Ness vs Raz (Earthbound vs Psychonauts)
“Nothing that surrounds us is object, all is subject.”
-AndrƩ Breton
Ness, a powerful chosen one from the world of Earthbound.
Raz, a gifted psychic from the Psychonauts agency.
The world is a strange place, filled with talents and curses, beauties and atrocities, luck and misfortune. And it so happens you’re yourself is an unnatural being. You embrace it, you face this world and go through it, the more you go around it, the more new discoveries you make about it, about its inhabitants, about yourself.
In this case, these 2 psychic boys went through a bizarre, surreal adventure while also being courageous enough to face all fears and save the world from being conquered. Though when pitted against each other, who out of these talented saviors would be victorious?
Before We Start…
First of all, special thanks to G1 blog for help with covering a lot of Ness’ feats, arsenal and abilities (which also means there will be some repetitions with info that comes from their blog), go check their quite well done Ness vs Frisk blog if you haven’t done that yet!
This blog though, unlike G1's, will focus mainly on Ness’ game canon, without taking his smash, novel and manga versions into account. Meaning that this blog will mainly cover Mother 1, 2, 3 and some of their respective guidebooks even though to some of which I sadly lack access or opportunity to get the access. With Raz, focus will be given to his own 3 games, Psychonauts, Psychonauts Rhombus of Ruin and Psychonauts 2 with given abilities and arsenal from all 3 games respectively, oh and well, guidebooks to which sadly I also only got access to 1 out of 2 (soon 3, counting the Psychonauts 2 Artbook). So sadly a bit less content but still some good amount from what I could bother from all materials.
Obviously since this blog gives an entire focus on both game series, this means that it may have some Spoilers here and there such as some of Psychonauts plot twists, as such if you want to play either of the games soon, not aware of them and care about that kind of stuff it’d be better to play the games first for better experience with original games considering how much of surprises they may contain.
Oh yeah also since the discussion is about Earthbound, I do probably have to give a warning about Flashing Lights just in case, due to the amount of flashing colors PSI Moves have. Otherwise, welcome aboard to the Quirkiest among the Nerdiest and the Nerdiest among the Quirkiest, Ness vs Raz blog, let’s have some fun.
Background
Ness
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? Where’s Maria now? For what reasons all these events happened? 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 gained the task: invade the Earth to prevent the humans from using said powers against them. The child’s name was Giegue. This was where the fate of Earth lay in the hands of a boy in a blue shirt with yellow stripes, red cap and baseball bat named…Ninten!...What, you haven’t expected anyone else, did you? Needless to say, Ninten went through a big course across his land, finding new friends such as Ana, Lloyd and Teddy, beating all weird anomalies varying from possessed lamp and doll up to dragon and big robots, but most importantly, discovering the truth behind Maria, George and Giegue and finding all eight melodies. Those weren’t any ordinary melodies, but melodies which reminded Giegue about his mother, Maria. Exactly thanks to that song, Ninten along with Ana and Lloyd stopped Giegue from invasion, despite the latter having clear superiority against them. The song filled Giegue with guilt and memories of his past with Maria who basically was like…Mother to him, and eventually, as Ninten and company finally manage to finish the song, the emotional stress becomes too much for Giegue to handle and he retreats, calling back his forces but promising that he and Ninten will meet again.
The year is 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 gave Ness the knowledge about PSI, psychic powers that would help him on his route to be able to fight Gigyas and save the universe in the process. And for that, he must’ve recorded 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 only about Ness. Besides him, there were other 2 chosen boys and 1 girl to save the universe: Paula, a girl from Twoson, Jeff, a boy from Winters, and Poo, the prince of Dalaam. Together they’ll go through a long adventure across the globe and will reach across eight spots containing the melodies and be ready to face the embodiment of evil itself: Giygas.
It wasn’t an easy journey though, Giygas sent a lot of his forces into Earth to stop Ness from destroying his plans. Some plans worked on Ness and stopped him for some time, but overall, nothing was keeping him for too long, just like Ninten, Ness had to learn about Eight Melodies, this time however, it was whole another ones, instead of being the reminder to Giygas’ of something good being left on Earth, these melodies leaded Ness into discovering himself…literally! All of them reminded Ness of his memories of the past, and after gaining the last one, he discovered a world of his own head, where he could talk even with himself. It was there where Ness went through last trial and proved himself worthy to save the world.
And as promised, Gigyas eventually came, 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 victory, including YOU, person staring at the screen (if you’ve played Earthbound of course) finally finished 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 will tell but what’s for sure is, the memories of the most unforgettable, incredible and bizarre adventure of all time which in the end gave him smiles and tears, are left with him.
Raz
The Human Mind: Six hundred miles of synaptic fiber, five and a half ounces of cranial fluid, 1,500 grams of complex nerve matter...a three-pound pile of dreams. But I'll tell you what it really is. It is the ultimate battlefield and the ultimate weapon. The wars of this modern, psychic age are all fought somewhere between these damp, curvaceous undulations. But the reason behind this age existing in the first place lies far before the beginning of our main story. Quite a long time ago, about more than five hundred years ago, a large meteorite fell on earth and thus, gave humanity a new mineral called Psitanium. While at first it seemed like a common mineral which was used by Indians for common items such as knives or arrows, Psitanium bestowed its own energy and gave psychic powers to all life on earth, whatever it will be from fish, pumas and bears to the humans themselves. Which caused a major problem: as much as people and other creatures across the world unlocked their true potential of psychic powers, others who had a mental problem, or better yet trauma, Psitanium only over-compressed those mental issues. Making people lose their psyche.
Psitanium got its influence and attention from lots of people, one of which was Ford Cruller, who after teaming up with expert scientist Otto Mentalis and Hydrokinetic expert Lucrecia Mux, hiding an wildly paranormal “forgetful forest” from the rest of humanity and finding more people with paranormal abilities. Ford after doing that created an organization for people with psychic powers, an organization which turned psychics from outcasts into heroes - The Psychonauts. Over the years Psychonauts got their name known to the world and besides all bizarre powers they had one of the specialities where they could get to humanity - discovery of human’s brain and its world within. However the original team behind the Psychonauts - Psychic Seven, didn’t last long. Maligula later on destroyed an entire Grulovia country and later fought the whole team, only Ford could actually defeat and stop her for a while, but also damaging own psyche. This was a terrifying battle, with a good amount of losses. Still there were plenty of other legendary psychic agents afterwards that continued Psychonauts’ legacy: Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, Coach Oleander, Hollis Forsythe and more. But there was also one person who no one out of Psychonauts could expect to be the guy to reunite original psychic seven and save the world twice within a single week.
Razputin Aquato, also known as Raz, was just one of 5 kids in a circus among the Aquato family. He was a great circus acrobat, but what not much could see, he was also a great psychic, and a big nerd in it, he has bunch of comics, often writes submission to his favorite journal series “true psychic tales”, and despite being 10 years old, was already practicing the powers on small object. His family wasn’t fond of said powers though, considering that they were cursed to die in water by some other psychics. All practically changed in 1 day, when a mysterious person gave him a pamphlet. The pamphlet’s message inspired Raz, and despite his father ripping it into apart, he decided to go away while riding on the world’s smallest pony, getting to the place where before people of “Shaky Claim” were facing an epidemic of mental traumas, now people send their children to develop in psychic powers and change for good - Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. Upon getting in, he wasn’t quickly accepted, and planned to be sent home right away, but Ford, Oleander and Sasha saw potential within him, and despite calling father, within a single day Raz managed to show them all and prove, he’s more than ready to become a Psychonaut. Especially since he managed to stop Coach from taking over the world, all he needed was to help him with his dad issues (I mean, who doesn’t have them am I right?).
But that wasn’t an end to his adventures. Maligula was coming back. And Psychonauts spent all their forces finding out the man behind her return to rule the world. In the end however, Raz did what no Psychic could ever do, especially at his age, he recovered all of Psychic Seven, defeated Maligula and from this day, made sure that he would be accepted not just as a circus boy, but as a psychic soldier. Paranormal paratrooper! Mental marine who is about to ship out on the adventure of his life! Ready to engage the enemy in his own mentality, chase his dreams, fight his demons, live his nightmares, who found himself on the path to becoming an international secret agent, in other words...Psychonaut!
Experience & Skill
Ness
(Art by Moonshen)
Ness may look like just a good ol kid who likes to play baseball, his adventure was one hell of an experience, which went for, perhaps weeks (while it’s actually hard to tell how long the adventure was going, most likely it was pretty quick than long). 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. Not only that, but Ness has used a good variety of equipment in combat, and went around basically the entire Earth. 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 when it comes to combat despite never training. After all that you gotta admit, this kid doesn’t need courage alone to kick your ass.
Raz
For a moment it may seem Raz isn’t very experienced in all this combat stuff, after all the entirety of events of Psychonauts passed within a week. That being said though on such a short notice Raz has proved his worth more than ever. First things foremost as an acrobat, Raz while being 10 years old (if not younger), already performs dozens of Acrobatic Moves really well with relative ease. It takes many years to master acrobatic tricks and moves for real humans, while among Raz’s Aquato Family there are literal kids who are able to perform acrobatic moves, they are that dedicated in this family business. Often traveling from one place to another across the world, Raz certainly didn’t have it easy even before running away to become Psychonaut. When he did though, Raz already managed to master more than 10 various Psychic Powers, all within a single day, not only that, but he also directly fought Coach Oleander, who not only has some big experience when it comes to combat, but also was considered as kind of threat that will take years of training to be ready for a fight. Which also happened within a single day. Raz also defeated Luchadores, who are professional wrestlers formed from the memory of the former wrestler’s mind. As well as Raz later on defeated Maligula who had fought in a war for Grulovia for years! Raz’s adventures may seem not as long, but he sure faced some dangerous folks here. And that’s not taking into account an insane variety of Mental Worlds Raz has been in and managed to pass through, each being basically an entirely different universe. One world is a cooking show, the other is a board game, one of his first visits to Mental Worlds was literally a war and all those quick descriptions are just tip of the iceberg of sheer versatility behind the Mental Worlds. But perhaps Raz’s biggest skill in combat is adapting - he met a big variety of opponents, each required a different way to defeat and weakness to exploit, even among foes who may seem as invincible at first, Raz always could pull an ace out of his pocket. Like Lady Luctopus or Bad Idea who seemed invincible but Raz managed to find a weakening spot, or figuring out how to fight against Den Mother when she turned off lights in a way he could see what’s happening. Overall a lot of Psychonauts enemies require Raz to think when he fights, which he successfully does.
Equipment
Ness
Weapons
Baseball Bat
Like lots of RPG characters - Ness’ offense is used the best through his weapons rather than fists, and one of Ness’ go to weapons for physical combat is a baseball bat. While he’s gone through many a bat, they all serve the same purpose: blunt force trauma. Throughout adventure Ness got the huge variety of bats, 13 to be specific:
Yo-Yo
Ness’ other ol’ reliable. Along with some sick tricks, Ness uses Yo-Yos to bash foes, though the menu displays Ness as “shooting” them instead, so while he can’t SMAAAASH enemies, he has more extended melee range than a bat can do. Though in addition they also lower accuracy and unlike bats, Ness got far less amount of Yo-Yos:
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. But just like with Yo-yos, accuracy itself gets lower and Ness got far less variety of Slingshots - only 2. Average Slingshot and Bionic Slingshot.
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 gives +15 defense!
Pendants
Ness possesses several Pendants, which are used to protect the wearer from PSI attacks. Here is list of all pendants:
Coins
For some reason, coins count as armor. They increase Ness' defense and also make him more lucky. Nice. Here’s list of all coins:
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 the most upgrade to it.
Bands and Bracelets
Ness can use several Bracelets (or Bands) throughout his adventure, they have a big variety but most of them just increase defense, here is the list of all Bracelets and Bands:
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. That’s right just sprinkle the powder across you and your friends and it’ll turn you into a dragon! Gone after one use though, obviously.
Food/Recovery Items
Ness can acquire several food items throughout his journey, most of them simply being used to restore his HP or PP. Some of them though give a variety of effects or recover from status ailments. Here’s list of all recovery items:
Condiments
Food isn’t as tasty if you won’t add some of your own condiments, while on their own they ain’t that good won’t you agree? Same goes here, on their own they only recover about 6 HP, however in combination with other food, they double the amount of HP you can recover with ordinary food. Here’s list of all condiments:
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
ATM Card
Right here we’re looking at some good stuff. After all, Ness couldn’t get out of his home and go into a big adventure without paying for anything. Just like your Credit card it is used to keep your money in the bank so you won’t lose them the moment you lose battle. And can be used to get cash money from ATM Machines which are either in department stores or hotels. The card is so good in fact, that it can be used overseas. ATMs themselves can hold up to 9,999,999 dollars. That’s right, theoretically up to the end of the game, Ness and his family are practically millionaires.
Town Map
This isn’t exactly a map honestly but rather a compilation of maps from different towns. So basically Ness can see all the other town’s maps in this single booklet. Quite helpful in orientation, just like your average map. Anyone can get it really, it is in Onett Public Library.
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.
Ruler
It’s really just…average ruler. Well, sure you can measure stuff but other than that…
Protractor
Cool, now Ness can…measure angles…well that’s some average stuff.
Piggy Nose
Alright, with this Pig-shaped nose Ness can now…search for Magic Truffles. Well frankly it is quite useful food actually, this Magic Truffle can recover 80 PP upon a single usage. Still, truffles can be found only in Deep Darkness.
Suporma
Oh now that looks like a complex thing. Ok, let’s see, The Super Orange Machine - invention of the popular inventor in Twoson - Orange Kid. It can be used to…play the "Ode to Orange Kid," and then break once it's finished…well that sucks. Lesson kids, popular ≠ good.
Receiver phone
Apple Kid's invention, thanks to this device, Ness can now receive important phone calls. Ness cannot however make calls with it, only receive them. While it sucks, at the time the prices to make a call probably were so high that maybe it is for the best.
Chick
While the egg itself can heal you about 80 HP, if kept for too long it’ll turn into a chick. I guess Ness’ backpack is really good for making a farm. You can’t really do much with it other than like…wait until it’ll grow into chicken.
Chicken
And after a while in a short period of time, this small yellow chick turns into a big white chicken! Though it still doesn’t do much…but hey, you can sell 1 Chicken that quickly grew from an Egg, for 110 dollars. So you take the Egg, in 1 minute it turns into a chick and then in a blink of an eye, chick also grows into a chicken? That’s some good investment if you ask me.
Picture Postcard
Just your average Picture Postcard…Not really horrible, but the scene on the front doesn't make you want to go there, and rather makes you feel sad and empty.
Exit Mouse
Oh this mouse is actually a pretty great friend for Ness to carry around. If you happen to walk around a dungeon and you just got lost, to the point that you can’t find an exit and you’re just surrounded by enemies. This little friend will show you the way and help you to get directly back to the exit. No price needed, they simply want to flex their dungeon skills.
Hawk Eye
After going through the Pyramids in Scaraba, at the end, Ness gets the Hawk Eye in his hands (while Newspapers started to claim it was stolen by thieves…so I guess Ness is secretly a criminal?). This Hawk Eye isn’t just some jewelry on his hands though. Thanks to it, Ness can now see in the dark of Deep Darkness.
Insecticide spray
Whatever insect you may find, this thing is practically made for killing them. While being used only once, this spray gives a high damage to all insects. For a fair price of 19$
Xterminator Spray
But if that wasn’t enough to you, you can use this Xterminator Spray that murders your insect enemies even more effectively. And additionally this spray unlike the aforementioned can be used for an unlimited amount of times. Talk about an upgrade, though it may cost you a high price - $630.
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 or as the game itself says: “layer” the effect. But just like a regular bug spray, use it once and it is gone.
Defense Shower
Now this is what I’m talking about. Built out of broken trumpet by Ness’ friend Jeff, this defense shower is now capable of increasing defense of the entire party. Not only that, but it can also be used practically an unlimited amount of times.
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 or 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 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 badly poisoning them.
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 it's range it'll hurt more than just the target.
Super Bomb
Basically its upgraded variant, which is even stronger and much more destructive. Since it carries not 1 but 4 bombs at once!
Franklin's Badge
After obtaining it from Paula while she was under a cult's captivity (we’ll come back to that, btw) 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.
Raz
Journal
Journey was only a few days long and there was so much to do, to keep track of his actions Raz always wrote down his objectives in the journal. As well as noted his other actions he’s done throughout the adventure.
Psycho-Portal
This door with a size of hand palm is a special device commonly used by psychonauts to enter mindscapes via Astral Projection. Raz commonly uses it when he wants to enter someone’s mind, albeit it isn’t necessarily for a mind entrance.
Smelling Salts
Sometimes when walking around inside human’s head, things can get fishy…way too fishy, which is why in case if everything goes out of control, to willingly get out of the mindscape…without killing themselves in the Mental World, Psychonauts use this small golden container which upon opening emits smell that sends back person to a real world.
Cobweb Duster
Sometimes a person's mindscape is full of cobwebs formed around certain areas of the mind that aren’t used for prolonged periods of time. That’s why Raz always carries around this Cobweb Duster, which helps to clean out the way to discover more.
Thought Tuner
Occasionally thoughts of people go out and unnoticeably wander around the real world. Thought Tuner, developed by Otto Mentallis allows the user to detect stray thoughts around the real world, and focus them so that they turn into nodes that can be used by mental connection to fly around.
Bacon
A piece of Bacon…That’s basically what it is really, at least by itself. Thanks to the connection Ford formed with Raz, everytime Raz used said Bacon he summoned Ford Cruller into the stage right out of Raz’s head…literally.
PSI-Pop
Seems like a pretty ordinary lollipop, however upon the usage, it restores your health. Raz can hold up to 8 of them at a time. Raz does have to use them manually to heal obviously.
Dream Fluff
While they also look like your ordinary sweets, upon usage they can fully restore your health. Even in a death situation when your health is down to zero, Dream Fluffs can restore all of it, automatically. In game, Raz can hold up to 3 of those, but as seen in a visual, it’s likely he can fit in more.
Pins
When finally getting to the Psychonauts' headquarters, while Raz wasn't accepted as the psychonaut at first, he did have access to the Otto-Matic shop made by Otto Mentallis, the mechanical genius who is perhaps responsible for every gadget Psychonauts agency can offer. Through this shop, Raz got himself pins that work as a modification for a variety of Raz's psychic abilities. Though some pins are purely cosmetic and don't offer too much, there are also useful ones, all will be mentioned below in Raz's powers section, while here it's worth to mention those that don't affect any psychic power (or anything at all):
Brain Sneezing Powder
It is a refined powder that causes the inhaler to literally sneeze out their brain. It is yellow in color. It is near impossible to stop the effects of the powder once inhaled, however it is completely ineffective on people who are unable to smell it, for example due to having contracted the common cold. Psychonauts used it in a variety of situations occasionally even on themselves rather than enemy. Should be noted, detachment of the human brain is not fatal in the Psychonauts universe. The body is able to survive without it (in fact Psychonauts agents, including Raz, pretty much know a needed method to put brains back into the head), complete with basic motor functions and limited speech. However once the brain is removed from the body, the person's entire consciousness is trapped inside, whilst the brainless body falls into a zombie-like state. The brain without a body will eventually deteriorate, unless kept inside a tank with sustaining fluid. As the Psychonauts agent, it’s possible for Raz to have access to this powder (More in Before the Verdict)
Abilities
Ness
PSI
(Art by daimon/@PSI_Arts)
PSI (Psionics), also known as PK (Psychokinesis), are the psychic powers that appear throughout the whole Mother series. Originally it was mainly used by aliens of Giygas's race, however when George and Maria were abducted by these aliens in the early 1900s, George studied the powers and eventually passed down his research to Earth. Which eventually caused numerous people and creatures to have Psychic Powers, as well as basically started the whole plot.
PSI moves become stronger as the user levels up, with the level of strength denoted by the Greek letters Ī± (alpha), Ī² (beta), Ī³ (gamma), Ļ (pi), Ī£ (sigma), and Ī© (omega), in ascending order of potency. However, the Ļ power level only appears in EarthBound Beginnings, while the Ī£ power level only appears in Earthbound, hence, in this blog there won’t be Ļ level PSI moves. By its nature, PSI in Earthbound works similar to how mana works in your usual classic JRPG. The more powerful version of psychic power is used, the more PP (Psychic Points) are wasted. In this case though, Ness still has a lot of capacity of PP - 260 and after Magicant his capacity can grow further up to 700-800 amount of PP, and with some aforementioned consumables it's possible for Ness to restore said PP.
PSI can be compartmentalized into four different categories:
Assist PSI - PSI moves that alter parameters of allies or foes, inflict status effects, or raise shields.
Offense PSI - PSI moves that inflict damage. All PSI moves in this category bear the prefix "PK" (except in EarthBound’s non-Japanese version, where "PSI" is used instead).
Recover PSI - PSI moves that replenish HP or PP, or remove status effects.
Other PSI - PSI moves designed to be used outside of battle on the field map, such as Teleport in Earthbound or also Telepathy in Earthbound Beginnings. They’re not tend to be used in direct combat.
Throughout his adventure Ness learnt a pretty strong amount of PSI/PK moves, especially Assist and Recovery ones, and has faced almost all Earthbound's PSI abilities, whether it be from his friends or enemies.
PK Rockin
Name of PK Rockin isn't necessarily "Rockin", in Earthbound itself the name for this move is mostly based on the player's choice of whatever thing they (or in other words, you, whenever you start the game) loves - love, friendship, name of your best friend or favorite item, character, film, game, novel, your thoughts can go wild on this one. What's important however is that it's 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 which eventually explode. It’s hard on the eyes and even harder on the foe’s HP. There are four types of PK Rockin:
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… There are 4 versions of PK Flash: With Ī± he has 7/8 chance to make a person cry and ⅛ chance to cause strangeness. With Ī² there is 5/8 chance of crying 1/8 chance of strangeness 1/8 chance of paralysis 1/8 chance of instant defeat. With Ī³ there is 4/8 chance of crying, 1/8 chance of strangeness, 1/8 chance of paralysis, 1/8 chance of instant defeat. And with Ī© there is 3/8 chance of crying 1/8 chance of strangeness 1/8 chance of paralysis 3/8 chance of instant defeat. Pretty wild but risky move, since Ness doesn't have exact control over the probability of which effect for flash to do, as well as there's a good chance for it simply not to do anything to an enemy.
