Friday 16 June 2023

Death Battle Predictions: Ness VS Frisk

 

“Success means having the courage, the determination, the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be"

-George A. Sheehan


Ness, EarthBound’s courageous savior of the universe. 


Frisk, Undertale’s determined savior (or destroyer) of the Underground. 


The world is a big and scary place, but it’s also a place where you can make friends that can last a lifetime. Everywhere you go, there’s both friendly and angry faces, and who knows what else could be waiting for you. At times, the journey can be pretty tough, but as long as you believe in yourself and the bonds you share, you’ll make it through alright. Headstrong determination and courage is all you need, but now the question remains: whose will is stronger?


Before We Start…

For Ness, we’ll mainly be examining EarthBound while also looking through the other two entries in the Mother series, along with the Mother 2 manga and novelization. Also, we are giving Ness his additional moves from Super Smash Bros, because while he doesn’t use them in his home series, it’s a popular staple of the character that many people recognize, they’re given in-universe reasons for him having them after the events of EarthBound, and they don’t have much influence on the overall verdict. This obviously also means that the blog may contain spoilers for Mother 3.

Frisk is a bit of a weird case because while they only really have Undertale to look at (plus Deltarune and the Undertale art book for any additional info), they are heavily influenced by player choice and go on very different paths depending on what route they take. So for the purposes of this blog, we’ll be examining Frisk after a SOUL-less Pacifist run. That way they’ve gone through all the main routes of the game and can be examined at their full potential. 


Finally, we are giving Frisk access to Chara because while they were separate people at one point, Chara’s spirit resides in Frisk at the beginning of the game and only awakens upon finishing a genocide route and can come out even after a pacifist ending. Given that this is Frisk from a SOUL-less Pacifist run that’s gone through every route in the game, Chara is capable of coming out at any given moment in this scenario and would be usable in this case. 


Links to the Mother Novels and EarthBound Manga here. Undertale Artbook here.

Background

Ness

“Okay.”

In the early 1900's, a dark shadow covered a small country town in rural America. At that time, a young couple mysteriously vanished from their home. The man’s name was George, the woman's name was Maria. Two years later, as suddenly as George left, he returned, he never told anyone about where he was or what he lived, but he began an odd study. As for Maria, his wife…she never returned. How did Maria and George go missing for such a long span? Turns out they were abducted by an alien species to raise a child. The child loved his adoptive parents, especially Maria who liked to sing a special lullaby for him. On the contrary George hasn’t cared about raising a child and instead was making a study on Aliens’ PSI powers with no permission of theirs. 


In the end George escaped and left his knowledge on Earth, while the child upon growing up was given a task: invade the Earth to prevent the humans from using their own powers against them. This extraterrestrial child’s name was Giegue. In his first encounter, despite his seemingly superior power and abilities that allowed him to nearly conquer the entire planet, a group of children: Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd, managed to stop him by singing Eight Melodies. They weren’t any ordinary melodies, but melodies that would remind Giegue of his adoptive mother, Maria. The song filled Giygas with guilt and memories of his past with her and eventually, as Ninten and company finally managed to finish the song, the emotional stress became too much for Giygas to handle and he retreated, calling back his forces but promising that he and Ninten would meet again.


The year is now 199X. Early to rise, early to bed, and if he’s lucky, a good old steak dinner. That’s the normal life Ness has always known, and one that would change forever the night a meteor fell in the town of Onett. Emerging from the crater was a bee…who’s actually not a bee, named Buzz Buzz; and despite its small stature, it had a huge announcement: Giegue, now known as Giygas, was striking back, and the whole universe was at risk. With no time to waste, he imparted knowledge to Ness about PSI, and psychic powers that would help him on his path to fulfill his destiny by defeating Giygas and saving the world. For that, he’d need to record another Eight Melodies to his sound stone, and become able to stop the war against Giygas once and for all.


But the prophecy wasn’t just for Ness to carry out. Besides him, there were 3 other chosen ones who would join Ness on his journey to protect the universe: Paula, a girl from Twoson, Jeff, a boy from Winters, and Poo, the prince of Dalaam. Together they’d go through a long adventure across the globe and reach across eight spots containing the melodies and prepare to face the embodiment of evil itself: Giygas.


As promised, Gigyas eventually came, and in order to fight him, The Chosen Four had to transfer their souls into robots that could travel across time and space. It was a huge risk, and Gigyas definitely did everything in his power to stop them. In fact, his chances for the victory were 99%, but in the end, Ness’ courage and everyone’s wish for their triumph, including YOU, “person staring at the screen” (if you’ve played Earthbound of course) allowed Ness to finish Giygas for good. The only question left now is what will this amazing young man do next. Will he go to school? Visit Disneyland? Or will he be called upon to defend the Earth once more? Nothing can tell, but what’s certain is; the memories of the most unforgettable, incredible, and bizarre adventure of all time filled with smiles and tears, are left with him. 


Frisk

"Despite everything, it’s still you" 


Long ago, humans and monsters lived together in harmony, until one day when a war broke out between the two races. Fear swelled among the humans that their SOULs could be absorbed by the monsters despite their SOULs’ overwhelming power in comparison to a monster’s. Humans then very quickly chose to declare war without warning. It was a long battle, but the humans were ultimately victorious and had decided to seal the monsters underground within a mountain known as Mt. Ebott. This was done through the use of a magic barrier that could not be broken without power equivalent to 7 human SOULs. Unable to break free, the monsters remained trapped underground for a very long time.


Eventually came the year 201X. Much time had passed since then and monsters grew accustomed to their new home, but everything changed when a human fell into the underground, the Original Fallen Human, Chara.


Chara was the first human the monsters had seen in a long time. Despite the grim history with the humans, Chara was welcomed into the Dreemurr family by Toriel and Asgore as their adoptive child and sibling for Asriel. All seemed well, until tragedy befell the monsters once again as Chara had fallen ill and eventually passed away. As we would later learn in the story, this was no unfortunate accident, as the now dying child had deliberately poisoned themselves with buttercups after learning of their poisonous property by putting them into their father’s butterscotch pie, leaving him very ill for some time. The motive behind this suicide? Chara had hoped that they could get their brother Asriel to absorb their SOUL when they die, leave the barrier that had kept every monster trapped for eons, put a violent end to humanity, and then free monster-kind from their prison. Whether this was more an ACT of love or hatred remains unknown.


Wracked with grief, Asriel absorbed Chara’s SOUL and crossed the barrier to lay them atop the golden flowers in their home village as it was Chara’s last request. Tragically, Asriel was brutally attacked by the villagers who mistakenly assumed he had killed Chara. But rather than fight back and slaughter with minimal effort like Chara had hoped, Asriel was still just a frightened young boy who had no desire to harm others, and so he could only muster the ability to escape back into the Underground before eventually succumbing to his wounds and passing away, his dust immediately scattering onto a bed of flowers.


Fueled by rage and grief at the loss of two of his children, Asgore declared war against humanity and instilled a new policy. Any human who falls into the underground shall be killed until they can obtain the seven human SOULs needed to destroy the barrier once and for all. With them finally free, it would be time to once again wage war with humanity, as revenge for all they have put them through. With seven human SOULs needed to break the barrier, it would take a long time for it to be possible. Time slowly passed and one by one, each human that fell into the Underground had their SOUL taken until only one more was needed for a certain prophecy to come true. A prophecy within the underground that stated “an angel from the surface will arrive and the underground will be empty.”


A young child once again falls into the underground as the last human SOUL needed to break the barrier. After a frightening encounter with Flowey the flower, they meet Toriel who initially takes them in to comfort and confides them in the Ruins to avoid meeting the same fate as the previous humans. However the child is determined to escape the underground and Toriel eventually lets them leave to venture forth and hopefully make it to the surface. Throughout the underground they meet and even befriend a plethora of friendly, wacky and dangerous monsters throughout. From the pun-filled and bombastic skeleton brothers with Sans and Papyrus, to the intimidating but well meaning royal guard Undyne and even an over eccentric killer robot with Mettaton. It was a very strange but eventual journey for the young child, and through it all they stayed determined and pushed through without hurting a single SOUL.

They finally reach the barrier with Asgore waiting for them, pained to take yet another SOUL. But before the fight ensues, Toriel steps in along with all of the companions throughout the game hoping to resolve the conflict in a peaceful manner. Flowey however comes in and absorbs all the human and monster SOULs to achieve his true form, which turns out to be none other than Asriel Dreemurr. In one last attempt, they attempt to stop the child and threaten to erase the timeline to experience everything all over again, with the young child he believes to be Chara. But through it all, they remain determined and reach out to the troubled heart of Asriel and after a heartfelt battle, Asriel stops his rampage and accepts everything he’s done. 


To atone, he uses the power of the SOULs within him to finally break the barrier and restore the monsters within the underground. And lastly, Asriel releases the mistake they made, assuming Chara was alive all this time. He learns the child that saved the underground is actually named Frisk, and thanks them for all they’ve done. With a bittersweet goodbye, Frisk returns to their friends and they all escape the underground and reach the surface at long last. And thus, monster kind was free to live among the surface thanks to Frisk, who fulfilled the prophecy in making the underground finally empty… in one timeline. 


After you, the Player, receive a warning from Flowey about resetting everything, there’s an option to go back and do it all over from scratch. You could go back and re-obtain your happy ending but it’ll just be the same thing again, and again… and again. But what would happen if you didn’t allow the human you control to be a pacifist, but someone who was more of the opposite, not a savior but a destroyer to the underground? Should your perverted sentimentality and desire to see every possible outcome get the better of you, the human will embark on a path to kill every single monster they encounter; having no mercy to give towards anyone and being determined to slay everyone they come across. While some monsters such as Undyne and Mettaton do their best to put a stop to you, it’s ultimately futile in the face of your DETERMINATION. 


Near the end however, Sans alone is waiting for you and places his judgment. The verdict, nothing but an excruciatingly bad time. Relentless and stern to the bone, despite his best efforts to try and make you give up, he can’t outlast your DETERMINATION and falls, as the final hope for the underground is no more. Not even Flowey who followed a similar path to the human in this route can stop them, and ultimately meets the same fate. At the end, Chara is finally awoken and reincarnated within the human, via the growing power gained from slain monsters. Filled with glee, they’re ready to destroy the world and move on to the next, regardless of what the player may choose. In one fell swoop, Chara wipes everything from its entirety, fulfilling the prophecy of making the underground completely empty.   

Experience & Skill

Ness


Despite acknowledging his PSI powers fairly recently, Ness is a natural in the ways of psychic powers, even if his range focuses more on support rather than offensive techniques. Physically, Ness is able to handle anything ranging from wild animals, living cars, stop signs, pictures, dinosaurs, robots, gangs, mushrooms, it's harder to tell what kind of being Ness hasn't faced. Ness also underwent training from Poo’s master in the manga, reaching mastery of his abilities. Ness has defeated four of Onett’s most well-trained police officers, as well as their captain, and impressed his martial-arts-master friend, Poo, with his combat prowess despite never training.


Frisk


We don't know much of Frisk's background but throughout their journey in the underground, they managed to hold their own against numerous monsters and foes that they encountered. Frisk can keep up with the likes of Undyne and Asgore, who are experienced and seasoned warriors in the underground. They also show a great amount of intellect in battle, always seeming to find a solution to convince an enemy not to do battle anymore, no matter how much they may want them dead. They are also adept at several puzzles scattered across the underground and while some definitely require some critical thinking, others are… pretty straightforward.


Equipment

Ness

Weapons

Baseball Bat

One of Ness’ go to weapons for physical combat. While he’s gone through many a bat, they all serve the same purpose: blunt force trauma. His best bat is known as the Legendary Bat, though some are more powerful but have less accuracy, like the Casey Bat.


Yo-Yo

Ness’ other ol’ reliable. Along with some sick tricks, Ness uses Yo-Yos to bash foes, though the game treats this as a “shooting” weapon. So while he can’t SMAAAASH enemies, he has more extended melee range than a bat can do.


Slingshot

Ness’ final weapon, and one that doesn’t come in nearly as many variants as his bats or yo-yos. They’re fairly strong and easily give Ness the most range out of any of his non PSI based arsenal.

Armor

Hats

Ness' iconic baseball cap doubles as a piece of armor, giving him +5 defense. He also acquires other hats during his adventure, including Hard Hats that give +15 defense!

Pendants

Ness possesses several Pendants, which are used to protect the wearer from PSI attacks, such as Fire, Freeze, and Paralysis.

Coins

For some reason, coins count as armor. They increase Ness' defense and also make him more lucky. 

Charms

Ness has a few charms that can protect him from paralysis and slightly increase his defense. They can also increase his speed, with the Rabbit's Foot in particular giving a massive +40 upgrade to it.

Goddess Band 

Ness can use several Bracelets (or Bands) throughout his adventure, but the Goddess Band is by far the best one, giving him +80 defense, +30 Luck, and preventing him from being put to sleep.


Consumable Items

Sudden Guts Pill

An item that raises Guts for the duration of the battle, it can be bought from Hassan’s shop in Scaraba for $500, or can be dropped from Enraged Fire Plugs, Electro Swooshes, and Musicas.


Bag of Dragonite

An incredibly rare item that can turn Ness into a dragon and let him breathe fire, letting him cause massive damage to most enemies before reverting back to normal.


Food

Ness can acquire several food items throughout his journey, most of them simply being used to restore his HP or PP. In particular, the Skip Sandwiches also boost Ness' walking speed for a few seconds, the hand-aid heals Ness' wounds, the wet towel helps with a heat stroke, the Cup of Lifenoodles, secret herbs and Horns of life can be used to heal Ness from most status effects, such as poison, nausea, falling asleep, crying, colds and sunstroke.


Capsules

Capsules are items that Ness can use to increase his stats even further. Speed, Luck, Guts, even Vitality and IQ can be increased with these things.

Miscellaneous Equipment


Bike

When Ness wants to make more distance on the ground, he can hop on his bike to move at a faster pace; though who knows how he fits that in his backpack. 


Defense Spray

A spray that Ness can use to enhance his defense during combat. He can use several of these to stack the defense boosts and has an upgraded version: Defense Shower, which can affect an entire group and can be used without limit.


Monkey's Love

This rare item makes an enemy immobile for a short time, however it only works if the enemy is shorter than a monkey… so it's kind of useless.


Teddy Bears

Ness can bring his trusty teddy bears with him to battle, and they are capable of taking several hits for him before falling apart.


Super Plush Bears

A more durable variant of Ness' teddy bears. They have more health and will take a lot more hits for Ness.


Brain Stone

This item supposedly allows Ness to use his PSI abilities, even if the enemy makes him unable to concentrate, removing that weakness (though it wasn’t working in the game).


Snake

Ness can carry a snake around with him. This big boy/girl can bite the enemy leaving damage and possible poisoning them. However the snake leaves after one use.


Snake Bag

Ness can also carry a bag with thousands of small snakes in it around with him. He can send a snake towards his enemies to deal damage to them and sometimes even poison them. Due to there being so many snakes in this bag, he's able to reuse it over and over. Because one snake wasn't enough.

Viper

Another snake species that Ness can carry around with him, the viper will bite the enemies and then leave. However, unlike the snakes, this guy will always poison the enemy.


Stag Beetle

At least it's not another snake. Ness can throw this beetle at his enemies during battle. Although it doesn't damage them it does shock them and makes them unable to move in battle. You can buy them at a drugstore.


Handbag strap

By whipping enemies with this item, they'll take enough damage to stop moving for a short amount of time.


Mummy wrap

Once Ness whips his enemies with this item they'll take damage and be wrapped around, unable to move for a while.


Pair of Dirty Socks

An item Ness carries; when used in battle the terrible odor that his enemies smell is so awful that they'll get so nauseous that they will be unable to battle. How stinky.


Pharaoh's curse

An ectoplasmic ooze that's inside a dreadful box. Once Ness uses this in battle. it'll disgorge out of it, splashing it all over the enemy, potentially, yet badly poisoning them.


Rust Promoter

An item Ness can buy from a Junks salesman, Burglin Park or behind a drugstore. This thing will quickly rust any metal and metallic enemies when used during battle. This'll also massively hurt them up to 200 points of damage but that's only the regular variant. The DX variant that you can find in a trash can, the sewers or by defeating a deadly mouse, rusts metal and metallic enemies almost instantly and does twice the amount of damage the original does.


Bombs

Sometimes regular PSI powers aren't enough, sometimes you need some classic explosions. In battle, Ness can use some bombs to deal massive damage. Due to its range, it'll hurt more than just the target. Its upgraded variant, the "Super Bomb" is even stronger and much more destructive. 


Franklin's Badge 

After obtaining it from Paula while she was under a cult's captivity (Don't ask) Ness has gained usage of this item. This badge (which apparently, even Ben Franklin wore during his experiments with lightning) protects him from any thunder based ability, reflecting them back at his enemy. This badge isn't just limited to PSI thunder attacks, as other electric attacks also get reflected.


