Samus's archenemy Ridley is one of the most recurring and longest running bosses in gaming, with an appearance in every Metroid game except Metroid II: Return of Samus, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Dread (as well as the Hunters and Federation Force spinoffs, I guess). Though he's the nominal leader of the Space Pirates he has basically never been the primary villain of any one Metroid game, always playing second fiddle to the true big bads like Mother Brain and Dark Samus. But his personal history with Samus (responsible for the deaths of her parents and the destruction of her original homeworld) makes him a personal nemesis of Samus' with recurring boss fights that typically make up a memorable late game climax.
Which of these fights is your favorite--and which is the least?
Let's go over them in chronological release order with my own opinions on them:
The first, of course, is in the original Metroid. Here he is one of the two minibosses you must defeat in order to gain access to the final area, Tourian. As it is an early NES game he's not very dynamic or physically imposing, but it is a start I guess. He's distinctly easier than Kraid is, in my opinion, especially because one of the two patterns he can be loaded with leaves a safe spot right in front of him that he can't hit. If you get this pattern, it's gg Ridley. (these two distinct patterns are a result of NES constraints, in the original Famicom version he can shoot fireballs in both patterns in a single battle making him distinctly more difficult). Due to poll limits I left this fight off the poll of which is the best, as I kinda doubt it is anyone's favorite. Sorry if it is your favorite!
After being missing from Metroid II (which featured neither the Space Pirates nor Zebes) Super Metroid brought Ridley back in a more central role than before, with Samus facing off against him twice--the first time on the Ceres Space Colony in the opening sequence of the game. This is an "unwinnable" fight--it normally ends after the player takes enough damage, but it is possible to "win" this fight by doing enough damage to make Ridley drop the canister containing the baby Metroid. But this just makes him pick it up again. Either way, the fight ends wit him fleeing and the colony's self destruct timer starting.
On Zebes proper, Ridley reprises his role as one of the bosses you have to defeat to gain access to Tourian. He's explicitly designed to be the last of the four main bosses you face (sequence breaking notwithstanding), and is typically agreed to be the hardest fight in the game. With his full range of movement unlocked, this fight really codifies what you come to expect from him in the series--fast movement, lightning quick tail attacks, grabs, and fire breath. Unlike the other bosses in the game, Ridley lacks a singular weakpoint and is vulnerable to nearly every weapon in the game (including Power Bombs) but he makes up for this with his very high health pool and his rapid flight patterns making him a difficult target to hit consistently. The room you fight him in is vertical, with Ridley frequently flying between the upper and lower halves of the room requiring the player to chase him with careful space jumps while avoiding his attacks and tricky swoops. This is essentially the last fight in the game before backtracking to Tourian and as such the player is very likely going to have all of the items and a plethora of ammunition and energy, and the game knows this, pushing the player to the limit to prove they've mastered Super Metroid. Probably my single favorite Ridley fight.
In Metroid Fusion, Ridley's corpse falls prey to an X-Parasite, which copies his DNA and replicates him, so what you're fighting is not technically Ridley but rather a mutated X officially called Neo-Ridley, sometimes referred to as Ridley-X. Like Super Metroid, he is the last normal boss of the game before the endgame sequence, and defeating him gets Samus the Screw Attack ability by absorbing the X-Parasite taking Ridley's form. Noticeably larger than normal Ridley, Neo Ridley falls prey to the constraints of the GBA's smaller screen, drastically lowering his maneuverability, leaving his abilities pretty stunted and disappointing and making him a really easy to hit target. It's really not that great of a fight outside of the nostalgia (Fusion having released eight years after Super). Also known for having a really obnoxious, high pitched scream.
Metroid Prime saw his first 3D boss fight in the form of Meta Ridley--as Metroid Prime takes place between the first and second Metroid games, this is Ridley rebuilt after his defeat in the original Metroid game using cybernetics. While witnessed a few times throughout the game, he is not fought until the end at the Artifact Temple when you return with all 12 Chozo Artifacts, with his defeat allowing you to enter the Impact Crater, the final area of the game. One of the more cinematic fights in the game, it has two phases, one with him flying around the temple bombarding you, before having his wings burned off and dropping to the ground to fight you one on one. Unlike the 2D games this form of Ridley has a distinct weakness--his chest plate, with his mouth as a secondary weakness that must be hit in order to make his chest vulnerable. This is a fan favorite fight and I think it's one of my favorites as well, though in the PAL and all later versions and releases of the game he gains a few new attacks and patterns in his second phase that I think draw the fight out way too long--I thought it was better in the original release, didn't overstay its welcome while still feeling like you're fighting for your life against your nemesis.
