Big wall of text ahead, but here's something in defense of the Monkey Cave: I don't care much for the Monkey Cave personally, but I played through this game with a past girlfriend a couple years ago, and she actually liked this part. She's NOT a "gamer" at all--EarthBound is one of the only single-player video games she's ever played, in fact, and she only played because of me. She found fights difficult and even stressful at points, having never played a jRPG before. I remember bashing the Monkey Cave, "this part sucks... low point of the game..." all that stuff, and then she said she ended up really liked this part because it was a break from all the fighting--she just went through the desert, went through the mole cave, fought 5 bosses there, and went through moonside, all of which had really frequent and tough battles. She appreciated the silly dialogue with the monkeys, thought it was cute, it went at a slow, relaxing pace for her, and it even incentivized her to manage her inventory a little better going forward. I guess as someone who's a little impatient and has played a lot of games, this part is just way too tedious and breaks the pacing for me. For someone who doesn't play video games, this was just a cute, little side-chore that gave her a break from all the ruthless fights she just had to endure. Guess it really depends on who's playing. I just found it interesting that someone actually really enjoyed this part, and for reasons I would have never thought of.
I can get what your past girlfriend means. It *is* a nice break, and has you do something else. I rather enjoy the monkey cave; not a lot, but I enjoy it enough. It's a bit like the Tadtones in Skyward Sword. I know a lot of people hate that part, but I really love it! It's relaxing, it's in a very pretty environment, the music is good, and... it is quite something different from what you've done before. (ie. Fighting The Imprisoned... *AGAIN* )
The dad calling right in the middle of Chugga's rant genuinely had me rolling, cause I'm just imagining Ness furiously mumbling to himself about monkeys, only for his dad to call him and tell him to go the fuck to sleep.
I can't say I "like" the monkey caves, but whenever I replay the game I can't say I necessarily "dislike" it either. Besides the first couple of items everything you need for the dungeon can be obtained within the dungeon, and I find it somewhat satisfying slowly untangling the web of entrances until you're finally rewarded with arguably the best ability in the game, PSI Teleport.
ok but hear me out its a troll that you get teleport from the dungeon as you need to get all these items and it would be so much better if you could teleport all over the world to find them instead of having to walk everywhere
I think it’s a fitting reward for the exact challenges you have to overcome for it. I think having to walk around for the items makes being able to teleport after feel so much better.
All you need to have while entering is a Skip Sandwich and a Picnic Lunch. Every other item in the caves you will need can be found there. Just be wary of the Pizza, use it on the next monkey going forward (left) as there is another pizza behind it for the other monkey. If you use it in the wrong section just go out and call Mach Pizza. That's all you need to clear this place in 1 go.
Fun fact: The Star Spangled Banner is actually based on an old drinking song, so the fact that it plays in the *cough* cafe is a cheeky little nod to that fact.
And don’t forget that if you listen closely you can hear a bit of the Little Rascals theme song. Take a listen ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nkM0m-fB2Uw.html
... Has Chuggaconroy not heard of the magical tools called "pen" & "paper" to create a "map" of the monkey caves? It's how I saved a lot of sanity getting through the area when I play...
That's how I got through a lot of areas in King's Quest games, too. I have an extremely poor sense of direction, so maps were always a must. When we started getting them in HUDs I was SO happy.
Tala Ramah saying that everything is pre-determined is really depressing when you think about it, because he's basically saying that free will and agency are a lie. Anyhoo, how fortuitous that you spoke to the condiment guy before ending the video, Emile, because I learned something completely by accident. Normally, when you use a good condiment on food, it heals you for roughly twice the usual amount. When you use a good condiment on Brain Food Lunch, however, you get a full restore. Max HP and Max PP. Also, where you should have gone instead is not Fourside, but rather Winters so you can upgrade Ness' equipment.
Shade Knight I have a really bad experience with the teleport. I went to Winters to upgrade Ness and when I tried to teleport back, I clipped out of bounds and my last save was about 2 hours back when Paula first got kidnapped. So I had to struggle to find a good place to teleport in the tree filled out of bounds area using almost all of my pp. Finally I made it out with barely any pp left on Ness. Really gotta be careful with teleporting
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.” A Wrinkle in Time
The monkey caves make me feel like I was born to be a minotaur. Didn't have any trouble navigating them blind. Also a couple fun item notes that were missed: The king banana is inedible and when Ness uses the yogurt machine it says 'Ness couldn't use the broken trumpet very well' or something like that. Also apparently the yogurt machine is a weapon for Jeff, it has a really good help tip.
of the things I don't remember about Earthbound, the Monkey caves that are strikingly similar to Majora's Mask's 'Bottom-of-the-Well' Quest is one of them. this is fascinating to re-learn about.
