Lucas

For fighter info, see Lucas (SSBB), Lucas (SSB4), and Lucas (SSBU).

Lucas
The in-game sprite of Lucas from Mother 3 from Chapter 4 onwards.
Universe	EarthBound
Debut	Mother 3 (2006)
Smash Bros. appearances	Brawl SSB4 Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Mother 3 (2006)
Console/platform of origin	Game Boy Advance
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Place of origin	Tazmily Village, Nowhere Islands
Created by	Shigesato Itoi
Voice actor	Lani Minella
Article on WikiBound	Lucas

Lucas (リュカ, Lucas) is a character in the EarthBound universe, debuting in the Japan-only Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance.

Origin

Lucas is the main protagonist of Mother 3. The son of Flint and Hinawa, he is characterized as more timid than his twin brother, Claus. Despite being young, however, he was forced to face a broken family following the death of Hinawa and the disappearance of Claus. While playable briefly during the prologue of Mother 3, he is an NPC for the first three chapters of the game, with Flint, Duster, and Salsa being the main characters of those chapters. After reappearing in the climax of Chapter 3 against the Pork Tank, he becomes the main playable character after the three-year time skip to Chapter 4, and retains this role for the remainder of the game.

While he initially leaves his hometown of Tazmily Village to locate Duster, he quickly becomes involved in a greater struggle against the Pigmask Army. He learns PSI, and his ability to use PK Love sets him into a chase against the Masked Man to pull the Seven Needles to awaken the Dark Dragon living under the Nowhere Islands. Lucas' main party of allies includes Kumatora, Duster, and his beloved pet dog Boney.

In battle, Lucas fills the same archetype as his predecessor Ness did in EarthBound, being somewhat slow, but having a strong basic attack and access to a variety of PSI techniques such as stat boosts, Lifeup, PK Flash, and the aforementioned PK Love. Whereas the previous Mother protagonists wielded baseball bats, Lucas generally wields sticks.

Lucas' appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series have helped considerably boost his public image but not to the same extent as Ness, though this can be attributed to Lucas appearing only since Brawl. Despite this fact, Lucas became more or less of a mainstream character in gaming culture rather than remaining a curious cult character who would be known only to the highly devoted Nintendo fandom.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

On July 17th, 2001, Masahiro Sakurai updated the Smabura-Ken on Ness's profile, revealing that Ness was planned to be scrapped and replaced by Lucas as a playable character. However, Ness instead reprised his role due to the cancellation of Mother 3 on the Nintendo 64.

“	Actually, at first, I planned to change him [Ness] into the protagonist of Mother 3 [Lucas], but for various reasons during the delay, I settled back on the original idea. (実は当初、MOTHER3の主人公に変更する予定でしたが、いろいろあって遠回りしながら、元のさやに収まりました。)	”
—Masahiro Sakurai, Smabura-Ken Ness page (Japanese)

Both Ness and Lucas would ultimately appear as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

As a playable character

Lucas, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Lucas makes his Super Smash Bros. series debut, and by extension his international debut, in Brawl. His special moves are similar to Ness, but with some key differences. For example, Lucas' PK Thunder goes through opponents and can deal multiple hits, whereas Ness' version disappears on contact. Lucas' Final Smash is PK Starstorm, which he shares with Ness. Lucas also has near-identical physics to Ness. However, the majority of Lucas' moves completely differ from Ness, thus rendering him as a pseudo-clone of his fellow EarthBound series fighter.

Lucas is ranked 30th out of 38 on the tier list, placing him in the E tier. His lower mid-tier placing is primarily due to the additional 10 frames he gets when grab released (a trait he shares with Ness), which makes him vulnerable to grab release follow-ups from every character, including zero-death chain grabs from Marth and Donkey Kong.

Trophy

The Lucas trophy from Brawl.

Lucas

The younger of twin brothers living in Tazmily Village in the Nowhere Islands. He's a kind boy who can communicate with animals, but he's shy and never really got over the tragedy that struck his mother. He fights a warped dictatorship, hunts the Seven Needles, and crosses swords with his missing brother, Claus. In the end, the young boy with psychic PSI powers grows up.

: Mother 3 (Japan Only)

Sticker

Name	Game	Effect	Character(s)
Lucas	Mother 3	Attack +13

Lucas (Mother 3)

In Super Smash Bros. 4

As a playable character

Lucas, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. 4.

Although Lucas was not present in the final roster upon Super Smash Bros. 4's initial worldwide release, he was later released as a DLC character on June 14th, 2015. Prior to this, his non-fighter trophy appeared in both versions of the game, while his special moves became available as custom variations for Ness' respective specials.

Lucas is ranked 28th out of 55 on the tier list, placing him in the C tier. In addition to tying him with Ness, this placing renders him as a high-tier character. Like Ness, Lucas no longer possesses the 10 extra grab release frames, a main contributor to his lower mid-tier position in Brawl.

Rope Snake has become significantly more useful in two ways: the changes to hitstun canceling grant his modified down throw excellent combo potential, while his tether recovery is more reliable thanks to SSB4's new edge mechanics preventing edge-hogging. On a related note, update 1.1.3 presented a significant upgrade to Lucas' grab game, as now his tether grab has noticeably less ending lag, making it reasonably fast for a grab of its nature.

However, Lucas received various nerfs to his damage output, knockback and range, while his useful Magnet Pull and Zap Jump techniques were removed. Overall, Lucas is considerably more viable than he was in Brawl, and he has gained a dedicated playerbase and decent results in competitive play.