Lifeup
Lifeup is a recovery PSI ability that restores Ness and his allies' health. Once it's upgraded to Ī³ version it will fully heal all their HP. Even at the moment when HP is about to fall down to 0. Overall there are 4 versions of Lifeup:
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. There are 4 levels of Healing:
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 to protect the user from damage. White forcefield makes physical damage less, while yellow shield reflects some physical damage back. There are 4 kinds of Shield: Ī± and Ī£ are white forcefields, the former protects a single person while the latter is used on the entire party. Ī² and Ī© are yellow forcefields, with the same principle, the former being used on a single person and the latter on all 4.
Hypnosis
Great for putting enemies to sleep. Sometimes a simple explanation tells you all you need to know. There are 2 kinds of Hypnosis:
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, as well as a person on whom ability was used can move physically, albeit much slower than normally. There are 2 kinds of Paralysis:
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. Obviously it isn’t really combat applicable.
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 Ī± requires running in a straight line for long enough, while Teleport Ī², the improved variation, allows for Ness to reach the required acceleration for a teleport much faster by running in a tight circle instead.
Telepathy
The power which allows Ness to literally read people's thoughts. He can even use it to communicate with animals. Though Ness doesn’t use it in combat that often.
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 ever since.
SMAAAASH!!
hit is basically a multiplier to a regular attacks’ damage output. In other words Earthbound’s equivalent to critical hits. This special critical attack can only occur only when Ness and his companions use average melee attacks, not psychic or ranged ones.
Guts
You might have noticed that among Ness’ best bats, besides the Legendary Bat there’s the Gutsy Bat which increases his guts. But what is “Guts”? It is a status that determines the chance of Ness getting a hit whenever , and may occasionally protect characters from sustaining mortal damage in battle by stopping the HP counter at one point. The chance of this happening is Guts/500 or 1/20, whichever is greater.
Luck
Luck is also one of the stats that Ness gets in Earthbound, however it's quite simpler than common probability manipulation. Mostly it helps to increase a bit of chances to avoid certain enemy’s status ailments or better accuracy in doing hit.
Resistances
Radiation: Can endure the Atomic Reactor Robot’s explosion without suffering any adverse effects from the radiation
Sleep and Hypnosis via items: 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. Pixie's Bracelet, Cherub's Band, and the Goddess Band all increase resistance to Hypnosis while lowering resistance to Brainshock.
Effects of Pk Flash, Fire, Freeze and Paralysis with various pendants: The Night, Sea, and Star pendants give him near full immunity to PK Flash and its effects, including instant death. As well as give defense from PK Fire, Freeze and Paralysis.
Possibly Time Stop: Can dodge attacks even while frozen in time by the Dali's Clock, though it could be a rather game mechanic.
Raz
PSI-Powers
PSI-Powers, also known as Psychic Powers, are special abilities that can be used by psychics and exist throughout the whole Psychonauts series, the first original source of which likely being Psitanium, a mineral that came to Earth from space hundreds of years before the events of the game, increasing the amount of people and various creatures to have psychic powers around the world thanks to its psychic radiation.
Most psychic powers need to be taught or learnt for the psychic to be able to use them correctly, but some can be present from birth, or self-learned. Psychic abilities can begin to manifest at any stage in a psychic's life. Most commonly PSI-Powers in Psychonauts are based on emotions, and practically have no actual limit of usage whatsoever.
Throughout the series, Raz has learnt nearly all known PSI-Powers.
Acrobatics
Due to being among the family of Aquatos (and being a protagonist of a platformer game), Raz has become a master athlete and acrobat. He can double jump using a levitation bubble, wall jump, casually do flips and backflips, walk on ropes with ease, ride on rails at intense speeds, balancing on giant balls, dive into the ground from the mid-air, etc. Raz overall is professional in terms of acrobatics and years of training from family since birth shows that.
Enhanced/Extra Senses
While not super extraordinary, Raz also has pretty good senses overall. He was able to smell the Lungfish, presence of which no one else in the camp was able to notice or suspect. Or as shown above was able to notice himself being followed. He also can sense thoughts flying around, even though he needs a Thought Tuner to fully see and use them. When Raz got his brain removed from the body, he still was able to see the surrounding world even though as just a brain, he lacked eyes (consistent with other average Psychonauts agents casually traveling as just brains. Downside is perhaps the fact that brains can’t fully see when covered in sustaining fluid and/or if the brain was away from the body for way too long, like with Helmut). And apparently he also carries the ability of sibling detection…not sure if that’s a fully valid thing but you know, neat.
Astral Projection
Astral Projection is a psychic power that enables a psychic to enter the mind of another person and explore their mental world. An individual's astral projection resembles their physical body, being their vessel for interacting with the mental realm, though their appearance may slightly differ depending on the mental world they visit. Psychics, including Raz, are able to use astral projection commonly through the use of a Psycho-Portal, a Brain Tumbler, from their own brain interfacing with the target brain itself, or purely through natural ability without any gadgets or “physical” interaction. Upon entering someone’s mind the person who enters mind and person to whom mind is being entered would enter in trance.
PSI-Punch
PSI-Punch is the psychic ability to generate a large fist of energy to punch, poke, or slap enemies. For Razputin, it is a basic attack combo and move. When used he projects a big orange fist with his mind and uses it to punch forward.
The following Pins do these modifications:
PSI-Blast
PSI-Blast or Blastokinesis, is the psychic ability to shoot a deadly beam of energy from one's head. With this ability, Raz takes the rage he contains and generates it as firepower. Raz mastered this ability to the point of not having a limit in amount of usage/ammunition. As well as eventually Raz mastered it to the point that after shooting his blast goes into a long chain hitting other nearby enemies. In addition he can charge the blast to make it stronger.
The following Pins do these modifications:
Mental Focus
When Raz does need to rely on more than his own aim, he can use Mental Focus to lock on the target. Thanks to this ability, his PSI-Blasts and other PSI Powers are able to reach out to the enemy with far better precision. In other words, Psychonauts' equivalent of the auto aim.
Telekinesis
The most classic ability for psychics to ever have, Telekinesis, sometimes shortened to "TK" (Both in general and in Psychonauts world), is the psychic power to move, manipulate or otherwise interact with objects/matter without physical means. In Psychonauts it is often portrayed as giant hand(s) grabbing and throwing objects, however TK is also shown multiple times (by Raz as well) to move said objects without creating a big hand to do so. Over the time, Raz has learnt to use telekinesis in a variety of ways, disarming opponents, throwing their own weapons/projectiles back at them, even stun opponents upon throwing said objects or grabbing and throwing opponent as well. All your general telekinesis kind of usage.
The following Pins do these modifications:
Mental Magnet
Another sort of telekinesis but rather passive one is Mental Magnet - the psychic power to attract mental energy inside a mental world (and Psitanium in real world). Having this badge makes it so that nearby mental objects such as, ammo, grenades, arrowheads but most importantly health become attracted and absorbed automatically instead of running away and having to be chased, like usually.
Pyrokinesis
Focus on the hottest thing you can think of (like your mom), and after that, you can set on fire an object you’re focusing on. After some upgrades it can even send a large area on fire instead, as if it was an explosion. What can I say more, fire is pretty! Always can be used when it’s very, very important, or when really, really, entertaining. Must watch out if girls have hairspray if you want to impress one with it though.
The following pins do these modifications:
Invisibility
Psychic ability to turn invisible to the naked eye. Though unlike how the visual above shows, all Raz needs to be invisible really is just a thought. It lasts about 20 seconds and has approximately the same cooldown length. Psychics still can be detected using infrared sensors though.
Levitation
Levitation is a psychic ability to, well…levitate. It allows Raz to ride on a levitation ball, called a "Thought Bubble". This levitation ball allows him to jump higher and run faster when riding on it, as well as acting as a parachute when floating down. The levitation ball also glows and can be changed to a variety of colors. It even can be compressed for higher jumps and faster speed travel and can be used as a wrecking ball attacking foes while approaching. Just like an air balloon this thought bubble can also glide higher with the help of air or heat. Levitation balls also work as a great defense for whatever danger there is under you, like poison, fire, electricity or even water (despite showings, technically now can work since Raz defeated the curse), albeit something piercing like spikes can pop it. Despite psychics using a Thought Bubble to levitate, they also can do so normally without using them. Levitation balls can also be placed under objects to lift them.
The following pins do these modifications:
Shield
A psychic ability to create a protective energy shield. Not only it fully blocks all physical and psychic damage, it can also reflect energy projectiles back at people. As well as with further upgrades it gains spikes and pushes enemies back while also damaging them.
Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is the psychic ability to see through the perception of others. It can connect to a person's mind even from great distances if channeled through an item connected to the target (like Raz seeing through Crow’s perspective by using its feather or Raz seeing Lili being locked in a chair by using clairvoyance on her bracelet, or Raz seeing through perspective of one of the G-Mens on helicopter by using clairvoyance on special helmet). It can also be used to see through cameras and other inanimate objects which have “vision” of sorts. Besides that, Raz can also see a person's visualized view on himself as a person. As well as Raz can use psychic abilities through beings he used clairvoyance into. Ex: He can use clairvoyance on another human, bunny, or other living being or inanimate object with a vision and shoot a PSI-Blast from a perspective of said being rather than himself. Though he does need a second or 2 to focus on a person to activate clairvoyance on them. Thanks to Brain Block upgrade Raz doesn’t take damage for a brief period of time when using clairvoyance.
The following pins do these modifications:
Future Vision
A sub addition to a Clairvoyance ability is ability to perceive the future…in a way. While typically the ability to see the future isn’t common, Raz himself has a way to see the future of objects. When using Clairvoyance on the object, it may not only lead him to the perception of the target it is connected to as shown earlier, but also may show how and for what it can be used.
Confusion
A PSI-Power that grants the ability to use Confusion Grenades to cloud people's minds, making them forget who they are, and sometimes causing them to attack one another or even themselves. It doesn’t last forever though, only for 10-20 seconds, however Raz can reuse it since he has infinite ammunition for those grenades. Thanks to this ability, Raz can also make people attack each other, pretty useful if you’re being attacked by a group.
Regeneration
Thanks to his friends in camp focusing their energy directly into him, Raz has the ability to regenerate his health in seconds. Just simple as that. It seems to be quite a passive thing considering it works through a large distance between Raz and campers, as well as there doesn’t seem to be much of a focus on campers’ side…now that I think about it, are they even aware of doing that?
Time Bubble
Raz learnt this ability from Helmut Fulbear. Have you ever had a moment in your life when you wait for something and time seems to go extremely slowly as if minutes felt like hours, or polar opposite, when you’re enjoying something and hours are passing like minutes. This ability is a representation of this exact feeling. A control through our sense of time. According to the Fullbear’s explanation, with this ability, time loses some of its meaning, and your perception of it becomes your reality (which makes sense, guy has been stuck in a sustaining fluid all alone for 20 years, yet for him it felt like thousands). In other words, instead of being just regular time slow, it’s rather manipulation of time itself (even creator of Psychonauts - Tim Schafer addresses to the power as “change movement of time”), and it’s under Raz’s control how slow or fast time is, making him able to make objects as slow/fast as he wants, usually instantly appearing as bubbles on the object Raz thinks of to slow down instead of being projectile based effect. The manipulation’s effects last about 10-15 seconds, with a small cooldown. Raz often can use it to slow down enemies or objects that are beyond faster than himself.
The Following pins do these modifications:
Mental Projection
This special ability allows Raz to use a mental pen and draw with it a 2D archetype of one's self. This archetype isn’t just a paper version of its creator though. It is based on one of the many other selves a human has within himself. Raz’s first archetype shares Raz's self-confidence (which developers describe as his “warrior spirit”) and often is pretty excited upon doing a variety of tasks. It can go to some places Raz normally can’t, can shapeshift itself into the paper plane, distract foes and fight by itself either by slapping his paper hands or summoning scissors to fight. A great ally for Raz to have in combat despite his goofiness. It’s all right if it dies, since Raz can always summon one more, without much of a limit. Though it would be quite inconvenient if someone had a device that erases pencils won’t you agree?
The Following pins do these modifications:
Telepathy
Ability to read people’s minds. Pretty simple one Raz can do really casually. As he once heard Lili’s thoughts simply by an accident and often tends to talk with other psychics with telepathy. Psychonauts agents in general pretty often communicate with each other by using telepathy.
Hand of Galochio/Hydrokinesis
This evil claw of water is a phenomenon only Raz and his family can see. Long ago, they were all cursed by a rival circus family - the Galochios - cursed to die in water, every one of them…or were they. In actuality, Ford reveals that the hand isn't a curse, and didn't originate from the Galochio family. Instead, when Ford used the Astralathe to repress Lucrecia Mux's 'Maligula' persona, he also implanted a fear of water in her to stop her from reawakening her powerful hydrokinesis. As Nona, she passes this fear on to Augustus Aquato, and through him, to the rest of the Aquatos, including Raz. The hand Raz sees is a manifestation of this fear, hijacking his own hydrokinetic abilities. So…why is this an ability and not weakness? You see, in the end, Raz defeated Maligula and managed to go through this implanted fear. Doing so made it that hand instead of drowning Raz into water, will help him from drowning into water. This implemented ability works on a conceptual level, hand appears not only through water, but basically any other liquid (such as ink), including pure resemblance of it (like the time Raz was taken by a stage set which resembles water or when he was taken by a hair that resembles water) .
Zoolepathy
Thanks to this ability, Raz can talk with animals. Raz showcased this ability while talking with a rat, but this ability can be used on other creatures, squirrels, birds, rabbits, bees, etc. And despite his abuse with animals in the past, Raz pretty much can get along with animals and get some help from them. Even though he isn’t as good in it as Booles
Limitless
Remember me talking about how some of Raz’s abilities have a cooldown or limit above? So, forget about it, at the end of first Psychonauts game Raz basically lost a limit of capacity of how much he can use his powers, and at the end of Psychonauts 2, Raz boosted his powers to the point that he lost a cooldown to all his abilities. In other words, Raz has absolutely no limit in terms of how much and how often he can use his psychic powers. Just have some footage of my gameplay with no cooldowns to see how it feels.
Mind Manipulation
Perhaps the most complex ability in the world of Psychonauts. Upon entering a human's mind psychics can alter their personality and thoughts. Some ways to manipulate mind was a precise hypnosis, such as when Coach Oleander created an entire Milkman personality for Boyd Cooper (which was actually a way to make him destroy tower to destroy the evidence if needed), or when the mysterious person, mole among the psychonauts, has mind controlled Loboto to the point that even if latter was aware of being controlled couldn’t do a thing really. Most usually though the alteration process is done by Psychonauts agents for the good. Raz particularly cured various different mind illnesses, such as latent dysphoria, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, personality disorder, and a lot more, he also can sort Emotional Baggage by which he resolves emotional issues, as well as later on he even managed to change the morals of Oleander and Doctor Loboto from evil to good, former by defeating cause of a trauma which made him go that way, latter by setting moral compass back in. The biggest feat for Raz however perhaps is healing Ford Cruller’s mind from multiple personality disorder caused by Astralathe, a machine designed to “erase” and block out memories. All done while astral projecting yourself into the Mental World where it’s possible to see memories and manipulate consciousness in the first place. If bringing in an analogy, Psychonauts’ mind control is like professional medical surgery - precise, but also dangerous if even minor detail is done wrong, mind can best case scenario have some mental illness, and worst case scenario go absolutely insane, since as much as Raz can heal someone’s mind he can also break it and cause the existence of mental issues.
Mental Connection
One of the sub-ability of mind manipulation per say. Mental Connection is the psychic power to connect disparate ideas and allows the user to pull themselves towards floating thoughts and enemies (as seen above). It appears as a grappling hook-like beam. It can lead to euphoric breakthroughs and an increase in mental health. But mainly the process of altering the mind is way further increased in time upon usage of this ability, even connecting 2 thoughts (especially harmful ones) can cause unintentional (or intentional) psychological effects that can do a chain reaction and change both person and their mindscape from scratch. For instance, Raz connecting the idea of “MONEY” and “RISK” not only altered Hollis’ thoughts on the concept of risk, making her addicted to playing games, but also as a chain reaction altered the entire Mental World from Medicine based into Casino based while also creating an entire new Mental Figure - Lady Luctopus. Upon overuse of Mental Connection on a person, the brain can even go straight up insane.
The Following pins do these modifications:
Resistances
Mind Manipulation and Illusion Creation: Resisted Oleander's mind manipulation abilities, who brainwashed and programmed lungfish to steal children's brains, as well as implanted separate personality inside of mind of Boyd Cooper, resisted Psilarium effects which could affect even agent Sasha Nein who could resist confusion being used on himself. Same Psilirium twists minds and creates illusions.
Limited Power Nullification: Despite getting Psilirium blocking from using PSI-Powers Raz was still able to use 1 psychic ability, in RoR case being Clairvoyance, and eventually with some help on the side of his friends redirecting mental energy, all other PSI-Powers.
“Mindscape” Cosmology
Earthbound
Magicant
(Art from Project PK Flash!)
After collecting the final melody, Ness wakes up in a realm within his dream known as Magicant. Magicant is a place inside the mind that contains memories, such as friends and family. People who visit Magicant can interact with said friends and family. Magicant also has the Flying Men who in Ness’ case represent his courage, however their existence isn’t limited to Ness’ Magicant, since Marie’s Magicant from Earthbound Beginnings also contained Flying Men. That leads us to the point that throughout the Mother series history there were only 2 Magicants, Maria’s and Ness’, while Maria’s was basically a town in the clouds, Ness’ was a little more abstract in a way, platforms are shaped with angles, there are basically a few homes, it even has 2 other Nesses within, one being Ness when he was even younger, while the other seemed like relatively close to the present. One of the most unique parts in Ness’ Magicant is probably a change of Sky colors after talking to other citizens of Magicant and experiencing more thoughts within himself. Most of the people in that part of Magicant are good and peaceful. But with good there’s also evil, within itself, Magicant also contains Ness’ enemies, Ness’ evil half, Ness’ nightmares. Ness' purpose in Magicant was that he must travel through the Sea of Eden to reach and fight his nightmare, conquer the evil in his mind once and for all, as well as upon its disappearance, get a boost from the earth itself afterwards, enough to face Giygas.
Psychonauts
Mental World
Mental Worlds, also known as mindscapes, refer to both the realm in which peoples' minds are physically manifested as well as the minds themselves. Psychics are able to access a person's mental world and manipulate it in order to affect a person's psyche or actions in the real world. Mental worlds can be greatly manipulated by psychics, whether intentionally or not.
Mental worlds can be controlled by the host if they have sufficient control over their own psyche and obviously are aware of being capable of doing it (for instance, within his own Mental World Raz was able to create objects he wants to burn), although control can be easily lost and hard to regain. Some mindscapes may be manipulated or intentionally created by the host mind to assist, deceive, or entertain the visiting psychic(s).
Mental worlds can sometimes contain fabricated information created by the host mind or the visiting psychic(s). Examples of false information inside a mental world would be in Basic Braining, where the host mind was deceiving the psychic visitors with false memories. Other examples are the beginning scene of Loboto's Mind in Psychonauts 2 where invading psychics were deceiving the host mind (Loboto himself) with a false location (that being an office setting), The Milkman in The Milkman Conspiracy and Kochamara in Lungfishopolis both of which are case of new mental figures created by an invading psychic (Former by Oleander manipulating Boyd’s mind, latter by brainwashing Linda to kidnap childrens’ brains).
The characteristics of a true unaltered Mental World represent real parts of the character's personality and experiences, and true traits can often leak into a fabricated world by accident, ex: the military rabbits in Basic Braining (related to Oleander’s past with rabbits).
These worlds are not limited to humans alone. Animals such as Linda have shown to have complicated and large mindscapes just like humans, meaning any living creature really can have a Mental World with the most important thing for it to exist and/or be possible to be visited by psychic(s) being the existence of the brain.
Psychics can enter mental worlds using the aforementioned Astral Projection. While in the Mental World, psychics can meet and interact with various mental figures - extensions or personifications of the host mind's personality or recreations of people from their own life. Mental Worlds typically represent one individual's single mind, however, under abnormal circumstances can represent multiple minds fused together. Known Mental Worlds formed from more than one brain are the Meat Circus - a fusion of 2 Mental Worlds formed by Raz’s and Oleander’s psyche. Psychics can either harm or heal the mental health of the host mind depending on how they interact with the mental world.
Once a psychic has entered a mind, they can return anytime through the Collective Unconscious, but before going to that topic, let’s look at some other notable features of the Mental Worlds:
Mental Figments
Figments are physical manifestations of a mind's imagination which appear all throughout mental worlds. Usually they appear as floating two-dimensional illustrations that exist in a person's psyche and differ in color and appearance. They typically represent something the host imagines might be present in their mental world, but doesn't currently think about strongly enough for them to be a physical feature or mental figure. Hence they serve no harm and can be just passed through.
Mental Figures
(Art by u/DontWeDoItInTheRoad)
Mental figures, broadly speaking, are animate entities that originate from and exist solely inside mental worlds. They can come in essentially any form, limited only by the imagination of the mental world's host. Some of them appear fully sentient, with their own complex goals and desires, whereas others are driven only by simple objectives, and yet others are seemingly only around to liven up the mental landscape they can be found inside. Many Mental Figures are unique to their own host mind, and are directly based on the host's experiences in life, but there are also types of mental figures that exist as fundamental parts of all (or at least most) minds.
