I'm glad they care about keeping everyone in character for the fights, Ness wouldn't kill any pokemon or Red unless there was no other option so its good to see no one got their head smashed in or brains blown out.

Love how the Pokémon work together as a team to fight Ness with some really impressive team up attacks. Sad red And his nom lost but kind of knew that coming in because Ness got some crazy stuff. Awesome animation and analysis though you guys are killing it

This is gonna be the first animation where its JUST Ness. No Smash stuff, its just Ness and what HE himself can do. Thank you for that Smash Bracket.

Love how Red's tactical prowess was shown off in the animation, what with stuff like Lapras unleashing Surf, which it and Blastoise then contained inside an ice sphere, or how the team as a whole wailed on Ness in order to give Snorlax time to set itself up. Not to mention that awesome flaming seed ring turned into a freaking PSYCHIC FIRE TORNADO!

You guys killed it on this one. Easily my favorite episode since Link vs. Ridley. I can't say how happy I am to FINALLY see a Pokemon Trainer properly done in a VS. Episode, even if Red didn't take the W. All the Pokemon working in tandem, the amount of care he had for his Pokemon when they were defeated, the Mega Charizard X transformation, and Charizard saving Red's life just. Makes me happy in a way that other Pokemon VS. episodes have failed to ever do. And hearing the Pokemon motifs in the track just... icing on the cake. I can see why this is one of Ink's favorite animations, the sheer amount of passion and love for both series really shines through. The post credits scene was genuinely just awesome too. Zelda saving Red, the inclusion of Jirachi, the continuity with Ness and Paula trying to save Poo from the Phazon after he fought Dark Samus. I can't believe I'm actually this excited to see where the post credits scenes and the Story Mode animations go. GG Earthbound fans. Kick some ass in Round 2 for me and the other Red fans.

There's only room enough for one kid with a baseball cap here...

Knew Ness was gonna take this pretty easily but I love how the animation actually showed each of the Pokémon put up a decent fight instead of them just getting decimated

I love that since Ness’ dragon form was never shown, they used The Dragon from Earthbound Beginnings. I feel that Mother 1 is very under appreciated, so that was awesome.

Red was done way better in this than Death Battle did him.

This is probably my favorite episode now. That animation was surprisingly intense and kept me guessing all the way, and while I didn't really ever associate a personality with either of these characters in this animation they were both characterized really well and in a believable way. And for the story mode I have to say Sephiroth being this antagonistic force in it is just so perfect, and I'm genuinely so hyped to see where the story is going it looks awesome.

Ness: hey look at this cool flashlight trick i can do with my fingers. *deletes crowd from existance*

This is by far my favorite Smash Bracket episode in terms of sprite animation. The team did an awesome job on this. -Can't wait to see Poketuber's reacting to this-

This battle is one of the reasons I'm happy that the fights don't have to end in death

Oh my God the Espeon segment in the dark world with playing cards was incredible. Never in this series did I think we'd get a reenactment of the opening credits to Casino Royale (which I doubt was intentional), but either way it was sick af.

Even being an EarthBound fan and having played multiple playthroughs, I didn't know how much power Ness had. I haven't yet read the books, but that's something that I would be interested in doing. I thought that Ness should have had his team with him as well, but now I can understand more why it was just him.

Why is nobody talking about the "okay" at 26:08. For something seen as a joke in the smash community, watching Ness slowly pull up with that was badass.

This was truly amazing and a amazing day to be a Ness supporter. And thanks for putting my fanart into the video 😀

For people who want to know what the secret braille message at the end meant: It says DRAGMIRE, which is apparently Ganondorf's last name, so Ganondorf must be the powerful one that Sephiroth is talking about, which would make sense cuz he has the Triforce of Power. When I looked it up, I saw a lot of images of Trilight Princess Ganondorf, but I don't know anything about the Zelda series so take what I say with a grain of salt.

That Espeon part was incredible! Congrats to the animator!🎉

Yep, this was amazing. Like, REALLY amazing. Its insane how you all can produce such high quality animations in given such short periods of time.

This was absolutely amazing! Charizard and reds friendship really made me tear up! I love this 100% sad red lost, but glad there was no death!

“I wish for you to show me who has true power.” I guess we know how Sephiroth vs Vergil started.

They really had us guessing in this animation. Great job aa always. THIS WAS AMAZING

Big friggin' congrats to the entire team. It's incredible how you all continue to push yourselves to improve and make each episode bigger and better. Fantastic music, wonderful diverse group of artists, imaginative choreography, presentation with loads of personality. Whatever you do, don't stop!

I like it how in the end, Ness didn't really end Red. He's just not like that. In the end, Ness is a friend.

