Editing Ridley (SSBU)

Ridley is a [[weight|heavyweight]] character and the tallest fighter in the game, tied for the 13th heaviest character, and possesses the third lowest [[traction]]. Ridley has overall good mobility, especially compared to most heavyweights: with two midair jumps, slightly above average [[walk]] speed, tied with {{SSBU|Charizard}} for the 10th fastest [[dash]]ing speed, average [[air speed]], [[air acceleration]] and [[gravity]], and the 18th fastest [[falling speed]]. Ridley also boasts faster frame data than most heavyweights, further setting him apart from them. Ridley's most defining trait is his potent and varied [[punishment|punish]] game and aerial pressure. With remarkably long range, high power, and decent speed throughout his moveset, as well as a [[projectile]], Ridley is a serious threat once he gets the advantage; with opponents often overwhelmed and/or find it difficult to get in.

His key strength is his strong air game. Boasting overall quick, powerful, long-ranged aerials, and decent air mobility give Ridley overall excellent air pressure potential. Thanks to his additional jump and relatively high fast fall speed, he has superb vertical flexibility, and can use additional jumps or surprise fastfalls to fake out and punish his opponents with his far-reaching aerials. His [[neutral aerial]] is arguably his most effective aerial, having low all-around lag, good range, and average knockback. It is a good combo, spacing, and [[edge-guarding]] tool, while also being fast enough to break out opposing pressure if positioned correctly, making it among his most commonly used moves. [[Forward aerial]] has the highest damage output of Ridley's aerials when all hits are sweetspotted, but it doesn't have the KO power of his other aerials, though this allows it to perform a [[wall of pain]] at low percentages. [[Back aerial]] is decently quick and has consistently high damage and knockback, making it a deadly KO move especially if used off-stage for edge-guarding. [[Up aerial]] is a decent juggling move with decent startup and good KO potential when sweetspotted, but requires opponents to be very close to or above Ridley to land and the hitboxes don't last long. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a stall-and-fall that powerfully [[meteor smash]]es opponents when sweetspotted while still having good KO potential when sourspotted, though he is stuck falling for a while and has a lot of landing lag.

Ridley's grounded game is also noteworthy in terms of utility. His [[neutral attack]] is his fastest attack (with a 4 frame startup), leading into either a [[rapid jab]] with a finisher or a [[gentleman]] jab. His [[forward tilt]] has good range and low lag overall, while dealing high knockback if sweetspotted, with the low angled version being a reliable two-framing option. Meanwhile, his [[up tilt|up]] and [[down tilt]]s offer varied potential, with up tilt being a great anti-air that can chain into itself, most aerials, and even up smash, whereas down tilt allows Ridley to combo off from a safe distance and set up punishes or juggles. His [[dash attack]] is one of the few to lack a sourspot and has respectable power, however it is only active for 2 frames and has a lot of ending lag. [[Forward smash]] has below-average startup and is short ranged, but good damage and knockback and is fast enough to punish whiffs, landings, or be a more situational follow up like off a late hit of a landing neutral aerial. [[Down smash]] has slow start up and less raw power, but is disjointed, covers a very large area, hits both sides simultaneously, and physically moves Ridley upwards, making it very useful to punish rolls and slow ledge attacks or to avoid grabs and low-to-the-ground attacks. It is also a notoriously effective punishment option after a successful Skewer sweetspot as it can cover most get-up options. [[Up smash]] is Ridley's fastest and most reliable smash attack, being an effective KO move despite being the weakest of his smash attacks, and serves as a very effective anti-air as Ridley's foot is granted invulnerability.

