Tim Rogers’ critique of Earthbound/Mother 2 is ultra-pretentious and overreaching, but still worth spending thirty minutes on.

We’re not God in Mother 2. We’re not even a warrior strong enough to kill God. We’re merely a psychic kid with a baseball bat, who manages to beat an alien pretty badly with his psychic powers and that baseball bat. He can’t kill the alien, because he’s a character who is a product of the world that also produced that alien. The only person who can will that alien dead is the player who is pressing the buttons. Should the player possess extra ingenuity and a knack for exploring, he’ll be rewarded only with things such as hearing his bicycle breaks squeal beneath the waters of a rainforest. It’s a statement that the game makes, and makes boldly, yet without rubbing your nose in it. The game exists only because you are here.