Inside the mental world, mental figures usually have very particular purposes and roles to occupy, as each one typically represents some (small or large, less or more abstract or complex) part of the mind they exist inside, such as an emotion, a memory, a basic defense mechanism, and so on. Mental figures deviating from their normal roles (for example those that are overly dominant or even entirely absent), can represent some sort of mental problem in the host. At the same time, some mental figures' very presence is a problem, and the host mind is better off when they are gone, ex: Gloria’s inner critic (caused by critics crucifying her) is partially the reason behind her mood switch.
Much like mental worlds themselves, mental figures can exist in all shapes and sizes, depending on the mind that created them. They can play all sorts of different roles and interact in all sorts of ways with each other, the host mind, and psychics visiting the mental world using Astral Projection. The one constant for all mental figures seen so far is that they cannot exit the mental world.
In addition to the mind's usual state of affairs sometimes leading to the "death" of mental figures, particularly they can be defeated and destroyed by visiting psychics.
It is possible to create mental figures, as well as locations, in another person's mind through the use of psychic abilities and/or hypnotic suggestion.
Among the wide variety of mental figures seen across the Psychonauts series, some particular recurring types can be distinguished. Due to the endless variety in the possible appearance and role of mental figures, a single one may fit into more than one of these categories.
Systemic Mental Figure
These types of mental figures are representations of some basic element of the mind, one that is found (or at least can occur) in most minds. As a result, they are generally not unique, usually appearing similar across most minds, with consistent and generally straightforward objectives. When they are very prominently present, this may have something to say about the host's mind or their current emotional state; but often their absence can be equally telling. Many of the basic enemies in the Psychonauts series are this type of mental figures (See more in Support and Obstacles/Enemies sections).
Memory Replicas
Just as some areas in mental worlds are direct replicas of a person's memories of a place, many mental figures are based on a real-world person, as the mind's host remembers them. Due to the very nature of memories, all of these mental figures are remembered with some amount of bias. Some are quite realistic, strongly resembling their real-world counterparts; such as Bob's memories of Otto and Truman, and some are much more obviously unrealistic or romanticized, like Edgar's memories of his classmates Lana and Dean as a flamenco dancer and matador (while in reality they were just cheerleaders), respectively, or for instance Bob's interpretation of his grandkid Lili Zanotto, who visually looks exactly same as real world Lili, but due to Bob only seeing her through a photo and never actually interacting with Lili, the only thing that is accurate are her looks, having nearly no character, different voice and etc. Or Raz's portrayal of his father shows a clear difference between how Raz remembered him and how he actually looks. In summary, accuracy of memory replicas in their design, powers and character depends entirely from person to person and how accurate or biased their memories are.
Inner Selves
Most minds have at least one primary inner version of the host mind's consciousness, that often (though not always) looks identical to the host's physical body in the real world. Technically, this is also a mental figure. Additionally, while all mental figures speak for the host on some level, many minds have mental figures that are more directly linked to their own ego or the way they see themselves. Bonita Soleil, for instance, is a personification of Gloria's "inner sunshine"—everything she likes about herself (whereas Gloria's primary inner self is absent). Bob's Bulb Bobs, meanwhile, represent Bob's disgust with himself.
Psychics who have learned the aforementioned Mental Projection ability can summon inner selves—specifically Archetypes, parts of their own personality needed to play certain roles in life—into the real world as two-dimensional assistants. Like Cassie O'Pia who basically separated her personalities into 4 Mental Projections/Archetypes
Living Figments
Some mental figures don't seem to represent too much in particular. Much like figments, figures such as the Party Dancers in Milla's mind or the Meat Men in the Meat Circus seemingly exist mostly to decorate the mental landscape for a fitting setting.
Collective Unconscious
If every mind has a doorway into it, then this is the hallway (and considering the amount of existing minds/brains on Earth alone, taking into account every single human, animal and living creature in general, this hallway might be endless). The Collective Unconscious (also known as Astral Plane) houses not only locked doors to all other minds, but also an open entry point into every mind Raz has visited throughout his adventure. This includes every mind in both Psychonauts 1, Rhombus of Ruin and 2. They’re possible to visit by using Brain Tumbler or PSI-Popper Generator.
Forms/States
Ness
The Power of Magicant/Land
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.
Raz
Mental World Physiology
While being inside of the Mental World, Raz gets some physiological changes. The most notable being is that…he can’t die in it. Since while he is inside of Mental World the body is moreso physical essence of his astral form, and upon death astral projection reforms into another physical essence, there are overall 11 Astral Layers in first Psychonauts game, so Raz needs to be killed 11 times to be sent back into Real World (however in Psychonauts 2 he got no Astral Layers, possibly implying he can’t be sent back into real world through death anymore). While being inside of someone’s mind Raz’s presence can cause a variety of beings to come after him as a defense mechanism (more in Obstacles/Enemies section). Raz’s appearance can also change a little in colors to fit into the setting of the Mental World, like it did in Black Velvetopia, Cassie’s books and PSI-King’s Sensorium.
Colossal Psychic State
Upon meeting his dad, who actually turned out to be psychic as well, Raz was granted a power to form a giant red form of himself. It’s big and deals far more damage than Raz can do on average, it has of course a little time limit of about 10 seconds, but Raz can quickly recover it also in about 10-20 seconds. Despite being granted this ability from his father, Raz shows during battle against Two-Headed Dad Monster that he can reactivate it by himself with no help or it’s the same situation as with his camp friends and his Father just passively gives him energy to do so.
Colossal Psychic State 2
Upon fighting Maligula, as a last resort she increased her size to be larger than buildings. To countermeasure it, Nona helped Raz and giving her own power, let Raz enter into colossal transformation. Way better than his previous Colossal Psychic Form. It’s bigger, faster and stronger too, additionally it doesn’t seem to have a time limit really and while being in this form, Raz gains the ability to breathe fire, like a dragon! It's more debatable if it’s standard for Raz, but considering a similar thing happened previously like with first Colossal Psychic Form and Regeneration it is possible to give it to Raz, overall you’ve gotta admit though it looks pretty neat!
Support
Ness
Paula
Ness’ journey into becoming stronger and facing Giygas wasn’t done alone, far from that, the prophecy was mentioning other boys and a girl who will help him in this hard path. One of those girls was Paula Jones. This girl from Polestar School, despite being kind and looking innocent, has been a strong help to Ness, and not without a reason. She got plenty of psychic powers, weapons and even own ability all of which would be listed below.
Arsenal
List of aforementioned Equipment Paula can use
Yo-yo
Slingshot
Pendants
Coins
Charms
Bands and Bracelets
All consumable items
All Miscellaneous Equipment (minus bike and franklin badge)
Frying Pan
If Ness’ most reliable weapon to be used is a baseball bat, Paula’s best weapon is a frying pan. Mostly it’s just your average frying pan, but as experience shows with another blond lady with a pink dress, the force of it is more than enough to put you down. There are overall 8 Frying Pans Paula got throughout adventure such as:
Ribbons
If Ness is defended by Hats (mostly baseball caps), Paula’s defense clothing are Ribbons. There are many Ribbons in the game, but the most useful are perhaps the Goddess Ribbon with +110 defense and Saturn Riborn which has +90 defense but also +40 Luck.
Abilities
List of aforementioned Abilities Paula can use
PSI (with the amount of PP being 350-360)
Guts
Luck
PK Fire
That’s right boys and girls, the famous PK Fire Ness known for in Super Smash Bros series actually belongs to Paula. It somewhat differs from how it was portrayed in Smash Bros as well. If in Smash Bros it was a projectile that upon hitting the target spreads its fire onto the enemy as if it was Molotov Cocktail, this one works more so akin to flamethrower if anything. This moves is used to spread the fire across one row of enemy, burning them alive and giving a good amount of damage, with bigger damage comes bigger cost of course, and there are overall 4 types of PK Fire:
PK Thunder
Another move which you may know from Smash is actually working a lot differently. Unlike in Smash you can't actually control PK Thunder, it works and hits more randomly, having chances to miss its target. There are 4 versions of PK Thunder: PK Thunder Ī± strikes once, Ī² strikes twice, Ī³ strikes thrice, and Ī© strikes four times.
PK Freeze
With this ability Paula uses freezing as a way of damage on a single target. It can be strong enough to solidify the target. There are 4 versions of PK Freeze:
PSI Magnet
With this ability, Paula can absorb foe's PSI. While it doesn't get a lot from one target it's still a pretty good move for a refuel without equipment.
Offense Up
With this ability Paula increases the offense of her companions. Pretty simple as that. There are 2 kinds of Offense Up:
Defense Down
Besides increasing the offense of her friends, Paula can also decrease the offense of her foes. There are 2 kinds of Defense Down:
PSI Shield
This ability covers herself or her friends with a forcefield, which while doesn’t defend against physical attacks, defends against PSI attacks. There are 4 versions of PSI Shield: Ī± which lessens damage of PSI attacks for one friend, Ī² which reflects PSI attack back also for one friend, Ī£ which covers all friends lessening PSI damage, and Ī© which covers all friends and reflects PSI attack back. After about 3 hits they weaken and disappear.
Pray
One of the most important abilities in the series which also is quite random. Paula prays, and her prayers do random stuff whether it be for the benefit or not (usually not, but hey, chance is a chance):
Jeff
When being surrounded by zombies and trapped in the basement, Ness and Paula needed more than their brain powers to fight new enemies, they needed brainpower. And that role in the story was given to another new friend on Ness’ journey, a boy genius, called Jeff. Despite being shy, clumsy, wreckless, nearsighted and not with PSI Powers, his high intelligence fairly paid off for that. He’s smart enough to fix broken items and turn junk objects into new gadgets with some abilities not even PSI abilities can do.
Arsenal
List of aforementioned Equipment Jeff can use
Yo-yo
Slingshot
Pendants
Coins
Charms
Bands and Bracelets
All consumable items
All Miscellaneous Equipment (minus bike and franklin badge)
Bad Key Machine
When getting out into the adventure, one of the first items for Jeff to have is a key. And not just any key, a “Bad Key Machine”, in other words a machine that is capable of opening any lock and any door. As you can see in american version it looks kind of weird,as if it’s just a really big amount of keys, but in Japanese Strategy Guide, it looks more like an actual machine capable of opening any lock () .
Gun
And for his neutral special, Jeff carries a gun…well not literally a gun that shoots bullets but rather guns that use either energy or air based projectiles. Throughout the adventure Jeff made dozens of those, up to 14 as a matter of fact:
Counter PSI Unit
This one is pretty unique gadget which Jeff built out of a broken machine, looking like a mini antenna station () when used in battle, it will cause the opponent to lose concentration, thereby disabling their PSI for three turns. It can be used many times. Though the chances of success aren’t high.
HP-Sucker and Hungry HP-Sucker
Built from trash can and its’ superior version built from broken tube (while looking like some antennas: and ). HP-Sucker can suck HP out of the 1 enemy, specifically it sucks 1/8th of +/- 50% target's max HP, and has a luck/80 chance to fail. The improved version being Hungry HP-Sucker, does everything the same way, the difference is that it ranges from a single to all nearby enemies.
Neutralizer
This gadget Jeff found in the trash can in monkey cave. When used in battle, it will reset all participants of the battle into a neutral state, specifically it resets all stat changes to normal, removes any status ailments and disables any Shields or PSI Shield from BOTH friend and foe.
Shield Killer
This item Jeff built out of a broken pipe (which admittedly looks like one: ). When used in battle, it will remove the Shield or PSI Shield of the enemy, pretty straightforward usage.
Slime Generator
This gadget Jeff built from Broken Iron, sprays a sticky substance that stops the enemy from moving. Can be used many times.
Rust Promoter
An item you 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.
Rust Promoter DX
This 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.
Bazooka & Heavy Bazooka
That’s right, besides guns, Jeff also can use a literal bazookas, everything pretty self-explanatory, its explosive damage however can be spread not only into the enemy but to Jeff and his friends as well.
Bottle Rocket
Thought we were done with rockets? Well this one is even better. when being used, these bottle rockets (also named pencil rockets in japanese, due to its pencil shape despite likely using a bottle to fly) simultaneously fly at the enemy dealing some damage.
Abilities
List of aforementioned Abilities Jeff can use
Guts
Luck
Spying
Jeff has the ability to Spy on enemies, which lists their offense and defense, along with one of their PSI weaknesses (if there is one). If there would be an item dropped at the end of battle, Jeff will steal it from the enemy (if there are free inventory slots). Pretty useful ability to find some info on the enemy.
Poo
Another friend Ness met in his dream after eating his cake was Poo. Unlike Paula, Jeff and Ness, Poo already had a pretty interesting life going on before the adventure to defeat Giygas. Being a prince of an eastern country called Dalaam, Poo lives in a big palace on top of a mountain in the skies. Personality wise, Poo is very friendly with the people in his kingdom, appearing to be especially popular with the women of said land. Poo is also a serious and dedicated individual, appearing to take his training very seriously, as some women mention he'd rather train than hang out with them. He is willing to endure situations that most would be afraid to take, specifically in his Mu Training, as the Mu spirit broke his legs, cut off arms, took ears, eyes and mind while Poo managed to take and accept all of it with no fear. In other words, by accepting the incremental divestment of his senses, he essentially accepted death. But aside from incredible dedication and will, Poo is a highly trained martial artist and also a psychic. His arsenal of what he can use is a bit more limited than with others and basically all food recovery items besides the Brain food lunch will have little effect on Poo.
Arsenal
List of aforementioned items Poo can use.
Pendants
Coins
Charms
Bands and Bracelets
All consumable items (Though only few are effective)
All Miscellaneous Equipment (minus bike and franklin badge)
King Items
Unlike all aforementioned kids, Poo’s standard equipment is only limited to these 4 King Items, each of which can be found only in a specific places:
Sword of Kings
The most popular item of Poo among the 4 (but hardest to get, since you have to farm against Starman Super with a 1/128 chance of getting it). Just like your average blade, it can cut stuff, though it’s a little up to interpretation how it does look, you see in the English Guidebook it looks like Katana and has only 1 cutting edge (as you may see above), while in Japanese Guidebook it looks like your average sword:
Bracer of Kings
Being in Pink Clouds, upon finding this bracelet Poo increased his defense, luck and defense from hypnosis.
Cloak of Kings
This cloak which Poo found in Lost Underworld besides increasing his defense also increases his speed by some amount.
Diadem of Kings
Found in Lumine Hall, this Diadem increases Poo’s defense, luck and grants protection from PK Fire, Freeze, Paralysis and Flash’s effects.
Abilities
List of aforementioned PSI Abilities Poo can use.
PSI (With the usual amount of PP being around 190-200)
PK Freeze
PK Thunder
Lifeup
Healing
Shield
PSI Shield
Teleport
PSI Magnet
Guts
Luck
Brainshock
An ability to also minorly affect the mind of a person. Though instead of trying to make a person sleep or cry, this one just makes them feel strange. There are 2 variations of Brainshock:
PK Starstorm
PK Starstorm - the move so awesome it was given to Ness as Final Smash instead of his PK Rockin. But despite its mighty power it is only taught manually to those who have earned it, so no falling meteors ability for you Ness. Poo however did gain this ability through not really long but tough training. Principle is that the user of PK Starstorm sends a shower of meteors at the opponent. Throughout the adventure Poo got 2 versions of PK Starstorm both of which can be seen below:
Mirror
Poo also wields the ability to Mimic nearby opponents' looks and moveset, as if they were looking in the mirror. This includes essentially all non boss enemies of Earthbound if being nearby (see Obstacles/Enemies section for more). However its success rate is never higher than 50%.
Flying Men
Flying Men are bipedal creatures that live in groups, in different Magicants. They are very kind and are always ready to help. In Ness’ Magicant they were a representation of Ness’ courage. Flying Men mostly are close quarter fighters, since they only throw punches and charge forward into the enemy. There are only 5 Flying Men and despite their courage, their lives weren’t as long in Magicant, and losing all of them is rather considered as desperation rather than courage.
Escargo Express
Escargo Express is a company in EarthBound. The name of the company is a joke, as Escargot, which is similar in spelling to Escargo (which is French for snail, making the name an oxymoron). Tracy, Ness’ younger sister, works for the company (while being at the age of 10-11 years, and apparently she’s even allowed to do so by the laws of Eagleland, well that’s weird). Ness can call them and store three items at a time. The delivery charge is $18. After calling them, the delivery man will come and ask for the money and the items he should give or deposit. This is helpful considering Ness himself can’t carry a lot of the items simultaneously.
Eagleland Hint Union
The Hint Shop is a shop in EarthBound, which sells information to aid Ness in the game. It is owned by the Eagleland Hint Union, which posts signs advertising it in various places. For a maximum price of 150$, Hint Shop offered Ness various information in regards to what he must do next, up to the end of the game, where the owner of the shop claimed to go out of business.
Gonzales
A pizza delivery man at Mach Pizza. Whenever Ness makes an order from Mach Pizza, Gonzales will come with the delivery within a span of three minutes. Perhaps one of the fastest Pizza Delivery you’ll ever see. And his Pizzas are a big deal, not only he delivers large pizza that is big enough to fed up you and all your friends with it, the smell of his Pizza is so memorable that you could win a prize in the Earthbound’s Ident-A-Smell contest: Mach Pizza Air Freshener with Pizza smell! Though Gonzales himself isn’t exactly the owner of the Mach Pizza Air, but rather its mascot who gives the company an image.
Dungeon Man
When Jeff first meets a guy called Brick Road in Winters, he tells him about how he wishes to become a dungeon, and is going to ask the help of Jeff's father Dr. Andontus to fulfill that dream. Later on Ness and his friends, deep in Scaraba's desert, have found a combination between a dungeon and a man - Dungeon Man! Thanks to Andontus’ modifications Brick Road became a large 4 floor sized maze with many branching paths. Besides being a quite complex building it is also a pretty strong mech, that may need to be close to do hits, but the damage is so big it’s worth it.
Hospitals
Well, I guess it doesn’t need much of an explanation. Upon becoming unconscious, Ness and friends can use the Hospital that exists in a town to recover from unconsciousness or cure cold, poison, sunstroke. Within the Hospital there’s also a healer that can remove possession and diamondization, as well as cure mushroomization.
Hotels
Every town has some sort of a hotel. Within the hotel there’s always a place to sleep and relax for the whole crew, if they need to recover all of their HP and PP. Hotels don’t however heal from diseases and other status ailments, you gotta keep that in mind.
Stores/Shops
Basically places where Ness gets his main supply of practically his entire arsenal. All of that weird stuff like a good amount of bats, Yo-Yos, healing foods, literal rockets, healing food, everything except for perhaps, the best and rare stuff, can be found in various shops throughout Earthbound’s, well, Earth. Obviously for a price of a very big amount of dollars, depending on the item and who and where items or food are being sold, but hey, not like our funds are low throughout the adventure.
Mr. Saturn
Aside from Starmen this is probably one of the most known races from Earthbound (that is apparently part of the Earth race rather than a space alien). In Smash they are used to break shields but in the original game they really don’t do much other than being helpful to Ness and crew. Mr. Saturns are known for being very peaceful and quirky, and their very distinct way of speaking. They don't have any true forms of amusement, but unlike Hotels and Hospitals they offer many of their services for free (with the exception of their store). Despite their quirky looks it is with their help, Apple Kid and Dr. Andontus built Phase Distorters, so they’re uniquely intelligent.
Ness’ Father
The main sponsor of Ness’ adventure. You might have seen a lot of the weapons, foods, hospitals, hotels and items, all of them have insanely high prices. Thanks to Ness’ hardworking Father, Ness had a big amount of money (maybe even too big) to pay for all sorts of stuff, even though he isn’t as often at home, he still cares and worries about Ness and even occasionally calls Ness and asks if he needs to rest (Ness being fatherless jokes are stupid!!!).
Magic Butterflies
These aren’t just your average butterflies. They harbor mysterious powers. Softly touching the wings will miraculously result in a sensation of comfort that revitalizes the spirit. To tell it simply they restore PSI by 20 PP. There are plenty of them around the world really.
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.
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.So to put it simply Player does quite minor assistance to Ness throughout the whole journey and quite major in the final battle.
Raz
Memory Vaults
Memory Vaults, also known as mental vaults, are mental figures found in mental worlds. They are sentient safes that resemble dogs, with their "mouths" located directly behind their faces. Said faces contain the memories of the person whose mind they reside in. These memories can be truthful expressions of what the person remembers, purposefully fabricated, or a combination of both. For example, the vault with a memory called “A Land Without Caviar” shows protestors signs adorned with slogans such as "Blah blah blah" or "Problems", highlighting the self-centered and egotistic worldview of the mind the memory belongs to, or Loboto’s perception of Raz and other agents during operation was far different from how they actually look, or Coach Oleander portraying himself as tall in one of his Memory Vaults. Quite close to how memories work in real life, we can’t remember anything as precise, so there’s always room for some kind of bias in our brains when we try to remember stuff that happened in the past. Aside from that, said Memory Vaults can also release a Mental Figure that directly comes from a person's memory into the Mental World and practically have a pocket world within, which would tell some sort of memory.
PSI-Popper Generator
The PSI-Popper Generator, commonly referred to as Oatmeal, is a creature found throughout mental worlds. He allows the astral projections of psychics visiting the mental worlds to teleport between different areas of the mind, as well as back to the Collective Unconscious where psychics can visit other previously visited minds. In other words it’s basically a fast-travel system across the Mental World(s).
Ford Cruller
The leader and founder of the Psychic Six and a current Psychonaut agent. He used to be one of the most powerful psychics of his time, but because of his advanced age and shattered mind he was limited to the role of a dispatcher. Thanks to Raz having a piece of Bacon, he can always literally come out of Razputin’s head, thanks to having a psychic connection between each other. Ford can help and give a tip for Raz in case Raz himself doesn’t know what to do. But if needed he can also put up a really good fight himself.
