Akira vs Lucas (Live A Live vs Mother 3) VS Prediction Blog

 

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch

Akira Tadokoro, the pisonic biker punk from the Near Future of Live A Live
Lucas, the psychic child of destiny from the Nowhere Islands of Mother 3

Suddenly developing psychic abilities can be difficult for any child, especially ones who had to deal with the traumatic death of a parent when they were young. But these two were able to find the strength to use their abilities for good, defending their homes from those who wish to tear them down for their selfish goals. And even against enemies that seemed to transcend time, they were able to keep up and save everything from them. So which of these two will end up taking the wind here? 

Before We Begin

For Akira, this will be discussing both the original SNES version of Live A Live and the modern remake. However, this won’t be discussing the doujinshi / manga adaptation by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. While I would have loved to go over it, as of the making of this blog, only a handful of the pages from it are online, it’s completely untranslated, and it would cost me 50$+ per volume to get my hands on it, So that will have to stay unexplored, sorry. This also won’t be discussing any crossovers, such as Holy Dungeon, Octopath Traveler. or Super Robot Wars. 

Akira Media list: 

• Used

• Live A Live (1994)

• Live A Live (2022)

• Live A Live Illustration Guide Book

• Live A Live Original + HD-2D Illustrations

• Unused

• Live A Live Doujinshi by Kazuhiko Shimamoto

• Holy Dungeon

• Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent

• Super Robot Wars DD

For Lucas, this will be primarily discussing Mother 3, with some supplemental details from Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings, as they are earlier games in the series. This will also be looking into supporting details from the official guidebooks and other promotional material. This won’t be including Lucas’ abilities unique to his portrayal in the Super Smash Brothers series, as these moves are not ones he ever demonstrated canonically, which means this will also exclude scaling through Smash or other crossovers.

Lucas Media List

• Used: 

• Mother 1 / Earthbound Beginnings

• Mother 2 / Earthbound

• Mother 3 (fan translation link)

• Various official guidebooks and promotional material

• Unused:

• Mother 1 & 2 novelizations by Saori Kumi

• Mother Adventure Game Book by Akio Higuchi

• Mother 2: Game Book by Enix

• Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back by Itoh Benimaru

• Super Smash Brothers series

Both of these two will be given full access to all equipment they can get their hands on throughout their stories. And of course, Spoiler Alert, as this will be freely discussing a lot of elements of both of these two’s stories freely. With all that out of the way, let’s begin. 

Background

Akira

“So, tell me. You happy with your lot in life?”

In a time not far from now in Japan, a child who was living in the Bright Sparks Orphanage. After the death of his father, a riot control officer who died in the line of duty, Akira Tadokoro and his sister were sent to live there. This death would lead to Akira growing up to be a bit of a punk who often got in street fights, especially after he ended up developing psychic powers. This was much to the concern of his guardians, especially Matsu, a former gang member turned taiyaki salesman out of penance for his crimes. But one day things would end up taking a turn, as a kidnapping from one of the other orphans at the orphanage led to him stumbling into a massive conspiracy. It turned out that his father’s death had been a part of a massive scheme to liquify humans, all in favor of bringing Odeo, a cult’s idol, to power. While initially Akira had no way to stop this, after the death of Matsu, he’d end up piloting the massive mecha robot known as the Steel Titan to take down this conspiracy and defeat Odeo, ending their ambitions in his time. 

But Akira would quickly find out this wasn’t just an issue in his time. Many years earlier, a knight named Oersted had fallen into darkness after his entire kingdom betrayed him, leading to him willingly becoming an incarnation of hatred itself known as Odio. And to prove that humanity was truly full of nothing but hatred, he’d drag Akira and six other heroes from across time to his now ruined kingdom, all connected by each having faced another incarnation of this lord of hatred in their time. Despite their differing backgrounds, they would quickly come together to combat Odio, ultimately ending his twisted ambition. Akira in particular could see himself in this knight, having also been tossed aside by the world, but he’d reject the Lord’s motive, seeing his fall into darkness as an act that he was responsible for. After these trials, the heroes would be returned to their times, prepared to face the future with the determination to keep moving forward. 

Lucas

“I should have stayed with Claus...”

In the Nowhere Isles, there lived a simple family. The husband Flint, the wife Hinawa, and their twin sons Claus and Lucas. They lived a fairly peaceful life in a village where little strife seemed to happen. But everything would come crashing down one tragic evening, as a sudden attack by  a massive Drago ended with the death of Hinawa. This filled the rest of the family with grief, with Flint going on a shortsighted revenge on the Drago’s family after Claus disappeared doing the same. This left Lucas alone, but after a few years of seeing his once peaceful village turn to a less caring modern one, he’d wish to stop the ones responsible for all this newfound strife. 

As it turns out, the Pigmask army had orchestrated this modernization and was planning to take advantage of it to end the world. To do this they needed to pull seven needles which would awaken a slumbering dark dragon beneath the earth, who would destroy the world if they got their way. But Lucas, after gaining some power and friends, would journey to pull these needles himself to save the world. He’d be hounded by the Pigmask’s goons, led by a mysterious cybernetic Masked Man, and eventually Lucas would end up face to face with their leader, an old man named Porky from the old world who desired to end everything out of a selfish desire to stay by himself. And he had taken Claud and transformed him into the Masked Man in order to do this. And so, after Lucas fought past Porky and took down his brother, he’d pull the final needle, wiping away the world in order to make a better one. 

Intelligence & Skill

Akira

Even before his journey to stop Odeo, Akira was a bit of a punk who regularly got into street fights, and he kept pace with a wide variety of robotic enemies and human goons. Notably, towards the end of his chapter, he was able to pilot the Steel Titan well enough to take on an entire army, despite it being the first time he ever piloted it. This only got more so after getting dragged into the Middle Ages by Odio, as not only can he fight an even wider variety of enemies, including bears, cowboys, knights, prehistoric fauna, and all manner of demons, but he was able to help defeat various bosses, some of whom have ages of experience. And keeping pace with the rest of the party is no small matter either, as they consisted of the Earthen Heart masters and Masaru, who both are massively skilled martial artists, the Sundown Kid, a legendary western gunslinger whom had never lost a quickdraw, and Oboromaru, a prodigious ninja who was able to single handedly take down a fortress of 100 combatants. 

Lucas

While much of Lucas’ life was spent in peace, he’s shown plenty of skill in fighting throughout his journey. Despite only just learning PSI, he’d quickly manage to keep it well throughout many fights against all manners of enemies, including various animals which had been cybernetically enhanced, creatures which had been guarding the needles, and various troops of the Porky army. Lucas has shown the skill to take on wide groups of grunts at once, and even take on higher ranking members of Porky’s army. This even includes Porky himself, who not only had spent the events of the original Earthbound making various trouble for Ness on the behalf of Giygas, but had traveled through time making his new plan for thousands of years from his perspective. 

Equipment

Both of these two are from JRPGs, which naturally means they have a lot of potential equipment to discuss, and a fair amount of which would be fairly redundant to discuss individually. As always, this will be truncating both lists to only the equipment that are the strongest options or are particularly notable for the sake of brevity. A full list of Live A Live’s equipment can be found here, and a full list of Mother 3’s equipment can be found here. 

Akira

Gloves

When fighting on his own, Akira opts for using fisticuffs when he’s not using his psychic powers. To help enhance this, he has access to multiple gloves. His strongest is the Guts & Glory Glove, which can boost his attack and defense. It’s also stated to ensure victory through his sheer determination and unlock his true potential. 

Armor

Akira is able to equip a variety of armor and accessories to himself to enhance his stats. 

• Saint’s Bell - Armor which can keep away evil spirits, and offers a boost to defense while protecting from Fire, Spirit, and Demonic damage

• Demon Blood Armor - Boosts physical attack while lowering special attack

• Cosmic Mail - Increases defense while making the user immune to Petrification

• Helm of Nightmares - Curses those who wear it with nightmares, which decreases special attack but makes them immune to sleep

• Mermaid Tights - Boosts Defense, Special Attack, and Speed while offering absorption of water based attacks and immunity to attacks which ensnare

• Genji Tabi - Boosts defense and allows for absorption of fire based attacks

• Parasite Sword - Boosts physical attack and defense, and offers resistance to all forms of physical attack

• Golden Burial Gown - Decreases physical defense and speed, but offers resistance to all forms of physical attack and immunity to sleep and poison

• Fang of the King - Buffs Physical Attack while making the user immune to Intoxication, Petrification, Paralysis, and Poison 

• Cosmic Ring - Boosts defense, offers resistances to Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Spirit, and Divine damage, and offers immunity to petrification

Battle Items

Akira is capable of utilizing a variety of items more directly in battle. 