Toothbrush

Bought from a drugstore or taken away from humans. Once Ness uses this item his teeth become so shiny that it scares enemies into a solidified state for a turn. In the guidebook it's also stated to freeze the enemy.


Pencil Eraser

An invention from the genius Apple Kid, this device is capable of destroying any pencil shaped objects Ness encounters in his path. It erases Octopuses in the Japanese version, which is a play on a common phrase in Japanese gaming culture where if a player feels stuck with no way to advance, an octopus is blocking the path. Clever but obviously not something English speaking people would get.

Eraser Eraser

If erasing pencils wasn’t enough of a shock for you, the other invention from Apple Kid Ness got is Eraser Eraser. Name says for itself - it erases erasers/anything eraser shaped. In Japan the item erases a statue shaped like a limbless doll, known as a "Kokeshi". The joke is that the Japanese word for eraser is "Keshi" and the item is named "Kokeshi Keshi". Also clever and also too specific for non-japanese speakers to understand. 


In the novel these are small devices which target objects of a single predetermined shape and destroy them on a molecular level regardless of material.


Manga Items

Mr. Saturn Hat

A sentient hat gifted to Ness, it can block attacks for him and fire energy at an opponent.

Glue Bombs

Containers of Super Glue that Ness used to trap a swarm of zombies.


Frisk

Weapons

Stick

“Its bark is worse than its bite”

Frisk’s trademark weapon and the one they start with at the beginning of the game. Being the first one, it deals the lowest damage out of all the weapons. It can be used to be thrown at enemies which… does nothing really, but it’s useful against dog types who’ll chase after the stick and can immediately be spared so there’s that at least.


Toy Knife

“Made of plastic, a rarity nowadays”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the light blue SOUL, Frisk can find it near Toriel’s house and it cuts shockingly well in spite of being a toy made of plastic. Frisk can use it to swing at enemies to damage them.

Tough Glove

“A worn pink leather glove. For five-fingered folk.”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the orange SOUL, this weapon is found in Snowdin Forest, Frisk can equip the glove for a fury of punches to enemies. If Frisk gets the timing right by hitting bars in-game they can make one big punch that does more damage. 

Ballet Shoes

“These used shoes make you feel incredibly dangerous.”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the blue SOUL, this weapon is found in bushes near the waterfall Frisk can put them on for kicking attacks. When attacking three bars will appear in-game and require proper timing. If Frisk hits two of the three bars the attack will turn golden and do double damage. 



Torn Notebook

“Contains illegible scrawls.”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the purple SOUL, this weapon is sold by Gerson near the Waterfall and where Frisk can buy the item. The item has two bars which Frisk much time in-game so it can do double damage. It also grants Frisk some invulnerability making the Notebook more of a defensive item.  

Burnt Pan

“Damage is rather consistent. Consumable items heal four more HP.”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the green SOUL. Found in the Hotlands, Frisk can use this item for attacking instead of cooking. When attacking four bars will appear in-game which again Frisk must time so damage is doubled. The Pan also allows Frisks to heal 4 more HP from any healing item (More on them later). 


Empty Gun

“An antique revolver. It has no ammo. Must be used precisely, or damage will be low.”

Belonging to the previously fallen human with the yellow SOUL. Frisk can buy it off Bratty and Catty near MTT Resort. While the gun is empty Frisk can damage enemies by hitting in-game bars with good timing. Though unlike other weapons that use the same function the timing on this item needs much more precision or the damage will be low. When very determined, Frisk can shoot star-shaped projectiles from the gun.


Worn Dagger/Real Knife

“Perfect for cutting plants and vines.”

"About time."

Belonging to the original fallen child, Chara, which Frisk can find in Asgore's home. Unlike all the items before this is an actual weapon with no restrictions not making it a threat. It being a real knife it's the highest damage weapon in the game. It functions just like the Toy Knife though it's much more deadlier as it provides 99 AT. 


Armor

Bandage

The first piece of “armor” Frisk has at the start of their journey. Similar to the stick, it’s the lowest in its category in terms of defense (an understatement really, it provides literally 0 DEF), but can be used as an item when taken off.

Faded Ribbon

“If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard.”

A ribbon that Frisk finds in the ruins. It grants 3 DEF.


Manly Bandanna

“It has seen some wear. It has abs drawn on it.”

Sold by the Snowdin Shopkeeper for 50G or ‘free’ in the Genocide Route, it’s a used bandanna with abs drawn on it. It offers 7 DEF. Originated from Mother 3.


Old Tutu


“Finally, a protective piece of armor.”

A tutu found by Frisk in Waterfall. It offers 10 DEF.


Cloudy Glasses

"Glasses marred with wear."

Glasses sold by Gerson in Waterfall. It offers an extra 10 DEF and increases the invincibility window after getting hit. 


Stained Apron


An apron Frisk found in Hotlands. It gives Frisk an extra 10 DEF and heals 1 HP every other turn.

Cowboy Hat

"This battle-worn hat makes you want to grow a beard."

Sold by Bratty and Catty besides the MTT Resort. Increases DEF by 12 and ATK by 5.


Heart Locket/The Locket

“It says ‘Best Friends Forever”

"Right where it belongs."

A locket found by Frisk in Asgore's Home, implied to belong to the first human and Asriel. It provides 99 DEF.

Temmie Armor

“The things you can do with a college education!”

Sold by the shopkeeper Temmie at the tem shop. It provides 20 DEF, 10 ATK, extra invincibility frames, and heals one HP every other turn.

Items

Bandage (again lol)

Deja vu! It can be used as a method of healing to recover 10 hp with each use.

Monster Candy

“Has a distinct, non-licorice flavor.”

Heals Frisk for 10 HP, however they only have access to four of them.

Spider Donut

“A donut made with Spider Cider in the batter.”

A donut acquired from the Spider Bake Sale. Heals Frisk for 12 HP.

Spider Cider

“Made with whole spiders, not just the juice.”

Cider acquired from the Spider Bake Sale. Heals Frisk for 24 HP.

Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie

“Butterscotch-cinnamon pie, one slice.”

Baked by Toriel. Fully heals Frisk. One of a kind. Hyperstarman, Cyber and Phantom Falcon can vouch.


Snail Pie

“An acquired taste.”

Also baked by Toriel, but only when she’s forgotten to get groceries. Heals Frisk for their maximum HP -1. One of a kind, and only in Hard Mode (so probably not something Frisk can actually access, but it’s funny, so deal with it).

Snowman Piece

“Please take this to the ends of the Earth”

A piece of a snowman who wants to see the rest of the world. Heals Frisk for 45 HP, but eating it makes them a bad person.

Nice Cream

“Instead of a joke, the wrapper says something nice”

A frozen treat that warms the heart. Heals Frisk for 15 HP.

Bisicle

“It's a two-pronged popsicle, so you can eat it twice.”

A popsicle eaten one half at a time. Heals Frisk for 11 HP per use.

Cinnamon Bunny

“A Cinnamon roll in the shape of a bunny.”

 Heals Frisk for 22 HP.

Astronaut Food

“For feeding a pet astronaut.”

Food found inside of a cooler in a garbage dump. Heals Frisk for 21 HP, however they only have access to two.

Crab Apple

“An aquatic fruit that resembles a crustacean.”

Heals Frisk for 18 HP.

Sea Tea

“Made from glowing marshwater.”

Tea that Heals Frisk for 10 HP, and increases their SPEED for the duration of the fight. It can be stacked up for four times which would double their speed by then. 

Abandoned Quiche

“A psychologically damaged spinach egg pie.”

A Quiche Frisk found under a bench. Heals Frisk for 34 HP. Much like the Snowman Piece, it is probably immoral to eat this.

Temmie Flakes

“FOOB!!!”

Torn up pieces of colored construction paper, sold to help fund someone’s college tuition. Heals Frisk for 2 HP.

Dog Salad

“Recovers HP. (Hit Poodles.)”

A salad obtained from Dog Residue. A random assortment of stuff dogs love to eat. Heals Frisk for 2 (if there’s bones), 10 (if there’s a fried tennis ball), 30 (if it tastes yappy???), or their entire HP (if it’s just straight up garbage…)


Instant Noodles

“Comes with everything you need for a quick meal!”

Taken from Alphys’ fridge. Heals Frisk for either 4 or 15 HP if prepared normally. However, in serious situations, Frisk will choose to eat the noodles dry, healing 90 HP instead. They’re better that way.

Hot Dog…?

“The "meat" is made of something called a "water sausage."

Sold to Frisk by Sans. Heals Frisk for 20 HP. Frisk has a single “Hot Cat” variation of this item that will heal them for 21 HP instead.

Junk Food

“Food that was probably once thrown away.”

Literally made of garbage. Heals Frisk for 17 HP.

Hush Puppy

“This wonderful spell will stop a dog from casting magic.”

A magic item obtained from the Annoying Dog. Heals Frisk for 65 HP.

Starfait

“A sweet treat made of sparkling stars.”

There is a non-zero chance someone has tried to use this item description as a star level feat. Heals Frisk for 14 HP.

Glamburger

“A hamburger made of edible glitter and sequins.”

Just like how they make them on the surface. Heals Frisk for 27 HP.

Legendary Hero

“Sandwich shaped like a sword.”

The sandwich of heroes. Heals Frisk for 40 HP, and raises their ATTACK by 4.


Steak in the Shape of Mettaton’s Face

“Don’t ask. Please.”

Exactly what the name suggests, although it’s probably not real meat. Heals Frisk for 60 HP, and does wonders for their TV ratings.

Popato Chisps 

“Regular old potato chips.”

Acquired through an ordinary vending machine in a completely innocent and unsuspicious location. Heals Frisk for 13 HP.

Bad Memory

“?????”

It is not clear whose memory this is. I’m sure there’s like, 3 million fan theories, though. Damages Frisk for 1 HP, unless they are under 3 HP, in which case it will heal them fully. 

Last Dream

“Through DETERMINATION, the dream became true.”

A dream created by DETERMINATION.  It heals 17 HP and can be replenished infinitely.


Miscellaneous Equipment

Phone

A great way for Frisk to stay in touch with their friends during their time in the underground, although it has a fair bit of use in other places. On top of being able to keep in touch with all of your favorite characters and Alphys, it can also change Frisk’s SOUL to yellow, giving it the ability to shoot lasers at enemies. Enough of these lasers are able to make Mettaton’s limbs blast off. He’s not too upset about it though because THOSE RATINGS THOUGH.

Jetpack

Modern day phone apps have gotten so crazy that Frisk’s phone can just turn into a functioning jetpack. Not much fuel, but it helps for getting around, or flying around deadly obstacles if one should find themselves on a cooking show with a child murderer in training.

Punch Card


This is used to get a free Nice Cream when three are collected. More useful however is that when Tough Glove is equipped, the attack for it is increased though the buff depletes with each use of the weapon. 

Abilities

Ness

PSI Rockin

Ness’ main PSI attack in terms of offense. With psychic energy, Ness blasts a single target (or multiple with upgraded versions) with a barrage of primary colors. It’s hard on the eyes and even harder on the foe’s HP. It takes the form of an energy fastball in the novel, which was used to  smash the antenna nose of a robot.

PSI Flash

You may recognize this move from Smash Bros, where Ness slowly charges a ball of psychic energy until it explodes, causing massive damage. Well, we’re happy to report that Flash is NOTHING like that. Instead, it’s more akin to Dragon Quest’s Hocus Pocus in the sense that its effects are randomized. It can paralyze foes, make them cry to lower their accuracy, make them feel strange and hit themselves in confusion, and even has a chance of instantly killing enemies… or Ness himself. Whoops. In Smash, the Instant Death effect is shown to be via internal detonation.

Lifeup

Lifeup is a recovery PSI ability that restores Ness and his allies' health. Once it's fully upgraded it will fully heal all their HP.

Healing

Throughout Ness’ journey, plenty of foes have the ability to inflict a variety of status ailments on their targets. Thanks to Ness, these effects can be cured through his PSI Healing. The more advanced the ability becomes, the more status Ness can heal. In the novel, said healing is potent enough to even repair broken bones and it is stated that his "spirit" was restored.

Shield

A protective PSI ability to (as the name suggests) shield yourself from enemy attacks, specifically physical attacks. It forms around the user’s entire body and reflects 50% damage back at attackers.

Hypnosis

Great for putting enemies to sleep. Ness knows two levels, with α putting only one enemy to sleep while Ω puts all enemies to sleep. Sometimes a simple explanation tells you all you need to know.

Paralysis

Paralysis is capable of, well, paralyzing an enemy, making them unable to move their body physically to attack or use items with. However, they’re still capable of using PSI abilities, meaning mental functions and thought-based attacks can still be used.


Dream Vision

Ness, while dreaming in his sleep, can see visions of others and what they’re doing at the present time. When sleeping for the first time after meeting Paula in person, he saw snapshots of her life in his dreams


Teleport

Teleport is a PSI ability that allows Ness to teleport himself and any allies to a location they’ve already been to, though it requires a buildup of acceleration to utilize, Teleport α requires running in a straight line for long enough, while Teleport β, the improved variation, allows for Ness to reach the required acceleration for a teleport much faster by running in a tight circle instead. However acceleration doesn't seem needed as he has shown to be capable of teleporting on instinct.


Telepathy

The power which allows Ness to literally read people's thoughts. He can even use it to communicate with animals. Ness can get a sense of how far away someone is when talking to them telepathically and reach large distances to communicate with people mentally.


Telekinesis

A power he’s had since his very birth, Ness has telekinetic powers. Even as an infant, he was capable of bending spoons and moving little bottles. Though he hasn’t developed that ability much. In smash he's able to hold and throw people around with his Telekinesis.


The state of Nothingness/ Auto Mode

The secret strength of a warrior, after becoming a master in combat Ness was able to reach this state. In this state Ness can fight and/or protect himself without needing any forethought or will to fight. it's stated to be like Auto Mode in a jrpg.


Astral Projection

With intense concentration, Ness is capable of astral projection, separating his mind from his body, in a process compared to “trying to leave your own shadow”, in order to enter other people’s mindscapes (Just like Raz from Psychonauts fr). This is a very exhausting process for Ness however, and leaves his body completely open, making it something not suited to mid-combat.

PSI Burst

With enough mental sough mental stress and trauma a PSI user can finally release it all and use their full potential without restraint. However it causes massive damage to the area and everyone around them in a multitude of ways. It is possible to hold this "burst" in, though it does massive damage to the user. It does however speed up their thoughts five to tenfold. 


Melodies and Creation

Ness can create a dream world in his mind called Magicant with the help of the Eight Melodies.

The point of Ness’ journey is to go to 8 locations on the Earth in order to unite it with his own power, drawing out all of his power. It was actually specified the purpose of it, as Ness needs to do so in order to become one with the universe, as otherwise he won’t be able to defeat Giygas. After collecting all the 8 melodies, Ness is able to reach his Magicant after getting a vision of himself as a baby. Magicant is basically a realm created in his mind, which was created from getting the 8 melodies in his Sound Stone. 


In the Novels, the Melodies allow Ninten (Also known as Ken in the novels) and his friends to view different points in time mixing together in a random sequence, until they view the lives of George and Maria.


In this world that he can enter when unconscious, he can see the people he’s met in his life by how he remembers them, including his mother, who can heal him completely. He can even take items created in this world and bring them back to the real world to use, as well as take items from the real world to Magicant. He can also communicate with those in the real world over the phone, and even bring other living things in there with him. Magicant also contains five Flying Men who represent Ness’s courage, who can fight alongside him one at a time, though they can also end up dying. Besides Magicant, Ness can also take items created in illusion worlds made by others and bring them back to the real world. Magicant was permanently lost after Ness absorbed its power.


Soul Movement / “Time Travel”

If Ness wants to return to his real body, he can release his soul from the current body he’s in and join back with it. Andonuts was even unsure of Ness and co being able to come back from the past, yet they pulled it off. Time Travel only applies to souls, as it would destroy Ness’ body.

“Universal System”

Ness is told he is part of a fated destiny by the talking rock. We are told in the novel, Ness is a Kumari (a god born into a human body in Poo's culture) for the entire Earth. The Rock says: “Your fate is not merely your own. Everything that makes you who you are overlaps every part of the universe, and all living things.” This is also said in the literal translation for Earthbound. When Ness reaches the Rift of Time (where all forms and possibilities of existence, and every one of the multiple dimensions in the universe form and return to) in the novel, he says: “I am...the universe. My fate, and the fate of the universe, are one and the same. They are merging together....”. Both the Novel and Game indicate some degree of Fate exists. Paula’s prayers are said to have crossed time all the way to the end of the thread of fate.


