Zero Suit Samus (SSBB)

Zero Suit Samus (, Zero Suit Samus) is a newcomer that appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Zero Suit Samus is voiced by, who also voices Krystal from Star Fox and the Assist Trophy Knuckle Joe; unlike those characters, Zero Suit Samus is always voiced in English regardless of region, like , , , and.

Zero Suit Samus can be played as by using Samus', inputting Samus' up and down taunt rapidly, or by selecting Samus and holding the or  button (Gamecube/Classic controller),  button (Nunchuk), or the  button while transitioning to the stage select screen. In The Subspace Emissary she can be selected over Samus in The Great Maze and the post-game by hovering over Samus' slot and either tilting the (GameCube/Classic controller),  or. She also can transform back by using her Final Smash, Power Suit Samus.

Zero Suit Samus ranks 9th on the current Brawl tier list, placing her in the B tier. She has an amazing aerial and juggle game, possessing very high jumps and low-lag aerial attacks that do good knockback and damage, with her up and back aerials being especially useful. She also has very fast mobility, noticeable especially in her jumps, and some of the game's most versatile recovery options, including her midair jump, side and up specials, and down special. Zero Suit Samus also has an effective spacing tool in her Plasma Whip (albeit not being very fast), powerful KO options, such as her forward, up and back aerials, Plasma Whip, and Flip Jump, as well as a great combo starter and KO setup in her down smash. Her Power Suit Pieces, in addition, are among the most powerful items in the game, and at the beginning of a match are very effective at damaging and shutting down the opponent. However, she has a poor ground game, with her tilts and smashes doing below average damage and mediocre knockback (though some of her ground attacks are still effective for combos), and a grab that despite its range, is one of the laggiest in the game, even when used as a pivot grab (unlike some other tether grabs). Because of this, her out of shield and defensive game (outside of maneuverability) are poor, due to lacking safe options on shield (her grab is unreliable due to its heavy lag), making herself prone to heavy shield pressure, and despite her good air game, she lacks reliable options for enemies below her; this can make her vulnerable to juggling from characters such as. Zero Suit Samus is additionally reliant on tether recoveries that can be edgehogged, although her high jumps and Flip Jump make her suffer less from this than other characters with tethers. Her advantages lead to rather above average matchups across the board, but this also causes her to suffer against higher-tiered characters. Despite her flaws, Zero Suit Samus has achieved strong tournament results.

Attributes
Zero Suit Samus is a tall lightweight who boasts excellent mobility overall. She has the fourth fastest dashing and walking speeds, tied with and  for the 11th fastest air speed, tied with  and  for the third highest traction, tied with, , and  for the sixth fastest air acceleration, and the second highest jump. Her falling speed and gravity are above-average (15th and 13th highest, respectively). She is also able to crawl and wall jump, much like in her home series. On the downside, she has only a few amount of reliable KO options, with only her forward aerial, back aerial, up aerial, Plasma Whip, and Flip Kick reliably KO'ing under 125%. This puts her in the "hit-and-run" archetype group.

She starts the match with a huge advantage over most characters in that she has readily throw-able projectiles that are extremely powerful and combo well with her glide toss. Many of her attacks have the advantage of coming out fast, and can combo most heavy weights with her aerials very easily.

Her side special has a huge sweetspot at the end (one of the biggest in the game, second to 's side special) and the sour spot has the ability to push the opponent into the sweet spot, effectively KOing most characters around 110% if it's not stale. Her down smash has deceptively long range, extreme safety on shield, and sets up many combos, as well as KO setups. Zero Suit Samus is unique in the fact that many of her moves have large hitboxes and easy to hit sweetspots, this can devastate opponents as they are dealt a barrage of aerials and fast ground attacks. Her up smash is decent because it has fast start-up and its great to stop incoming opponents from above and puts them in good position for juggling, although it is can be easily escaped through SDI.

One of her few KO moves is her up aerial, a very fast flip kick that can KO as low as 90% if the opponent is near the upper blast line and possesses a very large sweetspot for such a powerful move. Both of her high jumps compliment this strategy. She also has 3 meteor smashes, her Flip Jump kick, if hit when she sticks her foot out, will spike opponents hard (even without doing this, the kick is still somewhat powerful and can KO most characters at fairly moderate damage percentages with strong horizontal knockback), her up special, if hit at the tip, will meteor smash anyone it hits and her down aerial (although this is an unreliable spike). Both of these can be used for any situation, giving her multiple surprise KO methods.

