Zero Suit Samus (SSBU)

Zero Suit Samus (, Zero Suit Samus) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was officially revealed on June 12th, 2018 alongside and the rest of the returning roster. Once again, Zero Suit Samus is unconnected to the standard playable, although she temporarily transforms into the latter during her Final Smash. Zero Suit Samus is classified as Fighter #29.

As in Super Smash Bros. 4, 's portrayal of Zero Suit Samus from Super Smash Bros. Brawl was repurposed for Ultimate.

Zero Suit Samus is currently ranked 26th out of 82 characters on the current Ultimate tier list, placing her in A+ tier. This is a significant drop from her top-tier position in Smash 4, where she was ranked 6th out of 54 characters, and is her worst placement in the series to date. Zero Suit Samus possesses fantastic movement that allows her to be fantastic as a hit-and-run character and even a time-out character, while also giving her a strong disadvantage state. Zero Suit Samus also possesses a long and fast recovery thanks to Flip Jump, Boost Kick, and her tether. She also possesses safe aerials and a projectile that complements her strong neutral game and grants her a strong aerial game.

However, Zero Suit Samus also has some notable weaknesses. Zero Suit Samus has issues closing out stocks consistently and her damage racking capabilities are unimpressive compared to other top-tier characters, making her ability to make comebacks rather poor. She also has weak survivability due to being a tall yet light character, making her susceptible to early KOs. Finally, she has little out-of-shield options, while the options she does have are either inconsistent or has average startup.

Zero Suit Samus was initially considered to be among the best characters in the game, with the character notably having a strong presence in Japan. However, nerfs to her strengths and metagame shifts due to the addition of DLC characters and buffs to other characters led to a noticeable decline following the online era. Even with the decline, she is still considered to be a viable character who has seen great results and decent representation in tournaments thanks to the likes of.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: With the exception of the third method, Zero Suit Samus must then be defeated on Brinstar. In World of Light, she is fought on the Ω form of Brinstar Depths.
 * Play VS. matches, with Zero Suit Samus being the 19th character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or any character in his unlock tree, being the 2nd character unlocked after.
 * Have Zero Suit Samus join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
Zero Suit Samus is a tall, lightweight character, similar to and, which alongside her low weight (tied with  for the seventh lowest) gives her poor endurance. However, much like other rushdown characters of her playstyle, her mobility is among the best in the game; she possesses the 2nd fastest initial dash in the game, the 7th fastest run speed, the 9th fastest air speed, the 15th fastest air acceleration, and the 3rd highest jump height overall. Altogether, this combination of traits gives her an excellent hit-and-run playstyle.

One of her biggest strengths is her outstanding air game, considered among the best in the cast. While her neutral aerial has noticeable start-up, it is decently disjointed and sends at an excellent angle for combos. This makes it one of her main tools in the neutral and is notable for having several KO confirms into some of her finishing moves. Her forward aerial is also a great combo starter due to its low lag and can be useful for edgeguarding, while it also has some KO potential offstage. Her back aerial is fast, fairly strong, and can be combo'd into from a neutral aerial at high percents, making it one of her primary KO options. Her up aerial is exceptionally fast at frame 6 and can be combo'd into itself repeatedly, making it a great juggling tool that can sometimes KO confirm into Boost Kick. Her down aerial is a stall-then-fall aerial with a meteor smash hitbox; while it is her slowest aerial and easily her most unsafe, it can nonetheless be used as a situational KO move and landing option. Finally, she is one of the only characters in the game with a grab aerial, which like most other grab aerials has long range and low lag overall, giving her a good approach against aerial foes as well as a niche recovery option.

While her ground game isn't as powerful as her aerials, it still has decent utility. Her neutral attack is notable for coming out instantly on frame 1, making it a reliable anti-pressure tool despite its poor damage output and range. Her forward tilt has good range, low lag, and can set up tech-chase situations and can trip at low percents when angled downwards, her up tilt is the fastest of its kind at 3 frames of startup and can be used as an anti-air, and her down tilt lowers her hurtbox and is useful as a ranged poking option while also being a decent combo starter. Her down smash has decently sized hitboxes with low ending lag and is an effective combo tool starting from lower percentages while at higher percentages, it can lead into KO moves such as Boost Kick or up smash; however, unlike most other down smashes, it only hits in front of her, limiting its utility for tech-chasing. Lastly, her up smash has impressive vertical range overall, deals high hitstun, has low enough ending lag for combos at low percentages, and has decent KO power, arguably making it one of the best up smashes in Ultimate.