Porky Minch assisted Giygas in an attempt to prevent the latter's prophesied defeat against the Chosen Ones. This led to Giygas being strong enough to effortlessly overpower the Chosen Ones and giving to him the 99% of chances to win. Despite this, Giygas was defeated in the end after that Paula called the Player to help her and the other Chosen Ones in surviving against him. Fate intervening for any of the Chosen One’s directly though is not directly shown in either the game or the novel. The Rift of Time gave Ness a level of understanding he did not have prior, but Paula’s prayers were needed to overcome Giygas/Porky (novel). Refer to the Before the verdicts section for more information.


Miscellaneous Powers


Smash-Only Abilities

As a sort of explanation for how he can use certain PSI abilities in Super Smash Bros., it’s stated he learned some of them from Paula and Poo.

PK Fire

A power used by Paula during Ness' adventure, it allows one to fire… fire from their fingertips, burning down enemies. A perfect move for spammers!


PK Thunder 

An ability held by Paula and Poo, PK Thunder fires a bolt of lightning towards an enemy, though it's a bit difficult to control and can miss its target. Ness can even use the lightning to propel himself through the air! This was also called "PK Rocket".


PSI Magnet

While his friends could use PSI Magnet to steal an enemy's PP to add to their own, Ness' version of the move lets him absorb enemy projectiles to restore his own health.

PK Starstorm

Poo's greatest PSI ability, PK Starstorm allows Ness to pull down meteors from the sky and adjust their trajectory to make them fall directly on his opponents.


Levitation

Ness can use his psychic powers to levitate and even fight in the air. He can also use it to perform midair jumps or dodge attacks more easily.


Custom Moves

PK Freeze

An unlockable move in Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS, this move is derived from Paula which freezes enemies, encasing them in ice. 


Rising PK Flash

An unlockable move for Smash Bros for the Wii U and 3DS. This move is a PK Flash that just keeps rising, although it deals less damage and has less sideways movement. It also moves a lot faster and has a longer explosive range.

PK Bonfire

PK Bonfire is one of Ness custom moves in Smash. This move doesn't travel as far as regular PK Fire, however the fire pillar will last much longer and will do much more damage. The perfect upgrade for Spammers!


PK Fire Burst

A variation of Ness’s alternate use of PK Fire. This version creates a blast of fire that knocks enemies away instead of creating a pillar of flames, along with the lightning bolt traveling further, at the cost of being weaker.


PSI Vacuum

A variation of Ness’s alternate use of PSI Magnet. This version sucks enemies near him before causing an explosion of electricity to attack when he releases it, at the cost of it being unable to suck in projectiles to heal him.


Forward PSI Magnet

A variation of Ness’s alternate use of PSI Magnet. This version creates the psychic field in front of Ness that still absorbs energy projectiles to heal him and deals more damage to enemies in the field when he releases it instead of pushing them back, at the cost of not absorbing energy projectiles from behind him and hurting enemies when he brings it up.


Lasting PK Thunder

A variation of Ness’s alternate use of PK Thunder. This version creates a less damaging electric orb that can hit enemies multiple times as opposed to just once and can be controlled more easily. When he knocks it into himself, he launches himself further and hits enemies multiple times instead of just once at the cost of it also dealing less damage.


Rolling PK Thunder

A variation of Ness’s alternate use of PK Thunder. This version creates a larger and more damaging electric orb at the cost of it being slower and harder to control. When he knocks it into himself, he launches himself harder into enemies to deal much more damage at the cost of not going as far.

Resistances

EarthBound walkthrough (w/ commentary) Part 28 - To the Moonside and Back!

Frisk

SOUL Manipulation

Frisk is able to control their SOUL’s (which is their essence) movement, though it could also be considered a representation of Frisk’s actual movement in dodging attacks from enemies as well, or even a combination of both, given the situation. Their SOUL goes through a small period of invincibility after being damaged that can be increased with certain armors or ITEMs. On top of this, Frisk can increase the movement speed of their SOUL through certain armors and consumable ITEMs.

DETERMINATION

Frisk’s greatest ability is their unrivaled control over DETERMINATION, a power source that allows human SOULs to persist after death. DETERMINATION has many uses including healing from near death, decreasing incoming damage, greatly increasing physical capabilities, and manipulating space-time. Enough DETERMINATION can also allow a body to persist even without a SOUL, with Flowey being the prime example.


Frisk’s DETERMINATION is also likely weaponized to empower their weapons to do things they shouldn’t be capable of (like shooting star-esque energy attacks from a revolver containing no bullets).

Save Points

Individuals with high enough amounts of DETERMINATION are able to manifest “Save Points” where they can save any progress they have made between resets. When one of these individuals dies, they are revived at their most recent save point, wherever and whenever it was. This ability can also be activated whenever the user desires without needing to die. This functionally ends the original timeline and creates a new one.  


The individual retains all memories of previous timelines and is even able to remember timelines reset by other DETERMINATION users to an extent. It is even possible to prevent others from “loading” past SAVE files if one’s DETERMINATION is greater. As long as the user is determined to keep living, they can revive at these save points. The exact circumstances that allow for the creation of a save point are unknown, but they are usually associated with areas or events that fill the user with DETERMINATION. It might even be possible to Save and Load without a SOUL, as Flowey was able to do so.

Reset

An ability only made possible by having the most DETERMINATION in a dimension, Frisk can “Reset” time to the moment they gained enough DETERMINATION to start saving. 


True Reset

A “True Reset” is when you can “Reset” time to right before Frisk gains the ability to “SAVE” or “Reset” basically resetting all the “Resets” Frisk has ever done, wiping their slate clean. This however is not something Frisk can actually do. It’s only possible through the player.

Resurrection

At their most determined, Frisk is capable of reviving from death instantly without needing to return to a save point.  This ability heals Frisk to full health and can be repeated as long as Frisk remains determined. This was used in their battle against Asriel to persevere through his much greater power and control over the timeline.

Invincibility Frames

After Frisk takes damage, they gain a few short moments of invulnerability to help recover themselves from an attack. Certain items such as the Torn Notebook and Cloudy Glasses help extend the short window of invulnerability to last even longer and even have some help against Sans’ KARMA attacks despite losing invulnerability frames.  

Game Manipulation/”Cheating”

An ability some Undertale characters with meta-fictional awareness have been shown to have, Frisk could also abuse this to some small degree, mostly in their fight with Sans, by abusing the limits of where their SOUL can travel, as well as how many times they can attack in a turn.


FIGHT

“There is only one solution to this. Prove yourself. Prove to me that you are strong enough to survive!”

Frisk’s main method for attacking, FIGHT-ing involves timing each attack to a certain point to affect how much damage they’ll cause.

ACT

“While you are in a FIGHT, strike up a friendly conversation.”

Upon entering a battle, Frisk can choose to ACT instead of fight.  Depending on the scenario, this allows Frisk to perform a wide range of different actions to progress the battle.  These include:


When everything they cherish is at risk and Frisk reaches never before seen levels of DETERMINATION, Frisk also gains:

MERCY

MERCY allows Frisk to spare an enemy when their health is low enough or they’ve properly befriended them through ACT-ing. In addition, it provides Frisk the option to “flee” from a battle.

SAVE

“But….maybe with what little power you have, you can SAVE something else...”

At the climax of their fight with Asriel Dreemurr, Frisk obtained the ability to SAVE specific objects and people, restoring them to previous states. Frisk is also able to reach out to the SOULs of monsters, similar to how Frisk’s SOUL is drawn out by monsters in combat. This even allowed Frisk to force Asriel to relive his memories of his time with Chara.


Resistances


Forms/States

Ness

The Power of Magicant

After freeing his mind from evil by traversing through Magicant, Ness' mind was able to reach the absolute peak of its power. By absorbing the power of the Sanctuaries in which he found the Eight Melodies, his stats all received massive upgrades, including his health and the power of his psychic abilities. It was with this power that Ness was finally capable of facing off against Giygas. For all intent and purposes, this power up is Ness’ new base state.


The Power of Earth

In both the Game and the Manga, Ness receives an empowerment by the Power of the Earth in order to combat Giygas. In the Game it is tied to Magicant, though in the Manga it is its own power source. Ness and his friends call out to the Earth, which empowers them with a massive amount of energy. This power allows them to defeat Giygas in one blast, and destroy his dimension. If push comes to shove, Ness should be able to call upon this power in a fight. The power does not last long, as it was gone after Ness destroyed the dimension.

Frisk

Chara

The very first human who fell into the underground, only ever mentioned by Asriel who seemed to imply Chara was a very troubled child who hated humanity. Upon falling into the underground, Frisk’s DETERMINATION awoke Chara’s spirit from death and they quickly latched onto Frisk. They only physically appear in the Genocide Route after the human has slain most residents of the underground and makes several comments throughout the route. After Frisk finally kills Flowey, Chara assumes control of Frisk’s body and uses their power to erase the entire timeline.  Upon receiving a SOUL, Chara recreates the world but corrupts any consecutive attempts at a pacifist route. Chara is unaffected by a true reset, remembering all the prior runs done even after a true reset was done.


Support

Ness

You

You, the Player of Earthbound. The Player is an entity that assists chosen ones (Ninten, Ness, and Lucas) throughout their journeys. In Earthbound, the Player directly assists to put down Giygas by praying alongside all of the other people Paula sends out a call for help to (prayers in combat would likely require Paula to be present). The Player is also hinted at being the one who assists Ness in awakening should he ever be defeated in combat. They do not revive Ness from death, rather help them “return” from being knocked out though only after they return from the last area they saved so it wouldn’t be combat applicable. The game says you got “your head handed to you”, which is an idiom that means you lost. A direct translation of the Japanese text for the Game Over says Ness got tired from the fight, which is also stated for the Mother 1 Game Over screen for Ninten.


The Player then begins to speak to Ness directly, stating: “Ness! It looks like you got your head handed to you. So, how about giving it another shot?” Ness is then given the choice between Yes and No. Upon selecting Yes, it is stated: “Ness decided to return after summoning all the courage and energy he had. Good luck!” Upon doing so, Ness reloads at his last save. If Ness says No, The Player reiterates: “Are you sure? The next time you restart your adventure, you’ll begin where you last saved. Is that okay?” If Ness says Yes, The Player replies: “It must have all just been a bad dream… See you, Ness!” and you are then sent to the title screen.


Frisk

Also You

You, the Player of Undertale. The Player is an entity (deja vu?) that resides with Frisk, and controls them to an extent in game. Flowey acknowledges that the Player is a separate being from Frisk in the Pacifist Run. The Player can perform a True Reset, resetting the Game World to the very beginning. The Player also may have been responsible for Chara’s return via their DETERMINATION (See Before The Verdicts).


Deltarune suggests the Player exists as a SOUL inside a vessel, as shown with Kris. The Player initially is told to make a vessel, which is promptly discarded. Kris becomes their vessel, though they are shown to be able to resist their commands to an extent, and even remove them from their own being. Frisk themself does no such thing, as they act as an extension of the Player far more than Kris seemingly does. The Player in Deltarune has shown the ability to outright Erase and Copy Save Files of the Game World, though it's unknown if this applies 1 to 1 with Frisk as their “vessel”.


 Feats

Ness

Overall


Power

Speed

 Durability

(Animation by MegatonSlater)

Frisk

Overall

  • Defeated Toriel, Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Mettaton, Asgore, Photoshop Flowey, and a load of other monsters

  • Defeated Undyne as Undying who is one of the toughest monsters in the underground

  • Destroyed Mettaton NEO, an advanced robot designed to kill humans, in one hit

  • Freed the monsters from the Underground

  • SAVED the world

  • Also killed everyone (Genocide)

  • Paid for Temmie’s college tuition

Power

Speed

Durability


Weaknesses

Ness

Ness is a literal child, so it’s only natural that he’s not always in the highest of spirits. At times, he can get pretty homesick, which can sap away any of his motivation to do much of anything, but a quick call to mom can remedy that, and he overall managed to overcome it at the end of the game. Normally he refuses to kill the opponent unless it is truly necessary like against robots. He also can't use PSI moves without concentration or by running out of PP, his paralysis move doesn’t completely stops opponent (as well as opponent is still capable of performing psychic attacks), and his hypnosis can be negated by opponents that are smart enough to be immune to such hypnosis. 

Frisk

Frisk is also (surprisingly) a child. However, rather than getting homesick or whatever, there’s something more… sinister going on. For whatever reason, they don’t really seem to be in control of their actions. Rather, they’re dictated by whatever or whoever is controlling them. 


Frisk is also only in control of the timeline as long as they are the person with the most DETERMINATION in any given dimension. We know this to be true, because Flowey used to have this power, before Frisk fell into the Underground. Granted, how much of an issue this would be in a vs debating context is unknown, because in the context of Undertale, DETERMINATION is a tangible substance unique to its own world, rather than just a feeling, and it’s pretty much impossible to get an idea of how that would interact with someone from a different work of fiction with different universal laws and concepts.


Before the Verdict

Obviously when we bring into discussion such complex series as Earthbound and Undertale, known throughout the history of vs debating for having a lot of stuff with varying interpretations, it’s only natural that some of the interpretations could be not as easy as you may think. Starting with Ness and his own complexities.   

5D Ness 

This one is pretty simple. The main argument for 5D basically came from reality-fiction interaction. Where people perceive fiction as fiction and aforementioned fiction affects the "real world" which technically should be 5D. You probably are aware of that kind of stuff through something more cartoony/meta like, say, Popeye’s hitting animator or Looney Tunes exiting their own cartoons, stuff like that but in a more serious tone when it comes to Mother series specifically. 


That case was tried to be argued for Earthbound with its own "Player" which technically speaking is supposed to be us. Now the biggest problem (where even the creators of said 5D arguments no longer buy said 5D arguments) is the fact that it causes circular scaling. The initial argument was Ness ≤ Giygas ≤ Player. In reality nothing saying that "Player" we're trying to scale Ness and Giygas to is 5D. Nor does it makes sense for either of them to affect “Player”. So overall that "Player" of Earthbound is featless character. The Player at the end of Mother 3 interact with the characters normally, which implies Player not being actually above the world of Earthbound as well as works as proof of there not being any “real world” above. 


Oh and it also kind of was argued from one of old ruins in the games saying about "world above" when in context, again, nothing at all implies or even goes by rules of Dimensional Tiering, and in fact likely just refers to Deep Darkness being hidden.

Same quite goes to Itoi’s statement in one of his Mother 3 interviews. Specifically this one:

Here we see Itoi saying that if Claus would’ve pulled out everything would be extinct including “the creator”. However it must be taken into account that Itoi himself says right after that it’s impossible to have something like that and that is not like he actually would be gone. In the end as Itoi himself says, it should be taken as nothing more than simple philosophy.

Speaking about Dark Dragon.


Dark Dragon

The next interesting topic here is a being called “Dark Dragon” which, while we don’t see exactly, it basically sleeps under the nowhere islands, which at the end of Mother 3 causes some sort of apocalypse after awakening from a long time of being sealed. So besides the possibility of DD destroying everything including “creator” (which is addressed above), people also tend to argue it being able to destroy the entirety of Mother’s cosmology with said cosmology being argued as Multiversal. As well as people consider to scale Ness to it due to both of them being “power of earth”. Now let’s talk about it step by step. 


Starting with Ness scaling to Dark Dragon. Throughout the Earthbound after visiting all 8 spots, Ness absorbs powers of said 8 spots (which should mean “Power of the Earth” in that case). And Dark Dragon is being stated as “Power of the Earth” by Leder. Now the first thing to note is that Ness and Dark Dragon statements of having/being “Power of the Earth” may be coincidental. After all the context behind Ness’ “Power of the Earth” is special places acting as power up to his capabilities (and even then, at least in the games isn't said to be specifically "Power of Earth" but rather power of 8 spots or power of the land), whereas Dark Dragon is literally sealed under the earth so him being stated as “Power of the Earth” may be a literal referring to the fact that it’s beneath earth. Plus even if both are powers of the earth they are still likely to be different sorts of powers due to where/when they’re located. Why when?

Because even if we give Ness said scaling to Dark Dragon it may not be actually Multiversal. First things first, within the context of Mother 3, Dark Dragon is likely about to destroy just Mother 3’s universe. There are not many heavy implications about Dark Dragon destroying the Multiverse. Second of all, Mother 3 events could be happening in the Mother 1 and 2 universe instead of being separate one, which makes it more so not a matter of where Mother 3 is happening but rather a matter of when (answer to that being either waaaaaaaaay after Mother 2 or waaaaaaaay before Mother 1). Porky gets to Nowhere Islands basically by traveling through space and time via the Phase Distorter (since he stole it from Andontus during events of Earthbound), however the Phase Distorter is never shown or has been stated to be capable of dimensional travel. At times we see it being used, “traveling through space” is more than likely limited to teleportation across the world, and most importantly it doesn’t leave any effects on the body, unlike time travel which could cause problems for Ness’ (and his companions’) body if it wasn’t for soul transferall into the robots. 


