Super Smash Bros. Brawl Countdown: Day 4 "Ness"
Image from IGN.com
Can you taste it? Smash Brothers Glory is less than 3 days away! In today's countdown feature, coming a little bit late (sometimes a solo blogger such as myself has to take care of visiting family and runs out of future posts…) but not too late (it's still day 4!), we look at one of the most interesting reoccuring characters in the Smash Brothers series, Earthbound's Ness.
Now, if you are a casual Nintendo fan, the sort that likes them because of "that fun Mario game I played back in the day," then the name Ness has no meaning. Ness appeared in a little known, little selling game (though Nintendo Power did quite a bit of reporting on it) called Earthbound on the Super Nintendo.
Earthbound is a quirky RPG, most known for its use of children characters (Ness is a child, he actually has to call him to his Mom or else he'll get homesick!) and its satirical take on Western culture. It also became a cult classic and now costs upwards of $200 to get a complete box with the game, cart, and manual.
How did Earthbound become a cult classic? Partly because of Smash Brothers, that's how! As Earthbound was actually part of a popular Japanese series called Mother, Ness was included as a secret unlockable character in the original Super Smash Brothers (in order to appease Japanese players). He was then included as a "starter" in Super Smash Brothers melee, and he returns in Brawl.
A funny thing happened after he appeared in the first two Smash Brothers games. More and more gamers became aware of Earthbound! As such, demand for the series has increased, and fans have even translated Mother 1 and Mother 3 (both never released in the U.S.) into English.
Ness isn't the only character featured in Smash Brothers that caused Nintendo to rethink its Japan-only properties. Marth, a character from the Fire Emblem series, was introduced in Melee, and once again the Fire Emblem games gained a cult following as a result.
Though Nintendo has never released another Mother game in the U.S. other than SNES' Earthbound, they did start making Fire Emblem games here, the latest of which is Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for Wii.
One only wonders if Brawl's inclusion of Pit from Kid Icarus might cause (or might HAVE caused?) Nintendo to consider making a new Kid Icarus game…
March 6th, 2008 at 6:51 am
You know, it makes me a poor excuse for a Nintendo fanboy, but to this day, I’ve never played Earthbound
I’ve always been waiting to play it on an actual console since everyone says it’s so great, instead of sitting in front of the computer with an emulator or something! Anyway, the point is that it would be REALLY nice if we got Earthbound on Virtual Console pretty soon! 
Especially since they didn’t put the N64 Smash Bros on there last week like some folks were expecting…
Oh, and Ness’ bat was the best weapon in SSBM, hands-down
March 6th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Yeah, I haven’t actually played Earthbound either. Yet there are kids in my program at Guildhall that have played Mother 1 and 3 on their computers, following along with a .txt fan translation! So I guess these games are good! I hope!?