Nintendo All-Stars: Ness

Ness was once an average thirteen-year-old boy in the northern hills of Onett, Eagleland, a town plagued by brainwashed animals bent on destruction and a street gang not even the wealthy police force could deal with. One early morning, when a meteorite crash-landed near his home, Ness's life was changed forever. An alien insect named Buzz Buzz emerged from the crash site to guide Ness to his destiny. According to an age-old prophecy, four young friends were to save the universe from the evil alien megalomaniac Giygas. Two of Ness's neighbors, Pokey and his little brother Picky, were there when the prophecy was recounted and neither seemed willing to take on the task like Ness was; Pokey in particular. On their way down from the summit, a metallic being fell down from the sky and challenged to destroy Buzz Buzz in Giygas's name. Using his awesome psychic powers, Buzz Buzz defended Ness and managed to defeat the evil Starman Jr. Upon returning Picky and Pokey home safely, their mother unknowingly murdered Buzz Buzz, thinking he was a common house bug. The alien used his last breath to explain and hand Ness the Sound Stone, an item which would channel the powers of the Earth from eight different sanctuary locations that Ness was to someday visit. It was Buzz Buzz's belief that only with this power could Ness finally destroy Giygas.

Night turned to day, and Ness set off on his big adventure. Although his mother and sister Tracy would miss him, they were willing to help in any way possible. Tracy offered to hold items Ness couldn't find room for, and Mom extended a free room and his favorite home cooking whenever he needed a rest. He could also call her to cure his infrequent homesickness. His father, too, would offer assistance from his distant office job. Whenever Ness dialed his number, Dad would deposit money into his son's ATM account based on the journies he'd traveled since their last call, as well as record the journies.

The first sanctuary Buzz Buzz spoke of was located on a remote hill in Ness's home town. In order to gain passage from the Mayor, Ness had to do him an immense favor in defeating the leader of the local gang of ruffians, the Sharks. In the caves leading up to the top of the first sanctuary hill, Ness was faced with the Titanic Ant, one of the many thousands of creatures motivated by Giygas's evil ways. Upon crushing him with his trusty baseball bat and newly budding psychic powers, Ness's Sound Stone recorded the melody of Giant Step, the first sanctuary location, thus harnessing its power.

The crooked police force of Onett felt belittled by Ness's display of strength in ridding the town of both the Shark gang and the Titanic Ant, and so before granting him passage to the next town on his way, they cornered him into an abandoned room in the police station and fought the teenage boy in hand-to-hand combat. Ness emerged scarred but victorious - not even the most trustworthy of people could be counted on with Giygas's influence about. Satisfied, Captain Strong parted the barricade to the town of Twoson, where Ness soon heard rumors of a kidnapped girl with psychic powers similar to his. Renting a one-man bicycle and briefly employing the help of a local inventor named Apple Kid, Ness set off into the wilderness east of Twoson where he faced even more monstrous enemies than in Onett.

Finally, he reached Happy Happy Village, where the Happy Happyists, a cult obsessed with the color blue, reigned. Ness worked his way into the cult headquarters only to be bested by a lightning attack from the leader known as the Carpainter. Trekking just outside the village, Ness found the rumored psychic girl, Paula, locked behind bars in a small shack. She handed him the Franklin Badge, which would reflect any lightning attacks shot at him. Just outside, Ness's neighbor Pokey appeared, revealing his intentions to join the growing fight against him, only to flee just as suddenly. Holding the Franklin Badge, Ness was able to ward off the Carpainter's lightning bolts and put up a real fight, to which the cult leader resigned. He handed Ness the key to Paula's shack and vowed to give up the item that was granting him control over the village, a golden statue called the Mani Mani. Paula and Happy Happy Village alike were free of the cult's evil. With Paula by his side, Ness ventured into the nearby cave of the Lilliput Footprints, defeated the Mondo Mole, and recorded the second melody into the Sound Stone.

Ness returned Paula back to her home in Twoson, but she refused to stay for long. Paula became Ness's first companion on his great journey. Her psychic powers were mostly offensive in nature, commanding the forces of ice and fire, but she could also protect herself and her friends with psychic shields. She liked to swing a frying pan and sometimes used a teddy bear to take damage for herself.

