The videogame EarthBound only exists as a touchstone for eliciting information about Baumann’s life, and sections that directly speak to the game are few and far between. The book weaves a line between an object-focused study of EarthBound and a memoir about Baumann, and this line often hooks to the right or the left. This conceit anchors the book, structuring it in such a way that the information Baumann provides about EarthBound is wrapped up in frequent references to his own life, his relationships, the time that has passed between the release of the game and now, the choices he has made professionally, and a cornucopia of other information that need not be included in a laundry list for the sake of conserving space. The core concept of the book is that Baumann played the much-loved Super Nintendo game EarthBound as a child, and now that he is an adult, a critical reflection on a game that is at least partially about growing up and experiencing strange things in the world is in order. I have complex feelings about Ken Baumann’s EarthBound, the first book out from Boss Fight Books’ new series of short critical works on videogames done in the style of the 33 ? series.
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