• Throwing Knife - Can be tossed diagonally at enemies

• Fragmentation Grenade - Can be tossed diagonally to blow up in an area

• Napalm Grenade - Can be tossed diagonally to create a 5x5 area of fire tiles

• Poison Spray - Can be sprayed in any direction to damage an area. Low damage, but it has a chance to inflict foes with Poison or Paralysis

• Bottled Angel - Can be sprayed diagonally to potentially inflict Restraint, Snare, or Fury, as well as decrease their Special Attack and Defense

• Lifeblood Gourd - Can be used to drain the health of enemies for the user

• Fujin Scroll - Call upon the power of a storm to attack diagonally with wind

• Fuxi Feather - Curses foes with misfortune, Low damage, but it has a chance to inflict foes with Poison or Paralysis

• Enma Charm - Attacks diagonally with flames and has a chance to inflict Terror

• Fuma Shuriken - A multi hitting series of 10 tossed projectiles which can inflict Poison

• Shinobi Birdlime - A spray of sticky water which can inflict Poison, Restraint, Snare and decrease a foes’ physical attack and speed

• Eye of Argos - A low damaging attack which has a chance to Petrify those it’s used on

• Solomon's Thighbone - Summons a necromancer which will deal demonic damage while decreasing a foes’ accuracy and evasion. 

• Apple of Eden - Can be used to paralyse or charm enemies

• Bael's Blood - Attacks with a demonic force that can poison foes and increase the wielder's statistics 

• Shroud of Demons - Attacks with a massive amount of demonic energy which can confuse foes

• Parasite Sword - When used as an item, slashes a 5x5 area with a hundred slashes that reduces the users’ statistics. 

• Golden Burial Gown - When used as an item, creates a dance of demons, which inflicts those in a 5x5 area around the user with Petrification, Intoxication, and Sleep, but also kills the user instantly

• Cola Bottle - Gotten from defeating a powerful Mammoth in prehistory, this can be used to create a massively damaging attack. 

Healing Items

Akira can utilize a variety of items for healing. 

• Taiyaki - Moderately heals the user with a chance to buff their statistics

• Guts and Glory Special - Heals the user a large amount while curing status effects

• Matango Lite - Heals the user and nearby allies moderately with a chance to buff their statistics

• Unicorn Horn - Heals a small amount while curing all status effects. 

• No. 9 Potion - Heals all allies on the field greatly while curing all status effects

Brion

A legendary blade wielded by the medieval hero, Hasshe, which has also shown the ability to dispel magical sealing. While Akira can’t use it as a weapon himself, if he is the final chapter protagonist he is fully capable of using this ability. 

Bike

After Matsu’s death, Akira would end up taking his motorcycle for himself. It doesn’t have any special abilities but it is cool.  

The Steel Titan (Debatable)

The Steel Titan is a massive mecha which Akira utilizes in his confrontation with Odeo. This legendary mecha stands at 27 meters tall and can only be controlled by someone with strong psychic powers. While Akira initially failed to pilot it, the rage of Matsu dying boosted him to the point where he could pilot it just fine. This mecha can fly with a jetpack, punch enemies back with Metal Strike, deliver a diving kick with Babylon Stomp, launch a barrage of missiles with Marduk’s Rage, and blast apart enemies with the mighty Halogen Laser. 

Lucas

Sticks and Bats

In combat, Lucas mainly wields sticks, which may seem like a weak choice of weapon, but they can certainly pack a wallop. The strongest one he has access to is the Mystical Stick, which not only gives him a massive boost in strength, but also gives a slight boost to his HP, PP, Speed, and IQ. He can also get access to the Real Bat, a baseball bat which offers a large boost in power and PP. 

Yo-Yo

Lucas is also capable of wielding Yo-Yos, with his strongest being the Friend’s Yo-Yo found amidst Porky’s mementoes of his past adversaries, suggesting it was once wielded by Ness. It boosts Lucas’ power and speed, along with making those who witness him use it clap. 

Armor

Lucas can equip a variety of other equipment to his body, which can provide various other boosts to his statistics. 

• Thud Charm - Grants extra defense and reduces the chance of being inflicted with a status effect by 50%

• Good Kid's Shirt - Increases defense and IQ 

• Awesome Cloak - Increases defense and PP, reduces 40% damage from fire, ice, and lightning attacks, and lowers the chance of being frozen or burned by 40%

• Red Hat - A hat once worn by another chosen boy which raises defense

• Awesome Crown - Increases defense and PP, and lowers chance of being inflicted with forgetfulness by 50%

• Flame Pendant - Increases defense and lowers damage from fire by 50%

• Ice Pendant - Increases defense and lowers damage from ice by 50%

• Thunder Pendant - Increases defense and lowers damage from lightning by 50%

• Awesome Ring - Increases defense and PP

Goods

Lucas has access to a wide variety of items which he can use in battle for various effects.

• Ancient Banana - Causes an enemy to slip and fall for damage

• Attack Attractor - Causes an enemy to stink so badly all attacks will target them

• Bug Spray - A fast acting pesticide which can instantly kill any insectoid enemies

• Honey Shower - Summons bees to attack foes 8 times. Can rarely summon a bear for massive damage

• New Year's Eve Bomb - An explosive which can reduce an enemy to 1 HP, though it does have a chance to be a dud

• Saltwater Gun - Shoots water that can cause robotic enemies to rust

• Super Bomb - Deals an intense amount of damage to all enemies

• Thunder Bomb - Made by the thief Wess, this deals electric damage to all enemies

• Defense Spray - Raises one ally’s defense for a whole battle

• Offence Spray - Raises one ally’s offence for a whole battle

• Enemy Bufferizer - Doubles an enemy’s health while making them worth more XP

• Enemy Wimperizer - Halves an enemy’s health while making them worth less XP

• Made-You-Look - Can be used to trick an enemy into turning around

• Shield Snatcher - A sticky paper which can be used to dispel an enemy’s defense

• Trivia Card - When used on a human enemy, they’ll try to guess the answer. There is no tactical advantage to doing this. 

Recovery Items

Lucas can also get a variety of consumables which can help recover his health.

• King Burger - A burger packed so full that the buns barely hold it together. Restores 280 HP

• Lucky Rice - Heals a random amount

• Lotto Meal - When eating this, anything can happen, whether that be restoring HP and PP, raising or lowering their statistics, or causing a negative status effect

• Magic Cake - Restores 50 PP

• Cup of Lifenoodles - Removes all negative status effects and can revive you to full health

• Memetoes - Gained whenever a Magypsy disappears from a needle being pulled, this can automatically revive the wielder to full health once. Lucas gains access to 7 of these. 

Franklin Badge

Originally seen as a badge of courage, a Mr Saturn shining it revealed it was actually this badge that had been used by his predecessors. This can be used to reflect any electric attack back at the sender, preventing the one wearing it from harm. This can even include attacks far stronger than the wielder, as seen with Lucas deflecting a blast that instantly knocked out the rest of his party, as well as in Beginnings where it can reflect attacks that instantly knock you out in one shot. 

Pencil Eraser

Another artifact from Earthbound which Lucas can get his hands on. This can be used to erase any pencil shaped object. In the original Japanese version of the game, it instead erased octopuses, because of Japanese slang that doesn’t translate well. It’s also definitely going to be a major factor in this debate. For sure this time. 

Waters of Time

A tool which was used to help dispel some vines which were stopped in time, which is stated to cause time to speed up on those it’s poured on. When Lucas poured it on the vines, they proceeded to go from healthy to blooming and then to wilting within seconds. 

Egg of Light

A central point of the story of Mother 3 is this egg. While initially it seems like a weird artifact, it is eventually revealed that this egg was used as a container for the old memories of the townsfolk of Tazmily Village, as they had come from the old world and did not wish to remember it less they repeat the issues caused in it. The egg was also capable of restoring Duster’s memories while he was experiencing amnesia, so it could potentially do the same for Lucas. 

Battle Memory

This is a book which is used to keep a record of every enemy that Lucas has faced in his journey. It can, uh…

Saturn Rider

Given to him by the odd Mr Saturns, this is a sentient coffee table which Lucas can use to travel across roadways. It can carry along others and instantly defeat enemies it runs over. 

Saturn Bean

A marginally less quirky method of transport is this hovercraft, which is able to drive along roads pretty well, and can similarly instantly knock out enemies it collides with. It’s functionally similar to the Pork Bean, which can travel 4 times faster than Lucas’ walking speed. 

Nintendo Switch

I’m so glad this image is canon and that Mother 3 is a happy story where nothing bad happens. 

Abilities

Akira

Battle Abilities

Akira is capable of using a variety of moves in battle. A full list of all of their descriptions can be found here. 

• Low Kick - A simple kick below the belt

• Elbow Strike - An elbow to their face

• Mother’s Shame - Sends an attack which can damage enemies with a chance to charm them or reduce accuracy and evasion, as it makes them think of their moms to make them lose the will to fight. 

• Self-Care - He heals himself with the power of positive thinking. 

