The Samus You Know is a Lie - Know Your Moves

Hope I didn't come off too mad about Samus but c'est la vie - I just have fun talking about these characters and when I get to ranting it comes out funny. I don't think she's horrible but I'm excited for future Smash games and the potential for the veteran fighters. I seriously recommend playing the Metroid series though. Thankfully, you can get through the original on the Nintendo NES Online. That only took me a few hours going in blind. Super Metroid also is there on the SNES online if you have a membership. Both of those I wish I could replay again blind, it's just one of those immersive experiences that always reminds me why I love gaming. Zero Mission and Fusion, are amazing games in their own right but have been MIA since they haven't had any recent re-releases. Luckily the GBA is easy enough to emulate, so you can get to experience the best of these games pretty easily. I guess there's Metroid 2 - I played that on console and let's say I think you can skip it. So I recommend giving it a shot. I gained a new appreciation for the history of this series, and I hope this video is evidence of that. Next up I have a bigger non KYM video coming next month, but beyond that I have some Kingdom Hearts to play. Wish me luck.

The saddest thing about the lack of Ice beam is that there's a Metroid assist trophy in the game and Samus cannot kill it on her own. Ice Climbers can totally kill Metroids though. No problem.

The life of a Samus fan is not for the faint of heart.

Man I would give my kidneys to see a Samus in smash with a beam switching mechanic, aion abilities and melee counter or hell maybe even some moves from Other M

I’m actually surprised you didn’t mention this since I figured you’d be one of the people who would actually notice it. But a small detail that samus has in smash is that the lights on her suit and arm canon and visor change color as she fires missiles, which is a reference to how the same thing would happen in the original Metroid on NES when you switch to “missile mode” help the player keep track of which firing mode they’re in

I had an idea about how to implement her energy tanks into smash. In her home series, she's not really a tanky character, she's closer to a glass cannon and way more mobile. I think it would be interesting if he was changed to be slightly lighter than midweight in exchange for some speed but had the ability to have different percent bars per stock. You could balance it by making her locked to a tank (take away her ability to switch) anywhere between 60-80%.

The Man, the Myth, The One who Cannot Crawl-- Metroid

Besides fixing the Charge Shot to act more like the games (can charge while moving [hold neutral B first and then can move] but make it weaker, meanwhile let Mewtwo keep his Shadow Ball stationary and hit just as hard, to make them more different), I was thinking while playing Dread that it would be cool to modernize Samus in Smash by giving her ammo management, kinda like Banjo Kazooie's Wonder Wing. You have 5 ice missiles per stock. The missiles act like normal (regular, tilt for super), but use a Smash forward input but with B to use an Ice Missile which is like the Super Missile but it has an ice stun effect and does more damage. You get one power bomb per stock. This acts almost exactly like the Smart Bomb item, or like Hero's Magic Burst but with less KO potential. Activate by doing a down Smash input but with B. Can nerf the missiles and normal bombs to balance if needed. This idea mostly would work for a future Smash game where they are more interested in changing old characters movesets to be more relevant, so assume the overall game balance would change accordingly. It would also be cool if Dark Samus could be differentiated here by having different buffs that match the abilities from the Prime series instead. Maybe a Phazon meter to power certain attacks?

Problem with Samus is the mobility. Just look at how agile she is in Dread, and then look at her in Smash.

Can confirm. Dread was my first Metroid and I was just like "since when is the combat this fluid? Since when is Samus this badass? I feel cheated"

kinda funny how ya didn't talk about the fact that Dark Samus had a more unique moveset in 4 as an assist trophy

