#is it really a kirby crossover if some character doesn’t get corrupted by forces beyond their control??

[pistachi0art]

Come judgement day, this fluttery fiend will fly into action 🦋

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Earthbound Playthrough

Fighter: Ness

Game: Earthbound, Wii U virtual console (SNES). First Released on August 27th 1994.

Fighter Bio.

A young boy living in Onett, a town in Eagleland, Ness is awoken one night following a meteorite crashing into a hilltop near his home. Ness and his neighbours eventually go to see the meteorite and it is there they meet Buzz Buzz, a small insect-like being who tells Ness that he is from 10 years in the future and has seen what will happen if he does not stop Giygas, an alien being. Buzz Buzz tells Ness that he is one of four destined to defeat Giygas and that they are the only ones who can. Following this Ness sets off on an adventure, meeting other members of the chosen four who help him to take on Giygas’s forces. Ness is a fairly strong physical fighter, with his weapons of choice being various baseball bats and sometimes Yo-yos. He also however has abilities he uses with PSI, although unlike his two other friends who also use PSI, his tend to be more focused on healing and lowering enemies defence and attack as well as raising those of his party.

Ness is once again a silent protagonist similar to many other Nintendo series protagonists and as such there isn’t much revealed of his personality. He seems to be a fan of baseball given his propensity to use bats as well as him wearing a Baseball Cap. Ness also has Steak as his favourite food which his Mother cooks for him when he visits home whilst on his adventure. Ness along with the other party members in the game can be named whatever the player wishes, however his default and therefore often considered ‘canon’ name is Ness. Similarly the player can choose his favourite food which by default is steak. Ness looks very similar to the player character of the first game in the series, Mother (localised many years later as Earthbound Beginnings) who’s default name is Ninten which was intentional as the creator Shigesato Itoi wished to allow the player to decide on whether they were the same character or not. For this blog and my own personal playthroughs, I will interpret them as separate characters, however there is no set canon regarding this.

Ness’s family consists of his Mother, Sister, Father and pet dog. Ness is close with his Mother, to the point that if he travels for too long without speaking to her he will get homesick, a condition that makes him sometimes miss turns in battle because he’s busy thinking of home and his favourite food. Homesickness is cured by either speaking to his Mother in person, or speaking to her over the phone. Ness’s Sister, Tracy can also be spoken to on the phone and during Earthbound she gets a job working for Excargo Express, a company that provides storage for items. By phoning his Sister, Ness can ask for someone from the company to be sent to him so he can give them items to store or to deliver items to him. Ness can also use this service when speaking to Tracy in person, with her giving and accepting items from Ness directly. Tracy and Ness’s Mother both can be found at Ness’s home in Onett, however his Father is constantly working and therefore never home. He can be called as well as call Ness on the phone however with him saving the game for the player when called and telling the party how much Exp they need to reach their next level. Ness’s Father will call Ness if the player has not saved for a long time in order to remind them to do so. Ness’s Father is never seen in person throughout the game, to the point that his representation in the credits role call is simply Ness’s home phone. The final member of Ness’s family is his dog King, who is the only non-playable character who can be named by the player, with King being the default. King is an optional party member at the start of the game who will reluctantly travel with the player to the meteor, helping out in battle with the occasional attack. When approaching the meteor however, he will get scared and run home. Following this King will remain at home for the rest of the game refusing to move.

Friends: On his journey, Ness meets with many characters, with the other three members of the chosen four being his closest companions, Paula, Jeff and Poo. Ness first meets Paula helping her escape from the Happy Happyism Cult who under the influence of Giygas have kidnapped her. Paula is much better at offensive PSI than Ness with his moves in Super Smash Bros actually mostly being ones Paula uses in Earthbound. Jeff, the only member of the group unable to use PSI is at a boarding school when he receives a psychic message from Paula asking him to help her and Ness who are trapped. Jeff sets off and eventually meets Ness and Paula when he arrives to help them escape from a dungeon. Finally, Poo is the prince of Dalaam who has trained for many years to strengthen his PSI. With his training complete Poo learns how to teleport and travels to meet the others knowing he is destined to fight alongside them. Poo later leaves the party for some time to learn a new attack, PSI Starstorm which is another attack Ness later uses in Super Smash Bros before returning to them after being successful.

