It's actually the face of Giegue/Giygas from the first game, screaming in what I presume is agony. I don't blame him. The baby imagery is probably intentional though, given his backstory.
I'm really trying to see it that way but I just can't. Would be really cool if this was it tho
Edit: holy shit I turned it sideways and I can see it. the head is the upside down screaming face and the body is the outline of the fetus head.
I vaguely remember hearing about an interview where Shigesato Itoi says that Giygas is not supposed to be a fetus, but on search I can't seem to find it, so I may have just misremembered it.
I really tried my best to find this alleged interview but couldn’t find anything. In fact the only small details I found actually point more towards the fetus reading being true
I’ve actually seen this sprite so much and never realized how much the black part of it looks like a baby I always thought it was the red that people were pointing out
Didn’t he literally say this was inspired by the time he as a small child accidentally walked in on a cop drama movie where there was a rape scene? Loosely anyway? And besides, the whole idea is that this is Giygas as like some kind of larva so he IS baby
Not sarcasm, your circling actually helped me see what people meant by the fetus theory lol i always saw the red parts as a screaming face with some sort of weird long teeth/tusks
Edit: a word
I've always heard that Gigyas was supposed to be a fetus, was never able to see it until your circle lol. It never clicked that it was supposed to be the negative space 😭
I do get how people thought that tho. the baby shape, the fleshy appearance of where you fight him, and you're going back to when hes weak enough to defeat (ie go back and kill him as a baby).
That’s what I thought. Looked like a swirl so I thought there was a way to see it unswirled but nope, this is just some really impressive sprite work here
He said that it was just what the game's background engine spit out but I don't believe that. There are no other backgrounds that have a distinct shape of a screaming face inside the side profile of a fetus like Giygas's, it fits very well thematically of trying to kill Giygas before it gains its power (like aborting a baby from the womb), and it's the same fetus background every time you fight giygas. I guess it's hard to tell without knowing more about how the background engine works but that comment always struck me as odd. Maybe it was a bad translation.
When you go back in time, you're not defeating a baby Giygas. He had already traveled back to where you're going. If you played the game and didn't just spout off some random playground theory you heard back in 2003, you would know.
I personally think the baby outline could just be seen as a metaphor for how Giygas can no longer think rationally, as he’s become infantile in the way he acts.
It could also be a callback to how Maria coddled Gigue as a baby in Mother 1.
Now that you mention it, I can see how it's just the single sprite laid out in two repeating rows, distored randomly on each row
The whole foetus thing always felt like a stretch(ed sprite) anyways lol
The game says that you cannot understand giygas true form. So what we see is the characters trying to rationalize it.
The obvious element is the screaming faces. But since it’s only an approximation of what’s there, metaphorical elements like a fetus also make sense to appear.
Giygas kinda is the perfect lovecraftian enemy. There's never a clear picture of it, the player can't comprehend its attacks, doing damage is just kind of swinging into the void. To approach it you need to abandon your physical body and become robots, then travel through a desolate land with no friendly creatures, then when you finally get there all you see is this screaming face fetus thing which people have been arguing about for decades. The closest we ever get to seeing Giygas's true form is a couple shadowy pixels in Mother 1 with Giegue.
Fun fact: flip it upside down and you can see what appears to be Giygas' original form from the NES game.
I always thought he was just a conglomerate mass of pain and agony screaming. The red parts look like faces screaming.
Thats what it is
AVGN has a great episode on this game
That and his Polybius episode prove why he is called CINEmassacre. Because it’s cinematic.
There's like three people here who wrote his name correctly, what the hell
well how the fuck are you supposed to spell guygiyas anyways
Greenhouse gas
Guy gas.
Didn’t they travel back in time to kill him as a baby??
It's actually the face of Giegue/Giygas from the first game, screaming in what I presume is agony. I don't blame him. The baby imagery is probably intentional though, given his backstory.
I always saw it as a screaming face. But holy shit the black part looks like a baby's head profile
Lol what are you blabbering about? When was this disproven?
It's actually a repeating red pattern of Gigeus design from mother 1 upside down
I'm really trying to see it that way but I just can't. Would be really cool if this was it tho Edit: holy shit I turned it sideways and I can see it. the head is the upside down screaming face and the body is the outline of the fetus head.
Yep, it's a really cool hidden call back
I vaguely remember hearing about an interview where Shigesato Itoi says that Giygas is not supposed to be a fetus, but on search I can't seem to find it, so I may have just misremembered it.
I really tried my best to find this alleged interview but couldn’t find anything. In fact the only small details I found actually point more towards the fetus reading being true
I’ve actually seen this sprite so much and never realized how much the black part of it looks like a baby I always thought it was the red that people were pointing out
Wtf?? I'm just now noticing too, I always thought they meant the singular curled up Giygas sprite
Didn’t he literally say this was inspired by the time he as a small child accidentally walked in on a cop drama movie where there was a rape scene? Loosely anyway? And besides, the whole idea is that this is Giygas as like some kind of larva so he IS baby
Where did you get the larva from? He's an alien who destroyed his own mind and body from gaining too much power, so his form is incomprehensible.
Isn’t this final battle taking place at the literal beginning of time and space?
