Ridley (Metroid)
Ridley returns in his Meta form once again in "", where he, along with the Space Pirate legion under his command, are corrupted by Dark Samus. He encounters and battles Samus on Norion, a Galactic Federation-occupied world, and the two fight while free-falling down an air shaft. Ridley is later supercharged with Phazon, becoming "Omega Ridley", and is charged with guarding the Leviathan Seed on the Space Pirate homeworld. He is confronted once again by Samus, and despite being defeated, he survives the fight and is later cured of his corruption after Dark Samus' defeat later on. Between the "Prime" trilogy and "", the Space Pirates reorganize on Zebes and hatch another plan to clone and weaponize the Metroids, while Ridley gradually begins to regenerate from his past injuries, gradually shedding his cybernetics. In the remake of the second game, "", Ridley, in his semi-regenerated form of "Proteus Ridley", attacks Samus on SR388 to steal the last remaining Metroid. Samus and the baby Metroid work together to defeat Ridley.
Ridley (Metroid)
Ridley originally appeared in the Nintendo Entertainment System video game "Metroid" as one of the two Space Pirate figureheads charged with protecting Mother Brain at the base on Zebes, where they are cloning Metroids with the intention of converting them into biological weapons. Both he and his counterpart, Kraid, are defeated by Samus. Ridley's remains are collected from the ruins of the base on Zebes and taken aboard the frigate "Orpheon", where he is cybernetically reconstructed as "Meta Ridley". As shown in "Metroid Prime", Samus confronts him aboard the ship and pursues him to the planet Tallon IV, where she hampers his operations to exploit the planet's widespread contamination of Phazon, fighting and leaving him for dead a second time. Mike Sneath, one of three senior character artists for "Metroid Prime", was responsible for designing the Meta Ridley version of Ridley seen in "Metroid Prime". It took him about "20 to 25 days" to model and texture Meta Ridley, citing the wings as having taken a few days of his time, commenting that it took him a while to get the shaders to work to give his wings the appearance of having a "holographic energy." He was not involved with designing the battle with Meta Ridley, which was left up to the game designers. Andrew Jones, the lead concept artist for "Metroid Prime", had little to do with the design of Ridley. The initial design submitted was rejected by Nintendo, while the second design the artists submitted was approved. Steve Barcia, the executive producer of Retro Studios, called Ridley his favorite enemy from "Metroid Prime" due to the quality of the battle and his fan appeal. He added that such a battle was rare for a first person shooter, which helped to set "Metroid Prime" apart.