***This review was written using a Key provided by the Developer for review purposes***

Citizens of Earth is a comedic, top-down RPG where you play as the Vice-President of the world. As the World's VP it's your job to make the citizens of Earth happy folk and make sure they get what they want, after all that's what they elected you for. Over the course of your journey to make the citizens happy you'll come across many citizens willing to help you as well as plenty of people and monsters who want nothing more than to spoil your day.

+Nice and colourful cartoon style graphics
+Fantastic voice acting which fits perfectly with the game, in particular the voice actor who plays the VP himself
+An interesting, far-fetched plot which will see you doing all kinds of things from trying to get rid of protestors to trying to track down a flying cofffe shop
+A huge number of citizens to recruit, each with their own side-mission which must be completed for them to join you
+Great humour and hilarious dialogue lines throughout
+A wide variety of enemy types
+Quite a few different environments to explore
+Simple turn-based combat that often provides a good challenge, especially when fighting more than one enemy or when fighting a boss. Your party members also have energy requirements for certain moves (energy is built up by using your weaker attacks) which prevents you from using the same strong attack over and over again
+Each character has a number of different attacks, many of which are unlocked as they level up and no two characters have the same moves which means each character has their own, unique fighting style
+You are able to modify the difficulty during a playthrough by visiting a certain character or by talking to him when he is in your party, increasing the difficult rewards you with more money and more EXP while lowering the difficulty does the opposite
+You can name your party members whatever you want which can be rather amusing if you like that kind of thing

-The backgrounds when in combat are a bit strange and usually consist of moving colour patterns, I would have preferred the backgrounds from the environment to be used
-There were far too many random encounters for my liking and they are almost impossible to avoid and fleeing from fights is almost impossible as you always have very low chances of success
-Dialogue lines which repeat when triggered by doing something such as finding an item get repetitive and irritating very quickly such as "Capitalism at its finest" when picking up an item of food

Worth a Mention:
-Not really worthy of a negative but the menus all have Xbox controller prompts even when using KB&M which I thought was a little odd

Verdict:
8

A super fun comedic RPG, with a huge number of characters unlock, a funny plot and great turn-based combat, I highly recommend this game for fans of similar RPGs.

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El K.

While the game may have appealed to people with its 'earthbound' feel, it has a more sily/strange style than 'uncanny/weird'. The game does not try to make itself relatable and just goes full blown 'out there' from the start, although im aware earthbound was silly too, this game main character try harder to work with whats around, rather than be driven by the story. The only relatable thing in the game is the "world" leaders being incompetent and other nonsense you'll come across lol. The game feature a lot of content, often clearing a sidequest will cause you to come across another and oftentimes the reward wont be disapointing, depending on which characters you are using.

Speaking of characters, there is a lot, the game replace developing 2-3 characters who wont usualy get much development at all.. by gathering a LOT of them, and everyone of them has a special skills that can be used out of combat usualy, a bit like pokemon. Some will let you access new areas while another one can downright change the game difficulty on the spot. Most characters are different enough so that using them and trying them all out is rewarding, but some seem clearly better suited for a long chipping fight vs bursting down easy targets. You can actually re-start any battle with different citizens midfight if you are having trouble. Each citizens bring its own stats boost upon level up as well so building a team becomes an interesting challenge after a while, a bit like leveling different class for stats in tactic ogre on ps1.

The game is not too short and since you can turn the difficulty and the presense of a new game plus.. there is a lot of replayability down there for the big fans. Combats plays out like a standard turn by turn, but still has a few mechanic twists like the buff/debuff systems and the energy system.

Enjoy!

-Lost

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=378322471

As the newly elected Vice President of the World, it’s time to do whatever the President asks you to do. The opposition leader isn’t satisfied with the results of the election, he’s started a smear campaign on the V.P. that has everyone riled up. Despite these problems he goes out of his way to help out the citizens with their problems. He’s embroiled in a mystery that includes strange animals wandering the forests, and coffee makers that attack the patrons.