• Behind You - Freaks out enemies with an attack that makes them feel fear. 

• Sleep in Heaven - Low damaging, but has a chance to put enemies to sleep, as well as lower their accuracy and evasion

• Healing Touch - Sends an ally good vibes to heal them

• Six Feet Under - Shows enemies their impending death so they back off, which can prevent them from using leg attacks and reduce their statistics

• Feel the Heat - He creates several pillars of fire which are channeled through his rage.

• Guardian Angel - A counter attack which punishes enemies that hit him in close range with an avenging angel

• Cold Day in Hell - Creates a large blast of ice which can paralyze foes and reduce their speed

• Holy Smackdown - Akira gets pissed and punches an enemy so hard they might be paused

• The Devil’s Due - Creates a blast of energy which makes enemies see death. Van paralyze and reduce the evasion and accuracy of foes. 

• Judgement Day - Conjures an image of the rapture, which can inflict a wide variety of status effects, including petrification which can instantly kill an enemy, as well as lower their statistics. 

Telepathy

Another major use of Akira’s psychic abilities is in telepathy. He can directly read people’s thoughts, and while those familiar with him can recognise when it happens to resist it, it typically seems like targets are left unaware when he does it. He’s also been able to read the minds of people who lack a physical mind and nervous system, such as those who were liquified, petrified into stone, or reduced to a spirit, and he’s even somehow able to read the mind of Cube, who is a robot. 

Teleportation

Rather than simply running away from battles, Akira directly teleports away from them. Though this is an ability he hasn’t mastered, as he sometimes can't control where he ends up. This has led to him ending up in… awkward positions, but it was also able to take him to the Trial of the Heart, a location which had been sealed away from the outside world and was only able to be escaped due to Alathea creating a portal to lead them out. 

Rage Boost

Like a lot of anime characters, Akira can get a boost in strength when he gets pissed off. Most notably, after the death of Matsu, Akira got so pissed he was able to control the Steel Titan well enough to fight through a military force, which is important as he had previously failed to control the Titan. This has been backed up by some of his battle abilities having descriptions which imply he’s channeling his emotions to use them, as well as Odio directly describing him as being powered by his anger. 

Attack Reflection

After taking some drugs which gave him psychic powers, Matsu was able to create a barrier that blocked and redirected an attack from some goons. While Akira hasn’t shown this off personally, as he is more experienced with psychic powers and was able to recreate other abilities Matsu used while high, it’s likely he can do this as well. 

4th Wall Awareness

At the start of his chapter, Akira talks directly to the player in order to explain his backstory. The various gameplay tips seen in loading screens throughout the chapter are also written from his perspective.

Telekinesis

While he hasn’t personally demonstrated this in the game, Akira mentions that he is able to move objects with his mind, which he also shows in the above official art. 

Resistances

Innate:

• Spirit - He naturally resists attacks using this element, which covers:

• Life Absorption - Health draining attacks

• Mind Manipulation - His own telekinetic attacks

• Sense Manipulation - Attacks which directly target senses

With Equipment:

• Fire - Can resist this element, which also covers:

• Magma - Lava based attacks

• Wind - Can resist this element, which also covers:

• Fragrance - Fart based attacks

• Electricity - Electric based attacks

• Plasma - Plasma firing weapons

• Earth - Can resist this element, which also covers:

• Vibration - Attacks which utilize shockwaves

• Divine - Can resist this element, which also covers:

• Sound - Attacks weaponizing sound

• Demonic - Can resist this element, which also covers:

• Fear - Attacks which weaponize fear

• Darkness - 

• Status Effect Inducement - Various equipment offer immunity to all of the previously mentioned status effects of the game

 Lucas

PK Love

Lucas’ main source of psychic attack is PK Love, which is a psychic attack that hits all enemies. Lucas later gets access to stronger variants of it, each of which deals more damage at the cost of costing more PP to use. 

PK Flash

Another offensive option for PSI that Lucas has is this. When used on an enemy, it has a chance to do a variety of effects:

• Make them cry, which lowers their accuracy

• Paralyze them, preventing them from acting

• Make them feel strange, which makes them attack allies or heal enemies uncontrollably

• Instantly kill them

• Nothing

Healing

Lucas has shown a few methods of healing on his own. His main method is Lifeup, which can heal himself or others while curing all status effects, and stronger versions of which can revive his allies from death. He can also cast Refresh, which lets him regenerate a small amount of health each turn. 

Shield

Lucas is also capable of creating psychic barriers, which are able to absorb half the damage of the next 3 physical blows. He can also cast PSI Shield, which does the same but with psychic attacks, and has access to Omega versions of both, which casts them on the entire party instead of just on one target. 

Counter

A different defensive technique Lucas can cast is this, which reflects half of a physical attack’s damage back at the attacker. He also has access to PSI Counter, which does this with psychic attacks, and has access to Omega versions of both, which casts them on the entire party instead of just on one target.

Buffs

Lucas can also boost his and his allies’ offence and defence with Offence Up and Defence Up respectively. 

Zoolingualism / Telepathy

An oddly consistent element of the Mother series is that the protagonists are able to understand animals. While this does seem to be just a quirk of the world, given non-psychic characters show the same ability, other psychics that Lucas should likely compare to have shown to have a form of telepathy, as seen when Kumatora was able to sense Salsa was in trouble despite not actively speaking to him. 

Encouraging Words

At one point, to help move boulders that blocked his way, Lucas learned how to speak so encouragingly it just straight up convinced the rocks to move. How quirky!

Resistances

• Radiation - Can survive the Atomic Power Robot exploding on him with no ill effect

• Fire - Can survive flames from Pyreflies, who reach internal temperatures over 1500 degrees. Equipment also allows him to resist damage of this source. 

• Electricity - Can survive shocks from Mr. Genetor, which can hit a million volts. Equipment also allows him to resist damage of this source. 

• Ice - Equipment allows him to resist damage of this source. 

• Status Effect Inducement -  Equipment allows him to decrease his chances of being inflicted with these. 

Feats

Akira

Overall

• Regularly defends Bright Sparks Orphanage

• Piloted the Steel Titan to defeat Odeo

• With the other heroes, helped to defeat Odio

• Predicted the plot of Evangelion

Power

• Capable of taking hits from and fighting alongside the other chapter protagonists

• Can wreck various robots

• Can create multiple large icicles (7.117 Tons of TNT)

Speed

• Can dodge gunfire

• Can dodge outpace dogs

• Can dodge weaponized gamma rays (7.9% c)

• While piloting the Steel Titan, can take down fighter jets mid-flight (Mach 2.35 - 6.72)

Durability

• Survived a teleporter exploding on him (0.167 Tons of TNT)

• Can survive napalm and fragmentation grenades

• Can survive robots self destructing on him

• Can survive an explosion that vaporized a robot (63.825 Tons of TNT)

 Lucas

Overall

• Learned PSI powers

• Helped stop many of the plans of the Pigmask army

• Pulled 4 of the seven needles

• Saved the world from Porky

Power

• Regularly knocks away foes after defeating them in battle

• Can push around claymen

• Fended off a mechanical lion

Speed

• Dodged an incoming train

• Dodged a pounce from and briefly outpaced the Ultimate Chimera

• Can dodge sound based attacks

• Can dodge light rays from K9000 (33% c)

Durability

• Survived getting shocked by lighting

• Survived being in a fridge that was launched off a mountain (9.489 Megajoules)

• Survived falling from cloud height

• Survived getting hit by a train (20.877 Megajoules)

• Can survive Drago falling on top of him

• Can survive the Atomic Power Robot exploding 

• Can survive being rammed by the Rhinocerocket MK II, which was made partly from a space rocket (7.105 Kilotons of TNT)

Scaling

Akira

The Other Heroes

“From Across Time and Space, Assemble!”

While initially all the chapter’s protagonists were separated by time, in the final chapter all of them end up getting brought to the Middle Ages, during which they join forces to defeat Odio. They are all capable of fighting the same enemies and all contribute to the ultimate defeat of Odio. Akira in particular can, based on player choice, directly fight the other chapter protagonists if he’s not the lead, which more directly shows him to be on par with them. 

