Ridley Amiibo

Ridley is Metroid's primary recurring antagonist (1986 onward), the giant space-pirate dragon who's served as Samus's nemesis across most Metroid games. His Smash inclusion had been a fan-campaign for over a decade because Sakurai had repeatedly stated Ridley was 'too big for Smash' (the character is significantly larger than most playable Smash fighters), which became a long-running fanbase joke. Smash Ultimate's solution was 'shrink Ridley to fighter-scale,' which the franchise had been resisting forever. The Ridley reveal trailer included a sequence where Ridley tail-stabbed Mega Man through the chest in slow-motion, one of the most shockingly-violent Smash announcements on record.

In Smash Ultimate he trains with his distinctive moveset: tail-stab attacks, fire-breath ranged moves, fly-swoop aerial combat. The tail-stab finishers are uniquely-Ridley combat options that hit different than any other fighter's grab. Smash figures because Ridley's character design is intentionally bigger than human-shaped fighters.

He pairs with Samus Smash, Dark Samus, Zero Suit Samus, and the broader Metroid-line cluster. The wait was real.