Dark Samus (SSBU)

Dark Samus (, Dark Samus) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was announced as a newcomer during the August 8th, 2018 Super Smash Bros. Direct alongside, , , and. Dark Samus is ' Echo Fighter, and is therefore classified as Fighter #04ε.

The sound effects used for Samus in Super Smash Bros. 4 were repurposed for Dark Samus in Ultimate.

Dark Samus, alongside her base fighter Samus, is ranked 25th out of 82 on the current tier list, placing her in the A+ tier. Dark Samus has very minor differences from Samus, such as slighty altered hitboxes due to her different animations and elemental properties. These differences are not enough to make her play differently from Samus. As such, they are viewed as the same character in competitive play.

Dark Samus shares the same positives as Samus, such as strong zoning capabilities and a heavy weight. However, she also shares Samus' weaknesses, such as poor grounded options against up-close opponents and unreliable smash attacks. Overall, she like Samus achieves strong results in tournaments from players like and.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: Dark Samus must then be defeated on Frigate Orpheon (the Ω form is used in World of Light).
 * Play VS. matches, with Dark Samus being the 50th character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or any character in her unlock tree, being the 5th character unlocked after.
 * Have Dark Samus join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
Like Samus, Dark Samus is a heavyweight. She is a floaty character with slightly below average walking and dashing speeds, average air speed, above average air acceleration, high jump height and slow falling speed. These attributes grant her an easier time chasing aerial opponents and forcing air dodges, yet also cause her to be juggled rather easily. When combined with her few reliable landing options and slow falling speed, opponents will also have more time to punish Dark Samus as she attempts to return to the stage.

Similarly to Samus, Dark Samus' moveset consists of playing defensively, as she uses her projectiles to space, rack up damage from a distance and pressure shields. Charge Shot is her most consistent KOing option out of her special moves when fully charged, due to its speed and power. Missile is mostly used for spacing, due to both its Homing and Super variants being extremely inefficient at KOing, while grants Dark Samus various mix-ups and can aid her recovery. However, Missile and Bomb also possess valuable utility, in that they can guarantee a shield break when used in conjunction with a sufficiently charged Charge Shot or a sweetspotted back aerial. Lastly, is a decent out of shield option, a KOing option near the upper blast line and a viable combo finisher from aerial combo strings.

In addition, Dark Samus has a strong air game. The changes to air dodges have benefitted her overall, as they notably improve her ability to edgeguard (especially with moves such as forward aerial or her renowned Charge Shot), while she isn't hindered as much due to her fast air speed, the ability to stall mid-air using her Bombs, and her Grapple Beam tether recovery's long range. All of Dark Samus' aerials have no more than 20 frames of landing lag, and her back aerial is one of her best moves courtesy of its power, damage output, speed and range. Her down aerial can be a powerful meteor smash, forward aerial is a good pressuring tool due to its long duration, and up aerial is an excellent combo option. Lastly, her neutral aerial is a viable KOing option. When coupled with her high jumps, Dark Samus' air game is also potent while she is off-stage, as she can recover from nearly anywhere on the stage, stay in position for longer periods of time due to her floatiness, or bait the opponent by stalling in the air and punishing edge-guard attempts.

Dark Samus' grab game is also useful: her Grapple Beam has impressive range, doubles as a tether recovery, and has very little landing lag when used as a grab aerial. Down throw is very useful for starting combos that deal respectable damage and can be used with her neutral, forward and up aerials at varying percentages. Many of her combos can rack up more than 30% and when using platforms to her advantage, or string together multiple times and then be finished with Screw Attack, leading to a KO or dealing 40%-50% at the very least. Up throw is Dark Samus' strongest throw and is a fairly reliable KO option, especially on platforms. Although forward throw and back throw have decent damage outputs, their only utility is creating space and setting up edgeguards, and both are mediocre at best in doing so.

However, Dark Samus shares similar flaws to Samus. Dark Samus' ground game is mediocre overall as her smash attacks are punishable, with only her forward smash being a fairly reliable KOing option due to its quick start-up lag. Her neutral attack is very mediocre, which is noticeably exemplified in its inability to connect at high percentages and thus limits Dark Samus' anti-pressuring ability. Due to this and her average dashing speed, most Dark Samus players will often find themselves in the air, where her strengths lie.

