Ridley's palette swaps

[Garteam]

On Tuesday, GameExplain uploaded a video showcasing the palette swaps of the playable characters in the demo, including Ridley:

As such, I tried to determine the origins of Ridley's various palette swaps:
Default: a mix between Ridley's design in Super Metroid, the Prime series, and Other M
Red: Ridley's appearance on the North American/PAL box art of Super Metroid
Blue: Neo-Ridley's appearance from Metroid Fusion
Green: Kraid's appearance in Super Metroid? Could also be Ridley's appearance in Metroid Zero Mission, but the green is a little bright for that.
Bright Purple: Ridley's sprite in the original Metroid
Orange: No idea, possibly refrencing another boss in the series?
White: Little Birdie from Metroid Other M?
Dark Purple/Black (difficult to tell from the angle of the television): Meta Ridley from Metroid Prime 3

Does anyone have an idea on what the Orange palette could be referencing? Or alternatively, feel free to let me know if you disagree on any of the origins I provided for Ridley's costumes.

 

[IronTed]

On Tuesday, GameExplain uploaded a video showcasing the palette swaps of the playable characters in the demo, including Ridley:

As such, I tried to determine the origins of Ridley's various palette swaps:
Default: a mix between Ridley's design in Super Metroid, the Prime series, and Other M
Red: Ridley's appearance on the North American/PAL box art of Super Metroid
Blue: Neo-Ridley's appearance from Metroid Fusion
Green: Kraid's appearance in Super Metroid? Could also be Ridley's appearance in Metroid Zero Mission, but the green is a little bright for that.
Bright Purple: Ridley's sprite in the original Metroid
Orange: No idea, possibly refrencing another boss in the series?
White: Little Birdie from Metroid Other M?
Dark Purple/Black (difficult to tell from the angle of the television): Meta Ridley from Metroid Prime 3

Does anyone have an idea on what the Orange palette could be referencing? Or alternatively, feel free to let me know if you disagree on any of the origins I provided for Ridley's costumes.

These are my takes:

The Green indeed refers to Ridley's Zero Mission art. The White likely refers to Ridley Robot from Zero Mission as well. The Orange has been debated, some say it refers to the golden statue that leads to Tourian, some say it references his corps from Fusion, some say it's Charizard. No idea what the black one is, it doesn't seem to match anything, although the wing membrane resembles the Brawl incarnation. Otherwise I agree with you.


edit: Here is the Zero Mission art.

 

[StormC]

The "Charizard" alt doesn't look like Charizard at all. My money is on it being the Tourian statue.

 

[Uffe]

Ridley
Super Metroid Box Art Ridley
Fusion Ridley
Zero Mission Ridley
NES Ridley
Tourian Statue Ridley
Mecha Ridley
Meta Ridley

 

[TechPowah]

Whether it's intentional or not, i've no idea
but the statue Ridley color having blue/purple wings reminds me of the Captain N cartoon Ridley

 

[Blackrider213]

Actually, looking over at the palette swaps, Meta Ridley isn't really shown. Otherwise, we'd clearly see the armor that he wears as well as the yellow wings. But we know he is in the game. So I think Meta Ridley might actually be an echo character, unless they decide to give Ridley the Wario treatment from Brawl and give him more than 8 palette swaps.

 

[StormC]

Actually, looking over at the palette swaps, Meta Ridley isn't really shown. Otherwise, we'd clearly see the armor that he wears as well as the yellow wings. But we know he is in the game. So I think Meta Ridley might actually be an echo character, unless they decide to give Ridley the Wario treatment from Brawl and give him more than 8 palette swaps.

Meta Ridley is on Ridley's site profile. More likely it's an alt like POR/RD Ike.

 

[Gerrothorax]

My favorite is definitely the white one. It doesn't appear to reference anything but I think the dulled white suits his skeletal appearance.

 

[UltimateWario]

My favorite is definitely the white one. It doesn't appear to reference anything but I think the dulled white suits his skeletal appearance.

It’s a reference to Mecha Ridley, a robot built by him in his own image in Zero Mission. Grey with green highlights.

 

[Gerrothorax]

It’s a reference to Mecha Ridley, a robot built by him in his own image in Zero Mission. Grey with green highlights.

This thing?
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net..._ridley.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20150329221156

 

[Blackrider213]

Meta Ridley is on Ridley's site profile. More likely it's an alt like POR/RD Ike.

Wow, completely missed that somehow. Wonder why it wasn't in the E3 build then.

 

[UltimateWario]

Wow, completely missed that somehow. Wonder why it wasn't in the E3 build then.

I think people have confirmed that the version playable at E3 is a good bit older than the one we saw in the trailer due to some key differences.

 

[Uffe]

Wow, completely missed that somehow. Wonder why it wasn't in the E3 build then.

