Samus (サムス, Samus) is a starter character in Super Smash Bros.. As in her games, she fights inside the hi-tech, powerful Varia Suit, giving her a strong endurance to attacks as well as varied options for attack. Her sound clips are entirely "technologic" sounds.
She is ranked 8th on the current tier list, placing her at the top of the C tier. Samus is a heavy, yet floaty, character with decent horizontal recovery. She has arguably the highest raw damage output in the game, courtesy of her many options for attacking, and due to the long range of her moves, she is able to space them well. The high damage output of her moves also translates well to her power, having many powerful finishers like her Charge Shot and her neutral and back aerials. Despite her weight, her floaty nature also allows her to not be comboed as easily as others.
However, Samus has many glaring weaknesses. One of them is her overall slow mobility: while she has a fast dashing speed, she is among the least mobile characters in the air due to her floatiness. Samus also has no reliable grounded or aerial options for approaching. Another weakness is her very sluggish frame data, with some of her moves having lots of ending lag. Altogether, this gives her an almost non-existent approach. While she seemingly has many combo starters due to said moves having low knockback, she has a low amount of combos due to her moves' ending lag. Lastly, she lacks a quick and easy-to-land KO move and relies on reads and predictable finishers to KO.
The few things that save Samus from being the worst character in the NTSC-U version are spacing, recovery, and the fact she is hard to combo. Even so, she still has mediocre matchups, as well as terrible representation and results in North America. However, she is ranked higher in the Japanese version at 7th, due to the different gameplay mechanics having an impact on her moveset, and she has a notable smasher in Jouske, who achieves great results with her (despite refusing to travel to North America).
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Samus's ending picture in Super Smash Bros.
Samus using Charge Shot in the Smash 64 instruction booklet.
Samus is a tall heavyweight character that is also rather floaty, an uncommon trait for most heavyweights. She has the 4th fastest dashing speed, but combined with the 4th slowest air speed, second slowest falling speed, and a long and slow roll heavily decrease her mobility. She has decent range and also has two projectiles, including Charge Shot, which covers a great distance and is fairly powerful, being quite useful for keeping opponents at bay, but requires a large amount of charging to have KO power, and Bomb, which can aid her horizontal recovery. Spacing works quite well with Samus, with her forward tilt and back aerial being useful. However, she has a high and slow short hop. Her grab is one of the three tether grabs in the game, giving it excellent range, but has sixty frames of ending lag, making it the laggiest grab in the game. Her back throw is a powerful KO throw and is also tied with Pikachu and Donkey Kong's back throws for the most damaging throw in the game. Her biggest flaw however is her notorious inability to perform a zero-to-death combo with her regular moves, though to compensate, she escapes many zero deaths with her floaty weight and Screw Attack. Her dash attack can set up tech chases, leading into a down tilt and a down air to kill; however, this is not a true combo at all percents. In addition, her down-air may not kill heavier characters such as herself or DK.
Overall, most of Samus's moves, while doing over 10% in most cases, have a high amount of ending lag, and she has no quick, easy-to-land KO moves, though her down aerial is an extremely fast meteor smash. While Samus's dair is a great edgeguarding move, especially against slow recoveries like Kirby's or Jigglypuff's, she has poor to mediocre edgeguarding ability outside of it, and her primary recovery move, the Screw Attack, travels extremely short horizontal and vertical distance, giving her a very poor vertical recovery. Her horizontal recovery, while still short and predictable, is slightly aided by her floatiness and Bombs. She is vulnerable to edgeguarding herself; an aerial Charge Shot can help perevent careless edgeguards, but her recovery is slow and predictable.
Samus is known for being the only character in Smash 64 who cannot 0-death easily, though her floatiness and Screw Attack can slightly help her escape combos. Posting a legitimate Samus combo is considered to be an inside joke in the Smash 64 community, as there are players who state that Samus has no combos and that it is virtually impossible to make a combo video of her without hacking.