Liked

Earthbound Style – The creators of Citizens of Earth were clearly inspired by the great Mother/Earthbound series. It capitalizes on the visual presentation of minimalist first-person battles with text flowing above screen. It has its own sense of wacky characters from the over-the-top Vice President to the insane ramblings of the school mascot.

Gotta Catch Em’ All – Even with the resemblance to Earthbound, the game has a distinct similarity to the Pokemon series. As the V.P. you’re set to push citizens around with your powerful ways. Your job is to meander about town running into wacky personas and recruiting them to do your bidding. Each citizen has their own set of skills and strengths and weaknesses. They can easily be swapped in and out according to the situation, so there is plenty of fun to be had with each.

Great Voiceover – Every person in Citizens of Earth has a voice and they’re all great and capture the characters on screen wonderfully. Not every person has spoken dialogue in every situation, but the 75 percent that do sure are great to listen to.

Pricing – Citizens of Earth is a full-fledged RPG that captures the 16-bit era of games perfectly. It’s hard to argue with the price of $15 for hours of JRPG fun… even if the game has some drawbacks.

Could be better

JRPG Essence – I like Citizens of Earth… but that’s about as far as I can go with it. It doesn’t really break any walls down for the RPG genre. It takes a lot of pride in its comedy which is hit and miss, but the recruiting of Citizens breaks down to the monotony of fetch quests. Find this, kill that, it’s all rudimentary after a few battles. Within two or so hours of playing, I was already bored of what felt like a “grind” and that’s just not right.

Not only that, but the combat system is a little too basic for my tastes. It makes no attempts at differentiating itself from any other RPG that ever existed before it. I love Earthbound but somehow playing the same combat system in Citizens doesn’t have the same appeal. My only assumption to my feelings it that I remember Earthbound from 1994, and sadly it’s 2015 and I’d expect a staggering upgrade in the combat system by then.

Load Times Vita – Loading is buttery smooth on the PC but the Vita takes some time to move in and out of buildings. It’s a 5 to 6 seconds difference, but it’s noticeable since you move through different zones constantly. Other than the loading issue, the games are virtually the same.

Disliked

Soundtrack – It’s not that I hate the Soundtrack per se, it’s just that it isn’t that impressive for an RPG. Seeing as this game was inspired by the Mother series, you’d think it could do a little better with the musical choices. Sadly, there were times where the music began to grate or simply cutout completely after a combat sequence.

The world – Citizens of Earth has some great characters but the world is a bit too sanitary. The visuals are crisp enough to take a delicious bite out of, but the environments lack an artistic flair. At times I could confuse the design with that of a flash game. For a game that’s trying to capture the 16-bit essence, it lacks that artful variation that breathes life into different zones. The level design was clearly created for travel and not to stop to smell the roses.

Can’t skip messages – There is one thing I can’t stand in RPG’s, and that’s not being able to skip arbitrary messages. You can’t do that in Citizens of Earth, you’re forced to listen to the V.P. make snide comments during battle and enjoy lingering messages of enemies dropping items. It’s a small little thing, but man if it isn’t an annoyance when grinding.

Conclusion

Comedy has a place in video games and Citizen of Earth does tickle that fancy completely. As an RPG… it tries to mimic Earthbound and Pokemon, but falls short of the heights that those two titles reached. I recommend you wait for a sale before becoming the Vice President of the World. Citizens of Earth emulates the Mother series closely, but fails to show its own heart in the process. I’m not saying it’s a bad RPG, but nothing about the story or the combat had me playing it for more than a couple hours a day.

Rarely have I ever been graced with a Game I would consider Perfect.
With the recent failures and patches of games, its outstanding to see a game as amazingly perfect as Citizens of Earth.
But like many things my opinion can be taken worth a grain of salt, what matters to you is how much that salt is worth to you?