There are many other characters Ness and his friends help during his journey and many who help them in return. Of those closest to Ness specifically, Buzz Buzz is a character only met by Ness and his neighbours Pokey and Picky Minch before he reaches his unfortunate end. The Runaway Five meet with Ness and his friends a couple of times through the game, and thanks to Ness helping them settle their debts they help out with their van and later on in a difficult battle. Apple Kid is an inventor who will provide Ness with inventions provided he funds his research. These inventions are vital to proceeding and later on Apple Kid assists in the final part of the game along with another important character, Dr. Andonuts. Dr. Andonuts is Jeff’s Father whom he has a strained relationship with, he provides Jeff and later his friends help with various inventions during the game. Finally of note is that when Ness visits Magicant he can gain temporary party members known as Flying Man. There are five of these who will join Ness when asked and when defeated will be lost for the rest of the game, with gravestones representing them outside of their home. The gravestones refer to the Flying Men as Ness’s Courage, although with each one the Tombstone’s become more and more vague until the last one chastises Ness and by extension the player for taking them for granted calling it “The Final Flying Man”.

Enemies/Rivals: Pokey Minch is Ness’s next-door Neighbour, known for being a bratty troublemaker, he doesn’t really have many friends only really having Ness to play with growing up as they’re neighbours. As the game goes on Pokey seems to get more and more corrupted by Giygas, although it is arguable that in fact Pokey’s true colours simply start to shine through once he manages to get Giygas’s power. Due to Ness’s status as a mostly silent protagonist and Pokey being quite erratic in his actions it’s debatable how much they are true enemies and how much Pokey has simply been twisted, with him often showing hints of still wishing to be friends with Ness, but showing it in twisted ways such as having to one-up him constantly. The rest of Pokey’s family aren’t on very good terms with Ness’s family, with Pokey’s Father constantly insisting Ness’s Father borrowed a large sum of money from him, although he then admits it might not have been as much as he said it is. He later assists Pokey in a scheme in the city of Fourside, however he ends up being more of a bit player and after Pokey’s plans in Fourside fail he leaves his Father washed up and wallowing in a bar. There are other characters Ness fights with some either testing him such as Captain Strong and others such as Frank being a gang leader who surrenders once Ness beats him.

Every other enemy pretty much is influenced by Ness’s true enemy Giygas, an invader from another world. Giygas was once a physical being, but eventually he gained such power he seemed to lose his physical form as well as his mind becoming bent purely on ending all existence. He still seems to be aware enough that when he learns during his invasion of earth 10 years in the future from the apple of enlightenment that Ness was destined to defeat him he goes back in time to defeat Ness knowing he could stop him, which shows he at least has enough thought to put a plan in motion. Beyond that, simply his presence is enough to cause all sorts of creatures and some people to seek to destroy Ness and his friends. Various agents of his such as the Starmen as well as objects such as the Mani Mani statue are his most direct forms of influence, with the Mani Mani statue managing to influence various figures such as the leader of the Happy Happy Cult into doing their will or just acting dangerously.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Earthbound tends to fairly rarely actually make easter egg appearances or cameos in other games and as such Ness has had very little crossover with other characters outside of Super Smash Bros. One notable one is he makes a cameo in the sequel to his game, Mother 3 which stars Lucas, however I will detail that more in the post for Lucas. Beyond this, the only other real crossover for Ness is that Kirby has a power in Kirby Planet Robobot called ESP where he has a similar (although blue rather than red) baseball cap to Ness, and the description in-game mentions the powers being “just like a certain boy with PSI” being a clear reference to Ness. Ness himself does not appear however.

Why this game?

This is a very very simple one, it’s the only game Ness is in. There are other games in the Mother series, one of which stars a character who will have a post further down the line, however this is the only game in the Mother series that stars Ness, so it’s the obvious choice.

My past with this game.

So, my history with Earthbound is quite different to a lot of accounts I tend to read and that’s down to one big reason, Earthbound wasn’t released in Europe. Due to this, my first exposure to Earthbound, or rather Ness specifically was in Super Smash Bros on the N64. Back when I was in school, I remember another kid who would often make up the usual ‘rumours’ regarding games at the time, such as how to find Mew under the truck or how he had 50 Charizard cards at home, or how to get Luigi in Super Mario 64. One day, he told me about a secret character in Super Smash Bros. He said this character was a weird one as it was like Baby Mario. He told me I think how to unlock him and being naïve I gave it a shot, only this time it turned out to be somewhat real. I got this character with a red cap who was a kid, so I was completely confused as to who this was. I thought it must have been Kid Mario, an older Baby Mario for some reason. I forget now how long it was following this I started looking more into Ness and realising he wasn’t related to Mario but was from another game entirely with the most obvious sign being when I read his bio in-game. Although it was rather vague, it stated Ness had Psychic powers. At the time, my first time really hearing of Psychic powers was from Pokemon, so because of that I started associating Ness with Pokemon since he was somewhat similar to a typical Pokemon Trainer, with a cap and bag. Yeah, back then I’d muddle all sorts of different things into being connected in my head.

