Super Smash Bros Wii U: Meet Ridley!

It's that time Smash fans!
What's a blog by yours truly without a Ridley post?

Many detested my last Smash related blog post post due to my tone or my opinion, or both!

Well get used to it gang cause this one is gonna be a BIG one.

Prepare to be Riddled!

Meet the "most popular, highly requested, #1 shoo-in, Nintendo All-Star, more popular than Phoenix Wright, best of all time" character that everybody wants!

What do you think Sakurai?

Sakurai: I think that would probably be pretty impossible. [Laughs] If we had put our best efforts into it, we may have been able to do it. But he might have been a little slow. Would that be all right? [Laughs]

To Ridley Supporters this quote translates to:
"See?! Sakurai said he could work and knows how popular he is! Totally gonna be in SSB4"

Unfortunately, this quote does not help their cause.

Nobody is saying, that it's not possible for Sakurai to put Ridley in the game. Frankly, anything is possible...even if Sakurai categorizes it as pretty impossible

But to suggest that this quote is promising for Ridley is delusional. The question posed to Sakurai asked if it was ever a consideration, and as such, this answer demonstrates that it really wasn't and if it ever was, it wasn't taken seriously. I don't foresee any of that changing for the next Smash.

Ridley fans would argue that times have changed, Sakurai now knows how popular Ridley is, fan demand is going crazy, and if Ridley isn't in Sakurai would face a backlash like Megaman not being in MVC3.

Difference Being: Megaman is actually popular and relevant

Not to burst your bubble guys, but Sakurai isn't reading GameFAQs or Smashboards. The demand isn't anywhere near crazy, and if Ridley isn't playable, outside of a few thirteen year olds crying at their local Gamestop employees as protest, there won't be any form of backlash whatsoever.

Let's have a serious little conversation here about Ridley.

He's too big.

Now, when I say this, I'm not suggesting that he couldn't be re-sized.
My reasoning for this is that in every appearance he has ever been in, he has been a gigantic flying beast notable for being able to hold Samus in one claw, and drag her along a wall. Proportionally speaking, Samus, one of the tallest characters in Brawl, fits inside Ridley's head.

Many disregard this. This picture floats around as a "solid argument"

Looks good right? Well yeah, when you disregard what Ridley actually looks like in every other appearance.

This is what I call the "Reverse Olimar" argument. When you take away Ridley's proportional size relative to his game world, resizing him, as is done in the first picture, looks normal. Unfortunately, it's a blatant disregard for Ridley proportionally speaking as seen in the image directly above.

Olimar and Kirby on the other hand, both characters known to be the size of a quarter, aren't proportionally problematic. What I mean by this is, in the Pikmin games for example, the entire game focuses on Olimar as if he's a normal sized character. Even if he's the size of a quarter, there's nobody on the character roster that's appeared in the Pikmin games to demonstrate that size difference.

For example, if Mario walked into Pikmin world, he would literally squash Olimar like a bug. However, because Pikmin focuses on Olimar as relative to his game world at a normal size, with nothing in the Smash Universe as a point of reference, nothing about this picture is unreasonable.

Not to mention Olimar represented a new/popular series with a completely unique moveset. Not so much Ridley.

Whereas this looks completely absurd

Especially when Sakurai himself, when putting Ridley in as a critical boss has demonstrated this canon size, which falls in line with every other Ridley appearance ever.

This is where the Ridley champions point out the NES Metroid and the Melee intro. Because a 24 year old 8-bit game, and a split second cameo appearance completely erases every other appearance in every other game.

First: The Melee Intro

That's the smoking gun everyone uses.
The problem is a matter of two factors.

Perspective and Cinematics. Here is another screen grab from the Melee intro I'd like to share:

The perspective of this image is constantly ignored. RIdley is positioned much farther back than Samus than it appears. This can clearly be seen in motion.

For a much more direct correlation in viewing planes, I direct your attention to THIS screengrab from the Melee intro

That's closer to what we typically see Ridley sized as. Note how he's much taller than Samus and his head is roughly the size of Samus' torso. And that doesn't even include his wingspan which already looks immense in the image we're used to seeing.

Now I direct your attention to why Ridley is showcased this way. It's the very same reason why in this intro, when Samus jumps over Ridley, she stops, and floats in mid-air to shoot a missle at him.