• Pogo survived an explosion caused by a fart cloud hitting a campfire (11.351 Megajoules)

• Pogo can survive King Mammoth's Mount Big Boom (47.583 Tons - 44.346 Kilotons of TNT) 

• Pogo can keep up with foes able to dodge his sound based attacks (Mach 0.158)

• The Earthen Heart Masters can unleash Heavenly Peaks Descent, which creates several after images (Mach 2.502)

• It also causes the ground to shake upon being activated 

• The Earthen Heart Masters can shatter large rocks (0.769 - 2.384 Tons of TNT)

• Lei can blast apart the ground with Sacred Dragon's Temper (26.165 - 58.261 Tons of TNT)

• Hong can use Pork's Second Cooking, which creates several after images (Mach 3.66)

• Oboromaru can break apart multiple wooden logs (0.115 - 0.801 Tons of TNT)

• Oboromaru can survive Lord Iwama’s Floodcall, which summons a tidal wave 

• Oboromaru can create a storm if he kills enough people (864.4 Megatons of TNT) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

• The Sundown Kid can dodge gatling gun fire (Mach 0.18)

• Masaru can survive and unleash Worldbreaker's Wrath, which breaks apart the ground (15.242 - 36.087 Tons of TNT)

• Masaru can use Aloha’s Slap, which creates several after images (Mach 2.02)

• This attack is stated to hit with the force of a hurricane

• Cube can fight foes capable of dodging his Maser Cannon, which is a particle beam (7.1% c)

Odio’s Incarnations

“In every heart the seed of dark abides. The makings of a Lord when watered well... With hate. Sweet hate. She springs eternal. Sings... All-tempting draught. We'll drink of her again.“

The lord of hatred, being the ultimate enemy of the party that they come together to defeat, is naturally someone they’re able to scale to the capabilities of. In regards to his incarnations, not only do all of the party members personally defeat them during the course of their own stories, but his ultimate state involves drawing on the power of all hatred in the world at once, which likely includes said incarnations, showing that the party defeating him also means they defeated a foe superior to his previous incarnations. 

• Odo can jump and slam foes with its whole body weight (0.161 - 1.663 Tons of TNT)

• Odo can shake the ground with his footsteps hard enough to make a wooden platform collapse

• Ou Di Wan Lee can, uh…

• Ode Iou can, er…

• O. Dio can survive a dynamite explosion (0.21 Tons of TNT)

• Odie O'Bright was able to kill the various fighters of Masaru’s chapter

• Odeo can take hits from the Steel Titan 

• It can easily wreck tanks

• It attacks by slamming with its whole body weight (0.651 - 109.729 Tons of TNT)

• It caused an earthquake upon being activated (16.227 Kilotons of TNT)

• Odeo can dodge the Steel Titan’s Halogen Laser (39.8% c)

• OD-10 is in control of the Cogito Ergo Sum, which can travel through space (42.03 c) (Inapplicable, see Before the Verdict) 

• Oersted defeated Streibough, who created an earthquake that shook Archon’s Roost (15.605 Kilotons)

• Oersted is on par with Hasshe, who was able to wreck the front of Archon’s Roost by unsealing it 

• Oersted is superior to Dragunon, who quickly flew from Lucerne Castle to Archon’s Roost (Mach 0.594)

• Oersted can dodge Amber Flurry, which summons lightning (Mach 35.506)

• Odio draws on power from all of incarnations at once

• Odio made an earthquake which shook Archon’s Roost upon powering up (15.605 Kilotons) 

• Odio is responsible for a storm being created across Lucerce (120.97 Megatons - 74.733 Gigatons of TNT) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

Lucas

Party Members

“Strange, Funny, and Heartrending.”

Lucas should naturally be on par with the others within his party, as he fights alongside them against a variety of foes throughout the game. 

• Boney soloes all of fiction, trust

• Flint busted down a wooden door

• Flint survived The Tree exploding (113.591 Kilojoules)

• Duster can climb up stone walls by embedding staples into them

• Kumatora can use PK Ground, which creates an earthquake (15.085 Kilotons of TNT)

• Kumatora can use PK Starstorm (Mach 492.219, 3.607 Kilotons of TNT) (See Before the Verdict)

• Kumatora and Salsa wrecked a tank

• Kumatora brushed off having her leg in a bear trap

The Pigmask Army

“With my eternal life, I will see the world through to its end. Until everyone who won't like me is gone.”

Speaking of the foes they fight alongside, during the fight against the Pigmask Forces, the party shows themselves to be able to take on a wide variety of enemies and are able to come out on top over all of them. 

• Their  bombs were able to make explosions throughout a forest (7.743 Megajoules)

• One of their bombs caused a tunnel to cave in

• Mr. Genetor was able to wreck Alec’s house (121.165 Megajoules)

• Mecha-Drago was able to tear apart a stone cliffside

• Steel Mechorilla was designed to wreck buildings

• The Really Flying Mouse can fly at 40 MPH

• Porky had previously fought the party of Earthbound (See Before the Verdict)

Ness and Ninten’s Parties

“Take a melody, simple as can be…”

While Mother 3 is a bit disconnected from the other Mother games, it should still be possible to scale Lucas to the cast of Mother 2 / Earthbound thanks to defeating Porky, as will be discussed Before the Verdict. Scaling to them also means he should scale to the cast of the original Mother / Earthbound Beginnings, as the two fight many of the same enemies from the same army, along with their ultimate fight being against Giygas, who was much stronger when Ness fought him than when Ninten did. 

Mother 1 / Earthbound Beginnings:

• Ninten moved a large boulder

• Ninten is able to run 700 meters in 13 seconds (Mach 0.44)

• They fought Giygas, who was able to create a storm over Mt Itoi (407.079 Megatons of TNT) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

• They fought Giygas’ forces, who were able to go to the ends of the universe and back within 2 years (46.531 Billion c, likely higher) (Inapplicable, See Before the Verdict)

 Mother 2 / Earthbound:

• Ness survived the Territorial Oak exploding (123.31 Kilojoules)

• They can survive the Nuclear Reactor Robot exploding (245.626 Kilojoules)

• They survived the Skyrunner blowing up (1.188 Tons of TNT)

• Paula can freeze enemies solid, which includes the Chomposaurus (25.614 Kilotons of TNT)

• They defeated Thunder and Storm, who can summon… storms (See Before the Verdict)

• Poo can summon PK Starstorm (Mach 3820, 35.424 Kilotons of TNT) (See Before the Verdict)

• They can dodge “beams” from robots

• They can fight enemies capable of dodging Jeff’s laser pistol (48.2 - 57.6% c)

• They can dodge attacks while in stopped time (Inapplicable, See Before the Verdict)

Weaknesses

Akira

While Akira is strong, he does still have his weak points. First off, his more powerful abilities typically require a bit of time to charge up, during which point he’d be vulnerable to attacks. And getting knocked out of position can cause the charging to be cancelled. He’s also a bit of a glass cannon mechanically, so he can’t take a lot of punishment. Finally, like most anime protagonists, he does have a tendency to be a bit hot headed and rush into danger. 

 Lucas

Lucas has accomplished a lot for someone so young, but he still has his weak points. For one thing, his PSI abilities are reliant on having a fresh supply of PP, and he’ll be unable to use them if he’s feeling forgetful or can’t concentrate. Along with that, he does have a reputation for being a crybaby, though he did grow out of this over his story. And it is worth noting that much of his battles were done with the aid of allies, meaning he has relatively little experience fighting just on his own. 

Before the Verdict

Akira

Regarding The Steel Titan

Obviously a big part of Akira’s appeal for many from a VS perspective would be the Steel Titan, a massive mech he’s able to pilot during the ending sequence of his scenario. So you might wonder why him using it here was brought up as debatable. And that’s because I don’t really feel it’s fair to treat it as a standard part of his arsenal. For one thing, Akira is normally incapable of piloting the Titan at all, as was established earlier in the chapter. While his rage boost does let him use it, this is explicitly unique to the power of this state, as in the credits of his chapter we see a more calm Akira once again fail to pilot it. Even if you ignored that, Akira doesn’t have a method of actively busting it out while in a neutral ground scenario, since he can’t completely control his method of teleportation and he has no method of actively summoning it to his location. And even if you ignored that, there’s still the question of if he would even resort to it in a situation where he’s just fighting another human, as the one time he ever piloted it was against a literal army and a similarly imposing statue. So while I would imagine that a potential animation of this match would include it regardless, for something focusing on the debate I don’t really feel there’s a fair reason to consider it. 

But wouldn’t this be unfairly nerfing his capabilities? Well, no. Akira helping to defeat Odio after he drew on power from all of his incarnations means that he personally helped defeat a foe stronger than Odeo, and by proxy the Steel Titan. So he is a mecha pilot who should upscale his own mech stat wise, as odd as that might sound. The Titan also doesn’t really have any abilities to go over that would impact the debate enough to include in the first place, especially as Lucas has experience with and methods for easily dealing with such a threat. Finally, while it is definitely an important part of his story, it’s also only used for a short sequence near the end of it, along with briefly as part of the final boss fight, so it’s not like it’s ignoring a significant amount of his material. He spends the majority of his gameplay while fighting just as a psychic brawler with no giant robot, which is also a lot more in line with Lucas’s capabilities, so it’s ultimately more true to this match to discuss it primarily without the Titan. 