It was probably in Super Smash Bros Melee where I first started to learn a lot more about Ness, partially thanks to all the info contained in the various trophies, but also due to other factors such as being older and able to comprehend more, and the biggest factor, the internet. Super Smash Bros Melee was when I was able to first start looking for information on games from something other than Magazines. There were not many websites at the time I knew to look at however, Wikipedia wasn’t really that well known, at least to me back then and so most of the time I would learn information from fansites. Probably one of the biggest influences to me when it comes to a lot of my interest in Super Smash Bros was a site known as Detstar, which is only really viewable through the wayback machine now. It covered a lot of aspects of Melee, from the more basic things such as characters, moves, items and stages, to the parts that I had more interest in, “Cool Stuff” and “Misc”. “Cool Stuff” covered all sorts of things, from Trophies to Easter Eggs in the game whilst “Misc” is the more important section to this article. Under this section were various things, from the fake Sonic & Tails as well as the Toad Rumours, to Beta elements, and then a few things covering some of the more obscure games represented in Melee, Dr. Mario, Ice Climber and finally “Ness & Earthbound.” (No Fire Emblem however, which I’ll cover more in detail when I get to them.) This was probably where I first really learnt about Earthbound, seeing screenshots of the game as well as some information on the very basic plot outline. Needless to say, at the time, as someone who at most had played Ocarina of Time, Paper Mario and Pokemon when it came to RPGs, my imagination ran wild about this game. These few images looked so unique to other games I’d played then and there was so little info really looking back at it that I really wanted to know more, it helped that I was really into Pokemon at the time, regarding which the site itself said “So if you’re looking for someone or something to blame for Pokemon, blame Earthbound” (Sidenote: It’s funny how for a fair amount of time in my childhood, Pokemon was seen a lot in the same way Fortnite and FNAF tend to be, with a lot of ‘true gamers’ then seeing it as a plague on gaming. Detstar I don’t think really went that way so much, more he was just acknowledging it being a common view at the time, although I could be wrong.) So the appeal for the game was more there for me than it might have been earlier in my life. I would advise if anyone does want to look into the site, remember it’s an old internet fansite written by someone who I think pretty much dropped out of the gaming scene years ago, so it definitely has a lot of quirks typical of fansites at that time, just so you know what you’re getting into.

Next up for my exposure to Earthbound was another old internet site I spent a lot of time on back then (and another probably best not viewed by kids) Newgrounds. On there, there were a lot of parody videos, with a lot of my favourites being pixel animations. Naturally, there were plenty of Earthbound ones, with probably the one that sticks out most in my mind being one of the ever popular “outtakes/bloopers” videos, something practically every gaming franchise on there probably has had by this point. Still, with this outtake video I got a look at other scenarios that were in the game, although often pretty different to how they were in the actual game and without context for me, someone who hasn’t played the game, still it was probably another way I learnt more of the game and got to see the sprites in motion rather than just screenshots. Following this my memory is somewhat messy, Super Smash Bros Brawl was announced and I really started following online speculation at this time, learning of Mother 3 and most importantly getting a lot more info on the game. Youtube was starting to get popular providing me with a fair few videos of the game itself. Gradually, I came across Lets Plays watching a few of other games, and finally watching Chuggaaconroy’s Lets Play of Earthbound. It was through this I admittedly saw the game all the way through for the first time so yes, I never played it blind. Following this, I did get a chance to play the game, although not in a method I particularly liked and I was hoping that one day it would finally come to the Wii Virtual Console. In this playthrough, as with a lot of RPGs I’d tried at this point, I made it to a certain boss (the rematch with Master Belch) and got stuck, eventually just playing other games instead.

Now, before I get onto the final part of my history with the franchise, there is a fairly notable omission here when it comes to websites with information. Starmen.net is the biggest and most influential English language website when it comes to the Mother series to my knowledge. It is a fantastic resource and has a very devoted community who have been involved in covering a lot of the series for those outside of Japan, compiling a lot of information and very vocally campaigning for the series to see releases outside of Japan. Many people who are longtime Mother series fans tend to have links to the site such as the aforementioned Chuggaaconroy and as such I feel it is important I mention it. Whilst I did read a lot of things on the site, and for a time I remember religiously checking out the fanart on there, I’ll admit I didn’t personally get that involved with the site, however I feel it is too important to not mention. This links nicely into the final part really of my history with Earthbound, in 2013 after so long waiting it was finally announced that Earthbound would see a worldwide release on the Wii U Virtual Console, finally coming to Europe. Satoru Iwata stated this was down to the many requests on Miiverse I believe, however I’m sure that the vocal fanbases such as Starmen.net were a very big part of this too. Sadly, the same hasn’t happened for Mother 3 yet, we can only hope for that one day, but for me, I was glad I was finally getting to officially own Earthbound after so long. So, I excitedly started, played through and beat the game, right? No… I got stuck at a boss and started playing other games again. I know, I’m a failure of a gamer.

