As it stands, here are Ness' chances...

[LavisFiend]

Ever since the confirmation of Lucas, people are jumping the gun so to speak, and saying that Ness has been replaced. Although that it is possible for this to hold true, I think it to be only wise to reassess the situation and look at what could possibly happen to Ness if he has been truly been replaced.

(/) Ness becomes a AT

(-) Ness becomes a costume

(o) Ness becomes a semi-clone or true-clone

(-) Ness becomes his own unique character

(/) Ness is completly removed from Brawl altogether


legend:

(/)=not likely
(o)=likely
(-)=Maybe
I will now go a little bit further in-depth on these points:

Ness becomes a AT. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would be pointless. Why place a character from the past two games as a mere attack? It can happen of course, but I highly doubt Sakurai would place a character who has been around since the original as an attack. I am going to put this as an "unlikely to happen" in my book.

Ness becomes a costume. This is really not as bad as it sounds, so just listen for a second. Claus and Ness seem to share the same proportions, with a few minor differences. Applying a costume version of Ness to Claus would not be difficult whatsoever. However, there is a cache. For this to work, their moves would have to be identical to the T. This is not a mere aesthetic change like Ganon having purple flames and Falcon with the fire, we are talking Peach/Daisy identical. Blood Falcon/Captain Falcon identical. The same moves for the same person. It is preety possible that this could happen, but I have my doubts that it will. So "maybe" for this one.

Ness becomes a semi-clone or true clone. Believe it or not, this could very well happen, but not to the degree of Fox/Falco, Pichu/Pikachu, or Roy/Marth, (although, when more moves are released regarding Lucas, it could be possible that Ness will be a true clone, as they apparently don't play much different from their respective games as they have basically the same moves.) A semi clone is a fair thing to assume as bound to happen. After all, Mario/Luigi were clones of one another, but by a mere few moves. Other than those moves, they were not the same, and seeing as how Ness/Lucas apparently share the same moves from both their games, mixing it up a bit to make them different from one another is actually possible, and can't be ruled out. I will put this as "likely."

Ness becomes his own unique character. As said before, Lucas and Ness are pretty much identical in terms of attacks, but can Sakurai really make Ness and Lucas completely 100% different from one another? Well of course he can, it's Sakurai we are talking about here. Is it likely? Maybe, but I only say this because I quite simply can not see how they can be two entirely different people when both of their games combat moves are directly similar to one another, minus a few quirks. It is possible, but it is also probably not. It is because of this, I will put it as a "maybe."

Ness is completely removed from Brawl. Every Ness user and fan fears this, as the Lucas update supposedly "points" towards Ness being completely ripped away from Smash Bros. This is not the case. Ness is more than just a face of mother, he is the face of Earthbound, the ONLY Mother game to become world renowned. It is this relevance that makes him not so easy to dispose of. Is it possible that Sakurai ignored this fact and had him removed anyways? Of course it is, but is it likely? Not so much. There is no reason to sever the ties of a character who has been around since the beginning to make "room" for a japanese-exclusive character. There will be plenty of "room." There is no reason why, as big as Mother is among many fans, why it can't have two reps. Losing Ness is losing face for the Mother series among the rest of the world, and I doubt Sakurai would be so selfish as to completely throw away a Smash original to make room for Lucas, a japanese-exclusive character. I am ruling this as a "not likely."

So theres my stance on the deal. Whether we get to play with Ness as his own character or not, it is just wishful thinking among those who hate Ness that he won't play some part in Brawl, especially with his history among both the Smash and Mother franchises.

[SonicMario]

*claps loudly*

You make some good points. This does not at all deconfirm Ness as playable as of yet.

[PsychoIncarnate]

When we get Lucas' B Moves we will see whether he truly is a Ness clone or not...

Personally a PK Ground, PK Ice (Whatever)...etc. moveset wouldn't really be bad for him...

