Overview

Samus’s gameplay mirrors much of her Super Metroid gameplay, revolving primarily around her ground-based special attacks. Compared to most Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighters, she’s relatively difficult to play and can be unintuitive to novices learning a Super Smash Bros. game for the first time.

Her main strengths lie in her versatile and safe-zoning strategy. Charge Shot and Missile force out enemy movement (usually forcing opponents to go aggressive and attack you). Past long range, Samus has several defense-oriented attacks and tools that can deter aggressors. Forward air is a strong deterrent attack, neutral air attack is good for spacing out foes, and down air is a solid air-to-ground descending attack. Samus has an exceptional ground game as well. Her ground attacks all have superb hitboxes, and her tilt attacks apply enough hitstun to keep you safe from most reprisals.

One of your objectives as Samus is to create space and time so that you can charge up your Charge Shot freely. Having a maxed-out Charge Shot ready drastically changes your options and threat level. While Samus makes it obvious when she has a max Charge Shot ready to go (because her fighter model flashes), the shield damage you can inflict outweighs your predictability with it. Although your enemy is likely to shield it, reducing their total shield life by 70% from a single max Charge Shot and threatening a dizzy makes charging worthwhile.

Samus has one of the slowest rolls and is easily punishable, so it’s recommended that you use her air dodge for evading attacks. As Samus is a primarily zoning-based fighter, try to avoid getting into these sticky situations altogether.

Samus/Dark Samus Vitals

Movement Options

Movement Ranks