Shiliski
Smash Journeyman
There are tons of potential reasons why Sakurai (or whoever is working on Samus's design) would implement heels, ranging from "They look cool" (and frankly they fail at that about as much as they do at being sexy) to "Because I didn't like Other M's useless heels and I wanted something that actually added to Samus's moveset".Right.
So if we go back to talk about her heels, from a developer's perspective, why do you think they were implemented?
Assuming the worst (that they exist for the sake of fanservice) is pretty cynical, especially when they fail at doing just that. Especially when it'd be the only character design failure on the whole roster. Especially when there is likely a large number of males on the dev team who'd be able to look at that design and point out that it fails at being fanservice. When I google "samus's sexy heels", I see a ton of arguments against them, a ton of claims that they are sexist without any real evidence to back them up (the majority of one article is a history lesson on Samus which doesn't at all relate to heels), a few strawman arguments that actually fail at burning the strawman (the point of the strawman is to create a weak argument and defeat it, not weakly flail at it and resort to ad-homs and namecalling (and yes, when you call someone ignorant or misogynist, then you are namecalling)). Shortly after that I see heel advertisements that have nothing to do with Samus.
Oh, wait. There was one article that defended them. His argument basically consisted of "there's worse stuff out there" and he said almost nothing about them being sexy. Nothing meaningful. Nothing substantial. An article just as logically weak as all the anti-heels ones I saw, with the only difference being that it's pro-heels. I think that alone shows that many are failing to give this subject any serious thought. There's also another article that seems thought out until you look at the glaring inconsistencies and ignorance of the facts, which again just tells me that thought was put into the construction of the argument, but no thought was put into deciding whether or not this was worth arguing over.
Aside from the many detractors, I have yet to hear anyone talk about how sexy her heels are. If they were actually sexy, then someone, somewhere out there, would be drooling over them, and yet this person seems to be completely absent or nonexistent. I think that alone casts serious doubt on their ability to work as fanservice. Heck, it's hard to even view Samus's new model in a sexy light without mentally blocking out the heels.
Now, if I see a vehicle with wings and a prop that can't go full speed without literally flying off the road, I'm not going to assume that it's a car with terrible design. I'm going to assume that it's a plane and that the flight is intentional.
If I see a cube with dots on it, I'm not going to assume that it's a poorly designed golf ball. I'm going to assume that it's a die.
If I see a bottle full of some transparent fluid with no carbonization and no sugary taste or caffeine... I'm not going to assume that it's a failed bottle of soda. I'm going to assume that it's water. Or vodka.
If I see someone walking past a SSB tournament and attend an SF4 tournament, I'm not going to assume that he's a smasher who got lost. I'm going to assume that he's a Street Fighter player.
The only things the heels succeed at is "not being Other M's heels" and "giving Zamus a rocket jump". So naturally I have to assume that to be the intent. I cannot accept fanservice as the intent because they fail at being that, and they fail pretty hard.