[Meta_Sonic64]

I still see him being replaced. Lucas was SUPPOSED to be in Melee, not Ness. So Lucas takes his rightful place on the roster now instead of Ness.

[po pimpus]

Finally! Someone actually using their brain for around here. I'm glad to see that there are still a few rational thinkers left on Smashboards.

I applaude you, sir.

[Meta_Sonic64]

Finally! Someone actually using their brain for around here. I'm glad to see that there are still a few rational thinkers left on Smashboards.

I applaude you, sir.

Everyone is using their brains dude. As said before Lucas was supposed to be in Melee, but Ness took his spot b/c of Mother 3 delay. Now Lucas thanks Ness for taking his spot and would like for him to move and give Lucas his spot back.

[PsychoIncarnate]

Everyone is using their brains dude. As said before Lucas was supposed to be in Melee, but Ness took his spot b/c of Mother 3 delay. Now Lucas thanks Ness for taking his spot and would like for him to move and give Lucas his spot back.

It wasn't his spot, it was Ness' spot...Lucas was going to take Ness' spot...

[axemangx]

Just cause Lucas was supposed to be in Melee, it doesnt prove that Ness wouldnt have been in aswell.

Also, yeah , I can see a true nerf coming.

[Anomilus]

Agreed'd! The points you bring regarding Ness's world recoginition is a great one indeed!

I really do believe Ness was originally going to be replaced by Lucas in Melee because of how difficult it already was to produce new characters. I also realized that since Melee was being built from the ground up, that added further pressure to trying to get new characters in.

It's very possible that Sakurai's intentions of originally replacing Ness was a move of weakness; He could say Lucas was a new character, and technically it would of been true.

This is Brawl though. This game isn't built from the ground up, and it's definitely not being rushed. What is the use of replacing Ness now? It seems that it would be better to just keep him now, port him over to Brawl, and work on Lucas. Changing Ness into Lucas is faster, but there isn't a need to rush so much this time as there was last time.

That's what I think at least. Honestly I never heard from any sources that Sakurai originally planned to remove Ness for Lucas. If he does do it, it'll kind of suck. I like to have my options.

[bluebomber22]

LavisFiend I agree with what you said, but i think you need to re-word it a bit.

If Ness returns he wouldn't a clone of Lucas, Lucas would be a clone of him since he was in first. Or like you said they could be unique altogether

[Meta_Sonic64]

If Ness is confirmed, I want him and Lucas to be unique. I want absolutely no clones in this game at all. I do see all of your points, but I think Lucas as well as his moveset and FS have all been developed. It's just a matter of time before they're posted.

[PyrasTerran]

I give this thread a thumbs up.

[mario-man]

They should both be in. The more characters the better. That way, certain characters *caughcaughfoxcaughcaugh* won't get abused and overused. (I've gotta say, I'm guilty of this myself. I use Fox secondly to MArio.) It get's old when everybody at a tournament is using one of like five characters. Let's get some diversity goin here, Sakurai.

[Steeler]

People are just being silly.

Ness is almost assured to be playable in Brawl. I suspect that he will more or less carry the same moveset, perhaps he gets one new special attack a la Mario. It's not as if it is impossible for the development team to have created some new moves for Lucas...as was previously stated, stuff like PK Ground and Ice would work for Lucas.

The fact that Lucas was supposedly going to replace Ness in Melee doesn't mean much now. There are two possible situations here:
1. Lucas acquires Ness' original moveset.

This is really not very logical, if the developers are just going to slap Ness' moveset on someone else then what's the point of introducing Lucas in the first place? Might as well keep Ness in with his same moves.

2. Lucas acquires an original moveset of his own.

This is more likely, it's in keeping with Sakurai's statement regarding the minimalization of clones. And if it is indeed this case, then why wouldn't Ness return with his old, perhaps slightly tweaked, moveset?

