If Sakurai thinks he can do it in a way that will please the fans, he probably will. Ridley is
one of the most requested newcomers in the West (where Metroid is popular - in Japan I imagine his lower rank is due primarily to Metroid being less popular). I don't think he'd have an idea of how to make Ridley and then decide "Oh, there's some minority of Metroid fans that will be somewhat disappointed that Ridley is small, so we shouldn't do it" or "Oh, this size isn't really consistent with the games, so while he's still quite large, we must respect the Metroid devs."
And I imagine most of the "too big" group would get over it quite quickly if Ridley's move set was really fitting and fun to play as.
It all goes back to my "Fred the giant" comparison. If there was a character called Fred the Giant, whose entire point is being, well, giant, and he was insanely popular, and Sakurai noticed his popularity - what do you expect him to do? Make Fred the Giant smaller? His entire gimmick is being giant, so if he's not giant any more, what's the point?
And yet, Ridley is not "Fred the Giant." And his "entire gimmick" is not being a giant. Fred the Giant would literally just be a regular man if he's the same size as the other characters. Ridley would still be a space dragon-like creature.
And if Fred the Giant was interesting enough, did things that didn't revolve around just being gigantic, and had a visually distinctive look, I could see him being included, actually. If Bowser was never shrunk down as he is in Super Mario RPG or Mario Kart or other games in which he's playable (notice that he's usually much larger when he's a boss), I would still think he'd make a good playable character. Because yes, while he's much larger than Mario,
that's not the only thing interesting about him. Of course, when you propose a hypothetical character that
unlike Ridley is defined only by being a giant, of course it would sound more ridiculous.
Or, if you want a better comparison, look at Kraid.
Yeah, you're hardly going to make him smaller, now are you?
If we ignore the original Metroid (which I'm sure you are fine with, as Ridley is small in that one too) and chalk that up to technical limitations... Kraid makes Ridley look tiny. He is an immobile hulk with tiny or unseen legs that takes up multiple screens (and this is how he's also portrayed in the planned Metroid Prime boss and in Nintendo Land). Size is a continuous quality, not an either-or. Kraid being too big doesn't imply that Ridley is too big, considering that Ridley is, you know, much smaller than Kraid. If you want a convincing comparison, you should be bringing up a character that is SMALLER than Ridley, but yet everyone can agree is STILL TOO BIG. Bringing up significantly larger characters doesn't demonstrate anything, other than possibly that there is a point at which a character is too big. But it doesn't show that
Ridley is too big, because that point could easily be somewhere between Ridley and Kraid.
So I'm not sure of the point of bringing up Kraid. Am I supposed to think that Ridley is just like Kraid? Because I don't. It's like asking if I think Galactus would make a good playable character - as if the contrast between Galactus and Ridley is going to make me conclude that Ridley is more like Galactus than he is like Bowser.
Then none of you should be arguing that "they don't give a **** about canon". That has been a lot of these arguments. And I'm the one who's been trying to explain that matters are not so black and white.
They want things to resemble their source material, for sure. Canon matters. It's not the only thing that matters, and they certainly feel free to tweak it many ways (some more extreme than others, e.g. Ganondorf's move set).
I have never argued that canon doesn't matter. But what you're trying to argue is that Ridley being huge is the most important facet of him and that's one part of canon they would/should never change, because unlike the other tweaks it would "ruin" Ridley as a character (of course, your use of "ruin" is just an opinion). But you're trying to couch that argument as if saying "canon matters" does all the work of convincing that Ridley's size is part of the "untouchable" part of canon.
In Ridley's case, he's known for having the strength to chuck tanks like it was nothing, wings powerful enough to overcome a wind tunnel, and giant fireball spams that KO characters very quickly. You could say the same is true for some of the others, but they've made a distinction as of Brawl how those powers apply in battle. He repeatedly ****s with the entire stage, in a manner similar to Kraid. This goes beyond what any of the other bosses even do in Brawl.
You're talking only about Brawl Ridley here. This description does not at all describe him in Metroid, Super Metroid, Zero Mission or Metroid Fusion. It also is a bit of an exaggeration of how he behaves in Metroid Prime games and The Other M (and personally, I'd prefer to just ignore The Other M's version of Ridley - I enjoyed the gameplay in The Other M, but the little birdie and all that **** was dumb as hell).
Anyway, Brawl is not canon. And I don't see why Ridley in Brawl as a boss indicates that he's impossible as a playable character. Or why Brawl tells us everything about how the Smash devs think about Ridley but the Melee opening video doesn't tell us anything. If we suppose that Bowser was not already a playable character, and they used him as a boss, how do you think they would design him? With massive, stage covering attacks like he has as a final boss in Mario 64, Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros, etc. or would he be the same size he is now with similarly small attacks? And would anyone think that this represents the only way the devs see him, or just as the way the devs see him
as a boss?
Yeah, It was big. Sort of like the enormous ROBs at Port Town...
Admit it... You didn't think this one all the way through, did you?
Ha, I forgot about that. They explicitly call out how Olimar is totally resized with that reference.
It'd be funny if they did the same thing with Ridley, but had him menacing over a tiny Samus... only to have Samus grow in size because she was merely under the effect of a Poison Mushroom.
I can't possibly think of another game where they could shrink characters to fit the gameplay better though... what a shame.