Dark Samus also has issues with her recovery. Her grab aerial has very long range, her jumps are among the highest in the game, Screw Attack is fast and hard to punish, and Bomb jumping provides infinite horizontal recovery, but they are all offset by Screw Attack's only average distance, Bomb's high ending lag in the air and Dark Samus' only average air speed and reliance on her grab aerial to grab ledges from a distance. Altogether, this results in her recovery being slightly slow, linear and predictable.

Overall, Dark Samus is a character that performs best when using her projectiles and grab aerial for spacing in order to set up combos and either finish off pressured opponents off-stage, or KO them outright with Charge Shot. Unlike the majority of veterans, Dark Samus' optimal playstyle is highly unorthodox; as she falls short in regard to zoning-exclusive or melee-exclusive offense, success with Dark Samus requires careful, calculated use of her various tools to keep momentum in her favor. As such, she is a character that is hard to master, but greatly rewards patient and calculated play.

Differences from
As with certain other Echo Fighters, Dark Samus is nearly identical gameplay-wise to Samus, with largely aesthetic differences. However, she has many basic animations that are different from Samus: a more standard roll which does not involve using her, -based attacks appearing as neon blue, electrical explosions instead of orange, flaming explosions, and more organic looking models for her Homing Missile, Super Missile and.

However, Dark Samus' small advantages over Samus (such as her slightly faster roll) are considered to be less situational than Samus' small advantages over Dark Samus (such as the ability to detonate enemy bombs with her flame properties, larger shield size, or a smaller hurtbox after rolling). The gameplay differences between the two are so marginal that it is ultimately up to the player's preference over which character to choose from.

Special moves

 * Charge Shot:
 * Missile:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Missile:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Missile:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:
 * Phazon Laser:

Update history
Like, Dark Samus has received a mix of buffs, nerfs and glitch fixes, but was buffed overall via game updates. Update 2.0.0 fixed Homing Missile's inconsistency at following 's Pokémon any time they were switched via Pokémon Change after the Missile was fired. Missile's range was also increased while 's ending lag was decreased. However, update 3.0.0 decreased Charge Shot's shield damage output as part of a near-universal nerf to projectiles. As a result, its utility for shield break combos was worsened significantly, with the same applying to Samus' version. Following this, update 3.1.0 improved the consistency of up smash's linking hits.

However, Dark Samus received her most noteworthy buffs in update 7.0.0. Like Samus, her shield was enlarged as part of a near-universal buff; unlike Samus, however, Dark Samus' right arm now gains brief intangibility upon activating and deactivating her shield. Up smash, down smash and up throw each gained considerable increases to their knockback, which noticeably improved their KO potentials. On a similar note, early dash attack deals 3% more damage: this makes it functionally identical to the clean hit, and thus improved dash attack's consistency as a situational, yet viable KO option. Aerial Grapple Beam gained slight increases to its damage output and active frames, which improved its spacing prowess. Lastly, update 9.0.2 fixed a glitch introduced in update 9.0.0 that made Screw Attack unable to propel Dark Samus as high as it used to.

Overall, Dark Samus fares better than she did at the launch of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moveset
For a gallery of Dark Samus' hitboxes, see here.
 * Dark Samus can wall jump.
 * Dark Samus possesses a tether attack and grab.

Stats
Dark Samus' gravity and falling speed are set to 0.078288 and 1.8, respectively, during hitstun when launched at angles between 70°-110°.

On-screen appearance

 * Warps onto the stage from a wormhole, similar to the ones used by s to travel through outer space in .

Taunts

 * Up taunt: Hovers up slightly while emitting small embers of Phazon.
 * Side taunt: Spins around while emitting small embers of Phazon.
 * Down taunt: Crouches down while holding her Arm Cannon upright. It slightly resembles Samus' taunt in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Samus' pose on the box art of both ' and '.

Idle poses

 * Brings her Arm Cannon down and then pulls it back up.
 * Rubs her Arm Cannon with one finger.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses

 * Left: Raises her arm and lowers it in a fist pump pose. It is based on a pose she assumes during the introduction to her battle in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It also somewhat resembles her arm's pose shown in the secret 100% ending of .
 * Up: Splits from a by performing a cartwheel. They then levitate in a circle around an axis before recombining together. Dark Samus then poses with her free hand on her Arm Cannon, which is pointed upward. The Dark Echo's initial movement is based on the introduction to her battle in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The final pose resembles Samus' render from , and by extension, her official artwork in Ultimate.
 * Right: Turns toward the camera while emitting small embers of Phazon, then the camera dramatically zooms in to her face, at which point two of her eyes flash briefly through her . It is similar to the 's introduction in .