This is important because Porky not aging normally and ending up being 1000 if not 10000 years old is likely to be the cause of time travel which was established before to leave effects on the physical body. Either that or Porky augmented his body by adding mechanical parts inside making him more like a robot which is safe to travel across time. This is supported through the fact that throughout Mother 3 narrative, Porky basically robotizes everything on his way, animals, trees, even humans which is less noticeable on outside, symbolism about robotization and freeing from it can even be noticed at the end of Mother 3 where logo goes from tree with robotic parts, to just tree. All that combined could mean it’s not out of possibility that Porky gave himself robotic parts to live longer. As well as at the end of Giygas’ battle, Porky told Ness that he’ll “sneak away to another era to think about his next plan”, implying that while coming up with the plan, Porky was in fact time traveling across the universe rather than traveling across variety of universes.


In the end, it’s doubtful if Ness’ and Dark Dragon’s “Power of the Earth ” are the same, and it's possible it all happens within 1 universe rather than multiverse.

Note: Manga's "Power of the Earth" and Multiverse and Novel's Multiverse aren’t taken into account here, Mother 3 doesn’t and couldn’t exist through narratives of said 2 pieces of media.


The Truth About the Truth of the Universe

Get it? Ok ok, basically Truth of The Universe also known as “ToTU” for short and fate hax. Why are both "ToTU" and fate hax here? Because the former was kind of the reason fate hax existed in the first place. Often while playing Earthbound you may notice some cosmic-like quotes. Like there are 2 men who have an elderly appearance (as if they're priests) and they mention it.


"Truth of the universe" which travels across the cosmos and saves Ness from losing by turning that loss into the "bad dream"...fancy right? Now snap back to reality. Obviously a lot of quotes which arguably give Ness said fate/time/causality and other shenanigans have one tiny little problem: they have no context whatsoever.


Or at least most of them.


You see, a lot, and we mean a lot of statements people argue as Ness' god like abilities, not only might as well be Flowery Language/really fancy way of saying that Ness must save the universe, not only nowhere the scans for said Truth imply that fate is manipulated for Ness and co, (while the rest is just usual RPG stuff or simple luck, not events guided from some entity.) But some of it literally contradicts its concept.


Allow us to demonstrate. Argument says, "ToTU" after Ness losing will make that loss a "bad dream" and akin to Undertale, it should rewind time and therefore enemies won't remember you losing. Now let's look at one of the first bosses of Earthbound - Frank (More like, Sissel from the hit game Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective ngl). Usually when you fight him it goes like this. As you can see, Frank sees Ness for the first time, asks name, starts with knives before going to his tank.


After you lose however (specifically at his tank phase fyi), Frank says this:

In other words he basically remembered the fact that Ness loses to him and instead of going normal at first like usual, he instantly goes for his mech tank. 


Not only that, but the contradictions continues with second evidence:


In Towson you'd meet a mini boss jumping at you from the roof. Later on, he turns into our friend and we would never, ever need to fight him, keep that in mind.


So if ToTU and the "bad dream" fate thing was true, then after Ness losing, again, time would've gone backwards and therefore that mini boss would've jumped from roof again to attack you.

Now here's what actually happens after you lose to said mini boss:

As you can see, instead of being on the roof again, after beating us, he sits inside of his own home, waiting for us. Meaning that there's nothing preventing Ness from losing. In fact, one of the dialogues from the mysterious person (to which we'll get soon) says this: "You have known injury and defeat, but you have struggled on to reach this place" . This further implies there's nothing that saves Ness from losing and that Ness experienced defeat.


Another argument for the Truth of the universe existing was the fact that it “talked to Ness” as giant living rock and during a tea party. Former can easily be just rock being really smart/knowing about prophecy beforehand, consider this, it’s EarthBound we’re talking about, in the first minutes of it we had a small bug-like being telling us that we must save the world, things like that naturally should be pretty common instead of having some fancy explanation (without context whatsoever) such as “god” talking to us through rock. And the latter is even funnier, cause, while there’s zero implication on who’s exactly talking to us within the game, if it’s anyone, it most likely is Itoi (Mother series creator) himself. Bear with us, go to the “Beverage Narrator” section right here. So out of all living beings, it's more likely to be Itoi than a made up "god" entity.

For its benefit some stuff can be possibly counted as fate stuff, like, for instance Chosen 4 pulling out a W despite having a 1% chance of winning or basically said statements about how the fate of the universe is in fact sort of on Ness' hands. But, again most of it can be just argued as RPG stuff or luck or just cinematic things like, Avengers Endgame Tony killing Thanos when chances to win were even beyond lower than Ness' against Giygas. In the end, none of Fate stuff stands out to work for Ness and save from death. Speaking of that one.


“Deaths” in Earthbound

The other topic worth bringing in, is the question if deaths that happen in Earthbound are real. You know, that moment when your characters “die” and become ghosts.


“Would this mean, Ness’ healing powers and items can be used to bring up from death?” or “Would this also mean that Ness can revive himself as a ghost?” and etc. To answer all of those kinds of questions we must answer ourselves if this actually means that Ness and co are dying. Answer to which is:

 No, for several reasons. Let’s look at each of them.


  1. Those aren’t actually ghosts/souls

Probably the biggest argument for death actually happening is the fact that we see them as “ghosts”. However most likely this would just indicate the character being unconscious/unable to fight. Especially considering Earthbound’s ending. Robot bodies are unable to recover and after that moment we see Ness’ and co’s actual souls being in the form of a light ball. 

  1. Characters dying in Earthbound

There are at least 2 instances where a character actually died in the world of Earthbound. First being Buzz Buzz, who could’ve been a useful friend to resurrect and get help from in journey against Giygas, but who was not resurrected. Sure, sure his death happens in the first minutes of the game at the time where Ness doesn’t even learn his first PSI move. But this continues later on in Magicant itself where Ness couldn’t resurrect Flying Men, who also are actually dying and all of which have actual graves indicating the deaths.

  1. Mother 3

In Mother 3 where you get similar sorts of damages as in Earthbound, characters do not have any ghost related forms. Not surprising considering that Mother 3 is also one out of 3 games where deaths of people actually occur and characters couldn’t just bring them back to life.

  1. Hospitals

Another notable example is that you can always recover by paying a fee in a hospital. First, relax and listen to this. Now, back to the point, assuming Ness and others are actually dying implies that hospitals somehow learned the necromancy (ignoring zombies for a moment) and can keep the population of earth from dying (and that’s all can be done for only 200 DOLLARS!). This, as you can see, doesn't make sense by all accounts. Of course you could say that “hotels don’t recover characters from the unconscious state.”, to which the answer is to look at this from a more realistic perspective. Think about it, if you’ll break your hand, have a wound from knife, have your leg cut off somehow, have a fifth degree burn and other sort of stuff where you imagine yourself getting injured, would you go to the hotel in hope that the damage will recover by sleeping or would you go to the hospital where a doctor with education and hopefully with fair prices can fix the damage?   

  1. Several statements of unconsciousness. 

At last but not least, there are several instances where you’ll have a statement for a person being knocked out rather than die. For instance, again, in the Hospital itself, or in the game over screen (translation), another game over screen, and even english version one (Note: “Having your head handed to you” is an idiom for being badly beaten up). All of them are directly saying that characters are being unconscious and not dead.


In conclusion, death is something that Ness can't escape from, and the supposed argument for doing so isn't true and gives a lot of holes in the story and lore of the series.

Omnipresent and Omniscient Ness/”One with the Universe”

Both arguments come from the Magicant, a place where we either are inside of Ness' mind or World of Ness' mind was built, it's really up to interpretation of variety of guidebooks that say different statements (cause in Mother 1 it says it's a "mirage" and English guidebook says it's a "world inside head" but then japanese Mother 2 guidebook says "thoughts materialized", see more details below). Point being, since statements come from Ness' magicant you might as well could argue it's all Ness talking with himself (cause that's all is Ness' creation whether it be "fake" or real). But putting that aside.


In theory "becoming one with the universe" and "gaining ultimate consciousness" are overall kind of sketchy statements for being everywhere and knowing everything. At best you can argue here that after absorbing Magicant or Power of Earth (somewhat dependent on context) made Ness at some point smarter but unknown to what extent or point while with one with the universe statement at best applies only to Ness' consciousness. In other words Ness still can be naturally killed and he won’t be able to do anything about it afterwards, even if take that sort of "omnipresence" into account.


In the Japanese text, it is indeed stated that every part of Ness will eventually become one with every part of the universe. However, right before that text, what is being said is that Ness and the universe’s destinies are intertwined, since Ness is saving the universe from Giygas. In the same scene, it’s also outright said that Ness’s destiny will become one with the universe’s destiny, and it’s said in a way that makes it seem like they know they already mentioned it in the same conversation.


The English localization also seems to lean towards this logic, as near the end of the conversation, in the same part as when it’s said that Ness and the universe’s destinies will become in the Japanese translation, it’s said that the destiny of Ness and the destiny of the universe will overlap, which coincides with what is said earlier about Ness overlapping with the universe earlier in the conversation. Lastly, Ness’s mind and psychic powers are always associated with being the part of him that becomes one with the universe or overlapping it, though, at least in this conversation, they don’t specify it as being just related to his psychic powers, as they say that all of Ness will. Ness’s psychic powers are said to expand after absorbing the eight power spots, but this doesn’t indicate that it spreads across the universe and seems to just mean that his psychic power has grown to be more powerful.


Another argument is that when Ness went through the Sea of Eden, he was filled with Ultimate Intelligence and therefore should have access to all PSI abilities in the Mother series. However PSI doesn’t seem to be at least solely intelligence based, if that was true, then Jeff (naturally the smartest in the chosen 4) could’ve learned said powers, yet he didn’t. As well as then there wouldn’t be a purpose for Poo getting a new version of PK Starstorm (and getting PK Starstorm at all which required Poo time and effort) if Ness already knew about them. In addition, guidebooks directly show Ness can't use other moves, especially the English Guidebook which separates powers by character and it's not a limiting "game mechanic". After absorbing Magicant, Ness still cant use other moves. There are no story implications of Ness learning every single PSI move.

Magicant

One of the most famous feats for Ness is when he gained a massive power increase after he "gains the power" of the eight melodies, before saying that he had absorbed the power of the land, causing Magicant to cease to exist. How attributable is this as a power feat?


Well to begin with, we know that Magicant is a mental realm that only exists in Ness's mind. However, despite that, it has very real tangible effects. While Ness can be harmed in his own Magicant, there is also the fact that absorbing it at all caused an increase to his physicality in the first place, meaning that it has tangible energy within it. Magicant is an entirely separate dimension filled with stars and planets, and in the Mother encyclopedia, another Magicant was referred to as having an "immeasurable area"

To add to this, gaining the power of Magicant was supposed to grant Ness the power to face Giygas, who is capable of destroying universes. Absorbing the power of the Eight Melodies was meant to show Ness absorbing the memories he gained from the landmarks, each of which expanded his psychic abilities and representing Ness's own memories, which comprise his Magicant. Once Ness absorbed all of it into his own power, Magicant as a dimension was no longer able to exist. In general, absorbing Magicant into himself should represent some level of cosmic scale in power.


To add on, Magicant is a whole realm which is separated from the main universe (as shown from Mother 1 where Magicant is a whole place where you need a portal to access it, is described as a place of immeasurable area with Breadcrumps being unable to bring back there, which is compared to the "real world" in the Mother 1 Encyclopedia and you can buy real items in both games, meaning it is an actual place.

Universal Giygas

Giygas has been stated on multiple occasions to be able to destroy the universe. Arguments against this are that Giygas forms and uses an army he otherwise wouldn’t need and tries to defeat Ness and his friends by attacking in the past instead of just destroying all in the universe on his own. 


This does not take into account Porky Minch actively tried to change fate by assisting Giygas, and ended up turning off the Devil’s Machine. Turning off the machine resulted in Giygas’ power spiraling out of control becoming essentially a dimension of pure evil. Porky's attempt to prevent the latter's prophesied defeat against Ness and his friends made Giygas strong enough to effortlessly overpower them, giving to him the 99% of chances to win. Porky confirms Giygas can indeed destroy the universe, which lines up with his statements of being a universal destroyer.


Edit: Future Giygas  only wanted to conquer the universe, and Buzz Buzz only said that he has set the existence to hell, not that it destroyed it despite describing it as an "universal cosmic destroyer". Plus, from how Starman Jr. talks, Giygas seems more to have just conquered the universe and not destroyed it. In Magicant, Ness is told this:



However the resulting dialogue implies this is overtime. End of Game Giygas is indeed going to destroy the universe, but it could also be seen as an overtime thing. Regardless, Unsealed Giygas would still be Multi Galaxy at bare minimum. Giygas also formed into its own dimension.


Manga and Novel Feats

While several of the events of the Manga and Novels are different from the games, they still follow all the game acts in linear order and follow the blueprints of the story from Itoi given to the authors. Both are simply adaptations of the game, and as such are usable for feats. The Manga is specifically stated to take place after the events of Mother 1.


This section will give context for the more prolific feats from either medium:


Manga

In the Manga, it is revealed that Giygas in the past crashed into the Earth via a “shooting star”, and the resulting shockwave bled out into the Time Axis/Fourth Dimension as a vibration. This vibration spread out across several parallel worlds across the Time Axis, and connected them all via wormhole. Jeff believes only Giygas could have pulled this off and claims that it has put the Time Axis in chaos. Later on, the Manga shows us that Giygas controls the Time Axis, and can send anything through time as a result, or to other worlds. 


This feat in particular has different interpretations so therefore will be addressed in the verdicts


As for the destruction of the Giygas’ dimension, we are told the dimension is located in between dimensions and is an alternative dimension itself (similar to the other universes Ness and co had been traveling across the Time Axis). Ness and his friends are empowered by the Power of the Earth and destroy the dimension, which is later confirmed. There is also the fact that it's consistent with game Giygas being his own dimension.

This also doubles as a speed feat for Ness. Ness reacts to the quick collapse of Giygas’ dimension.



The black line is Ness, the pink circle is the initial suction, the black dot is the epicenter, and the green circle is the suction after it has already hit Ness. As Ness was practically already at the epicenter, that means there is a very short timeframe for him to react to the suction moving at that distance, as he reacted after he was caught in it, but not before it finished. Because of this, his reaction speed must be comparable to that of the suction itself. We know the universe was moving super fast, therefore the timeframe would be the time it takes for the universe moving at this speed to travel the distance from Ness to the epicenter. It would be less actually, since Ness reacted long before it finished.


Assuming about 10 seconds (it collapses extremely fast)

Radius of the universe is 46.5 billion lightyears

10 seconds would be 146.642 quadrillion c 

4.39621656260359985e+25 m/s

Since they were at the location of the collapse, the collapse traveled very little distance after they were caught in it. Let's assume about a meter

2.2746832e-26 seconds

They react to it, assume about a meter for their reactions

4.39621656260359985e+25 m/s

146.642 quadrillion c


The Power of the Earth also flies from Earth to Giygas’ dimension in an instant. It is highly unlikely the energy dimensionally traveled/teleported there, as Giygas had his dimension locked off from access. Ness and Co were only able to enter it after using several “back doors” called warp spheres and traveling through time using a machine/Giygas’ own rift.


Novel

A few cosmic feats occur in the Mother 2 Novel. Poo is able to view the universe and all its organisms from their inception to their end. More impressively, Ness destroys the sun in a simulation created by the Mani Mani statue. The statue merely shows the person’s true potential, indicating this is what a post-Magicant/Melodies Ness could accomplish with his power.


There is also one more “feat” worth mentioning. When Ness kills/defeats Giyas in the novel as it emerges from Porky, a chain reaction occurs. The location Ness and co were in is called the Rift of Time, a temporal rift beyond three dimensional space where all universes and possibilities form and return to. Giygas found this location and modified it to be its base over a thousand years ago. Giygas’ defeat causes the Rift to close for another thousand years, and merges Ness’ home universe with a “what if” universe, creating a universe where everyone gets a perfect ending. There is really nothing proving it as like anything that would be equitable to AP.


It's most likely just a chain reaction because of Giygas’ modifications to it. Likewise there are no statements that Giygas was sustaining the Rift. It still exists after its defeat, just closed off from the rest of reality.


Access to Chara/Scaling

As seen before we are giving Frisk access to Chara. The reason being is we are using Frisk during a SOUL-less run which is a Frisk that does every route in the game. At the end of Genocide route Chara takes control of Frisk’s body. With the ending of a SOUL-less Pacifist, it is shown Chara can take control of Frisk’s body at any time, hence why Chara is listed in this blog. 


Some believe it is unfair to give Chara to Frisk, as Chara is an entirely separate entity that simply possesses Frisk to serve their own purposes. Others also complain that this is unfair because it grants Frisk a major boost in power that is not their own, capable of increasing their attack potency to universal levels.


As for the first complaint, it is completely fair to grant Chara to Frisk because the two are inseparable, always occupying the same body. Frisk’s power was necessary to awaken Chara from death.  Chara has never shown any capability nor desire to leave Frisk’s body.  Chara is standard for Frisk in the same way Zarathos is standard for Ghost Rider. It would not make sense to separate Chara from Frisk. To the second complaint, it is more complicated to discuss but there are many reasons why, even had we not allowed Chara to take control, Frisk would scale to their power regardless.  


