Special thanks to Team Haruhi for their support of Source Gaming on Patreon, and for requesting this article.
Given the character in question, Spazzy_D elected to assign this to SG writer LIQUID12A due to the latter’s far superior knowledge of the character.
I. Introduction
Metroid is a series in Smash that is often seen as neglected due to the comparatively low content it receives compared to other series such as Fire Emblem and long-running partners The Legend of Zelda and Kirby. Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U was particularly harsh in many fans’ eyes with Ridley assigned as a boss for the second time and Dark Samus being turned into an Assist Trophy. In the end, all the DLC was revealed and Metroid ultimately received no more than a Samus costume for Mii Gunners. However, the future has the potential for a third character. Ridley might be the king of requested Metroid characters, but a previously shadowy figure has begun an ascent to secure a place at his side and one I have briefly covered before, now confirmed for a revival. The ensemble darkhorse Hunter, Sylux.
“Unfortunately, six other bounty hunters were also aware of the Ultimate Power, consisting of name not important, who cares, whatever, $#&! all, empty space and Sylux, who’s the only person I can immediately recall because everyone seems to like this %$$&#@! the most.”
II. Character Debriefing
Sylux is a bounty hunter who debuted in Metroid Prime: Hunters, a spinoff to the successful Metroid Prime trilogy, and is easily the most fleshed out new character from said game. Sylux is a renegade of the Galactic Federation, harboring a hatred for them and, by extension, Samus Aran. Sylux wields technology stolen from the former with an electric weapon, a suit of armor and the Delano 7, a gunship themed after said armor at its disposal. It’s gender and species remains unknown (but commonly speculated to be a male human), as is the source of its anger and desire to crush the Federation.
Like the other bounty hunters from Metroid Prime: Hunters, Sylux was drawn to the Alimbic Cluster in hopes of locating the ‘Ultimate Power’, not knowing it was a ruse by Hunters’ main antagonist, Gorea. Despite having its life drained by Gorea in the Oubliette, Sylux was later revived and escaped, both instances occurring when Samus defeated the creature. It’s last known appearance was after the planet Phaaze was destroyed in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, following Samus in it’s signature Delano 7 after the former jumped into hyperspace, leaving the trilogy on a cliffhanger.
Retro. Hear me out on this, we didn’t need a simple cliffhanger theory floating for 8 YEARS.
III. Points towards inclusion
Metroid has been passed over for a new character in Smash for various reasons. Ridley was relegated to a boss twice because of creative difficulties regarding the character, and Dark Samus was possibly seen as too similar to Samus, or not relevant enough for inclusion(the most recent Metroid title at the time was Other M) . Sylux avoids all of these issues due to being the size of a regular character (what stopped Ridley), being confirmed for use in at least one future game and being distinct to Samus in design and armaments (the latter two may have stopped Dark Samus, lack of relevancy and distinction due to being a literal clone).
Metroid also has the benefit of being a series that fans consistently request more content for, especially characters. Arguably the next most ideal one in the event Sakurai’s stance on Ridley does not change is standing right here. Going by the known selection criteria, Sylux checks out as well:
・The character must display personality in their game.
Sylux is shown to be aggressive in the introduction video to Hunters, demonstrated on a Galactic Federation Marine followed by a roar towards the sky, showing an almost feral-like mentality.
・It’s important to have something only that character can do.
With Sylux’s default weapons, it has a life-leeching ranged weapon(current life recovery moves are either passive, defensive or short range grabs) and stationary bombs that form tripwires. By taking from the source material’s multiplayer component, Sylux could also have such tools as a sniper rifle, ice shotgun and lobbing projectiles, the latter only shared with Mii Gunner amongst the projectile-heavy characters.
・Potential development issues, and game balance is also taken into some consideration.
The most graphic-intensive part of Sylux is the electricity emanated from its weapons, so there wouldn’t be any evident development issues. It is entirely possible to balance a projectile-heavy character as well.
・Distribution among the franchises is also taken into consideration.
Metroid has a low amount of characters when compared to Nintendo’s major long-lasting series, equal to Donkey Kong (two), below Kid Icarus and Kirby (three) and evidently below Zelda (five), Fire Emblem, Pokémon (six for both), and Mario (seven barring sub-franchises like Yoshi and Wario).
However….
IV. Reasons for exclusion
Sylux has a couple notable flaws, unfortunately. Most importantly, it has not had a game appearance in over 8 years, making it obscure despite it’s confirmed revival. Granted, this hasn’t stopped people from requesting characters in similar dilemmas (King K. Rool is a notable example), but relevancy is still a roadblock, not to mention a timing based one in the context of game development. Moreover, Sylux really is a minor figure in the Metroid canon; it’s added emphasis in Hunters, indirect cameo in Corruption and producer Kensuke Tanabe’s statements are currently the only things placing it above Hunters’ five also-rans and by extension the Corruption trio of hunters. While obscure fighters are not a new thing in Smash, they shouldn’t be added primarily on the basis of buffing their home series, especially when Smash has so many different avenues for representation (it’s worth noting that Sylux’s trophy from Brawl was removed along with many other Prime series trophies).
Don’t quit your day job.(source)
Nevertheless, these flaws are only temporary. Sylux’s next appearance will come eventually, perhaps as early as Federation Force, which is described as being a world-building title leading up to the next Prime game, so it would be logical to include Sylux in Federation Force for this purpose. The relevancy and importance arguments would be mitigated, and these would complement the other reasons to justify Sylux’s possible inclusion. It will take time, however, and won’t happen immediately. It might not be an important character now, but if revived properly, the character will likely be made so.