Armageddon Scaling

When discussing Live A Live from a VS perspective, the most infamous feat for many in discussing would be Odio’s greatest attack. In bad endings of the game, he can unleash Armageddon, an attack that wipes out all of time and the entire universe at once. Now some have suggested that this is only planet level due to the animation in the remake depicting it as a series of blasts ending with the earth igniting, but the original SNES version of the scene is a lot more clear in showing the attack was wiping out reality itself. So this being universal in power is true. However, this real issue is that there’s no reason to assume Akira can scale to it. 

First off, the big issue with scaling anyone that isn’t Oersted / Odio to this attack is fairly simple: They all die to this attack. To argue Akira and the party scale to this level of power would be arguing that they should scale to the attack that killed them along with all of reality, which naturally would lead to some weird narrative implications. And while you may be able to argue that the scene is only showing the party’s past selves getting killed so their future selves from the final chapter can still logically scale, that’s countered by the fact that one of the ways of triggering the Armageddon ending is by losing the final boss fight. By that point, they would have to be at their strongest narratively speaking, so there’s really no excuse for them to be fully scaling to the attack.

But wait, you might ask. They did still beat Odio, who caused this attack in the first place, so what sense does not scaling them to him make? Well let me ask you this: Who’s to say Odio also scales to the attack in terms of his durability? While he was the cause of Armageddon, it wiping out all of reality also includes himself, indicating that this is a suicide move and therefore is not a level of power that he can survive either. While you might assume that he’d have no reason to kill himself, there’s a lot of evidence that Oersted is inside Odio and he on some level wants to die. Most blatantly, after defeating the first two phases of Odio, he attempts to get the party to directly kill him, and only continues the fight after they let him be. Fighting him here is a choice the player can make, and not only do his lines during the fight clearly suggest this is a death he wants, killing him at this point is a direct requirement for one of the game’s other bad endings. There’s also his own version of the final chapter, where his monologue to himself reads almost as if he’s trying to convince himself his actions are right, and he’s ultimately left alone with his regrets after “winning”. And in the remake’s new final phase of the final boss, having Oersted break free of Odio’s final form and express regret for the suffering he caused as Odio before dying adds a lot more weight to the idea that Odio is not using his full power in these fights, as Oersted is directly fighting for control from within when he goes all out. Finally, Oersted falling into his hatred and becoming Odio is, among other things, meant to represent self destruction, so thematically it makes sense to treat it this way. Funnily enough, this is particularly reinforced by Akira’s own monologue to Oersted if he’s the final chapter protagonist, in which he practically screams this theme by directly telling Oersted his actions as Odio are still his fault. 

And while some have argued that Odio killing himself would be contradictory to his plan, there’s not really any reasoning behind that being true, as nothing about his goals are something he’d need to personally stay alive to do. He’s already killed everyone who wronged him in his own time, his effect on these other timelines are things he never personally lived to see even in endings where he won, and his goal was never implied to be ruling reality after shaping it to his own image or anything, it was simply proving his worldview on hatred as correct. So destroying himself along with reality is hardly something that would contradict this goal, as his hatred being powerful enough to destroy everything would prove his view correct from a “law of the strongest” perspective. And given nothing survives this attack, there’s literally nothing he’d need to be alive to do if all of reality was destroyed, as there’s nothing implying he could just completely reshape the universe in his own image freely after the fact. Finally, Odio as a character is meant to represent how hatred is something that will always be around, not something that can be stopped just by killing one person, so implying he would be personally attempting to rule reality in this manner would be ignoring his main thematic relevance as a character. 

In the original game, this intent is very clear cut, as the original game’s dialogue at the end is omniscient narration that directly says “everything” was destroyed, which clearly implies Odio did not survive. The real argument for this scaling comes from a change within the remake, as the final lines of dialogue are now a bit of narration that seems to be from Odio’s perspective. Some have suggested that this is meant to indicate that Odio survived the attack, but I don’t really think that’s a good argument. First off, this line being from Odio’s perspective does not mean Odio is literally saying it within this moment. This kind of omniscient character narration does not mean he is literally saying this at this moment, it’s clearly just speaking in first person for the sake of dramatic effect. Secondly, if you were to assume this change is meant to show the intent with this line is to suggest that he survived, then I’d have to question why they would still leave it fairly vague. If they wanted to change something in the original to make it more clear he survived, then they could have either made a more explicit line change, or even include him directly in the void somewhere. And yet, despite the remake being willing to make changes of this nature, this ending remains fairly faithful to the original version of events. That’s because this change in dialogue is actually an invention of the localization, as the original Japanese version of the remake directly quotes said original ending entirely. So trying to read any kind of change in intent from it doesn’t really make sense. As such, there is no reason to assume he can scale to this. 

TLDR: Armageddon is a universal level attack, but Akira can’t scale to it. He and the other party members all explicitly can’t survive this, and the fact that it’s a suicide move on Odio’s part means overpowering his durability to defeat him isn’t a valid way to scale him to it indirectly. The only real evidence supporting the conclusion Odio survived is a line of dialogue original to the localization which is far too vague to treat as definitive regardless.   

Cube Chicanery

In terms of VS content, the most under-discussed of the chapters of Live A Live is the Distant Future chapter starring Cube. Which does make sense, as it almost completely lacks combat until the final boss, which is in a simulation, and due to being a sendup to horror movies, the few feats it does have are incredibly grounded. But while giving the game a look over, I did notice that there were two potential points of interest with it, though neither are particularly definitive. First off, there is the fact that this chapter’s Odio equivalent, OD-10, is an AI that is in control of the spaceship that the chapter takes place on. Given it is, well, a spaceship, her being in control of it could imply she can scale to piloting it. While the remake doesn’t give too many details to use for scaling, as the one shot which shows it moving shows the stars in the background not moving, the original SNES version of the shot does have them move. However, the big issue is the standard issue for piloting feats, in that we have no real cases of the ship needing to maneuver around anything at these speeds. So while it’s theoretically impressive, there’s not really anything tangible to use for scaling here. 

The more odd point to bring up here is with Captain Square. This is an arcade machine you’re able to play, where the titular hero fights a bunch of aliens throughout the solar system. He does have some pretty notable feats, such as attacking by creating supernovas and the battle transitions implying he’s quickly flying between the planets of the solar system, but this is completely irrelevant VS wise given he’s just in an in-universe game, right? Well, remember earlier when I said you fight the final boss in a simulation? To be more specific, you fight her by linking her program to the Captain Square arcade machine. In this battle, Cube gains several abilities which he did not have beforehand, given that throughout the chapter he’s seen as a defenseless droid who has to run away from threats. But rather interestingly, these abilities can be used by him in the final chapter, which undoubtedly takes place in the real world. And these likely aren’t the result of offscreen upgrades, given Cube was taken to the past right after his chapter ended. Additionally, you can also encounter enemies originally from the arcade game out as random encounters anyone can fight. This could all imply that these enemies somehow ended up coming into reality, and as such the final chapter heroes being able to defeat them means they can scale to Captain Square due to him also fighting them. 

While that is interesting, there are issues with this line of discussion. First off, this is hinging things on an element of the game that is completely unexplained, since they are just random enemy encounters that most players wouldn’t really question. So while you could argue they’re meant to be the actual characters coming into reality, you could also say they’re just minions who are just taking on similar form to these arcade enemies, and both would be equally valid explanations. That’s also assuming there’s even supposed to be an in-lore explanation for them being out like this, as the Doylist explanation of this is just to write off them reappearing like this as a gameplay mechanic to give the Far Future chapter some representation in the enemy encounters. They are hardly the only final chapter enemies who can raise some eyebrows at being fought, as beyond the mix of enemies from past chapters never really being commented on by anyone in the first place, there’s also oddities like the massive war machines fought by the Steel Titan now being able to be fought by just normal sized humans. Similarly, while you could say Cube having his upgrades is a sign the arcade reality got brought into the real world, you could also similarly write it off as for the sake of gameplay balance, since a helpless robot who can’t fight would be completely useless in the final chapter otherwise. Finally, this line of scaling would also represent a pretty sizable jump in numbers, as the gap from Town - Mountain to Large Star is, quite literally, astronomical, and since Captain Square is completely irrelevant story wise and this would be scaling through random fodder enemies, there’s also not much of an argument against this line of scaling being an outlier. 

 Lucas

The Dark Dragon

(fanart by @NCade56)

Time for the obligatory part of all Mother blogs where we break down this vague asshole. The ending of Mother 3 involves the Dark Dragon being unleashed, seemingly causing an apocalyptic event that wipes out the entire world of Mother. First off, there has been some contention as to if this is meant to be merely universal or if it’s multiversal in scope, as it’s not totally clear if Mother 3 is meant to be in a different universe as the earlier Mother games or simply far off in the future of the main universe. There’s an argument on both sides for this topic, and I could sum it up here, but at the end of the day it’s a bit irrelevant because there’s not any real argument Lucas scales to it in the first place. 