Some past characters have had 16 color palettes, so it wouldn't surprise me if Ridley got a Meta Ridley alternate with the same color palettes.

 

[StormC]

I think people have confirmed that the version playable at E3 is a good bit older than the one we saw in the trailer due to some key differences.

Does that mean Mr. Samurai still has time to fix his blunder of no pogo tail D-Air?

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Does that mean Mr. Samurai still has time to fix his blunder of no pogo tail D-Air?

Doubt we'll see moveset changes like that, they'll at most be tweaking hitboxes and numbers. Although I'd love to have it I think the problem with it is that it's hard to balance, its range would be mad, and he'd be completely busted on stages like Battlefield with it poking through platforms.

 

[Ridley_Prime]

Doubt we'll see moveset changes like that, they'll at most be tweaking hitboxes and numbers. Although I'd love to have it I think the problem with it is that it's hard to balance, its range would be mad, and he'd be completely busted on stages like Battlefield with it poking through platforms.

Yeah, I can live with having no pogo tail d-air since it'd probably make some think that he's broken or whatnot.

The more I see or hear about his gameplay now, the more I also realize how much we oversold the idea on him being an aerial Little Mac. lol His air game isn't awful or anything, just average, but with everything he seems to have going for him, I'm fine with it, not that many long supportive fans will care that much as to what his tier placement ends up being.

 

[silver_blade001]

I am curious, in his trailer he had the Meta Ridley outfit, but in the demo he only had pallet swaps. Are outfits going to be a bigger part of Smash Ultimate? Could we get Omega Ridley, or Proteus Ridley as other outfits?

 

[Erimir]

with everything he seems to have going for him, I'm fine with it, not that many long supportive fans will care that much as to what his tier placement ends up being.

I'm totally cool with him not being high tier. Considering that the three characters I play the most in SSB4 are Mega Man, WFT and Ganondorf... hardly high tier choices. But I'd be very disappointed if he was garbage tier, particularly since I suspect it would be linked to him being large and easily comboed, leading to plenty of "SEE, HE WAS TOO BIG" jokes.

Of course, I'd really prefer there was no such thing as garbage tier, or that its only member is Pichu (who was intended somewhat as a joke character in Melee anyway). They can't balance it so that every character is equally good, but I think avoiding garbage tiers and god tiers should be a basic goal.

 

[UltimateWario]

I think avoiding garbage tiers and god tiers should be a basic goal.

Bingo. With patching available, this should be MORE than possible, yet we still saw the likes of Cloud and Bayo. Cloud has apparently been nerfed to reasonable levels and we all know what’s going to happen to Bayonetta, so we just have to hope we don’t have any new game dominating characters. Especially not Ridley, because that brings hate.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Someone needs to hack a pink and orange "Fake Ridley" alt

 

[AustarusIV]

At first I was kinda meh on Ridley's palettes since I first saw them through a low-quality pic, but now that I've had a good look at all of them I think they're all really solid choices. I'm debating over whether I should go for the red palette for nostalgia reasons since I first got into Metroid after looking at Ridley on the Super Metroid boxart, or the golden palette since it reminds me of King Ghidorah (one of my absolute favorite Godzilla monsters).

 

[Terrazi Terrajin]

Whether it's intentional or not, i've no idea
but the statue Ridley color having blue/purple wings reminds me of the Captain N cartoon Ridley

Mystery solved folks.

 

[Uffe]

Whether it's intentional or not, i've no idea
but the statue Ridley color having blue/purple wings reminds me of the Captain N cartoon Ridley

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that's what the color is based off of. The gold Ridley appears more orange on a smaller scale for some reason.

 

[Sean Wheeler]

Well, considering Meta Ridley isn't in the E3 demo, do you think some costumes would be replaced by the time the game releases in December? It's really hard to take the costumes as the final when the one costume confirmed isn't there and all eight slots were filled. Unless he can have more than eight costumes or there could be DLC costumes, it seems like one of the demo costumes won't be in the final game.

 

[Enchess]

Well, considering Meta Ridley isn't in the E3 demo, do you think some costumes would be replaced by the time the game releases in December? It's really hard to take the costumes as the final when the one costume confirmed isn't there and all eight slots were filled. Unless he can have more than eight costumes or there could be DLC costumes, it seems like one of the demo costumes won't be in the final game.

I love every color in the E3 demo, so I'd be a bit bummed to lose one, even to Meta Ridley. If Ridley only gets 8 colors counting Meta Ridley, I don't want any alternate Meta Ridley colors if it means losing more than 1 of what we have.

I like the theory that everyone starts with 8 colors but there are costumes for some characters that can be unlocked through special conditions. As cool as Meta Ridley alt is, it'd be even cooler if we unlocked it through overcoming some challenge as Ridley.

 

[soviet prince]

could work like wario