Samus (SSB)

Samus in Super Smash Bros.
Universe	Metroid
Other playable appearances	in Melee in Brawl
Availability	Starter
Tier	D (12)

Samus Aran (サムス・アラン, Samusu Aran) is a starter character in Super Smash Bros.. Samus is a heavy, yet floaty, character with decent horizontal recovery. However, she also has sluggish moves with a lot of ending lag, and she lacks a quick and easy-to-land KO move.

Samus is known competitively for having one of the few (outside Fox) good forward tilts in the game. However, Samus is last on the current tier list for a number of factors. Samus does moderately well against Ness and Jigglypuff, but is the only character in SSB to currently have no advantageous matchups. Samus's only even matchup is against Jigglypuff, with almost all other ones at least beating 40-60. She has a low amount of combos and relies on prediction and predictable finishers to KO. The few things that save Samus are spacing, recovery, and the fact that she cannot be comboed as easily as others.

Attributes

File:Metroidending.jpg

Samus's ending picture in Super Smash Bros.

Samus is a tall heavyweight that has slow falling speed (which is uncommon in heavyweights). Samus has decent reach on her attacks, and she also has two projectiles. Her neutral special move, charge shot, covers great distance and is fairly powerful. However, it requires a large amount of charging to have any KO power. Her down special move, morph ball bomb, allows her to have good horizontal recovery. On the downside, her up special move, screw attack, does not travel much vertical distance and is a poor recovery move in general. Samus has an excellent grabbing reach, but it has high ending lag if she doesn't grab the opponent. Samus' side tilt is a fast and great attack for throwing an enemy off before they attack. Her up tilt however, is the only up tilt that doesn't launch opponents into the air. Samus has a fast dashing speed, but her rolling dodges are very slow. Most of Samus' moves are very sluggish (they have a large amount of ending lag), and she has no quick, easy-to-land KO moves (although she does have an extremely fast spike).

Samus is known as being the only character in SSB to be difficult to 0-death with. Samus is also known however, to be able to escape combos due to her up special move and floatiness. In competitive play, Samus' are known for using their side tilt, bombs, and short hop down air to lock opponents against walls to make it so opponents cannot escape the few but powerful locks Samus has. Posting a legitimate Samus combos is considered to be an inside joke of the SSB community, as SSB players will state that Samus has no combos and that it is impossible to make the video without hacking. Overall, Samus has the worst matchups in the game, being heavily countered by virtually everyone in the higher tiers. Samus has no advantageous matchups, and the one even matchup can still be considered slightly better for Jigglypuff.

Moveset

Ground Moves

Normal

• Neutral attack- Does a jab then brings down her arm cannon. 3% then 7%.
• Forward tilt: Roundhouse Kick. Very fast, little ending lag. 9-12% (depends on angle)
• Up tilt: Leg drop, 3-8% (upwards), 5-13%(down) Decent against aerial foes, better suited for wall-based ground combos.
• Down tilt: Sweep Kick. She quickly does a grounded roundhouse kick, which knocks the foe forward. Has some KO potential at higher %s near the ledge, can hit foes hanging onto the ledge. 13%
• Dash attack: Charges forward and rams opponent with shoulder, 12%. Bad shieldstun.

Smash attacks

• Side smash: Arm Smash, 18%. She thrusts her arm cannon forward for decent knockback, is quite fast, with good range as well.
• Up smash: Upwards Flame. She aims her arm cannon upwards and shoots flames in an arch. Multi-hiting, 10% per hit, 50% max. Best usage against heavier or fast falling characters.
• Down smash: Doublesweep Kick. Does a round kick, first hits in front of Samus. 16%. Good spacing move or KO-er near the ledge.

Other attacks

• Ledge attack- Gets up and kicks. 6% damage.
• 100% ledge attack- Picks herself up, leaning on arm cannon, and jabs in front. 6% damage.
• Floor attack- Does a breakdance-like spin with her feet, which hits on both of her sides at the same time. 6% damage.

Aerial attacks

• Neutral aerial: Sex kick. Seems to be slightly angled upwards, 16% damage, weaker the longer it's out.
• Forward aerial: Aerial Flame, 2-20% (1-4 hits). Not the best air move due to # of hits, and how hard it is to have all the moves connect.
  

  Samus's Air Attacks
• Up aerial: Spiral Kick. Multi-hitting upwards drill kick. 2% each hit, 10% max.
• Back aerial: Back Kick. A fast Backwards kick with good range and speed, which some arch. One of Samus's best finishers. 14%
• Down aerial: Downwards arm thrust. Swings her arm cannon downwards below her in an arch. Is a Meteor Smash, 14%

Throws

• Forward throw: Grabs opponent via Grapple Beam and tosses him/her forward with good power, 12-16%
• Back throw: Same as forward throw, but tosses him/her backwards and faces the position she was in before the throw. 14-18%

Special Moves

Samus in the SSB instruction booklet.

Samus's special moves

Neutral special	Charge Shot
Up special	Screw Attack
Down special	Bomb

Taunt

• Takes her left arm off of the arm cannon and puts her left hand on her hip, at the same time raising her right arm so that her upper arm is perpendicular to her body, and her lower arm (the cannon) is parallel to her body. She then shakes the cannon like a fist.

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. (N64) Character Matchups

Avg.

In Single-player

In the game's Single-player mode, Samus is fought on the Planet Zebes stage.

Techniques

Teleport

See Teleport (SSB)

Bomb Recovery

In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Samus can bomb jump to greatly extend her horizontal recovery. In SSB, Samus cannot bomb jump. However, using bombs and immediately DIing towards the stage aids in her horizontal recovery to a degree, although not nearly as much as bomb jump recovery does. However, when a bomb jump is used, the double jump cannot be used until Samus lands.

Glitch

When Samus performs an up special move in training mode with 4 greenshells near the CPU, also make sure she is directly under the CPU, and it will cause them to raise to 999% damage. It is very similar to the Mario up special glitch, but the reasons for it are unknown.

Description

From the Game

Samus Aran is the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Using a special suit powered by the technology of the bird people which allows her to execute daring acrobatic feats, Samus pursues the airborne life form, Metroid, throughout the universe.

Works:

• Metroid (NES)
• Metroid II: The Return of Samus (GB)
• Super Metroid (SNES)

From the Instruction Booklet

The greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Samus Aran fights with the super-human power of her hi-tech power suit.

Costumes

File:Alt-samus.jpg

Samus' changeable clothing in SSB

Trivia

• Samus is the only confirmed female character in Super Smash Bros. (as gendered Pokémon did not exist at the time of this game).
• While all other characters show their skeletons (or lack thereof) upon being hit with an electric attack, Samus's suitless outline becomes visible instead.
• This is Samus' only appearance on the Nintendo 64. The only other playable character to share this distinction is Ness.
  • This is also the first apperance in 3-D format. Ness also shares this distinction.