Zero Suit Samus also has a decent grab game, as her grab has a very long range, while all of her throws deal at least 8% damage. Her forward throw can be used for tech chasing, while her back throw can force opponents into unfavorable offstage situations or even lead into her infamous Flip Jump meteor smash. Her up throw is a decent KO throw (which KO's starting around 170%), and while her down throw is ironically unsuitable for combos unlike other down throws, it can still follow up at low percentages if the opponent fails to act fast enough.

Finally, her special moveset has strong utility overall. Paralyzer, her neutral special, has a very fast charge time compared to other chargeable projectiles, and starting at mid percentages, will stun opponents long enough for her to be able to follow up. Plasma Whip, her side special, is a long-ranged attack with very strong utility: tapping the button will cause the move to become a multi-hitting KO option that KO's starting at 140% if fresh, while holding the button will cause the move to hit once and knock foes upward. While this version is less suited for offense and has more lag, it still has utility for setting up combos. Boost Kick, her up special, travels merely average distance as a recovery, but compensates with having many options that follow up into it (such as neutral and up aerials, Paralyzer and Flip Jump's burying sweetspot), while the last hit is strong enough to KO earlier than her forward smash and her strongest move overall. Finally, her down special, Flip Jump, is a 45° acrobatic jump that does not render her helpless in the air, while its followup kick can meteor smash foes in the air or bury them on the ground, and is fast enough that it will often leave slower characters (such as ) in dangerous situations. It also grants intangibility on frames 3-12, making it an excellent tool for getting out of disadvantage.

Zero Suit Samus is not without flaws, however. Perhaps her most infamous flaw lies in her defense: while her recovery is among the most effective in Ultimate due to her abundance of recovery options, fast air speed, and high jumps, her aforementioned weight and tall frame give her very poor endurance, while her recovery options (except for Flip Jump) are linear and fairly straightforward to edgeguard, which can make her recovery predictable. This flaw is further stressed with her fast falling speed, as it is easy for characters with sufficiently fast combo attacks (including and ) to perform combos on her (although her frame 2 air dodges can somewhat alleviate this issue).

Her ground game, despite its strengths, is also flawed. While her tilts have passable range, and her up and down smashes are good for followups and KO confirms, her forward smash has high end lag for an attack of its kind and is not strong or consistent enough to KO reliably, making it arguably her worst move. Her dash attack cannot reliably combo due to its high ending lag, and her down smash, despite its followup potential, is unsafe on hit at low percentages due to its low hitlag and knockback, meaning that the paralyzed opponent(s) can generally act before she can follow up.

Zero Suit Samus's out-of-shield game can also be rather problematic. While Boost Kick is very fast at frame 6 and can KO very early at the ledge, it lacks sufficient range in front of her and has a very hard time punishing cross-ups out of shield. While the aerial version has more range, it also costs 3 extra frames to start up (due to her jumpsquat) and as such is less reliable. Her up smash acts as a solid out of shield option due to its decent horizontal range but is still merely frame 10, which while fast for an up smash, is only average startup for an out of shield option. Her rather high short hop also causes her aerials to be unviable out of shield outside of forward aerial on certain characters, and her grab by default is very slow. As such, ZSS's out of shield game suffers immensely if the opponent spaces against her shield well.

Finally, while her grab game has some utility, it is still notably flawed. As her throws only deal passable damage at best, while up throw is her only KO throw (and not a particularly potent one at that), they are only generally used to deal damage if other close-range moves are stale. Her grab in general is also very laggy in startup and end lag, meaning that despite its long range, it is easy to punish from any sufficiently fast attack if it misses. Lastly, the nerfs to her down throw, which was easily her best throw from Smash 4, make her grab game more suited for direct offense instead of damage racking strings, giving it limited utility overall.

