Ridley (Metroid)

"Kill as much as you want! Have fun!"

- Ridley

"Heh, humans are always so weak to the death of their own kind!"

- Ridley mocking a young Samus

Ridley, also known as Geoform 187, is the secondary antagonist of the Metroid series. He is Samus Aran's arch-nemesis, having murdered her parents when she was just a toddler, and her hatred of Ridley is as strong as his is for her.

He is a large alien creature with some draconian traits (physiology) and is considered to be the leader of the Space Pirates stationed on Zebes, as well as being the supreme commander of the Space Pirate confederation. Highly intelligent, Ridley seems to have a great amount of hatred for the bounty hunter Samus Aran, due to his numerous confrontations and battles with her.

Throughout the main games, he is able to be brought back to life after his presumed death, either through technological enhancements, genetic mutations, and even cloning. It is his strong defiance and persistence that allows Ridley to fight again despite being defeated countless times by Samus.

Early Years
While his species' true name is currently unknown, he is often regarded as a "space dragon". He is one of the last of his kind remaining after the Galactic Federation performed a series of mass genocide programs that brought his entire species to the brink of extinction. Next to nothing is known of his pre-military background (if in fact he even had any), but it is safe to say that he made his way up the ranks until finally he was bestowed the designation as leader of the Space Pirates in battle. He also appears to have considerable favor amongst High Command. Ridley's introduction takes place on an Earth-established Colonial Planet, known simply as K-2L; where he conducts a massive raid in order to restock fuel and supplies and plunder, and also allows his soldiers to cut loose and destroy whatever they want. It is also on K-2L that Samus Aran (as a 3-year old) first encounters him. Samus attempts to befriend Ridley, being the sadistic monster he was, he tried to kill Samus. However, her mother pushes her out of the way of Ridley's attack at the cost of her life. Meanwhile, Samus's father destroys the supplies the pirates were after, and is also killed in the blast. Ridley also appears to be injured by the wreckage, but survives. However, he never imagined that he created his own nemesis in Samus.

Battling Samus
Years later, Ridley returned to Zebes, to establish a Central Command Center beneath the planet's surface. His forces annihilated the native Chozo Colony established on its surface before carrying out these orders. Also, he killed Grey Voice when the latter tried to shut down Mother Brain (he pretended to join the Space Pirates so he would try and get close enough to Mother Brain to shut her down, realizing her treachery). Up until this time, the Galactic Federation disregarded Zebes as a low priority, class XIII Wanderer Planet. This changed when the Space Pirates stole a specimen of the dangerous Metroid and word came that the Pirates planned to clone an army of the creatures in their base of operations beneath its surface. The Federation was quick to send its fleets into battle, in order to remove the threat. Ridley personally led many battles against the Galactic Federation's forces, over control of the planet, and defeated everything the Federation Police Force had to attack with. However, some time after these battles, he left Zebes on his flag-ship as well as the Space Pirate Mothership, to fight the fleet of Adam Malkovich, only to later receive a distress signal from Zebes after Kraid's defeat and return to do battle with Samus Aran, a Bounty Hunter the Federation had sent to destroy Mother Brain. While the great Space Dragon threw everything he had at his old-yet-new nemesis, he did not come out the victor, and instead found himself nearly destroyed.

Ridley eventually confronted Samus. In Metroid, this battle took place in MiniBoss Hideout II, whilst in Zero Mission, it took place in Ridley, an area named after him. Both are the same area, just renamed for Zero Mission. In Metroid, Ridley is about Samus' height, if slightly taller, and merely hops around throwing zigzagging fireballs at her. Samus can fire almost anything at him and he gets hurt. Once Samus defeats him, 75 missiles are added to her maximum amount. In Zero Mission, however, he is much more difficult. Ridley flies around and tries to kill Samus with his "classic" attacks - tail swipes, plasma breath, fireballs, and claw slashes. After Samus defeats him, she is allowed to leave with the Unknown Item that had started the battle.

There is also a boss called Ridley Robot, who serves as the end boss of Zero Mission. After Samus explores the Space Pirate Mothership and recovers her lost Power Suit, she eventually stumbles onto a mechanized version of Ridley, which she must destroy in order to leave the ship. After its destruction, it activates its self-destruct mechanism, which obliterates the mothership in a massive explosion. Fortunately, Samus is able to escape just before the ship detonates.

Cybernetic Enhancements
Ridley, after sustaining severe injury, was wounded beyond fighting capability. However, a scan in the Space Pirate Frigate Orpheon, in the later Metroid Prime game, indicates that he in fact survived the attack.