It's Cinematics. The perspective, pacing and framing of this scene is carefully crafted to capture an action packed hallway fight between Samus and Ridley. That's precisely why the perspective is skewered and yet another reason why this wouldn't work as a deviation.

The purpose of this cinematic is to capture the action scene, and make Samus look heroic all within the course of a couple of seconds, in a hallway, at a fast pace. And even then, when you look closely as I've demonstrated, you can still see Ridley is still quite large.

Then we come to the NES example.

This game from 24 years ago, the first game in the series before anything ever developed, and with technological limitation is cited as a primary argument, despite evidence from every other recent game.

Unfortunately, Metroid Zero Mission, a remake of the Original Metroid showcases the developers intentions with more up to date technology. Suddenly, Ridley looks like he always does.

Some point to Super Metroid, in which case...he can still fit Samus in his mouth:

Lastly, people like to say that, much like Bowser, Ridley's size "fluctuates". I will give them credit. Ridley does fluctuate. He fluctuates from RIDICULOUSLY HUGE to PRETTY FREAKING BIG. It's impossible to expect every character to stay the exact same size in every game, but Ridley has been consistently much larger than Samus in every single appearance.

While Bowser at times has looked like this:

He has, in many occurrences, looked like this:

The size fluctuation of Bowser has ranged from Mario-sized, to Galaxy sized, where Ridley has remained at Galaxy size in all of his appearances. There's really not a legitimate recent game that contradicts that.

Now this isn't all to say that Sakurai, in some radical act of deviation, couldn't make Ridley a small playable character. Nobody is contending that it's not possible to do. I'm just contending that it's not entirely reasonable, and most of the arguments used like the ones above are weak, and are grasping at straws to prove a really non-important point.

It could happen, but what seems more logical? Sakurai keeping things consistent or just completely going against everything that has ever existed for this one time to appease a loud portion of GameFAQs users? If anything, I think Brawl showcased his intentions best.

Sakurai: (laughs)

I know everybody wants to wipe Brawl from their memory, (see my my last post for why they're dumb) however, it provides a lot of insight onto this subject as well.

For one, everyone argues about how popular Ridley is now. But they fail to mention just how popular he was prior to Brawl. Even as far back as Melee people were asking for Ridley. Just because he's a left-over doesn't make him a shoo-in.

If Ridley was arguably the most popular Metroid rep who made the most sense of being in the game, why did Sakurai choose Zero Suit Samus? His specific reasoning for Zero Suit Samus was for the SOLE PURPOSE of padding the Metroid character roster. If that was the case, why wasn't Ridley first in line?

There's no justification for ZSS over Ridley. I've had supporters try to tell me she actually was more important. Don't be delusional guys

Although, his popularity was taken into account in

Brawl: he was made a boss twice.

Couple this with the quote at the beginning and you start to see the views of the developers on this issue. They don't consider Ridley as playable character material. Unlike other game companies, Nintendo is pretty strict with having things a certain way and maintaining a level of quality.

This criteria befalls the whole Smash Bros roster. Character's typically need to be important, represent series respectably, have unique potential, and be feasible in the Smash bros universe. While many fans will argue it's all about fan support, the sad truth is, it's not. Fan support alone won't make Ridley playable. That being said, aside from Metroid die-hard fans, he's not that important, he doesn't offer anything entirely unique and of course, he's not really feasible on the Smash Bros roster.

"Well.... IF NOT RIDLEY WHO ELSE COULD THEY POSSIBLY USE?!?!"

Looking at the criteria above, and thinking reasonably:

-Isaac
-Saki
-Samurai Goroh
-Professor Layton
-Little Mac
-New Kid Icarus rep from Uprising
-New Zelda rep from Skyward Sword
-Takamaru
-King K. Rool
-Zoroark
-Duck Hunt Dog

Just to name a few. Lots of ripe candidates if you think reasonably.

Ridley isn't the end all be all.

You guys can hope. I have no problem with hoping for a character that is unreasonable or has no chance of ever being in. (I'm guilty of that with Geno) My problem is when one deludes themselves into a rose-tinted world where it's actually probable. Ignoring all evidence to the contrary and only picking the weak and flawed portions of testimony to make their larger case.

I contend that we will never see a playable Ridley in an Official Smash Bros game. If I'm wrong, I will publicly come out and admit it. I have no emotional attachment and I fully accept that there's that possibility. I just feel strong enough in everything I've outlined here today to take this firm stand.

But who knows, maybe one day, this will become a reality.

-Vaz