I guess if I wanted to revamp Samus, I'd give these changes: - Neutral Attack, Side Tilt Attack: Power Beam: Fire up to three shots forth. Hold to fire a strong Charge Beam. - Neutral Air Attack: Power Beam: Fire up to three shots forth, or in tilted directions. - Forward Air Attack, Back Air Attack: Wide Beam: Fires three fanned beams in the given direction. - Side Smash: Wave Beam: A long piercing beam forth (not a projectile). - Neutral Special: Plasma Beam: Chargeable heat beam. High charge can yield strong shield damage. - Side Special (Smash): Ice Missile: A variant with a chance of freezing opponents. - Up Special: Screw Attack: Continues damaging spin on the way down. Can be canceled by other moves (like Mr. Game & Watch's Fire). - Down Special: Morph Ball: Takes on Morph Ball form to move around quickly with a smaller frame. Press attack button or special move button to plant a Morph Ball Bomb, which sticks in midair and explodes after time or on contact with opponents. Press shield button to resume normal form. - Shield Special: Melee Counter: If this attack hits an opponent, she'll blast them with a strong shot. Dark Samus could keep the Super Missile in this situation, though her Charge Shot could probably become a Phazon Beam with a poison effect. Also, what do you think of giving every fighter their own shield special?

The thing that really annoys me about her is that the devs could either have reworked Samus and made Dark Samus into the echo with the previous moveset, like Link and Young Link, or made Dark Samus into her own character, with more attacks she actually uses as a boss, but they did neither

Here to play devil's advocate: Samus is a very hard character to design to feel balanced merely because of the nature of Metroid gameplay. Metroid is a power fantasy: you start with nothing and end with just about everything. Simply plopping endgame Samus into Smash would be really overpowered, and it's not as easy as it is with Mega Man or the Belmonts. In a way it seems like they had to compromise to make a cohesive and balanced moveset. For example, having free aim and being able to charge a projectile while moving would be pretty overpowered like I mentioned before; having some of her normals fire in different directions works well, and storing Charge Shot having the illusion of charging it constantly is pretty clever. That said, she undoubtably has a lot of problems. She has weak and lack of references as you mentioned (Ice Beam, Morph Ball, Melee Counter, etc.). Her particle effects and sound design just look and feel wrong. Biggest of all has to be how little she uses her Arm Cannon in her normals, with the biggest offenders being her up tilt and up aerial. If they gave her better references and utilized her Arm Cannon more, her design wouldn't be too bad. I have some ideas on how I'd change Samus but I've already typed a nice wall of text so maybe another time.

ill admit, they got dark samus' creepy movements perfectly. but the fact that she was an assist trophy in smash 4 with obvious move differences, and how she was just relegated to a costume change was a punch to the guts for me tbh.

[There's a Dread Spoiler at the end here] The main thing I'd change would be for her normals to fire beams, as well as giving her a special mechanic, call it a gimmick, that lets the player hold the A button at all times and then release it to use charged version of the move (which would obviously only work on the normals that actually fire the beam). Of course, this would make the Charge Beam Neutral Special obsolete, so what do I suggest as a replacement? Beam Switching à la Monado Arts (but probably without being time limited). We've got 4 Beam Types to use: - Power Beam: The standard one, high damage, yellow in colour - Ice Beam: Can freeze enemy on charged shots, low damage, medium knockback, blue in colour, freezing effect - Wave Beam: Bigger hitbox, so it's more likely to hit an enemy, medium damage, low knokback, purple in colour, electric effect - Plasma Beam: Doesn't disappear when hitting an enemy, medium damage, high knockaback, green in colour, flame effect Clean up the other Specials a bit with how exactly they work and there we go. Also, change the Final Smash to either Power Bombs or the Hyper Beam instead of just being a generic huge laser. It even works like that in Dread, so do that. Complete with the Metroid Suit, that'd be sick.

The funniest thing is how Metroids exist as an Assist Trophy and can be easily killed with ice moves while Samus doesnt have any ice moves

Fun Fact: Since my Brawl disc was very old and stuff, whenever you chose Samus in a game it was crashed. Then we realized it was selecting her. Then we realized it was literally just hovering over her.

Talking about seeing a licensed doctor while showing Dr. Mario who doesn’t have a doctors license

Fusion came out 2002. I also came out 2002. I played Brawl AND Fusion in 2015. So for the past 6 years I have been eternally screaming that Metroid and Smash Samuses are two completely different entities and started screaming louder since Dread released. Anyway, can't wait to see her one singular change in the next Smash in 10 years.