Important The Ridley for SSB4 Thread - End of an Era

[CrypticSpark]

mmm, then why would dark samus have gotten assist trophy status? Sakurai showed enough knowledge of the franchise to give it a phaazon attack and everything. Would have been an easy alternative to no new character.

If I were to put any money on a new rep that wasn't Ridley it would have been Dark Samus, and SA-X would look pretty much the same as Samus unless they went with the mutated look.

Spoiler

but it's just like Fi, Ghirahim and Midna who only appear in their official games once.

So seems a odd choice they would just use Dark Samus as an assist trophy. Lucina proves they aren't afraid to add new clone-like characters, which some variation over the original, which would have fit Dark Samus based off the assist trophy moves. Though people would have just complained it was another Samus, even if technically it isn't.

 

[Zem-raj]

Dark Samus would've been an nice addition yes, but think about it for a moment, there'd be 3 character slots with characters featuring the name Samus. Regardless of whether one of them would be different to the other two, to the average non Metroid fan, Dark Samus would be misinterpreted as another form of Samus (even though Dark Samus is actually Metroid Prime). Even then, Dark Samus is part of the Prime series, whilst it's one of the most important characters for that series, the Prime series isn't considered part of the main canon timeline. Ridley is the second most important character for Metroid, he'd bring something more unique to the roster, [everything listed before and in the second post of OP].

 

[Obsidorox]

Mother Brain was also added as an assist trophy. Sakurai isn't ignoring the Metroid franchise because of other M's lack of success. The question is just if Ridley is important enough and unique enough to add to the roster. Ridley would be another large fighter, like Bowser, Dedede, and DK, which would be the first new large character in SSB4 right? Ridley would had something new to the roster which should work in his favor.

 

[Speculator]

Refer to the second post on this entire thread please

Whether or not you personally think Ridley can work, or if you would be happy with a Ridley modified to work within SSB, is rather besides the point. I'm saying look at it from another perspective. Ridley is easily the second most important character in Metroid and hasn't been seen playable in SSB so far. A second Samus that had a brief appearance in Zero Mission got in, when from a character perspective Ridley would seem like the obvious choice. We should be asking "OK, why is that exactly?", and I think Sakurai having reservations about how he would play is a reasonable answer.

The only thing I'll disagree with is that you say it's most likely that Sakurai doesn't see Ridley working. He's said on record that he could make Ridley work. I'm not saying it's likely Ridley's playable either. I'm just saying we really don't know at this point, and we know Sakurai has changed his mind about quite a few things from brawl to now.

Do you mean the Nintendo Power interview? The way I read it it seemed like more of a "hmmm, well, maybe" rather than "yes we could make this character work". On some levels, it sounded like he hadn't even considered Ridley as a playable candidate at that point. He seemed a bit surprised the interviewer would even suggest it, but then again it's hard to gauge his reaction through just translated text.

 

[Phaazoid]

I remember this picture from the pre-brawl era, lol

If I were to put any money on a new rep that wasn't Ridley it would have been Dark Samus, and SA-X would look pretty much the same as Samus unless they went with the mutated look.

Spoiler

but like Fi, Ghirahim and Midna only appear in one official game.

So seems a odd choice they would just use Dark Samus as an assist trophy. Lucina proves they aren't afraid to add new clone-like characters, which some variation over the original, which would have fit Dark Samus based off the assist trophy moves. Though people would have just complained it was another Samus, even if technically it isn't.

Eh, we have 3 foxes, they can deal with 2 Samus'

Do you mean the Nintendo Power interview? The way I read it it seemed like more of a "hmmm, well, maybe" rather than "yes we could make this character work". On some levels, it sounded like he hadn't even considered Ridley as a playable candidate at that point. He seemed a bit surprised the interviewer would even suggest it, but then again it's hard to gauge his reaction through just translated text.

It did sound like he didn't consider Ridley playable in Brawl in that interview, to me. I know that's just opinion.

He also didn't consider Villager, because he wasn't a fighter. Mii's too, he decided felt wrong for Brawl.

So basically all of our data points to we have no idea. Far from confirmed, but definitely a possibility this time around.