The next town on their journey, Threed, was only accessible via a tunnel which was currently teeming with ghosts. The bus drivers refused to drive Paula and Ness through. Ness again brought a stop to crime when he took down the crooked manager of the local public market. For this he was rewarded a handsome stack of bills. He then used that money to pay off the debt of a traveling band, the Runaway 5. Eternally grateful, the band fearlessly drove the two kids through the haunted tunnel to Threed.

Threed was a town experiencing an invasion of zombies when Ness and Paula happened upon it. They were led to a hotel room where a group of zombies had set a trap for them. Having been knocked out, they awoke in a locked cellar below the graveyards of Threed with no way to get out. Paula used her gift of prayer to send a psychic message out for someone to come rescue them.

Eventually someone came. He was a boy in a boarding school suit with freckles and glasses and he arrived crashing from the sky in an aircraft his father invented. This boy Jeff reportedly felt compelled to come searching for them and had traveled through the icy wilderness of his home in Winters to do so. Using one of the many gadgets he employed, Jeff unlocked the door to their prison cell and joined the party as Ness's second companion.

Looking for a way to help rid the Threed townsfolk of their zombie woes, Ness received a timely call from Apple Kid, who'd just invented something called "zombie paper", to which zombies stuck much like flies to fly paper. The forces of evil intercepted the delivery man on his way to deliver said paper to Ness, so he, Paula, and Jeff had to defeat the Boogie Tent, a spectral circus tent, to retrieve their parcel and bring a stop to the zombie invasion. Upon doing so and using the zombie paper, the streets were cleared of zombies, but evil ghosts still haunted the tunnels to and from town. A separate cave once blocked off by zombie guards was then opened, so the team bravely ventured in.

They arrived at the banks of Grapefruit Falls, near which a secluded valley rested. Wandering into the valley, Ness and his friends met and befriended its residents; a race of tiny people with huge noses and no arms, all calling themselves Mr. Saturn, according to whom, several of their kind had been indentured in a factory behind the water of Grapefruit Falls. This factory was ruled by the giant gooey creature known as Master Belch, who was no match for the combined strength of Ness's growing fellowship. The Mr. Saturn were free and vowed to help the trio someday. Behind Saturn Valley was a cave where the third sanctuary, Milky Well, was guarded by the Trillionage Sprout. The plant was soundly defeated and Ness recorded the third of eight melodies.

Returning to Threed, Ness and his friends found it cleared entirely of ghostly presence. Giygas's power had finally lost its influence on the town. The trio caught a bus to their next destination on the road that ended up stuck in a massive traffic jam in the middle of Dusty Dunes Desert. With nothing better to do, they got off the bus and trekked through the sands on foot, finally crossing the bridge to the grand city of Fourside.

The show at Fourside's Topolla Theater was deja vu for Ness and Paula - the Runaway Five still played and partied hard, owing the management an even heftier sum than at the Chaos Theater in Paula's home town. Ness and his friends made it their personal mission to pay off the band's debts again. They returned to the Dusty Dunes Desert's gold mine in search of riches and instead found it infested with Giygas's filth - five giant mole beasts were preventing the local miners from doing their work. After defeating the moles, the three teens were rewarded with a large diamond, which they then used to pay off the Runaway 5's second debt.

Word of a re-opening sale lured Ness and his friends into the Grand Department Store in Fourside, but not all was as it seemed. The lights all the sudden shut off, and in the confusion of things, Paula went missing. Jeff and Ness worked their way up the many floors of the shopping mall to face off with the Department Store Spook. Their battle ended in victory, but Paula had already been taken elsewhere, reportedly by the Mayor, Geldegarde Monotoli.

Following a rumor that the Mayor frequented the local cafe, Ness and Jeff went in, only to discover a backwards parallel dimension of Fourside called Moonside. Taking teleportation routes around town and befriending an invisible man, the boys made it to the ruler of Moonside, which turned out to be the evil gold Mani Mani statue the Carpainter had used to gain power in Happy Happy Village. Upon shattering the statue, Moonside faded away to reveal nothing more than the storage room at Jackie's Cafe - it was all just an elaborate illusion.

Outside the cafe, a monkey approached Ness and requested his presence in the caves on the west end of the Dusty Dunes Desert. By bribing a series of monkeys with various items he had in his backpack, Ness made his way through the network of caves, at the end of which he met a psychic guru named Talah Rama. This man seemed to know a great deal about Ness and his journey, and helped him by teaching a new psychic teleportation technique. Now Ness could teleport to anywhere in the world he'd already been.

