Are you Afraid of the Game?: Halloween Hack for Earthbound (created by Toby Fox)

Are You Afraid of the Game is a new series I am starting which relies on the spooky, the dark, and the survival horror aspects of Video Games. The first game we are going to start with is a game that was submitted as part of a Halloween event on the website www.starmen.net. It's known as Earthbound Halloween, and it's developed and modded by somebody you all know by now, Toby Fox.
So you're thinking right about now what makes this Mod scary in the least? Well the mod itself uses the Earthbound sprites and tiles, but it brings a new spin on the franchise by making you play a character who is a bounty hunter, aptly named by you. As a bounty hunter you actually kill for money, and you start out the game passed out from a drunken stupor.
From here you find out the manager of the establishment wants to talk to you. Talking to the manager you hear a story about a daughter of a family that states that there was some type of invisible beast that crept through the window and began to tear her mother and father apart eating them whole. The manager wants to hire your skills so that the monster can be hunted down, but there's a catch. You must go through the sewers of Twoson and head to Foggyland.
Now i'm not going to slam you with a wall of text telling you every moment, but I would like to tell you all some moments that would be just a little to spooky for Earthbounds core. One of the huge moments in the game is that you go through the sewers killing small enemies such as a rat, a hippie, and a trashcan poltergeist. Usual Earthbound stuff. However when you get through the sewers you begin to read some text that explains that everything in the sewers is changing and you're moving to evil darkest pit called Foggyland.
The scene is something out of Stephen King novel, and it really sets the course for the horror elements of this mod. The water turns blood red, the walls turn a purple acidic color. You also start to see a change in the enemies, instead of Hippies you get zombies that tear into your flesh with every attack hoping for a piece of meat. You would think with what i'm describing that it can't get worse, well you would be wrong my friend...
As you progress further into the seventh circle of hell, you go through another door into Winters. But this isn't the Winters we all know and love, oh no, the sky is bright red. The grass is black stained with the many deaths of people from Winters. The biggest thing you notice is that instead of your typical Starman or anything of the sort from Earthbound, you get Monsters with gaping maws and melted machines that strangle themselves to death.
Now these are more or less the main points of this game, the really creepy stuff. But I want to bring something to light, and that has to be the last boss battle. Dr. Andonuts is actually a main part of the Earthbound storyline. He created many of the inventions that get you to the very end of the game, but Toby wanted to progress his story further. The way he did that was he made Dr. Andonuts feel regret and strife for the fact he sent four children to there deaths to fight the main bad guy in Earthbound.
Because of this he turns into a monster, a truly frightening monster.

Yes that is a mound of eyes, you're mind is not betraying you. This is the boss at first, yet he is a pushover. But it works well within the storyline. It gets creepier from here though, when the nice doctor goes ape shit on your party, and he turns into this.

At this point, you're going to be royally screwed. This is a very unbalanced boss fight, that leaves you really angry for most of it. Not to mention the fact that it gives me a inescapable chill down my spine. I've never seen something since the original fight with Giygas that just left me creeped out. Just like with Undertale (Toby's other game) there is a lot of fourth wall breaking and great music. Fun fact, this boss battle theme is actually the same boss battle theme that was used for the Sans Battle in Undertale. If you get a chance you should watch both these videos i'm going to link in this post.

Anyway, in conclusion, this mod was a great job and you can really tell that Toby put his heart and soul into the design. The miserable feeling you get while going through a lot of the areas in this game, are so disheartening that at times I felt like I was playing a visual representation of a Edgar Allan Poe poem. It was so bleak, so terrifying, but also with that it personifies what you would want in a Halloween based game. If you get a chance, you should really find a way to get an Earthbound Rom and download this hack it's totally worth it.

Was I Afraid of the Game? Yes,definitely, yes.