Gunship is Zero Suit Samus' Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, replacing Power Suit Samus from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Overview[]
Zero Suit Samus will summon her Gunship and jump into it, being intangible during the introduction sequence. After this, the screen will shift to her viewpoint from the ship, with a cursor appearing. After this, Zero Suit Samus can fire small energy beams that hit opponents repeatedly before knocking them back with a stronger blast, dealing up to 15% damage if each hit connects. After fifteen seconds or when Zero Suit Samus fires off five beams, she will exit her Gunship, and the screen will shift back to normal. In Ultimate, the Gunship functions differently due to firing one continuous laser from the ship before finishing off with a high-damage shot with high knockback.
Gunship functions similarly to Grenade Launcher, as it is capable of juggling opponents and knocking opponents toward the blast lines. However, Gunship has less opportunities for dealing damage due to only being able to fire off five beams, though it can deal more consistent damage and trap opponents at a faster pace. Gunship is improved upon in Ultimate by having smaller startup lag and no separate shots, making it an excellent way of trapping your enemies and launching them away with the final blast.
Overall, Gunship is a more effective Final Smash than Power Suit Samus due to its better damage output and increased opportunities for stage control.
Origin[]
Samus' Gunship has been an integral part of her arsenal in the series up until today and first debuted in Metroid II: Return of Samus, where it served as a recovery spot. Morphing into her Morph Ball form and rolling around inside the ship allowed Samus to recharge her energy and missiles, although the layout of SR388 made returning to her ship at will impractical. This particular design of the Gunship is iconic to the Metroid series and debuted in Metroid II, and later went on to appear in Super Metroid where it had the added ability to save the game, and later went on to appear in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid Other M and Metroid: Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid II. According to the Prime series, the ship was designed to Samus' specifications in the shipyards of planet Aliehs III. Said planet is named after the movie Alien 3, which, along with the Alien franchise as a whole, inspired many core elements within the Metroid series.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption allowed Samus to summon her Gunship to open fire on certain enemies or obstacles, which the Final Smash emulates, albeit using the more familiar Gunship from the rest of the series rather than Prime 3's unique Gunship design.