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[MasterOfKnees]

Makes you realise how insane recoveries have generally gotten as the series has progressed. What once wasn't possible for even half the roster can now be achieved by the vast majority of the characters.

Even more so when you consider that Ultimate has made recovering more difficult compared to Smash 4 and Brawl.

 

[Arcanir]

We got some footage of Ridley vs. Pichu here, unlike most of the other footage we've gotten it's not a combo video so we get to see a lot more of him here.

I have to say I can see why Ryuga is terrified of Ridley's FSmash, it killed poor Pichu when he was at about 33% and it has low endlag for an attack like that.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

We got some footage of Ridley vs. Pichu here, unlike most of the other footage we've gotten it's not a combo video so we get to see a lot more of him here.

I have to say I can see why Ryuga is terrified of Ridley's FSmash, it killed poor Pichu when he was at about 33% and it has low endlag for an attack like that.

Yea, you're obviously not going to be throwing out F-Smashes regularly or anything, but it does seem like it's incredibly good at punishing the opponent, and in some cases it'll also be able to connect out of a parry. At the very least it's a move that opponents will have to respect, and I suspect we'll get a lot of good use out of it early on in the game's lifespan when people aren't accustomed to the matchup.

 

[IronTed]

Watching him land that down-B was very satisfying. Watching him basically throw away the last game hurt.

 

[StormC]

There's a Japanese ad showing all the classic Nintendo villains.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Really cool to see the marketing capitalize on this.

 

[ChronoBound]

Another thing I am anticipating in five days time aside from Ultimate, is the release of the Ridley amiibo. As I said in my massive piece on Ridley's confirmation, he was one of my favorite gaming characters since childhood. Back during the 1990's there was barely any toys of game characters around, especially outside of Mario, Sonic, and Pokemon. However, I still wanted to have Samus and Ridley among my cast of toys. I cut out artwork of them, and stuck them to pencils and used them as stand ins for when I played with the rest of my toys. I really, really wanted for them to make figures of those two.

I got a Samus figma in 2013, along with a Samus amiibo and Samus action figure (from the World of Nintendo line) in 2014 and 2015 respectively. The Samus figure in particular probably would have been my favorite action figure ever during my childhood.

Now, I will finally have some sort of figurine of Ridley. I am really ecstatic to finally have a piece of merchandise of my favorite gaming villain.

 

[SmashingXan2]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

 

[Strider_Bond00J]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

I think they did really well to represent Ridley in Smash Ultimate, so I'd say an 8/10 if you ask me.
* They managed to reduce him to a reasonable size for Smash Bros;Which has some canon basis and still keeps his menacing personality (His Smash Bros design being an amalgamation of NES size, textures and detail of Other M using the Super Metroid body)
* He doesn't have a 'RAWR, I'm a monster" personality - No. He's brutal and vicious, and this shines in his reveal trailer and his moveset. He outright KILLS Mario and Mega Man in his intro, and to rub the salt in Samus' terror, he spins Cappy about on his finger in a sadistic throwback to the Odyssey trailer.
* On the topic of his moveset - It definitely feels like most of what Ridley is capable of in the Metroid series is presented nicely in Smash - Plasma Breath is a basic projectile/fire attack Ridley's consistently had; Space Pirate Rush is pretty much one of Ridley's signature attacks at this point, grabbing his opponent and brutally dragging them across the floor/wall at high speed. Though it physically pains me that his Up-B is so awful... Especially when I see Ridley somehow flying downwards instead of towards the ledge. Skewer is generic, but brutal enough to suit Ridley.
* All of his other attacks still fit his personality and how he typically fights - often with fast strikes with his wings and tail, but some certain throwbacks like his down-smash being his wing slam from Metroid Prime. So his move set's solid.
* Alts are also well-thought out and look pretty good for the most part, being based off some of Ridley's past appearances - Super Metroid box-art, Meta Ridley, Neo-Ridley, his NES sprite, the gold statue...

Just like with King K. Rool, I think Sakurai well and truely met the fanbase's expectations when it comes to bringing Ridley to Smash.

 

[Ridley_Prime]

Up-B's not that bad... The down angle snaps to the ledge whether he's facing away or toward it.

#Ridley_SSBU pic.twitter.com/vgQ9YCB3Rt

— Iota (@XanIota) December 1, 2018

 

[Metal Shop X]

Up-B's not that bad... The down angle snaps to the ledge whether he's facing away or toward it.