Overall, Sylux has the markings of a Smash newcomer, especially for a series seen as in need of one. It should iron out any shortcomings with time and become a more feasible character to include, thus potentially granting the prestigious Metroid series another character after many years.
Sylux is always watching.(source)
Metroid may be underepresented, but that doesn’t mean a character should be included just for the sake of being another Metroid character. Sylux is (currently) just too obscure and minor a part of his own series. The only character like that to ever make it into Smash Bros. is Sheik–and she’s a direct extension of Zelda. That may very well be a moot point by the time Smash 5 rolls around (which is more than can be said for many other ensemble darkhorses), but for now, Sylux is trapped in limbo
And I quite agree, which is why I mentioned the same points you do. Won’t happen immediately, needs time. But it’s possible.
Between Sylux and Ridley, there’s a chance Smash 5 could see two Metroid newcomers. But it’ll all depend on when Smash 5 happens and if Metroid is able to return to the spotlight with future games.
…And if Sakurai changes his mind about Ridley, which he did do about Villager and Miis, so it’s entirely plausible.
the recent comment about Wario’s Shoulder Bash made me realize Sakurai is too inconsistent on his word
first you say you highly endorse mixing both source material and smash material for the character to work as fighters in Smash
then you say altering Ridley (or his clone) by shrinking him into a fighter, redesigning his wings, and his long flight trait is
now you say putting source material into the fighter’s moveset won’t always flesh out right making them fun-to-play or competitive viable.
meanwhile former PMDT and BronzeGreekGod did the damn job making sure Wario, Samus, and Ganondorf are both competitive viable, fun, and respective to their origins while not letting Smash take over all of it’s image.
hoping the next game will have Tanabe (he was the producer of Brawl), Harada (Bamco), or Kumazaki (HAL) as the director so they can do more wiser decisions in Smash than Sakurai and his crony team doing all this shit.
That opening spiel about the 6 hunters was taken from SomecallmeJohnny’s review of Metroid Prime Hunters (https://youtu.be/aiN9oJPi9XE?t=1m39s), you should credit him, plagiarism isn’t cool.
I do agree that Sylux should join the next Smash if he’ll represent as the important character for the Metroid Prime series than Dark Samus who’s more of Samus’ clone, but I do agree with his exclusion. Metroid Prime didn’t have any new series after 3’s release, not until Federation Force was announced though. And as far as I know, Metroid Prime: Hunters didn’t seem to be a popular game than the main series, as I haven’t seen anybody playing that game, while I haven’t heard anybody mentioning any hunters from that game for the Smash Ballot. Although he has a personality for his backstory and uniqueness of something only he can do while others don’t, his existence need to be memorable and recognizable by public than being forgotten into oblivion, and that’s how popularity is important for that character to be chosen. However, if the staffs plan to bring him for the Federation Force, then maybe he’ll finally get some spotlight and Sakurai may think about it by looking carefully on his uniqueness and popularity.
What I still disagree on is people still voting for Ridley. Sorry to bring up a different subject to this article, but Sakurai already did explained his exclusion, but it seems people are still blind and deaf enough that they refuse to understand as they want to stick with their own mind. Ridley is too big and that is true; there weren’t any records that his size are freely changeable. His gigantic size represents how vicious, fearful, and monstrous he is for being a memorable boss, and that’s what Ridley’s meant to be. Sure, there were times that Bowser has changed his size throughout many Mario series, but this is the difference between Ridley and Bowser’s case. Seriously, Mario Universe is a strange place that can go against physics, where Donkey Kong can punch down a moon straight down to their enemy’s fortress, Wario turns his home into a video game company and create games in mere seconds, Yoshi swallows a fireball and spit it back, etc. Super Mario series are meant to be a fantasy game, and Bowser’s size can be changeable from huge to average by magic. Possibly his giant size is due to magic, while his average size you see in many non-action Mario games could be his REAL size. On the other hand for Ridley’s case, he doesn’t have an ability nor “magic” to change his size. Sure he was small back in the NES era, but that’s due to lack of memory data; he could’ve been originally big, but couldn’t due to NES’s lack of power. That can be said to his SNES era too since he wasn’t big enough because of the limited data power. His size after the GC era became a perfect size of who he really is, and that wasn’t later shrank smaller afterwards as it stood there to identify his real appearance. Eventually, changing their size isn’t the point of choosing characters for Smash; it’s whether their purpose of their appearance is eligible to be chosen for Smash, and that is something both Sakurai and their creators need to agree on. And even if Ridley was playable and rather kept in that size, there will always be a technical difficulties, and that’s something that isn’t easy to fix it, which the 3DS’s lack of machine power and Wii U’s 8-Player Smash will always be the main obstacle for that problem. As I said this many times before, Smash isn’t MUGEN which you can just put anybody and everybody in one game as it doesn’t matter whether they’re unique or simply generic, or terribly weak as in easy-to-kill-in-one-hit to ultimately (and boringly) OP as being invincible and invulnerable to kill, since there’s no rules and limits to protect for MUGEN. Sakurai isn’t that stupid to make that happen, and he know what’ll work best than how any amateurs like us think of. Making a character isn’t really easy as anybody thinks, and that’s something many people really need to understand that what Sakurai doing isn’t an easiest job in the planet, as there’s no such thing as an easiest job.
Don’t talk mess about my boys Kanden, Noxus and Weavel, man
I’d kill to see Kanden show up in a Smash game, honestly, unlikely as that would ever be.
Metroid was rather neglected in Smash 4, and almost completely ignoring Prime 3 in favor of Other M felt harsh, hopefully Sylux appears in any Metroid game would give him some kickstart for his way to Smash.