[TBone06]

I believe Ness will be back, Sakurai wouldnt mention him otherwise, I think Ness will be revealed this week

[Super Smash Master]

How could Ness be a costume on Claus? Did you mean Lucas? Claus is absolutely nothing like Ness at all. Ness doesn't have a thunder sword or arm cannon.

[Mario_and_Sonic_Guy]

Being one of the original 12 fighters, Ness has to return.

[Sinn]

Wow...I gotta say, I almost facepalmed before I went into this thread due to what I expected to be inside it, but I'm actually quite pleased at the thought that went into it. You are neither closed minded or naive. I give you an e-cookie.

And also...

When we get Lucas' B Moves we will see whether he truly is a Ness clone or not...

Personally a PK Ground, PK Ice (Whatever)...etc. moveset wouldn't really be bad for him...

PK Ground? I've never heard of this O_O Was it only in MOTHER 3?

Everyone is using their brains dude. As said before Lucas was supposed to be in Melee, but Ness took his spot b/c of Mother 3 delay. Now Lucas thanks Ness for taking his spot and would like for him to move and give Lucas his spot back.

Ok, if Lucas WAS going to take Ness's spot in Melee, but didn't...do you think it could be possible that they might have decided to change their mind since they kept him in the last two games? It's a lot easier of a decision to not have a character show up a second time. I'd think it's a lot more difficult to decide to do that for the third installment. Remember how they changed the actress for the Oracle in the third Matrix movie and had to come up with some vague excuse for why? Remember how LAME that was?

[PsychoIncarnate]

Wow...I gotta say, I almost facepalmed before I went into this thread due to what I expected to be inside it, but I'm actually quite pleased at the thought that went into it. You are neither closed minded or naive. I give you an e-cookie.

And also...

PK Ground? I've never heard of this O_O Was it only in MOTHER 3?


PK Ground was in Mother 3

[SubparSmashBrother]

"Ness has a 50% chance. We don't know whether he's in or not, but we do know that it's one or the other: he's either in or out; all black and white with no gray. So it's like flipping a coin: you know there are only two possible outcomes, heads or tails, but you'll never know which one it is until the coin has been flipped, and no matter how much you argue about the probability, the chances are still the same because the coin has already been set in motion and we're all just waiting to see how it lands."

[Algus Underdunk]

...Ness "becomes" his own unique character?

...He already is his own unique character.

Ten to one says this week's updates will play host to Lucas's special moves, which will be revealed to not be at all similar to Ness's, thus leaving Ness's moveset to him, and giving Lucas a new one.

Of the four images shown, I'd yet to see an image which said "THIS IS NESS'S MOVE!!!"

The only similarity I saw was Lucas pointing past Kirby, reminiscent of Ness's psychic 'throw' moves in which he points where the person he throws should go.


And yes, seeing Lucas perform moves like Ground, BrainShock, and so on would be perfect for him...

...what would make it wonderful is if, when he attacks, little numbers pop off of the characters he hits, showing how much damage he just did :D

[Sinn]

I looked earlier and someone had put Ness as not appearing on the wikipedia article. Someone changed it since then. I wonder when it'll get left alone.

[vesperview]

I think the AT thing is just to outrageous.

[dan smith]

As a Ness player, I am really happy to see so many other smashers coming out with high hopes of Ness staying. I thought ambivalence would be the norm, but it seems like everybody is on his side. What this means, is that if Ness is removed, Sakurai will have a lot of disgruntled fans. I hope he knows this.

There are definitely enough moves to divide between the both of them. The biggest piece of information we have currently is the four screen shots of Lucas, and as already stated, they are not totally Ness like.

The first could be said to be Ness' nair or dair...but the third is definitely a special move...and unlike anything Ness has. It looks to be a projectile...although possibly in the same vein as PK Thunder. I don't know Lucas' moves well enough...(maybe cause Mother 3 has never been released in my hemisphere of the world despite massive petitioning through Starmen.net)

I would rather have Ness removed than as an AT. There is room for two Mother characters. Porting Ness would be easy. He should be in.