Ridley's special moveset offers a variety options. [[Plasma Breath]] is Ridley's projectile: it fires a small, bouncing ball of fire, and can be charged to fire up to five, dealing substantial damage when fully charged and all fireballs connect. The fireballs can also fall when sent off-stage, making them an effective on-stage edgegaurding or gimping tool. However, landing a hit on Ridley's mouth during the move will cause it to deal damage to himself and stun him for a significant amount of time. [[Skewer]] is a "high risk, high reward" punishment move that, when sweetspotted, deals extremely high damage and crumples enemies; while situational due to the high difficulty on sweetspotting the move, it puts the opponent in a dangerous position where Ridley can read their reaction. [[Space Pirate Rush]] is a command grab with some unique perks: on land, Ridley drags the opponent on the ground, dealing damage in the process; in the air, it causes both Ridley and the opponent to quickly fall similar to {{SSBU|Ganondorf}}'s [[Flame Choke]]; it can be cancelled into a throw at any time that puts both Ridley and the opponent into the air; it can cancel itself into a throw upon reaching the edge of the platform; and the aerial version will transition into the grounded version if it reaches the ground. The grounded version has decent KO power at high percents, while the airborne version is weaker and is better suited to sending recovering opponents further from the stage without removing Ridley's own recovery options, or be used as a [[sacrificial KO]] like the aforementioned Flame Choke. Lastly, [[Wing Blitz]] is Ridley's primary recovery move. It can be aimed in four directions, with the forward input traveling at a slight downwards angle, the backward variant traveling at a slight upward one, and the down variant traveling at a slight diagonal angle in front of Ridley. All Wing Blitz variants have a large ledge sweetspot and have high knockback, with the down input having a meteor smash sweetspot; the down input is also unique in that it can be used at the edge of the stage and grab the ledge as long as the down direction is not inputted for longer, which can let Ridley potentially ledge trump an unsuspecting opponent or send them straight down, depending on their position.

Due to the variety of his kit, Ridley is a jack-of-all-trades. His disjoints are effective against characters with poor range or grab-centric playstyles; his command grab is effective against highly defensive characters; and his projectile is effective against characters lacking projectiles themselves or taking out characters with lackluster recoveries. He hangs very low from the ledge, letting him avoid attacks notable for hitting hanging characters, such as Marth and Lucina's forward smash. Despite so many unique attributes, he has several attributes that fight against him.

While Ridley has many strengths, he also has some critical and exploitable weaknesses. The most notable weakness is his size: Ridley has among the largest, most awkward hurtboxes out of the cast which, combined with his heavy weight and fast falling speed, makes him very easy to combo, juggle, and hit in general. This combined with his lower weight compared to similarly sized characters negatively affects his survivability, as he is often at a considerably higher risk of dying. Ridley's frame data, although good for a heavyweight, is still poor. He has below average startup and above average ending lag overall on his toolkit and lacks a tool fast enough to break combos effectively; this makes him one of the most affected characters by average combo strings and he is rather easy to KO. Ridley's options against projectile users and zoning are virtually nonexistent and he is unable to counter-zone as his own projectile is laggy, travels slowly, are useless against more powerful projectiles, and could even backfire and leave him open to punish if an opponent's projectile hits his mouth. Another major weakness his is recovery, which primarily consists of two, long-startup, predictable moves: Space Pirate Rush and Wing Blitz. The latter only has a couple useful angles and has active hitboxes while in motion, making it very easy to land an off-stage counterattack.

Another critical flaw to Ridley is how drastically his moves vary in quality, which can lead to Ridley becoming quite predictable. While he has plenty of moves offering varying amounts of utility, some of them still have significant flaws; these can range from slow startup (Plasma Breath and down smash), absurd blindspots (up tilt and up smash on some occasions), overly situational and/or strict (Skewer), to being downright unreliable (down aerial). On the other side of the spectrum, some of Ridley's moves like neutral aerial, up smash, down tilt, and Plasma Breath, depending on the match-up, is so favorable that it becomes easy to over-centralize on their use, a detriment to a character that finds the most success in being unpredictable. This, combined with his aforementioned trouble at dealing with fast and/or zoning characters, and with recovering under pressure, makes Ridley one of the most susceptible characters to pressure, as Ridley's disadvantage state makes him easy to overwhelm, and failure to overwhelm or control aggression could force him to take heavy damage or even be KOed outright. His grab game is also poor, with down throw serving as both a combo starter at low to mid percents to a KO through at higher percents. Forward and back throw lack reasonable kill power, even with ideal positioning, and up throw, while being his most damaging throw and a passable kill throw with low ceiling stages, sends opponents too high for any true conversions. Despite down throw being one of his better throws, it is easily affected by opponent's [[directional influence]], further limiting his grab options.

Ridley amiibo.png|Ridley's [[amiibo]].