In the upcoming days I am going to post my comprehensive thoughts on the Ultimate roster. It is absolutely massive (21,000 words for the rough draft, so it might get trimmed or expanded a bit). Anyway, I am going to post what I wrote for Dark Samus's analysis. Please tell me what you think.
Dark Samus:
Dark Samus can be compared to two characters already on this roster, K. Rool and Chrom. Like K. Rool, her last appearance in her own franchise was all the way back in 2007, and like Chrom, her best chances of ever getting in seemed to have been with a prior Smash Bros. game (jn Dark Samus’s case, it was with Brawl). With Dark Samus, it is interesting to note that she is the only newcomer that made their first appearance during the 2000’s (of Ultimate’s newcomers four made their debut in the 1980’s, four in the 2010’s, two in the 1990’s, and Dark Samus being the single one from the 2000’s). She was the main villain to the Metroid Prime trilogy (she was Metroid Prime before it “reincarnated” as Dark Samus).
Although Metroid fans wanted Ridley, there were many that wanted Dark Samus. Prior to Zero Suit Samus’s confirmation, the idea of Metroid representation was Samus, Ridley, and Dark Samus. It was not just Ridley fans that recoiled with Zero Suit Samus getting in (since one of the reasons Sakurai said he put in ZSS was to further represent the Metroid series), but also Dark Samus fans whom had to contend with people who did not like the idea of Metroid only being represented with Samus’s. As with K. Rool and Diddy Kong, Dark Samus fans had to wait behind Ridley’s shadow during the pre-Brawl period to Ridley being considered a much more critical character to the franchise among Metroid fans (much like Diddy Kong was with DK fans). It is interesting to point out that requests for Dark Samus during the pre-Brawl period were on par with K. Rool’s even after K. Rool’s explosion in popularity after August. Metroid Prime 3 did a lot for Dark Samus’s standing among Metroid and Smash Bros. fans during the pre-Brawl period, and when Ridley was seeming like he might become “Bossley” many Metroid fans jumped on board the Dark Samus train. However, even with the inclusion of semi-clone newcomers with Brawl (Lucas, Wolf, and to an extent Toon Link), Dark Samus was not one of them. It seemed, as with many other characters from games prominent from that period (like Midna), she may have missed her chance of ever having getting in as a playable character.
Dark Samus continued to be popularly requested for Smash Bros. up until around 2011 when the Prime trilogy started to fade from recent memory. From that point on, Metroid fans all rallied very intensely around Ridley being desperate for the character that should have been confirmed with Brawl. Dark Samus continued to have a fanbase, but in comparison to other theoretical “fourth representative” for other franchises (Dixie Kong, Bandanna Dee, and Krystal), she definitely had far less requests at that points. Things looked very dire for Dark Samus after Metroid Other M’s release. There was also the fact unlike the rest of those characters, Dark Samus likely would never make another appearance in her own series ever again due to Dark Samus seeming like she died for good at the end of Prime 3 due to the source of all Phazon in the universe being destroyed at the end of Prime 3. Dark Samus fans believed that she very well could have missed the boat with Brawl. The expectation among Dark Samus fans was by this point that a semi-clone role is the best she could hope for and that would only be if Sakurai again had ruled out Ridley but still felt Metroid needed another playable character. Dark Samus had little of the passion behind her during pre-Smash 4 that she experienced during pre-Brawl. In April 2014, any hopes that they had were laid to rest, Dark Samus was confirmed as an Assist Trophy during the April 2014 Smash 4 Direct. It seemed as though Dark Samus now would never become a playable fighter seeing as the next game in the series would likely be in 2020 or 2021 when Prime 3 would be well over a decade old.
After the release of Smash 4, it was difficult to discern who had worse prospects going forward, Ridley (who was among the few characters to be handed a hard de-confirmation from Sakurai himself) or the increasingly irrelevant Dark Samus. Going into the ballot Metroid fans were heavily demoralized by how Smash 4 turned out. However, the seeds for Dark Samus’s debut in Smash Bros. actually began over a decade ago. I firmly believe had Metroid Prime 3 not been released a few months after Brawl’s release in Japan, that Sakurai would have overlooked the game entirely for content in Smash 4 (the only piece of Metroid Prime content in Smash 4 aside from music tracks was the trophy and Assist Trophy of Dark Samus). Dark Samus being included as an Assist Trophy in Smash 4 is likely what made Sakurai aware of the character’s existence to begin with. As with Chrom, I believe Dark Samus’s performance on the ballot was likely due to how a character was treated, in this case Ridley. It is possible that Metroid fans that became pessimistic on Ridley ever happening due to Sakurai’s own statements on the character that they voted for Dark Samus as a sort of consolation prize for themselves, hoping Metroid would at least have one of its villains. The thing is that this was likely a “silent” campaign as I (and other speculators) do not remember a push for Dark Samus on any Smash Bros. forums or social media during the ballot period.
Development for Ultimate likely having to be done two years earlier than it would otherwise and Sakurai’s decision to bring back every veteran ever likely made Ultimate poor in terms of newcomers. The lack of newcomers for Ultimate was likely the main factor that made Sakurai revisit the tactic he used when he was faced with a similar concern with Melee (a lack of newcomers), clone newcomers. Only Sakurai learned his lesson from Melee, and realized clones are more likely to be well-received if they are characters that are: 1. Popular within their own series. 2. A very obvious choice for a clone fighter (ie. Do not reprise Captain Ganondorf). It is very telling that of the five echo newcomers, that Dark Samus was able to make it among those five. Daisy, Chrom, and Ken are all characters that have at least major appearances in recent years (Daisy in various Mario spinoffs, Chrom in Fire Emblem Warriors, and Ken in Street Fighter V).
There were plenty of choices for other echo fighters that could have taken Dark Samus’s place. Impa, Funky Kong, Octoling, Shadow, and Jeanne are all very strong candidates for echo fighters. However, despite being absent from her own franchise for over a decade, and despite most of her fanbase seeming to have dissipated, just like in the Prime trilogy Dark Samus re-formed out of nowhere. This was not a case of like Ridley or K. Rool were there was a massive outpouring of support for years that made the character ended up being included. Dark Samus likely did well on the ballot (Sakurai said as much), but it was probably due to special circumstances that she did. In general, many stars had to align for her to finally be included as newcomer.
Dark Samus, just like her ingame counterpart, came back from the brink of death. She basically won the jackpot to a major lottery for getting in even as an echo fighter. There was absolutely no major demand for another Metroid newcomer after Ridley during the Smash 4 days (whereas with K. Rool fans there was the feeling that after K. Rool, Dixie Kong absolutely needed to get in too). Dark Samus making it in was yet another example of the impossible made possible with Ultimate. Dark Samus getting in was not through overwhelming fan demand, Sakurai wanting to promote a title at a particular point in time (see many of the Fire Emblem and Pokemon newcomers), Sakurai personally liking the character (as will be the case with Geno), or other arbitrary reasons (Sakurai literally said he added Dr. Mario as a clone because he really loved the remix made for the “fever” song in Melee. Dark Samus got very, very, very lucky to get in, and it absolutely had to hinge on a wide assortment of factors to happen in tangent with one another to happen. Its fortunate it did happen. As with the other echo fighters, Dark Samus is an absolutely important and/or popular character in her franchise. The Metroid Prime trilogy is among the best trilogies of all time in gaming, arguably the best one of all. Dark Samus defied all of the odds and joined the battle.
