Fellow Ridley fans, I understand your anger and all of your sorrow. For a year we were left in limbo and ambiguity about Ridley's role in Smash 4. Many believed that the reason for such ambiguity was to build hype. But sadly, we have found out it was nothing more than a cruel and childish joke against us Ridley fans.
There exists a diversity amongst us for how long we have wanted to see the Space Pirate leader in Smash Bros. Some of us have only become Ridley fans during the past year, while others have been fans for the purple space dragon for over 20 years.
Regardless, we have all been supporters of Ridley, and see him as among the few characters left to possibly join the playable roster, worthy of the monicker, Nintendo All-Star. As someone that has wanted Ridley in Smash Bros. ever since I saw Ridley flying in the background to the Planet Zebes stage back in 1999, to have, 15 years later, to have my hopes dashed again is dispiriting to put it mildly.
Nevertheless, I was one of the few ardent Ridley supporters to have resigned himself to the fact that Sakurai is a Too Bigot a year ago when we were first given a cryptic hint as to Ridley's status in Smash 4. A month afterward though, a new avenue of hope emerged.
The only other character I spent a lot of time supporting during the pre-Smash 4 period aside from Ridley was Roy. When the Project M team had unveiled the rebirth of the lord with the fiery sword, I was ecstatic. My dream of finally playing as Roy alongside the rest of the Smash Bros. cast added to Brawl had finally come true. A month later, the other cut veteran I missed, Mewtwo was given a similar treatment.
It was from there that I realized that Project M could perhaps be an "alternative" to Smash 4. The announcement of five additional newcomers after Mewtwo and Roy, made things only sweeter. I worked really hard to build support for Ridley for Project M despite the expectation that he was a "lock" for Smash 4. Other characters that were seen as likely for Smash 4 (such as Little Mac and Palutena) did poorly in the fan poll done for this.
Of the characters that did strongly on the poll, the Top 3 consisted of Isaac, Ridley, and Lyn. There are strong rumors indicating that both Lyn and Isaac will make it into Project M.
Ridley, unfortunately, had and currently still has an extreme reluctance by the team for two factors:
1. The expectation that he was going to be playable in Smash 4.
2. Ridley would be very challenging to make (all of the newcomers to Project M, even non-clones, use an already existing character on the roster as a base, and then build the character from there). The closest there is to a possible base for Ridley is Charizard, and even there is a lot of differences.
Althought the final version for Project M probably won't be released until a year from now (3.5 is going to be this year's release), one year is most likely not enough time to make a high quality playable version of Ridley.
It from this point that I propose, Project R.
As with the dream of a playable Ridley, Sakurai disagrees about Smash Bros. being a competitive fighter, and particularly the way Melee is played. While Sakurai has made amends from the extreme actions of Brawl to make it the un-Melee, and Smash 4 seems to be a better fighter overall, he still has strong words about the direction that Melee had (and those who want that direction). Fans who wanted another Smash Bros. in the tradition of Melee, took it upon themselves to make a hack of Brawl that tried to make the game more like Melee. As the years went on, it became almost its own game (with seven characters that were not in Brawl, a massive selection of alternate costumes, some new modes, and a slew of new or modified stages).
Just as Sakurai feels adamant about not making a Melee 2, he feels the same way about Ridley having playable status. While we can gnash our teeth and call Sakurai various names, the more productive way to do things going forward, is to take it upon ourselves to realize our dream. We have to accept for as long as Sakurai has a heavy hand in the Smash Bros. franchise, Ridley will never be playable.
However, that does not mean that we will never be able to play as Ridley in Smash Bros. Just as the fans made an amazing successor to Melee (in terms of its competitive orientated nature and fast gameplay), I think Ridley fans, the fanbase bestowed with the largest fanbase of all characters that have yet to be playable in Smash Bros., should take it upon themselves to show the rest of the Smash Bros. community, that a high quality playable version of Ridley could work.
There is absolutely no doubt that Ridley deserves playable status, and that he can work as a playable character.
However, its going to take lots of time and lots of effort.
For one, if we do go forward with Project R, we should not use Ridley's Brawl boss model as the playable model for Ridley.
Instead, we should probably make an entirely new model for Ridley (probably based off his Zero Mission incarnation seeing as that was the most recent incarnation for the organic Ridley as the time of Brawl's release).
Ridley is going to be extraordinarily challenging to implement and have a quality on par with the rest of the Smash Bros. cast. It remains to be seen if even the Project M team will be able to create a set of their own newcomers on par with Sakurai's own creations (though the quality of their Mewtwo and Roy has me hopeful).
The first phase to Project R will be to see if we can petition to the Project M team for them to consider Ridley to be among their five newcomers for the project. However, this will have to be conditional. We must offer them more than just our pounding and hollering and massive fan request tidal wave.
For one, the Project M team is in desperate need of quality animators (this is among the primary reasons why it has taken them so long to complete their own original newcomers). Since we have the largest fanbase of all potential newcomer fanbases, any Ridley fans who have abilities as animators or model makes should apply to join the team, and be prepared to dedicate massive amounts of time not only towards Ridley, but seeing to it Project M's final completion.
However, even if in the event if all of our massive support and if quality animators/programmers step forward, is not enough to convince them to include Ridley, we should not let that deter us.
No... the Ridley fanbase has been fighting far too long for that.
Instead we should instead go ahead with our own independent Project R. Perhaps request the Project M team for access to the Clone Engine. From there we can develop a high quality playable version of Ridley at our own pace. In the end (it may take until late 2015 at the earliest or late 2016 at the latest), we will decide which of the five newcomers from the final version of Project M to "overwrite" and include Ridley.
However, considering the popularity and exposure for Project M, it would be for the best to try and make it so that Ridley does end up being included (though I have been told by multiple members of the team that this will be an uphill battle).
There is truly no character like Ridley left yet to include in Smash Bros. Ridley has had a massive fanbase to be in Smash Bros. ever since the Melee unveil trailer back during E3 2001 (you can even hear the cheers when Ridley is shown). 13 years later, the dreams of a large portion of Smash Bros. fans, still have not been realized.
Let US realize that dream!
Ridley for Smash Bros.: NOW AND FOR ETERNITY. Regardless of what Sakurai thinks and believes.
