Ridley plays great so far! Awesome to see him him in and he's quicker than I expected. Any bread-and-butter tips for those of us who want to play well with him?
N-Air is probably his best move and works well for many different purposes thanks to its great range, it's a defensive move, it's a combo move at low %, and it edgeguards well. The tip of his tail also eats weaker projectiles, so it also gives him a bit of camping resistance.
D-Tilt has great range and follows up into F-Air at low % on every character I've played against so far. Falling N-Air -> D-Tilt -> F-Tilt is pretty much his bread and butter combo.
U-Air is also a great move, at worst it eats an airdodge, which more often than not still leaves Ridley with the advantage. Because of this U-Throw is actually pretty great, even if it doesn't combo, because being above Ridley is an uncomfortable position.
U-Smash is a good and quick KO option, but do keep in mind that it doesn't have a hitbox in front of Ridley, but rather it has one behind him.
Side-B can be mashed out of, but it depends on the difference between you and your opponent's %. If you have taken the most damage, then it's pretty easy to mash out of, so you either have to release it early by pressing jump, or prepare for when they do get out of it, but if your opponent has taken more damage than you then it's very difficult to get out of. You can also release opponents when you grab them in the air, which is pretty useful against characters with bad recoveries, as you can just take them as far down as you're comfortable with and leave them for dead, or maybe even drag them under the stage. Do keep in mind that if you try to drag your opponent out Ridley always dies first no matter whether you drag them down or off the side of a stage, so releasing at just the right time is crucial.
The Fireballs are best used for edgeguarding from my experience, a lot of characters can punish you very easily if you just use them like a regular projectile, especially as if Ridley is hit while charging them he'll take a lot of damage (~25% iirc), and even the weakest hits will trigger it. Fully charged it deals over 30% though, so if you can hit with it while your opponent is recovering it's really strong.
Those are just some of my early thoughts though, maybe they'll look like crazy ramblings soon enough as people find more and more things with the character, or maybe some people already disagree with me, but it's early days so that's the best I've got. Atm there's no widely agreed upon best way to play him, and he's a deceivingly complex character as well, so it'll take some time before we find the optimal playstyle for him.