Space Pirates, by order of High Command, recovered his fatally-crippled body and infused it with machinery, reconstructing Geoform 187 into "Meta Ridley". On Tallon IV, Meta Ridley apparently visits many of the Space Pirate bases, first going to the Phendrana Drifts to see the Pirate base, and then flying off towards the Phazon Mines, where he presumably remains until Samus arrives. They later engage each other in battle at the Artifact Temple. At its conclusion (after which his life-bar is depleted), the Chozo Statues blast Meta Ridley and send him hurtling to his death in a fiery explosion.

Despite his fall, he somehow survived, possibly due to the Space Pirates salvaging him, or possibly due to the strength of his cyborg modifications. In any case, Meta Ridley reappeared on Norion during the Space Pirate attack on the Galactic Federation Marine Corps, where Samus fought him once again. He first tried to attack Samus while she was in vulnerable Morph Ball mode, but Samus managed to use her Morph Ball Bombs to escape. He then ambushed her at Generator C, sending both of them down a deep shaft, with the intention of crushing Samus at the bottom. Despite the enclosed environment of the fight, Samus was able to defeat him once more and after delivering several shots directly into his throat, left him for dead before being saved by Rundas. Ridley, however, survived this battle and then went to the Pirate Homeworld and was attracted to the Leviathan (implied in the Infant Leviathan scan), where he was corrupted and made into "Omega Ridley". Samus later encountered the creature in the Leviathan and defeated him. Although it's interesting to note that Ridley's disintegration (unlike other Leviathan guardians) was never actually seen.

Return
Even after these devastating battles, though, Ridley manages to rise again, this time with a purely organic body (possibly due to the fact his previous defeats as a cyborg left him wary of robotic abilities). This time, he destroys the Ceres Space Colony and steals the last living Metroid from it. He and Samus have yet another skirmish, but just before Samus is mortally wounded Ridley leaves as the space station's self destruct sequence begins. He flies off to the rebuilt Space Pirate base on Zebes, where they plan to clone Metroids and make an army of them for galactic domination.

Ridley is once again equipped with his "classic attacks" (as a matter of fact, Super Metroid was the first game to feature these attacks) when Samus finds him in his lair in the deep, central part of Norfair. Samus must defeat him again as one of the bosses to unlock access to Tourian. With the loss of the armor plating from his previous form, he is now much more vulnerable to attack. His previous form demanded that he be shot in the chest or mouth, but he is now vulnerable to both Missile launchers and Charge Beams from any angle; however, Ridley has the ability to swat Missiles away with his whip-like tail. After Samus defeats Mother Brain, Zebes explodes, but apparently, the explosion is not powerful enough to destroy the entire great dragon.

The fact that Ridley is fully organic in this game is a call for theories from many fans of the games. After the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, a common theory claims that after the defeat of Omega Ridley in the core of the Leviathan, massive Phazon exposure from the explosion recreates his organic tissue. Of course, this is after planet Phaaze "dies" and all Phazon and the things it once corrupted are cured. Another, much simpler theory, is that the Pirate group that stayed on Zebes cloned him from DNA before or after his initial defeat on Zebes.

Pragmatically, it should be noted that this problem simply arises because of the release order of the series. "Biological" Ridley had appeared in Super Metroid almost a decade before he became a cyborg in the Prime series, and the latter series did not provide an explanation to sort out the discrepancy. An official explanation or retcon may be provided in a later game or Manga.

Little Birdy
After Samus had defeated the Space Pirates and destroyed Zebes, a corrupt Galactic Federation science team collected samples of alien DNA from Samus's suit and cloned them in their labs on the Bottle Ship. One of the samples belonged to Ridley, but the clone that was created was his juvenile form, which the science team dubbed "Little Birdy". Birdy was about the size of a thrush, with white fuzz, red eyes, pointed ears, a frog-like mouth and stilt-like legs. Samus encountered Little Birdy twice in Sector 1 (Biosphere) upon the Bottle Ship, first when it tried to eat a large fruit, and again after destroying a Kihunter hive, devouring Kihunter honey.

Mystery Creature
Ridley's metabolism allowed him to mature very fast, therefore after Ridley, as Little Birdy, had consumed enough sustenance, he grew into a new form officially called the Mystery Creature. This form bears resemblence to both Ridley's dragon form and Little Birdy, possessing a more reptillian appearance with a long tail ending in a sharp spearhead, and a coat of white fur, a vestige of Ridley's Birdy form.