So if you enjoy RPG’s like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger, and games inspired by Pokémon, this game is a must have and a contender for Game of the Year of 2015.
If you didn’t know, Nintendo doesn’t show much love to the Mother and Earthbound series, only porting Earthbound to the Wii u due to the demands of fans.

Mother 1 and 3 have still not come to America, so when it comes to more Earthbound, fans are left wanting due to the launch failures of the 90’s.
However, you can trust me when I say Citizens of Earth is in every way shape and form a Spiritual Sucessor to Earthbound.

The plotline is simple, As the Vice President of the world; it is your job to unite the citizens of earth agaist the crazy evil that is occurring.

Now without giving away spoilers, this game continues to impress me.
From the graphics to the music that graces your ears, this game through and through emulates everything I loved about the Earthbound series while improving on it.

Namely allowing the player to recruit multiple citizens to fight in the party by solving their issues.
For example to acquire the baker it is required to get rid of protestors.

Normal everyday Citizens become the heroes of the game, with unique advantages and disadvantages, even your mother joins the fight by scolding and spanking enemies.
It may seem quite silly and quirky, but the charm is not lost.

The game is easy to pick up and start playing, and if you are having a difficult time with it there is the ability to lower difficulty early on, however if it is too easy, feel free to raise the difficulty for an XP bonus from every battle.
And the leveling up system is ingenious, players get bonuses to each citizen depending on who is in the party at the time.

Don’t like to grind your party up, don’t worry, there is a school where players can drop off Citizens for leveling up much like the daycare in Pokémon.

The battle mechanics are very similar to Earthbound with one addition; Citizens have energy, and build their energy up each turn with various attacks to unleash stronger attacks.

Controls are a breeze; there is no input lag or confusing button layouts and combos that must be memorized.
Item management along with party management is simple too, touch support is integrated if players desire for a faster menu interface.

Swapping Citizens is as easy as dragging and dropping at any time.
As far as the equipment goes, there is only 1-2 things for each citizen giving them bonus’s in certain situations, so there is significant less item management.

Graphics are crisp and the art style is very similar to Earthbound, the battle backrounds have been changed to not induce seizures, kudos for being able to actually watch the battles if you are prone to seizures.
As far as the sound and music go, it is light and upbeat in many situations and many individuals during my stream of the game really enjoyed the music selected.

The enemies are not recycled and all the citizens seem unique as well.
With side quests and the main story line, this game should provide plenty of fun and entertainment for those who are hardcore RPG or those that have a passing interest.

This game is littered with so many references to Earthbound, it is a joy to see them and just get that moment where you know it is definitely a reference.

Boss battles are epic and fun, and require a good amount of strategy to win as well.
So ladies and gentlemen, Citizens of Earth may possibly be one of my favorite games I have ever been permitted to play, it is like a late Christmas Present I was never expecting.

And if that was it for the review, it would be plenty for the game itself.
But the company Eden Industries, a group of 12 individuals, yes you heard me right, 12 people and only 2 full time produced this game in 3 years.

This company, allows the free use and promotion of this game, from its assets to music, they have no issues with full let’s plays, reviews, streams, and anything else you desire to do.
Citizens of Earth is published by Atlus and developed by Eden Industries, it will be available Janurary 20th 2015 on the 3DS, PS4, Wii U, PS Vita and Steam.

Unfortunately it is unavailable to the Xbox due to the lack of Dev. Kits at the time.
Please leave a like and let the gaming industry know, that we want more games like this. Quality, games that don’t have glitches destroying the game, no dlc patches, and no BS copy-right policies.
We want more Citizens of EARTH!

This game is just great, if you love Earthbound, this game is pretty close to it.