The big argument would be the resulting black screen ending, where it’s shown that somehow everyone in the game had survived this apocalypse, which could suggest they survived the event. But there’s multiple issues in regards to this once you break it down. First off, this ending has been deliberately left fairly vague and up to interpretation, so it’s already relying on a bit of speculation to pull any kind of feat from this, especially given that even the characters within the ending aren’t sure how they’re alive. But there is an explanation to this, and it pretty clearly implies no one within Mother 3’s narrative scales to the Dragon. 

There’s a repeated point brought up throughout the ending that the Needle being pulled was able to regain the strength humans had, with Itoi directly confirming in an interview that this is meant to be “bringing out the strength” in humans. That’s because this being a good ending is due to the dragon destroying everything in the world that is evil, as a major theme of the story is about the dangers of modernization. This is most notably spelled out with Ionia’s explanation of the Needles, where it’s noted that someone with a good heart awakening the dragon would lead to all evil being destroyed. This is as opposed to people suggesting what would happen if Claus was to pull the needle, which would just be the destruction of the world. Not only do both the ending and Itoi’s interview make it clear that this is a separate outcome, the major stakes of the game being based around stopping Porky from pulling the needles makes it abundantly clear that this apocalypse is not something they could just survive outright. So essentially, everyone surviving this event doesn’t mean they tanked the universal destruction, but rather they survived simply because this attack wasn't targeting them in the first place. 

The one character who has a comparatively more solid case for scaling to this would be Porky, as he does say he would be able to survive the dragon’s awakening. But this being a method to scale Lucas to the dragon is also flawed. First off, Porky could very well be lying here, as he is the kind of character who would overstate something like this for the sake of making himself look better. Secondly, this is likely referring less to his physical durability and more to his immortality, as simply not being able to die to raw power alone doesn’t mean he actively scales to it for his own power. This is especially so given how he is a crippled old man who can’t even walk without assistance, so he clearly wouldn’t be physically punching a universe out of existence himself. Finally, this statement is also very easy to attribute to him having the Absolutely Safe Capsule in the wings, which given the clear future tense this statement is under, makes more sense than assuming he’s saying he’d personally survive it himself. 

Speaking of which, the Absolutely Safe Capsule is definitely the biggest smoking gun against the case for Lucas being universal. This was specifically designed to protect those inside it from all sources of damage, and was treated as his ultimate trump card once the party puts him on the backfoot. And in the ending, where he was very likely one of the evils the dragon tried to destroy, we hear that he’s still in the capsule just fine. If Lucas could actually scale to the Dragon, then it would stand to reason he could at least slightly damage something directly designed to survive that level of power. But in their final fight with Porky, Lucas and the party were shown to be completely incapable of breaking into or even damaging the capsule, with them being forced to just leave him in there to his fate. So this is directly indicating that Lucas cannot scale that high. 

TLDR: The Dark Dragon is potentially universal - multiversal, but Lucas can’t scale to it. The destruction caused by it in Mother 3’s ending was an attack that wasn’t directly targeting Lucas or anyone else who survived, and the main conflict of the game being based around stopping a more direct apocalypse makes the idea of arguing he scales to this narratively inconsistent. Meanwhile, the one character who did survive this as an attack did so thanks to a device which Lucas is completely incapable of damaging, so he can’t scale that way either. 

Mother Cross Scaling

While you might assume the gap in time between the events of Mother 3 and the earlier Mother games imply there’s no way to scale the games to each other, Porky does give a fairly solid avenue of scaling Lucas to his predecessors’ feats. During the events of Mother 3, Lucas and his party directly fights an older Porky who had spent the time between games journeying through time while trying to find a way to end everything. We can definitely assume his tech as of Mother 3 is superior to the mech he used to fight the party as a part of the final boss in Earthbound, as not only is there potentially centuries of development behind them, but his old mech now just being a museum piece pretty directly shows that it’s strength is now irrelevant compared to the tech he’s more actively using to conquer everything. And as previously noted, this can also lead into scaling to stuff from Beginnings due to similar logic in regards to Giygas’ growth in power. 

There are a lot of more powerful feats which weren’t mentioned, namely from Ness and Giygas. Both of these two can be solidly placed at a universal level of power, as Ness was able to absorb the power of Magicant, which is an entire dimension, and Giygas is a literal dimension himself in his final form, as well as being directly stated to be able to destroy the universe if not stopped. However, there’s not a lot of reason to scale Lucas up to their heights. For one thing, Ness is meant to be a level beyond even the other members of his own party, partly thanks to the aforementioned Magicant merging, which mechanically boosts Ness’ stats well above the other party members. And this is something that is reinforced by the story, as it’s specifically noted that Ness is the one who’s destined to save the world from Giygas, with the rest of his party just being there to help him along the way. Speaking of which, said final fight with Giygas supports the conclusion that he and Ness are out of everyone’s league. Mainly because, in the original game at least, they don’t actually defeat him on their own. The final fight with Giygas is famously not one they can just blast through, as they need to pray to draw on the power of everyone on earth. This is treated as a completely unwinnable fight without them doing this, so just taking the original game, there’s not a lot of reason to scale the party to Giygas’ full power. And Porky definitely doesn’t scale to Ness’ full power, as after Giygas is defeated, Porky immediately runs away, which is clearly indicating that he believes he would definitely lose a fair fight against Ness’s party without Giygas backing him. 

There’s also speed, which while also being debatable, is overall inapplicable to Lucas. The first big argument for faster than relativistic speeds would be in Beginnings, where it was established that Giygas and his forces had gone to the edge of the universe and back over the course of two years, which would require them to be over 46 billion times faster than light at the bare minimum. However, the issue is the same issue facing many feats of this nature, as it being an offscreen event means we have no way of confirming that the pilots of these ships were ever put in a situation where they had to dodge anything while moving at the speed of their ship, so there’s no real solid way to scale it back to any of the protagonists. There’s also the Earthbound party being able to dodge attacks in stopped time, which could imply immeasurable speeds. However, the fact that the freezing is specifically said to only affect your attacks and that this is still dodging that is done by increasing your characters’ finite stats imply this is simply an instance of Ness resisting the effects of a time stop, not overcoming it directly with his sheer speed. Ninten has a similar argument by way of having access to the 4th-D Slip technique, which might imply… something of this nature. The issue is that in just the game there’s practically nothing confirming what the move actually does, whether that be moving into the 4th dimension, punching a hole to it, stopping time, teleporting, or anything else. The only description the move has is that it allows the user to escape a battle, which could support the interpretation that it’s meant to be immeasurable speed, but it’s just far too vague to really use for much on its own. 

TLDR: Lucas can scale to the parties of the first two Mother games thanks to defeating Porky, but that doesn’t mean he scales to the universal tier feats done by Ness and Gigyas, as those two are narratively treated as a level beyond the other party members and Porky. There are arguments for MFTL - Immeasurable speed, but these aren’t applicable to anyone’s stats for various reasons. 

Alternate Continuity Feats

There are also of course numerous feats from various adaptations of the first two Mother games which can get fairly high, such as Ness being able to explode the sun and surviving a universe blowing up, Poo perceiving every living organism from all of time, and Ana creating a blast compared to a supernova which made a white hole. You could make an argument for Lucas scaling for similar logic as him scaling to other feats done by them, but the issue is that these feats are unique to these alternate continuities of the games. While whether or not you could apply them to other Mother characters would likely depend on your standards with compositing, this is completely off the table for characters original to Mother 3 like Lucas, as neither the novels by Saori Kumi nor the manga by Itoh Benimaru ever ended up adapting the events of Mother 3. In fact, said events just straight up can’t happen in either continuity due to their changes to the events of Earthbound. This is particularly seen in regards to the fate of Porky, as in the novel he ends up becoming Ness’ brother after some time shenanigans, which leads to him being kinder due to having a much nicer home life, and in the manga he was either killed or taken alongside Giygas to never interact with the world of Earthbound again. In both cases, Porky not being around to start his Pigmask army means there’s no way for the central conflict of Lucas’ story to start in the first place. So there’s no reason to say Lucas should scale to their feats here, as he simply does not exist in these versions of the story. 

PK Starstorm

An incredibly powerful attack seen throughout the Mother series is PK Starstorm, but you may have noticed the numbers provided for it here were a good deal weaker than what it’s been placed at typically. The big calc for it from G1 had previously calculated the attack to be worth 75.5 Megatons, but while their method of getting the speed of the meteors from the game was fine, they got the size of the meteors from its depiction in Smash Brothers, which is mixing two different continuities and therefore will not be factored in here. By using that speed on the meteor’s depiction in the actual game, that would bring this feat down to 35.424 Kilotons. As for Kumatora’s version, while she does summon over twice the amount of meteors than Poo, the same method for time frame would make hers over 7 times slower, which means each of them would be weaker individually than the ones summoned by Poo, and therefore it would clock in about 10 times weaker at 3.607 Kilotons. 

