Meta Ridley


 * For Ridley's regular form, see Ridley.

Meta Ridley (, Meta Ridley) is Ridley cybernetically-enhanced and reborn through technology. He is far more fierce and powerful than his original version.

Origin
Meta Ridley first appeared in Metroid Prime. After being badly wounded by Samus in , Ridley was revived by the Space Pirates using cybernetic technology. He was equipped with additional weapons, including a mouth beam, missiles and energy bombs. Samus first sees him while trying to escape the Frigate Orpheon. She quickly pursues him in her ship to the world of, but loses him. She briefly sees him in the, but their final confrontation comes when Samus attempts to access the. Meta Ridley's weak points are his mouth and chest. Eventually, Meta Ridley's wings burn, so he battles Samus on the ground, and is still lethally fast. Despite this, Samus defeats him, and the Chozo statuary adorning the Artifact Temple around them blast Meta Ridley, seemingly destroying him.

Meta Ridley returns in . When the Space Pirates attack, Samus sees Ridley wipe out several Galactic Federation Marines. He briefly harasses her as she goes through an exposed rail while in Morph Ball form. When she goes to activate a reactor, Meta Ridley pounces her and they begin a free fall battle down the reactor shaft. Again, Meta Ridley is defeated and Samus is saved at the last minute by fellow bounty hunter. Ridley, however, still survives. When Samus goes to the to destroy the Leviathan Seed, a large living meteor that corrupts planets with, she finds that Ridley is guarding the core. He is now enhanced by Phazon and appears as. Still, he is defeated. In Metroid: Samus Returns, Ridley is in a new form called "Proteus Ridley", a transitional state between his Meta and organic forms. He ambushes Samus on SR388 in an attempt to steal the last Metroid, though fails and is defeated again. By Super Metroid, he has fully regenerated to his organic form.

As with Ridley, many of Meta Ridley's attacks are new in Brawl; however, there are a couple attacks that are retained: In Metroid Prime, one of the attacks that Ridley uses is shooting fireballs at Samus. The fireballs that Meta Ridley shoots in Brawl are designed similarly to how they are designed in Metroid Prime. In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, right in the middle of the fight between Samus and Ridley, Meta Ridley will grab Samus and try to perform a powerful attack. One of the attacks involves charging up a fireball and firing it at Samus. In Brawl, Meta Ridley charging and firing his fireball is very similar to how he performed it in Metroid Prime 3, except he doesn't grab onto a player while doing it.

Role in The Subspace Emissary
After, , , , , and  make their way out of the doomed Bomb Factory flying away in the Falcon Flyer, they are attacked from behind by the resurrected Meta Ridley, who is out for revenge on Samus and Pikachu. As such, he serves as the seventh boss.

Meta Ridley's attacks can additionally send the Falcon Flyer reeling about. In this battle, he is attacking the ship as well and the player has 2 minutes to beat him, similar to the battle in Metroid Prime 3. He has completely different moves from Ridley and the player has to jump whenever he hits the ship or the player could fall. He is later defeated and the massive amounts of Subspace Bombs explode, covering the island in Subspace, taking everything in it, including the remains of Meta Ridley, into the Subspace. Tabuu, the leader of Subspace, revives Meta Ridley in The Great Maze to attack the heroes (oddly, Ridley and Meta Ridley each appear separately in The Great Maze), but is defeated once again, presumably leaving him dead.

Trophy Stands appear frequently due to the limited time, even on easy difficulties, especially if the character is equipped with a strong Trophy Stand producing Sticker.

As a playable character

 * Main article: Meta Ridley (SSBB)

Like all Brawl bosses, Meta Ridley can be played as in Boss Battles through hacking, which will assign debug controls to Player 3. Most of his moves are unavailable, making him very bare-bones, and thus significantly weaker compared to his boss appearance.

Moveset
Like all bosses Meta Ridley is controllable in Boss Battles Mode by hacking. The start button self-destructs him. Unlike any other boss (besides ) however, Meta Ridley starts in a T-pose until moving, which is probably the reason he starts moving immediately when the level starts when controlled by an AI.

HP and damage taken
Like all bosses in Brawl, Meta Ridley gains an additional ×0.6 damage resistance modifier when fought in co-op mode, effectively gaining 67% more health. This modifier is applied whenever the second player is in-game, and is no longer applied if the second player loses all their stocks.

Glitches

 * During Meta Ridley's attack where he drags the Falcon Flyer down while shooting fireballs, if he is defeated right when he lets go, the Falcon Flyer will continuously fall, instead of bouncing back up as normal.
 * If loaded with debug controls in Boss Battles, Meta Ridley will spawn with a blind pose. If an attack command is inputted, it will return to normal.

In
Ridley appears as the Pyrosphere's stage boss. After taking enough damage, he increases his strength by absorbing energy from the generators underneath the main platform on either side, consequently darkening his skin and giving off a purple glow. His appearance in this form is taken from Metroid: Other M when he renders himself invulnerable to Samus's Plasma Beam, but in for Wii U, this change merely increases his strength. The 50-Fact Extravaganza gives this form the name "Meta Ridley", although this usage of the name has no basis in the Metroid games. This is actually an alteration made by the English translation of the video; in the Japanese version, this form of Ridley is named, which is more accurately translated as "Black Ridley".

Meta Ridley's theme song, , returns unchanged from Brawl and appears as a song on Pyrosphere.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Meta Ridley appears as an alternate costume for, using his design in the original Metroid Prime as the basis of his model. Meta Ridley also has a silver and green palette swap as a reference to Mecha Ridley, the final boss of Metroid: Zero Mission.

Trivia



 * Meta Ridley is considered to be very difficult to turn into a trophy, because of the time constraints during the fight, and because when idle he spends his time in the air off stage at low health, meaning if he is turned into a trophy when not performing an attack that puts him over the Falcon Flyer, his trophy will fall off the stage and be unobtainable unless immediately grabbed in midair by the player.
 * Meta Ridley is the only Subspace Emissary boss who:
 * Has a time limit. However, there is no time limit for fighting Meta Ridley in The Great Maze and Boss Battles Mode.
 * Has the same HP values when re-fought in The Great Maze.
 * Is fought on a stage that isn't completely flat.
 * Became an alternate costume for a separate fighter.
 * The music that plays during the Meta Ridley fight is instead of, which plays while the fighters are escaping from the factory.
 * In Ultimate, when zooming in behind Meta Ridley's wings, his right-wing does not fully connect to his back.
 * Despite being shown in the reveal trailer, Ridley did not have his Meta Ridley costumes available in the E3 demo for Ultimate; instead, the demo featured two palette swaps of normal Ridley that used the same colors as their respective Meta Ridley costumes. These palette swaps were not included in the released game.