putting mario and diddy under characters like zelda and link is crazy. actually crazy
Someone had to say it. Came here to post the exact thing...
By no means is Zelda bad, but she loses to Mario, Link, MK, Diddy. At best for her they are even.
Mario is absolutely amazing. Chain grabs on over 50% of the cast, all of his moves flow into each other, dtilt leads into fair on every character at moderate %s. His projectile only makes all of these already amazing things even better, but by no means is fireball his only good tool. He can go SO DEEP with bair for free. His bair has to be one of the best in the game, far better than Kirby's. HIs recovery is good, crouch cancelling is good, has his cape to help with projectiles, wall jumps for tons of recovery mixups.
And then Diddy. This character has no tourney results? We've seen people who don't play the character at Xanadu just banana and peanut camp under a platform. That cuts off most of the casts approach options. His moves don't go into eachother as well as Mario, but they shouldn't because banana leads into whatever follow up you feel like dishing out. His fair has to be stronger than Sheiks, and it sends just as low, and he has bananas to set it up just as easily. It isn't even like he only has a projectile, he has an entire item that can be reused to apply tons of shield pressure, cover approach options, control tons of space. Ontop of bananas and fair his bair is amazing, nair is pretty good, uair combos, along with amazing recovery surrounded by an absurd hitbox, that sends out 2 projectiles that have homing when he is hit. He really has everything a character could want with tons of movement options, 2 amazing projectiles, a recovery that is a KO move and a meteor, command grabs to catch opponents who stay in shield because of his projectiles, and a fair that KOs pretty much anyone at 70% mid stage being generous.
Samus is pretty good but top tier may be pushing it. I would agree with high mid though. The ice set is really good, but honestly after hours of trying to get ice fsmash to work I hate it terribly. ice dtilt is neat for edguarding, ice upsmash can be used to follow up a downthrow, and fair is crazy fast + strong + combos at early %s. Her zair is ridiculous though, it outranges every character. I think she falls short of being top tier simply because her movement isn't good enough. She has super wavedash, but it feels sort of niche or gimmicky outside of catching someone off guard a time or two. I also haven't seen someone use it heavily on a consistent basis to really judge. TL;DR Samus has solid projectiles, CCing, and buffed smashes, but in a game with movement options like Fox, MK, Zelda, Mewtwo, Sonic, Pit, Charizard, Captain Falcon, I feel she just misses the boat by default for top tier.