Arsenal
Astralathe
Invented by one of the Psychic Six Members - Otto Mentalis, The Astralathe is a mechanical device that allows one to modify a mind. It was built with one target - to study the potential and limits of the human mind, to try and "open every closed door in their minds". The device is not only capable of weakening minds to make them controlled or overcompressed by other traumas, but also can somewhat directly alter parts of the human mind and mindscape. This device is also capable of altering memories of people, and even give people phobias which use psychic powers against their users (like the water curse Raz and his family had which was actually an alteration on the mind to keep them away from water). As well as it can “erase” memories...or at least hide them deep inside the mind for a very long period of time of at least years. In the Mental World itself the Astralathe becomes bigger in size and shoots large beams to manipulate with memories, and can also create holes to bury memories or Mental Figures in it.
Abilities
List of aforementioned abilities Ford has:
PSI-Blast - in a fight against Coach Oleander
Levitation - same as with PSI-Blast
Invisibility - taught Raz this ability
Pyrokinesis - taught Raz this ability
Telekinesis - taught Raz this ability
Telepathy - could telepathically talk with other psychonauts agents
Astral Projection - has gone to Raz’s head without using Psycho-Portal.
Possibly Time Bubble - Vision Quest, a mental representation of Ford Cruller (or in other words Memory Replica of Ford), has shown to use a time bubble.
Illusion Creation
Another ability Ford has used in Psychonauts' story. What Ford does is put an illusion that distorts senses, specifically vision. The Forgetful Forest is full of these illusions created by Ford, that are used as safety precautions to keep wanderers out of the Green Needle Gulch. Possibly this illusion creation can even manipulate perception of a person's face at least as far as implications of one of the Psychonauts agents goes.
Construct Creation
To convince Lucy and make her think she was Nona Aquato - mother of Augustus and grandmother of Raz. Ford created a Mental Construct inside her head, with a circus setting, to make sure that Maligula wouldn’t just get out of the baggage Ford put her in. The mental construct also includes all stuff Mental Worlds have, like Mental Figures, Figments, baggage, Memory Vaults, etc.
Teleportation
One of the abilities that seems to be exclusive to Ford is the ability to teleport himself and others around. In camp itself that helps him to be practically anywhere and if Raz needs help, come out of Raz's head. Ford can teleport Raz to himself if plan is to retreat. Or he can potentially teleport other agents to bring in for help if needed. Hence here it is needed to be addressed that as current dispatcher and teleporter, Ford can possibly bring in to help other agents. Despite it being more so theoretical possibility all next mentioned people are Psychonauts agents Ford can potentially bring in to help Raz thanks to his teleportation abilities:
Lili Zanotto
The best friend (and girlfriend) of Raz- Lili Zanotto is a powerful psychic and serial truant who would rather garden than go to class. She is the daughter of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, and veteran at Whispering Rock Psychic summer camp. She is aloof, standoffish and doesn't let anyone get in her way, being a go-getting girl at heart. As the daughter of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, Lili is a naturally gifted psychic and has earned every merit badge at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. She is fond of plants and specializes in herbaphony, preferring to talk to them rather than most of her fellow campers, whom she views as loud and obnoxious.
Abilities
List of aforementioned abilities Lili has:
Telekinesis - according to Psychonauts’ guidebook Lili got every single merit badge in camp, meaning she mastered telekinesis and some other listed below abilities. Plus has shown to be able to use it here.
Pyrokinesis - Same reason as TK
PSI-Blast - Same reason as TK
Invisibility - Same reason as TK
Levitation - Same reason as TK
Zoolingualism - Just like Raz could talk with rat harold.
Telepathy - Has telepathically spoken to Raz before
Astral Projection - just like all other psychonauts can enter mind
Herbaphony
Basically the ability to communicate with plant life and foliage. Herbaphony users can encourage plants to grow. The telepathic ability can even extend to plants that don’t actually exist, like in example above, where Lili communicates with Meat Plant. Not really much useful in combat though.
Sasha Nein
A famous German psychonaut agent. Intelligent, down to earth, curious scientist interested in studying the full potential of the human mind. To Sasha, being a Psychonaut means exploring the mysterious universe of the human mind. The ultimate quest for self-awareness and enlightenment.
List of aforementioned abilities Sasha has:
Telekinesis - has shown to do that with at least small objects like cigar
PSI-Blast - taught Raz this ability and directly showed how to do it.
Levitation - can seemingly levitate around
Mind Reading - This is how he found out about his dad thinking about se- oh I mean…yeah you get that.
Telepathy - has telepathically spoken to Raz before.
Astral Projection
Construct Creation - just like Ford, Sasha was able to create a construct inside of Loboto’s head. But instead of being circus themed he was able to create an office themed construct to make Loboto think that he is an Office Employer who got into the vacation.
Milla Vodello
Camilla "Milla" Vodello - a famous Brazilian Psychonaut agent, who has a soft and caring demeanor with an upbeat attitude. She is very kind toward her colleagues, pupils, and even her enemies.
List of aforementioned abilities Milla has:
Levitation - a specialist in this ability. Even has a nickname Mental Minx, due to her being really good with levitation.
PSI-Blast - used it in a fight against Coach Oleander
Shield - used it on Raz & Lili.
Telepathy - could telepathically speak with Raz and hear his thoughts. She can even telepathically spread her thoughts around the world to sense activity related to a person. In fact her first power she learnt was…oh nevermind, pretty tragic way of getting power as well.
Telekinesis - Along with shield she telepathically moved Raz & Lili down.
Astral Projection
Morceau Oleander
Coach Morceau "Morry" Oleander - the Head Coach of Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp who acts tough on the outside. He puts up a front of a seasoned army man, even though he was never actually in the military. At first he was emotionally unstable and due to that was trying to take over the world with PSI Tanks. Gladly Raz returned his mind back to normal, so we still have a caring coach!
List of aforementioned abilities Coach has:
Telekinesis - Levitated Raz in Basic Braining
Shield - used it in a battle against own colleagues.
PSI-Blast - same as with the shield.
Telepathy - Could telepathically speak to Raz
Zoolingualism - Used to talk with his friend bunny, until…yeah there are a lot of traumatized people.
PSI-Punch - has a small obstacle course in his mind specifically to teach campers how to use PSI-Punch.
Levitation - Uses it to get inside his big jeep.
Astral Projection
Hollis Forsythe
Hollis Forsythe - the Second Head of the Psychonauts. She is also in charge of managing the organization's budget, and leads the intern program. A tightly wound, serious person. She is highly responsible, and also very mindful of safety. Though despite being capable of fighting akin to Ford she’s mostly shown to be a commander/dispatcher who can give plans of what to do next.
List of aforementioned abilities Hollis has:
Mental Connection - Learned this ability from simply reading a book of how to do it.
Telekinesis - briefly shown to use it to give Raz his intern name tag.
Levitation - Uses it to float around Motherlobe.
Astral Projection
Norma Natividad
Junior Psyconaut who acts friendly on the outside, but really manipulative on the inside, even though she’s not entirely heartless, and can admit when she’s in the wrong. Proficient with Pyrokinesis and can even use them to do big heat blasts.
List of aforementioned abilities Norma has:
Astral Projection
Pyrokinesis - her speciality, has so good pyrokinesis blasts that they can melt metal.
Possibly Mental Projection - Implied to use this ability more efficiently than Raz considering she mocks Raz for having an unrefined Archetype.
Lizzie Natividad
Also Junior Psychonaut. Cold and reserved but slightly nicer than her sister Norma. Despite her sarcastic-pessimistic tone she can be helpful if needed, like the times she actually used her Cryokinesis.
Abilities
List of aforementioned abilities Lizzie has:
Telekinesis - Has shown to use it in class sessions.
Astral Projection
Hydrokinesis - Uses it along with her cryokinesis
Levitation - Has occasionally been seen to be able to levitate.
Cryokinesis
Her speciality, ability with which she can manipulate water to create ice objects to either help in movement or to build walls, etc. Pretty simple one but helpful, especially considering the decent amount of area she can cover with her ice.
Adam Joseph Gette
Junior Psychonaut, perhaps one of the friendliest in Motherlobe. Mostly interested in Psychonauts’ history. His most notable ability and arsenal is probably the Yo-Yo which he can telekinetically control and move around at high speeds. And if he loses one Yo-Yo, he always has 2-nd one.
List of aforementioned abilities Adam has:
Astral Projection
Telekinesis - uses it to manipulate Yo-Yo and make attacks.
Gisu Nerumen
Junior Psychonaut who is very good at skateboarding. Energetic and the brightest of the group. While she’s passionate about inventing gadgets with her mentor, Otto Mentallis, she’s seemingly better at levitation considering how efficiently she uses it with either her skateboard or even other objects.
List of aforementioned abilities Gisu has:
Levitation - uses it to skateboard and uses her levitation powers to lift the large platform in a fight against Maligula.
Astral Projection
Telekinesis - Has seen to be using it simultaneously with levitation as seen with cars.
Sam Boole
Junior Psychonaut, who much like her brother, is very air-headed, often not paying attention during important moments or understanding the gravity of a situation. However she’s also very friendly…even though it isn’t as noticeable with animals she talks with.
List of aforementioned abilities Sam has:
Astral Projection
Zoolingualism - her speciality power as boole, can command and control different animals from birds, goats and squirrels up to a large whale, she can even mind control non biological animals, like one time she managed to control the mind of snakes that essentially don’t actually have any brains and are entirely made of water.
Morris Martinez
Junior Psyconaut who is a levitation expert and an amateur radio aficionado trying to start a pirate radio station at the Motherlobe. He can’t walk, but he does ride in a makeshift wheelchair created by levitating a common lawn chair with his psychic powers. He's generally relaxed and not as mean as the other interns.
Abilities
List of aforementioned abilities Morris has:
Levitation - his speciality, as you may see guy can’t even walk but uses levitation on his wheelchair as an object of travel.
Astral Projection
Psycho-fabrication
Basically creation or appearance of matter from psychic energy. The power is explicitly mentioned though it does not have an official name. But based on what we do see, Morriss essentially creates large blue platforms that can be used as trampoline. There’s no exact limit on how many trampolines can be created or how long they can stay.
Obstacles/Enemies
Ness
Locations
A brief explanation before going into this never before section quite deeply. Perhaps when you saw the support section for Ness being bigger than usual you might have already started to suspect that there’s something different. To briefly explain, due to aforementioned Mental Worlds mechanics we are essentially giving a look at the Ness’ mind, as such, for a more proper understanding of the possibilities we may encounter with, in this Matchup, we are taking a look not only at the support Ness got throughout his game, but also at the challenges Ness had to face. So there you have it, a new section, specifically made for this blog where we uncover Earthbound’s and Psychonauts’ Obstacles and Enemies, Ness and Raz may encounter during the fight. Starting with the locations. In the world of Earthbound instead of North America we have Eagleland, instead of Europe Foggyland and instead of Asia we have Chommo. Each of these regions are filled with various cities and towns Ness and his friends traveled through. So let’s take a deep look at each of them.
Onett
Ness’ hometown, a place where he begins his adventure, was already full of trouble. At the north end of the town is Ness's house, Going south of Ness's house is the main area of the town, where most of the businesses are found. The building located north is the library where Ness can borrow a map. South of the library is the drug store, with the burger shop right next to it. The building in the center is the Town Hall where the irresponsible mayor B.H. Pirkle resides. East of the Town Hall is the hotel, and south of the Town Hall is the hospital. The southernmost businesses are a Mach Pizza joint, an arcade, a bakery, and a police station. Onett is set within many natural surroundings, such as hills and forests. In particular, it is set at the foot of a mountain, with the inner city being on mostly even ground. The EarthBound Player's Guide states the town is lined with maple trees, with the leaves becoming many different shades of yellow and orange during fall. Onett appears to be set in a more rural location, as it uniquely is the only major settlement that is not connected to other major towns with a paved road and bus route. The northern parts of town consist primarily of hills, with the summit being where the meteor landed at the beginning of the game. Within the range of hills is the Giant Step to the west, which has many caves connecting different parts of the area. The southern parts of the town are surrounded with many trees which extend to the east and north, until it comes into contact with the northern hills. A dirt road cuts through the trees which leads south to Twoson. The far west of the town reaches the Beak Point along the coastal cliffs.
Twoson
A town which is primarily surrounded by trees and mountains. According to the EarthBound Player's Guide, Twoson has a very mild climate and is sunny year-round. Many trees are found in the north towards Onett, and to the west of town. The south and east are bordered with hills and mountains. Twoson has a population of 3,711 people and one dog, and has an average temperature of 72°F. It also has a multi-story Department store, Polestar Preschool and Burglin Park, which is a large park located in the center of town. Inside the park are several sellers who sell items such as condiments, foods, and equipment.Go down the road to the tunnel and you’ll get into Threed, go right through a footpath and you’ll get yourself into Peaceful Rest Valley.
Peaceful Rest Valley
A large valley which winds through hills and trees, and past rivers, lakes and waterfalls. It is widely seen as a difficult area to navigate due to the confusing maze-like layout, and for having rather strong enemies for early game which can inflict status ailments or explode upon defeat. Peaceful Rest Valley spans between Happy Happy Village in the east, and Twoson in the west. The path mostly runs along the riverbank, three bridges are used to traverse across to the other sides of the rivers. Normally there is a bridge that skips a good portion of the valley, however during the player's first visit it is broken and thus trekking the long way is required. In the middle section the path loops around the northern side of the hill before crossing over the hills to the opposite side. The path eventually reaches an open area where it passes the bridge that would normally be used to skip the northern portions of the valley. The bridge to the east of there crosses to the side of the river where Happy Happy Village is located. A village that runs a cult based on a single color - blue.
Threed
The town which was once seen as the "Fun capital of the world" thanks to the famous Threed Circus, however the recent invasion of ghosts and zombies have struck terror into the town. The city is entirely surrounded by forests on every side. Threed is also the wettest city in Eagleland with an annual rainfall of 56 inches, in comparison to Onett's average of 10 inches and Fourside's 36 inches. The town, due to being near Dusty Dunes Desert, is also normally known for constantly having sunny weather prior to the game's events, where dark clouds surround the sky until the zombie invasion is cleared. After Ness and his friends saved the city from the Zombie invasion, it was back to normal though. According to Earthbound Player’s Guide, the town has a population of 1,500 people, 2 dogs, 2,000 Zombies, 12 pumpkin patches, 0 lions, tigers, and bears and an average temperature of 62°F.
Winters
Winters is located in the northernmost area of FoggyLand. Implied by the name, the region is very cold and is constantly layered with a blanket of snow. Due to its cold climate, not many people live or visit the country, with most of the population of the country being the Tessie watchers of Lake Tess (in fact the amount of Tessie watchers here is bigger than population itself) and students of the Snow Wood Boarding House. A large lake named Lake Tess separates the northern half from the southern half. The Snow Wood Boarding School is located on the north half, while the south is where Dr. Andonuts' lab is found. Most of the population is on the northern half of Winters as that is where the Snow Wood Boarding House is located. On the southern half, the dungeon maker Brick Road created an artificial dungeon. Near Dr. Andonuts' lab is also Stonehenge, which is based off of its real-world counterpart and has a large enemy base under it.
Saturn Valley
A small village found in a valley and is home to the beings known as Mr. Saturn, all of the buildings have a futuristic look that vaguely resemble the Mr. Saturns. The signs in the village all use the unique Mr. Saturn font which is also used by the Mr. Saturns themselves. Several caves are scattered throughout the village which contain either items or other Mr. Saturns. There are also ladders scattered throughout the village which lead either to the higher areas or to nothing. As mentioned above, the hospital and hotel in it is free, while the shop is basically just like average ones, the village in general is perhaps one of the most hospitable places on Earth. According to Earthbound Player's Guide the population is 5,297 Mr Saturns, well that's a lot.
Dusty Dunes Desert
A pretty big and hot desert, according to Earthbound Player's Guide, it has a population of 5, average temperature of 99°F and an annual rainfall of 0 inches. There are also 2 graveyards not seen in-game and a cactus population of 2,000,001 (wow uh, that's a lot of cacti). The recommended sunblock is 50 SPF. Several points of interest include a drug store, a mine, and the monkey cave. Because of the heat, people can get sunstroke. As well as since there’s only one line of road there always could be a traffic jam.
Fourside
The largest city in Eagleland, being the metropolis of the region compared even to New York City. Continuing with the number pattern which you may have noticed, it is named after the number four as it is the fourth major city visited in the game. Despite looking as if it’s small, according to Earthbound Player’s Guidebook - Fourside has a population of 313,003 people, average rainfall of 32 inches and 10 parks. Its major industry is finance and has an average income of $59,000. No wonder it looks way bigger in Smash Bros. Being a large city, it features many things to do. In the center of town is the central park where the dinosaur museum is located. The city is famous for being home to the major entertainment center known as the Topolla Theater, housing famous singers including the Runaway Five. Another thing you can notice is that there aren't as many cars in Fourside, that’s because its civilians started to prefer the air movement, by using helicopters as a main transport. Fourside also features a large, three-story department store named the Grand Department Store. Other businesses include a bakery near the department store where Penetella Giovanni can be found, the Monotoli Grand Hotel located on the western portion of the city, the hospital in the far north, and Jackie's Cafe which serves as an entrance to Moonside:
Moonside
An illusionary world created by the Mani-Mani Statue as a darker parallel to Fourside, appearing completely black with all solid objects being outlined with color changing neons. The city is overall an inversion of the real world as many words have their meanings reversed, the most common example being "yes" and "no".
Summers and Toto
A city which is located far south of Winters and is said to be its sister city. In a stark contrast to Winters being a cold, mostly uninhabited region with natural surroundings, Summers is a warm, beach side resort and is a popular tourist destination. The town has two main areas: the Ca'Lyon Beach, and the street near the North Residential Area. The street is lined with buildings and palm trees. From left to right there are six buildings: L'hotel de Summers, a restaurant, the drugstore, the Stoic Club, the Scaraba Cultural Museum, and a hospital. According to Earthbound’s Players Guide Summers has a population of 3,800 people plus 10 surfers, 73,802 fish, and an average temperature of 88°F. There are also 23 convertibles. Due to the city being a luxury resort, it has a reputation for having overpriced items, food, and hotel bills, its inhabitants often like to give their items some more of the “special meaning” to increase value of the product, even though it’s pretty mediocre to its cheaper counterparts. Toto meanwhile is very small, and consists of nothing more than a few shops, houses, three cats and the docks, mainly known as the port which has lots of ships that can be used to travel to other lands.
Dalaam
A town located in the Far East of the other locations Ness has visited, in the Chommo region. Dalaam is the hometown of Poo. It is on the mountains which rise high above the clouds and in the sky of the Chommo region. At the top of the mountain is Poo's palace. It has only one business in it due to it being quite small compared to the other towns in the game. South eastern area is the Place of Nothingness, in which Poo undergoes his Mu Training.
Scaraba
A desert region that is divided into two areas: the town in the north and a vast desert in the south. According to Earthbound Player’s Guide Scaraba has a population of 3,212 people and 2 camels, and the average age is 112. The average temperature of 140°F in the shade, and an annual rainfall of none. The town is found in the northernmost area of the region and features a Hotel, Shop, Bazaar and Dock. Areas of the town with darker coloured sand count as part of the desert, and can result in sunstroke.
Pyramid
The Pyramid can only be entered after getting the Hieroglyph Piece in the museum in Summers. As you can see in the layout The pyramid consists mostly of staircases and forms the shape of a triangle. From the entrance the stairway goes consistently upwards until reaching a room with a mummy casket on a pedestal. The casket is covering a hole which leads to the lowest level. From there is a constant downwards stairway to the Guardian General blocking the next room. Past it is a room with a pressure pad, which upon being stepped on causes the casket to move and reveal the hole to the lowest level. The following room is an upwards staircase leading to a hole, and from there is a straight path to the right then a stairway to the exit to South Scaraba.
Dungeon Man
Dungeons, we sure do love them. And as you may have noticed from above, the guy had a really big enthusiasm for becoming one. From the outside it may be a strong mech with powerful punches, but from the inside it is actually a pretty complex dungeon which contains 4 floors within itself. Throughout the dungeon, there are several benches dubbed the "Goodnight Bench" which fully heals the party when used. It also has some presents with items placed around. The majority of the enemies are weak and do not pose a threat inside of that Dungeon (although the later floors have stronger enemies), there are also many signs giving players advice, which each end with "...Brick Road.". Overall quite a major upgrade from the previously built dungeon.
Deep Darkness
A swamp which is surrounded by thick darkness. The last frontier of civilization. Some parts of Deep Darkness are deep enough that walking in them covers nearly your entire body, as such you can slowly lose oxygen if you stay too long in it. Because of the difficult conditions, Deep Darkness is mostly uncivilized. The only ones who live there are the Tenda tribe living in Tenda Village at the end of the swamp. According to Earthbound Player's Guide, it has a population of 3,500 people, average temperature of 82°F, annual rainfall of 105 inches and…4,000,603 Mosquitoes…as big as it seems though that's only 0.00036% of the Mosquitoes in our world. Oh yeah it also has a Parrot with a phone, neat.
Lost Underworld
One of the last locations Ness has ever visited. Dinosaurs didn’t seem to be extinct but rather lived in this underground, this Lost Underworld. The area you see here is large, and I mean, really large. In fact, the area and enemies in it are so large that Ness and others rather appear as really tiny pixels. According to Earthbound Player's Guide the population of people is pretty small, around 503 people traveling to see the last 17 dinosaurs, at the average temperature of 84°F. It also has 3 hot springs and a big amount of geysers that can restore energy.
Cave of the Past
The final, the creepiest, the most dangerous and the most important place Ness and co had to go through. Exactly there, Giygas was already within his Devil’s Machine, waiting for the chosen ones to come and fight him. It is accessible through Lost Underworld but only a small part, and only at present. This place was visited by Ness back in time, as a robot (hence the name “Cave of the Past”). Different parts of the cave are connected via warping spheres. It begins on the lower right corner then goes west, then turns northeast. It then becomes straight north, then turns west making a u-turn east to the first warp sphere. In this segment, a Magic Butterfly regularly spawns. This segment is short and makes a wide u-turn east, then west to the second warping sphere. The last section is a short path west then north leading to a cave which brings the player into Giygas's lair. Practically at that point, it is a point of no return, where the chosen four must perform their final steps on defeating Giygas.
