10 games similar to EarthBound, a Turn-based strategy (TBS), Adventure, Role-playing (RPG) game, drawn from IGDB's similarity data. Each pick below notes the genres it shares with EarthBound.
01Shares AdventureBoth games feature dinosaurs as a core element and use battery save systems to preserve progress. EarthBound grounds its adventure in a contemporary American setting with an alien threat, while Super Mario World pursues a more fantastical rescue quest across Dinosaur Land. Each game has received extensive fan translations, reflecting their enduring appeal across multiple regions and generations.
Games like Super Mario World →
02Shares Role-playing (RPG)Both games are turn-based JRPGs where young protagonists journey across strange lands to confront an apocalyptic threat. Chrono Trigger shares EarthBound's focus on ordinary kids thrust into world-ending danger, gathering allies and facing existential dread. Where EarthBound emphasizes psychic powers and cult corruption, Chrono Trigger centers time travel and multiple eras, but both explore how ordinary people become heroes through determination and friendship.
Games like Chrono Trigger →
03Shares AdventureBoth EarthBound and Super Metroid are 16-bit adventures centered on confronting an alien threat, with exploration and combat as core mechanics. Each game uses battery saves and features darkness as a thematic element. While EarthBound emphasizes turn-based strategy and character growth, Super Metroid delivers real-time action across an interconnected world. Both share a sci-fi tone grounded in 1990s console gaming.
Games like Super Metroid →
04Shares AdventureBoth games structure their adventures around exploring a world and discovering hidden locations that unlock story progression. EarthBound sends Ness to eight sanctuaries while Zelda tasks Link with finding eight dungeons, each serving as a key objective. Both use battery saves to preserve your journey and balance action combat with exploration and secrets, establishing a template for adventure games that prioritizes player agency and discovery.
Games like The Legend of Zelda →
05Shares AdventureBoth games pair action-adventure gameplay with science fiction premises that explore corrupt systems and apocalyptic threats. EarthBound's young protagonist confronts an alien invasion while BioShock Infinite's Booker uncovers a city's dark secrets, and each game uses its story to examine power structures and control. The shared emphasis on saving the world through an unlikely journey makes them thematically aligned despite their different genres.
Games like BioShock Infinite →
06Shares AdventureRole-playing (RPG)Both games blend turn-based RPG combat with adventure across strange worlds, building parties of quirky allies to face escalating threats. Paper Mario shares EarthBound's mix of action and humor, breaking the fourth wall where EarthBound explores growing up. Each game layers character growth and leveling through exploration, with save points marking progress through a long, mysterious quest against powerful forces.
Games like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door →
07Shares AdventureBoth games pit a young protagonist against an existential threat in science fiction settings where humanity's fate hangs in balance. EarthBound sends Ness on a journey to gather power across sanctuaries and confront an alien destroyer, while Mega Man X awakens X to stop rogue robots threatening human survival. Each game explores what it means for an individual to rise against overwhelming cosmic or mechanical forces.
08Shares AdventureRole-playing (RPG)Both games blend action and science fiction within RPG frameworks, though Immortal: Unchained trades EarthBound's turn-based combat and 1990s Americana setting for real-time shooting in a futuristic world. Where EarthBound emphasizes exploration and character growth through a quirky adventure, Immortal: Unchained focuses on challenging combat encounters. They share a commitment to adventure-driven storytelling across fantastical, otherworldly environments.
09Shares AdventureBoth games cast you as a young protagonist on an adventure to save the world from an encroaching darkness, navigating isometric overworlds and confronting supernatural threats. EarthBound emphasizes turn-based combat and psychological horror, while A Link to the Past focuses on puzzle-solving and action, but each uses battery saves to preserve your progress through lengthy quests across strange, interconnected lands.
Games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past →
10Shares AdventureRole-playing (RPG)Both games blend science fiction and fantasy in adventure RPGs where a male protagonist leads a party across strange worlds. EarthBound's turn-based combat and Rogue Galaxy's real-time battles both revolve around leveling up and managing multiple party members in tactical encounters. Each game emphasizes exploration and character growth while confronting threats to the world, grounding fantastical premises in quirky, lived-in settings.
Frequently asked
10 games similar to EarthBound: Super Mario World, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, BioShock Infinite, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Mega Man X, Immortal: Unchained.
Most of these games share Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science fiction and Role-playing (RPG) with EarthBound, based on IGDB's similarity data. Each pick has a short note explaining what it has in common with EarthBound.