My Smash Playthrough.

When it comes to big games on my list, this really was probably the biggest game I knew I needed to beat. When it comes to replaying these games, and they’re ones where I specifically have started them multiple times, I like to where possible pick up my old save file and continue on rather than start from scratch again. With the long list I have with many RPGs and other long games, restarting every single one from scratch can admittedly hit my motivation somewhat. Earthbound is an amazing game and a lot of fun, however I wanted to finally get to new parts I hadn’t played before. Luckily, my save file actually had everything I wanted in my playthrough, as in the correct names for the characters and the items I wanted, so this was one of the easier games to simply continue from where I’d left off. The screenshot above is from a Miiverse post I made at the time, in it I said that I was finally “Further than I've got before.” I don’t necessarily remember most moments of my playthroughs now, but this one was very important to me. Super Metroid was a big game sure, but it was one I’d had easy access to really whenever I wanted. Earthbound however, this was a game I’d managed to have a lot of history with despite not being able to play it for the majority of my life, so to finally be at this moment, knowing I’d made it past where I was stuck and was going to beat the game was a huge deal to me. Honestly, thinking on it now, it might be one of my biggest gaming memories. Still, I don’t want to go too overboard here, needless to say though, I’m glad I was able to get that screenshot of seeing for myself in-game a moment I’d only seen in screenshots and other people’s playthroughs beforehand.

There were a fair few difficult spots for me following this however, areas where I found enemies tough and a few bosses gave me trouble. Earthbound definitely isn’t a hard game, but I’ve never been great at RPGs and this was at the start of my Smash Playthroughs, the idea of playing a Dragon Quest game for example would have been a pretty out there concept to me then. Areas that stand out in my mind include Stonehenge base, and an occurrence in an earlier area which takes place towards the end of the game involving very difficult enemies appearing there (which happens to be a point of no return I wasn’t prepared for, meaning a very important area was lost to me somewhat on this save file) Funnily enough, Master Belch’s rematch which had stopped me in my tracks both times I’d played before, was one of the boss fights I probably had the least trouble with, partially as I was aware of a trick with him, but even without that I’d managed to get to a level where he wasn’t really a problem, which was very satisfying. Many of the bosses could be challenging, but I don’t remember any of them being very large roadblocks to me, it helps that at this point I had gained somewhat more experience with RPGs and learnt a lot more about how Earthbound’s battle system worked than I had before, meaning I had more of an understanding of what I was doing.

The final boss is an experience I honestly don’t want to spoil. I know I’ve spoilt a lot here, but this final boss is one of the most notable in Nintendo and perhaps RPG history, one which I think it’s really best to experience yourself. I will however, spoil something unique in the ending of this game, so I guess skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to hear it. This game has an epilogue where essentially you can walk around the whole world of the game with all the enemies gone and practically every single NPC will have a new line of dialogue. All sorts of NPCs, even the most minor will somewhat conclude various small events from the game, really there’s far too many to mention, but every location is open to you to revisit at your own pace in order to see what’s changed now the world is saved. It’s something I don’t think many other games have really done, granted there are those with a post-game, but it’s a pretty unique experience overall and is just another reason this game is so beloved in my opinion. Of course, you’re entirely free to just go to the ending and ignore what anyone else has to say, it’s all up to you.

The music is great, with quite a variety of themes and some very psychedelic sounding songs, especially for the battles which matches up with the swirling backgrounds very well. The dialogue is easily one of the strongest points of the game, with almost every NPC being worth talking to as there’s often so many funny things to be heard, with many wacky scenarios such as a club where philosophical patrons gather to essentially stare at a rock and drink overpriced water. The setting of the game being in a modern world also helps it stand out from a lot of RPGs at the time. Returning to Dragon Quest which I mentioned earlier, I didn’t know back then but a lot of influence was drawn from that series when it comes to how the Mother series plays, with a menu being used to choose which options to do such as check what’s in front of you or talk to what’s in front of you. There is a button which will also do the job without having to bring up the menu however, which means Earthbound isn’t as closely linked to the style as its predecessor was, but it’s still there at any rate. Finally, and this is just a personal note, but I love a lot of the little features in the game that add to it’s charm, things like being able to order a pizza and the pizza being an item that can heal the whole party (since they share it) and being able to get a delivery guy to come out and take items from you to store them, or getting on the bus to travel from one town to the next. This is definitely a personal preference thing, but I still wanted to include it.

