The court is now in session for the probability of Ridley from Metroid being a playable character in Super Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS.
Mr. Wright, how do y-
Y-you’re not Phoenix Wright!
No, I’m not. I’m Haruhi Suzumiya, your honor, and I’ll be taking the aforementioned attorney’s place today. See, ordinary “Rate Their Chances” posts involving Phoenix Wright are unoriginal and uninteresting. Though I assure you, your honor, I will provide a much stronger case than he ever has.
Umm-uh… Well… Okay…then…
I declare that Ridley is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a playable character.
And… What say the…
Oh, of course, no Mr. Edgeworth either.
I apologize for the sudden change and confusion, your honor. My name is Itsuki Koizumi, and I’ll be taking Mr. Miles Edgeworth’s place today. I proclaim that Ridley is, as was hinted at, a stage hazard on Pyrosphere.
…*sigh* I don’t feel like dealing with this today. You two can handle this without me, yes? Of course you can. Good day.
He… left… Are judges even allowed to do that?
Let’s not delve on that for now and just continue as usual. I’m sure we can still have a civil enough discussion. Why don’t you present your case first, Ms. Suzumiya?
Okay then... Ridley is, without a doubt, a playable character. Mr. Sakurai has merely been “hyping up” Ridley. It’s a logical conclusion, and is based off of three facts:
First, Mr. Sakurai always fully shows nonplayable characters and illuminates on their role. He has done this much more bluntly with some of the more popular characters such as Ashley, Waluigi, and Skull Kid.
Second, Nintendo, and Mr. Sakurai, do listen to fans. Even though it was used as the butt of a joke, Nintendo acknowledged the outcry for a localized Mother 3 and a new Star Fox game in their Digital Event at this year’s E3. Regardless of whether they go through with either, though they’ve gone through with one those things, it still shows that they are aware of what their fans want. Mr. Sakurai even said in the Smash Direct that he has “player expectations to fulfill” when introducing Lucario’s mega evolution.
And lastly, Ridley, whether positively, negatively, or neutrally, is one of the most talked about character with regards to Smash Bros.
Ridley Smash4 videos, whether they be Shokio's or whoever's, get many views for a reason. GameFAQs gets those tons a Ridley troll threads for a reason. The Ridley support thread is, by far, the largest character support thread on Smashboards for a reason.
Now, Koizumi, surely we can both agree on these three things, yes?
I suppose I can, at the very least, accept them with some degree of truth.
Good, then we arrive at what happened during the fateful moment in the Smash Direct.
Ridley’s shadow on Pyrosphere.
“Boss characters make appearances on other stages, not just this one.”
Or, perhaps better to present, the original un-translated version of what Mr. Sakurai said: “他にもボスキャラ系の仕掛けが登場.” Which roughly translates to “other boss character system gimmicks come up.”
“Oh, Ridley, stage hazard on Pyrosphere. Okay, see ya. I'm not sure why they didn't just show him and say his name, but oh well.” A conclusion came to by many. And it’s understandable to come to such a conclusion based on this alone.
But I’m not basing my case on just this! When considering those three facts I stated before, it makes Mr. Sakurai’s course of action with Ridley seem a lot more suspicious! Why ambiguously “show” one of the most talked about characters in a non-playable role when he’s very aware so many people desire said character to be playable?
Because it’s in order to “hype up” Ridley’s reveal as, in reality, a playable character and make it incredibly unexpected for most people. What better way to surprise people than with a character that most though was flat-out disconfirmed? He knows that people clamor on and on about Ridley, whether for or against. If Ridley isn’t playable, then he would have no reason to act out of his own disconfirming norm. Why prepare people for a kick in the groin when he could instead just do it immediately like he’s done with every other character? The answer is that he wouldn’t. In one of his own columns Famitsu, Mr. Sakurai himself wrote that he does not like to create “needless speculation.” But if Ridley is actually playable, then that would mean the speculation his shadow nonsense ensued not “needless,” but actually serve as a form of “hype building.”
With all these things considered, there’s only one logical conclusion!
While I can see how such a conclusion is logical, it’s based on a very important assumption being made.