#Ridley_SSBU pic.twitter.com/vgQ9YCB3Rt

— Iota (@XanIota) December 1, 2018

Combine that with the move being able to spike when angled down (as shown here), I feel like there is going be some nasty Ridley setup at the ledge in the future.

'can't wait to see what Ridley main will be able to do with this.

 

[The Event Mask]

Keep in mind that his up B is also a kill move. Some may challenge it but it they miss or are too late to hit him out of it, it could result in their death. It's also is not as slow as people make it out to be. It looks like it comes out faster then foxes but I could be wrong on that.

 

[EchoesOfRain]

I still find it odd that, chances are, we'll have to learn to B Reverse his up B to get the best angle for his recovery. I really hope they add some patch that allows him to move in 6 directions rather than the 4 we see now (up, down, up back, and forward down). I don't think any other character has a recovery that looks that awkward

 

[MasterOfKnees]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

I said it when he was first revealed, but he's perfect, his design and animations are even better than I had imagined, and I never expected them to draw inspiration from the manga, but it ended up being what they based Ridley's entire personality on in this game, which is just lovely. I really like his moveset aswell, I'm so happy they didn't force some gimmick on him, they kept it simple but distinct, as it should be. I'd also argue he has the best costumes in the game, he has an actual alt with two variations, and every single one of them is a reference to something from his home series, it's difficult to imagine how it could have been better in that regard other than minor nitpicks.

Competitive viability is not something I take into account when it comes to proper representation of a character, because with patches it's an ever changing process, and overall it's also hugely dependant on the game's overall mechanics, so I don't feel like a character is more or less true to itself on account of being good or bad. Now of course there's quite a bit of pessimism around Ridley in this regard atm, some of it overblown and some of it justified, but regardless of where he ends up I don't think it'll change my view on how much justice they did the character.

 

[IsmaR]

More footage from the same players as the video at the top of the current page, this time Ridley against Wolf.

Both players are still learning/make some mistakes (many SDs), but as the matches go on, and the players get more familiar with things, I'm finding it useful to learn from certain habits they have, and if nothing else it's entertaining to watch. Fireballs beating out/making it very hard for linear recoveries to make it back is definitely good to know.

 

[meleebrawler]

Probably the biggest mistake I see most Ridleys do when recovering is using their jumps too fast, if they held onto them they would be able to mixup and defend themselves more.

 

[IronTed]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

I say they did a great job. For starters giving him a new design was really cool. It incorporates different aspects well and strongly contrasts with most of the other fighters. The alts are great, with the exception of gold (which imperfectly references either the statue or the clone corpse), all are spot on and it's easy to see what they reference. Between the 7 NES, Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, and Prime are referenced. Ultimate also references Prime 3 and Other M, so they really covered their bases.

His reveal trailer also was surprising. They really showed Ridley in a light unlike that of any other newcomer. He was brutal and efficient, and all around awesome. It captured his feel.

His moves are cool, having specials referencing NES and Brawl (the latter influenced Other M) is neat. He's definitely not the best, but he looks good enough to be dangerous in the right hands, and patches are possible if he does indeed suck.

Miscellaneous things are neat too. On boxing ring he's called the cunning god of death, a rather obscure ZM reference if you're not a big fan. Palutena's guidance also mentioned almost every Ridley incarnation.

I'm not one to complain about something I've been wanting for years, but his down special is disappointing. Not a great reference, not useful, not great at all. Up special and Final Smash are fine even if they don't reference something. But beyond that I have nothing to complain about.

 

[AndreaAC]

There's a Japanese ad showing all the classic Nintendo villains.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Really cool to see the marketing capitalize on this.

xD I cracked at the pic where the girl that took this photo wanted to touch Ganondorf so bad! Haha!

Also, Dedede sticks out like a sore thumb...poor guy, his very first impression left him with the Villain stigma when he has basically saved Dreamland more times afterwards.

 

[Arcanir]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

-Alts: They're excellent, all of them are references to each of his appearances across the franchise, they gave him a more unique alt in the form of Meta Ridley, and they generally look good overall. There's very little room to complain with this batch, they did a great job looking into the character and representing how he looked across the series.

-Competitive viability: I agree with MasterofKnees completely on this one. Competitive viability is fleeting as it doesn't factor into how the character is represented, it's factored into how they operate within the environment the character is in and even the best represented characters can be bad in the game. so it's not a good way to judge a character's inclusion. Even ignoring that, while he definitely has flaws a number of them seem to be overstated and generally I feel that the fandom as a whole is jumping the gun on a number of characters with limited information (along with Ridley, there's also examples like Chrom and Bowser Jr. who were also similarly overlooked until players actually looked into the characters). Right now it's best to just let things settle and then figure out where he stands then and there, there's too much uncertainty in the scene to know for sure.