Enemies
At this point you probably should understand that we’re not only giving look at locations that are possible to be represented, but also enemies as well. Now I won’t mention every single Earthbound enemy (even though I would mention a good portion of them), if you want to see the full thing, go here and here. Enemies mentioned in this blog are probably the most notable and quirky, so let’s see what we have here.
Frank
The leader of a group of punks in Onett. This guy, for some magical reason looks exactly like Sissel from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Unlike our ghost friend though, Frank doesn't have any ghost powers. Mainly he uses his knives as main weapons, says something nasty but if nothing of that will work he’ll bring in his Frankystein Mark II - mech with a size of a car.
Frankystein Mark II
Frank’s mech, despite having pretty simple design, has quite dangerous attacks, where it either throws a punch through its metallic arm or tears into you at high speeds, however after performing an attack it also generates a burst of steam after, leaving itself open.
Titanic Ant
The first sanctuary guardian, it resembles a giant, gray ant with black stripes and red and blue tips of its antennae. Accompanied by 2 Black Antoids (these little fellas:). It can bite, lower your defense or use PK Magnet Ī±, and also cover itself by Shield Ī± protecting from physical damage.
Ramblin' Evil Mushroom
Perhaps one of the most annoying enemies to meet in Earthbound, at least at first. Mostly it bashes at you, but they can also Scatter their spores which can mushromize you. In other words make a mushroom appear on your head, therefore making you not be able to control your movement correctly. You can only remove them at hospitals (or with a help from a girl that so happens can just remove mushrooms from your head).
New Age Retro Hippie
The Hippie hangs out on the streets of Twoson, and his only purpose in life appears to be making the going less than easy for everybody else. He can lose his temper which increases his strength, use a ruler…oh and he also can use a toothbrush to solidify an enemy. But otherwise he's mostly pretty basic.
Li'l UFOs
Pretty quick UFO which gives its opponents colds as well as is difficult to hit. It resembles a small, white UFO with eyes. With all being said though it isn’t strongest UFO since there are other types:
Mr. Carpainter
There's no telling what pushed Carpainter off the deep end, but he has painted everything blue and started a twisted cult. A cult that glorifies the only color…that's right - blue. Cult was so crazy about it, they even painted a cow in blue color. He can use paint as main form of weapon, use PSI Shield Ī± for defense, heal by Lifeup Ī± and use a Crashing Boom Bang attack, or in other words PK Thunder Ī². He is pretty weak to Fire and Freeze damage so it’s possible to utilize that against him.
Insane Cultist
Now here’s how members of the cult look like. Ignoring similarities with actual existing cult, those are mostly average people who have fallen under the spell of Happy Happyism, and now worship the religion. What they mostly do is throw their blue paint at you as an attack, but if that isn’t enough they can always call more of themselves for help and attack in big groups. Even in their main building there were a lot of them.
Mondo Mole
The Second Sanctuary Guardian. It can bash, tear into enemies and claw with its sharp nails. It can also increase its offense with Offense Up Ī±, heal itself with Lifeup Ī± and defend itself with PSI Shield Ī±. It is very weak to PK Flash and Paralysis however.
Boogey Tent
So, not yet surprising enemies? Well how about this one. It is a literal living tent. Somehow it can bash you, and use Defense Spray to increase its defense(?). But also it can do PK Flash Ī±, emit pale green light which neutralizes all PSI effects and even Spew Fly Honey from its mouth, which immobilizes enemies.
Cave Boy
A nasty Neanderthal with a spiked club. He looks mean - and he is mean. His screams can lower your Offense and Defense and its club deals a high damage. If that wasn’t enough he himself despite being called “Cave Boy” is actually pretty damn big, perhaps as tall as your average tree. Use a powerful attack to send him back to the stone age, like Fire based attacks against which he is insanely weak.
Violent Roach
As you may have noticed, in the world of Earthbound, even insects are insanely violent and dangerous enough to put up a good fight. This one is no exception, it can bash you, vent a terrible odor which lowers your Offense and Defense and the moment it’ll spread its wings it can solidify you. Gladly they’re weak to Fire or Freeze attacks so feel free to use those kinds of attacks which will send him back to the cockroach hotel.
Master Belch
Well that is…something. Despite his gross appearance, Belch is the individual responsible for the kidnappings of several Mr. Saturns and for releasing zombies in Threed, which went on to terrorize the place. He can burp and blow nauseating breath which makes opponent become nauseous, start a continuous attack upon getting close and call for help Slimy Little Piles (these creatures: ). However he also has a solid weakness: his favorite food is Fly Honey, he likes it so much that he can ignore the fight just to eat it, leaving him open.
Trillionage Sprout
The Third Sanctuary Guardian. It is accompanied by two Tough Mobile Sprouts (these little creatures: ). It can also bash, defend with PSI Shield Ī±, use Paralysis Ī± and PK Flash Ī±, but its most powerful ability perhaps is turning opponents into a diamond by a simple glare. As a plant it is really weak to Fire attacks though, so using PK Fire or other strong PK moves would put him down rather quickly.
Mad Taxi
Insects, plants, a tent, and the next we see to fight is a car?! You can tell by its look it is a really crazy taxi. It can just like cars in real life accelerate to ram into you and deal high damage, but aside from that their fumes can make its opponents cry. It is weak to Paralysis so better to employ that weakness.
Crazed Sign
…A sign…that’s right, one of Ness’ opponents here is a literal speed limit sign! It can hit you, but most notably it can also use Hypnosis Ī± and Paralysis Ī±. This sinister signpost sure won't give you any warning before it attacks. So be prepared with your Sleep PSI powers to which it is weak.
Musica
At that point you probably shouldn’t even question what or how we’re fighting something, we’re just fighting it. It can use an electrical shock attack (essentially PK Thunder Ī²) and play a haunting melody that puts all of its opponents to sleep. Gladly Franklin Badge can help against its Thunder attacks.
Dali's Clock
A melting clock, it may look twisted, but it freezes time and stops your attacks to hit you multiple times instead. It is however weak to Hypnosis.
Abstract Art
This art may not make sense to you. That’s fine, I don’t get it either. It makes its opponent sleepy just thinking about it. So you better use Paralysis to knock some sense into the painting.
Mani-Mani Statue
This is the statue Giygas used to spread its evil across the Earth. Slowly but surely it can turn you to Giygas’ side if there’s more evil in you than good. It can absorb PSI with PSI Magnet Ī±, use Paralysis Ī±, emit a pale green light which cancels the effects of all active PSI and also can emit a glorious light which works exactly like PK Flash Ī©. Fire and Freeze attacks are perhaps the closest weakness to it.
Shrooom!
The Fourth Sanctuary Guardian. A quite big live mushroom does not have many damaging attacks, so it mostly relies on causing status conditions, such as the dangerous Mushroomization. Or disrupt your senses so you won’t be able to concentrate (meaning won’t be able to use PSI), and heals itself whenever it can with Lifeup Ī±. It is insanely weak to Fire attacks though.
Plague Rat of Doom
The Fifth Sanctuary Guardian. As a rat it has insanely high levels of Guts, making attacks really likely. It can also poison you with its poisonous fangs. Keep yourself healed up and in the fight. Use your top Fire and Flash PSI powers.
Conducting Menace
A guy set on electricity, which shoots PK Flash Ī± and Ī² at their enemies, same thing with PK thunder. It is pretty weak to Fire and Freeze attacks so you better utilize them.
Thunder and Storm
The Sixth Sanctuary Guardian. These twin terrors attack with the power of the elements. Find shelter from the onslaught and use PSI powers to attack the two of them at once. Thunder can use a Crashing Boom Bang attack (aka PK Thunder Ī²) while Storm can summon a storm (which works like PK Flash Ī²). They are really weak to PK Flash itself however.
Kraken
The Kraken, the sea beast that terrorizes boats as it is far larger than them. It can breathe fire, emit a pale green light which cancels all active PSI effects, use thunder attacks, PK Flash Ī² and even generate a tornado. It is a really tough opponent, so you have to try really hard to beat it.
Bionic Kraken
Supposedly superior version of the Kraken, in actuality however it basically does everything what Kraken does minus PK Flash. As well as having less HP. However there are far more than 1 Bionic Krakens around than an average one.
Octobots
The other kind of the robots, which as you may have noticed shaped a little like an octopus, with a sharp nose at the center of its sphere. That kind of robot has multiple different types to cover.
Mooks
A race of aliens under the employ of Giygas, Mooks are a species capable of unleashing various PSI attacks and often appear in groups working together, making them very dangerous if encountered. There are multiple various kinds of Mooks:
Starmen
Starmen are a race of robotic aliens that have many…and I mean many variations (probably the biggest amount of variations in the series). They’re Giygas’ main henchmen, alongside the Mooks, and because of this are very iconic enemies of the series, which I mean, makes sense, no need to remind you who is in the cover box of Earthbound. They often warp into the middle of the party to attack, and eventually become more and more dangerous throughout the series. Here are all Starmen variations:
Electro Specter
The Seventh Sanctuary Guardian. The Electro Specter is composed of elements never before seen on Earth. Scientists speculate that the Electro Spector is a lethal combination of energy and molten metal, but no one has ever survived a close examination. It begins the battle with PSI Shield Ī² already active, making offensive PSI largely ineffective, since attacks will be already reflected. It can also use some of Jeff’s gadgets such as Hungry HP-Sucker, Neutralizer and Shield Killer. It’s better to get off the shield and do some Fire and Freeze attacks against it.
Wetnosaur
When going to the Lost Underworld, it was an insanely big place, large trees, mountains, geysers. But out of all of that, perhaps the most unique thing was the dinosaurs. Actual big dinosaurs. This one is pretty rare but easier to beat, mostly he swings his tails, stomps the ground and bites, it also can make a loud rumble which may solidify one of its enemies. Insanely weak to Fire.
Ego Orb
Really big ball with a face. It growls and lunges forward to tear into you. Not to worry, as long as you can use Freeze attacks you can defeat it fairly quickly, since it’s really weak to it.
Chomposaur
Another really big dinosaur of the Lost Underworld. We may see it more often than the previous one, but it’s also more dangerous. It is already surrounded by Shield Ī² which reflects physical damage. Just like Wetnosaur, it can use its large foot and tail to kick your ass, but It can also use PK Fire (from Ī± to Ī³). It is quite weak to PK Freeze though.
Evil Elemental
The disembodied (and quite annoyed about it) being will take out its wrath on anyone it encounters. It can possess you or disrupt your senses to make you unable to concentrate to use PSI moves. It is however insanely weak to Flash, Hypnosis and Paralysis.
Carbon Dog
The Eighth and Final Sanctuary Boss. As you may have noticed, this dog literally burns to roast you. Its bites are hard, but its flame attacks like Fireball or PK Fire Ī© are even more dangerous. So it’s better to use strongest attacks immediately to put this flame beast down…
Diamond Dog
…But after it loses its flames it reaches its second form - Diamond Dog. Stronger and more durable than its carbon counterpart. Its bites are strong, at some point, its bites may even be able to turn you into a diamond. It also can emit a glorious light that works like PK Flash Ī©, can put Shield Ī² and already has it upon reaching this form. So it’s better to beat him with PSI attacks or deactivate Shield.
Care Free Bomb
A really weird being made of various geometrical shapes, which lives up to its name, since all of its attacks are either throwing a bomb or super bomb at you. It also doesn’t really have weaknesses to exploit other than PK Freeze.
Electro Swoosh
A pair of floating eyes with electric eyelashes. Not without a reason, since besides bashing into you, it can send electrical shocks (ala PK Thunder Ī²). It is really weak to Freeze and especially Flash attacks.
Fobby
A small beanie that usually appears in groups of 4-6 of these or other enemies. They are capable of using PSI attacks, such as Brainshock or PK Magnet (both Ī± versions), as well as use HP-SuŃker to absorb HP. However they begin battle unable to concentrate and thus cannot use PSI for several turns, and are pretty easy to beat overall, since they are weak to PK Fire, Freeze, Paralysis and Brainshock.
Uncontrollable Sphere
A flying ball with a really weird smile on its face. It starts off with PSI Shield Ī±, which protects it from harm by PSI-related attacks. Besides bashing into you, it can use PK Fire Ī± and Ī². It is weak to PK Fire and Hypnosis, however upon death it also makes an explosion that can damage all opponents around.
Loaded Dice
One of the enemies Ness had back in Magicant was a literal dice, with small hands and legs. Mostly when you meet them they call for help from various beings such as: Care Free Bomb, Beautiful UFO, High-class UFO, Electro Swoosh, Fobby and an Uncontrollable Sphere. It can’t however call other loaded dice for help so whenever you can you’ve got to take it as quickly as possible, it’s weak to Fire, Freeze, Paralysis and Brainshock.
Ness's Nightmare
A representation of the evil part of Ness's mind, which Ness must defeat to overcome his evil side. Basically while looking like Mani-Mani Statue it not only already has PSI Shield Ī±, but can also perform nearly all of Ness’ psychic abilities: Shield and Lifeup at Ī² level, Rockin at Ī± and Ī© levels, as well as emit Glorious light which essentially is PK Flash Ī©. Perhaps the best way to defeat it would be outlasting, and then go for psychic attacks, especially if it’ll cover itself in Shield Ī² which would reflect physical damage.
Porky Minch
At first he was an ordinary kid and one of Ness’ previous friends, he is often seen as an unruly nuisance, being selfish and cowardly, which is believed to be because his parents are also selfish and unpleasant individuals. After the meteorite fell, life changed not only for Ness alone, but Porky as well, who eventually was corrupted by Giygas’ evil manipulations. At first, he was in a cult with blue people, then he alongside his father, have achieved power and affluence by working as business consultants for the shady mayor Geldegarde Monotoli. All 3 moments Porky was quite near to Mani-Mani Statue, so it was already a matter of time for him to become Giygas’ right hand man. By himself, despite his charisma, Porky can’t really do much…
Heavily Armed Porky
But inside the mech which was given to him by Giygas, he sure can! The mech can charge forward and tear into you, with its spiky legs. Porky is also now protected by the mech, so despite him being quite weak physically, mech does compensate for it, other than that, Porky can also discharge a very stinky gas, which lowers opponents’ offense and defense. He is really weak to Brainshock though.
Giygas
Oh boy…final and most dangerous, mysterious and powerful foe of Earthbound…Giygas himself! The cosmic conqueror that started this whole charade. The Embodiment of Evil itself, that was growing in power ever since Ness was traveling to fight him. During EarthBound, Giygas influences people, animals, and inanimate objects on Earth. Despite that, the prophecy and Apple of Enlightenment still was more sure of his downfall, so what Giygas decides to do is go back in time and with Porky’s help was ready to face Ness in his multiple states each of which is hard to beat.
States/Abilities
In Devil’s Machine
List of aforementioned abilities Giygas can do in this state
PK Rockin
Since Giygas is an expert with PSI (after all his race is basically what invented it), it is possible Giygas may would know other moves that basically all aforementioned enemies or just characters in Earthbound have, this includes such things as:
PK Freeze
PK Fire
PK Thunder
Paralysis
Hypnosis
Brainshock
Telepathy
PK Starstorm
Offense Up
Defense Down
PSI Magnet
Attack Reflection Shield
While being inside of Devil’s Machine Giygas was practically invincible, whatever attack you may throw at him, physical or psychic it will fully be reflected back. Not even PSI Shield or Shield helps to reflect all the damage back since then it’ll reflect back again and still will do damage.
First form
So after turning Devil’s Machine off, Giygas reaches its first form. The iconic terrifying look, Giygas loses his passive shield and practically due to the immense amount of psychic powers he had his mind went insane (in other words, he became mindless). However within that form Ness and his co were also trapped within his own dimension, surrounded by him (which is sort of implied, considering that Giygas at that point of boss fight becomes a literal background. Additionally, while not canonical and rather just made by several Mother fans, the Official Pollyanna book essentially portrays Giygas as being who traps within own dimension. Again, technically fan made material, but not bad visualization of how it may look from a 3-rd perspective).
Incomprehensible Attack
Insanely high damage to a single target that may experience this energy (or whatever it may be) attack. The PK Thunder and Flash are also hidden within that Incomprehensible Attack (which we only know since it’s hidden in the code of the game), so it’s really impossible to predict what kind of attack he employs. It is for a reason you can’t grasp the true form of Giygas’ attack.
Second form
The second phase is Giygas being heavily wounded, it goes more berserk and spams its Incomprehensible Attacks around, now the only actual way of defeating him is praying…literally, which was basically his weak point during the fight in this state. But it needed a good amount of prayers combined to defeat Giygas overall. So you better pray to live long enough to survive.
Raz
Censors
Censors are the most common type of enemy encountered in mental worlds. They resemble tiny, long-armed men wearing business suits and glasses. The natural defense systems of any mind, doing their best to stamp out dangerous or harmful thoughts such as manias, depression, etc. Unfortunately, they also see foreign psychics as dangerous invaders. They typically do not see their host as an invader, however if something bad happens to the mind, they would consider attacking the host as well. Usually they’re the simplest ones, using their stamps as a main weapon.
Shouting Censors
The shouting Censors are larger Censors who carry clipboards covered in X's. They shout a deadly "No" blast at Raz, and take more hits to defeat. Raz usually defeats them from distance by PSI-Blast or invisibility.
Heavy Censors
Large, muscular Censors that have "NO" tattooed on their knuckles. They hit hard and can take it hard, attacking through punch barrages and slamming the ground, but they're quite slow and they don't have a whole lot of range. Though they also can shoot a blast of “No” at you.
Personal Demons
Even though they look small, you have to deal with Personal Demons before they blow up in your face. Don't let them get too close before they go, they take out everyone around them. Mostly you. In other words basically suicidal bombers like creepers.
G-Men
The G-men monitor the neighborhood, searching for well hidden mental problems. They "disguise" themselves by holding different objects and stating what they are supposed to be disguised as. Humorously, they often use these objects in ways that show they clearly have no idea how they're supposed to be used. If the opponent walks into the zones they are standing in (marked by dotted yellow lines) while not wearing the correct disguise, then he will be apprehended and interrogated by the G-Men. G-Men also have infra-red vision to see invisible objects.
Doubts
Doubts are the meta-physical manifestation of their host's doubts, and often spawn in groups the more their hosts doubts themself. They are slow, support enemies that lack damage but have rather high health. They mostly attack by attempting to bite an opponent with their expansive mouths. Their most notable move is spitting out globs of residue that can drastically slow the opponent down. Doubts also leave a splatter of residue when they spawn in.
Regrets
Regrets are mental figures that can potentially be found in any mental world. They are simple manifestations of a person's regrets. They tend to appear more frequently the more actual regrets their host possesses. Most Regrets are quite fragile, and often appear alongside censors to harass opponents from the air by attempting to drop the metal weight they're always seen carrying on top of him.
Deep Regrets
A bit more powerful form of Regret, Deep Regrets drop shock bombs that have a bigger blast radius, can shock Raz, and damage more. Just as Regrets though, they are fragile and can be taken down by ranged attacks.
Bad Idea
“Bad Ideas” exist in everyone’s head, and they’re a real problem. Being a meta-physical manifestation of the bad idea. They have the ability to toss explosive light bulbs at targets. Though it’s not hard to counter them with ranged attacks or throw a light bulb at them through telekinesis.
Enabler
Enablers are Mental World beings that have the specialty of protecting other enemies, such as censors, from taking damage. They will keep their distance from the opponent while providing their comrades with protective shields, making them immune to all damage. They're very quick, and can dodge PSI-Blasts in quick succession, faster and quicker than your average Censors, so it’s worth slowing it down first before closing the distance.
Mega Censor
The Mega Censor is an enormous Censor wielding a massive stamp, accidentally fused from the many Censors which can happen if block off all Censor outlets. It’s big, strong and can bring in smaller censors into the fight.
Nightmare
A Nightmare is a creature that exists somewhere in all minds. Nightmares are frightening and powerful monsters that embody trauma and powerful feelings of guilt. If one is unlucky enough to come across one of these monsters, or just randomly being pulled in by them it’s best to attack it from a long range. Once the beast is nearly defeated, it splits itself in half, releasing small Personal Demons and sucking in energy. Leaving the Nightmare alone during this will let it recover, bringing it back up to full health. To prevent this, one must throw a Personal Demon into the Nightmare’s open body with Telekinesis. This causes an explosion inside of the Nightmare, turning it to stone. This is the only safe time to Psi-Punch the demon and destroy it for good.
Panic Attack
Panic Attacks are, as their name implies, meta-physical manifestations of panic attacks. They are both highly aggressive and highly mobile creatures that can appear and disappear at will to attack unexpectedly, can fire off skulls for ranged attacks, and also have the ability to create illusory clones of themselves. The creature is insanely fast so it is worth using some method of slowing it down.
Judge
Judge is a meta-physical manifestation of judgmental behavior within their host minds, be it self-judgment or judged by a third party, though they're not necessary for the host to have Judges. They serve as heavy units in terms of durability and damage potential among other enemies that can be encountered. Wielding a large gavel, Judges will swing at its opponents when he goes to attack, or result in book-throwing without it.
Bad Mood
Bad Moods are a meta-physical manifestation of a literal bad mood. It has the ability to blind opponents by casting a cloud of darkness around them, but is also capable of throwing various projectiles. Initially, Bad Moods are completely invincible, and requires Raz to find its source to defeat it. Using Clairvoyance in its weakened state will allow Raz to locate and reveal the Bad Mood's source. Destroying the source will free the heart within and reunite it with the Bad Mood, defeating it.
Feats
Ness
Overall
Mastered PSI fairly quickly after learning it even existed
Defeated Giygas and many of his minions, such as Mr. Carpainter, Master Belch, Starman Deluxe, the Mani-Mani Statue and Porky.
Reached the Eight Your Sanctuaries and collected their melodies.
Traversed through an alternate dimension of Fourside unharmed
Traveled across nearly the entire Earth.
Saved the world
Survived his soul being transferred to a robot body
Despite his game being a commercial failure at first, it got recognized by the internet which was inspired by it.