In the end, Zero Suit Samus retains much of her playstyle from Smash 4, being a hit-and-run character with a strong punish game, while the transition from Smash 4 to Ultimate has improved her overall mobility and neutral tools at the cost of her potent ladder combos and overall KO power.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4
Zero Suit Samus was previously considered a dominating top tier character throughout the lifetime of SSB4 (6th out of 55 characters), with a combination of excellent mobility, impressive recovery and a highly deadly punish game that could easily turn the tables on a careless opponent. Likely as a result of this, Zero Suit Samus has received a mix of buffs and nerfs in the transition to Ultimate, but was nerfed slightly overall.

She has received some significant direct and indirect nerfs, especially directly; the most notable ones were to her outstanding punish game, which while still potent, has been toned down overall. Her down throw has more knockback and ending lag, losing almost all its combo potential past extremely low percentages. Up aerial has more ending lag, and both her down smash and Flip Jump's bury hitbox (especially the former) have less hitstun and knockback, worsening several of her setup moves and making it more difficult to capitalize on them and on KO confirms. Furthermore, the changes to the knockback physics make it more difficult for her to string her moves into the other. Zero Suit Samus's recovery, previously one of the best in the game, was also nerfed, as Plasma Whip takes much longer to grab an edge and has reduced tether range. Lastly, her forward smash's new sourspot and nerfs to forward aerial's power, and back aerials and Boost Kick's hitboxes and the latter's reduced knockback (unless started from the ground), make it harder for her to score KOs, further defining one of her weaknesses in her KO ability.

However, Zero Suit Samus significantly benefits overall from the universal changes to gameplay mechanics. The faster movement speed further enhances her already excellent mobility (now possessing the 2nd fastest initial dash in the game and a good dash-dance), improving her approach and as such, her "hit and run" playstyle. The changes to air dodge mechanics improves her juggling capabilities, while not affecting her as much thanks to her great recovery and options to escape pressure. The universally reduced landing lag and more limited out of shield options allow her to retain some of her combo game while improving on her mediocre neutral game, one of her most notable weaknesses in SSB4.

She has also directly received some useful buffs. Down tilt, arguably her worst move in SSB4, has reduced ending lag that gives it combo potential, and her up smash has reduced base knockback with significantly increased knockback scaling, turning it into a reliable all-purpose attack with combo potential at low percentages and KO power at high ones. Aside from her lost ability to string lengthy and devastating punishes off of a down throw, Zero Suit Samus' grab game has been improved as a whole — her grab, previously one of the laggiest in the game, has been sped up, making it less risky to use; forward throw sends opponents in a lower angle, granting it the ability to set up tech-chasing; and up throw has increased knockback, granting her an emergency KO move at high percentages.

Finally, her special moveset has seen many improvements, as Paralyzer charges and fires shots faster, while Plasma Whip has restored some of its lost KO power from Brawl and has a new version where opponents can be sent towards her for new setups if the button is held. Despite the nerfs to Flip Jump, it has also received some improvements. It executes faster in the air, both the jump and footstool stomp have less ending lag, and the manual kick can be inputted faster which allows her to combo into it from her neutral aerial much more consistently and take stocks at very early percentages.

In the end, Zero Suit Samus remains a high-risk, high-reward character, with her nerfs making her learning curve even higher than in SSB4. Her "hit and run" gameplan has shifted from a linear one into a more dynamic one thanks to a wider and more intricate array of neutral, combo and punish options, as opposed to her more polarized kit in SSB4. Aside from her watered down combo game, she retains many of her most powerful advantages from the previous game, and still performs well despite the introduction of DLC characters and slight nerfs to her through game updates. Thanks to this, while she is a slightly worse character than in SSB4, Zero Suit Samus remains a very viable character.

Update history
Zero Suit Samus has received a mix of buffs and nerfs via game updates, but has been nerfed overall. Patch 2.0.0 nerfed her forward smash by adding a sourspot at close range while her Flip Jump has reduced base knockback, hindering her ability to KO aerial opponents at an early percentage from a back throw. Patch 3.0.0 nerfed her Flip Jump further as it travels a less horizontal distance, hindering her recovery.