This was definitely worth the wait. One of my favorite smash brackets ever, keep up the great work

None of the pokemon question why they're beating the shit out of a kid, amazing.

The Pokemon working together as the theme plays was one of the most hype things I've seen in a versus animation

This was an incredible episode. Easily one of my top 3 favorite episodes of Smash Bracket

0:17 *Pokemon Trainer Analysis* 8:23 *Ness Analysis* 18:33 *Fight* 26:36 *Post Analysis*

You knocked it out of the park (with a Legendary Bat)! Unreal animation, fantastic sound design and my favourite fight by far! These two characters mean a lot to me (first game and favourite game) and you really did them justice. Thank you so much. Also PAULA WTF NOOOOO, that was heartbreaking to witness!!!

I got to say, this is currently my favourite versus series. It doesn't put theatrics above form like DB or SPBD, it doesn't rely on luck or votes like Epic Battles or Comic Battle, and it isn't CFC. If you ever wanna move beyond just Smash with the format I'm 100% game for it.

Ness would take half the Smash roster to the FUCKING CLEANERS. And that's facts

Okay Snorlax just straight up boxing at the end is hilarious LMFAOO

I loved the touch of Ness's teeth making the Hyper Beam noise. Also, seeing Ness's HP at 24:50 really shows how hopelessly outmatched just one of the Pokémon would be. He just got flipping beaten down by six powerful Pokémon at once and is missing maybe 10% of his health. MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!! The braille at the end translates to Dragmire (which I thought would be a dragma joke until the I appeared.) A quick google search shows that this word is heavily associated with Ganon. This could mean one of two things: Ganondorf is one of the top contenders for the winner, or Jirachi is answering Sephiroth's question literally, since Ganon has the Triforce of Power. Either way, a battle between the two is inevitable, be it in Round 2 or towards the Finals.

That was probably the best fight animation you have made, absolutely nailed it! It is a shame red lost, I think the dynamic of having six Pokemon to swap between is extremely interesting and unique. Would have to see them Go another round.

"For Ness, Beating off random enemies on the street is a normal day for him" excuse me. What.

Really happy this came out great. By far one of my favorites to come out. Big props to the team.

the last thing on the screen is braile. it says "Dragmire" which is Ganondorf's last name! So looks like Ganon posseses true power

This video was sooooo good! Loved the outcome. Keep up the amazing work guys.

Amazing battle, maybe the best ever The pacing was amazing, I found myself rooting for both sides throughout the fight and as far as I know you represented both characters excellently

Im excited to see how they handle ness. Big trust after seeing Lucas Vs wario

As a pokemon who red caught at one point myself and a huge fan of the mother series ,thank you for doing both of these contenders justice. I was on the edge of my seat cheering i was so excited watching this with my friends and girlfriend and absolutely adored this episode so much. Thank you for showing reds character better then death battle did ,and thank you for making my night amazing smash bracket.

I don't know if I should call this episode "local teen mercilessly gangs up on a child with his army of supernatural beasts" or "local child commits horrific acts of animal cruelty with magic, a baseball bat and a toothbrush".

I’m actually a little excited and intrigued to see who will this fight

this is literally one of the best youtube videos ive ever watched in my life oh my goodness from the fantastic research to the fantastic animation, it really felt like a love letter to both series! i am absolutely Amazed i loved this so much!!! truly wonderful wonderful work!!!!!

Y'all absolutely KILLED it with this episode! Easily my favorite one now!

this was a shockingly great production. I never would have thought what i was stepping into here would be nearly as great as it was.

Can't wait to "catch" this episode that I'd "bound" to be great

The reason Sephiroth won at the end was because Mario and Luigi Were too busy making the Mario movie

I love how the song ended off with a Smiles and Tears leitmotif despite Ness basically killing everyone besides red and sending Veno to another dimension

Okay, I knew Ness’ psychic power was nothing to scoff at. But what you dug up in the research legit made me terrified of him. 😱 Also, kudos to his voice actor. He did a much better job than the guy voicing Lucas.

Okay, I don’t even know where to start at the end part. So many things were happening all at once. This episode was crazy!

Dragmire. Fucking Ganandorf Dragmire. You clever clever man. Jirachi took that wish super literally.

Didn't know that Earthbound had a Manga and Art Style in the form of 1940s Cartoons. Glad I do now

Is there anywhere to view the actual bracket itself? It would be nice to have a quick visual to see the progression so far and who's still in the running.