Ridley Reborn
Ridley's final encounter with Samus on the Bottle Ship was in the depths of Sector 2 (Pyrosphere). After a long battle, Samus defeated Ridley, but her friend, Anthony Higgs was knocked into the lava below. Ridley survives, however, and flees to another part of the ship. He is last seen as a withered husk near the Queen Metroid's containment area, his life force sucked dry by the Queen Metroid. After the end of the incident on the Bottle Ship, BSL recovers his body and takes it to their base near SR-388.

Due to the fact that Ridley's memories are able to combine with his DNA, when the Metroid Queen takes Ridley's life force, Ridley's conscious takes control of it and gives it some of his powers, such as protective purple crystals and fire breath. Ridley (as the Metroid Queen) fights Samus but is defeated and destroyed.

Ridley X - Ridley's Last Hurrah
Like some recurring nightmare, Samus found the frozen remains of Ridley located within a frozen stasis chamber upon the Biologic Space Laboratories research station's main deck. To her relief, he was frozen successfully and could not move or provide any kind of terror in this state. Unfortunately, his inability to move led to his eventual infection by an X Parasite. This X cracked the frozen Ridley and destroyed his corporeal form once more, apparently finally finishing him off. However, Ridley's molecules were absorbed into the parasite, recreating him and allowing him to live once more. Samus soon encountered this Neo Ridley (who was Ridley revived through the X-Parasite) and defeated him, as well, leaving no known trace of Ridley as the BSL crash landed into SR388.

Due to the other Space Pirates found on the BSL, it seems likely that they invaded the laboratories, only to be subdued without Samus' intervention. It is currently unknown when Ridley will make a return appearance.

Super Smash Bros. series
Ridley has appeared in all Super Smash Bros. games to date. And has gotten bigger roles in the final games. He has been an highly suggested playable character, despite never being playable. Masahiro Sakurai (The creator of the series) has mentioned that he thought about including him, but would have to shrink his size in the game, later coming to the conclusion that it wouldn't be Ridley if they shrunk him, and that it would just look weird, which led into multiple people making mods on the game where they could play as Ridley.

Super Smash Bros.
This is no doubt his most minor role in the entire franchise, he is seen in the background as a pixel art during the level Planet Zebes and does nothing more.

Super Smash Bros. Melee
In the opening scene of Melee, he can be seen fighting Samus, he breaks through a wall in order to reach Samus and confronts her in the corridor.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
In this game Ridley has his biggest role in the Super Smash Bros. Series so far, he is a major antagonist in the Subspace Emissary.

He is first seen coming out nowhere when Pikachu and Samus walk around in the Research Facility, he obviously quickly grabs his arch-nemesis Samus and drags her on the walls, he flies around and tortures her, Pikachu manages to electrocute Ridley with a thunderbolt and temporarily manages to paralyze him.

He is later seen as a boss battle in the game, he uses very agile and fast moves, his arguably worst move is his claw attacks, he has two of them, his first and weakest one is when he does a simple backflip, slashes and throws the player up, his second can be devastating if it hits right, he flies up for a short range and then crashes down carefully, it rarely hits, but if it does it can do decent damage, but after this one he does a more unexpected second fly-crash, and this one hits on a longer range and does more damage if it hits.

He has another what looks almost like Rayquaza's extreme speed attack where he charges from one of the corners and knocks the player away if it hits, it can unexpectedly hit, because of how fast it is.

Another of his attacks is when he scraps his sharp tail against the player and scraps them along. It can do some large damage and long knockout depending on the difficulty.

But his killer move is when he flies away for a while, and then unexpectedly comes back and knocks out the player if it hits, this is the most dangerous for sure, considering it can be hard to track because of how fast it comes, and does large amount of damage and knockout.

He later appears in the game as Meta Ridley, his moves are more robot and cyborg based, he can fire energy beams and missiles, and he this time has more devastating attacks, but has more freeze time where he stands still, the player doesn't have that much space to walk on, which makes the boss battle even harder, and this Ridley takes advantage on, most of his other attacks other than firing beams and missiles include crashing on the plane, his killer move is him flying up and then crashing on the plane, causing fire on the entire plane, if the player does not dodge this, they will either be insta-knocked out or lose a massive amount of health.

Obviously, he does come back in The Great Maze as a boss battle, called back by Tabuu, but very strangely, Regular Ridley and Meta Ridley are seemingly counted as two different creatures.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Strangely, Ridley has no sort of cameo in the 3DS version, but does have a remarkable appearance in the Wii U version, where he appears as a stage hazard in the stage Pyrosphere.