Pros:

• The game is a good value with 20+ hours of game time
  
• Interesting story
  
• Great voice acting
  
• Fun, classic RPG gameplay
  
• Silly and Zany humor
  
• Tons of people to recruit
  
• Varied environments

Cons:

• Overuse of voices during battle
  
• Travelling through the world is a bit tedious
  
• Soundtrack can become repetitive

Citizens of Earth is a wide-open RPG with lots of exploration and options available. It is a classic turn-based style RPG with a huge cast of unique characters that keep things interesting and varied in and out of combat. The game encourages the use of all the characters due to the fact that many of their talents can be levelled-up, which opens many more possibilities.

Citizens of Earth can be looked at as a love letter and an inspiration to roleplaying games of the past. It’s unique enough in its core premise and gameplay additions that I can’t see many long time RPG fans not highly enjoying this. If you’re looking for a title with both style and substance and a hint of nostalgia, Citizens of Earth is your next RPG purchase. The world may never get Earthbound 2/Mother 4, but Citizens of Earth is damn close to it.

9/10

It's pretty much Earthbound/Mother meets politics. It's a great combo with a few flaws.

Pro:
- Charming hand-drawn graphics
- Gameplay is unique and varies with citizens combo
- Music is great and every recruitable citizen has their own voiceover.
- Recruiting the citizens is half the game. The other half, the story itself, which isn't that long.
- Light-hearted humor
- A lot of hommage to Earthbound/Mother
- Not very grindy (Unless you love it)

Con:
- Pretty ridiculous encounter rate (Like, a bunch of them all at once on screen)
- Short, but that's expected from a $15 title
- Some bugs that can crash your game without warning (switching out certain characters, teleporting, interacting with certain objects or even going to certain areas)
It happens rarely at least.
- Not very grindy (Unless you love it)

Get it if you love:
- Turn-based RPGs
- Political satires
- Earthbound/Mother and/or Suikoden
- Something casual
- Humor

Don't get it if:
- You wanted something more hardcore (Unless you adjust difficulty via a citizen)
- You want something serious
- You want a long game
- You hate everything politics related.
- You lack a sense of humor

An RPG modelled after Earthbound in many ways, yet comepletely original in plenty of others. The recruitment system is unique and fantastic, and the dialogue is hysterical. The game looks and feels great. Having played Earthbound, I'd say this game is pretty dang close to it. Definitely would reccomend to anyone, even those who aren't RPG fans.

If you loved Earthbound as a kid, you will love this. Gameplay is the same but with tons of added features to make it a Earthbound experience for the current era, such as tons of party recruits, sidequests, and exploration. Its hilarious, witty and charming to boot.

Awesome for the price, especially!

9/10

My review from: ResPwnd


If there’s anything besides zombies that is flooding the PC market at the moment it has to be cheap RPGMaker games. Not all are crap, but a lot of them. Citizens of Earth from creator Eden Industries (Waveform) is not an RPGMaker game, so one might wonder why I bring this up. Well, for two reasons. First of all it certainly does pay homage to the same kind of retro RPG titles as a lot of RPGMaker games do and the gameplay is in many ways very similar. The other reason why is the fact that in the midst of this over-saturated retro RPG market Citizens of Earth rise above this pile of ♥♥♥♥♥ and do its own unique take on the tired genre while also adding some interesting design choices. In the veins of PA Adventures: On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness and Deathspank the game is brimming with silliness and exercises in the bizarre.

You play the Vice President of the Earth, a self-indulgent, unlikable, and incompetent politician (or should I perhaps just say “a politician”) who take to the streets and have to battle hecklers, stop signs, emo thunderclouds, heaps of leaves, popcorns, joggers, and hippies (just to name a few of the enemies from a very funny and quite insane ensemble) on his way to his meeting with the President. When the President of Earth soon thereafter turns up missing, the VP slowly realizes that something odd is going on. Suddenly that coffee franchise that took to the skies earlier seem a lot less innocent, for instance. This takes you and you compadres, a wide array of Citizens, on a journey through deserts, eerie (well, no, still silly) forests, cemeteries, camps, and a lot of other places on a quest to find the President and uncover a sinister plot.

