I
highly recommend Earthbound especially for Pokémon fans, the game is slightly harder then Pokémon but not by much since there is an in-game (hint) place you can purchase in-game hints for money earned on your adventure from the kid's dad in the game for gaining experience by fighting various enemies.
You basically level up your character you can also buy food and drinks to carry with you in order to defeat enemies when you take a lot of hits, now the combat is actually 5x harder than Pokémon you since your character really takes a beating and you must face your enemies at the start of the encounter in order not to get a surprise hit to your health bar but so far in my playthrough of Earthbound I have not seen any hidden enemies on screen since the battles occur when you run into them rather the grass like Pokémon though
this game is Pokémon on steroids' in my own opinion
Also bosses and enemies can call for help, and add members to the fight as well as heal themselves so yea combat take more strategy than Pokémon but the game itself is easier to understand then Pokémon because of the hint system and there is far more NPC to talk to in Earthbound than in most Gameboy Pokémon games too
in the 1st town there is also 2 food shops, 1 hospital, 1 store a city hall, a police station lots of houses a hotel, home house an arcade and more, man this game is fun and a lot better the Pokémon since you have more buildings you can even save up cash and buy a house, get in trouble with the towns police and it's this game takes a Loooong time to beat I'm probably already 14 hours in and I have only just won the 2nd boss, I forgot how many places you need to go before beating it.
the bee bug in the beginning tells you exactly how many worlds you need to go through maybe 9 not I only beat 2 at 14 hours in the game. This game is a lot about grinding and leveling up and lots of action
Highly recommended if you not carefull the enemies will kick your ass by the way sometimes