I remember when I was a kid I loved mazes and stuff like where's Waldo so I loved the monkey cave. I had good memory with the positioning of stuff so I never had an issue finding what room I needed to go to find the monkey I needed to find. I also wasn't too big on the Escargo Express and I used the for sale sign more so I didn't have the end issue that you had with the pencil eraser. While I agree with you on the music part of the cave this was actually one of my favorite sections in the game.
Honestly, I've never been interested in Earthbound, but once I saw you were making a lets play, I just knew I had to watch. So I did, and I've found myself really enjoying the game so far! Thank you Emile!
Wow, that was strange. I feel both well-rested and like I need to build a deck... 'least I've got that ZOOM back in my step! Anyone know of a hardware store near Threed? -Doc Saturn, who is probably NOT your dad
I've gotten extremely self-conscious over singular offhand comments before (and this isn't just a one-off bc masae's made a tweet joking about it), I feel where he's coming from
I love the monkey cave. When I was younger, I was playing the game with a few friends and since our primary language is French, we really enjoyed playing the game with the guide. It was an easier way to understand the story and play through the game, especially uppon reaching Fourside. When we saw the monkey cave, we had a fun time planning the entire dungeon. We planned every item to get in order to bring the bare minimum, and use the items in this dungeon along with planning the optimal path. It's some awesome memories of 3 kids planning together to not spend too much time in what seemed like a very confusing dongeon.
This series is over 5 years old, and for over 5 years this has stayed my very favorite comfort series to binge when life gets too lifelike. Thank you so much for this blessing, Chuggaaconroy
I like the monkey caves. It's satisfying giving the monkeys the things they want. I vividly remember playing this part of the game for the first at around 09AM on a Saturday morning in 2008. Every time I reach the monkey caves I'm immediately taken back to 2008 playing Pokemon Pearl while watching Pokemon Battle Dimension, Wifi battles on Mario Kart Wii and fighting my friends in Smash Bros. Brawl
Dang that is one skilled buffalo given miyamoto and seemingly a decent amount of nintendo staff seemed to like earthbound, I wonder if the well in majora's mask was intentionally a reference or coincidence huh, i was under the impression crap was still considered a curse word, just very low level to the point you can even drop it in E10. News to me it's in cartoon network I sorta figured it was named brain food lunch because of the psi heal. never got it was a play on "brain food"
I know you won't see this Chuggaa, but when I saw your video, it was the best thing that had happened to me today. It was bad to the point that otw home after school, I was choking back tears. You have no clue what you did for me today. Thank you for what you do.
I always liked the Money caves. I wish it came at a time when we had all 3 or even 4 Party members but it never bothered me. To me it's a relaxing little stop (unfortunately a relaxing one that happens when a Party member has been kidnapped. So not the best timing) I also found it fun going through and getting all the items. Plus when I first Plaed Earthbound I always had all the Key Items on me, so I always had the Pencil Eraser on me. As for the music I tipicly listen to it for the first time I go in, then while going out and getting the rest of the itmes I listen to a podcast or something (at least with more recent Playthroughs, that wasn't an option when I first played it)
If Chugga is so self-conscious about the way he pronounces hamburger, how does he think it's supposed to be pronounced? The way he says it doesn't sound weird at all to me.
Oh boy... I really love the monkey caves, I think it is a perfect example of how wacky earthbound is. I love the personality of the monkeys and when I first played this game I made a map of it on notebook paper and still have it. My next play through I modified it to say what item you need for which monkey. Making my own map and doing the problem solving always really made me like this place. Plus, like you figured out, most of the items they need are in the cave in the first place so having the map is super nice. I have lost that map since then and now we have internet so why not just use that but even then I would rather figure it out for myself. Plus, when I first played through this game I never deposited any items really. By this point I still had my backstage pass and didn’t get rid of it until much later when I learned I could talk to Tracy and give her my unwanted items. I can see why you don’t like this place and I respect your opinion, you obviously didn’t experience the same joy that I did going through this place. I thought that the lack of battles was nice after getting my butt handed to me in the department store and getting lost in moonside. I will agree with one thing though... The music kinda sucks I remember the sounds in the music made me keep on thinking that my chicks were hatching and I had to keep checking my goods over and over because of my paranoia. All in all, I like the monkey caves and the reward of being able to teleport wherever I wanted afterwards made it even better!
I love the monkey caves. The music I think is very nice, the monkeys are charming, and going in and out of the caves doesn't really bother me. I am glad that you get to use the pencil eraser more because it would feel useless only using it once or twice. My inventory bothers me everywhere else, but I think the monkey caves are made to confuse you.