So in the final conversation with Chara, they go on a monologue about all of their power is not their own. It is "yours."  Now this is debated about if this specifically means the Player themselves or Frisk. Either way Chara established that all of the power they have was only possible by attaching themselves to Frisk. This makes sense from a lore perspective because Chara is literally a ghost at this point without even a SOUL. They have no power. So the power must come from either Frisk or the Player themselves. Frisk is also being given the Player as support.


How many people say that the power comes from the Player and not Frisk, thus Frisk does not scale to it and Chara only obtains the power by wrestling control back from the Player. This is a strange argument because it relies heavily on detaching the feat done with Frisk's body from Frisk. It also disconnects Frisk from the power sources that Chara lists off in the monologues, some of those being DETERMINATION and human SOUL. Saying these belong to the Player but not Frisk seems strange given the rest of the game (especially the SOUL part).


Fortunately, regardless of if the Chara feat is Frisk's power or the Player's power, it SHOULD logically be given to Frisk's AP. The Player always acts THROUGH Frisk and arbitrarily deciding where to draw the scaling line is unfair. In fact, if we say that Frisk does not have the Player's power, you could go as far to say that all of the DETERMINATION powers are from the player and Frisk is just a normal kid. If we say that this deleting the game power came exclusively from the player, the logical extreme would be that ALL of Frisk's power comes from being an avatar for the Player and at that point, you are just left with a random child whose does not scale to any of their own feats, which clearly neither side wants. So even if this AP feat is exclusively the players, it is logical to apply it through Frisk.

Light Speed Undertale

This is a relatively small point but still worth addressing as there have been claims of potential light speed feats in the game (this is ignoring Hyper Goner as that is a separate thing entirely). Main points being Sans gaster blasters, the laser traps in Hotland and the Core, and the Photoshop Flowey laser. All of these share a common issue not reaching the qualifications to be light speed other than vaguely resembling a laser, but the massive issue is that these attacks come out in one frame which makes it impossible to prove in tandem movement. That last point extends to a lot of attacks in the game that could’ve net good results like Asriel’s lightning attacks. 


The most popular lightspeed argument however comes from Napstablook of all characters. It comes from when Asriel absorbed all the SOULs in the underground and Napstablook was unaffected as he’s a ghost that doesn’t have a SOUL, being more like a spirit. He saw a bright light outside his window when that absorption happened. He heard a knock on the door that the light wanted to come in but he simply closed the blinds instead. This is argued at light speed by noticing a light from outside his window and closing it. This is very strange because noticing a light outside your window isn’t really light speed reactions, that’s more akin to seeing light come out your window in the morning and just closing the blinds to avoid the bright light. Also light knocking on a door very clearly breaks the qualifications of it being typical light so this can’t be provable to move at light speed. 


Town Level Undertale?

In Photoshop  Flowey’s boss fight, he spawns bombs to drop on Frisk. According to the official Artbook, these are actually Fat Man Nukes. The Fat Man bomb was used as a base for these bombs:



One thing to address is if these bombs are “small”. The size of Photoshop Flowey has never been stated but has been calced to be about 11 meters tall. The length of the Fat Man in comparison is about 3 meters, which lines up with the bombs being smaller than Flowey, but still comparable to a good section of his body. Thus lines up with it being stated in the artbook that Photoshop Flowey’s assets were downscaled in gameplay due to constraints, and that Flowey’s vines are “giant”. Frisk can survive direct exposure to these bombs (which Flowey’s will drop in waves), with the yield of each being roughly 21 Kilotons of TNT.

 Undertale Timelines

Timelines

A major focus of Undertale is the ability of Frisk and other characters to manipulate the timeline through DETERMINATION. This is most commonly demonstrated through the use of SAVE files which allow their users to SAVE the timeline in its current state and LOAD it back to that state whenever they want. They are also able to “reset” which reverts the timeline back to the moment they gained control over it. This grants these characters incredible influence over the timeline that they inhabit. This timeline is not just limited to the Underground, but encompasses the entire universe of Undertale, as evidenced by how resetting the timeline is able to affect characters throughout the entire planet. However, this timeline is not the only one that the game holds. Although we are only able to experience one timeline at once, there is a lot of evidence for the existence of other timelines within the game. Note: For this section, “game” is being used to refer to the overarching in-canon structure that holds all of the timelines, mechanics, and other important features that exist within Undertale. This will be further elaborated on later.

In his boss battle, Sans states “Our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum.  Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting… until suddenly, everything ends.” Sans using the word “timelines” clearly suggests more than just one timeline existing. Sans’ next line “That’s your fault isn’t it,” is confirmation that these timelines are created and later ended by the player's usage of the SAVE, LOAD, and reset abilities.


So if there are multiple timelines coexisting in the game at once, how many are there? Well it is impossible to know exactly how many exist at any given point in a playthrough, but we can get an estimate of how many timelines the game as a structure can hold. In the Photoshop Flowey boss battle, Flowey will occasionally SAVE and LOAD files to disorient or trap the player.  Helpfully, these files are numbered. The highest numbered SAVE file we see is file six.  While we do not see all of Flowey’s files, we do see that his files can contain diverging events that others do not contain. For example, files 2 and 6 both contain data of events that happen after the events of file 3 and assumedly still contain that data even after file 3 is loaded. With this in mind, it is possible for the data of at least 6 different timelines to all be contained within the game at once. 


So we know that at least 6 SAVE files can be contained within the game at once, which is a safe low end. But it is possible to get a higher, albeit less certain, number for the amount of timelines the game can hold through “fun values". A fun value is a randomly generated integer between 1 and 100 that is assigned to any given playthrough of Undertale upon beginning it. These values decide whether or not it is possible to encounter certain special events during that run.  The total list of fun values and their corresponding events can be found on this chart. 


Fun values are not linked to SAVE files, instead only changing upon a RESET of the game. Despite this, the fun values are still compelling evidence to the existence of multiple parallel timelines existing in the game. For example, when encountering “Goner Kid” in fun values 91 through 100, he gives an existential speech about the idea of another world where everything is exactly the same, except he does not exist. This likely refers to all other fun values, where he does not exist with the rest of the game still functioning properly. His seeming awareness of the other fun values lends credence to them existing simultaneous to the current timeline.


But the biggest piece of evidence is the “Gaster Followers”, unique individuals that can each only spawn in their own specific fun value and even then only some of the time. When spoken to these followers will give information about the enigmatic W. D. Gaster including the specifics about his disappearance, which gives us some extra information about the timespace continuum in Undertale. It is said that Gaster “fell into his creation” and “was shattered across time and space.” Due to disappearing in such a way, Gaster is able to at least partially interact with events in several different fun values. In fun value 63, one follower mentions that Gaster is listening in on the conversation. In fun value 61, another follower claims to be holding a piece of Gaster. In yet another fun value, 65, a sound test room can be found which plays unused music clips, one of which is titled “Gaster’s Theme.” Finally, in fun value 66, there is a ten percent chance of encountering the mysterious man. While little is known about this man, his connection to Gaster is very clear given that he shares the same black and white color palette as the followers and because his appearance is in the same range of fun values (between 60-70) as the other Gaster related events. Many people believe this man to actually be Gaster himself, but that has yet to be confirmed.


Gaster’s influence across all of these different fun values, which are all mutually exclusive, seems to indicate that all of them exist in the larger spacetime continuum that the game holds. It is also important to note that after talking to them, the Gaster Followers disappear by setting the game’s fun value to the normally impossible value of 0, further suggesting that the fun values are an important aspect of their presence. Even Goner Kid likely has a connection to Gaster given his color palette resembling that of the followers.  All of this evidence creates a strong, albeit unprovable, case that the various fun values all correspond to parallel timelines that exist in the game.  There are a total of 12 distinct fun value outcomes, not counting fun values that result in the same outcome and counting no special events as an outcome, which could thus relate to 12 different timelines.

In summary, the spacetime continuum of the game can contain multiple distinct and separate timelines simultaneously.  While the exact number of timelines existing at any time are unknown, it can be determined that the game can hold a minimum of 6 timelines and a possible high end of 12 timelines. This is significant because these timelines would be a part of any game destroying feats, such as Chara’s erasure attack.


There’s another potential argument to bring the amount of timelines a lot higher, up to potentially 93, by adding up the total quantity of potential endings you can get within the game itself, every variation of every route that produces either a unique ending, a unique phone call discussion about the fate of the Underground, every post ending cutscene, etc. This is essentially the maximum total number of timelines we can assign to Undertale’s cosmology without getting into more theoretical highs, which we don’t really want to do for this blog. This means it could be argued that any Game Structure destruction feat could scale to potentially 93 different timelines. Due to contentions about if all of these timelines could actually exist within the game structure at once, this isn’t an argument we’re leaning too heavily on, in fact, most people on the blog don’t even buy it, however, due to there being solid enough arguments in favor of it, we wanted to at the very least bring mention to it.


“The World”

The meaning of the “world” in Undertale depends on context. At certain points, specifically during Chara's scenes, "world" is used in a more meta-sense to refer to the entire game.  Evil Chara very much represented the desire to get everything out of a game before just tossing it aside and moving on with lines like "Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next."  This is supported by how, originally, Toby Fox intended for the entire game to be deleted after a genocide run. Even though this is not what the final product ended up being, that is most likely just for the consumer’s benefit and the idea of Chara destroying the world likely still means the entire game based on the context and what we see post genocide.


During the fight with Asriel we are told “The whole world is ending”. Now it is unclear if "world" is being used in the same context here, given that we are talking about Asriel rather than Chara. However, there is definitely the argument to be made that "world" still means something very similar. In the Genocide route, Flowey, who is Asriel, has a long meta monologue about constantly reversing time and learning every possible outcome of events. This conversation very clearly is meant to represent replaying Undertale over-and-over to see all of its contents. 


During this conversation Flowey can even break the fourth-wall to refer to people watching playthroughs of the game. This very meta conversation includes Flowey still using the term
“World” when talking about the game itself. In a pacifist run, immediately prior to the Asriel boss fight, Flowey also says “Don’t you get it? This is all just a GAME.” Photoshop Flowey closes the Undertale program on the player when he first forms and routinely breaks many of the game's mechanics during the ensuing conversation and battle. Asriel (who at this point is just Photoshop Flowey with an extra SOUL) should be capable of doing the same. There are many other times where Flowey uses “world” in a meta context, even going so far as to call refusing to continue playing to be giving up on this world. So Flowey/Asriel are fully aware of the game’s nature and repeatedly use the term “world” when talking or acting in a meta-textual way.


There are definitely alternative interpretations to the meaning of “world” such as the planet and the underground but they don't make sense. At this point, Asriel has already absorbed every single SOUL in the underground (except Napstablook but Frisk does not know this yet) so this apocalypse referring to the underground would be redundant. "The whole world is ending " line comes after the Hyper Goner attack as well which appears to cause massive collateral damage.  This also likely is not referring to all life on the planet either as Photoshop Flowey was able to do that easily so it does not make sense for Asriel to be doing it so slowly. 


Additionally, this line is said when you can no longer move and the game mechanics start breaking down lending more credence to it referring to the game itself. Based on the context of the battle and all of Asriel’s previous dialogue as Flowey, the most logical interpretation of his use of "world" would be the same way Chara uses it, referring to the entire game structure.  Since Flowey explains that this plan was to “become all powerful” and “destroy everything in this wretched world”, it can be reasonably concluded that Asriel was bringing about the destruction of the entire game.

Chara’s Feat

This was mostly covered above but to establish that this was not merely life wiping, should the player repeat genocide Chara mentions the player continues to recreate and destroy the world. Chara further says “Should you choose to Create this world once more..” and they will send this world back into the abyss. The very option that leads to the Game World’s destruction is called “Erase”. Chara recreates the game World when the player gives them their SOUL. Considering Toby Fox intended for the entire game to be deleted after a genocide run, the intent for the feat is clear. Chara is quite literally deleting the entire game, timelines and all.


Some bring up there being “wind” after Chara destroyed the world to say that Chara only wiped all life from the surface of the Earth and nothing more. The issue here is simple, this track (wind) is played multiple times throughout the game including when approaching the Core, after defeating Photoshop Flowey, and in a leaderless ending. The track mainly is just for ambience and is not proof that anything is still intact.


When Chara destroys the World, the game will crash and even messing with the game files will not reverse the damage (files being deleted in real time here). After the game shuts down, if you go to check game files you will find only one small file. When you open it as a notepad it says only one letter "a". Only by giving the Players SOUL to Chara will the Game World be remade. As further support Sans says this during his boss fight:


As such, Chara scales to the full Game World.

Hyper Goner

During Asriel’s boss fight in the True Pacifist Route, he summons a goat head like construct called the Hyper Goner. During this sequence Asriel mentions it is time to purge the timeline, and the construct begins a sort of suction effect until the move ends with a white flash. Frisk can endure the attack with 1 HP left, or outright evade it. Prior to this, Asriel says he simply wants to reset the timeline (which Flowey confirms to be a True Reset), rather than outright destroy the world.


The Japanese Version of the game (of which translation was overseen by Toby Fox in great detail, having learned Japanese himself, to the point he personally approved all dialogue and worked alongside Keiko Fukuichi) mentions that Asriel intends to “completely destroy the timeline”. Likewise the Japanese version mentions prior to this he wants to obtain the power to control space-time and reset everything.


Whether or not the Hyper Goner itself is an AP/Speed feat will be addressed in the separate verdicts below as the implementation of scaling it provides is unclear in its objectivity, and different members have differing opinions on it. What will be addressed here are a few minor 

points blog members all agree upon.


The Hyper Goner not destroying the Barrier is one of the points brought up when discussing it. The Barrier itself is extremely durable, Photoshop Flowey with 6 SOULs cannot destroy it despite being able to crash the game and destroy save files. Only when Asriel had 7 SOULs was he able to break it, and when he actually destroyed the barrier he visibly put effort while doing it. It can only be broken by a power equal to it, which is 7 human SOULs. Likewise, the Barrier would simply let the move travel through it if Asriel pleased, as he had several Human SOULs at the time, which the Barrier cannot block.

Photoshop Flowey Scaling

Flowey after attaining six human SOULs causes the game to crash. After booting the game up it is shown that Flowey has reshaped the Game World into his own, with Undertale being renamed as “Floweytale”. The save file is changed to display “Flowey - My World”. Frisk is shown to be in a pitch black void with a save point. Upon accessing the point (which displays “The end”), Flowey physically rams the Save File and destroys it, rendering Frisk without the ability to Save. Flowey then shows that the Game World has more Save Files, which he uses to save over Frisk’s death(s).


While using the Save Files (2,3,6) is indeed hax, ramming and breaking Frisk’s Save File is AP, as Flowey does it with his own body. Likewise the Game Crash was caused by merely powering up into said form. Frisk (Neutral Route) does not scale to Flowey’s AP, as they need the SOULs within Flowey to survive and beat him. Flowey after being supposedly defeated by the SOULs lowering his defense to zero, reveals he could have one shooted Frisk at any time.


Bonus Fanart

By T0m

By Yves

Tributes

Frisk vs Ness (Undertale vs Earthbound) sprite animation by Origin


TehGM Scores: Unbound Determination (Ness vs Frisk) by Skye T.


Courageous Determination (Ness vs Frisk Tribute) by Hyperstarman


From Pollyanna, Official Crossover art

Script

Huge thanks to Hyperstarman on this blog who had some extra time and wanted to cook up something special, so he wrote together a script for the match up’s potential fight. Feel free to read it before or after verdicts. We hope you enjoy it!

Ness vs Frisk Script

Verdicts

By Viz

Ness

Stats

EarthBound/Mother and Undertale are both games that are very open to interpretation, both in regards to specific mechanics and scaling. Both series have had their fair share of fan theories which have gone on to shape how they are viewed in a Versus sense. Keeping that in mind, it's best to view both games under a critical lens when affirming the feats in either. This blog section will cover the statistics of Ness and Frisk, and will be pulling from the material accepted for both on (Mother Games, the Manga and Novels for Ness, all three Games Routes for Frisk).


For lower ends, Ness by the end of EarthBound has surpassed his teammates in power by a large degree. Ness reasonably upscales above the likes of Poo, who can use PK Starstorm. The kinetic energy of the meteors brought down by the move is 75.5 Megatons of TNT, which is consistent with Paula and Poo freezing a Chomposaurus, a feat calced at 25.6 Kilotons of TNT. Town to City levels of power are not that far fetched for Pre Magicant Ness. Ness and his friends have bested enemies that presented either visually (such as the Volcano sized Kraken) and in lore at this level (like Thunder and Storm, who absorbed a great deal of energy and can make storms). Likewise Ness has shown durability comparable to his strength. Ness survives nuclear explosions from Nuclear Robots, and even the PK Starstorm move.