Trophies

Lucas

Before adventuring, Lucas was a timid, cautious boy. His journey has made him a stronger person. Maybe he met someone to spend his life with... Hang on—we're moving way too fast! For now, remember that Lucas and Ness are favorites in the hearts of EarthBound fans.

Once upon a time, Lucas was a bit of a cry-baby. You might even say he was a wimp. But then, well...he had more than his fair share of rough times and toughened up a bit. Who knows what he's up to now? Whatever he's doing, his story - much like Ness's - lives on in the hearts of all Mother series fans.

: Mother 3 (Japan Only)

Lucas (Classic)

The younger of the twin brothers from Nowhere makes his triumphant return to the game of Smash. Hailing from the Japan-only game Mother 3, Lucas's specialty is psychic projectile attacks. He can use these PSI attacks to do things like absorb enemy projectiles and deal supernatural damage!

Lucas, the younger of the twin brothers from Tazmily, comes originally from the Japan-only game, Mother 3, and now makes his triumphant return to Super Smash Bros.! Here he makes great use of his PSI powers with lots of projectile attacks, and can use his faster attacks on anybody who gets too close.

Lucas (Alt.)

Lucas’s up special PK Thunder can hit enemies multiple times, but if you hit yourself with it, you can then tackle and launch opponents! Lucas’s up smash has the strongest launch power of any fighter's up smash. The range for this attack is wide, and it’s strongest right after Lucas unleashes the attack.

Lucas's up special, PK Thunder, can either hit enemies multiple times, or hit Lucas himself to push him into a powerful charge attack. Meanwhile, his up smash attack is the most powerful launching move in the entire game, so make good use of it! It's a wide-range attack that is most effective right after Lucas unleashes it.

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  Lucas (3DS)

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  Lucas (Wii U)

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  Classic (3DS)

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  Classic (Wii U)

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  Alt. (3DS)

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  Alt. (Wii U)

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As a playable character

Lucas, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Lucas returns as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as fighter #37. Unlike his previous appearances, he is now an unlockable character.

In his transition from SSB4, Lucas has received a mix of buffs and nerfs. His combo game was toned down due to his down throw having more end lag and footstools being techable. He has received buffs, however, such as PK Freeze launching opponents horizontally making it a lethal edge-guarding technique, furthermore Ultimate's engine indirectly buffed him as the return of directional air dodges allow Lucas to have a reliable mixup in place of PK Thunder.

Initially, Lucas's results and representation were scarce, especially compared to his fellow EarthBound fighter Ness. However, his playerbase has slowly expanded as the metagame has progressed, with the likes of Mekos, ChocoTaco, Remi and WhYYZ achieving respectable results at regional and even national tournaments.

Spirits

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  564. Lucas

Names in other languages

Language	Name
Japanese	リュカ, Lucas
English	Lucas
French	Lucas
German	Lucas
Spanish	Lucas
Italian	Lucas
Chinese	琉加, Lucas
Korean	류카, Lucas
Dutch	Lucas
Russian	Лукас
Portuguese	Lucas

Trivia

• None of Lucas' special moves are used by him in Mother 3. Rather, they are all learned by Kumatora instead. This is similar to Ness, who uses three special moves that he could not learn in EarthBound, but were instead learned by Paula and Poo.
  • Alongside Rope Snake, Lucas' neutral attack and down tilt are references to Duster, whose primary form of attack consists of kicks.
  • In addition, despite Lucas using PK Freeze rather than Ness's PK Flash, Lucas can learn PK Flash in Mother 3.
• Lucas' normal PSI-based attacks emit hexagonal blasts of PSI, whereas Ness' emit circular blasts.
• Lucas is the only character to have been a starter (Brawl), DLC (SSB4), and an unlockable character (Ultimate).
  • He, Pokémon Trainer and the Ice Climbers are also the only starter characters to have been cut, and additionally, he is the only character to have been cut from a roster without skipping an installment.
  • Due to being a pseudo-clone, he is also the first clone of any kind to be available by default, announced as DLC, and to not be added late in development prior to debuting in the Super Smash Bros. series.
• Lucas' home village is transcribed as Tazumili in the NTSC Brawl, but Mother 3 creator Shigesato Itoi stated that the village is Tazmily when written in the Latin alphabet. This was corrected in the PAL release of Brawl and its subsequent installments.
• In Japanese, Lucas' name is read "Ryuka", which is derived from the French pronunciation of the name, [lyka] ("Lu-ka"). However, the Japanese versions of each game consistently use the English pronunciation /ˈluːkəs/ ("Lu-kis"). This is unlike similar characters such as Lucina and Richter, whose names use differing pronunciations in Japanese.
• Although Lucas has only appeared in a Japanese-exclusive game, ironically he is voiced by Lani Minella, an American actress.
• Lucas is the only playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series that has never appeared outside Japan otherwise.
  • Roy's debut game was never released outside of Japan, although he later appeared in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (albeit only as a cameo) in 2003. He also appeared as a DLC unit in Fire Emblem: Awakening and as a summonable unit in Fire Emblem Heroes.
  • This thus makes Lucas and Roy the only characters whose debut games were never released outside of Japan.
• Lucas, Roy, and Dark Pit are the only characters to have never appeared on a home console outside of the Super Smash Bros. series or the Virtual Console.
• Lucas, Ness, Min Min and Kazuya are the only characters to have a reflector outside of special moves. Coincidentally, all (except Kazuya's) are a smash attack.
• In all of his playable appearances, Lucas is the only character so far with a move (Up smash) that grants both intangibility and invincibility frames.

External links

• Ness's Smabura-Ken page, including comment about his intended exclusion from Melee - Translated by Google
• Lucas' Smash Bros. DOJO!! (US) page