Once again receiving a strangely appropriate item from Twoson's Apple Kid, Ness and Jeff bribed one of the maids at Mayor Monotoli's office tower with her favorite dessert, trout yogurt, granting them access to the upper floors of Monotoli's empire. Here they faced a clumsy but powerful little robot whose defeat came at the hands of none other than the Runaway 5 (who owed Ness and Jeff a swift victory at the very least). Past this guard was Monotoli, about to take his exit via helicopter. Feeling a change of heart, he returned Paula to Ness and Jeff instead, but out on the helipad, the helicopter blades began spinning away. It was none other than Ness's neighbor Pokey, who was now a fulltime agent of evil, manipulating Monotoli to Giygas's will. Again Pokey made his escape one step ahead of Ness. Their conflict would end another day.

Back on the ground, the Runaway Five offered a ride to Threed, where Jeff planned to repair his crashed Sky Runner and liftoff for the trio's upcoming destinations, first of which was his icy home country, Winters. Ness and Paula met Jeff's father, Dr. Andonuts, who grew fond of them and begged them to look out for his son. Nearby, a cave that Jeff had discovered on his way to originally seek out Ness and Paula was open for exploration. In it they defeated the terrible Shrooom!, and behind him found the fourth sanctuary, Rainy Circle.

The group then traversed the skies to reach the resort town of Summers. Managing to make their way into one of the town's most exclusive clubs, they met the Captain's wife and learned of her fabled Magic Cake. Always eager to try new things, Ness asked for a bite. The cake immediately put him into a dreamlike state in which he entered the persona of a young prince named Poo in the far off mountain country, Dalaam. When this happened, Poo happened to be on his way to complete his training in the ancient art of Mu. Climbing a tall spire to meditate and tap into the Mu spirit force, Poo was met with the apparition of his ancestor who tried to persuade him from his training. Knowing this a test of patience, Prince Poo maintained to the point where the spirits had even convinced him his body no longer lived. He passed his training and was thus instructed to fulfill his great destiny in helping a boy named Ness. Poo used his psychic teleportation to reach Summers, at which point Ness awoke to be joined by the fourth and final member of his party.

Poo carried with him little besides the tiny ruby that the group used to bribe a guard in the upper floor of the Summers Museum. Behind him, they found a slab covered in ancient hieroglyphic writing that Poo was able to decipher and copy down. On their way out, the museum's phone began to ring. With no one there to answer, Ness picked it up. It was the Fourside Museum's curator, Mr. Spoon, with urgent news of a discovery he'd made right under the Museum grounds. When the kids teleported to Fourside to meet Mr. Spoon, he refused to show them his discovery without an autograph from Venus, the singing diva every man in town seemed enamored with. Using their unstoppable charm and wit, the four managed to get backstage and receive an autograph from the singer on a banana peel. Ness also received what may have been his first kiss. Handing over the peel to Mr. Spoon, Ness and his friends found the great secret he'd uncovered - a sewer infested with a variety of ghosts and mindwarped creatures, the leader of whom, the Plague Rat of Doom, happened to be guarding the fifth sanctuary location, Magnet Hill. Several rare items surrounded this sanctuary, one of which was the especially strange and seemingly useless Carrot Key.

In Dalaam, Poo had found a cave where terrible beasts guarded a place of great power, but the entrance was sealed off by unmovable rabbit statues. Teleporting to Dalaam, it turned out the Carrot Key was just what they needed to get through. This new cave extended deep into the mountains of Dalaam. At its bottom lay Thunder & Storm, conjoined twin forces of destruction, whose lightning attacks were reflected back by the Franklin Badge Ness received from Paula when they first met. With their terror extinguished, Ness gained access to the magical Pink Cloud, where his Sound Stone recorded the melody of this sixth sanctuary location.

Just beside Summers in the port town of Toto, the Captain offered Ness and his friends a boat ride to their next destination in return for their motivating his wife, the creator of Magic Cake, to start up her cake business again. On the seas, a large firebreathing Kraken serpent raced towards the boat and engaged them in battle, only to find defeat at Ness and his friends' ever-growing prowess. Finally, the quartet reached the northern coast of Scaraba - a desertic land steeped in ancient history and superstition. Following the clues given by Summers Museum's hieroglyph, the group made their way to the Sphinx and solved the puzzle it presented to enter Scaraba's great pyramid. In its catacombs, they were met with living hieroglyphic creatures, statues, and mummies, and found the mystical item, the Hawk Eye, said to someday be their guide through great darkness.

