Ness

Ness (, Ness) is the main character of the cult classic SNES RPG , the most successful game in the Mother/EarthBound franchise. As a member of the "perfect-attendance crew", Ness has been featured as a playable character throughout the entire  series. He appears as the sole fighter of both the game and the series in Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate alongside fellow EarthBound fighter Lucas, who hails from Mother 3. In all five games, Makiko Ōmoto voices Ness in English with a false American accent.

Origin
In , Ness is a courageous, kind, and helpful boy from the fictional town of Onett, located in north-western Eagleland. His is steak and his signature PSI move, named for his favorite thing, is. He possesses strong psychic powers, and in the year 199X, utilizes his abilities to defeat an alien invasion by the forces of, the villain of . Ness is the successor to, the hero of EarthBound Beginnings, sharing a very similar design and some abilities; however, the two are distinct characters.

On a dark night in the year 199X, Ness gets woken up by a meteorite crash. He investigates the crash site, where he meets his neighbor Porky Minch and an alien named. Buzz Buzz tells him that he is the boy who will save the world, and sends him on a mission to collect the that tie together the Earth's power. He is joined in this quest by Paula, Jeff, and Poo. By recording and collecting the Eight Melodies using his, Ness gains access to the realm of Magicant within his mind and unlocks the power necessary to defeat Giygas.

Although capable of wielding several types of weapons, such as s and s, Ness's signature weapon is a. Ness's PSI powers include PK Flash, PSI Rockin,, and a variety of status moves. Several PSI techniques used by Paula and Poo (PK Fire, PK Thunder, PSI Magnet, and PK Starstorm) would be borrowed by Ness for combat in the series.

Five years after the release of EarthBound, Ness would make an unexpected appearance in Super Smash Bros. and continue to be playable in the series, carrying his legacy. Ness's appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series have considerably boosted his public image. His appearance in the very first Super Smash Bros. took fans by surprise, but his inclusion was massively applauded; thus, he's been in every Smash installment since. Through the Super Smash Bros. series, Ness became more or less a mainstream character in gaming culture rather than remaining a curious cult character of Nintendo's '90s days who would be known only to the highly devoted Nintendo fandom.

As a playable character
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 . 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.

In-game description:
 * 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.


 * Works:
 * (SNES)

As a playable character
Ness returns in Super Smash Bros. Melee, though this time as a default character. He keeps all of his special moves and, as all other veterans, gains a fourth one: PK Flash, which is assigned as his neutral special move. PK Flash is Ness's first "true" special attack, as his other special moves were not used by him in . PK Fire was also changed to Ness's side special.

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 was mostly nerfed from Smash 64 to Melee, similar to, and , and arguably. One major reason is his very weak grab range. Though his nerfs were not as drastic as Kirby's, his tournament representation is weak and his viability is still poor. He is ranked 23rd out of 26 on the tier list in D tier, somewhat lower than his placement in the original Super Smash Bros.

Trophies
As a playable character, Ness has three trophies - a normal trophy won beating the with Ness on any difficulty, and "Smash Red" and "Smash Blue" trophies are acquired by beating the Adventure and All-Star modes, respectively.

As a playable character
On January 20, 2008, Edible, a GameFAQs member, made a topic in the site's Brawl message board about an official trailer on the Japanese Wii website that leaked Ness (as well as and ) being playable characters in the game. In this screenshot taken of the video, a Ness icon can clearly be seen in the lower right hand corner when the Claus sticker is selected, confirming Ness's return as a playable character. The video in question can be viewed here.

Ness returns as an unlockable fighter in Brawl after a brief stint as a starter character in Melee. Ness was officially revealed to be a playable character in Brawl on February 1st, 2008, the day after Brawl came out in Japan.

Ness is currently ranked 26th on the tier list in D tier, being buffed 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 grab releases from and.

As a playable character
Ness was leaked as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4 via the ESRB leak, and later through twitch.tv streams. He remains an unlockable character in the 3DS game, but is part of the starting roster on Wii U, making it the first game since Super Smash Bros. Melee where Ness appears as a starter character. He also sports an updated appearance and all new voice clips.

Ness currently ranks 28th out of 54 on the tier list (being tied with ). 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 and. Nonetheless, as a result of his vast improvement from the three previous games, Ness has gained decent results in tournaments.

As a playable character
Ness returns as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Ness retains his status as an unlockable character like in SSB, Brawl and Smash 3DS. Many of his attacks now feature effects that are more reminiscent of the EarthBound games, such as PK Fire having diamond-shaped PSI effects. Paula and Poo now accompany him for his Final Smash. As the first character in ’s unlock tree, he can potentially be the first character to be unlocked.

Ness was greatly buffed in his transition to Ultimate, with his speed and power increased. The return of directional air dodges provides Ness with a reliable mixup in place of PK Thunder for a safer recovery. Not only do his up and down yo-yo smash attacks function the way they did prior to SSB4, but they now also hang off ledges providing him with a new powerful edge-guarding technique. His special moves have also been improved with PK Flash no longer making him helpless, PK Fire having less endlag, PK Thunder dealing more damage and knockback, and PSI Magnet receiving a damaging hitbox.

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.

Trivia

 * Starting in Melee, the texture on Ness' yo-yo says the release year, with Melee's saying "HALLAB NINTENDO 2001 DOLPHIN LOOP". From Brawl onward, this was changed to "SUPER NINTENDO (year) MOTHER", with year referring to the corresponding year the respective Smash game was released; 2008 for Brawl, 2014 for SSB4 and 2018 for Ultimate.
 * 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.
 * While Ness' game (EarthBound) was released in North America and takes place in a stand-in for America, his in-game voice in Smash Bros. has a Japanese accent, whereas Lucas, whose game (Mother 3) was released only in Japan, speaks using an American one.
 * Ness's "OK!" taunt is based on a voice line in EarthBound, prompted once the player confirms a name given to something when creating a new save file, saying (Is it OK?). The line was provided by Shigesato Itoi during the game's development, after his voice was being unknowingly recorded. It also appears in Mother 3 with the exact same purpose.
 * Ness was considered being replaced by Lucas in Melee, and Jigglypuff was considered to be cut in Melee and Brawl, 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 and Captain Falcon were the first characters to debut as unlockable characters before becoming starters in the next game.
 * Ness, Captain Falcon and Terry Bogard are the only characters to be voiced by Japanese actors and speak English in all language tracks.
 * Whenever Ness is an unlockable character, he is always the first one to be unlocked from playing Vs. Mode (excluding Smash 64, which does not feature this method of unlocking characters).
 * Not counting Brawl's lineup, Ness is the only character to be unlockable in the first Smash game to appear in all the opening movies.
 * Ness, Lucas, 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.