User blog comment:Darth Phazon/Ridley? IDK..../@comment-24835190-20140429170957/@comment-6831244-20140430204015

Have any of you even watched the direct carefully? Ridley's movements are far too uneventful to be an actual boss character. Plus, his shadow with Pikachu as a sense of scale makes him seem smaller than one might expect. And Sakurai has, of course, said that not everything will be evenly scaled. Also, there were no hints of any other fighters on that stage. So unless you can be on a stage by yourself, Ridley is a playable character. Sakurai is a huge troll, after all. Plus, the tail is from Ridley's Other M appearance. Besides, Metroid is one of the ten original series in Smash Bros and current has the least number of representatives. (Not counting Yoshi, who can really have no other representatives in the first place) It makes perfect sense for Ridley to be a character.