For a basis, Earthbound and/or the Mother series is an RPG. A non-traditional western RPG, Earthbound/MOTHER originated in Japan, starting with the semi-hit in Japan, MOTHER. MOTHER is a typical RPG, but with more humor, I think. I'm not sure I didn't exactly play the first one. Earthbound (MOTHER 2 in Japan) was much more different than MOTHER, as MOTHER was grid-based random encounter on the NES, Earthbound used the SNES, and was more complex than MOTHER, with a whole host of features- and all gridless movement for characters. The tile system (the system used to render the game world) is grided, but it wasn't only friendly or neutral characters that appeared in the world, as enemies also showed up. They didn't have special locomotion, execpt for birds that is. Birds (and other flying creatures) make a sine wave towards you, instead of every other enemy's beeline straight at you. Another thing I should mention- Fleeing enemies, instant kills and different entry to combat. Once you're past (or on) a certain level, enemies will start fleeing from you, unless they can tell you're outnumbered, as once you start to enter a fight, enemies around you can quickly hop in, preventing a instakill. There's three entries to combat; Red means the enemy came behind you, which is hard to get as you get a second to turn and face said enemy if they are attacking and the enemy immeadiatly attacks. Grey/black is a traditional enemy fight start- You go and your enemy goes based on the speed stat. Green means you snuck up behind them, making them always go last. Green also usually causes the instakill, grey/black needs a higher level to do so and you cannot instant kill on red. All bosses have the grey/black startup. In MOTHER 3, the succesor to the hit Earthbound (well, hit if the marketing team did their job well), was released in 2006 for the Gameboy Advance and later the Wii U (virtual console), though the translation (like its predessesors) were whack. Porky was still Pokey, among many others until a fan translation for all GBA emulators was released. I'm still in the game so I'll share what I know: You can now run, and the battle systems changed a little. Now, instead of walking into enemies and instakilling them, getting XP and sometimes loot, in MOTHER 3 you dash into enemies to get rid of them. There's also stationary enemies, and a lot of different movement variations for the enemies. Well, I should go to go write the other fan pages.