When Samus destroys her Power Suit, she’s left with the Zero Suit. However, what she’s lost in power and weaponry she makes up for in speed!

Once she turns that Paralyzer in her hand into a whip, she has quite a long reach as well! Not exactly the straightforward fight you thought it was, huh?

Standard Special Move: Paralyzer

Bzzzzzzzzzzt! I can’t get enough of this.

A personal protection device, the Paralyzer stuns opponents. If you can charge it up for a bit, you can land additional attacks while your opponent is stunned.

A down smash will fire it at your feet!

But this is only self-defence at best. It does not have the power of an explosive attack. Where and when you use this is key.

What really brings out some characteristic Samus skills is when this gun transforms and releases a whip: the Plasma Whip.

Side Special Move: Plasma Whip

The flash at the tip of this short whip is quite powerful!

Up Special: Plasma Wire

Shoot it straight up to pull enemies towards you!

These two moves can be used to grab and hang from a ledge. They can reach even if the ledge is pretty far away, so pay close attention to distance and timing and aim to dangle from the ledge.

Pzzzzt! What a magnificent ledge grab!

Power Suit Samus

When you let loose with Zero Suit Samus’ Final Smash, she re-equips her Power Suit.

Yes, Zero Suit Samus isn’t the stoutest of fighters, so picking up a Smash Ball is cause for relief.

She’s on standby and ready to rock!

Energy swirls around Samus.

Then she transforms!

It’s Samus! Samus! Samus!

The whirl of energy that appears before Zero Suit Samus’ transformation sucks enemies into the chaos.

I should probably tell you that only Samus is available on the character-selection screen. So what should you do when you feel like playing as Zero Suit Samus from the get-go?

  1： At the character-selection screen, hold down a shield button, then proceed to the next screen.

The Power Suit falls away in fragments.

  2： Quickly input taunts ↑↓↑.

What’s this? ...So you can shed your armour anytime you want?!

Thing is, you’re going to have to put that command in pretty darn fast in order for it to work. If you’ve set your taunts to the +Control Pad on your controller, you’ll eventually input the command correctly if you rapidly hammer up and down on the +Control Pad.

It’s not easy, but how awesome is it that you can make Samus coolly switch between two completely different fighting forms? Try it out next time you feel like showing off.