Tbh, I DO like the Monkey Caves! The way I go through is I just make sure I have a Skip Sandwich and Picnic Lunch (which I typically do anyway, but if not, I just buy them at the nearby shop). Every other monkey just needs something from inside the cave, so I just make sure I have enough inventory space and to not use any of the items. Only problem I really find is the Iron Pencil, as its really just insult to injury after the whole dungeon.
francisjairam Well, I don’t know why people have so much trouble with this place. Come in with a skip sandwich (which is likely to have) and you will get through it just fine. It was never my favourite, but I just don’t see the hate
Awesomeizer 2000 The reason is because there are items that you need to give the monkeys in order to proceed in the area, when you don't have it you have to exit the cave, go to the drug store to get the item you need, and then go back in the cave and give it to the monkey. But then since Inventory in this game is so limited you will have to call the Escargo Express in order to store 3 items at a time and it takes like about a minute to do all this. Plus there is no indications where you've been in the cave and it feels like a maze and there were times I had to look up a map guide to see which area is which. There is just too much backtracking and that can get really annoying very quickly when you just want to progress the story and don't want to wonder around knowing where to go.
Any portion of a game that is consistently frustrating to new and/or guide-less players probably could’ve used some retooling. The game doesn’t encourage you before hand to enter the Monkey Cave with a skip sandwich, or anything else. Knowing a work around after the fact doesn’t change this. That’s my 2 cents on the matter, anyway.
+CrimsonKing12000 Speaking as someone who recently played this part for the first time, without a guide, I didn't actually mind it that much. I always take a methodical approach with these types of dungeons: Taking the same route through the dungeon each time unless I'm forced to do otherwise. Since all, or at least most of the items you need are in the dungeon itself, it didn't end up taking me very long to complete. Didn't even use any skip sandwiches.
aaaah, the good old times when a bad area in a JRPG was just one hour of enduring. meanwhile octopath traveler wants me to grind for 4 hours to level-up to be ready for the last set of chapters...
To me, I have not spend more than one hour of play time to grind to do each character chpater since I always rotate my all my character after each chapters so I rarely grinded. In other words, Octopath Traveler is a game that requires no grinding if play smartly
I have rotated characters as well. I usually don't need to grind between chapters if I choose team members for each chapter based on who needs to level for the next one, but there's always a bit of grind between main chapters. chapter 3s range from 32 to 40, chapter 4s are 45... and grinding 5 levels for the whole party, even on a lvl 48 area, takes several hours. maybe you didn't need to grind because you weren't using the encounter rate reduction skill? but not only is that much less time efficient, that'd also mean you're usually overleveled, wich detracts from the experience as well.
Since the last episode, I decided to pick up on my first playthrough of Earthbound, which preemptively ended months ago at the Monkey Caves. I don't actively hate the area, but it's one of the reasons why I haven't gotten around to playing it recently. In the course of today, I've gone from the end of the Monkey Caves to my fifth sanctuary location. Thanks Chuggaaconroy!
I think the reason you can't teleport to happy happy village is because it's hard to teleport from happy happy village (for now) and you'd most likely walk to Twoson anyway so you could teleport
Hey Chugga, I wanna thank you. I had a long day yesterday before this video came out and still had more to do when the evening rolled around. I was feeling tired and quite frankly had no more motivation to finish the tasks that still remained. But as I looked down at my screen to put on some music I happened to glance at my notifications. I saw this video was out. I immediately grinned and felt better. I had no idea what this episode would be or how it would end but I felt so energized and bolstered just seeing it was there. Thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your efforts and I love how you always manage to make me smile.
Hey, you know what would be funny? Every time you come across the word "Hamburger" you just slightly mispronounce it a different way every time. You know, a recurring joke is good when you put a different spin on it. I mean, I am talking to the person that perpetuated "D'oh, I missed!" but I assumed you learned from that.
Thank Goodness I watched this Barely under 3 years after it came out. Cuz now I have made a map, ON PAPER, for my Current Let's Play on this, as well as a list of items to bring with me. Thank you SO much for this Let's Play. This LP is actually what inspired me to do my own let's play on this game. It's probably nowhere near as good as yours, but I'm trying it anyway. Thank you SO much Emile!
I just went through the cave today for the first time (I make sure to get ahead before I watch your videos), and I went through it without much trouble. I did have to back track multiple times, but I didn’t really care, the worst part was the ruler, I threw out the one it get in the cave before I learned that you get most of what you need in the cave.
I kinda like the monkey caves for being a jab at these kinds of dungeons in games but with cut monkeys to feed, with great rewards for not even fighting anything but your bordem and your short term memory, for dragonite and teleport alpha! I love the short term memory quiz, and for me it went on for just the right time. But of course I kept weird stuff in my inventory and only really used escargot experts for key items. I did get the unique Paula pencil eraser event though which helped. I still had the eraser on Paula for the statue in winters. Idk. It's a kinda cute kinda annoying jab at these mazes.