Samus was nerfed in her transition to NTSC-U. Samus was overall one of the least changed characters in the NTSC-U version but one change which does hinder her is that her Grounded Screw Attack has less invincibility frames, making the move much easier to challenge and beat out. Samus was also noticeably hindered by the version's universal changes, most notably the universal increase to SDI. This notably hinders Samus due to her high amount of multi-hit attacks which are now easier to escape (including her Screw Attack). Samus was also hindered by the universal decrease to shieldstun as it makes her shield break and grab setups harder. Overall, Samus is worse than in the Japanese version.
Samus was nerfed in her transition to PAL. While she benefits from the teleport glitch covering more distance, which in turn gives her a slightly better approach option, her air speed has been reduced and her back aerial's extreme power has been toned down.
Brings her foot down in an axe-like way. The move has weak horizontal knockback while Samus raises her foot up while it has higher damage and knockback when her foot comes back down. The early hit is very weak to the point that it is punishable on hit while the second hit comes out very slowly and is not particularly strong either. Unlike Captain's Falcon's up tilt, Samus cannot connect both hits. It is overall one of Samus' least useful moves due to the early hit's abysmal power combined with the second hit's abysmal startup.
She quickly does a grounded roundhouse kick, which knocks the foe forward. Has some KO potential at higher percentages near the ledge, can hit foes hanging onto the ledge.
Charges forward and rams opponent with shoulder. Doesn't deal much shield stun and can leave her vulnerable against opponents even at moderate percentages due to its very low knockback. However, if used correctly, it can occasionally be a combo starter.
She aims her arm cannon upwards and shoots flames in an arch. Multi-hitting, 10% per hit. Best usage against heavier or fast falling characters as an anti-air move.
Deals 20% (1-4 hits). Not the best air move due to number of hits, and how hard it is to have all the moves connect. However, the last hit can be linked into many other moves.
A fast backwards kick with good range and speed. One of Samus's strongest finishers when sweetspotted, though it is usually difficult to land the sweetspot, due to her bad short hop and limited ways of comboing into it.
Multi-hitting upwards drill kick. 2% per hit. Due to a developer oversight that prevents the final hitbox from spawning, Samus is left very vulnerable, making this an impractical move.
Downwards arm thrust. Swings her arm cannon downwards below her in an arch. Is a meteor smash. Overall among Samus's best finishers, being able to KO earlier than most of her other moves. Against grounded opponents, it can also lead into moves such as back aerial.
Samus, along with Link and Yoshi, has an "extended grab". She uses the Grapple Beam while standing. This allows her to grab opponents from a distance, but the grab is very laggy if it misses and can make Samus vulnerable due to its length. This can lead to various unique combos due to the large grab range.
Chargeable in the same way as Donkey Kong's Giant Punch - pressing the B button starts charging, and the charge can be saved with the Z button, then continued by pressing B. The projectile is quite large but easy to dodge. Usually used as a combo extender or finisher.
Does a Screw Attack upwards, recovery move that does multiple hits and can trap opponents to rack up damage. Useful against opponents on soft platforms above Samus.
Drops a Morph Ball Bomb that explodes within a few seconds. Does extremely minimal knockback, though it causes Samus to fall slightly slower than normal, meaning it can be used for horizontal recovery. However, using it before a double jump will cause Samus to be unable to perform her double jump until she lands.
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.
This article or section is incomplete. You can help SmashWiki by expanding or finishing it. The editor who added this tag elaborates: Needs a "Tier placement and history" section.
In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Samus can bomb jump to greatly extend her horizontal recovery. In Smash 64, 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, her double jump cannot be used until Samus lands.
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.
Samus is the only female character in Super Smash Bros., as Pokemon were not considered as being gendered at the time of that game's release.
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 her first appearance in 3D. Ness also shares this distinction.
Both Samus and Donkey Kong both had their official artworks flipped horizontally in the official English website.
In the PAL version of the game, Samus's character description in French uses male pronouns with female ones in speculative brackets (the equivalent of "his (her?)"), in contrast to both the English and German descriptions using female pronouns throughout. This might be a reference to the instruction booklet from the original Metroid, where Samus is referred to as a "he".
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The second hit of neutral attack now has a medium punch sound instead of a heavy punch.
Up smash has increased base knockback (10 → 22).
Grounded Screw Attack has fewer invincibility frames on startup (frames 1-11 → 1-5).
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