He is aggressive and will fight against anyone on the stage, the player that defeats him, gets an extra point, but the players can also use him as a powerful minion, by hitting him multiple times, when that has happened he won't try to kill the leader, but if someone else makes him their minion, he will try to defeat the others again, his moves are quite similar to the moves he had before, but the design on them may be a bit different. But this time he has a move where he breathes big flames of fire, and another one where he does some close up combat.

Trophy Descriptions
"The head of the Space Pirates on Zebes, Ridley soars through space on wicked wings. Ridley may look like a mindless monster, but he's actually quite intelligent. After the SR-388 incident, where Samus captured the infant Metroid, Ridley took the Space Academy by storm, annihilating the complex and taking the Metroid back."

- Melee

"The leader of the Space Pirates. He looks like a pterosaur but has high intelligence and a brutal nature. He plans to steal the baby Metroid from Samus for his own use. Ridley utilizes wings for a full range of flight and attacks with fireballs from his mouth and whips of his tail. As the culprit behind the murder of Samus's parents, the connections with Samus run deep."

- Brawl (Regular Ridley)

"The meta form of Ridley, revived using the Space Pirates' genetic engineering and cybernetic technologies. His thin chest plate--and weak point--is protected by a highly resistant membrane. Meta Ridley is highly mobile and features a multimissile system, a bomb launcher, and powerful wings. Ice attacks are particularly effective in dealing damage to him."

- Brawl (Meta Ridley) "Samus's long-standing rival in battle. In this game, he's a common foe to all the fighters in the Pyrosphere stage. However, if you manage to launch him or knock him over, he'll become an ally to whoever dealt the last blow. Defeating him in a timed battle nets you +1 KO."

- Wii U

Ridley Robot
(Main Article: Ridley Robot)

The ridley robot is an undone incomplete robot based on Ridley, made by Ridley, as it is clearly incomplete, its cables are coming out of its torso, and therefore doesn't have the same moving capability as Ridley, and is only able to move with its arms. Though it is apparently connected to a unseen interface, giving it some sort of power. It has a grey, metallic appearance with very sharp, light green eyes and a red core on its chest.

In its boss battle, it is the final boss of Metroid: Zero Mission, but is its only appearance too (Other than Nintendo Land), it can fire missiles, lasers, and fireballs, but ironically, its main weakness is also missiles, and if Samus manages to shoot it in its core, it will take damage, it also uses its claws to do damage.

Meta Ridley
After Ridley was defeated and presumably deceased, he still wouldn't give up, he picked up his remains and made himself again, and this time, a genetically enhanced version, he had to go through a very painful metamorphosis so that he could become Meta Ridley and fulfill his goal to kill Samus once and for all, it is likely that the people who repaired him could have used parts of the Ridley Robot.

Once he was recreated as Meta Ridley, his attacks were also upgraded, his speed was highly boosted with new wings, his new armor is extremely durable. One of his weapons are missiles, he can shoot multiple missiles at once, but can also shoot one at a time. A tactic he uses at times is hiding behind something and later popping up and shooting missiles, but at times also goes all in. He can also use powerful beams and lasers, at times when he flies and fires missiles, he might fire lasers and/or beams too.

Apparently, the designer of Meta Ridley, Mike Sneath, mentioned that it took 20-25 days to design him, the wings took some time to make, trying to make them look more modern and holographic. His first concept was rejected, but then later the second one was the one used. Mike didn't get involved in the boss battle design however, which was up to the designers and scenario planners.

Omega Ridley
Following his loss against Samus during his attempt at invading Norion, Ridley, during his Meta Ridley form, managed to escape, but got exposed to Phazon, After getting exposed to the Phazon, his armor got upgraded alot and made it alot more durable, however, despite being upgraded in such a huge way, he did get an injury from when he fell from Norion that didn't fully heal, which is his only weak spot during this form. During battles, he will try to protect this injury as good as he can, requiring Samus to shoot and paralyze him in order to leave the injury open for other attacks that can defeat him. Samus confronts him on the Pirate Homeworld guarding the planet's Leviathan. After a long battle, Samus finally manages to defeat Omega Ridley, which makes Ridley explode and fly away.

While this form is dominant in terms of battle and fighting, compared to Meta Ridley, the Omega Form doesn't seem to have much mechanical modification at all, the reasoning for this is most likely that the exposing to Phazon made the mechanical modification slowly fall out of his body, and while Ridley isn't portrayed as tragic, it is possible that Ridley could have been suffering alot during this process.