However, her buffs in patch 2.0.0 allow her to grab ledges earlier when using forward aerial and up aerial while patch 3.1.0 allows her Plasma Whip to connect more reliably. Her Flip Jump has been reverted to how it was before patch 3.0.0, improving her recovery. Patch 7.0.0 would then reduce Flip Jump's knockback scaling on the burying hit, nerfing its confirm into Boost Kick, to the point where sufficient mashing will result in it being very difficult to get the followup at high percents although still possible if the player acts fast enough. Patch 11.0.0 increased the landing lag of Neutral Aerial and increased the startup time for Boost Kick. This reduces her safety on shield, and it weakens Boost Kick as an out of shield option and makes ladder combo kills using the second hit of Boost Kick significantly harder. The increased lag on both moves make her combos have a tighter window but are still doable and she remains a highly viable character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

On-screen appearance

 * Jumps out of her Gunship and uses her Jet Boots to briefly hover before landing.

Taunts

 * Up Taunt: Tosses her Paralyzer into the air, spins once, and catches it behind herself while saying "Is that all?"
 * Side Taunt: Swings the Plasma Whip in a circular motion while saying "Try me."
 * Down Taunt: Holds her Paralyzer near her waist, and then performs a pirouette while twirling the Plasma Whip around her body and saying "You're mine."

Idle poses

 * Stands up straight and looks around, holding her Paralyzer towards her face.
 * Makes configurations to her Paralyzer.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses

 * Left: Slashes the air twice with her Plasma Whip and says "Be still."
 * Up: Uses Flip Jump and then performs a jet-propelled somersault while grunting.
 * Right: Performs a stretch kick and then swings her leg into position to perform a modified passé while grunting. Her leg motions and ending pose seems to "draw out" her series symbol, with the stretch kick being the "circle" and the ending pose being the "S".

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Zero Suit Samus players (SSBU)


 * - One of the best Zero Suit Samus players in Japan. Placed 3rd at, 5th at , and 9th at , and  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 26th on the Fall 2019 PGRU.
 * - Placed 7th at, 17th at both and , and 49th at  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 58th on the Japan Player Rankings.
 * - One of the best Zero Suit Samus players in Canada. Placed 1st at both and, 2nd at , 3rd at , and 5th at  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 18th on the Smash Canada Rankings Ultimate.
 * - The best Zero Suit Samus player in Japan pre-quarantine. Placed 1st at, 7th at both and , and 17th at both  and . Ranked 18th on the Fall 2019 PGRU.
 * - The best Zero Suit Samus player in the world and one of the overall best players in the world prior to the pandemic. Placed 1st at, 3rd at , , and , and 4th at . Ranked as high as 3rd on the Spring 2019 PGRU and is currently ranked 17th on the PGRU v3 NA.
 * - One of the best Zero Suit Samus players in Canada. Placed 7th at, 13th at , 17th at , and 33rd at both and  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 12th on the Smash Canada Rankings Ultimate. Online, placed 13th at both  and . Ranked as high as 1st on the WWR, and was last ranked 32nd on the Wi-Fi Warrior Rank v6.
 * - Used Zero Suit Samus as a secondary alongside, and was considered one of the best Zero Suit Samus players in the world but has since become inactive. Placed 1st at , 4th at both  and , and 5th at . Ranked 4th on the Fall 2019 PGRU.
 * - One of the best Zero Suit Samus players in Japan. Placed 2nd at, 4th at , 7th at , 9th at , and 17th at both with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 18th on the Japan Player Rankings.
 * - The best Zero Suit Samus player in Europe. Placed 2nd at, 3rd at , 4th at , 25th at , and 33rd at with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 21st on the European Smash Rankings.
 * - Placed 7th at, 17th at , and 25th at , , and with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 62nd on the Japan Player Rankings.