Zero Suit Samus, if mastered, is extremely dangerous and many players can find themselves down a stock or worse if they aren't careful. Her attacks and combos require a lot of precision which makes her a difficult character to learn and play effectively. The stale move negation can complicate her to get a KO, in spite of her having only a few KO moves and good edgeguarding skills. All of her tilts are quick (although her up tilt has high ending lag), with decent range, and have the added bonus of launching her opponents into the air. She has a situational though passable out of shield game (making herself prone to heavy shield pressure). Her aerial game is powerful with lethal kicks and long-ranged attacks, but her very high short hop makes approaches with aerials difficult. Her projectile, the Paralyzer, can set opponents up for KO's and deals a bit of damage. However, it's slow and needs to be charged up to go far. Her tether grab has incredible range (tied with Olimar´s Red Pikmin, only losing to White and Blue Pikmin, although her grab possesses the longest range in aerial opponents), but it leaves her vulnerable if it misses which is dangerous for a such a light character. Her smashes compliment her perfectly. Her up and down smashes are useful for their range. The down smash is perfect for set up KO's, and the up smash makes for an good launcher, and can stop opponents' midair combos, while her side smash is quite weak, in terms of damage and power, with high ending lag and considerable start-up lag, but with good range, even behind her. In terms of recovery, she can use her Plasma Wire and Whip as a tether recovery, but it can be stopped by edge-hogging, although due to her air speed and second jump being fairly high and combining with Flip Jump, she can usually come back to the stage without relying on her tether.

Notable players

 * See also: Category:Zero Suit Samus players (SSBB)


 * - 64th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - 32nd on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Best Zero Suit Samus in Germany. 58th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Won Apex 2013, defeating professional players. 18th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Ness player who also mained Zero Suit Samus. 34th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Best Zero Suit Samus in Canada. 26th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - 32nd on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Best Zero Suit Samus in Germany. 58th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Won Apex 2013, defeating professional players. 18th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Ness player who also mained Zero Suit Samus. 34th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Best Zero Suit Samus in Canada. 26th on 2014 SSBBRank.
 * - Best Zero Suit Samus in Canada. 26th on 2014 SSBBRank.

Tier placement and history
Zero Suit Samus was originally a mid tier character, ranked 21st on the first tier list (September 2008). However, as Zero Suit Samus mains showed her effective aerial game and combo abilities she rose to 16th place on the second tier list (January 2009), then stayed at 15th until the fifth tier list (September 2010), where she rose to 13th place. She rose again to 12th in the sixth tier list (July 2011), and 10th in the seventh list (April 2012). After won Apex 2013 using only Zero Suit Samus, she rose to 9th place in the eighth and current tier list, as of April 2013. Some people even believe that she belongs in the bottom of the top tiers; whether her current position is accurate or should be higher remains disputed, but her combination of mobility, powerful low lag aerials, strong recovery, and excellent stage control with her Power Suit Pieces makes her much better than initially thought.

Role in The Subspace Emissary
Zero Suit Samus is first seen breaking into the base of the Subspace Army. Soon she comes across being drained of its electrical power. Samus uses her whip to break the container the Pikachu is being held in, summoning a security force of R.O.B.s. Later, she comes across her Power Suit, but is confronted by two Shadow Bug clones mimicking the Power Suit.

After reacquiring her Power Suit, and her new companion Pikachu come across Ridley. He grabs Samus and starts to drag her against the wall, until Pikachu returns Samus' favor and uses on Ridley, causing him to drop Samus. An infuriated Ridley attacks. Once they defeat him, the duo exits the base and come across a cave.

Samus and Pikachu make their way to the Subspace Bomb Factory and find the Ancient Minister with the R.O.B. Squad. They prepare to fight, but then realize that he looks very sad. Soon,, , and  find the factory and enter. A hologram of appears and orders the R.O.B. Squad to activate the Subspace Bombs in the factory. The Ancient Minister tries to stop them, but is set on fire when Ganondorf orders them to retaliate. After The Ancient Minister is revealed to be a himself, the characters set out and all join the quest.

Samus helps the others to fight Meta Ridley, flees the island, gathers with almost all the rest of the characters, enters the subspace, is defeated by Tabuu and revived by the, and. She can help to defeat Tabuu in the end.

Playable appearances
After Zero Suit Samus reclaims the Samus suit, the players have the option to use her Zero Suit form in other levels.