Is part of the original 12 in the Smash Bros series.
Power
Carried a Submarine alongside his friends (usual mass of midget submarine is about 75 metric tons divide by 3 and it’ll be 25 Metric tons)
Scales to Paula and Poo who can freeze a Chomposaurus (25.6 Kilotons of TNT)
Comparable to Poo, who can summon multiple meteors to the ground (75.5 Megatons of TNT)
Stronger than Thunder & Storm, which can make storms
Absorbed all of Magicant into himself, increasing his physical attributes. Magicant is an entirely separate dimension
Speed
Comparable to Lucas, who dodged a train
Comparable to Poo, who can pull in meteors to Earth (Mach 3820)
With Teleport, can accelerate himself fast enough to move across continents in seconds (Mach 6262) (Debatable)
Comparable if not superior to the Mother 3 cast, who can dodge dazzling light (From 7% SoL up to 33% SoL)
Should be as fast as other opponents as Skelpion and Cute Lil’ UFO who could dodge Jeff’s laser gun (48% SoL - 57% SoL) (Debatable)
Durability
(Animation by MegatonSlater)
Can tank Territorial Oak exploding into a burst of flames (0.000029472 Tons of TNT)
Can tank Nuclear Reactor Robot's explosion (0.0000587 Tons of TNT)
Result might be higher, as the explosive is nuclear
Can survive multiple stomps from giant dinosaurs like the Wetnosaur.
Multiple blows from a massive Kraken aren’t enough to put him down.
Can survive multiple attacks from a prolonged battle with Giygas, who can destroy entire universes
While endured in a robot body, it should not be more durable than Ness’ own body.
Raz
Overall
Mastered over 10 PSI-Powers in a single day.
Defeated Coach Oleander, Doctor Loboto.
As well as defeated traumas of people like 2 Headed Dad, Lady Luctopus, Maligula and other evil traumas of the mind.
Healed various people from their mental illness
Reunited the Psychic S(even)ix
Traveled throughout a big variety of Mental Worlds.
Saved the world (twice!)
Healed from his water fear/curse
Became the Psychonaut (junior, but hey, that counts)
Despite his game being a commercial failure at first, it got recognized by the internet which was inspired by it.
Power
Can move large heavy balls with his legs (467.7 Metric Tons)
TK Comparable to Gisu’s who was capable of lifting big rock made structure (71,391.575 - 85,669.89 Metric Tons).
Pyrokinesis comparable to Norma’s who was capable of pulverizing Metal (to just melt metal the temperature must be 1,127-1,204°C)
As strong as Lizzie who can quickly create large ice constructs (126.39 - 189.59 Tons of TNT)
Defeated Maligula who can casually create an entire storm across the city of Grulovia, so intense that it caused the dam to break and flood the city. (17.75 Megatons of TNT)
Same Maligula was also capable of creating a large Water Tornado (111,554,630 - 17,430,284,287 metric tons and 216.71 Kilotons of TNT - 33,86 Megatons of TNT)
Comparable to the PSI-King who recreated his Mental World, which initially was hollow though it partially can be rather due to sensory overload (Debatable)
Also reconstructed Hollis’ Mental World through Mental Connection, though it happened rather through chain reaction
Speed
With levitation was able to move across Millia’s race area at high speeds
Can dodge soundwaves
As quick as Millia who was able to simultaneously dodge bullets from machine gun and shoot PSI-Blast (Mach 3.2- Mach 15)
Quicker than Critic who was reacting to light (66% SoL)
Back in Lungfishopolis was able to block wall of lasers (77% SoL) (Debatable)
Comparable to Milla Vodello who was telepathically spreading her thoughts across the world to sense delusionist activity (0.13Ń - 1.31c)
Durability
Tanked Bad Idea’s explosions (0.0037 Tons of TNT)
Also tanked Personal Demon’s explosions
As durable as Lili who tanked a pile of explosives torpedoes
Tanked Deep Regret’s explosive…”deep regrets” (0.011 Tons of TNT)
Tanked hits from Mega Censor that was able to break large steel floor
As durable as other Psychonauts agents who tanked point blank explosion (11.74 Tons of TNT).
Survived destruction of combination of 2 Mental Worlds (Raz’s and Oleander’s) (Debatable)
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.
Raz
Raz is also a child, so it’s natural that he can be naive sometimes, because of which, sometimes can be tricked by experienced manipulators. In fact, sometimes when being inside of someone’s mind he can go so far thinking he’s doing the right thing and yet in actuality do something more dangerous. Another weakness would be not being able to use Psycho-Portal on people of age younger than 18 (but still being able to use Astral Projection to enter someone’s mind - more in Before the Verdict). And most notably is the fact that Raz may seem as heavily reliant on psychic powers, he still got his acrobatic skills, and within Psychonauts games that weakness wasn’t heavily exploited that often but he isn’t as dangerous if he won’t be using them.
Before the verdict…
As much as some other verses there are stuff contexts of which need to be explained a bit more deeply, and both Earthbound and Psychonauts have some elephants in the room to clean up with.
Truth of the universe, 5D, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.
Probably the most simple and quickest one, at least for this blog. Since all of that kind of stuff has been already answered in the G1 Ness vs Frisk blog’s “Before The Verdict” respectively. Overall barely anything stands up in actual game context, and what does stand up isn’t as good as it was advertised, nor does it really affect the result.
Ness’ mind hax “resistance”
One of the arguments for Ness in this MU was the fact that Ness “resisted mind influence before” (at least back in Ness vs Raz Death Battle Cast). It was a little addressed in the cast itself, however it’s worth to fully look at the argument. Basically the proposal is since Giygas and/or Mani Mani Statue spread their evil influence across the world and Ness was nearby it and not affected by either, means that Ness should have a resistance to mind influence. However it misses a lot of details:
Characters of weaker caliber such as Starmen, Sanctuary Guardians, etc. can influence Ness with hypnosis, brainshock, flash respectively.
Ness was in fact influenced at some point by Mani Mani Statue, since his whole trip to Moonside turned out to be illusionary. Admittedly illusion and mind influence could be different things.
The most important one, besides Ness: his mother, sister, father, locals in Onett, Twoson, Threed, Fourside and basically the numerous average people on Earth are not affected by Giygas’ or Mani Mani Statue’s influence. How so? Reason is simple really and comes from the same statement from which the argument about Ness’ mind hax resistance comes in the first place. Besides saying that Giygas influence people and animals against Ness, Buzz Buzz also said that Giygas is doing that due to influence over the evil in their minds. In other words it’s not Ness and at least half of Earth's population resisting Giygas’ and Mani Mani Statue’s influence. It’s Giygas and Mani Mani Statue not being able to actually affect good, kind people, such as Ness, his family, Paula, Jeff, Poo, etc.
Not as crucial but even taking resistance into account, Psychonauts’ mind manipulation is still a lot more complex than in Earthbound to be resisted at least as simply as in the game.
Why no composite?
Perhaps the biggest difference between this blog and G1 Ness vs Frisk blog is the lack of Novels, Manga and well, Smash for Ness. Is there a reason for that (except for like, cutting Ness from his strongest and fastest feats)? Well, “composite” itself probably goes on a case by case basis, so there are times when we may see people use more than stuff from canon. Perhaps the reason here is the fact that said material lacks actual canonicity to be used as well as using all 4 at once (original game included) creates a pile of plot stuff that at some point contradicts not only to the games but also to each other. I could’ve done a sort of long text about how the used material isn’t canonical or contradicts the games in the first place, but I don’t want to go way too deep on that and just mention a few things: Smash is a crossover game therefore not being used by default. Manga and Novel though generally have a bit different tone or lore within itself and their endings are quite different from original Mother 2 so putting them into account can cause either some contradictions with game plot or ignorance of Mother 3's existence (or essentially both really, cause in either of endings with what happened to Porky, Mother 3 couldn’t happen).
Some Manga or Novel events don’t exist in the game or vice versa, like lack of magicant/melodies and prayers in the manga which is important in the game but existence of “power of the earth” buff which doesn’t exist in the game. Or this whole bloody mess that was the sun feat in the novel, which obviously doesn't exist in the Nintendo SNES game. Or even something like Giygas’ and Mr Saturn’s changed design (hell, in original game Mr Saturns is a race that exists within earth not an alien from outer space) or lack of Phase Distorter Time Travel shenanigans or PK Rockin, Ness’ signature PSI Move (or really pretty good bunch of Earthbound PSI Moves) in the manga, examples really can go on and the only similar thing to say is that in all of them Ness and friends went on journey to fight Giygas.
Itoi’s blueprint does make material official but not canonical, especially since Itoi just gave freedom for Saori Kumi and Benimaru Itoh (Novel's author and Manga's author) in terms of what they would like to put in the plot of the novel/manga and what not, in other words, he wasn’t really involved in doing either and those materials should be at least generally treated as their own stories rather than some part of the games. At least that’s how I believe Itoi and authors see their stories, as their own creations inspired by an existing creation.
Most importantly though is probably the fact that taking a look at Ness more generally here perhaps makes this match more debatable so in the same way people composite characters to make match up more interesting to debate (or even disable some stuff that actually has more reason to be canon), why not use only canonical material to make match up more interesting to debate either. In other words it is not a bad thing to composite Ness for sake of more debate or material to work with, but it isn't a bad thing to stick to the canon either whether it be for general perspective or fairness, all is case by case, just don't act as if it is a must have for Ness I guess (though thinking about it I'm now actually curious on who wins between Composite Ness and Raz under premise that we allow fight to start in the Mental World ngl).
To do a quick note for those who are curious though - no, Ness vs Frisk G1’s verdicts are unaffected by this, as surprising as it may seem. Each team, respectively, were not solely dependent on Manga and Novel. Team Ness’ point about Ness being faster than Frisk still stands, worst case scenario only strength becomes equal while Ness still has his other advantages and win con, since this team disagrees with usage of Hyper Goner or Multiverse level for Undertale. Team Frisk meanwhile was already putting Frisk as stronger, more durable and faster than Ness with or without other material via Hyper Goner and Fun Value/Timelines. So excluding either material does not affect the G1 blog. If you’ve sided either after reading it, you can still stay that way really.
Magicant = Mental World plus their reality
As you may have noticed, Magicant and Mental World contain lots of similarities in their concept. Both are worlds of a person's head containing a person's memories of people they’ve seen representing them the way a person remembers them as, have stuff that represents a person or his emotions, etc.
That brings up an interesting question, would that mean that they are the same thing? And if so, would that mean that if Raz visits Ness’ Mental World it’ll just be nothingness since Ness absorbed Magicant/made it disappear, and it doesn’t exist anymore? Both have same answer:
Despite the same concept there are still some differences here and there, and the biggest one (besides lack of Mental World beings, whom you could implement through verse equalization somehow) is the fact that if Magicant was actually the same thing as Mental World, Ness would end up either dead or with amnesia. In Psychonauts there is the same case with Helmut Fullbear who had an amnesia and mental world of which was completely hollow. Until there turned out to be the ball of light, Raz considered said brain to be already rather dead than alive, implying that, well, when a person dies there’s nothing left of the mental world and vice versa (which is consistent with Raz’s and Oleander’s fusion of Mental Worlds disappearing after brains were disconnected). Meaning that Ness should in fact still have a Mental World, and it can be a lot different from Magicant than you think (see more in the Verdict).
It’s a little tricky to say if Magicant is real or not, on one hand there are statements of it being “a realm inside Ness’ mind” while also making it seem that Ness was sleeping this whole time, as well as Magicant being stated to be “mirage” in Mother 1 upon its vanishing, as well as it’s impossible to bring in beings from Magicant (such as Flying Men) into Real World without hacking the game. On the other hand there’s also a statement of Magicant “materializing thoughts” in Mother 2 guidebook as well as it’s possible to bring items from it into real life in both Maria’s and Ness’ Magicants which makes it a little inconsistent to tell exactly what is actually true. As a matter of fact if we'd use another Mother 2 Japanese guidebook called “Mother 2 treasure chest of secrets” we may find out that some stuff in Magicant is reality and some stuff is a dream. Now, I'm a fair dealer, and I do have to say this guidebook is pretty much new material to look onto, it wasn't yet seen by any versus related wikis, or servers or even G1 blog and even I myself discovered it recently purely by magical luck, so for those who are curious to look for more info within it, here's link for an entire guidebook, it's obviously in Japanese but if you can use translators correctly or maybe even learnt Japanese language then it should be no trouble to look for info in it.
A little similar case is here with Mental Worlds. It’s never specified exactly if the Mental World is actually real or purely non material place, on one hand technically it’s supposed to be a world separate from real one, as imagined inside the psyches of the person. On the other hand you can bring some objects from the Mental World into the real one, and vice versa akin to Magicant in Earthbound. For instance PSI-Pop and Dream Fluffs are gone in the real world after being used in the mental world, and PSI-Pop or Smelling Salts or hell, even Psitanium Raz can get in the Mental World appears with him in the Real World. As well as Cobweb Duster brings with itself cobwebs straight from Mental World and actually converts energy into the material. Besides that, Helmut Fullbear has shown to convert his figments from the Mental World into the Real World and there are also just Stray Thoughts flying around the Real World which usually exist only in the Mental Worlds.
Overall it’s kind of up to interpretation if either of the mindscapes are fully physical or not, 1 thing that is clear however for both is that nearly all (if not all) feats performed in Mental Worlds and Magicant can be equalized to Real World counterparts. Practically there are no signs that Ness or Raz became weaker or stronger than their real selves when being in, they aren’t like you when having a lucid dream, they’re seemingly as strong as in reality, and the only changes they did get were changes in appearance, making feats performed in said dreamscapes still having a value here and there. This topic was semi-addressed in G1’s Ness vs Frisk blog as well, but still, worth mentioning again to make everything clear.
Psycho-portal’s “age limit”
Another argument against Raz entering Ness’ mind is the Psycho-Portal’s age limit. In other words this popped up text when you try to use Psycho-Portal on children:
Wouldn't that mean Ness would automatically resist mind entrance since he's below 18 years old? Answer is yes but also no. Raz should be able to enter Mental Worlds without Psycho-Portal to begin with. In Psychonauts there are other several ways for characters to enter person’s mind:
By yourself, aka separating astral form to enter someone's head.
Latter is something that Ford Cruller has done on several occasions while training Raz (he even makes it quite explicit on linked scene and in the sequel that it was Raz’s mind Ford visited back in Psychonauts, not Brain Tumbler Experiment as some may assume). And something Hollis has done despite having no training/experience (or at least in the same levels as Raz being straight up nerd about it), as well as other psychic Truman. While not as reliable as other evidence, in the sequel's teaser it was implied that Raz and other Psychonauts were supposed to enter a young girl’s mind. As well as in this cutscene Raz wanted to "see Lili's nightmares'' implying him wanting to enter her mind (since “dreams” and “nightmares” in Psychonauts’ context also essentially mean as a Mental World, one of the another time when Raz was “dreaming” was actually moment when Ford entered Raz’s mind). And in this cutscene after leaving Loboto's mind we see no Psycho-Portal lying around implying Raz and others visited the Mental World without Psycho-Portal. Or you may even count this brain interaction as a feat accomplished by Raz, cause if you look closely the interaction seems to be of his doing. Considering this good amount of implications behind the idea that Psychics can enter and manipulate the mind without using Psycho Portal and Raz being one of the most talented psychics in Psychonauts’ history, it’s fair to say Raz can still enter Ness’ mind without using Psycho Portal. Heck, Psychonauts 2 even showed that Raz’s clearly better trained and more talented Psychic than his father - Augustus Aquato, who also was able to enter mind without Psycho Portal. If Augustus, the guy who wasn’t really using psychic powers much during his life and rather was teaching his kids to fear psychics, can do that, and Hollis who did that after a few readings, then Raz especially can.
Access to Ford, Psychonauts agents and Brain Sneezing Powder
As seen before Raz is given access to some of the stuff he’s not seen to be with often really. So why’s that? Starting with the most simple one being access to Ford Cruller. While Raz didn’t summon Ford directly to fight during combat, it’s still something possible to do. Psychonauts 2 directly shows that Ford actually literally goes out of head and can be fully released. And all that Raz practically needs for it is an average piece of bacon, which isn’t hard to consider as a standard thing. To point out even more, occasionally Ford often can teleport to Raz by himself. So access to Ford should be pretty obvious.
Brain Sneezing Powder is a different, more tricky case, Raz has seen it in usage and by himself pretty understands how it works, given he’s good with brain surgery and can put brains back to the head as well, but also never directly shown to have it. However given that even common Psychonauts workers are given brain sneezing powder, and that Raz did became an agent at the end of the Psychonauts 2 (even though with “junior” in a title) it’s possible for Raz to have an access to said powder, if not though, Ford directly has same powder and he already addressed as a person Raz can bring into a battle.
Access to Psychonauts Agents besides Ford Cruller is probably the most questionable in terms of being combat applicable. Due to Ford’s ability to teleport and generally having the role of the dispatcher in Psychonauts it is possible that Ford eventually can call out help for Raz in battle if needed (and in some situations it's sort of implied Ford could do that). The only real problem here is that we never saw Ford do that in one way or another, so any other agent who isn’t Ford, Raz definitely would have harder access to. Though, looking ahead, realistically Ford probably would be the only one that matters.
Tribute
(By Tyrannii)
(By Sonic TDFW)
(By Chocodiley)
(By 0meter)
(By JuCr)
Comic
A little comic which was made with help of my friend JuCr. It isn't big but can show a little potential of the fight. Feel free to read it anytime you want!
Verdict
Oleggator
Alright so, I’m doing this verdict and entire blog alone as you can see, and as a good amount of people may know, I’m in love with this MU. Earthbound and Psychonauts are some of my favorite video games ever, so I really want this blog to show how this MU gives as bizarre feelings as their games, and how it’s far more unique than people give it credit for. But let me save all this rant about how much I like it to the end while here, let’s quickly get down to the question of who would win,on Death Battle?
From starters, the obvious thing to cover are stats of both. Cutting Ness from Manga and Novel does mean he loses his best speed and potentially power feats, but he still should sit perfectly fine. At the absolute worst he does match Raz fairly well with a good amount of feats, especially Paula freezing Chomposaurus and Poo summoning Meteors through PK Starstorm, former which gets into Kilotons range while latter gets into Megatons range, fairly matching with direct Kiloton/Megaton feats of Maligula to which Raz does scale to, since he defeated her in a direct combat. Maligula could be potentially argued higher, since she destroyed the country of Grulovia and was deemed as a weapon powerful enough to rule the world but practically City is the best stuff we’ve seen I’d say. Lifting wise, Raz’s feats are overall better, since Ness’ maximum is lifting a boat alongside Paula and Jeff which dividing by 3 and taking into account usual midget submarines gets to 25 Metric Tons, which compared to other Psychonauts’ physical and psychical lifting feats is way worse such as Raz physically moving and lifting a Golden Egg with just his legs, a feat worth 467.7 metric tons which is 6.23 times heavier than a weight of the submarine. Not like lifting strength matters that much, but still a little notable advantage. But obviously it becomes quite outclassed when it comes to Ness’ and Raz’s potentially strongest feats.
Now it becomes a little more tricky with their “in-dream” achievements. As established above there’s zero implications that Ness or Raz become weaker or stronger when visiting the world inside the head. Each of the headspace they visit contains constellations, and pretty much considered as separate universes in their worlds. And both do get similar feats of said headspace, since both practically survive and go through creation and destruction of the headspace, Ness when creating the Magicant, Raz being comparable to the likes of Hellmut Fullbear who was creating his Mental World after sensory overload (as well as Raz himself changing Holliss’ Mental World even though that one was specifically due to chain reaction), Ness when absorbing “power of the land” had to survive Magicant’s destruction, while Raz when defeating the interpretations of his and Oleander’s fathers, separating their minds in the end caused the combination of said 2 Mental Worlds to be gone, which is something Raz survived. Plus both have a similar case where you can bring items from said “dream-physical” worlds into real one, with Ness being items you can buy or find in Magicant, with Raz it being literally items he has given in Mental World but still had in the Real World and other collectibles being brought from Mental World into the Real World such as Psitanium or Mental Cobwebs, plus there’s also a case of thoughts (which normally exist only in Mental Worlds) coming out of people’s heads and even Hellmut Fulbear releasing his Mental World figments into the Real World.
Perhaps the difference here is, Ness’ feat specifically is more consistent, in a way, since there’s still Giygas who plans to destroy the universe, to which Ness was matching power with. Psychonauts, at least so far, hasn't yet faced cosmic threats in real world which makes its headspace feat less believable from the perspective of a common audience at least (though if we do look at the brainframe and causes of death we can find some strange causes of death like Time and Spacetime Travel, Nuclear Engineering, Instantiating Multiverses, really look here, in original game most of deaths are silly, but some of them are wild/funny), they should be rather used as an equal leeway in case other verse gets to use purely “headspace” feats. If you buy these feats, Raz can fairly match with Ness in attack potency at one point or another, but general consensus is perhaps feats being more outlier in comparison to Ness’. So Ness takes a good portion in AP and durability being Universal and while Raz with some ways of buying stuff for either could be comparable, in the end he’s most likely weaker.
Speed is more complicated to say the least. Both Earthbound’s and Psychonauts’ fastest feats are at some point up to interpretation, but with comparable leeway, it’s safe to say their speed should be around the same, EB enemies dodging Jeff’s laser gun and Lucas dodging “Dazzling Light” with Raz dodging laser and Critic reacting to projector’s light. It’s possible to give some benefit of the doubt to laser feats, given the fact that technically both weapons that were dodged were called lasers within the source material, the real problem here what makes either debatable is probably the fact that in Earthbound’s case it’s mostly just called laser while we don’t see anything else for a proof while in Psychonauts’ case lasers do seem to curve. While with Lucas and Critic it seems more direct in a way, we don’t see exact light but it does seem to be stated as light and it does not give you damage in Lucas’ case. In Critic’s case it may seem more controversial and that feat is more like an animation quirk at first but personally I probably lean for it to be rather Critic actually reacting to light since it wasn't just moving in tandem with background but rather this very light was something which caused reaction from Critic. There’s also Milla Vodello’s feat where she was spreading her thoughts across the entire world to sense the activity of delusionists. Which also is a pretty fast feat since in a day or less Milla had to find activity based around Maligula. The pure idea of Maligula was making her followers active up to the events of Psychonauts games, so Millia actually had to go across the world to be ready in case Maligula will actually come back and start her chaos. While at their worst EB light speed feats would end up slower than Psychonauts’ but higher ends which also aren’t entirely unfair to buy, overall make it comparable, and light reaction feats for either do sort of solidify laser feats.