: The Great Poison Given Form
Dark Samus' route features her fighting against protagonists while she is allied with fighters who, at some point in their respective home series, were corrupted in some way. The exemptions to this are Rounds 4 and 6: the former Round features as a partner due to its partial Poison typing instead of outright corruption, and the latter Round is a free-for-all against  and. Dark Samus having teammates is a reference her ability to corrupt beings via Phazon, while the name of her route is also a direct reference to being referred to as the "Great Poison" in.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Dark Samus has  accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light
Dark Samus is absent from the World of Light opening cutscene, though she was vaporized and placed under Galeem's imprisonment alongside the rest of the playable fighters (excluding ) when Galeem unleashed his beams of light.

Dark Samus was one of the many fighters that fell under Dharkon's control upon Galeem's first defeat, and is found in as one of the last fighters under his command. She is one of the few obligatory unlocks, and defeating her leads to a fight with and the subsequent reveal of 's location.

Spirit
Dark Samus's fighter spirit can be obtained by completing. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 Gold, but only after Dark Samus has been unlocked. Unlocking Dark Samus in World of Light allows the player to preview the first spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. Her fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces it with her artwork in Ultimate.

Trivia

 * Dark Samus, and  initially appeared as Assist Trophies in previous installments prior to becoming fighters.
 * Unlike them, Dark Samus is the only one to be an Echo Fighter.
 * Dark Samus is the second fighter revealed to have been cloned from a female fighter (in her case, ), with the first being.
 * Much like Daisy's base fighter,, having a Daisy-based alternate costume in all of her previous appearances, Dark Samus' base fighter, Samus, has a Dark Samus-based alternate costume in Super Smash Bros. 4. This costume was removed in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, likely to make it easier to distinguish between Samus and Dark Samus. This scenario is similar to 's loss of his Chrom-inspired alternate costume following 's inclusion as a fighter in Ultimate.
 * Incidentally, Dark Samus, Daisy, and Chrom are Echo Fighters.
 * Dark Samus is the only Echo Fighter who can wall jump.
 * Dark Samus is the second non-Japanese character to be playable in Super Smash Bros., with the first being Diddy Kong. She is also the first fighter in the series that was created by an American developer.
 * Just like her fellow newcomer, Ultimate marks Dark Samus' first playable appearance.
 * On an extended note, Dark Samus is the first to be playable in any capacity.
 * According to Masahiro Sakurai's weekly Famitsu column, Dark Samus was added due to her popularity overseas, while Chrom was added due to his popularity in Japan.
 * Dark Samus is the second playable female villain, with the first being Wendy O. Koopa.
 * She is also the only Echo Fighter who is a villain, as the rest of the Echo Fighters are either heroes or, in Dark Pit's case, an anti-hero.
 * While Dark Samus normally has a different idle stance from Samus, she will assume Samus' idle stance briefly after using an animation directly borrowed from Samus (such as any attack excluding her dash attack, smash attacks, special moves, Final Smash, or flinching in any way). This is similar to other Echo Fighters, though unlike the other examples (save for and ), Dark Samus does not revert to her base fighter's idle stance while holding a small item.
 * On a similar note, Dark Samus dashes on her feet while carrying heavy items (such as a crate) despite floating by default in order to move around. This is possibly an animation carryover from Samus. She also uses Samus' animations when walking/dashing off a platform.
 * All of Dark Samus' Arm Cannon-based moves (except for down tilt, up smash, and forward aerial) alter the Arm Cannon to match the color of her 's and highlights.
 * Dark Samus is one of two characters in Ultimate who shares another character's star KO voice clip (in her case, Samus'), with the other being (who has 's star KO voice clip).
 * If Dark Samus is firing a shooting item, such as a Ray Gun or Fire Flower, or wielding a Daybreak and is moving around with it, the sounds of her walking can be heard despite the fact that she floats while holding it. This is possibly due to an oversight.
 * Dark Samus, Samus, and  are the only fighters who do not emit flashing red eyes in the spirit battle preview screens in World of Light.
 * In French and German, the name tag and voice clip from the announcer on the victory screen is different from the one used on the character select screen. In the former, the announcer pronounces her name in a more sinister way (akin to the English and Dutch versions), while the latter features a noticeable translation of "the" (die Dunkle Samus).
 * Dark Samus' description on the North American amiibo website is based on her Super Smash Blog entry.

Samus Oscura (SSBU)