Oh my god! this animation is so goood! Props to the animators!

amazing research, amazing animation, amazing post analysis, the only thing thats a problem is the "perfect scenario 40% chance" thing you mentioned. Professional pokemon trainers always win on dumb luck with such a setup 😎

This is one of my most anticipated episodes and I gotta say… SS tier episode, ness goes absolutely crazy, and after I played all the mother games it makes me wonder how powerful the characters would be when they become adults

Jesus Christ, the Earthbound novel goes hard. Definitely going to have to read that.

Ness fighting an entire legion of monsters by himself hand to hand, meanwhile Pokemon Trainer gets hit with one bomb and almost dies. Lol

Holy crap man, everything about this was awesome. But I really gotta shout out the music choices, actually amazing.

Damn! Wasn’t expecting this one to get here so fast, or without any sneak peeks or the like. Haven’t seen it yet but I’m already confident this will be one of your best!

I hate how big of a stomp this is, but this is without a doubt, the greatest Pokemon related VS match I've ever seen, and easily one of the best Smash Bracket episodes, right up there along side Link vs Ridley.

holy shit i just now noticed that in the scene where red heals charizard we can see ness's HP bar which is basically full due to the massive gap in stats between Ness and the pokemon everything that the pokemon have done up to that point barely hurt ness and it was reflected accurately in the HP

Boomstick: This pokemon trainer wasn't "redy" for the psycho kid. Wiz: the winner is Ness.

When Ness brushed his teeth, he said, "Fuzzy Pickles," which is a reference to when the cameraman shows up and has Ness (and his friends) take a picture. (The cameraman tells Ness, " Say Fuzzy Pickles" before he takes the picture)

This was a great episode. Probably one of my favorite smash bracket episodes and Vs Show episodes. Also very nice to see earthbound done in a Vs show.

I love how Red, from Pallet Town (in the Kanto region,) traveled to the Kanto region

Earthbound's history has been built on learning PSI from others via George and Giygas' race It's not that Ness couldn't learn other PSI, nor the fact he hasn't "canonically" learned the same special moves seen in Smash, he can by a simple explanation from another PSI user. That said, it's still impressive that you present Ness' feats as destructive without the need of what Smash had extended for him.

Awesome as always! You guys are the best vs channel on this platform

That animation fir Psi Rockin vs Lapras and Blastoise was amazing!! As a Ness main and a huge Earthbound fan, this was beyond spectacular 😍

Holy shit this was awesome, I figured Ness would win since he did kill a galaxy destroying alien, but this animation was freaking crazy dude

This is litterally one of the only animation who respects Ness's character and characterisation congratulations

Paula calling ness in the middle of the fight was honestly fire, it wouldve been cool if we saw a shot of ness's mom praying for him for a second but that would be cheating wouldnt it?

This was amazing. Five of the six Pokémon used to fight Ness were some of my favorites. I’m now very curious to see the alternate ending. Only minor nitpick is that the title said “Red vs Ness”, but in reality, only 2% of it was Ness fighting Red. Really the whole thing is just Ness beating up six different Pokémon. I’m not trying to push your work, but maybe next year for April Fools you could make a Red vs Ness but there are no Pokémon. Just an April Fools Idea.

I said in my comment for Sonic vs Fox that I was confident Red would take this….. obviously he did not. I wasn’t aware of how broken Ness was but I’m not mad. This has topped Greninja vs Diddy as my favorite episode. Pokémon is such an important franchise to me, and that series get consistently banger episodes, along with seeing my Smash main get such a great one really puts a smile on my face. That scene where the whole team comes out with that rocking remix of the original anime theme is hands-down my favorite scene in anything from this channel. My expectations were absolutely shattered, thank you Ink, the animators, Skye, the va’s, the writers, the editors, everyone on the team. Thank you for making an episode I won’t forget anytime soon ❤. P.S. Hopefully I don’t jinx myself but I’m hyped to see Mac finally get some respect in something related to Smash when he beats Min Min!

That was AWESOME!

i loved the episode so much, and i decoded the braille. didnt expect that. ill be waiting