-Moves: Very good in general, some are crafted wholesale like Skewer, but in general they emphasize the brutality and cunning nature of the character. The focus on his tail for attacks, grinding a foe across the stage with little sympathy, pelting them with a stream of fireballs, all of that feels like Ridley at his core and they help in bringing his character across in how he plays for the player. There are a couple nitpicks I do have here and there like the Dair, but I can't complain with how the character came across in Smash.

-References: Also very good, the alts were already mentioned, but you also have some nods to the manga popping up in his animations and trailers, and even smaller nods to things like his "Cunning God of Death" title from ZM and his narcissism being mentioned in the Palutena Guidance. You can tell that Ridley wasn't a character they just slapped into the game and called it a day, they did put thought into bringing his character in and for all the little details that they give him it is much appreciated.

All in all, from design to references I feel the character has been represented very well in the game overall. Sakurai said he worked hard to bring the character to life as a playable fighter and I definitely believe that, there's a certain care in adding him into the game and he does truly feel like the space dragon I loved from Metroid. I can't be happier with how he's been brought over here, and I look forward to playing him as soon as the game comes out.

 

[meleebrawler]

I say they did a great job. For starters giving him a new design was really cool. It incorporates different aspects well and strongly contrasts with most of the other fighters. The alts are great, with the exception of gold (which imperfectly references either the statue or the clone corpse), all are spot on and it's easy to see what they reference. Between the 7 NES, Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, and Prime are referenced. Ultimate also references Prime 3 and Other M, so they really covered their bases.

His reveal trailer also was surprising. They really showed Ridley in a light unlike that of any other newcomer. He was brutal and efficient, and all around awesome. It captured his feel.

His moves are cool, having specials referencing NES and Brawl (the latter influenced Other M) is neat. He's definitely not the best, but he looks good enough to be dangerous in the right hands, and patches are possible if he does indeed suck.

Miscellaneous things are neat too. On boxing ring he's called the cunning god of death, a rather obscure ZM reference if you're not a big fan. Palutena's guidance also mentioned almost every Ridley incarnation.

I'm not one to complain about something I've been wanting for years, but his down special is disappointing. Not a great reference, not useful, not great at all. Up special and Final Smash are fine even if they don't reference something. But beyond that I have nothing to complain about.

The final smash references the laser breath variant he uses in the Prime games, and though it's more of a Samus reference the way the ship crashes is similar to Zero Mission (Incidentally the name, Plasma Scream, has me imagining him screaming profanities at Samus's ship and his breath being a concentrated beam of hate).

Wing Blitz references the ramming attacks he does in Super Metroid, and more closely the charging attacks he uses in both Prime 1 and as Omega Ridley.

Skewer can be seen as a manga reference or just general tail use, but I think the move is more useful than it looks. It has just enough range and speed to work as a whiff punish on laggier moves, and not being able to block the well-placed makes it even better for that. It's a move of opportunity like FLUDD, not something you actively try to land.

 

[StormC]

From the design to alts to personality to trailer, they went all out on Ridley, and it's hard to have a lot of complaints. That said...

-I wish they found a way to make the iconic pogo tail attack work (maybe it could be a down B instead of the skewer move).

-There was also a part of me before his confirmation that wondered if they could use his Meta/Omega form as the standard because of greater moveset potential, but obviously you sorta gotta have classic Ridley, it would be like having Kaptain K. Rool instead of King.

-As far as size goes, I do wish there was a way his line of sight could be above Samus's, having them both in the same "height" is weird, but I think they did a good job showing that Ridley is crouching reeeeeeeeeeally low to the ground, basically squatting, so it's not a big deal.

-I'm not huge on his Final Smash, it's just sort of... odd. Something involving Space Pirates or whatnot would have been ideal, I think.

-Would have been neat to incorporate the Baby Metroid in some way. Him taking it is such an iconic scene in Super, maybe it could have been at least in a victory screen or something.

-The shared victory theme with Dark Samus is great, but it could've been cool if he had his own like K. Rool.

Overall, Sakurai and his team did an incredible job, considering this is mostly really nitpicky. He said that altering Ridley into a fighter "wouldn't be Ridley anymore," but I hope he appreciates how much he proved himself wrong with this game. It truly couldn't be Ultimate without Ridley on the roster.

