The Cave of the Past

The Cave of the Past is a location in EarthBound. It is the final area of the game, and is Giygas's base of operations. During Ness's time, a small portion of the cave is briefly visited, where it is found to be an ordinary site in the Lost Underworld. Ness and friends can barely progress into the cave before they encounter a dead end, however; they do manage to find a demolished Phase Distorter on a plateau across from them.
After Ness becomes empowered by his experience in Magicant, the party returns to Saturn Valley where Jeff's father, Dr. Andonuts, has finished the Phase Distorter 2, a time traveling device. Using it, they travel to the present version of the Cave of the Past, a small, lush cavern at the center of the Earth (ironically teeming with plant life), where the Star Master teaches Poo PK Starstorm Ω. However, this area is a point of no return, meaning that all the player can do is move forward. After having their souls transplanted into robot bodies, Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo use the Phase Distorter 3 to travel to the past, where the cave is a strange, foggy, gray world filled with nightmarish enemies. This location is another point of no return, which also forces the player to continue onward.
After conquering the Cave's beasts and reaching the end of the cave, they venture into a strange crack, headed to the Devil's Machine, where Giygas and the malevolent Pokey Minch await. Pokey informs the group that Giygas has become so powerful that his mind is completely destroyed as a result of Pokey's assistance. The group attacks Pokey, who turns off the Devil’s Machine suppressing Giygas’s insanity. They then attack Giygas, but it has no effect on him. Falling to despair, in their desperation, Paula begins to pray, and with the combined prayers of both Earth's people and the player itself, Giygas is defeated and Pokey retreats, marking the last time Ness and his friends encounter him face-to-face. They journey back to the present and return home one by one, bidding each other farewell and disbanding the party.
== Trivia ==
* When Ness and his friends, who have now become robots, walk in The Cave of the Past, their mechanical footsteps can be heard, removing any semblance of life.
* This marks the only area that PK Starstorm Ω can be used as the player cannot go back and the post-game features no enemies (Save for a glitch in the Scaraba Cultural Museum).
* Despite the various references to EarthBound Beginnings, it differs significantly. Instead of being in a gray, dreamscape-like world, EarthBound Beginnings’s final area is Mt. Itoi, a mountain that is in the same timeframe of the game and is blood orange. although both areas feature the strongest and most robotic enemies, Mt. Itoi is far more difficult to traverse through than the Cave of the Past due to the amount of leveling required to stand a chance. There are also both less amounts of unique enemies and no enemies, save for the Starman and Reactor Robot, from Mt. Itoi that make an indirect appearance in EarthBound.
==List of Enemies==
* Bionic Kraken
* Final Starman
* Ghost of Starman
* Nuclear Reactor Robot
* Squatter Demon
* Ultimate Octobot
* Wild 'n Wooly Shambler
* Heavily Armed Pokey and Giygas (Bosses)
==Music==
* "The Cliff that Time Forgot"
* "The Place"
* "Giygas' Lair"
Category:Locations
Category:EarthBound Locations
Category:EarthBound