 

[majora_787]

Spoiler

Size part was a joke... not a very good one apparently...
For the rest you, you got me there. Death never held any characters back, look at everyone who's gotten in to Smash so far. And about prominent characters, there's the thing, I don't see Medusa as as prominent as Pit or Palutena. (Divine Fighter's prominence depends on how much you played the amazing multiplayer). Sure she's been in almost all Icarus games, but how much of an impact did she leave on the series as a whole? It's really degrading her character to see that you had been chasing her down the entire time, just to realize that the entire time she was being controlled by Hades. It makes you think if you put all three games right after the other.
I hope you know I'm not hating on Medusa or you when I'm writing these, I'm just trying to explain why I don't think Medusa is a good choice. As for Kirby, King Dedede was planned since Smash 64, and Meta Knight has an extreme impact on the story of Kirby (even getting his own substory in K:SSU).
One more thing:

How much of an impact did she have? She was the main villain of the first game which was what MOST people played of Kid Icarus before Uprising, and was the most consistent villain of Uprising for the first third of it EVEN if she was shown up.
And sure Hades overshadowed Medusa in one game. But just recently?
- Ridley has been overshadowed in MOST games he is in by a different villain.
- Ganon in the last TWO games was overshadowed by Demise, and even more humiliatingly by Yuga.
- K. Rool has been overshadowed by Tiki Tong and Lord Fredrick who have outright replaced him through DKCR.
- How about the various games where BOWSER is overshadowed by the likes of Smithy, the X-Nauts, Count Bleck, Fawful, or whatever else in the two RPG series?
And you know as well as I do why Greninja, Robin, and Lucina are not good arguments. Fire Emblem has no unified continuity. They have no real choice but to use the newest games, because continuities generally end after one or two games with Archanea being the only exception. Pokemon also generally get in off new games alone, and Pokemon are always going to EXIST in the next pokemon game. That is literally always a guarantee.
As it sits now, Medusa is the villain of one game and the villain for the first third of another. Hades is the "highest" villain for a small fraction of the one newest game. As it sits now his resume just isn't great.
And Medusa is really only as much of a bad idea as Palutena would be.
I'm aware you're not hating on Medusa, but there really aren't BETTER choices with Palutena and Pit in the game, and Sakurai most definitely could exhibit the will to give us three Kid Icarus characters.
One new game overshadowing the series antagonist with a new one doesn't mean much. If Kid Icarus gets a new game where Hades is the main villain again, we can talk otherwise. Just how I see it.

And this is no doubt a late response, since my power went out as I started typing this. And stayed out. All night. Oops. Screw off, weather.

I just don't want the post to go to waste, but you don't need to respond to that because this is late as hell and who knows how many pages behind I am now.

EDIT: Ten pages. Hi, guys.

 

[Xenorange]

Judging by the sheer amounts of alternate costumes this time around, especially with the newcomers, I would be suprised if we didn't recieve several different incarnations of Ridley as alt costumes.

 

[Deleted member]

I seriously doubt Sakurai would look at Ridley and say: "Ugh, how would that thing work? How can he be any different than Charizard? Metroid is fine with 2 Samus" while he looks at the likes of C. Falcon, Little Mac, ROB and WFT and say: "I can definitively make this character unique, I just need to use my brain". We are talking about the guy who made Little Mac unique, C. Falcon work, ROB also with an unique moveset and many others, he never dismissed a character because he thought it "wasn't suitable", he may have did it in Brawl, but look at Smash 4, Villager was impossible, Miis didn't look right and Pac-Man was too farfetched, people who think Ridley CAN'T be playable are doubting one of the greatest video game designers in history

 

[majora_787]

I seriously doubt Sakurai would look at Ridley and say: "Ugh, how would that thing work? How can he be any different than Charizard? Metroid is fine with 2 Samus" while he looks at the likes of C. Falcon, Little Mac, ROB and WFT and say: "I can definitively make this character unique, I just need to use my brain". We are talking about the guy who made Little Mac unique, C. Falcon work, ROB also with an unique moveset and many others, he never dismissed a character because he thought it "wasn't suitable", he may have did it in Brawl, but look at Smash 4, Villager was impossible, Miis didn't look right and Pac-Man was too farfetched, people who think Ridley CAN'T be playable are doubting one of the greatest video game designers in history

Yeah really. Ridley actually has things to use. He made Captain Falcon out of a car and a couple of racing mugshots. And he is the greatest and biggest meme of a smash character in the series.

