I still love that Ridley’s intro is him straight up murdering Megaman and Mario just to get a reaction out of Samus. He’s such a smug prick and I think this is among the first times he’s been treated as more than just a monster but given a kind of…personality as the leader of the space pirates through his actions.
I think this might be the first time we’ve gotten to see Ridley in a setting that lets him show off his sadism and how much of a jackass he is because the Metroid games just aren’t equipped to do that. More often than not it’s just straight into the action with no time for banter so Ridley’s in full “Kill Samus” mode. The only other time we’ve seen his personality is in the Metroid manga from forever ago and boy howdy.
Flamingsalyut Safehaven 