EarthBound · SNES · 1994 · Attack · Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka
The thunderous, over-the-top crash that accompanies a critical hit "SMAAASH!!" in EarthBound — a sound designed to feel cartoonishly enormous and satisfying — is one of the most beloved attack sounds in JRPG history, perfectly capturing the game's comedic-but-sincere relationship with its own genre conventions.
EarthBound's sound design was handled by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, who together composed one of the most eclectic and celebrated SNES soundtracks. The game's audio philosophy matched its overall design approach: it acknowledged JRPG conventions while playing with them, sometimes ironically and sometimes with genuine feeling. The battle system retained the turn-based structure of contemporaneous JRPGs while adding comedic elements — enemies were described with absurdist humour, battles were initiated differently than in other games, and the text and sound design conspired to produce an emotional experience distinct from any other SNES RPG. The SMAAAASH!! critical hit was the battle system's highest positive outcome. When a character's attack connected with maximum force, the screen displayed the word "SMAAAASH!!" in large, impactful lettering and triggered a sound effect designed to match the visual hyperbole: a huge, compressed crash with a pronounced low-end thud that felt physically substantial on SNES speakers. The sound was bigger than any other battle audio in the game, and the scale gap between a normal attack sound and the SMAAAASH!! sound was part of the joke and part of the pleasure. The effect became beloved because it was designed with genuine craft to match the game's tone. It is genuinely funny — the size of the sound relative to its context produces a comedy of scale — but it is also genuinely satisfying, because the big sound corresponds to a big game outcome. The humour and the satisfaction reinforce each other rather than cancelling out, which is the defining quality of EarthBound's design throughout.
The SMAAAASH!! sound works as comedy because it commits. A half-hearted big sound — one that acknowledged its own hyperbole by being only somewhat larger than normal — would not produce the comedic response. The sound is enormous, disproportionate, and utterly sincere in its enormity. This is the comedic principle of going too far in a direction that deserves to be gone too far in. The JRPG critical hit deserves to be celebrated; EarthBound celebrates it so thoroughly that the celebration becomes funny.
Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka understood that this kind of comedy requires genuine craft. A poorly designed big sound would just be unpleasant rather than funny. The SMAAAASH!! sound is big in a way that reads as intentional on first hearing, which is why it produces laughter rather than irritation. The design makes the intent legible.
EarthBound's consistent achievement is that its comedy does not undermine its sincerity. The game is genuinely funny, and it is also genuinely moving — the ending produces emotional responses in players who have been laughing throughout the preceding thirty hours. This dual register works because the game's design elements function honestly in both modes simultaneously. The SMAAAASH!! sound is funny, but it also correctly signals a good battle outcome, which makes it genuinely useful information delivered with comedic weight.
This is the design philosophy that made EarthBound a cult classic and eventually a critical touchstone. It never winks at the audience to signal that it knows it is being ridiculous. The enormity of the SMAAAASH!! sound is presented as the appropriate response to a critical hit, not as a joke about the appropriate response. Players who are in on the joke laugh. Players who are not in on the joke experience a surprisingly satisfying critical hit sound. Both responses are correct.