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ellynu wrote
on the back of the packaging for mother 2 it said “children will become adults and adults will become children.”
Moonside wrote
Yeah, I just chose to not make a distinction between all-ages and children's media. There's a kernel of truth in it that there's plenty of children's media that's basically unbearable to anyone not in the target audience, but I feel that often any children's stuff that actually appeals to older audiences as well gets relabeled as 'all-ages' so it works as a term of praise more than anything. Here's an interesting and short blog post how this "domestication" works by taking the critical rave Adventure Time received as an example.
I don't take issue with 'all-ages' in general though, I'm just feeling ambivalent about it. Ryan North explained his approach to all-ages comics writing as that there's no swearing and everyone keeps their clothes on, which just lets everyone enjoy the stories without condescension toward children. That I can appreciate.
But if you want to make a distinction, EB was pretty explicitly of the latter kind as its tagline in Japanese was "[a]dults, children, and even older sisters." Apparently by the time Super Famicom rolled around, RPGs had already lost some of their popularity in the mainstream, especially with women and girls.
I didn't write about EB since I honestly don't have a good take on why I like it in the first place and what's something I'd like to see more of in grown up media. The feeling is real, but I don't have a conceptual clarity. Maybe one thing is that EB is surprisingly melancholic in its way yet it comes in cute, colorful package. That would be something I'd like it, but cute is verboten for grown ups, it seems!
devtesla wrote (edited )
I don't know if Earthbound is a "kids" game but it definitely was played by kids, at least in Japan. I think EB's status as a cult game here makes it easy to forget that RPGs were much more mainstream in Japan when it came out.