Editing Ness

Official papier mâché model of Ness from ''{{s|wikibound|Mother 2}}''.

Ness was a bit of surprise addition to the roster for the original ''Super Smash Bros.'' Many players had never expected such an obscure character to turn up in the game, which seems to be reflected in-game; he is a secret character, unlocked by completing the 1P Game on a difficulty of Normal or higher, using three lives or less and no continues. Strangely, none of Ness's special moves are his own; his special attacks, the [[PSI Magnet]], [[PK Fire]], and [[PK Thunder]], (down special, neutral special, and up special, respectively), were originally used by one of his party allies, Paula in ''{{b|EarthBound|game}}''. A possible explanation for this discrepancy is offered in the sequel to this game, ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'', which states that Paula may have taught him these techniques. Ness is ranked 10th out of 12 on the current [[tier list]].

:''Ness was a seemingly-average kid from [[Onett]], but in truth, he was destined for much more. When a strange meteorite landed near his hometown, the little boy with psychic powers set out to save the world. Little has been said of Ness' character, and much remains hidden.''

During the development of ''Melee'', Sakurai was going to remove Ness from the roster and include [[Lucas]] instead, despite ''Mother 3'' (Lucas' debut game) being unreleased at the time. However, due to ''Mother 3''{{'}}s release on the Nintendo 64 getting cancelled, Ness got to stay in the game.

Ness is ranked 26th on the [[tier list]] in D tier, being [[buff]]ed from ''Melee'', with a general increase in the power and speed of his attacks and a vastly superior grab. However, he gained a major flaw in the additional 10 frames of lag he gets when grab released, making him very vulnerable to [[grab release]] combos, most infamously the [[Zero-to-death combo|zero-to-death]] grab releases from {{SSBB|Marth}} and {{SSBB|Donkey Kong}}.

Ness ranks 28th out of 54 on the [[tier list]] (being tied with {{SSB4|Lucas}}). He has been heavily buffed from his ''Brawl'' incarnation, with not only his extra grab release frames removed, but also the general changes brought about by ''SSB4'', such as the removal of [[hitstun]] cancelling and [[edge-hogging]], proving beneficial to him as well, as now he possesses an efficient and strong aerial combo game, and he can more easily recover with PK Thunder, since he can grab hold of an edge regardless of whether or not an opponent is hanging from it. Slamming into a wall during [[PK Thunder 2]] no longer leaves Ness immediately helpless, as he is now capable of initiating PK Thunder a second time, and PK Thunder's projectile now goes through opponents until its "tail" leaves Ness' body, improving his overall recovery further. Yet, his reliance on using PK Thunder to recover is still susceptible to being intercepted and foiled, especially by newcomers {{SSB4|Rosalina}} and {{SSB4|Villager}}. Nonetheless, as a result of his vast improvement from the three previous games, Ness has gained decent results in tournaments.

Overall, Ness has achieved some very positive tournament results in the early metagame of ''Ultimate'', with many professional players such as [[ESAM]], [[Marss]], and [[Void]] considering him to be a high tier character. Despite this, however, he is currently ranked as a upper mid-tier character in the B+ tier at the 40th place of 82 on the current tier list, although it is currently his highest placement in the series.

*The "PK" (standing for "Psychokinesis") prefix in most of Ness's (as well as Lucas's) special moves originates from ''EarthBound Beginnings'', where it is used to denote PSI moves that directly inflict damage on an enemy. Moves that affect healing and PSI Point (PP) restoration instead start with "PSI", such as [[PSI Magnet]]. In the American localization for ''Earthbound'', however, translators changed this naming convention and all offensive moves start with "PSI" rather than "PK". Therefore, the names "PK Flash" and "PK Starstorm" (which did not appear in ''Earthbound Beginnings'') are actually different from what those moves are named in their only official English-language games from the ''Mother''/''Earthbound'' series.  

*Ness was considered being replaced by [[Lucas]] in ''Melee'', and [[Jigglypuff]] was considered to be cut in ''Melee'' and ''Brawl'',<ref>http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/08/17/sakuraibrawlquestions/</ref> making them the only known members of the "Original 12" that were considered being cut at certain points in the development of subsequent games in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series.

*Ness, [[Lucas]], [[Min Min]], and [[Kazuya]] are the only characters to have a [[Reflection|reflector]] outside of [[special move]]s. Coincidentally, all (except Kazuya's) are a [[smash attack]].