Samus (SSB)

Samus in Super Smash Bros.
Universe	Metroid
Other playable appearances	in Melee in Brawl in SSB4
Availability	Starter
Tier	D (12)

Samus, written as Samus Aran (サムス・アラン, Samusu Aran), is a starter character in Super Smash Bros.. Samus is a heavy, yet floaty, character with decent horizontal recovery. However, she also has sluggish moves with a lot of ending lag, and she lacks a quick and easy-to-land KO move.

Samus is last on the current tier list for a number of factors. Samus does moderately well against Ness and Jigglypuff, but is one of only two characters in SSB to currently have no advantageous matchups (along with Jigglypuff). Samus's only even matchup is against Jigglypuff, with almost all other ones at least beating 40-60. She has a low amount of combos and relies on prediction and predictable finishers to KO. The few things that save Samus are spacing, recovery, and the fact that she cannot be comboed as easily as others.

Attributes

File:Metroidending.jpg

Samus's ending picture in Super Smash Bros.

Samus is a tall heavyweight character that is also rather floaty (which is uncommon for heavyweights). She has a fast dashing speed, but her low air speed, low falling speed, and long and slow roll heavily decrease her mobility. She has decent range and also has two projectiles, including Charge Shot (which covers a great distance and is fairly powerful, being quite useful for keeping opponents at bay, but requires a large amount of charging to have KO power) and Bomb (which can aid her horizontal recovery). Spacing works quite well with Samus, with her forward tilt and back aerial being useful. However, she has a high and slow short hop. Her grab is one of the three tether grabs in the game, giving it excellent range, but very high lag if it misses. Her back throw is a powerful KO throw and is also tied with Pikachu and Donkey Kong's back throws for the most damaging throw in the game.

Overall, most of Samus's moves have a high amount of ending lag, and she has no quick, easy-to-land KO moves, though her down aerial is an extremely fast meteor smash. While Samus's dair is a great edgeguarding move, she has poor to mediocre edgeguarding ability outside of it, and her primary recovery move (Screw Attack) travels extremely short horizontal and vertical distance, giving her a very poor vertical recovery. Her horizontal recovery, while still short and predictable, is slightly aided by her floatiness and Bombs.

Samus is known for being the only character in Smash 64 who cannot 0-death easily, though her floatiness and Screw Attack can slightly help her escape combos. Posting a legitimate Samus combo is considered to be an inside joke in the Smash 64 community, as there are players who state that Samus has no combos and that it's impossible to make a combo video of her without hacking.

Overall, Samus has the worst matchups in the game. She is heavily countered by virtually everyone in the high tiers, with especially terrible matchups against Fox and Pikachu. She has no advantageous matchups, and her only even matchup (Jigglypuff) could still be considered to be slightly in Jigglypuff's favour.

Moveset

Samus's Air Attacks

Samus in the Smash 64 instruction booklet.

		Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack		Cannon Combo	3%	A jab followed by a vertical cannon swipe.
			7%
Forward tilt		Roundhouse Kick	9-12% (depending on angling)	Does a kick forward, very fast, little ending lag. Good ground spacer.
Up tilt		Leg Drop	3-8% (upwards), 5-13% (down)	Brings her foot down in an axe-like way. Decent against aerial opponents, better suited for wall-based ground combos.
Down tilt		Sweep Kick	13%	She quickly does a grounded roundhouse kick, which knocks the foe forward. Has some KO potential at higher percentages near the ledge, can hit foes hanging onto the ledge.
Dash attack		Charge Ram	12%	Charges forward and rams opponent with shoulder. Bad shield stun, and can leave her vulnerable against opponents even at moderate percentages due to its very low knockback.
Forward smash		Arm Smash	18%	She thrusts her arm cannon forward for decent knockback, is quite fast, with good range as well.
Up smash		Upwards Flame	50% if all hits connect	She aims her arm cannon upwards and shoots flames in an arch. Multi-hiting, 10% per hit. Best usage against heavier or fast falling characters as an anti-air move.
Down smash		Double Sweep Kick	16%	Does a round kick, first hits in front of Samus. Good spacing move or KOer near the ledge.
Neutral aerial		Midair Kick	16% maximum	Sex kick. Seems to be slightly angled upwards. Gets weaker the longer it's out.
Forward aerial		Aerial Flame	20% if all hits connect	Deals 2-20% (1-4 hits). Not the best air move due to number of hits, and how hard it is to have all the moves connect. However, the last hit can be linked into many other moves.
Back aerial		Back Kick	14%	A fast backwards kick with good range and speed. One of Samus's strongest finishers when sweetspotted, though it is usually difficult to land the sweetspot, due to her bad short hop and limited ways of combo'ing into it.
Up aerial		Spiral Kick	10% if all hits connect	Multi-hitting upwards drill kick. 2% per hit. An impractical move due to it being very difficult to land all the hits and her being left very vulnerable.
Down aerial		Cannon Spike	14%	Downwards arm thrust. Swings her arm cannon downwards below her in an arch. Is a meteor smash. Overall among Samus's best finishers, being able to KO earlier than most of her other moves. Against grounded opponents, it can also lead into moves such as back aerial.
Grab		Grapple Beam	—	Samus, along with Link and Yoshi, has an "extended grab". She uses the Grapple Beam while standing. This allows her to grab opponents from a distance, but the grab is very laggy if it misses. This can lead to various unique combos due to the large grab range.
Forward throw		Front Toss	12-16%	Grabs opponent via Grapple Beam and tosses him/her forward with good power. Very high base knockback and decent scaling.
Back throw		Back Toss	14-18%	Same as f-throw, but tosses him/her backwards and faces the position she was in before the throw. Also slightly stronger.
Forward roll Back roll		—	—
Techs		—	—
Floor attack (front) Floor getups (front)			6%	Does a breakdance-like spin with her feet, which hits on both of her sides at the same time.
Floor attack (back) Floor getups (back)			6%	Does a breakdance-like spin with her feet, which hits on both of her sides at the same time.
Edge attack (fast) Edge getups (fast)			6%	Gets up and kicks.
Edge attack (slow) Edge getups (slow)			6%	Picks herself up, leaning on arm cannon, and jabs in front.
Neutral special		Charge Shot	3-25%	Chargeable in the same way as Donkey Kong's Giant Punch - pressing the B button starts charging, and the charge can be saved with the Z button, then continued by pressing B. The projectile is quite large but easy to dodge. Usually used as a combo extender or finisher.
Up special		Screw Attack	13% if all hits connect	Does a Screw Attack upwards, recovery move that does multiple hits and can trap opponents to rack up damage. Useful against opponents on soft platforms above Samus.
Down special		Bomb	9%	Drops a Morph Ball Bomb that explodes within a few seconds. Does extremely minimal knockback, though it causes Samus to fall slightly slower than normal, meaning it can be used for horizontal recovery. However, using it before a double jump will cause Samus to be unable to perform her double jump until she lands.

Taunt

• Takes her left arm off of the arm cannon and puts her left hand on her hip, at the same time raising her right arm so that her upper arm is perpendicular to her body, and her lower arm (the cannon) is parallel to her body. She then shakes the cannon like a fist.

In Competitive play

Matchups

International versions

Super Smash Bros. (N64) Character Matchups

Avg.

Japanese versions

Super Smash Bros. (N64) Character Matchups (JPN Version)

Avg.

Notable players

See also: Category:Samus professionals (SSB)

•  Bane
•  Cobr
•  Fck Vwls
•  JaimeHR
•  Jousuke
•  Sensei
•  The Z
•  Wilde

In Single-player

In the game's Single-player mode, Samus is fought on the Planet Zebes stage.

Techniques

Bomb recovery

In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Samus can bomb jump to greatly extend her horizontal recovery. In Smash 64, Samus cannot bomb jump. However, using bombs and immediately DIing towards the stage aids in her horizontal recovery to a degree, although not nearly as much as bomb jump recovery does. However, when a bomb jump is used, her double jump cannot be used until Samus lands.

Description

From the Game

Samus Aran is the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Using a special suit powered by the technology of the bird people which allows her to execute daring acrobatic feats, Samus pursues the airborne life form, Metroid, throughout the universe.

Works:

• Metroid (NES)
• Metroid II: The Return of Samus (GB)
• Super Metroid (SNES)

From the Instruction Booklet

The greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Samus Aran fights with the super-human power of her hi-tech power suit.

Palette swaps

File:Alt-samus.jpg

Samus' changeable clothing in SSB

Trivia

• Samus is the only true female character in Super Smash Bros. (as Pokémon were not considered gendered at the time of this game).
• While all other characters show their skeletons (or lack thereof) upon being hit with an electric attack, Samus's suitless outline becomes visible instead.
• This is Samus' only appearance on the Nintendo 64. The only other playable character to share this distinction is Ness.
  • This is also her first appearance in 3D. Ness also shares this distinction.
• In the PAL version of the game, Samus's character description in French uses male pronouns with female ones in speculatory brackets (the equivalent of "his (her?)"), in contrast to both the English and German descriptions using female pronouns throughout.