[Noshiee]

movesthat Lucas can have:
PK Freeze
PK Love
PK Ground
PK Starstorm
Brainshock
Hypnosis
Paralysis
Sheild
Psycho-Sheild
Sheild-Counter
Refresh (is a Lucas-only attack and can be added to his specials easily)

there you go, a bunch of possible specials that Lucas can have that Ness's doesn't.
Pick your favorites

[ElvishSpirit]

As a Ness player, I am really happy to see so many other smashers coming out with high hopes of Ness staying. I thought ambivalence would be the norm, but it seems like everybody is on his side. What this means, is that if Ness is removed, Sakurai will have a lot of disgruntled fans. I hope he knows this.

There are definitely enough moves to divide between the both of them. The biggest piece of information we have currently is the four screen shots of Lucas, and as already stated, they are not totally Ness like.

The first could be said to be Ness' nair or dair...but the third is definitely a special move...and unlike anything Ness has. It looks to be a projectile...although possibly in the same vein as PK Thunder. I don't know Lucas' moves well enough...(maybe cause Mother 3 has never been released in my hemisphere of the world despite massive petitioning through Starmen.net)

I would rather have Ness removed than as an AT. There is room for two Mother characters. Porting Ness would be easy. He should be in.


I completely argee. Sakurai would have mobs by his office for taking out Ness. I mean, most people take the last sentence of the update WAY to seriously, the "surpass Ness!" one. If anything, this INCREASES Ness's chance of being in, because there is only one way of finding out who is stronger. 3ish Mother charaters is smiled upon! THey are not going to have just 1 Mother rep after Mother making apperenses in Melee and SSB with just Ness! We have room for 45-50 charaters, that is about double melee's amount. So lets see.....double all Franchise reps in Melee......

Mario: 5x2=10
LOZ: 4x2=8
Pokemon: 4x2=8
Star Fox: 2x2=4
Metroid: 1x2=2
EARFBOUND: 1X2=2
Ice Climbers:1x2=2
G&W= 1x2=2
F Zero= 1x2=2
Fire Enblem= 2x2=4
DK= 1x2=2
Yoshi= 1x2=2
Kirby= 1x2=2

=50.

Now with with a few exceptions, this is what I see the brawl roster being. Chopping off a few Marios, LOZs, and Pokemon reps and forgetting about chance of another G&W and IC rep for other franchises/more charaters for an existing franchise, that can probibly be the likely roster. And because of Lucas, Diddy, Zamus, MetaKnight, and Ike, we can tell they are adding more charaters to the franchises that didnt get many reps in Melee or Smash.

SO, why am I talking on and on? Look at what I said. There should be at least 2 Mother reps. And it seems like Ness can tag along with Lucas on this.[POLITICAL DEBATE/]

[Drake3]

Sheild-Counter

I want to see a magic-user (psychic whatever) use Counter. That would be fun.

[Sinn]

I want to see a magic-user (psychic whatever) use Counter. That would be fun.

Kinda like what Mewtwo did but actually have the attack do DAMAGE when it hits someone else. Stupid Mewtwo and his two specials that do NO damage and one that only hits when people are facing you...

[Puffs]

Lucas would be the clone. Ness was here first.

[Ralph_Marquee]

Good read Lavisfiend, good read.

[vesperview]

This practically confirms Ness

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

[CronoMaster]

I doubt Sakurai would be so selfish as to completely throw away a Smash original to make room for Lucas, a japanese-exclusive character. I am ruling this as a "not likely."