While in no ways a technical masterpiece, the game looks great for its genre. It has a clean and neat art style without feeling half-done or rushed. A lot of its design practically screams Nintendo with its smoothness and big and colorful buttons (that sometimes won’t render until you try to select one or the other using your controller or keyboard). The game is in fact available on the Wii U and the 3DS. Despite this, it retains the simple retro RPG game design that we all know by now. Citizens of Earth is an engaging game, but it suffers from some segments that involves far too many battles, something that can make the game feel like very “grind-y” (I’m looking at you, chapter 3!). It’s not fun when you can’t walk for more than 10 seconds between every battle, especially battles that are far too easy. Because I get that the game is a lot about the turn based fighting, but I want the battles to feel like they serve a purpose instead of just having them thrown in my face while taking a stroll in the big city. If I wanted to grind, I would grind! And on that note, you will have to grind to be able to level up the forty (40!!!) different party members, or Citizens, that you can recruit. Fortunately, if you have the money, you can put them in school to make them level up all by them selves. Every recruitable citizen has a talent, and while these might sound a bit odd I find some of these little talents very charming – especially the Beekeeper who let’s you zoom in or out or the School Mascot that let’s you change difficulty at the cost or benefit of earned XP. You can also fast travel using the Pilot, and avoid some of the more tedious battles (and a long hike) by letting the Car Salesman conjure up a car for you. Still, you can only drive on the roads and most enemies tend to cluster off-road anyway. Some of the game options you usually find in the “options” menu are actually citizen talents, with the exception of resolution, shaders, sound, the option to play in full screen versus windowed mode (there is no borderless), and using multithreaded mode. As stated, this is no technical masterpiece and doesn’t offer anything groundbreaking. Still it offers dynamic reflection and shader effect that a lot of similar titles don’t, and its somewhat unique art style gives the game a personality that manages to charm the player. However despite being patched both prior to (i.e. while doing most of my review) and after its release, the game still suffers from some unexpected crashes now and then. I will say they are rare but they can of course be frustrating and cause you to lose data even with the game’s functional autosave feature. And let’s face it – of course they shouldn’t still be there post launch.

Citizens of Earth really hits the mark with a lot of its satirical humor but it is a pretty long game and one-liners and the repetitive combat oriented gameplay can become tedious after a while. Sure there are a lot of places to explore and discover but mostly it just leads you to Citizens that you can recruit. How is not always obvious, and some I found to be annoyingly vague (don’t get me started on the Weather Lady). The storytelling is however good and with a story that goes absolutely bonkers by the end it is still pretty damn funny and bizarre experience. So when it all comes down to it – did I have fun playing Citizens of Earth? The answer is yes. Sure, it’s tedious and frustrating at times and while you can recruit forty Citizens to join your party, chances are you’ll grow to like three of them and stick with them for as long as possible. In addition to those you might have some substitutes for certain fights as enemies have both weaknesses and strengths and some tactics are needed to beat them. Then again, the people you don’t use for battles still have those useful talents I spoke of earlier which can help you out in other ways, like the Architect and the Gardener who you will need to access certain areas. The wide selection of recruitable party members might also give players more freedom to play the game the way that fits them best. All in all, Citizens of Earth entertains yet at a somewhat uneven rate.

Plus:
Succeeds in its humor and satire
Silly but nonetheless good storytelling
Charming art style
Myriads of party members and features make for a diverse experience

Minus
The same myriads of features make some of them seem pointless
Becomes tedious grinding at certain points in the story
Still suffers from some crashes post release

Score: 69 / 100

Pretty fun JRPG-like game. Never played Earthbound, so I cannot deploy the comparison everyone else is, but enjoyed my time with the game regardless.

Combat seems simple at first, but the battle system becomes a little more complex as the game progresses and party members are added (never getting too complicated or difficult, though).

Characters are rather bland, never moving beyond the initial stereotyping of their names, but that may be by design. With 40 party members to recruit and use, though, the game encourages you to try new things and experiment with different party combinations, which helps keep things fresh.

