You have been elected Vice President of Earth! Like it or not, that is the premise in Eden Industries' Citizens of Earth, an RPG with charm, laughs and some awkward moments.

Citizens of Earth is a strange little game. You play as the Vice President of Earth, a husky little man with a pearly-white smile and a well-groomed head of hair. And since politicians don't like to get their hands dirty, you enlist various citizens to do the dirty work for you. Unlike most RPGs, the main character doesn't fight at all, but rather “supervises,” leaving his constituents to battle all sorts of crazy baddies like protestors, bald eagles with toupees and violent coffee machine cyborgs. Your citizens range from the mundane like the baker or the handyman to the uncanny like the conspiracy theorist. And for starters, your own Mother tags along with you on your journey. Strange things have been happening since the election, and it's up to the VP to do what most politicians do—promise to set things right.

At first glance, Citizens of Earth looks a lot like EarthBound, another strange RPG for the Super Nintendo that is a cult favorite among gamers (do play it if you can, by the way!). Cartoony graphics, crazy monster designs, trippy battle backgrounds, alien conspiracy, dumb jokes and an insane depiction of Americana? Yep, Citizens of Earth has all of that, but what hurts it is that the game is slow, like the story progression, the game speed and especially the loading times. As of this writing, Eden Industries is working on a patch to fix some of the performance issues of the game, but as it stands, the time spent waiting to go from screen to screen kills the pacing, which inhibits total enjoyment. The brief pauses during battle caused by the VP's banter doesn't help either. There were a few bugs too, like enemies stuck in maps, and the menu glitching out, but nothing game-breaking.

The battle system is turn-based and quite interesting. Rather than use magic points, there's the mana system. For every “normal” move you do, your citizen gains one mana. When using a “special” move (e.g. strong moves, elemental attacks, healing), your mana decreases. Each citizen has their own attacks and special moves and most of your strategy involves knowing which citizen to use in battle. Citizens can also use their talents outside of battle, which can help you score loot or tweak your game experience to your needs. There's a lot of variety, although it can feel daunting to manage scores of citizens as you recruit them.

Citizens of Earth has the potential to be a cult favorite, although it suffers from relying more on jokes and dialogue rather than optimization and game balance. Unless you're jonesing for an RPG fix, I'd hold off until the technical issues are resolved before you enlist as one of the Citizens of Earth.

Hint: Once you recruit the Teacher, make use of his tutoring service and have him tutor your new citizens so they can level up automatically as you play. However, his services cost money so unless they're severely under-leveled, level up your citizen until he or she can hold their own in battle.

by Ray n.