Citizens of Earth

Citizens of Earth is a turn-based RPG from Eden Industries that wears its EarthBound love on its sleeve and barely tries to hide it. You are the newly elected Vice President of the World, a preening, delegation-obsessed politician who begins his first day of office facing protestors outside his house, a missing president, and a suspiciously aggressive coffee chain called Moonbucks. True to the political genre, the VP never throws a single punch himself. Instead, you build a three-person active party from a roster of up to 40 recruitable citizens - your brother, your mom, the town Baker, a Conspiracy Theorist, the Homeless Guy, a Programmer, a Yoga Instructor, and dozens more - each with thematically flavored abilities. The Baker heals with buns and debuffs enemies with flour. The Programmer's attacks are delivered in binary and include moves named Virus and Trojan. The Psychologist confuses enemies with jargon. It is endearing, specific, and frequently funny in a broad Saturday-morning-cartoon kind of way. The combat system runs on an energy economy rather than traditional mana. Weaker moves generate energy orbs, while big damage dealers and healing skills spend them, which creates a satisfying push-pull rhythm that rewards thinking about attack order. Elemental strengths and weaknesses (thermal, bio, verbal, and others) give you a real reason to rotate your roster, and the game lets you restart any fight mid-battle to swap in a completely different team without penalty - a genuinely smart design choice that keeps experimentation painless. Citizens also carry out-of-battle talents that double as world-traversal tools: the Pilot fast-travels you across the map, the Architect builds shortcuts, the Schoolteacher passively levels up benched characters, and the School Mascot can literally adjust the difficulty setting for bonus rewards. Some of these feel clever; others tip into gimmick territory. Here is where I have to be honest with you, because Citizens of Earth is a game that runs warm for about thirty hours and then starts cooling fast. The encounter rate is punishing in several areas - visible enemies on the overworld will swarm you, and fights drag when enemies transform mid-battle or spam defensive moves. The dungeon design is mostly corridor-shaped and forgettable, sidequests frequently amount to fetch-quest chains that pad runtime without adding much narrative texture, and the writing, while charming in short bursts, never reaches the emotional sincerity that made EarthBound land so hard. The political satire stays safely toothless, more pun-delivery system than actual commentary. Launch-era bugs were a genuine problem, with crashes reported during character swaps and teleportation, and while patches addressed some of these, the PC version's stability history is worth knowing going in. If you are the type of player who finished Suikoden II just to fill out the castle roster, you will probably find Citizens of Earth's recruitment loop satisfying enough to carry you past its rough patches. The joy of discovering how each citizen works in combat - watching the Soda Shop Owner buff your whole party or the Musician tune his instrument before unleashing elemental attacks - is real and durable for a good chunk of the runtime. The world-ability system, where citizens reshape the actual game environment, is the most underrated thing this game does. But the filler quests pile up, the narrative payoff is modest, and anyone hoping for choices that matter or dialogue that rewards a second read will come away a little hungry. It is a game built with obvious affection for the genre, running on clever ideas that never quite get refined to their full potential.

Monika · Scout Team

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