So, to all of us who went into this thinking "There's no way Red can lose", I was also pretty disappointed at the outcome...at first glance. It seemed like no power advantage, not even universal or greater, would be able to bypass Reds utterly broken utility and versatility. For context: Espeon alone could reverse any attack and speed advantage, deny Ness' recovery with heal bock, steal his weapons and equipment with trick, while it and Lapras could clear all status effects from Reds team with heal bell even if they're switched out. Not to mention any non-attacking move (area of effect moves like PK flash included) that touches Espeon would be COMPLETELY DENIED and REFLECTED, so if Ness leads with that move he will likely lose right out the gate. Lapras had extra utility with safeguard denying status effects from being applied to begin with, mist to prevent stat debuffs, and perish song guaranteeing Ness' defeat in only three turns (Red can remove the perish song effect from his team members just by briefly switching them out, and he is somehow unaffected by it). This is without getting into how the whole team can induce sleep (yawn, grasswhistle, and sing), confusion (swagger, confuse ray) and poison (toxic, a move that never misses when used by poison types like Venasaur). And they can all spam rest to fully heal whenever they want as long as Espeon, Lapras, or Red himself are free to wake them up immediately. But even with ALL of this, in the end , Ink makes a damn good point that (other than magic bounce), none of these are passive effects and are therefore dependant on some degree of setup. Red is likely to put mist and safeguard up early, but he's extremely unlikely to lead with an Espeon power swap (he'd wait until he knows what Ness' damage output is like, to avoid accidentally making him stronger), meaning Ness can easily wipe the whole team with his opening attack thanks to his obscene power. Because Ness can end the fight so quickly, not only is perish song a useless win condition if Red doesn't also put Ness to sleep or get lucky with confusion / paralysis, but he is also denied of his biggest advantages. This being a 7 VS 1 fight would otherwise leave Ness' attention divided between many different foes attacking him, debilitating him, and supporting each other. But because he can sweep them all in the opening move, Red just doesn't get the chance to capitalise on that advantage. Sure, Ness could wipe himself out thanks to magic bounce. And if Ness doesn't take out Espeon in his first attack, Red would realise that he needs to use power swap IMMEDIATELY, and at that point Ness would be screwed because Espeon would have stolen HIS sun destroying power with its magic bounce still active. But as Boomstick once said: "We're not here to see who wins 40% of the time". Ness' win condition of 'blow everyone up on turn 1' is undeniably way more reliable than any kind of strategy Red could throw together because most of the time he just doesn't get a chance to respond. Fair play to you Ink, fantastic work to the Smash Bracket team on this episode, and best of luck to Ness going forwards.

....ok. now I understand why Matpat thought sans was ness.

Few things A. Love the fight, amazing coverage and Animation. Sad red lost but I knew Ness got really powerful by the end of his game to fight gygis B. So nice to see more pokemon animated in vs fight. The team work is also amazing on reds side C. I have now learned that Ness mastered Ultra Instinct before Goku......neat

Oh wow I just found you, an actually good death battle alternative. You're definitely new but you look like you have potential, this is a really good series premise. Hope you continue, I can see you put a lot of work into it. I like the whole sephiroth plotline after the fight.

Gosh that was such an amazing battle! Great sprite animation and I loved the 2D animation too!

The animation was phenomenal on this one! With everything from the banger start with that trippy Espeon scene, to the wholesome ending. Though, it did catch my eye that, during the part when Red was healing Charizard up after being injured, that Ness only lost about 1/10 of his HP so far in the fight, despite the fact that he just took a full on combo attack from Red's full team like that, and was even bleeding from the mouth a tad.

Glad my boy Ness won. One of the best fights in Round 1

Gotta say this fight animation truly is peak, no smash bracket fight has come close to how good this one was in terms of animation in my opinion.

My new favorite. I was super worried about not using the Smash mon but the analysis sold me on the idea. My goofy ahh forgot about the Earthbound book/manga so that made nostalgia hit hard

25:46 That's Paula's Voice

Ness wins easily. Red's Charizard gonna be hard to beat but Ness still wins

It was so much fun to see all of the manga feats, as someone who's made quite a few respect threads and what not for manga characters I actually knew all of them already. That was fun.

22:46 Bro turned into a dragon and started wavedashing why is this so funny to me???

Had a feeling Ness would get it after seeing those novelization feats lol. I can't help but be a little salty that PK Flash was so insane here while Lucas couldn't land it once on Wario though This episode was great, did a lot of justice to both Ness and Red and it was a lot of fun.

Side note: Lapras used to be near extinction but by sun and moon someone released so many Lapras that there's actually too much Lapras

As a fan of both game series & I just gotta say this was an amazing fight analysis. Very respectful & honest examination to each characters' feats. & kudos to the animators that worked on this.

This was a pretty good match I must say. But I loved the animations the most, you guys have really outdone yourselves! I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!

As a Pokémon trainer main this is almost as sad as the battle against augumon from digimon fight Love Pokémon saw many possibilities with red in smash bracket but wasn’t prepared for a ness who had sun strength and the equivalent of ultra instinct

It’s kinda unfair that red has his whole team and ness is by himself but any other way might be even more unfair

Absolutely amazing video. Honestly I didn't think I'd finish the video having learned some new stuff about Earthbound, even though I've beaten the game about 20 times by now.

These smash bracket animations just get better and better!