Towards the end of Ness’ journey, he ends up within a mental domain called Magicant. Magicant is basically one of those “dream-like but still physical” kinds of realities often found in fiction. The realm has within it notable celestial bodies (several stars are also in view). Magicant is at least the size of several solar systems, and possibly as large as a universe. Ness absorbs the power of Magicant, and the realm ceases to be. This “power up” becomes his new base state and is critical in allowing Ness to be able to stand toe to toe with Giygas. Speaking of Giygas, the universal conqueror reaches a level of power that destroys its mind, with Porky commenting it can burn the universe away. 


This lines up with the warning Ness receives in Magicant, which states everything in the Universe could be destroyed by Giygas. Ness is capable of both harming and surviving blows from Giygas (Ness simply lacks the means to actually kill Giygas in its abstract like state). While Ness and his friends ultimately need the help of prayers and the player to defeat Giygas, Ness has enough evidence to at least downscales from the cosmic threat. A last thing of note for this part is that the robot body Ness was inside of at the time should not be any more durable than his actual body is. The robot is powered by his spirit, and was merely needed to survive the effects of time travel on organic material.


Cosmic levels of power are also present in both the novels and manga of EarthBound. Ness in the novels is affected by the Mani Mani statue, which shows the affected person’s true potential. Porky uses this to mentally torture Ness, putting him through a repeating groundhog day of Porky’s suffering as a kid. Eventually Ness accidently releases a burst of power, which bursts the Sun and boils the atmosphere of the simulated Earth. Ness is also comparable to Ana (Ness has better training than her), who in the first novel produced an effect compared to a Supernova/ White Hole.


In the Manga, Ness and his friends become empowered by the Power of The Earth, a supernatural energy force of the planet. This allows them to collapse Giygas’ entire dimension (which in context is a universe, see Before the Verdicts). Ness and his friends also survive the collapse, which sent a tremor even to another universe (Giygas’ dimension was in between dimensions and the tremor reached Earth in another space). Giygas also mentions that Ness was powerful enough to “make him feel his blows”, even without the amplification from the Earth. 


There is one final AP argument that needs mentioning. In the Manga, Giygas creates a massive vibration that affects the entire fourth dimensional time axis, a structure presiding over infinite timelines. After doing this, Giygas was then able to control the time axis itself, and use it to alter the timelines from his home universe. As Ness Defeated Giygas, he would be able to scale to such a level of power. There are a few counter arguments here however, that need to be addressed. 


1: Does Giygas Scale?


The notion that we don't know if Giygas would scale to the feat just because it was done off panel, therefore it is "vague" misses the larger point. Every detail that we do have for the feat is enough to substantiate this multiverse scaling back to Giygas, being able to visually see it is not the sole indicator we have to fall back on. After causing the vibration, Giygas gains the ability to completely control the time axis as a result of it, proving that the vibration and his powers are directly correlated. Moreover, Jeff says in reference to the vibration that, "You'd have to be Giygas to pull that off", which is an obvious reference to his own capabilities. While we don't know if Giygas intended to make the hole or not, that is ultimately not relevant because the motivation for an action doesn't change what Giygas is actually doing. Even if you completely ignored this, Giygas surviving the impact that created the shockwave is a direct durability feat for him. No matter how you spin it, there really is no getting around that Giygas scales back to the vibration. In short, the context that the manga already provides to us is enough to show that Giygas does indeed scale back to a shockwave that affected an infinite time axis.


2: Is the feat only one dimensional?


This is an incredibly strange argument that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the 4th dimension, especially within the context of the Mother 2 manga, works. Higher hierarchies of dimensions within this context necessarily do supersede lower ones and contain those same dimensions - if you move from left to right, that "movement" is what we would call fourth dimensional, which is composed from the base three dimensions as well as the fourth. A tesseract, for instance, also relies on three dimensional geometry to exist. Within quantum mechanics, even though the fourth dimension is temporal, it does comprise from a succession of previous numbered dimensions that necessarily overlap each other.


Even within the context of the Mother 2 manga, this argument makes no sense. We see the time axis very directly contain three dimensional geometry, and three dimensional characters are able to move through it. In addition, this shockwave also physically affected other three dimensional universes and timelines, resulting in them converging, as well as the fact that the vibration came from a three dimensional impact. This proves its effect on a total fourth dimensional geometry.


3. Can't higher dimensions travel through lower ones?


Yes, and?


Higher dimensional objects can pass through lower dimensional planes because they are constructed from them. A man is not only three dimensional and composed of depth, they also have length and width. In the same fashion, the fourth dimension in Mother 2 can pass through three dimensions because the time axis encompasses the spatial dimensions as a mode of movement. The movement of a cup from left to right must follow dimensions moving in three dimensions, not just the fourth. The purpose of showing that the time axis physically exhibits three spatial dimensions is to make a point about what "affecting the fourth dimension" entails. 


4. Do we know that it converged infinite timelines?


Not relevant. The feat is not from merging infinite timelines, but rather from affecting a structure that encompasses infinite timelines. As the fourth dimensional axis in the context of the vibration was causing alternate timelines to link together, we know that they are referring to the time axis/fourth dimension as an interdimensional structure. 


Namely, Jeff says that "the hole is throwing the time axis itself into chaos", and later Ness says that Giygas is controlling the time axis. Affecting "the time axis itself" means exactly that - affecting the time axis itself. This implies a level of totality, and the next statement further supports this, as "controlling a structure" implies exactly what it says it does. If a state governor were to say, for instance, that they governed over the nation because they governed over a state, which was part of the nation, they'd be making an incorrect statement. 


5. Why should Jeff know this to begin with?


Because Jeff is effectively a genius that the story uses to give us exposition on what is occurring and how Giygas is affecting the world. Arguments that revolve around questioning the validity of what the story itself is telling us with no suggestion to the contrary from the narrative are somewhat disingenuous, since it relies on attacking the story rather than the argument derived from it. Furthermore, Ness and his friends are given information regarding Giygas by Buzz-Buzz and notes left behind by Ninten and his friends from Mother 1.


6. The Power of Earth is only a temporary amp in power 


Technically, there is nothing in the manga that actually says this. Ness and co simply call on the power to defeat Giygas, and have no need for it after the fact. There is no reason he couldn't use it for longer if they needed to, as he should be able to call on it whenever, and the energy was literally just that of Earth, which obviously still existed after. The power of Earth is actually a parallel to how Ness absorbed the power of Magicant, which was called the power of Earth, a permanent boost in power. In addition to this, he survived the collapse of the universe, a direct result of the energy's power. As the energy was being dispersed among four people at the time, even assuming this is true, Ness would logically be able to keep it for longer than he did in the manga, however a simple temporary boost in power is really all he needs in this fight, as I'll explain after. In addition, Ness was powerful enough for Giygas to comment that he was able to harm him, even without the power of Earth.


As for Frisk, at lower levels of DETERMINATION, they are shown to be able to harm Knight Knight who can bring down meteors (51 Tons of TNT), and can survive Fat Man nuclear bombs from Photoshop Flowey.


On the higher end, Chara destroying the timeline is fairly clear cut as a universal feat, even disregarding other arguments for Omega Flowey and Asriel. Most arguments to get them higher such as fun value or Omega Flowey's save states rely on unproven assumptions about how the game world works as a physical space as opposed to just a meta framework for the timeline that you follow, however it's hardly relevant for this fight. 


But just to discuss them anyways, while there are multiple timelines, the arguments around things like Sans's statement or the fun value rely on assuming that the "game" encompasses the entire multiverse, which is not substantiated by any evidence. The game only follows the timeline in use by your save state, nothing else. The argument from Omega Flowey's save states is more conservative, but it still assumes that the game is a physical framework of space that is large enough to contain universes, rather than a meta mode to access and generate these save files. Taking the latter as true, you would not be able to attribute them to their AP, as Chara's feat was done while there was only one save file, meaning you can't really apply Omega Flowey's six save files to any argument of potency.


Speed is another important area in this fight, and we will have to begin with Frisk. You'll see why.


Frisk's best speed feats come from avoiding certain magical attacks in game, such as electricity based ones and the meteors from Knight Knight moving at ablation speed, which reach up to Mach 8. Frisk can double their speed with Sea Tea to get up to Mach 16 as well. The biggest elephant in the room here is the Hypergoner move from Asriel, which is being argued as a speed feat for Frisk avoiding objects that are being pulled in, including the entire timeline. I think that this argument comes from a major misunderstanding of what is happening, that can be fairly easily cleared up.


This argument comes from when Asriel says that "It's time to purge this timeline once and for all", before doing the attack, thus the attack must have consumed the timeline. What this argument neglects is that before he says this, Asriel says what his intentions are - he wants to defeat Frisk, which would grant him complete control over the timeline, after which he'd erase it and start a new one, then continue the process over and over.

This Is in reference to the true reset, an action that Flowey says would erase everything:

In context, what Asriel was actually saying was that he thought the Hypergoner would have been what defeated Frisk, thus allowing him to "purge" the timeline by activating a true reset. He even expresses surprise over the fact that Frisk survived the attack.

There Is no actual proof that Asriel literally destroyed the entire timeline in his Hypergoner attack. As this is a positive argument, you'd need actual proof this was the case, of which there is none.


In addition, why is the timeline still there after the fight? Asriel says that he is going to return all of the SOULs, but he never says anything about reconstructing the entire universe, something that is probably worth a cursory mention. We know that he couldn't have reset the timeline either, because not only did he give up his power that allowed him to use the saves, but doing so would have reset time to before the barrier was destroyed. There are still some other things worth mentioning here, so let's address them.


  1. There is a black void

This really does not need explaining, but the background being black does not prove that the entire universe has been destroyed. It is an aesthetic choice for what is supposed to be a touching and important moment in the game. Taking the background literally in this instance doesn't make sense to begin with, because the location of their fight was at the barrier, which we know for a fact wasn't destroyed until halfway in their conversation. If the background was meant to be literal, shouldn't we be seeing the barrier until Asriel destroys it?


  1. Asriel would need to kill Frisk multiple times to attain the True Reset

For whatever reason, Asriel clearly believed that the Hypergoner would have been enough to defeat Frisk for good, as his dialogue after the attack implies. He could have simply thought that they wouldn't be able to circumvent it, or that the attack was so great that they wouldn't be able to continue. Regardless of the reason, he was clearly surprised by their survival, meaning he did believe that the fight would end with the Hypergoner.


  1. The Japanese translation says that Asriel would have destroyed the timeline

This is somewhat misleading. Here is what the Japanese translation actually says: the specific Japanese word used in the "completely destroyed" line is しょうめつさせる, which means "extinction; extinguishment; disappearance; vanishing; termination; lapse" or "annihilation".

You could reasonably translate it to something like "I'll make this timeline disappear" and it wouldn't lose any meaning. 


In addition, "destroying" the timeline and erasing it is an incredibly arbitrary and semantic difference to begin with. Asriel is effectively saying the same thing: if you erase a timeline, you are destroying it.


With that in mind, Ness has a plethora of feats that eclipse Frisk in speed. Poo's PK Starstorm, the Teleport move, scaling to the Mother 3 cast dodging the K9000, scaling to Poo's own 18 million c feat, or reacting to the universe collapsing in its final moment with Giygas, as well as summoning energy at 500 quadrillion times the speed of light. There are also two other immeasurable speed feats for him that are worth talking about.


The first one is that Ness is able to dodge attacks from Dali's Clock while time is frozen, and he does this thanks to an attribute that is decided solely by his own speed. The guidebook does say that it freezes your attacks… But, that's kind of obvious? Freezing time would, in turn, freeze your attacks, which the Dali Clock does. It doesn't mean that it specifically freezes only your attacks in some bizarre fashion, it just stops time. 


The second one is from Giygas's vibrations force itself traveling across time. Ness managed to land a hit on Giygas, and there is no reason he would have just stood there, since he also says after Ness harms him that he expected nothing less from him. In addition, you can argue the universe collapse feat to be attributed to it, as it is an extension of the power of Earth's own attack.


However, neither of these feats are actually necessary. Even taking them out of the equation, Ness still retains a notable lead in speed, and combined with his greater power, he takes a very healthy advantage over Frisk in stats.


Arsenal & Abilities

Both Frisk and Ness have a wide assortment of abilities and equipment. Here we will look at a comparison of both categories.

Abilities


A solid place to start is PK Flash. The randomized effects include confusion, paralysis, affecting accuracy, and potentially instant death. Smash depicts the instant death as internal detonation, though the validity of this is questionable. The move has four variations, several of which have a high probability of causing crying effects. Frisk has no real resistance to any of these effects, at best being able to counter confusion via Clear Mind, though doing any action while under confusion risks self injury. Crying (which can impede Frisk’’s actions) has an activation probability at 85% for the α variation. Frisk’ only way to purge the other effects (and likewise deal with instant death) is to revive via a SAVE/RESET or via DETERMINATION.


Ness’ Lifeup and Healing abilities can fully heal him from wounds that Frisk causes. Likewise the Player (EarthBound) can awaken Ness should he be knocked out. Shield is extremely useful here, as it reduces Frisk’s damage output and protects Ness. 


Hypnosis is by far one of the most important elements of this fight. Hypnosis puts its targets to sleep for several turns, which Frisk has no counter for. Hypnosis does not always have a 35% chance of working, it can vary. It can be higher on other enemies, and Ness can spam the move considering the speed gap both fighters have. The true advantage the sleep effect gives is the potential to lower Frisk’s DETERMINATION levels. DETERMINATION is very much dependent on the person’s emotion and focus. If Frisk is asleep, then they would not be focused on being determined for the fight, because they are asleep. Should DETERMINATION decrease, Frisk’s stats will lower, as will their resurrection options. The Asriel boss fight proves it is possible for Frisk’s DETERMINATION levels to be affected, as Asriel’s method of winning was killing Frisk repeatedly to do so. 


Teleport grants Ness greater mobility than Frisk and far faster travel speed. Paralysis can hold Frisk in place, which grants Ness even more freedom to use other moves or even time to focus. Frisk (besides speed) most likely won't be hitting ness anyways, as he mastered a ultra instinct like method of combat where his body will move without any thought. 


Another option is attacking Frisk’s SOUL directly with Ness’ ability to interact with ghosts and even the abstract Giygas. This would be most possible upon Frisk’s initial death, when their SOUL tries to restore itself.


While not that game changing, Smash moves grant Ness the option to burn, freeze, and electrocute Frisk. Ness also has greater range with his abilities, as shown with the PSI Burst in the novel. Ness’ abilities can affect the Sun from Earth, a whopping 150 million kilometers.


As for Frisk’s own ACTs, the most useful ones are Undecorate and Steal, which can only remove Ness’ items if Frisk is even fast enough to tag Ness. The Player (Undertale) isn't really that helpful in this fight, Their ability to affect save files is never used in combat (besides RESET) and there is no evidence they would use a True Reset in a fight (this would also be harmful to Frisk via lowering their level/losing equipment).


Chara only adds universal range to the fight, which is countered by the Power of The Earth Ness has access to having the same range. Ness has the perfect counter to Frisk’s most useful abilities.


Arsenal


To keep things short, Ness has more ranged options and has a more varied arsenal. His toothbrush can blind Frisk momentarily and the Rust Promoter can rust Frisk’s Knife. Both have several healing options which counter each other. The Pencil eraser can destroy Frisk’s pencil (which has creation abilities), and Ness has several stat buff charms which further the stat gap. The Mr Satrun hat can block Frisks ranged attacks from the empty gun, and the Dirty Socks will wreck Frisk. All in all, both have a robust amount of equipment, but Ness has the right gear for the job.


Tertiary Factors

So after taking into account the stat difference and abilities, let’s try to look at some other factors. Range is a little tricky, but generally speaking, at least at first, Frisk’s ranged options can compete with Ness’ only through Empty Gun, otherwise Ness can keep tens of meters away from Frisk thanks to slingshot, Yo-yo and well, psychic powers. In the novel, this range extends to as far as the sun, hundreds of millions of kilometers away, and in the manga his AoE can encompass an entire universe, whom only Chara can contend with, and the Mr. Saturn Hat will help nullify ranged options from the empty gun.


Experience wise, Ness probably should be superior. He basically went through a lot more than Frisk, his adventure was longer and the variety of enemies Ness fought is far larger, to the point that a lot of weapons and techniques Frisk can bring to the fight, Ness already probably experienced. In addition to this, in the novel Ness became a "master at combat", attaining effectively an ultra instinct mode in the process, giving him a very wide skill advantage over Frisk.


Intelligence wise, while Frisk does seem to have shown their own improvisation skills and often managed to find a way to go around with monsters in Underground, Ness is still pretty talented himself. Being able to learn PSI moves in a somewhat quick time as well as impressing Poo, who previously was going through his own training and trials, definitely puts Ness on par if not better than Frisk, at least in terms of fighting.   


