About
Ridley is Too Big (Expletive sometimes included) is an ongoing debate about the potential inclusion of the character Ridely from the Metroid series in the upcoming installments of Super Smash Brothers. Because of his regular appearance in the games he is oftentimes cited as the best choice for a second Metroid Representative, however the other side of the argument states that his near-building size would make him unrealistic as a playable character.
History
Leader of the alien creatures known as the Space Pirates, Ridley is the most common antagonist in the Metroid Series, appearing in over half the games and cheating death from each of the previous encounters with Samus. Because of his regular appearance and his history of being the one responsible for the death of Samus’s parents, he is to Samus as Bowser is to Mario or Ganon is to Link, making him an optimal choice for a series representative.
Starting as a human tall purple dragon, Ridley’s appearance changed over the years to increase his size more and more as the game hardware could support bigger moving objects. In Super Metroid, Ridley was about 2 times the height of Samus while curled up. And in Metroid Prime he was finally free from the limitations of 2d sprites and could fully stretch out his body, revealing that he is at least 4-6 times the height of Samus if he stood on his hind legs (8+ times if you account his tail). His fighting style changed over the years to accommodate this as well, oftentimes picking up Samus in a single hand in attempts to crush her.
Ridley appeared in the opening cutscene in Super Smash Brothers Melee, colored and scaled the way he was in his original appearance in Metroid, but updated to his look in Super Metroid (the only two games he had appeared in up to that point in time). Due to popular demand, Ridley was also a fightable Boss in the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl in both his Organic and Meta forms. These Ridleys where scaled to his Super Metroid and Metroid Prime scales respectively.
The creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, stated in an interveiw that he thinks Ridley would be too big for his inclusion in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and therefore made him a Boss Character. In the sequel, Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo Wii U, Ridley returns as a boss character who will appear in the Pyrosphere Stage in his form from Metroid the Other M.
Origins
RESEARCHING
Earliest known instance of the argument came from a GameFAQ thread, which since then has been deleted.
Spread:
[WIP]
Points to the Argument
The common arguments for Ridley as follows:
~“He was just about a foot taller than Samus in the original Metroid”
~“What about the intro to Super Smash Brothers Melee where he looked just a few feet higher than Samus when you took perspective into account?”
~“Bowser is just as big right?”
~“Can’t they just shrink Ridley down like some of the other characters they have had to resize to fit into the game? (the shrinking of Bowser, the growing of the Kirby Characters and Olimar, etc)
~”Isn’t it just Meta Ridley who is that big?"
The common arguments against the above points as follows:
~“That’s been the only time Ridley was ever that size, and literal NES Ridley looks insanely derpy.”
~“At the time, there has only ever been Two Metroid Games with Ridley in it. Metroid and Super Metroid. So it was thematically correct for the time Melee was released. Also the intro didn’t account for Ridley’s Tail, which adds to his overall size considerably.”
~“Bowser can change his size canonically. And is usually that size in any of the spinoff games.”
~Two Points: 1. “Ridley is not only large, but he is also fast, oftentimes relying on his ability to fly quickly to overwhelm his opponents. If you shrink him down and make him “Heavyweight”, you lose a lot of what Ridley actually is.” 2. “Despite resizing being a common thing in Smash Bros, all the characters within the same represented universe (example: Kirby and King Dedede) are still scaled to each other in the same way as they where in their source material”
~“Classic Ridley just likes to curl up for whatever reason. Animating a creature that big back then would have looked wonkey and put major stress on the hardware.”
Ridley Mods in Super Smash Brothers Brawl
There is a handful of Mods created for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, oftentimes sizing him to Bowser or Charizard.
Exaggeration of Ridley’s Size
As a response to the size argument, many photoshoppers and artists had taken it upon themselves to exaggerate the size of the dragon. Examples include having Ridley, or even just his foot, positioned next to the other characters of the Smash Brothers Series while comically increased out of proportion, or having him compared to Sun or even Galaxy Sized Objects.
Notable Images
[WIP, the author of this page doesn’t know how to make pseudo-galleries]