I feel you chugga! I’ve had several moments in games where I power through a annoying part and then have to put the game down for a few days before I can come back to it!
I’ve played through earthbound a few times and always kind of liked the monkey caves because I either had a majority of the items in Ness’ inventory or because I just like going around and fetching things in earthbound because it forces you to embrace everything in other cities
Personally, I like the monkey caves. I like that when you open a chest it goes WOOOOOOAHH! I get that the music can get annoying but frankly, I was laughing almost the whole way through. And the fact that it was all monkeys! That threw me over the edge. It was almost as funny as all of the miner moles being number 3! Thank you Chugga. You made me love a new game. When I watched the 1st and Second episode, I knew I had to get it!
I like the monkey caves in an ironic way. I like it because it’s another example of this game ripping on classic RPG tropes. That pencil eraser at the very end has absolutely no reason being there. But yet it is.
It’s important to note that you can essentially recreate the effect of teleport beta with alpha fairly easy on the Wii U virtual console version. Spin the control stick really fast and you spin in a circle, letting teleport in really small spaces.
The monkey cave maybe a pain but it reminds me of the very first lets play i watch on you channel legend of zelda majora's mask in the well it was fun and creative and not only did we see your preference on what a transformation mask should be but who can forget the creepiest floor masters infact this could have been inspiration for that secton of the game
The monkey caves are definitely annoying, but charming in their own way. It drove me crazy to see Chugga leave the cave so often though, because after the first two monkeys, you can find everything you need in the cave to progress through it. But, yes, I agree it's a slower part (but I also like the music... Maybe I'm just sentimental haha) This is the most enjoyable playthrough of this game I've seen so far, and I love all the tidbits of info I never knew before 😊
Lol. This was fun to watch. :D I only finished Earthbound for the first time this year, as I never owned it on the SNES. I didn't have much trouble with it, though, as I had a decent mix of items and am good at making maps in my head. I probably did do some backtracking, but I just saw it as opportunities for leveling up. And I like goofy music, so that didn't bother me too much. But then again, I was not expecting to go in and out super quick and then found myself disappointed over and over again like Chugs did here... seriously, I though his brain was gonna explode at 19:36. Plus, Teleportation is a really neat reward! :)
11:04 I...I am shocked that got past the censors. Then again, now a days, while there is a limit on how many times it can be used, kids movies are apparently allowed to use swears too.
Can you put more of the Circus glitches in the ending of each video? I enjoy watching what happens and seeing your reactions to them. That would be greatly appreciated!! 😆😆
The monkey cave is literally the bottom of the well in Majora's Mask! Except the well had better atmosphere, but another big thing they have in common, both are hilarious to watch you suffer through. Lol
The Monkey Caves wasn't a fun time for me, but it wasn't difficult like it was to (what seems to be) a lot of people. My first time with it probably took about 10 minutes, mostly because I just brute forced every direction starting with every right door. I kept going until I no longer could, then cleared out every left door on my way back to the first room. This eventually got me to where I needed, and also helped organize where each monkey and what item they wanted in my head easier (right two doors, then left, for example)
I kinda liked the Monkey Caves my first pass through as I kept finding the items I needed behind the rooms. My second time through, I had to backtrack for something and ended up needing to use some of the items I picked up to heal. Additionally, I didn't have the Pencil Eraser that time which made the trek that much more frustrating. If you handle it in the right order and come prepared, it isn't too bad. But it's easy to really get yourself stuck or lost, and you just somehow need to know the eraser will come in handy.
I don't really mind the Monkey Caves. While it can be a pain for first-time players, just remember this tip: all you need to bring is a Skip Sandwich and a Picnic Lunch, every other item you need is given to you within the area. That way, you never need to exit the cave to get items. And I'm also able to create maps in my head,, so I never get lost in the caves.
I didn’t use a guide on this and it only took my like 15-20 minutes. I kind of enjoyed this. Pretty much everything you need is in the caves, except a few things. I just went as far left as I could, then once I couldn’t go on, I’d see if I could go to the right. That may not make much sense, but it was pretty painless for me
I actually liked the monkey cave for the fact that there was finally a use for all the items clogging up my inventory :P Like... I hate having to throw away items and I don't wanna use them in battle unless I have to... so being able to finally use my items for something mandatory was kind of a relief. I mean... I'm the kind of person who hangs on to every single PSI caramel until the very end of the game, even if I'm on level 99 for every character and not ever gonna use them anyway.