So that should be it, Ness is far more stronger and as fast so he should one shot and take the cake, right? Well, not exactly. With abilities it becomes far more complex. From starters, a lot of Ness’ PSI moves pretty much have some counters from Raz’s PSI Powers. For instance: Flash’s effects - crying Raz counters with Clairvoyance, feeling strange Raz may outright resist thanks to his strong mind manipulation resistance, instant defeat while doesn’t has an exact context Raz should be able to counter measure with Dream Fluffs and “Unable Moving” (along with the Paralysis move) won’t fully stop Raz from movement as well as Raz still can use his PSI Powers in a fight despite paralysis, Raz was in a situation where he’s been immobile before and could quickly find a way to go around with it, and in that case abilities such as levitation or telekinesis should still make him able to travel quite fast. Hypnosis Raz counters via both having resistance to mind influence and just being likely smart enough to avoid it. Teleport is something Raz can do as well even though not as direct (but still a bit more applicable for combat than Ness’), telepathy Raz uses far more often than Ness, telekinesis Raz outclasses Ness in - both in terms of how much either can lift (Physically speaking - Small Submarine with Ness which he didn’t lifted alone vs large metallic balls that Raz managed to move only with his legs and jump with them.) as well as Ness never used it again after moving a bottle, while Raz powers of psychic lifting can be compared to the likes of Maligula whose Hydrokinesis could move an insane mass of water, as well as Gisu lifting a giant rock platform with levitation bubbles, both heavily outclass even Ness’ strongest physical lifting feat, being lifting small yellow submarine, let alone Ness’ telekinesis powers on a bottle, and shield is only useful against physical attacks which gets countered by most of Raz’s moveset. Now the big deal is Ness’ PK Rockin, an offensive PSI with a good amount of area effect. Now it’s hard to say how rockin specifically works but based on the visuals, it seems to be an explosive projectile, projectiles Raz can pretty much redirect with telekinesis, just like he can do with Censors’ energy projectiles or Bad Idea’s explosives. A lot of Ness’ arsenal Raz can also counter either through a similar way of how he can counter Ness’ PSI moves, or simply by disarming Ness with telekinesis, something that is entirely in character for him to do with a good amount of opponents he met.
Now of course Ness could find a way against some of Raz’ powers as well, obviously the ones that are reliant on damage won’t do damage for him, such as PSI-Blast, telekinetic objects thrown at him, Pyrokinesis, Mental Connection’s grapple attack and Archetype’s physical attacks. And some Raz’s powers won’t be good save for a long time, Shield would be destroyed in a single punch of Ness, and confusion or Stun-Gun won’t make Ness, well…confused for an infinite amount of time its status effect eventually ends and regeneration (along with other purely healing objects/powers) won’t exactly help with a big gap in power. And there Raz takes some other advantages in terms of powers, Ness doesn’t have a way to see Raz when latter becomes invisible by a single thought, archetype still offers a distraction against Ness even if not long one, telekinesis can still be pretty much used on Ness to send him back and most importantly Ness doesn’t has direct counters to Time Bubble. Dali Clock’s time stop is insanely debatable if it can be used and can simply be considered as game mechanical since there wasn’t that much of an intent for Ness actually resisting it, at best I think it gives Ness opportunity to dodge at some point, however not attack during it, take it as something like Jotaro’s time stop resistance, even then time bubble and dali clock’s time stop do work differently to say that Ness would be able to countermeasure it in same way as he possibly did with clock. And Time Bubble by itself is pretty much helpful ability especially under speed disadvantage, Raz often uses it on opponents far faster than him and considering that it works by manipulating the flow of time to own like, even under premise that Raz is slower, there's a good chance for Time Bubble to close the gap.
Though the story with powers doesn’t end here, since Ness himself also has a really big and more combat applicable arsenal. Some of his food can work as healing from what Raz can throw at him (ex: Herbs could counter Confusion). Some help Ness to immobilize Raz without using Paralysis (ex: Handbag Strap or Stag Beetle or Mummy Wrap). Some help Ness to do a bit more ranged damage if it’s impossible to be close and use Bat, such as Yo-Yo which can work at extended melee range and especially slingshot which well, via virtue of being slingshots can be shot at decent distance, bombs to some extent help as well as throwable objects after all. The real problem here perhaps is the fact that despite his big variety of arsenal it can also be hard to give Ness straight up everything. After all, not everything Ness carries is reusable and the limit of stuff Ness can carry is 14 items (and that’s with counting in items Ness can equip such as hats or bats, or coins and etc.). In other words Ness needs to be quite careful with how much he can spend. Gladly however Escargo Express can help Ness and bring in more items, though it requires Ness to call them and wait some period of time. In comparison, Raz’s most helpful stuff are only pins (in combination with psychic powers), Brain Sneezing Powder and Astralathe which requires time to bring in Ness at its location, since Astralathe despite being one of the direct mind altering options can’t be just put in your pocket. It’s big and Raz definitely would need some time of Ness not trying to stop him, to change position to fight near Astralathe. There is also a Dream Fluff which in theory could save Raz from death, considering that in the game it basically automatically refills the health back if it goes to 0, even against attacks that normally explode you and leave nothing out of you. Taking into account some of Otto’s implications it is possible to say that it could at least theoretically save from death.
That probably brings us to the biggest difference in usage of their powers - the fact that if Ness’ PSI and Arsenal does have a certain limit, Raz’ PSI Powers…simply don’t, all of them have infinite amounts of usage and no cooldowns whatsoever. Meaning Raz actually can spam all of his PSI Powers without thinking much on running out of power. Which is understandable, Earthbound’s psychic powers despite its complications, work akin to mana and end quickly if you would be inefficient, Psychonauts’ psychic powers work based on emotions and concepts, while having no exact limits in usage. Though Ness can keep a good amount of PSI for a long time considering that at his best, Ness can keep up to 700-800 PP. In addition, besides using powers with no limits Raz can use his PSI-Powers simultaneously performing different kinds of attacks, while for Ness to do some sort of PSI move, he needs more focus and concentration (at least if take into account the fact that making Ness unable to concentrate makes him unable to use PSI).
But all of that doesn’t matter on a big scale of picture doesn’t it, Ness still is far too strong for Raz to deal damage therefore he AP stomps and just eventually wins with a good few hits…if it wasn’t for a few options Raz does have in his pocket. Now to throw out the most simple one, brain sneezing powder, Raz has to simply throw that around Ness, the latter non-lethally sneezes his brains out and you can count in Ness as incapacitated. However that one ain’t simple, Raz obviously won’t go to this option immediately, and it’ll take some time before he would decide to release Ford to do that as well. It’s still however an option he can go with the moment Raz understands Ness’ physical superiority, which he will fairly quickly considering Raz really often faced invincible foes before, and always could think of a certain way or strategy to go around with invincibility. The other, obvious option he can do, is entering Ness’ mind. As addressed above, Raz doesn’t need Psycho-Portal to enter Ness’ mind, he can do it just by himself fairly well. Though to answer a few questions. First one would it be in character? Frankly yes, this is probably one of the first things Raz will pull out, especially the moment he’ll realize his normal attacks won’t do damage. Another question would be “wouldn’t Raz do it slowly to the point that Ness would just kill Raz before he reaches out to the brain?” or just generally speaking would Ness kill Raz before the latter even thinks about entering the brain? Ness can do that, but there are few things to consider:
When absolutely serious (which is the point both being put at, not only Ness), Raz doesn’t even need a second to enter the brain, he does it insanely quick and not easily dodgable when he wants to. Like that time against Maligula, he wasn’t hesitating upon entering her brain, he just did it. No fancy waiting to enter the brain. just a quick jump.
Raz can use his abilities to make Ness unable to do something about him entering the brain. Time Bubble, Invisibility, Stun Gun, Confusion, all can be used to leave Ness open for brain entrance. And unable to properly fight back.
Raz has better range than Ness to do all things with Ness. Ness’ range, as far as Earthbound visuals go, reach out tens of meters at best, even with slingshot Ness range isn’t reaching far since at best it reaches around 45 meters, while most effectively it can be aimed at 7-16 meters. Meanwhile Raz’s PSI Powers can reach out at worst a similar range of tens of meters if not hundreds especially if taking into account Clairvoyance which allows Raz to perceive from another perspective at long distances, heck even entering mind while using other abilities can be done at long range.
Overall Raz has ways to make Ness unable to fight back during entrance of mind, Raz has range which he can abuse against Ness to use his powers, Raz won’t hesitate when he needs to enter mind. Additionally if arguing “no blitz before reaching best form/potential” or just sticking to Raz in the Mental World since this is where Psychonauts and Raz most commonly operate, the fight could technically start in the Mental World anyway. After all, the Mental World is what makes Psychonauts in vs so interesting to discuss and think about, and technically Raz in the Mental World is probably Raz at his best possible condition so why not. And what happens next? Well…that's clearly another story which requires a really deep look. So, let’s dig deep, look closely and think wisely, because right now we’re entering the discussion of one place where the situation of this MU changes entirely: Ness’ Mind, Ness’ Mental World.
So…what now? What happens in the realm of Ness’ mind? Looking ahead, this is practically the reason why this blog is that long in the first place. Right here, we start to speculate about two things: Mental World’s mechanics and Ness’ psychology (or basically the World of Earthbound). In other words right now we’re going to do a little “level design” work with Ness’ mind. First things first to make it clear is that we obviously can’t make an exact 100% accurate representation of Ness’ mind, as much as I have attempted to give a brief view of what it can be. Mental Worlds have practically limitless possibilities in terms of what it can be, and I mean it. Think about it, in one mind you may find yourself among islands with bottles that lead to whole another worlds, or in another mind there are worlds within books, where you may find paper made boats swimming across the ink, or you can find yourself in the mind which has a conspiracy around the Milkman, or you can even become a Godzilla, destroying the city in one of the other minds. Possibilities are by any means limitless. Even at the moment of Psychonauts 2 events, after more than 20 years since the moment Psychonauts was founded as an organization, the mind still has lots to explore, which is something both Otto - tech genius of the Psychonauts and Ford - founder of the Psychonauts sure of.
And the mind of a child that went through lots of bizarre situations that is Earthbound? Yeah it pretty much becomes wild at that point. We can however use some basis. For instance, we can use for reference locations Ness has been throughout his adventures, since despite being all bizarre it’s all was hidden in at first ordinary locations: This includes cities like Onett, Twoson, Threed, Fourside, other towns, forests, basically all locations I’ve mentioned above and even that wasn’t mentioning some more locations like, say, Happy Happy Village or Stonehenge Base and etc. Taking that into account we can already give an image that Ness’ mental world could be towns/cities that despite being ordinary at first, also contain some stuff that can only be explained as “weird”. If we want to go basic and practically mash everything into one big picture the potential example of how Ness’ Mental World could look I think can be this:
Pretty simple, maybe even too simple/basic but more straight to the point. This may include Ness’ big variety of opponents he met through his life for instance. However one thing to take into account as well is that towns may look identical to real ones at one point but also could have something that differs it from its “real world” counterpart. For instance, in Cassie’s mind we see a town which has a labor market. At the same time however, instead of water we have ink and all its inhabitants, land structure, homes, were made of paper or books. Or some of Ford’s memories were represented differently, such as his bowling memories were represented through a city within a shoe being cleaned off from bacterias in an infinite loop of apocalypse, or his memories of Maligula killing innocent protestors, were represented through bugs and water in places that resemble barbershop. Or to take another person in account, Gloria’s life was basically presented through an act of theater. By that moment you probably already understand that Ness’ case can be a similar scenario where we have some strong place(s) or moment(s) of the past, being represented in a unique way. How exactly? I think to do that we should determine a working setting. All of Psychonauts’ Mental Worlds have some sort of setting Raz being put in, a board game, a cooking show, medical casino, history museum, theater, library, sea, party, drug trip, examples can go on and on.
With Ness specifically we have a few things to note to determine the setting. Of course it may seem hard at first, after all Ness is a “silent protagonist”, so it’s hard to determine a way of thinking for that kind of protagonist, but bear with me. First things first is, Ness’ favorite thing - no not only Rockin, considering main weapon of Ness’ choosing and him usually wearing a hat of “his favorite baseball team” according to Earthbound Guidebooks we can assume Ness’ Mental World having baseball setting with all of the aforementioned towns somewhat fit the setting. But that isn’t enough you may say, since there wasn’t really much of a baseball in Ness’ adventure to do a whole setting about it. That’s perhaps where Magicant itself comes into play, despite Mental World itself not being Magicant. Setting of Magicant is basically how other towns could be depicted, instead of being an exact copy of the real counterpart. In other words, cities/towns with a “magical” setting. See, there we already have 3 ways of how Ness’ Mental World could look, all of which are pretty big worlds with some setting within.
That's not counting stuff Ness may have from his “child past” but overall we already get a really big, quirky area to explore. Now let’s go to its inhabitants: Mental Figures and Mental Figments. So, there’s obviously a possibility that some of Ness’ foes and allies mentioned earlier won’t actually assist/oppose Ness during fight in Mental World, and instead will be present as figments. However, some notable personas are more likely to be presented as figures, considering how much more influential they are to Ness’ story, in a way (perhaps one of the reasons why I didn’t straight up mention every single Earthbound enemy, which would’ve made this blog even longer). But let’s go from step to step. Starting with the “inner selves” concept of Mental World. Does Ness have any “inner self”? The answer is…maybe. There are several ways a human in the world of Psychonauts can separate their own identity intentionally or not. There can be either some Mental Figures that represent Ness’ trait or Ness’ traits being separated through several (or one) Mental Figures. Obviously there’s also the possibility of Ness being separated into different Archetypes, but since with Cassie’s this case worked due to her knowing and using Mental Projection ability (which Ness doesn’t know), it’s not likely for Ness to do that as well. Other cases however have a good probability chance, at least if taking Ness’ previous mindscape - Magicant into the table. Magicant contained several Nesses within Ness’ mind, at one point or another. Whether it be from his memory(ies), such as the one where we see Ness as a toddler (admittedly which could be interpreted rather as just flashback/view of the past similarly how Ness did see other moments from his childhood when listening to sanctuaries). Or the ones that are within the Magicant - that being Ness as a kid/baby who likes to play games, Ness at around his present age, who also wasn’t doing much and Ness which we don’t see at the moment Magicant was disappearing. Ness from the future? Ness’ own consciousness? Who knows? One thing for sure, it is sort of possible to have some other Mental Figures representing Ness, other than Ness. Flying Men as living representation of Ness’ Courage already partially work as Ness’ inner selves, along with presumably Nesses from the past. Though it isn’t likely Nesses would be much of a help. They weren’t in Magicant so I don’t think they’ll be helping much in the Mental World either. Assuming there will be other Nesses after all.
Some good number of allies or enemies Ness met throughout his adventure, could be not major and rather be considered as Mental Figments, aka beings that are not as important and mostly there to fill out the setting. This probably includes just your average peoples on the street in context of Ness’ mental world. In other words, you know those random people on the streets in your JRPGs, that you can talk with but other than that they’re just there? That probably will be just like that. This however doesn’t include our main kinds of Mental Figure for this fight, that being - Memory Replicas and Systematic Mental Figures.
Starting with the former, which gives Ness allies and enemies from his adventure respectively. Ally wise, this most importantly includes Paula, Jeff and Poo, others have somewhat less of a chance to assist Ness but not impossible, still Ness can already basically use nearly all PSI abilities now with help from Paula and Poo, while Jeff’s gadgets and Spy ability can also get Raz into more trouble. The real trouble however could be in finding them first, they won't be standing near Ness the moment the fight goes into the Mental World, Ness obviously needs to find them and only then they may be able to team up. Some other ally support for Ness within Mental World are his mom, dad, Escargo Express which could still had some needed items, Gonzales that can deliver Pizza to recover health, Hint union debatably also could help to give some sort of hints on what to do next, for a price, also the shops, hospitals and hotels around the Mental World could be selling needed stuff for Ness in his fight and/or help him recover. Thankfully Dad’s riches help Ness to cover financially needed resources. It’s also worth mentioning other fighting capable support units, such as Flying Men and Dungeon Man, the latter is slow but has really high damage. While the former are pretty simple but experienced and have some good numbers of themselves (that being 5).
Now there is no good without evil, just like Magicant has this separation, so can Ness’ Mental World. Enemy wise, Ness and Raz (besides Psychonauts’ beings who exist in Mental World, from Censors to Panic Attacks) probably would have to face some of the most dangerous foes of the world of Earthbound: Kraken, Starmen, Sanctuary Guardians, Ness’ Nightmare/Mani Mani Statue, possibly Porky Minch (“possibly” since even after being corrupted, Ness saw Porky more friendly in his mind) but most important of all, Giygas (which we’ll mention later on). Heck, I didn’t even fill up the whole list of Earthbound enemies. Again if you really wanna see how far the weirdness goes and look at all Earthbound enemies: Go here and here. Wikibound as an Earthbound wiki does a really good job on details of the Mother series, its enemies and locations down to the code details. Now, it’s important to note, all of the allies and all of the enemies in that case are characters as far as Ness remembers and sees them, overall it’s likely Ness remembered his friends and foes accurately, but this doesn’t mean they can do stuff they can/did off screen for instance. Hence Giygas in that instance, would act as far as Ness has seen his capabilities in a fight against him, no Mother 1 and other stuff before his Earthbound appearance. This does limit Giygas’ capabilities to an extent but that also makes him more dangerous, since he can still potentially defeat Ness and foes the same way he could before (we’ll come back to him later though). Raz can practically deal with a good amount of Earthbound enemies through lots of his powers.
A little back to Psychonauts foes, they technically should assist Ness, however none of them is resistant to Raz’s confusion, which can make them go against each other, Ness included. Raz has experienced all of them on multiple occasions so he won’t have much trouble dealing with them, while for Ness they are quite new ones. However some Ness can deal with without much of any trouble, considering sheer experience of his Earthbound opponents. For instance Bad Mood’s darkness Ness can potentially countermeasure with Hawk Eye which previously allowed him to see through Deep Darkness (and since Bad Idea covers you in Darkness theoretically Hawk Eye could negate this effect). Panic Attack is possible to stop with Paralysis or other immobilizing equipment (as long as that equipment hits), the army of Censors can be defeated in a several ranged PSI attacks or bombs/rockets, same can be said for other ranged units such as regrets or bad ideas. Nightmares could become quite troublesome for Ness, since they can regenerate from the given damage upon becoming more wounded but with explosives they would be instantly destroyed. Judge and Mega Censor should be fairly simple in defeating. Enabler could take time for Ness to go through invincibility but ultimately Ness should figure out and deal with them similarly through ranged options or status effects. Doubts also can be dealt with quickly but their puddles can slow Ness down for some time.
Raz, besides experiencing his own enemies being Censors, Doubts, etc. probably would have to face Ness' enemies as well. And frankly, Raz can deal with those just as good as Ness can. A lot of them have direct weakness to either fire attack or shenanigans with mind, both of which are something that Raz can exploit. Shield can also help and reflect their attacks back if needed and Raz’s Archetype can even give attention to himself if Raz seems needed to escape. Some have a passive PSI-Shield capable of either defending from psychic attacks or reflect, probably the most troublesome kind of enemies for Raz, but possible to deal with, especially if Raz tries their own medicine against them. Additionally the location itself Raz would be in probably won’t be as bad as other places he visited. After all, Raz faced some more strange places like Milkman’s Conspiracy or PSI-King Sensorium, one is a really weird town with suspicious people, the other is basically a drug trip. And that’s without mentioning stuff like Bob’s Bottles or Cassie’s Library, or if doing something similar - Ford’s Mental World where there was a city setting to which Raz adapted. Heck, one of the first Mental Worlds Raz visited was a literal war, if war is something out of the least threatening things, other stuff won’t be viewed as troublesome, and most of the stuff that will be in Ness’ mind won’t be that surprising to Raz.
Ultimately Raz can deal with given obstacles fairly well, and so can Ness. Especially with help from his friends - the chosen four. Now, the moment Ness gets his help from the 3, they practically become hard to defeat, especially for Raz at solo. Ford Cruller can call in help from other Psychonauts agents, mentioned above but it definitely can take more time for them to come even if we consider the possibility of that happening, and even then, Paula, Jeff and Poo present a lot more solid team work based on what we’ve seen (I mean, cmon they’ve been together as a team nearly entire adventure).
Now let’s go to the “their teams” part, more deeply. To the point that it turns into some sort of “EARTHBOUND VS PSYCHONAUTS TOTAL WAR” CFC episode №2489 or smth. As said before Ness being in own Mental World does give him teammates he had in the real world, whether it be his adventure companions or just some support people due to Ness naturally remembering his friends. Raz’s case here is a bit more different, to get help for himself he does have to rely on Ford’s teleportation abilities with which he can in theory at least give a message to the Psychonauts organization and then see if someone could help. Now this is somewhat equal to the John Constantine moment of him asking other people like Zattana to help even though she’s busy with her own business, in a MU like Constantine vs Raidou or smth of that kind, you get what I mean. But it is still a theoretically possible scenario (especially taking into account that Raz passively gets help from some psychics while getting some powers like regen), even though overall help from either Ford or Sasha Nein are probably all Raz needs, while others help to either buy more time or help Raz and direct him where he needs to operate.
