Ridley (SSBU)

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Ridley in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Universe	Metroid
Availability	Unlockable
Final Smash	Plasma Scream

“	Ridley Hits the Big Time!	”
—Introduction Tagline

Ridley (リドリー, Ridley) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He is Samus's arch rival and a major villain in the Metroid series. He was the last revealed newcomer from Nintendo's 2018 E3 press conference, on June 12th, 2018, with an animated trailer.

Attributes

Ridley is a character that focuses entirely on dealing enormous damage and overwhelming opponents with brutal force at an alarming pace. Boasting surprisingly fast mobility for his weight class both in running and attack speed, excellent range for many moves due to his large and lanky anatomy (most notably with his up and down smashes and various aerials), and an overall long-distanced recovery due to his two midair jumps, floaty body, and effective up special, the Space Pirate is a fearsome offensive presence capable of catching up with opponents, all while pressuring them with his range and offstage capability.

Apart from the former strengths, perhaps Ridley's greatest asset is his alarmingly high damage potential, with moves that offer some of the most extreme damage outputs of any character in the game. Many of his strongest attacks have low startup, yet are even more damaging than the strongest attacks in the series, surpassing notable moves such as Warlock Punch or Flare Blade. Sweetspotted down special is capable of dealing a whopping ~59% when spaced correctly, and a full-distance side special possesses little startup, but deals as much as 29% for a command grab. A majority of his standard and aerial moves boast similarly high damage outputs; as a result, any mistake while fighting Ridley can result in an obscene amount of damage tacked onto the victim.

Ridley's special moveset provides excellent utility and powerful damage-racking options. His neutral special can be quickly charged up to unleash a torrent of fireballs that deal a maximum of ~20%, while also providing a means to edgeguard. However, any attack that interrupts it will cancel the attack and backfire on Ridley while dealing a drastic amount of damage to him, making cautious use imperative. As mentioned, his side special is a heavily-damaging command grab that can even drag offstage opponents closer to the blast zone, and can even be canceled early by jumping. Up special functions similarly to many other charge-and-fire up specials, sending Ridley a great distance in any direction it wishes while damaging victims. Finally, down special is a notoriously damaging attack when sweetspotted, and can potentially lead to a 0-to-death combo due to it causing opponents to fall on their knees.

Ridley has some polarized flaws, however. While his sheer size grants him excellent range, he sports an immensely large hurtbox due to it, which crouching does little to circumvent. Adding to this is Ridley's problematic combination of middling weight, floatiness and ineffective combo breakers, making him combo fodder to faster, more aggressive characters. Despite his excellent offensive ability, he lacks defensive options to maintain stage control in comparison: his aforementioned ease of being juggled makes losing the neutral game very problematic, while his slow projectiles and lack of projectile counters make him easily zoned out by projectile play. His recovery is very predictable despite its impressive length, especially since his jumps are being average at best for a multiple-jumper. Finally, despite many of Ridley's attacks being obscenely damaging for their speed, they require precision and careful spacing to reach their full potential, as they otherwise deal pitiful damage. This in particular is Ridley's biggest flaw: while he can tack on enormous damage with an opening, he lacks reliable ways to actually end stocks, due to his finishing moves being burdened with ending lag (such as down smash) or a short reach (such as forward smash).

All in all, Ridley is an extremely aggressive character that can constantly threaten the opponent with his disproportionately powerful damage-racking capability, forcing them to play very carefully to minimize openings. While Ridley is required to play patiently to prevent opponents abusing his weak defensive presence, the capability to easily gain stage control from a single special move is a benefit few characters have claim to, and his punishing nature can turn one minor slip from the opponent into a quick turn of the tables.

Moveset

Ridley's whip-like tail has a spiked tip that acts as a sweet spot on attacks involving it.

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack: A double claw swipe followed by a bite. It can be extended into an infinite jab involving a rapid fire tail stab, and ending with a swing.
• Forward tilt: Grabs his tail and stabs forward.
• Up tilt: Extends one of his wings to swoop from behind.
• Down tilt: A low tail swipe.
• Dash attack: A quick tail swipe.

Smash attacks

• Forward smash: Reels back before exploding a fireball within his mouth, similar to Mario's forward smash. Very powerful, being one of Ridley's strongest finishing moves.
• Up smash: A spinning tail attack that covers Ridley's entire overhead.
• Down smash: A wide stomp that carries an explosion effect alongside it. Very similar to Charizard's down smash.

Aerial attacks

• Neutral aerial: A spinning tail attack that covers around Ridley.
• Forward aerial: A multi-hit tail.
• Back aerial: A backward kick.
• Up aerial: Thrusts both wings into the air while closed.
• Down aerial: A stall-then-fall stomp with both feet, which spikes at the beginning.

Grab attacks

• Grab:
• Pummel:
• Forward throw:
• Back throw:
• Up throw:
• Down throw:

Get-up attacks

• Floor attack (front):
• Floor attack (back): Swings its tail forward, then backward while getting up.
• Floor attack (trip):
• Edge attack: Does a quick downwards claw swing while climbing up.

Special attacks

• Neutral special: Ridley spits out a fireball that acts similarly to Mario's Fireball, which can be charged to have Ridley spit out multiple fireballs at once. However, if Ridley is attacked while the fireball is charging it will backfire and damage Ridley instead. Deals about 4.4% damage per fireball, with the backfire causing about 24% damage to Ridley.
• Side special: A command grab that drags its target across the ground before throwing them, this can also be initiated in the air to drag an opponent to the ground and do the grounded animation or into the blast zone similar to his introductory cutscene in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Ridley can jump directly out of the throwing animation. Deals approximately 29% damage. The drag covers almost the half the width of Battlefield. The opponent can mash out of the drag but this can be counteracted by jumping out of the animation to end it early.
• Up special: Ridley pauses before flying upward. It can be angled to fly in any other forward direction, and deals damage to enemies along the way. If Ridley hits a wall, he will rebound with some vertical momentum.
• Down special: Pauses before performing a sudden tail stab. It has a long startup and hits some distance away. It does minimal damage if he hits with the base of his tail (5.5%), but if the sweetspot at the center of Ridley's tail tip connects, the target will be impaled while being dealt an extreme amount of damage (50.4% + 8.9%), before getting knocked down similarly to a charged Focus Attack. This can be followed up with a punish.
• Final Smash: Ridley headbutts the target into Samus's gunship; as the gunship flies off, Ridley shoots it down with a laser that engulfs both the ship and the target in an explosion. The gunship can be seen crashing in the background of the stage afterwards. Deals approximately 40% damage.

Victory poses

• Faces away from the screen while digging the ground profusely, before glancing back towards the camera.

Alternate costumes

• Meta Ridley and Proteus Ridley are available as alternate costumes.

Trivia

• Ridley’s model appears to be based on his Super Metroid model.
• Previously, Sakurai did not want to include Ridley in Super Smash Bros. as a playable fighter, due to various reasons including believing reducing his power to playable levels will undermine his presentation, and, most infamously, his size being too big to properly integrate into the universe, the latter to the point it has widely been considered an internet meme.
  • His fighter tagline, "Ridley Hits the Big Time!", likely references the size debacle.
• Since this is his playable Smash Bros. debut, this also marks the first time Ridley has been made playable in any Nintendo game.
• His animated reveal trailer is the first time since Ridley's role in the Metroid manga where Ridley has displayed a sense of humor, playfully twirling the hat of a defeated Mario when revealing himself to Samus with something of an inhuman grin.
  • The way Ridley twirls Mario's hat bears a striking resemblance to Mario in the beginning of the reveal trailer of Super Mario Odyssey.