New Challenger Approaching: Ridley

PTD’s multi-part feature ‘New Challenger Approaching’ is here for its fifth week on the web (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). Every week we have a look at a possible or rumoured character addition to Nintendo’s upcoming fighter Super Smash Bros. Brawl and evaluate why they may be worthy of an appearance.

Super Smash Bros. Melee brought some darker, more interesting icons to the character list. In the original, only the heroes of Nintendo franchises were invited to duke it out. With Melee we saw the induction of some villains to the fray (Bowser, Ganondorf, and Mewtwo). These are some incredible characters known all throughout the gaming universe. In Part 1 of NCA we covered a notorious villain, Majora. The subject of this week’s article is another very well known antagonist who would no longer leave Samus Aran as the sole representative of the Metroid franchise in the Smash Bros. line-up.

Ridley has appeared in almost all Metroid games to date (we won’t split hairs – Meta Ridley and Ridley-X are counted too) and stands as Samus’ main rival in the series due to his part in commanding the killing of everyone on Samus’ home world Zebes. As he’s been around awhile and seen his fair share of in-game battles, one can assume that Ridley’s got some interesting moves that might be able to be translated for some good brawling.

In the original Metroid, Ridley really just stood there shooting off fireballs with the odd jump. Simple projectile weapons are quite commonly used by many other characters already in the game (Mario, Link, Pikachu) so fireballs would most likely be placed as the primary special attack (“B”). Super Metroid saw the more popular fighting style and image of a Ridley with wings and a large tail covered in points. This style opens the perfect door for Ridley to potentially have smash attacks through swift tail strikes, long claw swipes, and fatal head butts. A flying grab attack would round the character nicely.

We can only assume Ridley’s wings would be used for some sort of jump, though what type is a matter of question. Ridley is a character that is almost always in the air and as such he shouldn’t be as ground-oriented as Mario or Samus. Even if it were only the animation that would be a bit different, an effect of almost constant flight could be created. To create this effect, the two initial jumps could be quite small, perhaps used as a directional boost. The real effect would lie in his special jump. It could be a quite long, high jump followed by a glide or slow-fall during which Ridley could have the ability to pause in one place in order to attack. Though this would probably have a negative result on Ridley’s vertical standing.

As an across special attack, Ridley would probably have a sort of dash attack akin to Fox’s. What would be interesting would be a limit in horizontal hit area. The basic idea is that Ridley would be flying like a bird instead of taking his normal standing form. Precision will be more of a concern if Ridley is off ground to avoid items such as bob-ombs, shells, and even small characters such as Pichu.

To further Ridley’s cause as a playable character, he has made very small cameos in both past Smash Bros titles. In the second he was actually seen fighting Samus. On June 13th, 2007 a track entitled “Metroid: Boss Battle Music (Ridley Fight)” was revealed on Smash Bros Dojo. While this could simply be the music for a Metroid-themed stage, it would not be unreasonable to think it may hint towards a certain space dragon’s inclusion. Putting it all together, Ridley has a prime chance as a popular choice to be included in Super Smash Bros.