 

[Rizen]

I've been watching several Ridley matches and here are my impressions:

Ridley suffers pretty bad from big character syndrome. Although his mobility isn't bad with 41st best air speed and 9th in run speed he doesn't have good ways to breach zoning/camping. He'll probably rely on Bair as it seems to be his best poke but even then it will be hard to contend with someone like Marth. Neutral is by far his worst state. Fireballs aren't very fast and too risky unless the opponent is offstage.

It looks like R was designed around gimping. He has midair jumps, a recovery with good distance, fireballs that drag down and of course his command grab is great at securing stage control. When intercepting he has a large presence, especially with ssbu's ultra laggy airdodges. His advantage state looks good but not broken.

Disadvantage is bad but not terrible for such a large character. He'll get juggled hard but has the weight to take it (although he's 1 unit lighter than Samus, wth?). Midair jumps help but he's basically charizard without the option to swap. Correct me if I'm wrong but R doesn't have any super armor to tank attacks.

If setups into his sweet spot tail thing and/or command grab are found it could really boost his viability. If not, he doesn't have much choice but to outplay the opponent with good reads. Ridley's weird in that his tools look OP yet seem highly impractical. He'll probably be a good scrub buster.

Overall Ridley seems underwhelming. Nothing's terrible about him but he'll have a hard time in neutral, a good but not OP advantage and bad but not horrible disadvantage. He lacks a good trump card.

 

[ZTurtle]

So, ignore the fact he's finally in, what do you think of how Ridley is represented in Smash? Alts, competitive viability, moves, references to his game appearances, how well is Ridley represented in Ultimate?

Everyone's pretty much got it on the nugget in terms of what makes Ridley's representation here great, but I just have a few minor nitpicks:

• His Meta Ridley skin is badass... except for his hands to me. I dunno, whenever I see his bright purple hands in contrast to his metal arms, it just looks to me like Ridley is wearing some kinda metal shirt. I really wish there were some metal plating on his hands to avoid that look.
  • I also really wish that he had metal talons on his feet rather than those squared off toes that he has.

• I really wish Ridley's victory jingle was an excerpt from his iconic theme. I mean, Dark Pit has his personal theme as a victory so y'know. I get that they probably made it a dark reprise of the Item Get jingle so that he could share it with Dark Samus, but when they gave Robin/Lucina and Corrin two unique victory themes from the other FE characters when I don't think they really needed 'em... I dunno. It isn't really a big deal tho.

• Having a Fox-esque flip kick for an Up-Smash seems kinda weird to me. I dunno, Ridley doesn't really strike me as being a kicker. I feel like an upwards tail strike would have been cooler, but I suppose they just wanted a quick, functional Up-Smash, which is fine.

Still, these are all small potatoes considering the delightfully brutal Space Dragon we got with this game. He's definitely going on my personal roster.

 

[AndreaAC]

His Final Smash reminded me of this panel in particular from the manga (Where he just finished Gray Voice for good). The first time I saw it I thought "It looks kind of familiar..." and after re-reading the manga again, there it is.

 

[slamallama]

-The shared victory theme with Dark Samus is great, but it could've been cool if he had his own like K. Rool.

Seems like (aside from the weirdness going on over in the Fire Emblem squad) victory themes are divided into good guys/bad guys per series- so even if K. Rool is the only villain from DK, he still gets his own. It's the same way Bowser and Bowser Jr. share a unique one (granted, they're more closely linked than Ridley and Dark Samus, but you get my point)

 

[StormC]

Seems like (aside from the weirdness going on over in the Fire Emblem squad) victory themes are divided into good guys/bad guys per series- so even if K. Rool is the only villain from DK, he still gets his own. It's the same way Bowser and Bowser Jr. share a unique one (granted, they're more closely linked than Ridley and Dark Samus, but you get my point)

Rosalina and Meta Knight have their own victory themes as well.

 

[meleebrawler]

I've been watching several Ridley matches and here are my impressions:

Ridley suffers pretty bad from big character syndrome. Although his mobility isn't bad with 41st best air speed and 9th in run speed he doesn't have good ways to breach zoning/camping. He'll probably rely on Bair as it seems to be his best poke but even then it will be hard to contend with someone like Marth. Neutral is by far his worst state. Fireballs aren't very fast and too risky unless the opponent is offstage.

It looks like R was designed around gimping. He has midair jumps, a recovery with good distance, fireballs that drag down and of course his command grab is great at securing stage control. When intercepting he has a large presence, especially with ssbu's ultra laggy airdodges. His advantage state looks good but not broken.