There’s also a statement involving this technique where it’s said to involve “shaking off the stars”. What this actually means is really weird to consider, but I don’t really feel there’s a good argument for this translating into cosmic level power. If the assumption is “Poo shakes a star to cause it”, then it’s completely uncalcable since we have no context for the size of the star, how far away it is, by how much he’d be shaking them, or even what these projectiles are meant to be. That’s also assuming this is even meant to be suggesting it’s affecting actual stars, as considering the animation and how often “shooting star” is used interchangeably with “meteor” in fiction, it makes a lot more sense to assume this is meant to simply be summoning meteors. 

Is Lucas part of the Universal System?

An interesting point in regards to Lucas being a part of the Mother series lies in his status as a chosen boy. It’s been noted that Lucas having PK Love and being able to pull the needles makes him a chosen one, and as we see in Earthbound, those who are chosen by destiny are part of a Universal System. While this is interesting, there’s not really anything in the narrative of Mother 3 on its own which backs up the idea of this applying to Lucas, as there’s no real mention of the universal system or really any elaboration on Lucas having destiny on his side. Additionally, the idea of fate being on his side because he was chosen to pull the needles is contradicted by Claus also being able to use PK Love and pull the needles, and who very much did not end up winning due to fate being on his side. 

And even if you were to give it to him, there’s not a lot of evidence that it would affect things much. It’s been discussed to death already, but the Universal System doesn’t give Ness the ability to just bend fate to make him automatically win or anything. He’s still fully capable of losing battles, as directly noted in story, and as seen with a few other instances that G1 already broke down. As a more relevant example, if Ness has the ability to ensure he always wins due to fate, then logically the plot of Mother 3 should not have happened, as Ness intended to stop Porky in the end of Earthbound. While there are minor points which could support this, such as them still beating Giygas even after Porky rigged it so they had a 1% chance of winning, these can just be written off as narrative devices rather than a literal point of the story. So even if you went down this road, it’s not really going to lead to anything too VS relevant. 

Both

Dodging Feats

An issue that can apply to both of these two are in regards to their dodging feats in gameplay, as Live A Live describes attacks that don’t hit as missing, and the Mother series uses the term “dodged quickly” which could imply they are aim dodging. While both could hit against these being treated as speed feats, in both cases the chance of an attack missing is directly tied to the characters’ speed stats, meaning these instances are attributable to a characters’ own speed mechanically speaking. And as the major speed feats for both hit this same caveat, there’s not much reason to buy one without the other. 

Storm Scaling

(Giygas Render Source)

Beyond the questionable cosmic ends for both which were previously discussed, both of these two can potentially get a more legitimate bump in stats based on scaling to characters who are capable of creating storms. Though in both cases, these do require a good deal of elaboration and are a bit debatable, so this section will be breaking the factors in them down. As a point for both, they are a good deal higher than the other feats for characters in their tier otherwise which could imply they could be seen as an outlier, but given both are done by the top dogs of their worlds who have feats well above it at their best that’s not a huge deterrent in my opinion. 

Akira

Throughout Live A Live, it is implied that Odio created a storm across the Kingdom of Lucrece. You can primarily see this effect within the confrontation of the game taking place at the Archon’s Roost, as both Oersted’s fight with Streibough and the party’s final fight with Odio show a dark cloud in the background that goes beyond the mountain range. This storm is meant to be Odio’s creation, as implied by Streibough summoning lighting and clouds when he gets powered up by Odio’s magic, lighting striking when Oersted promptly takes the power himself, and most blatantly, this dark cloud being shown to have disappeared after Odio is fully defeated. While this could simply be an effect of him creating darkness, the clouds in the background are notably lighter than the dark clouds he creates when starting the boss fights, so this is meant to be a storm he creates in this instance. And this is hardly an outlier in the context of his other incarnations, as Streibough is noted to have multiple weather related abilities, and Odeo summoning lightning upon being awakened.

There are two major ends for this feat, which clock in at 120.97 Megatons & 74.733 Gigatons respectively, though both are a bit odd. The lower end measures out how big the Kingdom of Lucrece is by taking the view of Archon’s Roost from the neighboring mountain of Hero’s Rest, and then using that distance on the map of the whole kingdom to guess its size. The issue with said map is somewhat truncated due to only covering the area you can go around in gameplay. It’s also likely the full kingdom is much larger than what’s seen in game, as if it’s meant to be a whole kingdom, it should have more denizens than “one castle town and a village with 4 people just down the road”, but we have nothing to really go on for the full size of it within the story. As for the high end, it cuts out the middleman and just measures how far away the horizon is from the top of Archon’s Roost and assumes the storm stretched to it. That’s a bit more direct, though here the issue is that the view of the horizon is covered up by a neighboring mountain range, so it’s hard to say if it does actually stretch quite that far. 

There’s also a less definitive version of this that is seen with Oboromaru. His chapter is based around a fortress which you are able to get through by either not killing any person within it, or by killing absolutely everyone. The remake notably added an effect in the ending of his chapter connected to this mechanic, as normally the sunrise that he’s looking out over dramatically will quickly end up getting covered by a violent thunderstorm if you went full genocide. This would clock in at 864.4 Megatons and could help add some consistency to the idea of this scaling, though with this feat specifically it’s a lot more questionable. Mainly because it’s not clear if this is actually Oboromaru directly creating the storm rather than it simply being a symbolic effect to show the weight of your actions. So it’s debatable, but should be fine to use as supporting evidence in this case. 

Lucas

When it comes to storm scaling in Mother, the first thing that might come to mind would be Thunder and Storm, one of Earthbound’s Sanctuary bosses who are able to attack with, well, a storm. The issue with scaling this is that we have no real method of calculating how big the storm is, given it’s just described in text. There’s also not really anything to go on for how big it is out of battle, as it’s a boss with very little relevance to the lore, and is fought while indoors, so even using the generic value for making a storm feels a bit too generous. 

However, we do have a more notable instance of someone in the Mother series creating a storm. During the events of Earthbound Beginnings, a major part of the story involves a trek up Mt Itoi, the location of the final boss. This mountain notably has a storm over it, which is implied to have been created by Giygas. Based on promotional material showing the storm over the mountain, the energy needed to create it would hit 407.079 Megatons. While that all is good, the issue here would be the question of if Lucas can actually scale to this. After all, in the original game, Ninten and his party are incapable of defeating Giygas in a fight and can only defeat him with the power of music. However, I do feel it’s reasonable to say Lucas should be comparable to this, mainly due to the timeline. First off, there is the aforementioned upscaling done by Porky to the cast of Earthbound, but we can take it a step further by also saying Ness’ party can upscale Ninten’s. After all, the Giygas Ninten and his party fought is Giygas long before he became the universe destroying incomprehensible being he became for Earthbound’s final boss fight, which is a state he was able to unlock primarily thanks to the use of the Devil’s Machine. So even without a direct scaling chain, it’s somewhat reasonable to assume Lucas should be comparable to Beginnings!Giygas in power. 

Verdict

Stats

In terms of strength, these psychics were fairly comparable in their scale in most regards, though ultimately the case leaned more towards Akira. Starting with direct feats, Lucas has some impressive wall level displays of durability, such as getting launched off a mountain at 9.849 Megajoules and getting hit by a train at 20.877 Megajoules, but Akira could definitely surpass that due to having several city block feats, such as creating a bunch of ice at 7.117 Tons of TNT and tanking an explosion that vaporized a robot at 63.825 Tons of TNT. Scaling could even things up, as both definitely compared to various characters that are able to hit town level, but this also would favor Akira. Lucas can tank the Rhinorocket ramming him at 7.105 Kilotons and he should compare to feats done by his fellow psychics, such as Kumatora being able to use PK Ground at 15.085 Kilotons, Paula PK Freezing the Chomposaurus at 25.614 Kilotons, and Poo summoning PK Starstorm at 35.424 Kilotons, but Akira could compare to feats like Streibough and Odio making an earthquake that shook a mountain at 15.605 Kilotons, the Steel Titan causing its own earthquake at 16.227 Kilotons, and Pogo surviving Mount Big Boom at 44.346 Kilotons. Finally, both did have more debatable storm scaling, with Lucas potentially being able to compare to Giygas’ storm over Mt Itoi at 407.079 Megatons. While this was a bit lower than the low end for Odio’s storm at 120.97 Megatons, Akira had scaling which surpassed it, either just slightly with Oboromaru’s storm at 864.4 Megatons, which was over twice as strong as Giygas, or with the high end of Odio’s storm at 74.733 Gigatons, which was nearly two hundred times stronger than Giygas. So at all ends Akira had the edge in strength. 