Emerging from an exit in the southern Scaraba desert, the group was met by Poo's Mu instructor flying down from the sky in an awesome dervish. He'd come to take the prince away from his companions briefly in order to instruct him on one last psychic power - an order Poo was honerbound to follow. Now three again, the team found an oasis, where a few kind natives offered water and the key to a great tower. This tower, the kids soon discovered, was in fact a colossus of bricks and earth built as an exoskeleton by the famous and unusual maze architect, Brick Road. Having made their way up the construct's labyrinthian innards to meet Brick Road himself, now going by the name of Dungeon Man, the group was joined by the living tower on their trek through the desert. Unfortunately, it got caught in the palm trees near the southern shores and had to give up fighting for the time being. Brick Road offered Ness and his friends a means to pass the seas below if they could find it in his dungeon of a body. Eventually they came upon a totaled yellow submarine which Jeff was able to fix in no time. Using it, they took off for new and perhaps more grievous lands.

The submarine found its way to the shores of Deep Darkness, a swamp at the edge of the largest jungle on the planet, all but completely shrouded in its own shadows. Using the Hawk Eye to light their way, the group waded through miles of muddy water before they came upon Master Belch, now calling himself Master Barf, who proved more powerful than any enemy they'd faced before. Just as their defeat seemed inevitable, Poo teleported onto the scene and demonstrated his awesome new power, Starstorm, deadly enough to destroy Master Barf once and for all.

In the caves at the far end of the swamp, the group discovered Tenda Village, a community of small green folk who were so shy they could barely introduce themselves. One Tendite was brave enough to strike a conversation with the four strangers. He knew of a book called "Overcoming Shyness" that would help them out, but knew not where to find it. Exiting this dead end cave, Ness received another call from Apple Kid, who conveniently had a copy of Overcoming Shyness and was working at Dr. Andonuts' lab in Winters. Just then, the line was cut off, and it sounded as if Apple Kid had been abducted. The group teleported back to Winters only to find the professor gone as well. Ness again made use of his strange ability to converse with animals when Apple Kid's pet mouse explained that the scientists were taken to Stonehenge where they disappeared underground. He also handed them Apple Kid's latest device, the Eraser Eraser, which would erase any eraser-shaped object it came upon. Lo and behold, a large iron eraser blocked the group's path underneath the Stonehenge and once again Apple Kid's handy and timely inventions helped the team get through.

Beyond this obstruction was the most vast and foreboding cave the group had ever stepped into, and deeper still, a technological fortress manned by Giygas's dark minions, the Starmen. Here they discovered their friends, Apple Kid, Dr. Andonuts, and Mr. Saturn held in stasis tubes. All this, they soon revealed, was to lure the group into Starman Deluxe's grasp. This beast of an enemy was designed for the sole purpose of destroying Ness and his friends, and just barely failed to do so. With the power of the Starman Deluxe vanquished, the fortress ceased functioning and the stasis tubes were opened. Just before getting back to work, Apple Kid explained that he'd already returned Overcoming Shyness to the Onett Public Library.

Returning to his home town, Ness and his friends scoured the library in search of the shyness book. Upon retrieving it, the group teleported back to Tenda Village and gave the book to the village chief to read to the entire community. Free of their crippling shyness, the tendites offered help to the travellers. One particular tendite was the only one strong enough to lift the boulder that sealed the village off from the treacherous underworld below. In a display of manlihood, the seal was lifted. The group ventured downward, where in the first layer of caves they encountered the powerful steel creature, Electro Specter who guarded the seventh sanctuary, Lumine Hall. With one last location left to find, Ness and his friends continued into the depths of the great world below.

The Lost Underworld turned out to be the most expansive uncharted area on the planet, populated largely by dinosaurs rather than men. A second Tenda dwelling provided refuge for the travellers, weary after numerous battles with the land's gargantuan and highly territorial beasts. Two talking rocks guided Ness, reminding him of his destiny and erstwhile adventures as well as pointing him in the direction of the final sanctuary location. Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo entered the Fire Spring in the southwest pocket of the Lost Underworld, ready to face some of Giygas's most terrible underlings. At its summit stood Carbon Dog, a fierce flame-covered animal whose defeat only transformed him into Diamond Dog, the group's strongest psychic foe yet. With this monster out of the picture, the four approached the Earth's eighth and final sanctuary, where the Sound Stone's power reached its maximum.