 

[LarsINTJ]

I seriously doubt Sakurai would look at Ridley and say: "Ugh, how would that thing work? How can he be any different than Charizard? Metroid is fine with 2 Samus" while he looks at the likes of C. Falcon, Little Mac, ROB and WFT and say: "I can definitively make this character unique, I just need to use my brain". We are talking about the guy who made Little Mac unique, C. Falcon work, ROB also with an unique moveset and many others, he never dismissed a character because he thought it "wasn't suitable", he may have did it in Brawl, but look at Smash 4, Villager was impossible, Miis didn't look right and Pac-Man was too farfetched, people who think Ridley CAN'T be playable are doubting one of the greatest video game designers in history

Have you ever designed a game before?

 

[Sigran101]

Don't go believing those ******** playable boss leaks, guys. Gematsu was the old fad. It died, so the lazy leakers needed a new train to jump on. It's the playable boss train. It's a lie.

Personaly, I hate leaks in general. I don't know why people like them. I don't even like legit leaks. It ruins the fun. The only reason I even read the Gematsu leak at all was because people were using it as an arguement against Ridley.

 

[samsparta21]

What if in an alternate universe, Ridley was too small?

 

[majora_787]

Personaly, I hate leaks in general. I don't know why people like them. I don't even like legit leaks. It ruins the fun. The only reason I even read the Gematsu leak at all was because people were using it as an arguement against Ridley.

And like 99.9% of arguments against Ridley, look how that worked out.

 

[Deleted member]

Have you ever designed a game before?

Have you? If Sakurai can make a racer a completely unique moveset, I doubt he can't do for a dragon that has different attacks every time you fight him

 

[LarsINTJ]

Have you? If Sakurai can make a racer a completely unique moveset, I doubt he can't do for a dragon that has different attacks every time you fight him

Sure have, it's harder than you might think and not very fun most of the time when you're trying to implement stuff/find that what you planned isn't going to work.

Making Ridley work as a playable character? Now that's a challenge.

 

[majora_787]

Have you ever designed a game before?

So you're saying Ridley is literally the exception to difficulties that came up designing literally every character on the roster who had little to no actual moveset potential, large sizes, strange body types, or were characters Sakurai even explicitly said could not or would not work at some point in time unlike Ridley?

If you're going to make that kind of claim, we're not surprised, but you're actually going to need something of substance to back that up.

EDIT: A challenge? Obviously. Making ANY new character on some level is "a challenge". But Ridley literally does not require anything that has not been done before. And he only has to be as complicated to make as the most complicated moveset mechanic they give him.

But past that, giving him a new model? That happens to everyone at some point. Okay. Wings? We have MANY characters with wings. They can be managed. Okay. A tail? We have MANY characters with tails, and even a character with a tail that works like Ridley's in terms of how the tail is structurally. Okay. Attacking with wings/tail/claws/whatever? Considering the model would be designed with this in mind, that's obviously not a thing that would be an issue. Okay. "Being overpowered"? That's extremely solvable for literally every character and isn't really an issue.

 

[LarsINTJ]

Explain to me (in detail) your idea of Ridley as a playable character. Not his moves. Explain how he would play, his attributes, etc. Clearly you all have some sort of fantasy in mind.

 

[Speculator]

I seriously doubt Sakurai would look at Ridley and say: "Ugh, how would that thing work? How can he be any different than Charizard? Metroid is fine with 2 Samus" while he looks at the likes of C. Falcon, Little Mac, ROB and WFT and say: "I can definitively make this character unique, I just need to use my brain". We are talking about the guy who made Little Mac unique, C. Falcon work, ROB also with an unique moveset and many others, he never dismissed a character because he thought it "wasn't suitable", he may have did it in Brawl, but look at Smash 4, Villager was impossible, Miis didn't look right and Pac-Man was too farfetched, people who think Ridley CAN'T be playable are doubting one of the greatest video game designers in history

It's more about "how can he feel like Ridley from the Metroid games"? As a boss character or a stage hazard, Ridley's character fidelity can be essentially 100%. He can do exactly what he does in the Metroid games, because he's a boss there too. There are a number of compromises or modifications that would need to be made to Ridley in order to make him playable - most of which have been discussed to death: his size, his proportions, his flight speed and ability, his strength and so on. The reason Ridley is such a "controversial" character and the reason this thread is a thousand pages long is because some people are OK with these compromises and some people are not. It's worth at least considering that Sakurai isn't willing to make these changes to Ridley because he feels he can be more accurately represented as a boss character.