Metroid: Zero Mission was a ground up remake of the original Metroid so of course Ridley had to have an appearance. He has the same role as one of the two main bosses to beat in order to unlock the way into Tourian. His role is a *little* more extensive in the games' brief scenes showing Ridley actually arriving on Zebes in the Space Pirate Mothership before his appearance in his lair, but that's pretty much it. Both he and Kraid were updated to more closely resemble their depictions in Super Metroid onward, and this meant making them a lot bigger than originally. Too big, in Ridley's case. He seems even bigger than Neo-Ridley was in Fusion, and as such his movement is even more limited, and he's an even bigger target. With this combined with an unusually low health pool (Super Missiles in particular wreck him) he goes down extremely fast--and once he starts his flying routine you can actually hang underneath his claws and he won't be able to hit you as you pelt him with missiles from below. Honestly, bosses are kind of Zero Mission's weak point, and this is probably the lamest Ridley fight in the series.
While MIA in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Ridley makes a return in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, making up for his absence with two full battles. The first is in his Meta Ridley form during the game's extended opening sequence on Norion. This battle is unique in the series and one of the games' highlights--set with Samus and Meta Ridley falling down an incredibly long shaft, you have to use your Wii pointer controls to target his weakpoint--in this game his mouth, while controlling your falling to avoid his own attacks, as Meta Ridley shifts from flying above Samus, falling below, and even grabbing Samus midair. Because you're falling down a shaft, this is a timed fight, requiring you to defeat Ridley before the meter readout hits zero and you die. It is a fairly simple fight, gameplay wise, but the setpiece is so thrilling that it's hard not to love.
Much later in the game, Ridley makes a return as the final Leviathan guardian on the Space Pirate Homeworld, effectively again acting as the final normal boss in the game before the ending sequence. In this fight, set in the homeworld's respective Leviathan phazon core, he takes the form of Omega Ridley, a cybernetic form souped up on phazon. Here, the fight is much more straightforward, taking many cues from the Meta Ridley boss in the first Metroid Prime, with both air and ground phases. It is a decent challenge but not anywhere near as memorable as the game's first Ridley battle.
(Oddly, Omega Ridley, despite supposedly being souped up on phazon, has way less phazon in his design than Meta Ridley, who has no real visible cybernetics at all. It is theorized that the two models were switched late stage as Omega Ridley's design is much more threatening looking.)
Metroid: Other M has a Ridley fight, of course. He's a late-ish game boss, albeit not one of the last like he usually is. The fight itself, such as it is, is honestly one of Other M's better, and is genuinely fast paced and frenetic without feeling too constrained by the game's controls. This is also the first point where you get to use the Plasma Beam and the Super Missile, as you get them right as the fight begins. ...unfortunately, the start of this fight is marred by one of the games' many controversial scenes, with Samus having sudden PTSD when she sees him, resulting her appearing to the player as a literal helpless child and only being saved by Anthony Higgs' sudden intervention.
That said, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this is actually not the first fight against Ridley in the game. Early on in Other M, you witness an odd, small fuzzy creature called Little Birdie that can summon enemies by roaring, and somewhat later you encounter what is officially called a Mystery Creature, this ungainly reptilian creature with a pointed tail and white fuzz on its back. Samus is pinned to the ground by this beast and the "boss fight" that ensues is purely pointer controlled, requiring you to hit its tail before it can hit you. It's not really much of a fight so much as just a setpiece so it's hard to be that critical of it, it doesn't last very long. After its defeat, you find the empty husk of Little Birdie, and later in the game on your way to the Ridley fight you end up finding the husk of the Mystery Creature a couple rooms prior, hinting at the true connection of the three--Little Birdie and the Mystery Creature are actually Ridley's juvenile forms. The Ridley you encounter in Other M is actually a clone of Ridley, as all of the creatures on the Bottle Ship (Other M's setting) were made from genetic material swabbed from Samus' suit after Super Metroid. Because Other M takes place between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, this Ridley clone is actually the Ridley corpse found on BSL in Fusion, as well--Ridley escapes his fight with Samus in Other M only to be sucked dry by the Queen Metroid later on.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention the fact that Ridley is ugly as hell in Other M. Sorry, but he is. But that's kind of par for the course for Other M.