Still however, it isn’t as likely for Raz getting his team in time rather than Ness finding his teammates. And overall, Paula, Jeff and Poo are quite more versatile. As a matter of fact, all of the Chosen four can probably go through most of Psychonauts and their abilities with experience, especially if it’ll be a 1v1 situation(s) between most of Ness’ support vs Raz’s support would be more victories on the side of Ness’ support. Though how well Raz could do in 1v1 scenarios against anyone on Ness’ side? Well, to point out a few things is that some of Ness’ support probably would help Raz as well, by some I mean mostly people that you need to pay to take care of yourself, like shops, hotels and hospitals in each of the towns Raz may be in. Other quite situational stuff like Escargo Express or Magic Butterflies, won’t help Raz, but obviously won’t do harm for him either. The same way, Ness may not get much help from Memory Vaults or PSI-Poppers, but they won’t harm him either. Now to those Raz has to fight, in a 1v1 situation Raz can probably deal with fair and square. Dungeon Man poses a strong threat, but by himself is still pretty slow and has not much abilities other than “Punching really hard”. Raz probably can either use his Colossal forms to deal with it, or he could deal with it from the inside, since Dungeon Man not only is a mech, but also well…a dungeon. With several floors but pretty simple construction. Now a similar case minus speed can be said about Flying Men. They are quite a determined bunch, but also lacking in the ability department, plus, Raz has faced people with similar kinds of moves, being wrestlers from Black Velvetopia. An upgraded shield will be a move good enough to counter their moveset. Player…well, he does exist, but technically he shouldn’t really pose a threat, they can help Ness recover if the latter is beaten, but it should be noted they don’t help much from Ness either dying or facing other conditions.
Now let’s go to the main 3, being Paula, Jeff and Poo. Paua very often offers a good amount of offensive PSI, but Raz has ways to deal with practically all of them. Starting from PK Fire, which unlike in smash can’t be spammed as easily. As explained before it shoots Fire from different sides from left to right, the real deal here is Raz’s shield, a levitation ball which can fly higher thanks to heat from PK Fire or better yet since PK Fire attacks by rows, it isn’t hard for Raz to quickly move to another row. PK Freeze Raz can counter by simply using own Pyrokinesis which not only can melt ice but also if compared to Norma’s could even melt metal. PK Thunder apparently seems to be able to bypass Earthbound’s shields, while it’s questionable if it’s Thunder by passing forcefield or Earthbound’s shields not being able to give defense from Thunder. Regardless, PK Thunder mostly is a hit & miss move, and there won’t be many chances to hit a single target. Defense down can decrease Raz’s defense and Offense up could increase Paula’s offense, but Raz can make up for it a little with some of his pins such as Strike-onaut and Glass Canon, sure latter also decreases defense further, but Raz’s playstile is more often in exploiting weakness and being uneasy to hit, especially with such things as time bubble or invisibility. PSI Magnet could possibly absorb PP from Raz, assuming PSI and PSI-Powers are same kind of power sets, however not only Paula gets pretty much low income of PP being around 2-8, but also she isn’t making Raz lose any of PSI-Powers, since Raz’s amount of PSI-Powers by the end of his games is practically limitless. And Pray is just really random to guarantee if it’ll benefit Paula or not. And the good amount of Pray’s effects that can happen won’t give Raz too much of a trouble.
Jeff is in a way complex. He doesn’t have PSI, he does however use lots of gadgets. And a good amount of them can cause some problems for Raz. For instance, while Raz’s shield can block a good amount of Jeff’s projectiles, and maybe even reflect some back, Jeff’s shield killer can deal with it and no more shield. Raz has confusion but Jeff can counter it through neutralizer. Slime generator can hold Raz down, HP-Suckers can recover Jeff’s HP while taking health from Raz, Bazookas and Bottle Rockets can do big explosive damage to Raz, even though former has chance of dealing damage to Jeff as well, and probably the biggest potential threat here is Counter-PSI unit which (if equalize PSI and PSI-Powers) could disable Raz from using PSI-Powers. Real problem here seems to be in 2 things: First being the fact that there's a chance for PSI and PSI-Powers to be different enough for the gadget not working on Raz (plus Raz has some way(s) to resist or countermeasure it). And second being the fact that it doesn’t permanently disable Raz from using powers, eventually Raz can recover them, if Psilirium which passively spreads its radiation onto other psychics wasn’t able to fully stop Raz, it’s a matter of little time for Raz to recover from Counter-PSI unit.
But despite the high potential threat Jeff poses to Raz, Raz has a single good answer to all gadgets - Telekinesis. Raz, while using telekinesis in character, can either redirect projectiles back at his opponents, whether projectile is an energy or an explosive. Not only that, but pretty much in character Raz is capable of disarming his opponents, so Raz can just, use telekinesis, to throw all Jeff’s gadgets away or into him, to do damage. Additionally Clairvoyance’s precognition may work with Jeff’s gadgets and Raz would have a chance to understand what each gadget does. To summarize here, Jeff is potentially posing the biggest threat, but Raz has a good strategy that counters basically his entire movekit.
Next up we have Poo. Poo meanwhile has a good amount of training so in CQC he may have better combat skills, and his Sword of Kings can be a dangerous weapon, so Raz like usually is more comfortable in keeping his distance. Some of the already mentioned abilities won’t pose a big threat for Raz, since the latter has a decent amount of counters, so let’s touch Poo’s own unique powers Raz has to deal with, that being Brainshok, Mirror and of course, PK Starstorm. Brainshock Raz most likely would resist, as mentioned before, a good amount of either good mind manipulators or even a radioactive mineral that makes some resistant to mind shenanigans people fall into its illusionary trap, couldn’t break Raz’s mental defenses. Though if it would make Raz confused a bit similarly to how psychic rats can make Raz confused, Raz in a pretty quick time period can recover, and still fight while being in that state. Mirror, Poo could use and get Raz’s powers, though it has some chances to not work. But if it would work, Poo has no bad chances against Raz here. Real problem here perhaps is that Poo may not get an entire knowledge on Raz’s moveset and Raz can earlier exploit needed abilities to counter “himself”. Now PK Starstorm is also quite dangerous, and seemingly not easy to dodge when it’s basically a bunch of falling meteors at high speeds. What Raz can do here is either go defensive and block attack with shield, or maybe even redirect one or two attacks with telekinesis, after all, Raz can take projectiles with TK and throw them back. So here, it’s also quite close but Raz does have stuff to win if needed.
But Ness’ crew poses the highest threat when all 4 are together, and frankly, assuming Raz won’t be spamming his stuff they basically not only have some numbers advantage but practically they can compensate for each other’s flaws. In this situation the moment Jeff uses Counter PSI Unit or other of his potentially high threat gadgets, he can leave Raz open to attacks from other 3. Raz obviously can do a time bubble + PSI-Blast+Telekinesis spam but in this scenario, there’s also potential for PSI-Shield to be used and reflect some attacks back. They don’t stay for long but still, it can counter a good amount of Raz’s toolkit and maybe even whistand the spam.
So Ness does have a better team in the mental world, he will have an easier time adapting to own mental world and can definitely take down Raz at least once…which may be problematic because, while Raz could be overwhelmed in a direct confrontation, Raz is also smart enough to keep his distance. Considering how large of a location Mental Worlds can be, it’s only natural for Raz to be able to simply hide from Ness and try to do something in the Mental World to tame him. Raz can still use invisibility, which Ness, or anyone on his side can’t counter really, confusion and stun gun also can cause some problems and Time Bubble can just slow them all down. Most importantly however is that Ness has to kill Raz at least 11 times if he wants to get rid of him out of the Mental World. Same goes to other people from Raz’s support, if Ness kills them once, they can come back, and at that point, Ness just has to get rid of a good chunk of people simultaneously to wake up and come back to the real world. Question here is, what Raz can do inside of Ness’ Mental World to ensure his victory and not just be a hiding punching bag.
Answer - Mind Manipulation. As mentioned earlier, Psychonauts’ mind hax is like medical surgery, carefully done one can heal from hard mental diseases, can put a person in a different state and change their beliefs, but it’s easy to just do something bad in the Mental World to make the mind go wrong. Sometimes affecting the mind can be done to the psychological point where a person can do something, being aware of the action being programmed in his mind and still being unable to countermeasure the effects, doing stuff as he was programmed to do. It's important to remember Ness' healing won't help to simply recover from that, it isn't some headaches or sleeping we're talking about, it's an ability that can affect the way we human beings think, make us better or worse as a person, make us sane or crazy, make us go through our fears or cause a ton more. Throughout his story, Raz healed a lot of the known Mental Illness or Traumas, like alcoholism, schizophrenia, latent dysphoria, multiple personalities and more. Most importantly it’s possible for Raz to cause said mental illnesses as well. In Ness’ case, I see about 3 ways to make something go from his mind. Raz can either release Giygas and make Ness face him once again which dependent on the situation could at least buy Raz more time or at best even destroy Ness’ mind assuming Giygas’ potential in the Mental World is equivalent to his actual counterpart, second way is Raz does uses Ford to transport Ness’ body with the brain to Astralathe and they use it to make holes on Ness’ mind/alter Ness’ mind and etc. Or the most simple way - Mental Connection.
From starters. How will Raz release Giygas? It’s hard to say an exact method of pulling Giygas out, since he could be well hidden as Ness’ nightmares or other mental figures. Though based on what we know about Mental Worlds and its inhabitants, one of ways Raz could possibly pull out Giygas is from one of Ness’ Memory Vaults. Through which Raz not only can find out more info on Ness, but also could release memories from it, which sometimes Memory Vaults do, as we can see either in Loboto’s mind or PSI-King’s sensorium, where memories were pulled out more directly rather than being just pictures of the past. Though releasing Giygas can be problematic for Raz as well, overall, it can at least take Ness’ attention and if Giygas would bring more destruction to the mental world, more destruction would be on Ness’ mind, and if Ness’ Mental World would be destroyed he might as well will be dead. Just like how supposedly dead brains look in Psychonauts. Giygas himself was a tough opponent for Ness, with the big problem, sure Ness was able to hurt him in some way, but there wasn’t really anything Ness could do by himself to kill him. What Ness needs here is Paula’s and other’s prayers which can eventually deal with Giygas. His incomprehensible attacks are problematic even without taking into account possible PSI powers he may know. So in other words, Giygas is a really serious threat Raz could use for own benefit against Ness.
Astralathe meanwhile allows for some direct alteration of the memories. Through the Astralalthe, Ford even managed to tame Maligula from going berserk into being a pretty ordinary woman. And with Ness who himself at least usually and not under DB ruleset is more peaceful, at least making him not want to kill is something that can be done through Astralathe. Additionally it is theoretically possible to make Ness’ PSI go against him, just like Ford rewrote Malgula’s Hydrokinesis powers to make it seem like an evil curse to keep away from water. Ford and Raz can also make a hole within Ness’ mind and then upon falling into this hole, Ness probably won’t be able to think anymore. The only actual problem is the aforementioned transportation, since Astralathe is big and lies in 1 place only. However, considering Ford can literally teleport or at least telekinetically lift Ness, Raz and himself, former 2 which I mind you are sleeping while being inside of the Mental World, it is a possibility for Ford to use that strategy. Still it’s probably won’t be seen as much likely, Raz has to more so wait around for help here rather than do stuff himself. Is there something he can do himself to take care of Ness inside of the Mental World?
Which brings us to the 3-rd option, Mental Connection, which is capable of connecting disparate ideas and alter personality also fairly quickly. Raz can find it and use it to either break Ness’ mind or at least not make Ness want to kill him. If done right, Raz’s mental connection can eventually lead Ness to the point of being unable to fight, which can be considered for Raz as a victory. Aside from that it also changes Mental World’s reality, if Ness' mind at first could be a combination of his past adventures or a baseball thematic or magicant themed or something in-between of the 3, after mental connection, it can change its form and theme, concepts can get entirely different meanings, style of the world can change, even people from Ness’ support or obstacles can change in design and personality. Just like how Hollis’ mind was fairly quickly changed from Medical setting into Casino setting, even at some point changing personalities of living Mental Figures in it, doing something like that in Ness’ Mental World could cause similar results. Just imagine what the heck happens when Raz…say, hypothetically, would connect thoughts “MOTHER” and “EVIL” together, or if Raz would connect some more random thoughts like “STEAK” and “DEATH” or “BASEBALL” and “GIYGAS” or “PRAY” and “COLD” or “HOMESICK” and “PSI”, I can simply go on and on with examples of variety of possible combinations which are possible to do with Mental Connection within the Mental World, including connecting aforementioned possible thoughts in a different orders. And it's really up to our imagination what the hell happens after thoughts are connected. Maybe Fourside will mix with Lost Underworld, maybe Baseball theme would change into Basketball theme, maybe style will change to be more "clay-like" or "paper-like", or maybe even Paula, Jeff and Poo for some reason will turn into Frisk, John Egbert and Alex Yikk or smth of that kind. Ok ok, that last part is a bit more theoretical but technically a possible thing. All in all, things which are possible to bring with Mental Connection are quite wild. But basically all that “reality warping” combination in a way, means that Ness could have a little harder time fighting against Raz under that circumstance, where his thoughts and Mental World itself changes.
Now we can talk more deeply about some of the tertiary factors. Obviously both are really smart and very talented, Ness and Raz have experienced trained foes, and faced the most unexplainable stuff they could ever witness in their lives. Ness has overall more experience, considering his adventure lasted longer while all 3 Psychonauts games lasted within a single week, week and a half at most. Though Raz’s ability to adapt is probably better suited against Ness than Ness’ tactics he could exploit at Raz. To put into a perspective, Ness has been put in some complex fights, but usually Ness beats his opponents more directly, Raz however often met invincible foes and more often had to adapt and exploit opponent’s weaknesses. Obviously Ness himself was in situations where he could exploit weaknesses but for Raz it’s often was a lot more necessary. Raz is also a lot more mobile compared to Ness, considering the latter's mobility is bike and teleport, both of which are not easy to operate within places with more obstacles. Skip Sandwiches do help Ness to increase his travel speed, but Ness himself still doesn’t become a lot more agile. In comparison, Raz’s acrobatics are a lot more useful, especially with the combination of levitation ball, which makes Raz both quick and efficient in travel (oh and well, one is a JRPG character other is a Platformer character, pretty notable difference). Now I’m not saying Ness is a slowpoke, or Raz is a flash, but Raz can definitely use more from the environment in his movement than Ness thanks to his acrobatics, which he has learnt since he was a small kid.
Support, as I’ve pointed out, Jeff, Paula and Poo are overall more solid of a help than Raz’s psychonauts agents. However, if needed some of them still can do a solid amount of help, to at least buy Raz more time: Sam’s Zoolepathy is potent enough to command animals that may be on Ness’ mind such as Krakens. Lizzie’s cryokinesis can either defend Raz from attacks or help in travel, with Raz’s already good mobility. Sasha Nein is quite proficient with mind manipulation as well, so he can build mental constructs if needed. Ford Cruller is an especially great support unit since not only he’s the one who can bring all other agents here, he himself carries stuff that would highly benefit Raz in a fight. Brain Sneezing Powder Ford has directly, so he can just teleport to Raz and use the powder. Ford himself as mentioned above also can enter Ness’ mind, putting the latter in a position of unable to fight in sleep and similarly with Maligula could also move Ness to the Astralathe - device which also can rewrite person or even rewrite/erase memories to make Ness forget about meeting. All of that aren’t natural ways of winning of course, Ness isn’t being killed directly. But all of those win conditions are going for the result where despite being alive, a person won’t do harm anymore, and that's a condition I think is enough to consider as victorious.
Conclusion
Ness
Advantages:
Likely far stronger and durable
Probably comparable in speed
Larger arsenal which also is better suited for combat than Raz’s
Despite Limited amount of PSI usage, has good amount of it to use it efficiently
Less reliant on PSI compared to Raz
More experience
Paula, Jeff and Poo can serve better help for Ness than most of Raz’ support and could overwhelm in direct confrontation.
Most of Psychonauts’ enemies won’t be as problematic for Ness
Has some ways to go around some of Raz’s psychic powers, especially with his friends’ help
PK Rockin if pulled out instantly in real world, could probably end fight in a close range
Got in the Super Smash Bros
Disadvantages:
Worse Telekinesis/Lifting Strength.
Meaning it’s possible for Raz to disarm Ness from equipment
Still limited amount of PSI usage compared to Psychonauts’ PSI Powers
Less mobile in comparison to Raz
Raz has counters to nearly all of his abilities.
Doesn’t has counters against Raz’s Time Manipulation or Invisibility
Can be defeated by Brain Sneezing Powder
Isn’t resistant to mind manipulation.
Can’t kill Raz in the Mental World and has to do it at least 11 times to push him out.
Dream Fluffs could be problematic even in Real World
Needs to find his friends in Mental World first to be able to team up with them.
Likely lower range at which he can operate.
Now nearly all vs animators only use his Smash Moveset :(
Man their publisher didn’t promoted the game well
Ness is Sans theory
Raz
“I’ve taught you everything I can, Son. Now you go show them. Show them all.”
Advantages:
PSI Powers are unlimited in usage compared to Earthbound’s PSI
Better Telekinesis/Lifting Strength
Meaning he could at least disarm Ness from his equipment
Probably comparable in speed
More mobile
Likely higher range at which he can operate
Counters nearly all of Ness’ abilities
Time Manipulation, Teleport and Invisibility are great escape options even under the assumption that Raz is slower
Brain Sneezing Powder is an instant win condition
Eventually can manipulate Ness’s mind to make latter unable to fight (and Mental Connection or Astralathe only speed up this process)
Practically unkillable in the Mental World
Especially helpful if fight is allowed to immediately happen in the Mental World.
Can get more information about Ness through Memory Vaults
Could use his foes against Ness, especially with confusion
Dream Fluffs could help from being quickly defeated, especially in the real world.
Got in the Game Awards
Disadvantages:
Likely far weaker and less durable
Less arsenal and isn’t as combat applicable
More reliant on PSI Powers in comparison
Paula, Jeff and Poo serve as a better help than most of Psychonauts agents, and can overwhelm Raz in a direct confrontation.
Psychonauts’ enemies would mainly target him before targeting Ness
Ness has some ways to go around some of Raz’s psychic powers. Especially with help of friends
If not being careful, PK Rockin could deal with him fairly quick in close range
Less experience
Didn’t win any awards though :(
Man their publisher didn’t promoted the game well
So, let’s do a little recap. Ness is stronger, and definitely at least as fast, in the Real World it’s harder for Raz to fight against Ness, that’s for sure. Especially considering some good immobilizing options, or a PK Rockin that is especially dangerous at close range. So Ness definitely is definitely in a more comfortable position when fighting in Real World. But eventually, with how Raz uses his mobility, thinks and carries several ways to keep longer distance allows him to either suddenly use sneezing powder through himself or Ford, or enter Ness’ mind and continue fight in it, a scenario to which Time Bubble and Invisibility (and probably Dream Fluffs) especially help.
And inside of the Mental World, Ness gets a good amount of benefits, but not to the point that Raz can’t overcome it. Ness gets more help from his friends and eventually can fairly adapt to the Mental World’s mechanics. And if the world was pretty tight, it would’ve been possible for Ness to put Raz away from his mind. However Raz’s Mental World immortality and likely the big size of Mental World, practically allows him to die more often in it, and eventually stick to keeping his range more often, until he finds a needed spot where he can perform his mind shenanigans.
Mental Connection, Astralathe and essentially Ford Cruller himself are insanely helpful to perform at least one of Raz’s needed options for a victory. Whether it be to rewrite Ness’ personality, make Ness not want to fight, break Ness’ Mental World either through Mental Connection or Giygas, or just remove the brain from the body and call it a day. And if the fight does in fact start in the Mental World rather than real world, then this turns into a situation where stats don’t really matter, since Ness will have insanely hard time killing Raz and over time Raz just uses his various escape options and does his win cons, which are obviously in character for Raz to do in a fight to the death situation.
Now, this isn’t a simple fight, both have ways to go around the other, both have multiple options to end this fight, both can win, and it overall does depend on what you buy for either and how you think the fight should start. Cause at the end of the day, versus is subjective and both Earthbound and Psychonauts are probably one of the biggest examples with how much stuff can be viewed differently, how open to interpretation they can be and how complex everything can look on paper. And even this blog, I still don't think I've covered everything despite being really close to and I do believe it probably would be disagreeable in some aspects. Which is fair considering how much there can be interpretations for either.
But with what I myself would consider viable in summary, Raz eventually can enter Ness’ mental world with his powers and high mobility, and at same time, eventually make Ness unable to fight, whether it be through multiple manipulations of the mind or sneezing the brain, especially if fight starts in the Mental World, which makes it only a matter of time if Raz would perform needed machinations. Ness was a strong fighter, but Raz’s versatile abilities, high mobility and complex mind manipulation gave him the W. In the end, Ness was Psycho-not, bound to take this. The winner is Razputin “Raz” Aquato.
Oh, hello there! Well that was quite a long blog eh? No, seriously, this MU itself means probably a whole lot to me, and since the day I was supporting it, it just kept evolving and evolving in terms of what you can do with it, up to the point that this blog turned out to have that much info and stuff. Hope that despite admittedly being too ambitious it’ll be received well and most importantly will just show further how unique, how bizarre and how unpredictable Psychonauts and Earthbound are as videogames, for which I like both series and this Matchup in particular so much. Though after doing so much in this blog, at that point I definitely would also like to give myself a good rest from discussing Earthbound and Psychonauts much versus wise and just talk about how cool the MU is. Or else I'll actually have headaches from debating it too deeply.
But really, next time is gonna be revealed after Chai & 808 vs Mayday & Zuke, just so I won’t have to concentrate on multiple blogs at once and rather prepare stuff step by step. So stay tuned for more! And if it so happens you want to join and help with the upcoming blog(s), I’m gonna leave a link to the Discord server which is gonna work for 7 days since this blog’s release. Until now uh, see ya soon, go play Ace Attorney.
Link to the server for those who wanna:
ReplyDeletehttps://discord.gg/bV9BwfQR
YOU SMELL LIKE ORANGES
ReplyDelete