Anon05/15/26, 11:33No.12573082
Playing Smash Bros. in the early 2000s none of my friends had any idea what the fuck Earthbound was or who Ness was. We thought he was just a weird random character, and the Earthbound stages were weird and retarded too, it didn't give us any insight into Earthbound it just made us vaguely aware of its existence. It wasn't until the later 2000s that people started actually playing the game itself (via emulation, in my case) because people started talking about it on forums. I think Smash contributed only marginally, it had more to do with emulation becoming more accessible and the retro gaming fad of the time.