10-27-2014, 02:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-27-2014, 02:22 PM by Jermungandr.)
After reviewing a bunch of gameplay footage from the media event, I gotta say I really disagree with the sentiment that Ridley looks like he was originally intended to be a fighter. He doesn't really act like a fighter at all, even less so than the Flying Men or many assist trophies. If anything he's more reminiscent of a boss from the Subspace Emissary. When you bring into consideration the early Direct where Ridley was first teased as a shadow, I think it was pretty obvious that he was always intended to be a stage hazard, especially considering the context that it was shown off in. In fact, consider the fact that the stage itself was complete enough to be shown off at the time. The stage is clearly designed around the idea of Ridley's appearance as a hazard rather than him being a last minute addition. Even if you can ignore the fact that the huge, open stage is not very fitting for the Metroid franchise, the phazon canisters that Ridley utelizes have been present on the stage since the very beginning. Keep in mind how much time must have gone into designing the stage and Ridley himself before his shadow was ever even revealed. Heck, he was hinted at even earlier than that when the first image of the stage was revealed last August.
I honestly think people claiming that he was "clearly designed to be a fighter" is just yet another act of denial, just like back when his shadow was initially revealed and everyone refused to believe he was nothing more than a stage hazard despite the fact that clearly that is exactly what they were telling us. I really believe that this was going to be his intended role from the very beginning of development, and level of dropping the 3DS version would have changed that.
But I'm sure everyone and their mother will try to argue against me on this. So this is all I am going to say on the matter.
On a different tangent, though, I did notice something odd about Ridley on the stage. It seems that beating him to get him to join your team does not actually alter his behavior at all. The only thing that changes is that his attacks no longer effect you. But he doesn't actually become more aggressive against your opponents or anything. In fact, he even seems to still target you, despite the fact that your on his team and his attacks won't harm you anyways. Look at this video for example, where at 1:15 he shoots a fireball towards his own partner, despite the fact that the actual opponent was way over on the other side of the screen. Weird.
I honestly think people claiming that he was "clearly designed to be a fighter" is just yet another act of denial, just like back when his shadow was initially revealed and everyone refused to believe he was nothing more than a stage hazard despite the fact that clearly that is exactly what they were telling us. I really believe that this was going to be his intended role from the very beginning of development, and level of dropping the 3DS version would have changed that.
But I'm sure everyone and their mother will try to argue against me on this. So this is all I am going to say on the matter.
On a different tangent, though, I did notice something odd about Ridley on the stage. It seems that beating him to get him to join your team does not actually alter his behavior at all. The only thing that changes is that his attacks no longer effect you. But he doesn't actually become more aggressive against your opponents or anything. In fact, he even seems to still target you, despite the fact that your on his team and his attacks won't harm you anyways. Look at this video for example, where at 1:15 he shoots a fireball towards his own partner, despite the fact that the actual opponent was way over on the other side of the screen. Weird.