The eighth and final melody collected, Ness all of a sudden passed out on the crater of Fire Springs. He entered a psychic realm within his mind known to him as Magicant. There he saw friends and enemies both old and new and encountered a race of birdlike men called the Flying Men who were his guardians through the wilds of his subconscious. In a shallow pool strangely called the Sea of Eden, Ness faced off against his deepest nightmares in the form of the Mani Mani statue he helped destroy so long ago in Moonside, and emerged victorious. On his way back to reality, the Sound Stone shattered, granting Ness the full power of the Earth that it had been harnessing since the start of his adventure. He was then finally ready to confront Giygas.

Apple Kid, Dr. Andonuts, and the Mr. Saturns finally finished their project, the Phase Distorter, designed to instantly transport Ness and his crew to Giygas's lair. Unfortunately, it exploded during its first trial run. Andonuts determined that a special material called Zexonyte was needed for the vehicle to run properly, but also that this material could not be found on Earth, aside from in chunks of fallen meteorites. Ness traveled with his friends back to Onett once more to retrieve a piece of the meteorite that landed near his home, only to find the city overrun by some of Giygas's strongest forces. Work had to be done quickly before Ness's family was in real danger. With a Zexonyte sample retrieved, the refurbished Phase Distorter II transported the team to a cave in the northwest of the Lost Underworld. Unfortunately, when they arrived, no sign of Giygas was to be found. Andonuts was able to determine that indeed this cave was the location of Giygas's headquarters on Earth, but 10 years in the past. Hastily, Dr. Andonuts converted the Phase Distorter II to a full-fledged time machine. However, this new Phase Distorter III had a drawback in that it obliterated any life forms that would step into it. Andonuts' proposal was to turn Ness and his friends into robots so that they could complete their long adventure. Ness had to make the life-altering decision quickly. He chose to sacrifice himself and his friends for the sake of the Universe. As robots, Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo traveled through time and into Giygas's alien fortress. Fending off the final wave of Starmen, krakens, and other dark minions that protected their mind-washing master, Ness and his company finally stood face-to-face with their ultimate foe, the megalomaniacal ultra-being, Giygas. To his side stood Pokey, heavily armed in a spider-like tank of alien design and well-equipped for battle. At this phase of their encounter, Giygas stood protected in the massive Devil's Machine, taking on Ness's face to display an eery humanity. With both sides at the peak of their power, an epic battle took place. Poo summoned the stars, Paula shielded the party from Giygas's immense psychic attacks, Jeff launched wave after wave of bottle rockets and bombs, while Ness wielded the strength of the entire planet. Pokey eventually took one too many beatings and had to stand down, while the Devil's Machine was being completely drained of its power to contain Giygas's essence. Spiraling around them, the alien's demonic red face continued to fend off the group's attacks more strongly than ever, simultaneously pummeling them with its own. They had no defense left but the power of prayer, so while the others maintained with life-restoring psychic spells, Paula sent out her cries for help. Nine times their friends responded, each good intention destroying Giygas's great evil little by little. Finally the will of the one controling Ness and his friends' very destiny was the one to bring an end to Giygas's terror.

As the world around them began to collapse, Pokey again made his timely escape, but our four heroes weren't so fortunate. Although their robot bodies were utterly destroyed, their spirits lived on, traversing space and time to re-enter their original bodies ten years in the future where they stood in Saturn Valley. Their mission a complete success, Dr. Andonuts, Apple Kid, and other allies and friends celebrated the group's return. Jeff and his father rekindled their relationship. Poo returned to Dalaam, where he would someday be King. Paula and Ness traveled through the many lands they'd visited on their journies before eventually stopping at home. Paula thanked Ness for his protection and guidance, and the two seemed forever smitten with love. Ness, finally back in his home on the high hills of Onett, took rest with his mother to recount his grand quest to save the planet Earth.

The following morning, a pounding on the door awoke Ness in his pajamas. It was Picky, Pokey's innocent little brother, with a letter from none other than the evil genius himself. In it, Pokey promised his revenge. It seemed Ness's long adventure was not quite over yet.

Posted by Haunter27 on 23 July 2005. Ness art © 2005 Haunter27.

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Games

• EarthBound (Super NES)