Samus (SSB)

Samus (, 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, who achieves great results with her (despite refusing to travel to North America).

Attributes
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, 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 and '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. As a result of that, she lacks easy-to-land KO options, apart from her down aerial, which 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, 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 prevent 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.

NTSC-J to NTSC-U
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.

NTSC-U to PAL
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.

Moveset
For a gallery of Samus' hitboxes, see here.



Most Historically Significant Players

 * See also: Category:Samus players (SSB)


 * - Considered one of the best Samus players in the United States, playing her and, but has not competed since 2020. Has gone Samus at a decent amount of smaller tournaments such as 6th at and 9th at  with wins over , , and SotoH, and has placed Samus alongside Captain Falcon at majors such as 9th at . Previously ranked 22nd on the 2018 64 League Rankings.
 * - The current best Samus player in the world. Won a tournament as Samus with, taking it over players such as and . He has garnered other notable results such as 5th at  and 9th at . Currently ranked 39th on the 2021-2022 Smash 64 Power Rankings.
 * - A noteworthy Samus and main that now plays . Before the switch, he placed 3rd at, 9th at , and 17th at   with wins over , , and . Ranked 43rd on the 2017 64 League Rankings back when he mained Samus.
 * - The most prolific Samus player in competitive play. He was one of the most dominant players of Japan for years, winning multiple Japanese nationals such as, , , and . Has placed top 3 at almost every tournament he attended before retiring in 2016.
 * - The best Samus player in Japan after Josuke's retirement. Though his results are not of the same caliber as Jouske, he has still shown great results at tournaments such as 13th at and 17th at.
 * - One of the longest active Samus players in the United States, competing since 2015. While his placements can be considered inconsistent, he has made some notable placements in the modern era of Smash 64 with 3rd at, 9th at , and 17th at with wins over  and . Currently ranked 59th on the 2021-2022 Smash 64 Power Rankings.

Tier placement and history
For the longest time, Samus had been seen as a bottom tier character, frequently considered the worst in the whole game. The reasons for this negative perception are her lack of a reliable 0-to-death option, a slow and ineffective grab, and an overall laggy and predictable moveset. The biggest reason is that other characters have better versions of everything she has, giving players no real reason to use her competitively.

However, the perception of Samus has shifted more recently to be more positive, as she now sits in the lower-middle tier. The reasons for this shift are her floatiness granting above average survivability and some niche but highly potent kill options, particularly against high-tiered characters. Players have been utilizing these small strengths to get far better results than years previous, aiding to the more positive perception even more.

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

Bomb recovery
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.

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)

Trivia

 * Samus is the only female character in Super Smash Bros., as Pokémon 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.
 * This is also their first appearance in 3D, as well as Kirby's.
 * Both Samus and had their official artworks flipped horizontally on 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".
 * On the Character selection screen, Samus's portrait greatly resembles her artwork from .
 * Samus is the only character to have a costume exclusive to team battles without it being exclusive to the green team.

Samus (SSB)