Found the story rather bland as well, nothing beyond your typical "mysterious-evil-slowly-destroying-the-land" with a couple curveballs thrown in. The setting was a nice change of pace from the typical RPG locales, given a bit of a modern, American flair to JRPGs. Dialogue, however, is sharp, with excellent voice acting on a 15 dollar indie rpg. The little easter egg jokes you find by exploring the world are good for a chuckle or two, as well.

Replay-wise, they do offer an option for a New Game + when finished, though I didn't feel compelled enough to run it a second time. All of the achievements can be unlocked in one playthrough as well, defeating the completionist's need to run through it again. However, you may find it enjoyable enough to revisit it at a later date.

Performance-wise, runs relatively smoothly, with a couple hiccups coming in larger areas late in the game, mostly when opening the map/menu. Apart from that, the game does feature some nasty bugs which will often crash your game for you, but the solid Autosave system should prevent any serious data loss when it hits you. And it will hit you. (Note, Devs are inquiring about bugs/glitches on the discussion boards, so they seem like they intend on fixing their game up at least. Bonus points, as always).

Overall I'd give it a 7/10. For 14.99 you get a light-hearted JRPG romp with about 30 hours of gameplay. Definitely worth a glance if you're already a fan of the genre, but not exciting/different enough to win over anyone that doesn't like JRPG's to begin with.

Citizens of Earth is a game that pays tribute to a game from the Super Nintendo known as Mother 2 in america known as Earthbound.

The game revolves around you being Vice President of the world and after just winning the election and living in your mom's house still sleeping in your brand new suit you awaken to seeing your brother who gifts you a UTab this is used to keep up to date with your characters settings and everything.

As you play the game you'll come across different enemies such as Telefawns, BubbleBees, HoneyBears, your rival running mate and even running into Hecklers and Protesters to name a few.

The battle system runs in a almost exact style of the Mother series (More less of Mother 3 style but still revolving around a Turn Based RPG.)

Atlus I believe has taken a great concept to a VERY underated style of gaming and recreated the style of the Earthbound way of gameplay all of us have come to love. From the comedy cutscenes to the charming smile of you the V.P You and your crew of Citizens of Earth will help stop all the wrong that is going on and finally get to enjoy your cup of Coffee and your position as Vice President of the World.

The Vice President of the world...
Still living with his mom....
Can´t sort out his dirty laundry and still plays Pokemon - sort of!

Gotta catch em all! All of his friends and good people and fight the Opposition Pikachu style. Topped off with a great humour and story. I definitely will keep playing a while to find out what to do with the dirty socks that are still in his inventory... ughhhh...

http://youtu.be/n6k5HRE4UTU

Absolutely fantastic! By embracing the old and implementing the new, Citizens of Earth sets a new bar for Turn Based RPG fans. You play as a self centered middle aged man who still lives with his mother, but no worries, as you were just elected the Vice President of Earth!

Something fishy seems to be going on around town, and it's up to you to get people to fix it for you. Most NPCs you'll encounter in Citizens of Earth can be recruited on your side by doing quests or tasks in their favor. This gives it an interesting little mix between Earthbound and Pokemon.

Overall, Citizens of Earth is such a fun little game. You'll be playing this one to bits!

I'm going to ignore the fact that this game is Earthbound-like and published by ATLUS, because those things have nothing to do with this game (even if I bought this game based solely on those reasons).

In Citizens of Earth you recruit/collect citizens and use them to battle evil/weird/stupid/creepy/funny/awkward things in the world. You swap these citizens in and out of your party based on the sitatuation before you, such as in Pokémon.

And well, that's it. The voice acting is pretty great, the music is bland at times, the writing smart and funny usually, the art is.. not my style, and mechanically the game feels very Flash-y and low budget.

For the price, I'm going to go ahead and recommend this. However there are more polished and engaging RPGs out there for this price such as Child of Light, Transistor, and Costume Quest 2. I would go check those out first. And if you were looking for Earthbound, then do not buy this game. Go download the Mother 4 fan game when it comes out instead.

