I decided to pick up Earthbound again, and I'm hoping to finish it over the summer.
My main complaints about the game would be the way that inventory is handled (each character has an incredibly limited number of items that they can hold - not only does this leave little room for healing items, but when a main character is unceremoniously kidnapped, you lose a third of your inventory space and any important items that they might have been holding), and the way that the story progresses.
I don't know how you're supposed to know where you're going at times - a villain's dying words tell you that the character who was kidnapped is with Monotoli. Rather than going to the building with Monotoli's name written on it, you have to go to a random bar, press a button behind a counter, get sent to a strange alternate reality, break a statue, and go to a cave filled with monkeys.
Other than that, the game's fun - it just has some weird design choices that hold it back.