The most recent Ridley boss fight in the series is in Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS. Samus Returns is a ground up remake of Metroid II, but Ridley did not appear in the original release--this fight was totally new to Samus Returns. In the original game, Samus simply left SR388 with the Metroid hatchling after defeating the Queen Metroid, but in Samus Returns, they are attacked by Ridley before they reach her ship. Called Proteus Ridley, he is a step between the cybernetics of Meta Ridley in the Prime titles set before this and his fully reformed biological self in Super Metroid set after. Honestly, this fight makes little sense story wise, kinda totally ruins the calm triumphant atmosphere of the climb out with the baby Metroid, and is pretty clearly in the game just for the fanservice, but honestly, I don't care. This fight is fun as hell, with three extensive phases, a wide variety of attacks to react to, and even a callback to the final boss of Super Metroid in the final phase with the baby Metroid helping out against Ridley. The fanservice worked on me, I'm not too proud to admit it. Top 3 Ridley fight with Super and Prime's as far as I'm concerned. This is also the only game in the series where Ridley is actually the final boss.
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Some others I should mention:
The actual final boss of Metroid: Zero Mission is a robot that looks like Ridley, found in the area around the control center of the Space Pirate Mothership. Not a whole lot of context for it is given to the player for its existence, but according to Sakamoto it was a stand-in that Ridley had constructed to lead the Space Pirates in his absence, or something to that effect. The actual name of this thing is not consistently documented--the internal files and Japanese sources refer to it as Mecha Ridley while the official English language player's guides call it the Ridley Robot. Either or. As this is not technically Ridley I'm not counting it for the purposes of this poll. It's not a terribly interesting fight, with only a couple moves and a small weakpoint you have to hit. There is one interesting aspect to this fight, however--if you have 100% of items obtained before this fight its difficulty level is greatly increased, hitting twice as hard and having three times as much health.
Before becoming a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Ridley and Meta Ridley were boss fights in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's single player campaign, The Subspace Emissary, as well as in Boss Rush mode. Ridley is fought relatively early in the mode with Samus and Pikachu, with him being rebuilt as Meta Ridley later in the game, fighting you as you escape the R.O.B. factory on Captain Falcon's Falcon Flyer spaceship. Both are some of the modes' more iconic bosses (helped by them being some of the few non-generic monster bosses created for the game), with the high speed Meta Ridley chase scene in particular standing out. Curiously, Ridley's now iconic "grab Samus in his hand and then drag her across a wall/floor" actually originates in a cuscene before his first fight in Brawl.
A robotic, theme park version of Ridley appears in the Metroid Blast game in Nintendo Land, appearing as a boss in a few missions. It's honestly been a while since I've played this game but I recall his abilities being mostly based on his Meta Ridley incarnaion in the original Metroid Prime. This is also the only game where you can fight Kraid and Ridley at the same time.
Ridley had a sort of "boss" appearance once again in the Super Smash Bros. series, this time in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U on the dedicated Pyrosphere stage based on the location where Ridley is fought in Other M. A multiplayer mechanic, Ridley appears on this stage in his Other M design, and players who deal enough damage to Ridley will have Ridley fight for them. It wasn't a very popular mechanic for its match controlling nature and with Ridley becoming a proper playable character in Ultimate this stage has not returned since and probably won't return in the future.
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Ridley's full timeline in the series by story chronology:
Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission -- defeated by Samus, seemingly mortally wounded but not slain (despite, uh, exploding). Samus encounters a half finished robotic Ridley on the Space Pirate Mothership but destroys it too, which triggers the mothership's self destruct sequence.
Metroid Prime -- rebuilt into Meta Ridley, and then blown away by the Chozo statues on the Artifact Temple after losing to Samus and exploding in the crater below, but apparently survived?
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption -- wounded by Samus as Meta Ridley on Norion, rebuilt as the Phazon enhanced Omega Ridley, and then disintegrates(? Or something?) in the Leviathan on the Space Pirate Homeworld after Samus defeats him, the energy expelled from his body causing her phazon corruption to worsen. Not clear how to reconcile this "death" with the rest of the series.
Metroid: Samus Returns -- has had more of his flesh and blood body rebuilt, now known as Proteus Ridley. Defeated by Samus before he can steal the baby Metroid from her as she escapes.
Super Metroid -- now back to his full flesh and blood self, he steals the baby Metroid on Ceres and takes it back to Zebes... where he is finally killed for good by Samus, and then his remains disintegrated with the destruction of Zebes.
Metroid: Other M -- cloned by the Galactic Federation on the Bottle Ship using genetic material swabbed from Samus's suit, he begins his life in his larval Little Birdie stage before rapidly undergoing metamorphosis into Ridley proper. Is defeated by Samus and escapes, but ends up getting devoured by the Queen Metroid and drained of all life, leaving him an empty husk.
Metroid Fusion -- his empy husk is kept in cold storage aboard the BSL station, which is then attacked by an X parasite that absorbs his remaining genetic material. This X-Parasite then takes his form as Neo-Ridley before being defeated by Samus and absorbed.
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So in the end, I think Super Metroid still has my favorite Ridley fight, with Zero Mission as the least, for the reasons I stated above. What about you?
