Giygas ( ), also known as Giegue in EarthBound Beginnings, and in Japan, is a fictional alien character in the Mother video game series by Nintendo, created by Shigesato Itoi. The character serves as the main antagonist and final boss of EarthBound Beginnings and its sequel, EarthBound. In the series, he invades Earth in an attempt to wipe out humanity in EarthBound Beginnings, and returns in EarthBound where he conquers the world and sends his forces into the past to prevent protagonist Ness from defeating him. The battle against Giygas, which depicts him in turmoil, drew inspiration from a Japanese film which traumatized Itoi as a child. He has received positive reception with critics referring to his battle as one of the creepiest in video games, and considered one of the greatest and most iconic video game antagonists of all time.
Concept and creation
Giygas was designed and written by the creator of the EarthBound series, Shigesato Itoi, and debuted in the original EarthBound Beginnings, where he is called Giegue in the English localization. In an interview on his website, Itoi describes how his inspiration for the final battle with Giygas in EarthBound resulted from a traumatic childhood event where he accidentally viewed the wrong movie at a theater, a Shintoho film entitled Kenpei to Barabara Shibijin. The film featured a murder scene near a river that Itoi mistook for a rape scene which affected him so much that his parents began to worry about his well-being. Years later, Itoi integrated the experience into Giygas' dialogue for the final battle. Itoi described Giygas as something that people cannot make sense of, but also as a living being who deserves love, whereas the community also depicts him as a being of pure evil. He described the film scene as a combination of atrocity and eroticism, and that is what his lines are in the end. While designing this battle, Itoi spoke all of the text out loud while another staff member, Matchan Miura, wrote it down. He spoke each hiragana character one-after-another because he found it scarier. There has been a misunderstanding regarding the influence of the film on Giygas, with some believing that imagery, dialogue, or audio from that film were used here, when the only thing Itoi took from it was the ability to "manipulate an audience's emotional state".
Before the release of EarthBound, the localization team had at one point considered localizing Giygas as his original name Giegue or Geek. It was speculated that the change from Giegue to Giygas was due to a change in localization staff. Marcus Lindblom, a member of the English localization team, acknowledged the urban legend, noting that he appreciated the speculation, but officially denied the idea was an intended interpretation.
Appearances
Giygas appears in the Family Computer (also referred to as the Famicom) video game EarthBound Beginnings. Cassandra Ramos for RPGamer identified him as one of her favorite villains, while 1UP.com staff described the battle with Giygas as one of the 25 best boss battles, citing the audio and imagery of Giygas as well as the final portion of the battle. IGN staff included the battle with Giygas in their list of the 10 most cinematic video game moments. NGamer UK staff listed Giygas as one of the most iconic boss encounters in Nintendo history, stating that the defining moment was his design and the method of defeating him. GamesRadar+ staff named him one of the best video game antagonists, finding him creepy and a more imposing villain than Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI. Staff for Complex, GameSpot, and UGO Networks listed the fight against Giygas as one of the hardest in video games, with the latter and Chloi Rad for IGN calling him one of the most frightening video game characters. He was featured in a GameSpot user-voted poll of the greatest villains in video games, where he lost in the first round to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic antagonist Darth Malak.
Nadia Oxford for IGN described the battle with Giygas as one of the most memorable moments in EarthBound and stated that its significance resonated with people who had not played the game, a sentiment that Cassandra Ramos of RPGamer shared. In a work for 1UP.com, Oxford claimed that Itoi took inspiration from Stephen King novels, including It. She suggested that Giygas was based on Its antagonist due to a similarly "borderline indescribable" form and the fact that they both succumb to childlike qualities such as faith, friendship, and love. She discusses how the battle with Giygas in EarthBound Beginnings deviates from traditional final boss battles, citing his deep motivations and music employed, which consists of a "shrill background noise" and a lullaby. She suggested that Giygas' degraded form in EarthBound was possibly the result of Giygas' longing for Maria's love. Patricia Hernandez for Nightmare Mode discussed how his Mother incarnation "echoes a motif" of children without parental guidance doing poorly because of it. Colin Snyder for Vice felt similarly, stating that his story is about the loss of childhood. William Hughes for The A.V. Club argued that Giygas had an oedipal complex due to his infatuation with his surrogate mother and hatred for his surrogate father over him stealing information from the aliens.