On December 26th, Sakurai confirmed Zelda as a returning character. Her profile was also updated on the official page with a couple of new images. One of them stood out among the rest.
This image generated a lot of speculation, "Is it an Assist Trophy? A new move for Zelda? Is Sheik gettin cut???". For months there was no new information about this image, and since it wasnt revealed in a PotD post, it had no context to work with. Other pics with Zelda were shown, confirming she still had her Up and Side B moves, and there was another profile picture where Zelda has the same pose but there is no Phantom. Some people thought this actually was Zelda's Down B, replacing sheik's transformation, but it wasn't the most popular opinion. It didn't make much sense.
Zelda changing to Sheik has been her main gimmick since she was introduced in Melee, taking that away seemed more like something the "no-fun-allowed Project M guys" would do. Moreso, there were some pictures where Zelda is striking weird poses, that looked like her transform animation. It was more logical that this was just a conveniently placed AT or replacing another of her specials (like Nayru's Love since it was never shown).
Four and a half months later, the April direct released the megaton: The transformation mechanic had been removed entirely from the game. The "Phantom Slash" was indeed Zelda's new Down B, and Sheik was promoted to "full" playable character.
So what about this?
Its easy to figure it out now in hindsight, but back then it wasn't obvious. With this picture Sakurai was spoiling a major game changing feature, that affected not just Zelda and Sheik, ZSS and PT's pokes as well, but for months many didn't think about it and shruged off arguments pointing out oddities in the picture. People looking too much into things perhaps?
There is another detail about the picture that I'd like to point out: The only visual effect in the image is the slash attack.
This is how the Phantom Slash looks like in more recent pictures:
The move has many more visual effects than in the original one, Zelda and the Phantom have purple energy emanating from them, and both characters leave wind trails in their motions. Now look at this picture again. There is absolutely no doubt that the Phantom is coming out of Zelda.
None of those visual cues are in the older picture. It is obvious that the move had an aesthetical upgrade since its december spoil, as the slash trail has a different color and actually follows the sword trajectory. Now, what if the image in the profile picture was choosen for this reason? With the second one, its clear that the Phantom is a part of Zelda's moveset somehow, but with the original one there is more room for doubt. Even if the older build had more effects, it wouldn't be too hard to remove them with the debug menu. I believe that the profile pic wasn't a screw up either. I think it was deliberately made to spoil the move without making it so obvious, why release it alongside another picture with Zelda making the same pose but with no sight of the Phantom then?
Even using the more recent builds, without context, its not exactly clear what is happening there. If Sakurai had explained what was going on, people could have figured out not just the Zelda/Sheik change, but perhaps ZSS' and Charizard's promotion as well ("So why are we having Sheik becoming a separated character all of a sudden?")
However that didn't happen, and for months, Sakurai was able to keep this stealth spoiler unnoticed for most people, because the more logical explanation was easy to believe, other characters have items and stuff in their profiles too (Zero Suit Samus does not burst into flames and grows bunny ears as part of her reworked moveset
). The fact that there were other images that disproved this idea made it even harder to entertain.
If you want to hide something from someone, just put it right in front of them.
So how does this relate to Ridley?
Let me point out right now that Im not claiming that this sneaky spoiler is a similar situation to this 10 month-long Ridley tease. They are not identical or even similar. Sakurai did not show Sheik's shadow after an AT segment, nor did he hinted at Sheik being removed from Zelda's moveset when revealing her last year.
That said, I find some useful points of comparison here and there.
Many dismiss Ridley fans looking into ways to interpret Sakurai's words, as they are "looking too much into things", the most logical conclusion is that Ridley is a hazard. This is something I myself believed about the people analizing the Phantom picture who thought it was her new Down B. Some did saw how the Phantom was way too detailed to be an AT, it didn't even look "toony" like its PH counterpart, and others pointed out how unfair is to play with characters with "one less special move" and would gladily accept Sheik and Zelda being separated. They were right. The people who took the logical explanation as the real one, or the ones that used other images/facts to counter the theory fell for the trap.
A common counter to the Zero Suit Samus troll is that it only lasted a few seconds and its nothing like this months long hazard tease. But what about this though? This troll spoiler has been going on for months, people didn't know if Sheik was getting cut or not because of the Phantom, and even now we still don't know just how much this mechanic removal affects the other two remaining pokemons, or even the Trainer itself. While ridley has been "hinted" as being a Pyrosphere hazard since the stage's reveal, we still know nothing about it because we haven't got a good look at what it actually does.
What about Sakurai only teasing NPCs? We have seen him tease Xerneas before, but he didn't do anything like this for playable characters, wether new or veterans, we don't get any mention of them until they get revealed. Not only this is already false by things like the Boxing Ring or the Halberd stages, but the Phantom tease also can be applied to this. Everybody knows Zelda's Down B is transforming to Sheik, but the image put that into question. We were staring at a major character change, that extended to other unrevealed figthers too, yet it was still a surprise to most when it was actually confirmed.
And what about the "unfinished hazard" theory? Sakurai doesn't seem to have a problem revealing rough/unfinished material, as the Phantom Slash proves. The energy arch doesn't even follow the sword's motion. If that was in the retail game it would look really lazy, but it was a work in progress, and the latest build shows it looks much better now. Even if Ridley wasn't fully finalized, that fact wouldn't have stopped Sakurai from showing him either on a direct or a PotD.
Does this post helps Ridley's chances?
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I think that, even if he does end up being a hazard, what I get form this is that people will still have had every reason to look more into things, lest we actually had a reveal right under our noses but never noticed it, because it was easier to just accept the more obvious explanation.
Personaly, Im not as optimistic as some are here, but man, I hope the outcome is as good as the Phantom tease.
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