The Ridley Problem

Ok, I've beat around the bush long enough. It's time to talk about this guy: 

Picture from metroid.wikia.com

A friend of mine had told me previously that the creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, had said that the reason that Ridley wasn't in Smash Brothers wasn't related to his size despite everyone arguing that he was simply too big to be in the game. I hadn't heard Sakurai's argument until today. IGN published a brief interview with Sakurai here.

The key thing to take away from it is this nugget:

“I definitely know that Ridley’s a much-anticipated name for fans, but if we made Ridley as a fighter, it wouldn’t be Ridley any longer,” Sakurai told IGN in an email interview. “It’d have to be shrunk down, or its wings reduced in size, or be unable to fly around freely.”

“Providing accurate portrayals of characters is something I want to pay ample attention to,” he continued. “If I don’t stick to that thought, then we’d have to lower the quality or break the balance of the game. Something that goes way off spec could break the entire game.”

Ok, that's pretty much the whole thing, but whatever. As much as I am pained to admit it, the dude does have a point. It would be very difficult (I disagree that it would be IMPOSSIBLE, but certainly difficult) to capture the menace, the majesty...the awesome nature of Ridley (herein awesome not having the colloquial meaning but rather the literal meaning of "full of awe" or "awe inspiring). As far as Nintendo villains go, few are in the same league as Ridley. Certainly most are far more well-known, but few are as monstrous, as bestial as Ridley. I used the word menace before, and I think Ridley's very design simply oozes menace. We all know we're going to fight Bowser at the end of a Mario game and we prepare for that encounter like we might prepare for a sporting event, drying off our sweaty hands, rolling our shoulders, and getting mentally psyched up for a mechanical challenge. But the menace of Ridley is almost psychological. He is a shadow that looms over the Metroid universe, a physical threat yes, but a psychological one too. He is one of the reasons that a good Metroid game borders on being a horror game.

He's clearly a threatening, imposing figure, and he stands out as unique in the Nintendo universe.

So, while I don't necessarily agree with Sakurai that it couldn't be done (which is clearly what he's implying here), I can at least understand his plight. It's not about shrinking Ridley, it's about defanging him, making him something less than what he is. He wouldn't be able to fly, he wouldn't be the force of nature, the ominous threat that he was before. It's a little like putting Cthulu in a video game as a mere boss. Being able to fight him (in this case, being able to control Ridley), somehow demeans the very idea of him.

I don't like it, but I get it.

However, please, please stop arguing that he's too big to be in the game. He's not too big to be in the game because he's not beyond rescaling. For those of you who still think it's all about his size, this man would like to have words with you:

Picture from ssbwiki.com.

Olimar is listed as three-quarters of an inch tall. I seriously doubt any other Nintendo character (let alone ALL OF THEM) is that size. So he has been resized. And it did not ruin his character. So it's not all about size (like I've said before, Bowser has been pretty big too...at the very least this shows that Nintendo has never cared about scaling characters before). 

However, that doesn't quite address the problem that omitting Ridley from the game really causes. Let's take a look at the Roster. Out of about 50 characters, nine are from the Mario franchise, five are from Zelda, six are from Pokémon (if you count Mewtwo, who has been revealed but not released), three are from Kirby...but Metroid only has two, and that is the same character twice: Samus, the protagonist. By not including Ridley, you're undermining one of Nintendo's most important, flagship franchises. The Metroid franchise has been around since 1986 and has 12 games to its name. It was released the same year as the Legend of Zelda, only three years after the original Mario Brothers (one year after Super Mario Brothers) and six years before the first Kirby game. Hell, Kid Icarus has three characters in Super Smash Brothers and that is a franchise of only three games. And yet Metroid is represented by only two playable characters (that represent only one character...and in past games, she has been only one playable character) in Super Smash Brothers. That borders on criminal in my exaggerated opinion. 

Maybe I can stop harping on this now that I've gotten it out of my system (likely not), but I seriously hope they continue to think about how to add Ridley to the roster, at least making him a more significant presence than simply a stage hazard. Hell, why he hasn't been included as an assist trophy yet is beyond me. Putting him on one map, in a single game mode, as a simple stage hazard, does this character a disservice almost as much as shrinking him and making him a playable character does (might). At least, at the very least, they should make the game mode revolve around him (I haven't yet played the Pyrosphere, I will be picking it up tonight). I could see them making an Evolve-like game mode where one person plays Ridley against three or four other opponents. That way, Ridley can remain large and powerful while being both playable and a significant character (if only in that game mode).

If they do decide to completely scrap any hope of including Ridley in the game, I hope they try and come up with other characters to include from the Metroid franchise. Dark Samus has proven, as an assist trophy, that she/it can be a substantially different character than Samus (and even if she/it isn't, Nintendo has proven they aren't above creating simple pallet-swap characters). Plenty of the bounty hunters from the Metroid Prime series would make for interesting characters, and they wouldn't even be the most obscure characters on the roster (I'm looking at you, Ice Climbers...yes I know they're not in the game anymore). Or Nintendo could get really creative and allow the player to play the Super Metroid itself. I mentioned this option in my fantasy roster a few months (...years? Can't even remember at this point) ago and I still think it could work with a little creativity.

Whatever they do, I really hope Metroid gets some love, and soon. I hope they didn't look at Other M, see the poor reception it got, and think that people are no longer interested in Metroid. We are. We love Metroid and we love Samus when she's written well. And I think Nintendo still has the capability of delivering a quality Metroid experience. Just...don't give it to Team Ninja again.