You are assuming Mr. Sakurai views these “boss character system gimmicks” as just as important as any other way in which a character is not playable. Mr. Sakurai first showed us the Yellow Devil in a rather vague way. Granted, it was clear he was not playable, but it was not clear exactly what purpose he served. Many speculated it would be a mere stage hazard, while others considered it a glimpse at the return of boss battles from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. We were only provided actual insight into how this “gimmick” will work through giving the Yellow Devil its very own section in the Super Smash Bros. Direct, and he spent a noticeable amount of time discussing exactly how the gimmick in question works. Such actions seem to convey the belief that what seem like merely glorified stage hazards to us are actually very important pieces of the game that are worth treating in a “hype building” way. In short, who is to say that Mr. Sakurai does or does not think that these “gimmicks” are worth “hyping up?” Who is to say that the speculation induced by “boss characters” is “needless” in Mr. Sakurai’s eyes?
If I assume Mr. Sakurai does see these “boss characters” as something worth causing a stir about, then I can also make the argument that it makes sense to only show the shadow. By not clearly showing anything regarding Ridley’s design, besides his tail briefly making it into the shot, or his exact method of attack, Mr. Sakurai could induce speculation regarding how Ridley as a “boss character” on Pyrosphere will function. How could we know if he views such speculation as “needless?” It would certainly make sense if he does not, and this goes into my own answer to the question regarding why Mr. Sakurai has not shown Ridley in any shape or form since the Smash Direct. In the case that Ridley is indeed a “boss character” on Pyrosphere, it would presumably be a Wii U exclusive. Leaving speculation regarding Smash Bros. for Wii U is important because it comes out after Smash Bros. for 3DS. As has been made clear, we’ll know the entire roster of playable characters before the Wii U version comes out due to it sharing its roster with the 3DS version. This is also why we probably have not seen anything regarding single player modes in the Wii U version; it is because Mr. Sakurai wants to keep as much speculation towards that version open so as to not let the “hype die down,” as one might say.
And all of this was based on my assumption which is the exact opposite of yours.
So, with my argument proposed, Ms. Suzumiya, I ask you this: Why is your assumption a safer one than my own?
Because it's based off more substantial analysis!
If what you assume is true, then it would mean that Mr. Sakurai doesn’t know what fans actually care about the most! It would mean that he is out of touch with his own fans. And if the changes to physics, online, and the inclusion of Mega Man, Little Mac, and Palutena are anything to go by, he certainly isn’t out of touch when developing these games.
He said it himself when he began discussing the playable characters in the Smash Direct:
“And now what you’ve all been waiting for: the fighters.”
It’s the characters that cause most of the mountains of speculatory discussion. It’s the characters that get the trailers. It's the characters that get sections on the official website. It’s the characters that seemingly get vague hints. Yellow Devil may have been showed in a somewhat vague way that didn’t quite make its role clear, but it was clear that it wasn’t a playable character. With Ridley it’s different. It’s possible to argue that Ridley is playable based on what we’ve seen and the context surrounding it. But that isn’t even what I’m talking about when I said “more substantial analysis.”
This is where we get into the analysis of what we’ve actually been given: the shadow.
The Ridley Support Thread has gone through tons of analysis regarding the shadow and has come up with very interesting findings of which I will show the most pertinent.
I’ll trust that the second post of the Ridley Support Thread, specifically the “SHADOW EVIDENCE” section, will provide the crux of the necessary analysis I am speaking of.
All Mr. Sakurai did by just showing the shadow was imply that there is something worth hiding in regards to Ridley. You’re right, he could just want to hide details of Ridley’s boss appearance and mannerisms, but if the shadow analysis tells me anything, it’s that Mr. Sakurai went out of his way to make a Ridley model that not only moves in a rather odd way when compared to all other bosses we’ve seen in Super Smash Bros., but is also of a seemingly playable size.
So, now, the question: why would Mr. Sakurai go out of his way to make Ridley relatively small just to be a stage hazard on a rather large stage, and why would he make this boss’ mannerisms seemingly unprepared to actually deal with fighters?
It’s because Ridley isn’t actually a “boss character!”
A rather solid case, Ms. Suzumiya, but an immediate problem to both of us just occurred to me.
And that would be…?
With the judge gone… We aren’t able to get a ruling
…
I suppose we’ll just wait until the game comes out then.
. Just 