Be honest, did u know Ness before smash?? if u did, do u know more people who really knew him before smash?? earthbound was released worldwide, but only a few could really recognize the characters. Now everyone knows earthbound, it doesnt matter if mother 3 is japanese only, we all know the game and the characters, so why not include him, i dont even know that Claus guy, but he sounds cool, and it be interesting to see him in brawl, and i read about him here in the forums. so, yes, the game is only for japan, but all the world know it, so thats no reason to keep or cut ness

Besides, lets think for a moment that we dont know anything about mother 3, then u have Ike, is speculated that he will replace marth, so then u have a japanese only character replaced for a worldwide character, so then he can do the opposite as well

[dan smith]

It is true, that regardless of everything else, if Lucas is the only Mother character in Brawl...I will be pissed...because there have been so many lame undeserving characters in Smash.

Time to piss people off.

Zamus? We have two Samus' now? Doc was a bad idea...it's Mario...again. Young Link too. Why does every other series (ok...mostly Mario) get so many characters and Mother can't have two? (assuming Ness isn't in Brawl)

[Algus Underdunk]

Be honest, did u know Ness before smash?? if u did, do u know more people who really knew him before smash?? earthbound was released worldwide, but only a few could really recognize the characters. Now everyone knows earthbound, it doesnt matter if mother 3 is japanese only, we all know the game and the characters, so why not include him, i dont even know that Claus guy, but he sounds cool, and it be interesting to see him in brawl, and i read about him here in the forums. so, yes, the game is only for japan, but all the world know it, so thats no reason to keep or cut ness

Besides, lets think for a moment that we dont know anything about mother 3, then u have Ike, is speculated that he will replace marth, so then u have a japanese only character replaced for a worldwide character, so then he can do the opposite as well

Marth returns, and Ness returns. All are happy.

And for the record, I'd played Earthbound well before the original SSB64 came out, so when I first saw Ness appear I was shocked and overjoyed that one of my favorite RPGs was represented in SSB64. Now I've played Mother 3 as well, and it's great to see Lucas here too. There are enough different abilities that both Lucas and Ness can be in Smash Brothers without stepping on each others' toes.

Heck, we've already seen that Ike has a bevy of different moves from Fire Emblem that Marth didn't use, so why not have them all back?

[WarxePB]

At the end of the day, it all depends on what Sakurai wants. We might want Ness and Lucas as separate, unique characters, but Sakurai might want to go through with his original plan to replace Ness with Lucas with a few changes to the moveset. For the record, I think both characters can be made unique, and Sakurai has shown that he's creative enough to whip up movesets for characters like Fox, Capt. Falcon and Mr. Game and Watch, so if both make it in, they won't be clones. But we can't know for sure until we see a Ness page up on the Dojo, or barring that, December 3rd.

[Sinn]

And for the record, I'd played Earthbound well before the original SSB64 came out, so when I first saw Ness appear I was shocked and overjoyed that one of my favorite RPGs was represented in SSB64. Now I've played Mother 3 as well, and it's great to see Lucas here too. There are enough different abilities that both Lucas and Ness can be in Smash Brothers without stepping on each others' toes.

I agree with this entire paragraph, including the having played EB before Smash came out, loving it, and loving that Ness was in Smash. Though I haven't gotten my hands on MOTHER 3...is there a fan translated version somewhere...?

[Kirby knight]

I agree with this entire paragraph, including the having played EB before Smash came out, loving it, and loving that Ness was in Smash. Though I haven't gotten my hands on MOTHER 3...is there a fan translated version somewhere...?

There is a fan translation of MOTHER 3 in the works. So far only the menu's have been translated so you'd have to get the script if you want to play. I've heard the complete translation patch will be out around November.

-Knight

[Sinn]

Sweet, I can wait a month. That'll give me enough time to play it and like Lucas enough to play him more often if Ness really doesn't come back.

[shadenexus18]

I don't see Ness getting replaced, but still adding Lucas before Ness is so backwards. It's like....like adding Luigi before Mario on Brawl.

And the only character I'm really familar with are Ness and Poo. Not really familar with Lucas. Does he have Ness's same moves?

[heety9]

What's with the bold?