As for speed, that tended to favor Lucas. Both can compare to subsonic travel speeds done by Dragunon and Ninten respectively, and had quite a few vehicles which were likely capable of keeping pace with each other. But when comparing more directly relevant speed feats, the gap was fairly clear. Akira could likely compare in attacking speed to Masaru and the Earthen Heart Masters being able to attack fast enough to make afterimages, which could hit Mach 2.02 and 3.66 respectively. But Lucas could compare to Kumatora and Poo being able to call down meteors rapidly, which hit Mach 492.219 and 3820 respectively, making his attacks hundreds to thousands of times faster. And while both had the reaction speed to dodge various light speed projectiles, with Akira directly dodging gamma rays at 7.9% c and scaling to Odeo dodging the Halogen Laser at 39.8% c, Lucas could directly dodge light rays at 33% c and could scale to Earthbound enemies being able to dodge Jeff’s lasers at 48.2 - 57.6% c, which both made him almost twice as fast. So Lucas held a solid edge in regards to speed. 

Arsenal & Abilities

Now when it came to their individual items, both did have a lot of similar options. Both had access to explosives, healing, vehicles, and various buffing items, and both have a decent chunk of ways to reduce incoming damage types and the chances of getting status effects. Akira did have a wider selection in terms of sheer versatility, a lot of these were mainly for doing damage or had effects Akira was already capable of on his own. And when it came down to more specific capabilities, Lucas generally had a better selection of unique options. First off, Lucas did have a few options which could help even the playing field on the durability front, as items like the New Year’s Eve Bomb and the Enemy Wimperizer would be able to bring Akira’s health down to the point that Lucas could conceivably keep pace. And while Akira had a better option for psychic shields, as PK Shield only halves damage, Lucas could easily bypass them altogether with the Shield Snatcher, something Akira lacked an equivalent to. Another big point for Lucas was that the Magypsy Mementos meant he was the only one of the two who could come back from death, meaning he would get at least 7 chances to keep up the fight even if Akira got a lucky shot off. Finally, while he’s not ever used it in combat actively, the Waters of Life could be a very dangerous way of wiping out Akira if he was exposed to it, as rapid aging was something he had no defense for. Meanwhile, Akira’s unique options weren’t quite as notable. As mentioned, the Steel Titan didn’t really bring much to the discussion, and Brion’s ability to dispel sealing was a bit irrelevant.

When it came to abilities, Akira did seem like he had a better case on paper. He had a wider selection of abilities to use in battle, with a variety of elements and special effects. Rather notably, he did have a natural resistance to psychic attacks, which meant PK Love wouldn’t be dealing as much damage as usual, and several of his abilities could provide a nerf to Lucas’ speed, which meant he could similarly bypass that gap in stats. Though this would be reliant on these abilities actually hitting Lucas, which would be a bit hard to do, as a lot of the more damaging ones require a good amount of start up, which meant they would be easily telegraphed. Akira did have better telepathy, which could hypothetically be used to predict Lucas’ gameplan, but Akira has never actively used it in such a way and would still likely be lacking behind in speed, meaning any help he could get from it wouldn’t be useful. His rage boost wouldn’t really change too much given he’d already have an edge in power, and his telekinesis is something we’ve never seen him use on more than small objects, so we can’t say he could use it to ragdoll around Lucas or something. 

Speaking of which, Lucas’ own abilities didn’t seem as impressive in comparison, but they did help provide some useful counters. For one, PK Healing was something that would allow him to easily recover from Akira’s status effects, and his own access to buffs could further help him keep pace with Akira in power. There was also PSI Counter, which wouldn’t prevent all damage from hitting Lucas, but would allow for Akira to get blasted back by half of his own power, leading to free damage that he couldn’t do much to work around. Finally, while it would be random, PK Flash had a chance to instantly kill an enemy when used, which was something Akira did not have any counter for. Akira did have his own method of doing the same with Judgement Day having a chance to petrify Lucas, but as noted, it’s ability that takes a bit to charge up, unlike Flash which is more instantaneous. 

Tertiary Factors

When it comes to battle experience, Akira did seem to have a better case in terms of numbers, as he has been actively fighting for a decent chunk of his life, as opposed to Lucas really only doing so during the plot of the game. However, both did compare a bit generally. Not only have both had to grapple with a wide amount of opponents, which covered everything from wild animals to trained guards and robots to a bunch of weirder stuff, their most impressive battles against foes who had massive amounts of experience made it so both were likely capable of keeping pace with a lot of what each other could throw at each other. In terms of weaknesses, there wasn’t too much to discuss either. While Lucas was the only one who had to deal with limited resources in terms of his psychic abilities, he had options for recovering it and fighting without it. And neither of the two had a lot which could be too relevant when it came to more personal flaws, as Akira’s hotheadedness never really impacted his skill in a fight and Lucas’ more passive personality was something he grew past later. 

Finally, there’s probably the big elephant in the room with this match, that being how one ability in particular could potentially screw up Lucas due to actively taking advantage of his trauma, which could potentially mess up Lucas’ abilities due to them being based on focus. However, in practice this actually wasn't going to be too game ending, as Lucas has actually had experience with this kind of situation and been willing to fight on just fine. During his quest for the needles, he and the party ended up on a desert island where they were forced to eat dubious mushrooms that messed with their mind. Among other things, these made them see enemies as friends who messed with them psychologically. For Lucas, this included fake versions of Flint and Claus, which would even actively feed into his trauma, and yet he and the party were able to fight them off just fine with no difficulties. So while it’s a funny ability interaction, it’s unlikely he’d end up instantly breaking down upon being hit with this kind of attack. 

Conclusion

“This is it, Matsu. Straight on to Nippori. They think they got us beat. That it's impossible for us to win. Impossible for me to make them pay... But nothing's impossible when you're too stubborn to surrender!”

Advantages:

• Stronger at all ends

• Greater offensive versatility overall

• More experienced

• Has an official localization

• Has the best battle theme in the game

Equal: 

• Shared a lot of equivalents in their arsenal

• Both had access to buffs, debuffs, and damage reduction

• About equal in skill

• Live A Live is a great game please play it

• God Tier Soundtrack

Disadvantages:

• Slower

• Worse selection of unique items

• Worse options for defense and had no way to revive midfight

• No answer for Lucas’ main wincons

• Kind of a dick

• Ironically has not done the Akira bike slide 

“Lucas. You were once a weak, fragile boy, but now you've been given a tremendous role to fulfill. Now that you know everything, including everything I'm sure you'd rather not know, the time has come for you to save the future of all life as we know it.”

Advantages:

• Faster

• Better selection of unique items

• Better options for defense and revival for keeping in the fight

• Had multiple wincons Akira had no answer for

• Mother’s Shame is not an instant wincon

• Friends with Red from Pokemon

Equal: 

• Shared a lot of equivalents in their arsenal

• Both had access to buffs, debuffs, and damage reduction

• About equal in skill

• Mother 3 is a great game please play it

• God Tier Soundtrack

Disadvantages:

• Weaker at all ends

• Lower offensive versatility overall

• Less experienced

• We’re definitely getting that localization soon!

• Winning won’t bring Claus back

This was a fairly close match to consider, as both of these two compared quite a bit in all regards. But while Akira may have had strength and versatility on his side, Lucas had the speed, tools, and powers to ensure his victory.  Akira might have had the guts to take down any enemy, but Lucas was the one who truly had the heart to take him down here. 

Sourcelist:

• Garland vs Oersted Prediction Blog by DBD Blogs

• Ness vs Frisk Prediction Blog by G1

• Flowey VS Giygas Prediction Blog by Blogs of the Apocalypse

• Mother 3 Party Respect Thread by u/Proletlariet

• Live A Live Wiki

• WikiBound and Earthbound Wiki

• VS Battles Wiki

Next Time (+ Announcement)

So this blog will be releasing around the second anniversary of my blog series, and is coincidentally the 30th blog I’ve created. A lot has happened in these last 2 years, both in the VS sphere and in my own personal life. I’m definitely proud that these blogs have been well received by many, and not to get too cheesy, but they mean a lot to me as well. This has been a time where I had no real idea where I was going with my life, and this gave me something consistent to create that I was passionate about and could watch grow along with me. If you’ve enjoyed these and have been keeping up with them, thank you, so much it means a lot to me. 

So anyways, the next time is going to be Angstrom vs the Spot, as I previously revealed back on April Fools. This has proven itself to be a big undertaking, which would be even more so as I have recently gotten an actual job and am generally trying to start being an adult out of college, so I will have less time to personally work on these blogs. And a lot of the blogs I’m planning to do are going to be similarly big undertakings, which does mean that this remaining a solo effort while still keeping up somewhat of a reasonable schedule is going to be unachievable realistically  speaking. 

So I’ve decided that I’m going to be transitioning this blog into the more standard group blog format, where things are the effort of multiple people all researching the one match. There will still be blogs which will be done by my sole effort, but this is just something that needs to be realistic for me to cover. And I feel like I’ve been a generally passive voice in this community for long enough. So if you’re interested in joining Angstrom vs Spot, please DM me on discord at @capejedi.