Ridley needs an Anthropomorphic Shift

[Quillion]

Two things:

• Ridley has supposedly human intelligence, but it's only in that Metroid manga where we actually see him talk. I don't really like his portrayal of him being little more than a beast. Not very fitting for Samus's archenemy if he's portrayed as an animal. He should be more like the Joker: psychotic and intelligent and can plan combat with his archenemy Batman. Ridley needs to be able to talk and do things with some semblance of intelligence like operating machinery and issuing commands to his Pirate troops.
  
• None of his recent body shapes are built to be anything but huge. The two most valiant efforts to put Ridley in Smash: the vBrawl iteration and the PM iteration aren't very ideal. The former is too tall and the latter is too wide. There's his original body shape from Metroid 1, but that's been completely thrown away in favor of the elongated shape. What he needs is something that combines the elongated shape with more humanlike proportions. The Prime design is already closest to this: just changing his neck and head size would make it perfect.

 

[Seanp12]

I actually think the Other M Ridley would work best if they made his arms-to-legs ratio less apelike (and his mouth less ducklike).

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

The thing about Ridley is that he's always used as the game's flying boss; which is a problem, since that means he's rarely on the ground and thus we don't know much about how he fares in CQC. Other M somewhat shows his intelligence, but never in a way that can be seen as human-like; it's always to make him look more animal-like. He really does need a speaking role; but if he does speak, I want someone who can give him an air of sophistication and brutality at the same time, because while Ridley's a psychopath, he's not insane; he's a schemer with brawn, not a violent berserker. Any voice he gets needs to reflect his personality well. Jeremy Irons comes to mind, but I'm not sure if he'd do that sort of role.

Personally, I would love to see a Ridley that uses feline elements in his design alongside the pre-existing Xenomorph and dragon elements, because having a feline body design is a good way to have terrestrial boss fights; people know how cats fight, so designing Ridley to fight like a combination of cat and how he traditionally fights would be a good way to make a fresh boss fight with him. Plus it'd make it easier to make a Smash version of the character, since he'd have a lot more attacks to work with.

 

[Seanp12]

I'd always thought it would be cool for Ridley to be working with someone who gave him some sort of communication collar like the dogs in Up had to speak English with. Then, when he inevitably betrays that person when they and Samus least expect it, he turns to Samus and says "you understand our language well enough, right Hunter?" Then he rips the collar off his neck and goes to town.

 

[Quillion]

I'd always thought it would be cool for Ridley to be working with someone who gave him some sort of communication collar like the dogs in Up had to speak English with. Then, when he inevitably betrays that person when they and Samus least expect it, he turns to Samus and says "you understand our language well enough, right Hunter?" Then he rips the collar off his neck and goes to town.

But he can already talk perfectly in the Zero Mission prequel manga.

...which in its entirety is pretty much Other M done right.

 

[Seanp12]

Yeah, I know. I always presumed that was just him speaking whatever the Space Pirate language is. It would seem rather awkward for a serious series like Metroid to have a giant lizard speaking English. Though The Hobbit has Smaug, so maybe I'm just presuming too much.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

What if Ridley can speak English but he has a disgruntled monster-esque voice. Enough to end up putting up subtitles to know what the **** he's saying.

 

[Seanp12]

I don't see what the point would be of even bothering with English at that point. I really am not against him simply speaking, but I do think it would seem unnatural for the tone of the series.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

Well Bowser either Roars or Speaks. Even though it's mostly phrases. But he did speak full sentences in Mario Sunshine. It may or may not work for Ridley. As Captain of the Space Pirates, He should be smart enough to be able too.

 

[Seanp12]

Well Bowser either Roars or Speaks. Even though it's mostly phrases. But he did speak full sentences in Mario Sunshine. It may or may not work for Ridley. As Captain of the Space Pirates, He should be smart enough to be able too.

Eh, I don't think Sunshine is a good example of voice acting. Besides, the Mario series is much more lighthearted and normally resorts to text boxes anyway.

Anyhow, my problem's not that he's not intelligent enough to speak English. It's that he's not humanoid and his mouth ought to be physically incapable of forming English words. Besides, having him simply speak a pirate language with subtitles or some sort of sci-fi translator device would explain the "why doesn't he speak in the games" discrepancy.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

I can understand your point. Ridley will speak alien but the subtitles are in English. I can see that.

 

[Seanp12]

Another thing is that Ridley rarely behaves intelligently in the games. In Other M, his demon furby stage did a lot of that while still indulging in more violent acts once in a while. Once he hit the furry lizard stage, it's still there, but less obvious. (i.e. pinning Samus to the ground as furry lizard, taunting her as dragon) BaganSmashBros's Project M mod adds a simple yet effective touch of intelligence through his "come at me" taunt, but we see almost none of that in Metroid games. It's so simple and effective. I wish there were more of it.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

Oh Yeah! I was going to say something about Ridley's Devil Furby form. He did act rather hostile towards Samus and even almost bit people who tried to care for him in his smaller state (before growing)

 

[Seanp12]

And then there's the very clearly intelligent and downright evil death glare he gives her after their first encounter.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

Samus wanted to take care of ''Furby Ridley''

But in my head i was like: ''Don't **** with that thing.''

 

[Seanp12]

I don't know, I always felt like she was just as creeped out as the player was. Well, maybe not just as creeped out, because I would have tried to kill it right then.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

I would have shot it. Right when I first encounter It.

 

[Mega Bidoof]

I would personally love if the next Metroid game has Ridley being cloned again, by the morons at the Galactic Federation who don't when to not mess with stuff.

This one has all of Ridley's memories (both from the original body and the Other M clone body), breaks loose from his cloning pod thing when he realizes what's going on, and kills everyone.

But at that point, Ridley is incomplete. His body is unstable, and is quickly deteriorating.
Then Ridley dies again. Then he wakes up again in another cloning pod. He then realizes the Federation set up his mind so it would be transferred to other clone bodies so the Federation can keep studying him if he died. Too bad that won't happen because he killed everyone.

So then Ridley, with his newfound ability, decides to go after his archenemy, Samus Aran, using a variety of new forms.

He would start of by cramming a worn-out battle suit into the cloning pod and killing himself, going into the suit, and then uses that humanoid form to start creating his own new humanoid form, which he'd use for most of the game. In this humanoid form, he'd act kinda like the Joker, relying more on brains than brawn.


A guy can dream.

 

[ZeldaZephyr]

That actually sounds pretty cool! It could be a great plot for a future Metroid game.

IF THERE IS ONE!!!