Ruining EarthBound's Best Moment

Putting the "psycho" in "psychokinesis!"

[mikumika]

Even at level 99 Ness must still go on his spiritual journey

[SergeRoughknight]

So there's a technical secret behind that "At that moment, Ness's psychic powers radically expanded!" line immediately before he gets those 200, 000 EXP. It means that the value of his IQ stat has been doubled, from being set to earn 5 PP / psychic points from each IQ point (the same rate as Paula & Poo), to 10 PP per IQ. So on top of normally getting an extra 150 PP from those 15 IQ points he automatically earns from completing Magicant - belatedly absorbing the 'powers of the sanctuaries' - he's also meant to get a 'bonus' 200-250 IQ from the 40-50 IQ points he already has by that point, to represent how his true psychic potential was being held back by the negative emotions he needed to conquer via Magicant.

Unfortunately that's just all dependent on the mechanics of him actually going through the process of at least one more level-up - and if that isn't possible because he already reached level 99, then Ness will lose out on nearly 400 PP, and also the 150 HP he's meant to gain from the Vitalty stat boost from that sequence. So even though this probably wasn't an 'intentional' penalty, ultimately reaching the max level too early pretty substantially handicaps Ness and the amount of times you'll be able to use his ultimate psychic attack and unique party-healing move in the final areas.

[NessX]

I can confirm you ruined my best moment

[charbomber]

I was actually told at some point that it would crash the game/softlock you (forgot which) if you got there at level 99, this is actually super interesting, thank you.

[twentysixbit]

On my first playthrough of EB, i got such awful luck on my hunt for the sword of kings i leveled my whole party all the way to 99 in the alien base underneath stonehenge. Needless to say, i missed out quite a bit in magicant...

[KajiCarson]

I really appreciate your thoughts and efforts on communicating them on this beautiful and so weird work of art. I truly cherish my experiences with this stellar game and having you upload a video on it (every once in a while, alas!) really makes my day. Thank you so much! I will never stop appreciating EarthBound.

[tobexomega]

Ness doesn't get the HP and PP buff because he has negative karma, this is the genocide route.

I can imagine grinding for hours on weaker opponents is a very bad time.

[LuckyIStar]

I did this exact thing as a kid. KO'd party members, Genociding the Borange Fobbies (appreciated the reference), and steam rolling Magicant.
I was too young to realize I needed to level up at least once to take advantage of the increase to Vitality and IQ.

[Mopbrothers]

God damn Earthbound is such a deep RPG. The amount of content and NPCs in the game never ceases to amaze me.

[AToutof]

Trying to achieve self-actualization but you've already had more character development than the rest of the cast combined:

[Saucion]

What a coincidence, I just played through this specific part of Earthbound today !

[DeepWeeb]

4:02 Was thinking how Cybershell-esque this video (and maybe this channel in general) was, and there you go, there it is

[Kuttyman]

two uploads in 7 days?! damn bro you are on your grind! keep up the good work!! (even if you don’t post this frequently again)

[EarthboundX]

I did this twice as a kid. One time I hit level 99 while getting the Sword of Kings for the only time, and the other I used a Game Genie to max my level.

[hansonkerman]

i always found it so funny that people would warn you about this. the amount of grinding you'd have to do to get even into the 90s by magicant is hilarious let alone 99. also good video yes 👍based pronouncing lumine hall correctly

[al-]

I guess because Vitality and Luck increase gives you a boost on your HP and PP respectively, but only when you level up. That's why you got your stats increased but no HP/PP boost.

[Applemangh]

It's because the game looks at your vitality and IQ stats to figure out how much HP and PP you should have, which is how it decides how much to give you during a level up.

The game also doubles the value of Ness' IQ during this cutscene, so if you had 50 the game will act as if you had 100 when deciding how much you're "supposed" to have and it has give you a ton of PP to catch you up to it's new calculation.

[lukcdk]

once i took 6 hours to get the sword of kings so just from this item everyone on my team was level 99, except ness because i let him die so he didn't get to lv 99. i have no idea of how many enemies i heve killed to get that, all that i know is that it certanly was well above 128.

[DC-FGC]

Makes sense. When you raise your VIT or IQ (like with a rock candy, something I definitely abused a lot as a kid) you don't get the corresponding HP/PP increase until you level up. More than anything else, I think the 200k xp is more to ensure that you actually level up(unless already at 99, of course) after gaining the Magicant boosts so you get the increase immediately.

[SuPeRNinJaRed]

2:20 Dead party grinding is honestly the only way I can get Marle to actually be any good in the lategame of Chrono Trigger... plus it’s an awesome name for a metal band (DPG4LIFE!)