 * The Research Facility (Part I)
 * The Research Facility (Part II)
 * The Subspace Bomb Factory (Part I)
 * The Subspace Bomb Factory (Part II)
 * Entrance to Subspace
 * The Great Maze (if rescued in Subspace (Part I)

Exclusive stickers
Since Samus and Zero Suit Samus share the same trophy base, there are some cases in which certain stickers will not affect one of them. Since Smash Balls don't appear in Adventure Mode, if one transforms into Zero Suit Samus, they will be unable to change back until the end of the level (or, in The Great Maze, a save point). Aside from use of items, only Leg, Weapon, and Energy stickers will affect both characters. That said, all of Zero Suit Samus's moves consist of Leg or Weapon attacks barring the first hit of the jab, Forward Throw and Down Smash.

In Classic Mode, /Zero Suit Samus can appear as an opponent in Stage 6 on Norfair or Frigate Orpheon. Samus/Zero Suit Samus can also appear as an opponent in Stage 11, but only if she hasn't appeared in Stage 6.

All-Star Mode
In All-Star Mode, /Zero Suit Samus is fought in Stage 7 on Norfair or Frigate Orpheon.

Solo Events

 * Event 16: Power Suit ON!: The player plays as Zero Suit Samus and must turn into by obtaining a Smash Ball. Two other Zero Suit Samuses are also featured in this event, who will attempt to stop the player.
 * Event 20: All-Star Battle x1: Zero Suit Samus is one of the eight opponents fought in this event along with, , , , , , and the.
 * Event 23: Molten Norfair: Samus must survive the lava wave on Norfair by getting inside the safety capsule while fending off against both and . It's possible for the player to turn into Zero Suit Samus by quickly inputting her up and down taunts in rapid sucession.

Co-Op Events

 * Co-Op Event 6: Unwanted Suitors: As and Zero Suit Samus, both players must defeat an invisible  and an invisible  on Port Town Aero Dive.
 * Co-Op Event 7: Battle of the Dark Sides: and, must defeat Dark Link and Dark Samus in a 200 HP Stamina match on Bridge of Eldin. It's possible for Samus to turn into Zero Suit Samus if the player wishes.
 * Co-Op Event 21: The True All-Star Battle: Both players select a character and take on the entire roster on Battlefield. Note that Zero Suit Samus may take Samus's spot in the lineup.

Trophies
Zero Suit Samus's main and Final Smash trophies can be obtained by clearing and All-Star mode respectively with Zero Suit Samus.

Trivia

 * Zero Suit Samus's grab, while a tether grab, is not a tether recovery, although it becomes one in Super Smash Bros. 4. She shares this disability with, , and . In Ultimate, this trait is also shared with.
 * Brawl is the first instance of Samus having spoken dialogue performed by a voice actress; her only voice prior to Brawl was in the form of grunts and cries of pain in the Metroid Prime series, which were performed by Jennifer Hale. However, Hale recorded a monologue in-character as Samus for the original Metroid Prime, which ultimately went unused. ' and ' later gave Samus spoken dialogue, to a much greater extent in the former than the latter.
 * Zero Suit Samus's original artwork from her reveal differs from her final in-game artwork; in this case, the shading is heavier and her pose is slightly different. She shares this trait with and, though the differences in her artwork are not as drastic as theirs.
 * Zero Suit Samus,, , and  are the only five characters who have speaking parts in all three of their taunts.
 * Strangely, Zero Suit Samus's up tilt and up aerial have a slash effect along with making a slashing sound, despite that she uses her legs rather than any slashing tool. Kirby's up smash also shares this trait.
 * Zero Suit Samus is the only character to not appear anywhere on the character selection screen in Brawl.
 * Similarly, is the only character to not appear in Melee's character selection screen.
 * As Smash 4 separated Samus and Zero Suit Samus into their own character slots, Brawl marks the only time Samus and Zero Suit Samus are transformation characters and the only time Zero Suit Samus isn't seen on the character selection screen.
 * When selecting Zero Suit Samus on the tournament mode and SSE character selection screens, her name is misspelled as "Zaro Suit Samus".
 * Zero Suit Samus and are the only characters who are never fought in any form in The Subspace Emissary.
 * Whenever Zero Suit Samus gets Star KO'd or Screen KO'd, her Paralyzer vanishes. A similar effect happens whenever she gets hit by Blue Falcon.
 * Zero Suit Samus is the only female newcomer introduced in Brawl.