Tier placement and history
Zero Suit Samus had a lukewarm reception when Ultimate was released, as she was seen to be considerably nerfed from her last appearance, where she was a top-tier character. Many of her tools were watered down, most notably her throw combos and ladder setups. However, this lukewarm reception was reversed thanks to the myriad of outstanding results from Zero Suit Samus players. In particular, established himself as one of the best players in the world after winning a few majors, while Japanese majors often saw many Zero Suit Samus players place highly, including but not limited to, , and. As a result of these strong results, the general consensus believed the character to be a solid top tier, with players such as as well as many top players in Japan even arguing the character could be one of the best in the game.

However, the post-pandemic metagame saw a notable shift in Zero Suit Samus's reception. For one, she received nerfs to some of her best moves, hindering her combo game and KO potential; the nerfs were great enough to cause some players, including Marss and shky, to believe the character was no longer one of the best in the game. In addition, her best players slowly became less active or started to perform worse than before. In particular, Marss began shifting his focus towards content creation while Kuro and Choco began struggling to make it into the top 32 at majors. As a result, Zero Suit Samus's representation declined, from having top 10 representation in 2019 to not even breaking top 30 by 2022. The nerfs to her strongest tools and decline in results and representations mellowed out opinions on the character, with most players no longer considering her as a top tier. This opinion is reflected in her current placement on the tier list, where she is ranked 26th in the high tier, while also marking the first time she was ranked below her suited counterpart.

: Grapplers! Whips! Claws!
Zero Suit Samus's opponents are largely characters who use tether grabs or recoveries, like her. The only exception is Little Mac, who represents the theme of "wires" by using his wireframe outfit.

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

Role in World of Light
Although Zero Suit Samus does not appear in the World of Light opening cutscene, she was vaporized and later imprisoned alongside the rest of the fighters (sans ) when Galeem unleashed his beams of light. Zero Suit Samus' awakening battle is separate from that of, who is vaporized in the opening cutscene.

Zero Suit Samus can be found and awakened in the upper-right volcanic area in the World of Light after defeating the spirit.

Spirit
Zero Suit 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 Zero Suit Samus has been unlocked. Unlocking Zero Suit Samus in World of Light allows the player to preview the 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.

While herself appears in a number of spirits, including an unarmored "Young Samus" spirit portrayed by a Zero Suit Samus puppet fighter, the Zero Suit itself only appears in Zero Suit Samus' fighter spirit.

Trivia

 * For unknown reasons, Zero Suit Samus's taunt voice clips are not present in the Sound Test, making her the only character with this distinction.
 * In the Japanese version, non-Japanese voice actors and actresses are credited without any transliteration to Japanese in the Sound Test. In the case of Zero Suit Samus, Alésia Glidewell's name was cut short, resulting in "Alesia Glidew". This has since been fixed.
 * On the character selection screen, the icon in the Japanese version shows Zero Suit Samus' name within only one row, while in the English version it is shown with two rows. She shares this trait with, , , , , the s, and.
 * Zero Suit Samus' character showcase video, unlock battles, and Classic Mode credits use "Theme of Samus Aran, Space Warrior" from Super Metroid, a game where the Zero Suit did not yet exist. This may be a reference to how Samus would appear in various states of undress during the game's ending sequence, as Theme of Samus Aran, Space Warrior serves as the end credits theme for that game.
 * This is the first game where Zero Suit Samus's default head icon depicts her hair tie as its natural red, as both previous depictions have matched the Zero Suit's cyan. She shares this trait with.
 * If Zero Suit Samus charges a smash attack while holding a Star Rod, she will not vibrate in place during the animation. This also applies to if they charge a smash attack while holding a Death's Scythe.
 * If Zero Suit Samus starts charging her forward smash, the flashing effects will be focused on her handgun instead of her left leg. This is a carryover from Brawl, where she uses her handgun for her previous forward smash. This was also present in Smash 4.
 * Unusually, the angled variants of Zero Suit Samus's forward smash do not cause the flames effects on her boot to terminate after the second kick.
 * On the official site, Zero Suit Samus's blue shorts costume is placed before the orange shorts costume, while in-game, the order of the two is swapped.