Neo Ridley
Note: As mentioned before, this is the last time we see Ridley chronologically.

Samus first sees Ridley in a near-dead situation, this was his final clone, Ridley's corpse is completely frozen, and Samus simply walked near the frozen corpse and it collapsed, but not long after, Ridley's eyes started to glow again, his clone recalled Samus, but instead of attacking as he usually would, he flew away.

As Samus continues exploring the station, she sees Ridley's clone again, but this time dry and rotting. As she comes closer to see what it is, the clone's eyes start to glow again, an X-Parasite had entered his body, and Ridley turned to his new and final form, Neo Ridley.

This new infected form of Ridley has a different look, it has more talons, it is bigger than usual, and while Ridley didn't get any sort of further attributes, he becomes even more vicious and dangerous, and while Ridley is extremely intelligent, during this form, he most likely had lost all control of himself and was controlled by the X-Parasite.

Personality
Considering his lack of voice in the games and little known backstory about him, and always being a boss in the games, Ridley is mistaken as a braindead and feral animal that can't control his actions and has to eat, however, this is proven wrong in the official Metroid manga. Here, Ridley is shown to be an intelligent yet bloodthirsty creature that kills a young girl's mom, which just so happens to be Samus, who tries to befriend him, Ridley simply laughs at the request and attacks her, another goal of his is to destroy the peaceful planet K2-L. Considering he is the warlord that he is, he follows his leader very unwillingly. This most likely is because his love for war is only because of the feeling for murder and death of people. Even though this, he is shown to be very intelligent as well, as seen in The Battle of Norion, he makes sure that even if he dies, Samus will die too.

His main trait of personality other than being a warlord though is his sarcastic and overly sadistic humor, he makes jokes about Samus's mom being dead at times very casually, and toys with Samus at times before trying to kill her, he even sarcastically calls his leader once Sir Military Commander, in which he obviously just flies away in arrogance after.

Even though never speaking human speech in the games, people have assumed that the reason we see him speaking English in the manga is that it's a translation from his "Space Pirate Language".

Powers/Abilities
Ridley's fighting skills are very advanced, as seen multiple times in the series, an example of this is in The Battle of Norion, he took advantage of Samus being unable to transform during the battle while she was in the Morph Ball form, he then checked and made sure that Samus would fall down the Generator C shaft, this would make it so that whether he dies or not, Samus would die too, with him.

One of the reasons he is good at fighting is because of all his weapons and his ability to fly, alot of creatures in Metroid can't fly which gives Ridley the upper hand in almost every battle.

Some of his weapons and attacks are beams, lasers, and fireballs. He also has strength that he uses at times to break battleships in order to make his enemies fall down.

Quotes
"Is she here? Or here? You don't know, maybe i even ate your "mama" so that my cells can live, hm?"

- Ridley mocking a very young Samus over her mom's death

"ATLEAST PAY YOUR RESPECTS!" "SAMUS ...! You have become strong... so strong ...BUT, THOUGH THIS WILL BE HARD FOR YOU, THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE IN THIS UNIVERSE WHO NEED YOUR STRENGTH!!! I KNOW THAT YOUR FATE IS HARSH YOU'VE BECOME STRONG, MY CHILD..."

Guide and Manual Descriptions
"It's the head of Mini-Boss Hideout II. It jumps up into the air and breathes fire. It's the original life form of the planet Zebes and is controlled by Mother Brain. Destroy it and you win 75 missile blasts!"

- Metroid "Ridley headed the mission to the Space Colony and stole the Metroid Hatchling. It whips out at enemies with its long tail and spits fire while flying through the air."

- Super Metroid "It attacks Samus by spewing fireballs. A missile attack is very effective, but if you have the wave beam, it would be a good idea to use the beam continuously while jumping through the lava." "Extremely dangerous! Enormous wing-span and long, whip-like tail. Moves very fast and attacks with alarming ferocity. Emits fireballs of gas from elongated beak. Will try to pick up enemies and crush them with razor-sharp talons. Vulnerable to Super Missiles. DANGER LEVEL: VERY HIGH."

- Zero Mission Website "Bump into this enemy to trigger a battle. If a player manages to defeat Ridley, he or she is rewarded a massive boost to all stats. Stat boosts can also be earned if a player wins the battle by scoring KOs against his or her opponents. If Ridley is not defeated in time, he will retain his remaining stamina and move to another space on the board."