As for range, Frisk only displays Universal AOE via Chara. Even at peak levels of DETERMINATION, Frisk’s range is limited. Ness has a variation of Universal AOE with the Power of The Earth, which collapsed an entire universe and sent tremors to another dimension.


The Player in EarthBound is capable of restoring Ness if he’s knocked out or tired from fighting. Stamina, in a way, should notably be on Ness’ side. Frisk can survive some good amount of attacks but Ness’ Earthbound fighting system makes it so even after Ness takes some strong damage enough to put him unconscious, he can keep fighting and healing himself afterwards despite that, especially with Guts stats which can prevent falling unconscious in a battle. As well as if we’ll take Underwater Breathing as not a game mechanic but as Ness being capable of holding breath for a very long time, this would mean he can overall be quite more active than Frisk physically speaking.   


All in all, Ness’ physical stamina, generally better range and more varied experience makes him take a decent edge in tertiary factors.


Conclusion

"Giygas' goal is to destroy you. Listen carefully! Everything in the universe could be destroyed at the hands of Giygas. But he and his followers are also in trouble. The Apple of Enlightenment has foretold that Giygas' attempt will fail. It is because of the existence of a boy named Ness. ...That's me! Listen. Free your mind and KNOW what you must do! Your destiny has already been decided."


Advantages:

  • Far stronger and faster

  • Far more abilities suited to direct combat

  • Far more versatile set of items

  • Many of his abilities will make it difficult for Frisk to telegraph around, even with resets

  • Greater stat altering options

  • If they were to fall off a cliff and underneath them on the ground were two pencil shaped statues, he is more prepared…

  • Got in Smash Bros

  • Chuggaaconroy


Disadvantages:

  • Frisk's resets are difficult to circumvent 

  • Doesn't have as replenishable or great healing options

  • Chara’s AOE, though mitigated by Power of The Earth

  • The first novel's "implications"

  • Ebay

  • Needs a seizure warning

  • His game may have had one of the most nonsensical marketing campaigns in Nintendo history


With that, the winner may seem confusing at first, but when you lay out each argument and aspect of the debate, it does become fairly clear who wins.


Ness is significantly stronger and faster than Frisk, which means he'd be able to attack and kill Frisk/Chara continuously before they'd even get the chance to retaliate. Ness also possesses the means to bypass Frisk's resurrection shown in the Asriel fight, either by forcing them to sleep, or just completely destroying their SOUL. Frisk has not shown to be able to regenerate their SOUL beyond being split apart, and the fact that they do this before it "shatters", when the game over text appears, implies that they cannot do this if it were sufficiently fractured either. Frisk can die to large beams and resurrect, but "large beams" do not need to vaporize someone in order to kill them. On top of that, Ness has various additional advantages and options that Frisk lacks in direct combat, meaning he'd stay ahead in a fight.


All of this guarantees that Ness will kill Frisk at least once in the fight, but Frisk still has their basic save/resets that Ness would have to work around. How does Ness get around that? Well first, it is important to preface that his advantages in stats are uncircumventable, meaning that Frisk lacks the ability to retaliate at all due to far slower speed, and also lacks the ability to survive any attack from Ness with Power of the Earth, or harm him in this state. Frisk will be dying over and over, with a mathematically improbable chance to end the fight. You would need to give Frisk the benefit of the doubt on both the vibration feat and the Hypergoner feat, while Ness only needs one to win, meaning he has less leeway.


Aside from stats however, Ness possesses unique abilities and skills that work around the saves. He has AoE and mental abilities that would effectively guarantee a hit, of which Frisk has never had to deal with before. In addition to this, the state of Nothingness grants Ness a far greater level of fighting skill and precision which Frisk has never had to deal with before, making him effectively almost impossible to telegraph around, even after multiple resets. 


Defeating Frisk multiple times will eventually drain their DETERMINATION, leading to them eventually having no choice but to give up, or "lose" the Dave ability. This is what both Sans and Asriel attempted to do, however Ness would actually be able to accomplish this as he is a far more difficult opponent than either of them to deal with. He speedblitzes Frisk to an insurmountable degree, and he has access to a literally infinite source of energy to use for his power. Whenever you talk about additional areas in battle and tertiary advantages and whatnot, more often than not it will end up helping Ness and not Frisk. This isn't even mentioning the possibility of the Earthbound player reviving Ness upon death, giving him more opportunities in the fight.


Overall, while Frisk is certainly a difficult opponent due to just how hard to kill and determined they are, as well as just how frightening Chara's power can be, Ness has the courage to rise above. The winner is Ness.


Frisk

Stats

Attack Potency/Durability: 

For both of these characters, their attack potency needs explanation. Both of their greatest AP feats have additional context that needs to be considered in order to properly understand the feats. Starting with Frisk, we have already gone into detail about why we are providing access to Chara and scaling Frisk’s strength to Chara in Before the Verdicts so please read that section if you have any questions about it. Chara was blatantly capable of destroying the entire game (refer to Chara’s Feat in Before the Verdicts) in a single attack and then recreated the whole game. Granting Chara to Frisk would naturally make this power available to Frisk (given comparable levels of DETERMINATION and what is said in Before the Verdicts) . This power would also naturally be applicable to durability as Chara survived the game’s destruction and appeared to be completely fine. When at peak DETERMINATION, Frisk themself has also survived continued blasts from Asriel who had the power to destroy the entire world/game (refer to “The World” in Before the Verdicts). Given that the game contains the timeline that we experience, Frisk should at bare minimum be able to destroy a single timeline/universe with their power.


But the Undertale universe does not just contain one timeline. No, it contains multiple (refer to Undertale Timelines in Before the Verdicts). From the Photoshop Flowey bossfight, we know that the game can hold a bare minimum of 6 save files at once, with each save file containing the information of an entire timeline. This means that destroying the game would actually mean destroying a spacetime continuum large enough to hold 6 timelines. But we’re not done yet. When taking Fun Values into consideration, this number can go up to 12 timelines. Now while the 12 timelines estimate might not be as easy to confirm, the continued presence of Gaster throughout these fun values, including in encounters that cannot exist in the same fun value, and the knowledge that Gaster was shattered across time and space leads to the logical conclusion that all of these different events must coexist across a larger timespace continuum. There are even pieces of him in separate timelines so they have to be connected within the undertale world. With all of this in mind, Frisk’s power should be able to destroy a spacetime construct that can hold between 6 and 12 timelines, each of which correspond to an entire universe. They would get this AP and Dura scaling as they are level 20 in this interpretation because this comes from Chara after achieving the absolute state when they completed a genocide run and both of them share the same body. 


Now that Frisk’s power has been nailed down, let’s address Ness’. The big question that needs to be answered here is “Does Ness scaling to Giygas creating a shockwave through the fourth dimension mean he has the power to destroy infinite universes?”


Short answer: No.


Long answer: The “4D shockwave” feat has many issues that prevent it from being usable. The exact context around the feat is incredibly muffled in the manga, due to its very short explanation but from what we do know, the shockwave only is ever-stated to affect the time axis/fourth dimension and nothing else. Some have tried to argue that due to time being “the fourth dimension” it supersedes and encompasses the other 3 spatial dimensions that our universe possesses. This is a complete misunderstanding of how the temporal dimension operates. The time axis is only the 4th dimension numerically and is not greater than the other 3 dimensions. Think of it like your five senses. A man with all 5 is able to perceive his surroundings in a way that a man with only four senses never could. However, that does not mean that the 5th sense that the second man does not possess is therefore superior and encompassing to all the other senses. It is just one of them.  Affecting the time axis and the time axis only is not a 4 dimensional feat, it is a 1-dimensional, time-affecting feat. 


While it is true that the wormholes that were created were able to pass 3 dimensional objects through them, that does not prove that the feat affects 3 dimensional space. Higher dimensional objects can pass through lower dimensional planes. This has been demonstrated many times in both theoretical mathematics and practical science. When a man walks forward his 3 dimensional body is passing through many infinitesimal 2 dimensional planes and even 1 dimensional lines. The wormholes are like this just with a temporal axis instead.  They are really nothing more than simple time travel/timeline manipulation and possess no control over 3 dimensional space.


Finally, there is just no evidence that the shockwave affected the entire 4 dimensional spacetime continuum in the way that the “infinite universal” interpretation would make you believe. We do not see ripples throughout all of reality, or planets shaking, or really anything.  All we see is a few neighboring timelines converge, emphasis on “few.” There is no evidence that all of the infinite timelines are converging. It is never stated, shown, or implied. We just know that there are infinite timelines, not that they were all affected.


We don’t even actually know for sure if this shockwave came solely from Giygas as it came about after Giygas crash landed a shooting star on Earth. While Jeff says that the shockwave must have come from Giygas, this is an assumption made by a character with very little knowledge on the matter and the subject is never broached again. Ness even admits that they don’t know if the shockwave was intended by Giygas, so completely attributing the feat to him is shaky.


So to recap, the shockwave feat is not 4 dimensional as it only affected a one dimensional axis and there is no proof that it affected infinite timelines in any meaningful way that would make this feat infinitely universal.


But for the sake of argument, let’s just pretend for a moment that none of these issues existed and Giygas was blatantly capable of destroying infinite universes. Even then, Ness would not have access to all of this power because of how he scales to the feat. In the Earthbound manga, the origin of the shockwave feat, Ness’ fight with Giygas is fairly short, only lasting about half of one extended chapter. From what we do see though, it is made incredibly clear that Ness needed the Power of the Earth to defeat Giygas. While it is true that Ness causes Giygas pain in his base form, Giygas is hardly taking him seriously at this moment and brushes the attack off on the very next page. Giygas only actually feels threatened when Ness uses the Power of the Earth. Based on Giygas’ reaction and dialogue, it appears that the Power of the Earth FAR surpasses Ness’ own natural power. Therefore, scaling Ness to Giygas’ shockwave in base is not well supported.


The next logical question is “But wouldn’t Ness scale with the Power of the Earth?” Yes, he would… for about a minute. You see the Power of the Earth is VERY brief, lasting only for the duration of a short conversation. It appears that Ness had to use almost all of the power up in order to destroy Giygas and it took the form of a single massive attack. After that, Ness and his friends only keep it for a few more seconds, which allows them to survive the subsequent collapse of Giygas’ dimension which knocked them out. It has been argued that Ness did not have the Power of the Earth when Giygas’ dimension collapsed due to the white energy used to visualize it not being visible around Ness during the collapse. 


However, this is only due to the coloring scheme on that specific page. Ness and his friends still clearly had the power on the page immediately before, which is where the collapse starts, the team still have a clear white distortion around their outline in spite of the otherwise all black coloring, and the same static white energy that is used to demonstrate the Power of the Earth can be seen up to the last panel of the dimension collapsing. It is also worth mentioning that, even with the Power of the Earth still protecting them, the collapse of Giygas’ dimension knocked Ness and his friends unconscious. If Power of the Earth was actually comparable to destroying infinite universes, the collapse of just one likely would not have much effect on Ness and his friends.


With all of that out of the way, Ness’ true best power feats are downscaling from Giygas and absorbing the dimension of Magicant. These feats still have some questionable parts but it is fair to put Ness at baseline universal in his base form. Power of the Earth gives Ness a massive buff to this, but the exact magnitude of this buff is unknown.


Comparing the two directly, it should be clear that Frisk is stronger than Ness. Chara’s game erasure feat is able to destroy 6 universes on the low end, while Ness’ best feats only get him to being able to destroy a single universe. Yes, Power of the Earth could potentially make Ness stronger, but it is unclear if this would be enough to truly eclipse Frisk’s power. Power of the Earth also does not last very long, as previously mentioned, while Frisk can maintain their higher levels of DETERMINATION for much longer periods of time or Chara can just take over.


Speed:

Speed for both is heavily dependent on where you place both but for the sake of our verdict, we do buy the Hyper Goner attack as a speed feat per the reasons listed earlier in before the verdicts. And for extra justification for the feat, we’ll address any common counter arguments against the feat. 


- The background did not change when the attack was made: Well at the start of the fight it's blank, there was no background. There's only one made after which was most likely made by Asriel himself. We even see it as a part of his wings in the hyper death form right after, and the background is back to being blank again for the rest of the fight.


- The lost SOULs surviving the attack: Well they were all inside of Asriel at the time of the attack, they only appear after the attack when you reach out to his SOUL and encounter them. So no they weren't present at the time of the attack.


- Everyone and the underground were fine after the fight: Asriel literally says he returned the SOULs back to where they belong and the meeting with Frisk and Asriel all takes place in a black void of nothing, only to wake up and everything is restored. This is the same type of room Omega Flowey makes for you which is a void as Flowey wipes the save from the game with the barrier still present but not visible. And no it does not take place in the barrier room, the room has the entrance, door to the outside world and the little grass area that was not present when you were speaking with Asriel prior. There was nothing there and no room inside Asgore's place looks like that, so it's likely Asriel restored everything.


- Asriel says he doesn’t care about destroying the world so why would he destroy the timeline: If you read the before the verdict section about Undertale Timelines, you’d know that world and timeline are different things. The world refers to the entire game structure and not timeline.  Especially when he later says how he’ll purge the timeline later on and the flavor text later in the fight saying how the world is ending. 


-  If the barrier was still present, how can the timeline be destroyed when it’s blocking the underground: Asriel had the 6 human SOULs and all of the SOULs of the monsters in the underground so his attacks would go through the barrier (it only takes one monster SOUL and one human SOUL to pass through the barrier). Plus anyone can enter inside the barrier but not leave it, it only blocks those inside the barrier requiring a monster and human SOUL to pass. So anyone outside the barrier would be pulled in which would be natural given how the attack sucks Frisk in like a black hole. 


- The attack only pulls in magical diamonds and not stars or galaxies: In the artbook, it’s mentioned how a ton of assets in the game needed to be downscaled in order to function properly. It’s not that type of game to display high levels of cosmic destruction. 


- Asriel couldn’t reset everyone back because Frisk was in control: If you get to the fight without saving in the game once, it shows that Asriel is the one with the save and not Frisk and even normally Frisk doesn’t have control of their save anymore at that point. What Asriel tried to attain was a true reset as he states he wants to return everything to zero which a true reset can do and Flowey flat out says that was the power you, the player, were trying to stop. So Asriel was fighting over Frisk for that power, he could already do a normal reset at that point. 


And also it’s frankly odd to consider how Asriel boasts to stop messing around and that he’s going to destroy the timeline (which is also said in the Japanese version that he’ll destroy the universe) and unleashes a big attack, but it was only meant to kill Frisk once when they can already revive constantly in the fight. Point being is that we do buy this as a timeline purging feat so Frisk would get the speed from this attack. Which gets around to 146.642 quadrillion c - Immeasurable speed. 


Immeasurable would be more accurate here cause the very definition of speed is time over distance and in this instance, Frisk is moving in a distance where time is being destroyed and no longer there, so immeasurable would make more sense in that case. As an additional note, Frisk does move a considerable distance when dodging the attack and from what we see in Deltarune and how the SOUL is part of the person when they dodge attacks in the overworld, it’s likely this would scale in travel speed as well but we won’t personally push for the notion. Chara would naturally scale to this as they reached the absolute state at the end of the genocide route and wiped the entire game and it’s files. Plus it’d make no sense for Chara’s stats to decrease when they possess Frisk’s body.

So how does Ness stack up in the speed department? Well Ness actually has not one but two arguments for immeasurable, both of which we personally take issue with. The first one comes from the Dali's Clock enemy in Earthbound where it can stop time and the party can dodge its attacks in stopped time. The first problem is assuming that this comes from speed and not just a time stop resistance as the former would be a bigger assumption, especially when the guidebook only says that the time freeze stops your attacks. And the notion that such a big feat comes from a common enemy that happens to appear pre-magicant would be an outlier to consider it as a speed feat within this specific version of Ness. The second point is the fact characters can increase their finite in-game stats speed stats to have a better chance of dodging the attack which blatantly contradicts the notion of it being an immeasurable speed feat. 


The second one comes from the Manga where Giygas creates a shockwave through the fourth dimension which spans an infinite amount of timelines. We already addressed this feat earlier in the AP section but even if it was accepted, Ness doesn’t actually scale in speed to Giygas. They never actually dodge or outspeed Giygas when they face him. They do land an attack on Giygas but he very clearly just takes it with no resistance or effort to dodge. There is the Power of Earth where they overpower Giygas, but again no sort of reaction or blitzing to be had there, just that he was overpowered. Even if you were to argue the feat is legit and the power of earth would scale to Giygas in speed via overpowering him, it would only scale to power of earth for a minute at most where it lands a single attack. Meanwhile, peak DETERMINATION Frisk and Chara can just have that speed for as long as they want. 


