager?
Undertale
Undertale wears the influence openly: Fox has said its title copies the way EarthBound sticks two words together into one.
Q 10Which piece of sports equipment is the main weapon of Ness, the young hero of EarthBound?
Baseball bats
Baseball bats are his usual weapon, with yo-yos as an alternative, in a game that swaps the swords of fantasy RPGs for suburban toys.
Q 11EarthBound's character and world design has been likened to which classic American comic strip?
Peanuts
Peanuts is the usual comparison: critics describe the character and world design as Charles M. Schulz-esque, and Ness's outfit has been said to evoke Charlie Brown.
Q 12The Mother series that includes EarthBound took its name partly from a song by which former Beatle?
John Lennon
John Lennon's song Mother moved the series' creator to tears, and he set out to make a game that could move its players in the same way.
Q 13The writer and director of EarthBound voiced the girls' dad in which Studio Ghibli film?
My Neighbor Totoro
Q 21What do the Mr. Saturn of EarthBound wear on the single hair that sprouts from their heads?
A red bow
A red bow tops every Mr. Saturn, along with a huge nose and four whiskers; the game's creator has called the gentle species a symbol of innocence.
Q 22Under which name is Mr. Saturn, the big-nosed mascot of EarthBound, known in Japan?
Dosei-san
Dosei-san means much the same thing: dosei is the Japanese word for the planet Saturn, and san is a polite title much like Mr.
Q 23What does Master Belch force the captured Mr. Saturn to produce in his factory in EarthBound?
Fly Honey
Fly Honey is the one thing Belch cannot resist, so the party offers him a jar of it in battle and attacks while he is distracted.
My Neighbor Totoro cast him as Tatsuo Kusakabe in the Japanese original; he was a famous copywriter who also wrote taglines for Ghibli films.
Q 14Which ailment, unique to Ness, can strike after battles in EarthBound and make him waste turns?
Homesickness
Homesickness leaves Ness daydreaming about home or his favourite food instead of fighting, until he phones his mom or visits her in person.
Q 15Who is credited with saving EarthBound from cancellation after joining its troubled development team?
Satoru Iwata
Satoru Iwata joined as lead programmer when the project was in dire straits; two decades later, as company president, he announced its worldwide rerelease.
Q 16Which studio programmed EarthBound together with Ape Inc. for Nintendo?
HAL Laboratory
HAL Laboratory, the studio behind Kirby, wrote the core game code while Ape built the text and maps, and the two teams held regular retreats at HAL's office in view of Mount Fuji.
Q 17Mother 3, the sequel to EarthBound, finally came out in Japan in 2006 for which handheld system?
Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance owners in Japan made it a bestseller, yet it was never officially released in English, a sore point for the series' fans.
Q 18Before its cancellation in 2000, the sequel to EarthBound was being built in 3D for which console?
The N64
The N64 version, announced as EarthBound 64, was planned for the 64DD disk add-on, then moved back to cartridge before repeated delays ended the project.
Q 19Mother 3, the sequel to EarthBound, was never localised, so how did English speakers get to play it?
A fan translation patch
A fan translation patch arrived in 2008 after two years of volunteer work led by Clyde Mandelin, a professional game translator.
Q 20Which visitor from ten years in the future sends Ness on his quest in EarthBound?
Buzz Buzz
Buzz Buzz barely outlives his warning: Pokey's mother swats him flat, mistaking the visitor from the future for a dung beetle.
Q 24The wobbly script Mr. Saturn speaks in, in Japan's EarthBound, was modelled on whose handwriting?
The creator's young daughter
The creator's young daughter was the model: her childish handwriting inspired the shaky Japanese characters, which the English version imitates with an odd font.
Q 25Which kitchen item does Paula, the psychic girl of EarthBound's party, normally swing as her weapon?
Frying pans
Frying pans are her standard weapon, though her real strength lies elsewhere: she is the fastest of the four heroes and a powerful PSI user.
Q 26Poo, the martial artist who joins last in EarthBound, holds which rank in his homeland of Dalaam?
Prince
Prince of Dalaam, he joins only after completing his Mu Training, and later leaves for a while to learn the mighty PSI Starstorm from the Star Master.
Q 27What is the name of Pokey Minch's younger brother, whom Ness helps find at the start of EarthBound?
Picky
Picky is the younger but more mature of the Minch brothers, and at the very end of the game he is the one who hands Ness a taunting letter from Pokey.
Q 28Which colour does the Happy Happyist cult of EarthBound want to paint everything in the world?
Blue
Blue is the cult's obsession: its leader, Mr. Carpainter, believes painting the whole world that colour is the key to happiness, and he starts with his own village.
Q 29Which trait keeps EarthBound's Tenda tribe from speaking to Ness until he brings a library book?
Shyness
Shyness silences the whole village, so Ness has to borrow a self-help book on overcoming it from the library in his home town.
Q 30Which EarthBound town is overrun by zombies until Master Belch is beaten in his factory?
Threed
Threed stays dark until Belch falls; before that, the party clears its streets with Zombie Paper, an invention that works like flypaper for the undead.