Thursday, May 17, 2018

Ridley in Super Smash Bros. Switch?

Lots and lots of rumors are surrounding the new Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch. One solid leak happened last week and was a slip up of developer Tiago Sonobo (source), who confirmed that the new game is again co-developed by Bandai Namco and that he was working on the rendering engine, where the game was built on. This pretty much confirms that this will be indeed a from the ground up new Smash and not just a port of Smash 4.

After the reveal of the new Super Smash Bros. I made an argument about how this ideally would be an enhanced port of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, where all the contents get ported to a new game. But it's still possible and very likely that many assets will be re-used, much like how many assets of Super Smash Bros. Brawl got reused in Smash 4.

In a recent column for the Famitsu magazine (source), Masahiro Sakurai even stated that he has a relatively healthy working schedule this time around, unlike in the past, where working on Smash really drained him. Either they have been reducing the roster significantly or they are simply re-using many of the characters from Smash 4, so that Sakurai doesn't have to work overtime again to design the full roster.

It's hopefully the latter, where I personally hope that the majority of the Smash 4 roster will return and we don't get cuts just so that they can be sold as DLC later on... The fact that they are not revealing one character after the other, like they did with Brawl and Smash 4 in the past, kind of support this thought. But of course they could always start with that after E3.

Anyway, a "big" topic in most rumors seems to be this guy (behind the pretty lady):


Ridley. Samus' arch nemesis in the Metroid series. If there's one other character from the franchise that has the necessary significance to be featured in Smash, then it's certainly Ridley. He appeared as a boss in the majority of Metroid games - the only ones that didn't feature him were Metroid II - Return of Samus, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Hunters and Federation Force.

The only problem always was that he was "too big". And this still holds. While he was quite small in the original Metroid, this was retconned in Zero Mission. And as a boss in both Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U he was gigantic as well. But to work as a playable character, they would need to shrink him down quite a lot, which wouldn't be very truthful to the character. It's still possible, however.

One rumor I've seen during the last weeks was that he is in fact playable, but not as part of the main roster. Instead there would be a new asymmetrical boss mode, where one player controls a giant boss, while the other players fight him or her. I really like the idea and this would be one legitimate way of making Ridley playable, while staying true to his size. And this would allow for other large boss enemies to enter the stage as playable entities as well.

Today's big Smash rumor also lists Ridley as a playable character, next to Simon Belmont from Castlevania, while the Ice Climbers and everyone from Smash 4 will return. It's not exactly trustworthy, but I like the thought. However, if Konami allows Nintendo to use Simon Belmont, who certainly would be a classic face and great addition to Smash, they should bring back Solid Snake along with him. And Wolf should return as well, while they're at it.

Well, we will know more in one month. E3 2018 certainly will be interesting.

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