The next best speed feat for Ness is scaling to Poo, who in the novel perceives the whole universe from its origin to its end which gets to 18 million c in reactions (after proper conversion from perception speed). With the power of earth, he summoned the energy of it to himself which came from another universe in a very short timeframe which he would scale to the energy of it which would be 586 Quadrillion c. Very impressive for Ness, but it pales in comparison to Frisk with their immeasurable speed. Even being generous and sticking with the low end of the feat of Hyper Goner, Ness would still be slower normally and with power of the earth would only be 4 times faster and Frisk consuming the sea teas would close it to 2 times. This would give Ness a slight speed advantage for the short moment in the power of earth state, but Frisk’s abilities will prove that advantage moot even in a generous scenario.

So while Ness is definitely a power house in his own right, Frisk is just way out of his league in terms of AP and especially Speed, so they firmly take this category.  


Arsenal & Abilities

While at first glance it would seem like Ness has sooooo much more to offer in this regard and therefore has the advantage, Frisk’s abilities, while having much less variety, are all generally far more game-changing. Starting with the elephant in the room, DETERMINATION.


- Can Ness overcome DETERMINATION and Frisk’s ability to Reset/Resurrect?

This is a pretty flat out no, he can’t. 


Ness, for starters, will never have any way of knowing about Frisk’s resets. There is no weird acausal existence behind Ness to make this possible, and while Undertale’s side characters have shown to have some vague memories between each Reset, there’s no guarantee this will happen to Ness as well, and even if he did get some sense of deja vu, only characters in Undertale who already know about Resets and the full extent of DETERMINATION have ever been able to pick up on the possibility of some time manipulation going on during the fight.


- But can Ness affect/cancel Frisk’s DETERMINATION by making them fall asleep, making them cry, etc… ?

This argument relies way too much on the idea that DETERMINATION is an emotion and can therefore be manipulated by Ness, as a psychic. 


As discussed before, Ness has no way of knowing about DETERMINATION or what it allows Frisk to do, so that’s already a major wrench in things. Assuming Ness does these things anyway since they are part of his repertoire, through PSI Flash and Hypnosis Ω, would they be able to cancel or deter Frisk’s DETERMINATION? 


The answer is, yet again, no. DETERMINATION, while also being an emotion, is a tangible substance in Undertale that is stored and felt in one’s SOUL rather than their own mind or brain. This makes it very hard to assume Ness’s mental manipulation will work against DETERMINATION in the first place; but the odds seem even less in favor of Ness when you take into account that throughout Undertale, Frisk is at multiple points falling asleep whether by choice or by being KOd, and this never seems to reset their DETERMINATION or weaken them. Amalgamates even have DETERMINATION while being in a coma. 


SOULs have different properties than the ghost's Ness effects given how Napstablook was unaffected from being absorbed by Asriel due to not having a SOUL. Plus Chara themselves can awake Frisk from sleep even if it somehow did work. As far as crying goes, refer again to DETERMINATION being a substance; but also, it seems pretty weird to argue that making someone forcibly cry somehow clears out all other emotions someone is feeling. Making people cry with PSI Flash in Earthbound doesn’t stop them from being violent, angry, and trying to kill Ness, so it’s kind of unrealistic to argue that making Frisk cry will somehow inhibit their DETERMINATION. 


Plus if sleeping does lower DETERMINATION due to a lack of conscious feeling, then why wouldn’t Flowey be able to regain control of the timeline from Frisk whenever they slept or were KO’d? Probably because the answer is simply that sleeping does not affect DETERMINATION or the amount being used by someone at any given point.


To further drive this all home, making Frisk cry is a completely random effect of PSI Flash and is not guaranteed to happen. Likewise, Hypnosis Ω’s success rate is seemingly tied to the intelligence of the target, and its chances of success are lowered based on how smart the opponent is. Plus, Hypnosis Ω is likely to wear off the moment Ness lands a hit or 2 on Frisk anyway, as it does in the games. It's layered amounts of luck Ness needs to rely on for almost every single encounter against Frisk. 


…Also, the most mundane of shit fills Frisk with DETERMINATION, so even disregarding everything I just said about why these things would not affect DETERMINATION, Frisk could honestly just admire that Ness wears his fucking hat sideways or something and be instantly replenished.


- Would Ness winning over and over for seemingly forever force Frisk to eventually lose the will to live?

This is probably the only legitimate win method Ness could possibly have, but this is also very unlikely.


Frisk has been killed many times throughout Undertale, often many times by one person (Sans, Asriel, and Omega Flowey at bare minimum), and it’s never really affected the intensity of Frisk’s DETERMINATION to keep moving forward. 


The only way I could see this being viable is if it was absolutely impossible for Frisk to win, but as has been discussed at multiple points of this verdict section already, it is not. It’s also very hard to argue Frisk losing the will to live when in the first place Ness is going to have a very hard time killing them due to their durability being far higher than Ness’s AP (see the stats section above).


It also doesn't help that out of the two, Frisk undeniably has the best healing methods, as when at the highest levels of DETERMINATION, they have Last Dreams to heal all their health, and Hopes to greatly reduce the damage of any attacks indefinitely while Ness has a limited of PSI recovery moves as they can run out when low on PP. 


- Is PSI FLASH a viable instant kill method against Frisk?

Potentially.


While there are arguments for Frisk resisting certain mind hax such as All Clear clearing Frisk of strangeness (which has the same effects as the confusion they dispel from against Madjick) from PSI Flash, Frisk can easily just be killed by this attack if it does land the instantly defeat effect as it is a one shot move in the game. Though they can just revive, come back, and then proceed to telegraph these attacks like they do throughout the entirety of the game and avoid it all together. Plus it’s based on random chance if it gets the one shot attack as other effects such as crying, strangeness and numbness so it’s not very reliable that often. 


- Can Ness keep Frisk’s SOUL from reforming for an immediate resurrection? 

Unlikely. It’s not something ever attempted and characters like Asriel who was capable of ending the entire Undertale world couldn’t do this when all they did was try to kill Frisk. Even though the only reason Frisk was able to come back in spite of Asriel controlling the SAVE Files is that they had enough DETERMINATION to just, not stay dead, so Asriel being able to stop it from doing so would have been incredibly helpful towards his goal but he never attempts this so it’s unlikely Ness could as well. 


- Can Frisk directly attack Ness’s SOUL?

No, that is specifically an ability only Monsters had in Undertale. Frisk could potentially absorb or attack Ness’s SOUL after killing him, therefore exposing it, but that kinda lies in theory territory and has almost no bearing on the fight itself since Frisk will have already won by that point, so it’s not something worth pondering.


- Isn’t Frisk far more predictable as a fighter than Ness, with less overall weapons/armor/abilities to use?

Maybe, but not by an insane amount. While admittedly Ness does have more things to use against Frisk in combat, Frisk’s weapons/armor are pretty unpredictable in their usage, from a gun with no bullets that shoots energy attacks, to ballet combat, to armor that explicitly gives Frisk more invincibility frames. Plus, Frisk has what might be the most unpredictable ability of all, their DETERMINATION and Resets. Both have close to an equal amount of weapons/items/abilities that their opponent’s going to be caught off guard by or be unaware of. 


- Who can hold more items? Whose abilities/items/weapons are more limited overall?

Frisk can hold more items. Ness can hold up to 14 items at once, while Frisk can hold onto about 30 items thanks to the Cell Phone having dimensional boxes which can store even more items than Frisk normally carries. In the context of a Death Battle however this likely would not matter. 


What does matter, however, is that Ness’s PSI abilities all come from a limited resource known as PP. If that runs low, Ness will be unable to use any more PSI abilities until he uses an item to replenish them. This is much more limited in comparison to something like Frisk’s DETERMINATION, which has never really been shown to be drained or lost by Frisk throughout all of Undertale. If Ness doesn’t manage his PP well enough he will be left pretty vulnerable. 


So overall, while Ness does have a lot more abilities at play, Frisk’s abilities are much more useful. Resets can completely destroy the element of surprise for Ness and Frisk would know every single ability that Ness would throw and telegraph each attack like they do for almost every boss encounter. Ness has nothing to overcome them and will always be on the backfoot in this fight. Not to mention that a lot of his more useful PSI abilities rely on him getting incredibly lucky for every single encounter which is very unlikely to happen.  It’s very important to stress because in a fight scenario, whoever is more likely to win comes out on top. In this case, Frisk can just lower that probability further and further by learning everything Ness has and beat him a single time in order to win. Coupled with revives, endless healing and increasing defensive stats make it extremely difficult for Ness to put them down. Especially considering Ness limited PP storage while Frisk has a much longer duration for DETERMINATION that Ness cannot manipulate. Ness may have more abilities and tools to throw at Frisk, but Frisk can overcome it with much better abilities to survive and telegraph everything Ness has. 

Tertiary Factors

There are still other, less notable but still important, advantages that Frisk has in this fight. A big one is range. While Ness would normally take the range advantage given his PSI attacks, when Frisk is at their best, the area-of-effect for their attacks becomes universal. This might only be applicable to Chara, as only they have ever been shown using it, but given that Chara can assume control of the body whenever they want this should not be a major issue. Ness does have a potential uni AOE with power of earth since it collapsed the universe, but as we established earlier it only applies to that state which can only throw out a single attack.


 Even with Ness’ superior mobility options, such as teleporting, there is no way for Ness to dodge one of these attacks. Even if Ness was faster than Frisk, these attacks would always hit. And as an extra bonus this AOE has a piercing property due to coming from a slash which would be fatal to Ness who lacks any good showings in piercing durability. See to put in perspective, if two normal people fought but one has a knife, they’d die instantly if the blow is fatal. This sort of argument never comes up as it hardly ever matters in most cases but here it does. Ness doesn’t really have that many great showings of piercing durability and this is with a six times gap as well on top of a universal AOE. It would most certainly kill Ness in one strike. 


Intelligence is a bit of a minor factor here but both have decent showings of it with learning how to use an array of weapons and tools on the fly. There’s nothing really major other than outwitting other smarter and experienced fighters they come across in their journey. Frisk has the added benefit of being able to read their opponents and learn their strategy through resets so normally both would be on par with resets tilting it the other way.

Stamina cleanly goes to Frisk. Ness can certainly keep himself in battle for a long time and sustain himself with healing options, but Frisk can sustain themselves for much longer against the likes of Sans who has attacks specifically designed to be effective against those who kill many people and even attacks you in the menu, giving them no time to breathe. Plus they can sustain themselves longer with endless healing through Dreams in peak DETERMINATION state while Ness has a limited amount. 


When comparing experience, it is hard to tell whose journey actually lasted longer. While Ness’ story appeared to take place over a much longer period of time than any of Undertale’s routes, Frisk has revisited many of these routes and fought their bosses again an unknowable amount of times. However, we can compare the types of enemies both have fought and how well that prepares them for each other. Frisk has an edge here as they have actually already fought Ness many times… wait no. 


Memes aside, Sans actually does share many abilities with Ness. First, Sans is capable of teleportation both for long distance travel and for combat. Second, Sans has abilities akin to telekinesis with his control over bones and his ability to shift the gravity of Frisk’s SOUL. Finally, the Gaster Blasters are not that different from a lot of Ness’ energy based attacks. Beyond just Sans, Frisk has encountered many abilities similar to those of Ness from the various monsters they have fought. Paralysis is similar to Muffet’s purple web or Asriel preventing Frisk from moving their body, PK Fire is similar to Asgore’s fire, and PK Thunder is similar to Mettaton’s electric attacks. Really almost all of Ness’ combat applicable abilities are things that Frisk has seen and dealt with before.


Ness, however, has never encountered many of Frisk’s main abilities. Frisk’s saving and loading, instant revival from the dead, and straight up breaking the rules of reality to cheat are things that Ness has never dealt with and has no clear answers to. It is also hard to argue that Ness will get the chance to learn and adapt to these abilities during the fight since Frisk can always reset the timeline and make Ness forget the entire encounter, except for maybe some small déjà vu effects which could also be negated further with a true reset if needed. 


Finally, we need to address the metanarrative elephant in the room, you, the player. The player is a major factor in both games and is at least partially responsible for some of each characters’ greatest feats. Ultimately, we believe that all of the powers that the players have canonically lent to Ness and Frisk should be given to them for this blog. Outside of what has been explicitly shown to be canon, the players will not add any extra meta-narrative abilities to this fight.

To recap, both have similar amounts of intelligence and experience with a slight favor to Frisk thanks to resets. Frisk as well has superior AOE thanks to Chara just having it while Ness can only reach that AOE with one attack. Frisk has superior stamina as well as having fought enemies with similar attacks to that of Ness while Ness has never faced anyone like Frisk. So tertiary factors go to Frisk. 

Conclusion

“You have something called "DETERMINATION", so as long as you hold on... so as long as you do what's in your heart... I believe you can do the right thing.”


Advantages:

  • Stronger than you

  • More durable

  • Much faster in Peak DETERMINATION and as Chara

  • Resets helps gain knowledge of Ness’ arsenal and abilities 

  • Revives, resets and endless healing make it super difficult to be put down

  • Chara and Peak DETERMINATION last much longer than Power of the Earth

  • Has a god tier soundtrack

  • Has one of the most active fandoms in internet history


Disadvantages:

  • Much more limited arsenal of abilities and items

  • DETERMINATION could theoretically run out after dying enough times

  • Likes to eat literal trash

  • Story of Undertale

  • Has one of the most active fandoms in internet history


Deciding who wins this matchup of two RPG characters was no easy task, however when looking deep into it, we ultimately side with Frisk. Ness gets to 18 Million c and Galaxy to Universal in base. Impressive, but this doesn’t stack up to Peak DETERMINATION Frisk, who can compare and outmatch Ness in stats. Even considering Power of the Earth which gives Ness a boost in speed to 586 Quadrillion c, it can’t catch up to Frisk in peak DETERMINATION who gets immeasurable. AP is also a similar case when comparing Ness scaling to Giygas in the manga and Chara destroying the game, including the files in game, because it would be Baseline Universal Vs 6x Universal in Frisk’s favor, plus piercing AP for the knife attacks. This is also ignoring the fact that Power of the Earth is just one attack, while Frisk and Chara have theirs at all times, so they can just survive the attack and finish the fight, while using the Power of the Earth seemingly drained Ness, which would leave him open and vulnerable to attacks.


When comparing both weapons and abilities, the most important question is, can Ness stop Frisk’s DETERMINATION and thus the resets? As we discussed in the abilities section, the answer is a no. The only real way for Ness to put a stop to the resets is if he made it near impossible for Frisk to win, which is super unlikely. Reason being is that most of Ness' abilities can’t do anything to fully defeat Frisk. Sure we can say Ness lands one mind hax move like PSI Flash and kills Frisk, but Frisk would simply load a save and know not to get hit by it (and could given the speed difference) while also getting a bit of knowledge of what Ness can do, while Ness will have little to no idea what Frisk just did. 


Meanwhile Frisk can resist or would not be that majorly affected by most of Ness’ abilities, the more important ones relying on luck to land as well. Also, as discussed in Territory Factors, Frisk has actually faced foes like Ness so it’s not like most of what Ness does is new for Frisk, while Ness has never faced anyone like Frisk. The final nail in Ness' coffin comes with the universal AoE Frisk has shown with Chara. As discussed, it’s possible for Peak DETERMINATION Frisk to attempt this, at the very least Chara definitely would, which Ness is 100% getting hit by regardless of his speed.

That's the main deal here, Frisk just needs to beat Ness once while Ness can never allow Frisk to ever win or else he’ll lose. So he has to play perfectly and get lucky on a lot of his useful PSI moves every single time. Even if you were to be extremely generous to Ness and say the Hyper Goner feat isn’t usable and Ness gets the multi+ feat with immeasurable from power of the earth. Chara can just take over and use the AOE attack once at the start and instantly end the fight as the gap would be 6 times plus piercing AP from the AOE slash. The fight would eventually reach a state to where Chara would attempt this and Ness has nothing to react to such an attack. They need to win once while Ness can never lose which is highly unlikely in this scenario. 


Overall, Ness was a challenging opponent and could put up a good fight. But cutting this debate down to the bone, Frisk just has the stats, abilities, AoE and DETERMINATION to win the fight. In this tale of RPG protagonists, Frisk is bound to put Ness six feet under.


The winner is Frisk.


But hey, that’s just a conclusion…

A G1 CONCLUSION! Thanks for reading.


Final Tally

Team Ness (5) - Pasbros, Alex, HeavenPiercerChris, TMK, Robin


Team Frisk (13) - RadioactiveCaffeine, Hi Hi, Hyperstarman, Rex, Kirbonic Pikmin, GumballViking, SoMaShadow, Nobrainer13, TheDojimaLeopard(Juno), TheoryCrafter, HystericalTrend, greymerlion2, Bananabot24


Team Raz (2) - Cyber, Oleggator



(Original art by Milkybee)

Final Note:


This is technically the final bonus blog before the first episode of the season - Ant-Man vs Atom. I know what you are thinking, what about Ultron vs Brainiac, Aslan vs Arecus and Oxide vs Wizpig, well their release dates are still to be determined and will probably get released after the season starts… so look forward or don’t to Ant-Man vs Atom coming May 20th.
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