Overall, even today I would say Earthbound is a game worth checking out. Its uniqueness manages to let it remain an experience that still holds up and isn’t necessarily hampered by any huge aspects of gaming back then that would perhaps make me feel the need to warn about when recommending, with only a few minor things such as inventory management really sticking out in my mind. If you want any further evidence, Earthbound’s legacy really speaks for itself, with it’s influence definitely being present in a fair few notable series following it, probably the biggest of which being Pokemon (I believe having a crossover of some staff but I’m really not sure of specifics there) and a fair few games in the indie scene, most notably Undertale. Honestly, I keep thinking of pretty big aspects of the game that I haven’t even mentioned, like Mr. Saturns, but I feel at this point I’ve gone over most of what I really should, and Mr. Saturn will be mentioned again much further down the line.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Ness in Smash.

So, when it comes to Ness in Super Smash Bros, this is the first example on my list of something that’s really optional and just me going somewhat obsessively overboard really. Before I get onto that point however, regarding Ness’s attacks, as stated earlier, PK Fire, PK Thunder, PSI Magnet and PK Starstorm are not attacks Ness learns in the game, with them instead being used by either Paula or Poo. In Super Smash Bros Brawl I believe this is explained in a trophy as Ness being taught how to use these moves by Paula and Poo, but that’s really all that can be said regarding those attacks. PK Flash is the only PSI attack that Ness can use in the game but its function is somewhat different than in Super Smash Bros. It can cause various status effects on the enemy (depending on which version of it is used) such as causing them to cry (lowering their accuracy) feel strange, get paralysed or the most notable effect, being defeated instantly. This last effect is perhaps the closest to its use in Super Smash Bros, as it is a fairly difficult to pull off move but when it does connect can cause a lot of knockback making it pretty close to an instant KO providing some damage has been done to an opponent. The final of Ness’s PSI abilities is one that’s not really used in battle, but is part of his entrance in Super Smash Bros, being Teleport. In Earthbound, one form of Teleport requires Ness and his friends to run forwards gathering speed until they warp away, arriving at another location. If they collide with any solid objects whilst building speed, Ness and his friends will stop in their tracks and be completely covered in soot from the resulting energy backfire. In Super Smash Bros, Ness will arrive to a battle in a similar way to having just arrived in a new location through Teleport, however he will also briefly be covered in soot, similar to if he crashes into something whilst trying to build up speed.

Ness also fights with a baseball bat and a Yo-yo in Super Smash Bros. The baseball bat is not specifically based on any bat from Earthbound with the only notable thing about it being “Nett Sports” written on it. Ness’s Yo-yo similarly is not based on a specific one from the game with the main notable aspect of it being the word “Mother” on it when zoomed in close. Weapons are not physically seen in Earthbound, with battles being from a first person perspective. Similarly various clothes do not change characters appearances, with Ness always looking the same throughout the game barring specific events such as the start of the game where he wears Pyjamas. Where my obsessive methods come in are that in cases like this, I tend to like to try to work out what would be the closest equipment in my opinion to how it looks in the character’s portrayal in Super Smash Bros. So really, for this next part you can completely ignore this as it’s not anything concrete and purely my speculation. For the baseball bat I feel there are two candidates. The Ultimate Bat is the most straightforward, since what little artwork there is of the bats shows it as looking still like a fairly standard wooden baseball bat, similar to the one used in Smash. The only other candidate however, is the Tee ball bat, the reason being that this bat is sold in Onett, and the “Nett Sports” written on the bat would imply that specific bat has a connection to Onett. Still, I went with the Ultimate Bat mostly as the Tee Ball bat is the second weakest in the game. Of the Yo-yos, my first choice simply because Ness fights with it and it looks flashy was the Combat Yo-yo, the strongest yo-yo in the game. However, based on what little artwork there is, it seems this yo-yo actually has spikes on it, a feature not on the one in Smash, so therefore probably the other best choice would be the Trick yo-yo, again because it looks fairly flashy with the yellow lightning looking patterns in Smash. Finally, when it comes to equipment, probably the only real choice I felt for Ness is the Mr. Baseball Cap. This hat is a gift to Ness from a character in Onett, and the other choices such as the Holmes hat and Hard Hat definitely don’t fit the way Ness’s hat in artwork and Smash looks. There is a standard Baseball Cap available in the store in Onett, however the Mr. Baseball Cap still feels more fitting and specific to Ness overall in my opinion.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Wikibound Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down.