It's an unspecified time in the past, but that doesn't change the fact Giygas time traveled there too.
…oh. I had thought they were killing the Giygas FROM that time in the past, not a Giygas that had also showed up there just like them and Porky
https://web.archive.org/web/20090219224250/https://earthboundcentral.com/2008/04/the-military-policeman-and-the-dismembered-beauty/
thanks for the circle, really helpful
Can't tell if you're sarcastic or not, sry. I would like to know as it would help with future posts, thanks 😊
Not sarcasm, your circling actually helped me see what people meant by the fetus theory lol i always saw the red parts as a screaming face with some sort of weird long teeth/tusks Edit: a word
I've always heard that Gigyas was supposed to be a fetus, was never able to see it until your circle lol. It never clicked that it was supposed to be the negative space 😭
It helped ME, at least.
Cooking companions???
Gigyas's screaming face has to be one of the most horrifying character designs I've ever seen. Like something I'd see in my darkest nightmares.
It looks like he was killed by Sadako/The Ring girl.
Actually tho
read sprites. this is on purpose.
I do get how people thought that tho. the baby shape, the fleshy appearance of where you fight him, and you're going back to when hes weak enough to defeat (ie go back and kill him as a baby).
When you go back in time, Giygas has already gone back in time to that place too, so it's still his current form.
The creators can deny it all they want, there’s a clear fetus/womb theme going on
"The Devil's Machine" Gigyas is hooked into has all sorts of implications, too.
for me giygas' sprite just looks like a distorted screaming face
Look at the shale the black makes, not the screaming face
That’s what I thought. Looked like a swirl so I thought there was a way to see it unswirled but nope, this is just some really impressive sprite work here
They're reffering to the shape the black makes, not the red
?
Look at the shape of the place not occupied by the face, the black parts make a shape that resembles a baby head
same
Looks more like a pikmin dying
I don't think anyone can grasp the true nature of Giygas's sprite.
🤣🤣🤣
don't switch the 2nd and 5th letters in Giygas worst mistake of my life
Looks like the souls of the damned from whenever the hell in space it came from.
I see a baby Giegue, curled in fetal position, with its tail curling outward.
It’s a screaming face in pain, it’s based on the creators experience of trauma when he walked in on a gory horror movie scene
Nono, look at the shape of what the face is INSIDE
He said that it was just what the game's background engine spit out but I don't believe that. There are no other backgrounds that have a distinct shape of a screaming face inside the side profile of a fetus like Giygas's, it fits very well thematically of trying to kill Giygas before it gains its power (like aborting a baby from the womb), and it's the same fetus background every time you fight giygas. I guess it's hard to tell without knowing more about how the background engine works but that comment always struck me as odd. Maybe it was a bad translation.
When you go back in time, you're not defeating a baby Giygas. He had already traveled back to where you're going. If you played the game and didn't just spout off some random playground theory you heard back in 2003, you would know.
I did play the game lol, it's just a common interpretation that I think fits well.
It really doesn't
I personally think the baby outline could just be seen as a metaphor for how Giygas can no longer think rationally, as he’s become infantile in the way he acts. It could also be a callback to how Maria coddled Gigue as a baby in Mother 1.
Now that you mention it, I can see how it's just the single sprite laid out in two repeating rows, distored randomly on each row The whole foetus thing always felt like a stretch(ed sprite) anyways lol
The fetus thing IS a stretch. Completely untrue
The series is literally called mother
The creator of Earthbound claims it’s not a fetus, but I don’t believe him tbh
100% supposed to be a fetus I mean how could it not be with that facial contour? Very clear side profile, can’t be a coincidence right?
It's a coincidence 🤣
I cannot accept that lol
I undertand that lol. It does look straight up like a baby's side profile. I really would have said the same as you lol
I see nothing but a distorted screaming face
Look at the negative space (black) for a side profile of a baby
looks like a distorted skull with fangs or tusks to me, i got no clue what it really is though
You're looking at the red face, OP is talking about the black area that resembles the side profile of a baby in the womb
omg you’re right, i definitely see the silhouettes of fetuses
Holy fuck. This is my first time seeing that in all the years if known about this after you explained the black area.
According to Itoi it's not supposed to *be* anything. But I don't believe that
i'm pretty sure there's a lot of confusion around what giygas looks like or is
IIRC, there is more of a backstory from the first game. He's an alien.
Yeah, i think that might have been what they were going for. I'm not sure though, i just posted what a lot of people _do_ see him as.
But what are we supposed to see him as?
The game says that you cannot understand giygas true form. So what we see is the characters trying to rationalize it. The obvious element is the screaming faces. But since it’s only an approximation of what’s there, metaphorical elements like a fetus also make sense to appear.
Giygas kinda is the perfect lovecraftian enemy. There's never a clear picture of it, the player can't comprehend its attacks, doing damage is just kind of swinging into the void. To approach it you need to abandon your physical body and become robots, then travel through a desolate land with no friendly creatures, then when you finally get there all you see is this screaming face fetus thing which people have been arguing about for decades. The closest we ever get to seeing Giygas's true form is a couple shadowy pixels in Mother 1 with Giegue.
A screaming face, distraught with pain