Note: As time passes and I play more I'll update the pros and cons with more observations throughout my experience with this game.

I haven't played much yet, but so far this game is absolutely charming. Give it time and it could be a new classic.
The gameplay is simple but fun, the humour has me smiling, and I love the style of the visuals as well. This is going to be great for me to unwind with when I get home late from working the evening shift. Good luck fellow citizens of earth, and enjoy!

Pros
-Enjoyable soundtrack
-Fun and interesting characters that all have their own enjoyable, zany quirks, as well as great character chemistry
-Pleasant art style
-Excellent voice acting
-The animation style is bouncy and fun to look at
-Gorgeous environments
-Unique enemies. I particularily enjoy the fact every once in awhile you find an enemy with a speech bubble above its head. You can both speak to these enemies, usually for some silly commentary, as well as engage them in battle

Cons
-Very limited settings variety for PC, they really didn't change much here to make it stand out as a PC port (Edit: They just added more resolutions - which is great! - but I still feel the PC settings are lacking
-As to be expected the game is still somewhat buggy, some people may want to wait until a patch or two are released so their immersion in this game isn't broken by bugginess.
-I had some issues with some of the visuals when in full screen at the highest resolution. Playing at a smaller resolution in windowed mode seemed to fix it though. It could just be me, others may not experience it.
-The backgrounds during combat are kinda meh to me. I get that it's influenced from Earthbound/Mother, and that's great, but I feel like the encounter backgrounds didn't need to be a throwback to that. With how beautiful this games environments are it felt like a cop out. They had the power to do so much more but they didn't.
-The humour and charm of the characters is heavily reliant on stereotypes, which is fine and funny to me, but others may find it less enjoyable.

So here are my thoughts on Citizens of Earth so far. Destructoid was right, but I don't agree with their final score. You level up fairly quickly and with the exception of certain optional boss fights, the game never really feels like it throws you any major challenges unless you increase the difficulty. However, I chalk this up to wanting to target a more casual audience, so that's not necessarily a bad thing

It also means you can fly through the game quickly if you want to or increase the difficulty for a tougher, more oldschool challenge. There really doesn't seem to be much of a penalty for death either. They don't allow people outside the party to level up unless you enroll them in school, which costs money. Still an interesting option as I don't really use the money for much of anything else so far (you get a fairly steady amount of items through battle alone).

However, this goes back to does a game have to be hard in order to be fun? No. No it doesn't. CoE is funny, cheesy, and silly all in one. There are a lot of groanable one liners, but ultimately it hits the mark in terms of weird and comedic values. At the end of the day, if you liked Earthbound, you will like this title. Just don't expect it to actually BE Earthbound.

Earthbound meet Suikoden with a double fine humor vibe, very crash prone at the moment

Chock full of EarthBound references, I'm only a few hours in, and it's solid gold. The gameplay is very similar to EarthBound and Mother 3, with enemies running away from you once you reach higher levels, and running towards you while you're weak. Even the warping colours behind the battle screens are EarthBound-y. It's not just subtle, either. Characters and places from EarthBound are referenced throughout. The key difference here is that your options for party members are MASSIVE. It's your job as VP of the world to hunt down citizens and get them on board!

So far, so wonderful.

Reminicent of Earthbound and a number of other SNES RPG's, Citizens of Earth succeeds in being charming, comical and being a solid turn based RPG.

Several of the nagging crashes and bugs have been ironed out as well and the developers are repsonding to player feedback to fix problems.

It's a funny game with good old classic turn based battles, pick it up now because you won't be disappointed.

The game promises a mixture of Pokemon and Earthbound, and definitely delivers. The game's tone is fun, the humor generally works, and the gameplay seems pretty fair. Though it is a bit glitchy, and I confess i'm only an hour and a half into it, I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in a good, fun RPG.