Cave of the Past

The Cave of the PastEarthBound Player's Guide, p. 3 (also referred to as the Tunnel of the PastEarthBound Player's Guide, p. 119) is the final location in EarthBound, and is where Ness and his friends fight Giygas. Appearance wise, the dungeon is a range of narrow plateaus above a thick layer of fog— while in the past it also appears monochromatic in color. Ness and his friends are required to travel many years into the past to access the Cave of the Past via the Phase Distorter, however due to travelling across time for a long distance, life is destroyed in the proccess. As such, the party is transformed into robots in order to safely travel to the past.
The music for the Cave of the Past before traveling back in time is derived from the song All You Need Is Love by The Beatles, specifically the section based on La Marseillaise. The music after traveling back in time instead is an ominous variation on Deirdre by The Beach Boys.EarthBound Central: "EarthBound's All-Sample Music"
==Layout==
The Cave of the Past is technically first accessible from the Lost Underworld, where only a small cliff can be explored. Most of the area cannot be explored until the party use the Phase Distorter from Saturn Valley where a brief portion can be explored, but it cannot be fully explored until traveling to the past. Once in the past, the full dungeon can be explored, with different segments being accessible via warping spheres. It begins on the lower right corner then goes west, followed by a straight path northeast. It then becomes straight path north for a short time, then turns west making a u-turn east to the first warp sphere.
In this segment, a Magic Butterfly regularly spawns. This segment is short and makes a wide u-turn east, then west to the second warping sphere. The last section continues west then turns north to the entrance to where Giygas resides. This section is notably the only part of the dungeon where the Bionic Kraken, which has a 1/128 chance to drop the Gutsy bat, can spawn.
While in the present, the dungeon's layout is actually the same—however, a section of the starting plateau is missing preventing access to the rest of the dungeon. While walking as robots, the sound of metalic footsteps can be heard. This area serves as a point of no return after traveling through the Phase Distorter in .
As it is the final location, Exit Mice cannot be used here, although a glitch in Mother 1+2 subverts this.
==Role in EarthBound==
Ness and company can briefly glimpse the area from an entrance in the Lost Underworld, but cannot do anything at the time. They later arrive here via the second version of the Phase Distorter, after retrieving the Zexonyte for Dr. Andonuts.
Once the party arrives from Saturn Valley, they are greeted by the Star Master, who promptly teaches Poo how to use PSI Starstorm Ω before departing. They then discover the destroyed, first Phase Distorter and the Mr. Saturn who was kidnapped in it by Pokey. It is at this point that Dr. Andonuts arrives with the final Phase Distorter to send the party back in time as robots to confront Giygas.
The Cave of the Past is then navigated by teleporting between strange spheres, until the party reaches the Devil's Machine where the final boss fight takes place. Giygas is revealed to be inside the Devil's Machine; once Porky turns it off, Giygas is released. As he cannot be defeated with brute strength, Paula offers a prayer, causing a chain of prayers from the people met on Earth. The combined prayers resulted in Giygas's defeat. The heroes are then returned to the present day on Earth.
==Items==
==Enemies==
|}
==References==