 

[Phaazoid]

Sure have, it's harder than you might think and not very fun most of the time when you're trying to implement stuff/find that what you planned isn't going to work.

Making Ridley work as a playable character? Now that's a challenge.

This is a pretty bad argument. Making a game =/= being a game designer.

Even being a game designer =/= making a fighting game.

There are so many levels of difference here.

Making Ridley work? That's not the issue here. Majora's argument that if Sakurai can take Falcon, who never appears out of his car, and give him a fighter's moveset, he can give a character that fights in his game a moveset is strong.

No, the question is about whether Sakurai thinks Metroid needs another rep, and if Sakurai thinks Ridley should be represented as playable, or if he fits better as a boss.

Explain to me (in detail) your idea of Ridley as a playable character. Not his moves. Explain how he would play, his attributes, etc. Clearly you all have some sort of fantasy in mind.

This is a silly road to go down. It's very easy to come up with in depth move-sets. There are some on the front page. There are many others. It isn't too hard.

Personaly, I hate leaks in general. I don't know why people like them. I don't even like legit leaks. It ruins the fun. The only reason I even read the Gematsu leak at all was because people were using it as an arguement against Ridley.

I agree completely. I hate leaks. I like the hype of official announcements, not contaminated by prior knowledge. leaks kill that.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Personaly, I hate leaks in general. I don't know why people like them. I don't even like legit leaks. It ruins the fun. The only reason I even read the Gematsu leak at all was because people were using it as an arguement against Ridley.

I personally like them because I like knowing what I'm getting as early as possible, I don't really care too much about the whole lead-up. Of course only one in a million "leaks" are actually ever legit, if even that, so for the most part they just suck.

 

[LarsINTJ]

This is a pretty bad argument. Making a game =/= being a game designer.

Even being a game designer =/= making a fighting game.

There are so many levels of difference here.

Making Ridley work? That's not the issue here. Majora's argument that if Sakurai can take Falcon, who never appears out of his car, and give him a fighter's moveset, he can give a character that fights in his game a moveset is strong.

No, the question is about whether Sakurai thinks Metroid needs another rep, and if Sakurai thinks Ridley should be represented as playable

Of course!

I was merely pointing out that it's ridiculous for a non-game designer to think they have valid opinions about the technicalities of game design.

 

[majora_787]

Accurate representation? If accurate representation were THAT IMPORTANT, Fox would not have three of his special moves. Pokemon would not be playable because they're SUPPOSED to have to work with only four moves. Characters are ALWAYS kept as accurate to themselves as possible while making necessary changes for playability. That is literally nothing new.

EDIT: The common sense of it does not change just because you don't think people here have valid opinions. Which is made abundantly clear whenever you say anything, by the way. Not sure if you noticed.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

It's more about "how can he feel like Ridley from the Metroid games"? As a boss character or a stage hazard, Ridley's character fidelity can be essentially 100%. He can do exactly what he does in the Metroid games, because he's a boss there too. There are a number of compromises or modifications that would need to be made to Ridley in order to make him playable - most of which have been discussed to death: his size, his proportions, his flight speed and ability, his strength and so on. The reason Ridley is such a "controversial" character and the reason this thread is a thousand pages long is because some people are OK with these compromises and some people are not. It's worth at least considering that Sakurai isn't willing to make these changes to Ridley because he feels he can be more accurately represented as a boss character.

No matter what Ridley is in this game they're going to have to make compromises. As a playable character in Smash he has to be scaled down and potentially have different proportions, which is no big deal to some of us as we don't think that's where Ridley's appeal lies. As a boss they have to strip him of his agility and his behaviour in order to make it easy to hit him and become a buff pinata for players on Pyrosphere. Personally I far prefer him being scaled down where he can still have his flexible nature as opposed to being reduced to an attack-by-attack boss that constantly stops up to let people hit him like in Brawl, the latter is not why he became a fan-favorite boss to begin with.