- SSB4 Smash Tour

Trivia

 * Ridley is the evilest out of the Metroid Villains Samus has met, Dark Samus is also considered Pure Evil. He can also therefore be considered the evilest of the Nintendo big bads, compare him to Bowser, The Evil Pokémon Teams (Team Flare, Aether Foundation, etc), Wolf O'Donnell, and Ganondorf, always have some sort of honor in their evil, Bowser regularly redeems himself or gets replaced by a bigger evil, and therefore often becomes an anti-hero, Evil Teams usually redeem themselves last minute, but don't have to, Wolf O' Donnell often saves Fox from getting killed/hurt, and is classified as an anti-villain, though he is probably more evil, as he states that he does want to kill Fox. And Ganondorf is honorable. The only big bad from any Nintendo franchise that comes close to Ridley are Andross and Hades, but Andross still has some small sympathetic backstory (which still gets removed with the heinous things he does, but still has a sad backstory), while Ridley has no tragic backstory at all and only kills for fun.
 * Ridley's name is likely derived from Ridley Scott, the director of the first film of the Alien film series and its prequel trilogy, from which Metroid games are stated to have taken a lot of inspiration. Ridley has a remarkable similarity to the Xenomorphs.
 * Ridley is the only other character besides SA-X and Dark Samus to best Samus in a fight. In the Super Metroid intro, Ridley is able to incapacitate Samus long enough to steal the last Metroid and accomplish his mission, though if a player is skilled enough, Ridley can be somewhat defeated. The result is Ridley losing his grip on the Metroid Hatchling's canister and dropping it, but quickly grabs it again and flees.
 * Ridley is the most common reappearing villain in the Metroid series, as he has appeared in every Metroid game to date except for Metroid II: Return of Samus, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime Hunters.
 * Ridley is capable of being bipedal, shown in Metroid Prime 3, in the second phase of the battle between Samus and Omega Ridley, once she destroys the joints on his Phazite armor and his weak spot is exposed, he stands on two feet and clumsily walks around swiping at Samus as she blasts his chest with Phazon energy from Hypermode. Also, in Metroid Prime, he stumbles on two legs as the Chozo spirits blast at his exposed chest cavity. However, he also stands on his two feet during the battle when Samus fires a round into his mouth exposing his chest. While preparing his charge attack, he stands on his feet as well.
 * In all of his 2-D appearances, his wings are curiously smaller than his body size, logically making them unlikely to even lift Ridley off the ground, and yet he soars through the air with ease (even his X-Parasite mimic). This is so that during his fights, he doesn't take up too much of the screen, and so that his flapping wings don't damage Samus as they would if properly sized. His 3-D appearances and manga rectify this mystery by giving him wings that exceed his main body.
 * In the Pirate Command sector of the Pirate Homeworld, images of Ridley can be found on the glowing orange monitors.
 * A possible explanation for Ridley's color changes throughout the series may be due to an ablility to control the pigments in his skin in a way similar to a chameleon or an octopus. When Samus first enters his arena in Super Metroid, Ridley is not visible at first. Ridley's eyes soon open in front of Samus, and he then becomes fully visible before soaring into the air to attack. This may indicate that Ridley can camouflage himself like a chameleon.
 * Ridley's signature music was originally used as a generic boss fight background music in Super Metroid, but in later games, it has been associated solely with Ridley. Although there have been variations of Ridley's theme in each game (different tempo, extra beats, etc), the music's rhythm and sound are consistent and used for every incarnation except for his very first boss fight in the original Metroid.
 * Meta Ridley can be seen on Nintendo Monopoly representing Tennessee Avenue for $180, though the property is simply referred to as "Ridley".
 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, partial in-game data exists for a Ridley Assist Trophy, but it is not in-game. It was likely scrapped in development.
 * Ridley's theme is one of the three most remixed theme in the Metroid series, having a total of ten official remixes.
 * Because Ridley was captured by BSL between Other M and Fusion, it is possible that Ridley's DNA is still in their possession.
 * In Metroid Other M, Ridley has an attack in which he scrapes Samus against the wall. The same attack was seen in a cutscene in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
 * From a piece of concept art, Ridley was planned to be a boss in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, as a Darkling.
 * The only non Metroid related character that has been seen facing Ridley so far is Pikachu from Pokémon in Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
 * Ridley is able to hold memories within his DNA, this is how the Ridley clone managed to retain Ridley's memories of Samus.
 * Interestingly, Ridley's clone blood in Other M is green, which is a color that is common in science fiction to put in aliens, but actually his blood in Corruption is red.