Disadvantage is bad but not terrible for such a large character. He'll get juggled hard but has the weight to take it (although he's 1 unit lighter than Samus, wth?). Midair jumps help but he's basically charizard without the option to swap. Correct me if I'm wrong but R doesn't have any super armor to tank attacks.

If setups into his sweet spot tail thing and/or command grab are found it could really boost his viability. If not, he doesn't have much choice but to outplay the opponent with good reads. Ridley's weird in that his tools look OP yet seem highly impractical. He'll probably be a good scrub buster.

Overall Ridley seems underwhelming. Nothing's terrible about him but he'll have a hard time in neutral, a good but not OP advantage and bad but not horrible disadvantage. He lacks a good trump card.

That's funny, because I find players that are trying to camp Ridley out with projectiles is actually the next best opportunity to use Plasma Breath outside of edgeguarding. He just needs to time his charge carefully and the stream will overpower anything short of a charged projectile, giving him an oppportunity to close in.

As far as getting spaced out... have you seen the range on his tail? Bair is good but I hardly see it being his main spacing tool when it's one of the few that isn't disjointed. Ftilt and dtilt have great forward reach, utilt, usmash and uair are great anti-airs and fair has just as much reach as bair, is disjointed and can chain into itself to boot. Bair is better for landing though. The guy is pretty much Marth with a big body, and his down b can have similar utility to Shield Breaker with it's ability to ignore shields.

Nobody's labbing him at the moment, and if they did we'd know more about the rumours of his tail moves destroying projectiles regardless of strength...

 

[slamallama]

Rosalina and Meta Knight have their own victory themes as well.

Ah, yep. You're correct, my bad.
I'd say that Meta Knight get his own cause he's a villain, but Dedede is too, and his is the regular Kirby theme...
Nevermind, the logic of who gets what victory theme seems to be pretty loose. I imagine they just didn't want three separate victory themes for Metroid when there's only three characters actually represented from the series.

 

[RidleyDX]

"Life may not be perfect, but at least Ridley in smash" Truer words have not been spoken. Still great to see our guy getting featured in these funny fan videos.

 

[IronTed]

AndreaAC yeah I forgot about that. It also reminded me of this

Like meleebrawler said, skewer is definitely a manga reference. So yeah, collectively Ridley's specials are definitely better references than I used to think.

 

[AndreaAC]

AndreaAC AndreaAC yeah I forgot about that. It also reminded me of this

Oh yeah, that attack and scene of the trailer was DEFINITELY a reference to that. xD Guess Ridley was feeling rather...nostalgic. Oh, also this:

To what Rids did to Mario.

 

[Goodstyle_4]

https://twitter.com/piuzera_/status/1069382979863175168

You guys are gonna want to see this.

 

[Dalek_Kolt]

https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/wip-released-metroid-mod.16761/page-56
Found a thing.

 

[Dhragen]

https://twitter.com/piuzera_/status/1069382979863175168

You guys are gonna want to see this.

Oh, that's the stuff i wanted to see, less abuse of his smash attacks, and more of his Tilt pokes.

I also found a thing....it seems that we have one reliable way to connect Skewer on 1v1 after all

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[quad_draxis]

Does Ridley's tail have hurtboxes? Considering how long range some of his tail attacks are, it would be nice if his tail didn't have a hurtbox or had invulnerability during certain moves

 

[Jovahexeon Joranvexeon]

Ooh! That Side-B at 1:40! That's one for the meta books folks!

 

[quad_draxis]

Ooh! That Side-B at 1:40! That's one for the meta books folks!

I wonder how difficult that is to tech. You have a lot of time to react to it, but you sort of have to predict when Ridley will decide to let go

 

[IronTed]

Does anyone know what happens when skewer connects with a shield?

 

[slamallama]

Ooh! That Side-B at 1:40! That's one for the meta books folks!

Hoohoohooooooo that airdodge animation at 2:50 is slick

 

[Porygon2]

Does anyone know what happens when skewer connects with a shield?

Was just looking for this. Smash Wiki says the sweetspot ignores shield but I've seen no source for that. Also:

 

[meleebrawler]

Ooh! That Side-B at 1:40! That's one for the meta books folks!

Few things to note:

- Wing Blitz has a landing hitbox
- The semi-spike angle of ftilt seems like a great opportunity to charge fireballs for a tech-chase, or setting up edgeguards
- Utilt is a high-percent kill option. Pretty good considering it's combo potential at low percents and Roy being a mid-weight fastfaller
- Usmash has more lateral reach than it appears