If you put much emphasis on his size and role in Metroid that's fine, but he's never going to be able to translate his boss behavior over to Smash because of its different gameplay structure.

 

[Phaazoid]

Of course!

I was merely pointing out that it's ridiculous for a non-game designer to think they have valid opinions about the technicalities of game design.

That's fairly condescending. People who have played lots of games definitely can have valid opinions of technicalities of game design. That's why game designers value these types of people so much as testers, to see if they can break their games.

And creating unique movesets isn't exactly what I'd call a technicality of game design. Getting the specific balance of each move right, now that's technical, and something which most players wouldn't have an inkling of an idea of how to approach. But just ideas for moves? My 10 year old brother can give me those.

 

[LarsINTJ]

EDIT: The common sense of it does not change just because you don't think people here have valid opinions. Which is made abundantly clear whenever you say anything, by the way. Not sure if you noticed.

Oh okay, so game design is just common sense. Great respect for the discipline there.

 

[majora_787]

Oh okay, so game design is just common sense. Great respect for the discipline there.

Hey, thanks for actually reading and totally not selectively misconstruing what I said. Great help.

Start taking this conversation at all seriously if you're going to participate and stop being such a smartass. Thanks.

 

[Xenorange]

Of course!

I was merely pointing out that it's ridiculous for a non-game designer to think they have valid opinions about the technicalities of game design.

You must not think very highly of Sakurai and his development team huh?

 

[LarsINTJ]

That's fairly condescending. People who have played lots of games definitely can have valid opinions of technicalities of game design. That's why game designers value these types of people so much as testers, to see if they can break their games.

And creating unique movesets isn't exactly what I'd call a technicality of game design. Getting the specific balance of each move right, now that's technical, and something which most players wouldn't have an inkling of an idea of how to approach. But just ideas for moves? My 10 year old brother can give me those.

Does it make somebody a professional writer to have read a lot of books?
...or does watching a lot of movies make you a director?

Sure, it would help you to become a professional, but that's about it.

EDIT: If Sakurai pulls off a relatively balanced and decently playable Ridley that doesn't look stupid I will gladly eat my words.

 

[Deleted member]

It's more about "how can he feel like Ridley from the Metroid games"? As a boss character or a stage hazard, Ridley's character fidelity can be essentially 100%. He can do exactly what he does in the Metroid games, because he's a boss there too. There are a number of compromises or modifications that would need to be made to Ridley in order to make him playable - most of which have been discussed to death: his size, his proportions, his flight speed and ability, his strength and so on. The reason Ridley is such a "controversial" character and the reason this thread is a thousand pages long is because some people are OK with these compromises and some people are not. It's worth at least considering that Sakurai isn't willing to make these changes to Ridley because he feels he can be more accurately represented as a boss character.

The problem is, you don't KNOW how Sakurai feels about him, he changes his mind all the time, how did Sakurai see Pac-Man? As pizza missing a slice.
-Sakurai himslef stated that SIZE IS NOT CANON
-Proportions are changed all the time to fit in Smash, we have Bonkers in Smash Run that are 2-3 times DDD's size, this is how he looks in a Kirby game

EDIT: Found the image

That is Mega Man
Size and proportions acomodate the character's role, not the opposite
-Flight speed is a very dumb argument, we had Mewtwo, the most powerful pokemon at the time and can now match the Pokemon God himself, speed and power are things that doesn't matter when we also have Sonic AKA the fastest thing alive being outspeeded by Palutena

 

[Cutie Gwen]

It isn`t. What is the difference between this model and Other M one? Except for the amount of details.

Nope, i like Roidley`s model more. But my favourite model...is my version of Roidley`s...but its not official, so, Meta Ridley from Prime 1 and 3 are my favourite models.

Getting those 2 characters...nah, that is just luck IMO. Like actually hitting Pteranodon with a shotgun from a long range in Primal Carnage. And that was Pokemon X/Y leak. Gematsu`s leak has more than 1 thing wrong. And 2 of them are major errors. "Oh, its because information is outdated"? Then everything could have been changed if it is THAT outdated, so, that leak can`t be trusted anymore.
Anyway, if "leak" got something wrong, then it is AT LEAST not something you should trust/believe without any doubts.

The beak is a classic pointy Ridley beak, not a duckbill

 

[Phaazoid]

Does it make somebody a professional writer to have read a lot of books?
...or does watching a lot of movies make you a director?

Sure, it would help you to become a professional, but that's about all.

I didn't say that. That's not what we were talking about. We were talking about letting non game-designers have opinions on game design.

People who watch lots of movies generally have a better understanding of common movie tropes, how scenes work, and a lot of other things than people who don't. They are allowed to have valid opinions on technicalities of movie making, without being directors.

Avid readers know a lot about the different styles of writing, pacing, diction, and other things that are present in all books. They are allowed to have valid opinions on writing, without being professional writers.

And people who play lots of games, especially if they stick to one genre, understand the mechanics of those games sometimes better than developers. Just because you've made a game doesn't put you in a group where you are now allowed to know things about game design.

Oh okay, so game design is just common sense. Great respect for the discipline there.

And speaking of respect for the discipline, someone who claims to be a part of it and then so comes off as so brazenly elitist isn't someone I'd want representing my discipline. It's not attractive.

 

[Sigran101]

It's more about "how can he feel like Ridley from the Metroid games"? As a boss character or a stage hazard, Ridley's character fidelity can be essentially 100%. He can do exactly what he does in the Metroid games, because he's a boss there too. There are a number of compromises or modifications that would need to be made to Ridley in order to make him playable - most of which have been discussed to death: his size, his proportions, his flight speed and ability, his strength and so on. The reason Ridley is such a "controversial" character and the reason this thread is a thousand pages long is because some people are OK with these compromises and some people are not. It's worth at least considering that Sakurai isn't willing to make these changes to Ridley because he feels he can be more accurately represented as a boss character.

Because Brawl Ridley did exactly what Ridley did in metroid. And pac-man is going to play just like he does in the arcade.

 

[majora_787]

Because Brawl Ridley did exactly what Ridley did in metroid. And pac-man is going to play just like he does in the arcade.

That's a funny way to spell "Dyna Blade".

 

[Phaazoid]

That's a funny way to spell "Dyna Blade".

Worst SSB4 outcome

Dynablade is a hazard on pyrosphere

and Ridley is a stage hazard on whatever the new kirby stage is

gg

 

[Sigran101]

Worst SSB4 outcome

Dynablade is a hazard on pyrosphere

and Ridley is a stage hazard on whatever the new kirby stage is

gg

Or maybe there's no kirby boss. Maybe When Dynablade joins the battle, Ridley takes over as boss on pyrosphere
Ridley: Shut up about that stupid joke.

 

[Deleted member]

I don't see anyone complaining that Ganondorf is low tier, he is supposed to be immortal with the power of the gods, Ridley is supposed to be an inteligent, unpredictable and merciless dragon, I don't see how being playable would take away this from him, Sakurai just stated that he didn't mind giving Robin Nosferatu just so he could represent Dark Magic

 

[Phaazoid]

Or maybe there's no kirby boss. Maybe When Dynablade joins the battle, Ridley takes over as boss on pyrosphere
Ridley: Shut up about that stupid joke.

Maybe they both show up on pyrosphere as playable characters as bosses at the same time. They mirror each other exactly xD.

 

[majora_787]

You know, it's been made pretty apparent that Ridley's image is being broken in this game to some degree regardless of if he's somehow a boss or not. Being Bowser's size and being that slow and docile is WAY out of line of him being a boss. I'd prefer Dynabladely.

EDIT: OH RIGHT. Robin can't use Nosferatu without Shadowgift, which he can't learn because he's not Aversa OR Morgan. I actually forgot about that.

 

[Phaazoid]

You know, it's been made pretty apparent that Ridley's image is being broken in this game to some degree regardless of if he's somehow a boss or not. Being Bowser's size and being that slow and docile is WAY out of line of him being a boss. I'd prefer Dynabladely.

Meh. Remember, we can't take the size comparisons as exact unless Ridley's using the exact model from other M, and we got really lucky with the angles of the shots. imo there's enough margin of error there for Ridley to be a good deal bigger or smaller. We just don't know.

 

[Deleted member]

Being a Dyna Blade clone is something I only noticed when people brought it up, at least makes more sense than Falcondorf imo