And now Game Theorists Theatre presents a dramatic recreation of Bowser stepping on Big Blue. (Intro) Hello internet! Welcome to game theory. The Joker that no one is excited to see enter the smash conversation. So when I've covered smash in the past it's always been at a larger scale piecing together the lore searching for secret levels hidden in the game's code doing things like Calculating the infinite number of ways that you can play this game All of those episodes are actually linked you right there upper right-hand corner of the screen But today I actually wanted to do something different. I want to focus on something a little bit smaller a little bit more subdued One character one move. Seems lame right? But this isn't just any move my friends It is a move that is faster than Sonic. It is stronger than Ganondorf a move That is so brutal and violent that takes Gaur Plain and suddenly transforms it into gore Plain, he for everyone Nintendo, ha, you wish you didn't include this move because it ruins the E for Everyone rating technically. You see one of my favorite things about smash is its ability to test the limits of character moves and items Smash Brothers is one of if not really the only arena to test different fighters from different franchises against each other You want to race against a super sonic hedgehog and an electric rat, great! You can do that How about an all-out slugfest between gaming's two most famous reptilian kings to see which one reigns supreme you can do that, too I mean I could seriously just watch the compilations of characters trying to leap through longer and narrower pathways in this game because You always get surprised by the results like the fact that Little Mac over here who literally cannot recover to save his life is somehow Able to escape the tallest hit in the game Faster than you could say final destination no items suck on that Kirby with speed boost and jump ability That's according to a video by Nintendo unity, by the way Or the fact that there are multiple ways to create a move that instantly does laser sword noise 999 percent damage because spirits are broken and this game is fun But it was while watching another one of these sorts of videos that I was inspired to do Today's theory you see back in December the channel community game actually did a video testing out who could survive running on the stage Big Blue. Now, to catch you up Big Blue is a level inspired by the racing game f-zero a game that takes NASCAR and cranks the dial up to 11 because now you have racers flying along on the track at hundreds of miles per hour Now in Smash the Big Blue stage actually has you fighting atop a jet and then some of the smaller race cars, all the while while the track is flying by underneath you if you land on that track It's almost an instant death as the platform's race ahead to leave you in the dust and as a mere off-screen explosion As such you can also treat the roadway of big blue almost like a giant treadmill a treadmill that is so fast that only the Fastest characters are able to keep up with it But according to this community game video even those speedy racers can use the help of an item this is me injecting those characters with a little bit of extra juice, but not Deadly juice or steroids or anything like that that this is brand friendly guys Even though we're talking about brutally murdering childhood mascots when I'm saying extra juice I mean injecting them with like a bunny hood or a spirit boost or heck some mega mushrooms Youtuber Aaron Voe did an incredible job of testing to come up with a tier list of everyone's ability to survive this level thus ranking Everyone's speed and the results are kind of what do you expect sonic is at the top, duh? The only character who's able to survive solely with the help of a mega mushroom and then you have Fox Captain Falcon chic and littlemack following around shortly behind now, that's cool and all but there is someone Who is faster someone who doesn't need items to outpace the racetrack of big blue? we all assume that sonic over here is the fastest character in this game because it's his brand and all that but he's not it's Actually Ridley, the fire-breathing space pirate dragon from Metroid, a character that has died so many times he's got more lives than a cat now Ridley is a brutal character It says a lot when his introduction to this game series is him literally killing the game's mascot, but it's his forward B attack That's particularly unique He can pick up his Opponent in his talons and then just physically drag them along the ground and if that wasn't violent enough he's actually able to do it Fast enough to outpace the Falcon flyer in this footage right here. He is actually outpacing a jet flying above a futuristic NASCAR race Granted things in the smash brothers series always have to be taken with a grain of salt in the name of balance We need to tweak things a little bit so that when Palutena who is literally a god faces off against Isabel a Shiba Inu It doesn't end up as a one sided stomp but still, the speed and violence of this one move is unprecedented in the Smash Brothers series and when you actually Stop and do the math behind what's really going on as a part of this move? It suddenly turns this family-friendly game into a gruesome bloodbath so be careful the next time you pick your favorite character to play as Because you might not want I'm having to go through the physical Horror that this move is gonna subject them to I mean think about this if you've ever scraped your knee on the pavement You know how much a small low-speed scrape with the ground is gonna do to you just imagine the level of devastation that would happen if you're going at whatever speed ridley is going at here. Where others decide to speculate, game theory decides to calculate *loud clicking noise* Went on much longer than I expected, and that is exactly what we're gonna do today [giggling] the first factor we have to consider here is just how fast a ridley would have to be moving in order to out speed the stage itself Now when you're playing the game without stage hazards, all you get is the Falcon flyer jetting its way along the racetrack This isn't particularly helpful for our calculations though. believe it or not The Falcon flyer never actually appears in any s-0 game Yeah for as prominent as this thing is in Smash Brothers It's only connection to the f-zero lore is one frame from one comic from the first game's Instruction manual and then one page later you have this blatant ripoff of the kingpin from spider-man No to get an accurate read of this stage of speed You actually need to turn on stage hazards Which unleashes a legion of actual race cars that are playable from f-zero games and that part is critical there F-Zero is a racing game. And so like any good racing game. It has a speedometer that we can then use to gauge What kind of speeds these racers would be traveling at on the Big Blue course. Now, to calculate the speed of Big Blue over here in smash ultimate We actually did 30 runs of the big blue trek over here in f-zero GX on standard mode now it is worth mentioning that the Big Blue track in Smash is Very different from how it actually looks in f-zero game So for consistency's sake we actually wrote down the average speed only on straightaways. Those 30 runs were spread out across three different racers: Blood Hawk, Super Falcon, and Fire Stingray, all cars that we see in Super Smash Brothers across all that data. We found an average speed of 1087 kilometers an hour which for us still living in americaland is 675.4 miles per hour, which is pretty tame by f-zero standards but for a bunch of normal fighters that is LUDICROUS speed "Prepare ship ludicrous for speed". Especially if you're the guy who's getting dragged by the fire breathing space dragon. From there we can estimate Ridley's speed it takes just shy of 14 seconds to drag some of the full length of the stage if you want to get exact It's actually thirteen point nine eight. And in that amount of time. You're actually travelling a distance of around 98.5 feet based on the relative sizes of Fighters Ridley's average speed then would be the speed of the race cars plus the amount that ridley is gaining on those vehicles for a total of 680.2 miles per hour 680 MILES PER HOUR, that is a hundred miles per hour faster than the speed of a commercial plane He is almost flying at the speed of sound, which is 761.2 miles per hour 1225 km/h Technically, he's at point eight eight Mach which is actually an interesting coincidence since point eight eight Mach is actually a fairly common flying speed You see most things in life have a most efficient or optimal setting and in the case of flying This is often based on the shape of a wing, now on average both airliners and fighter jets choose to fly near the point eight eight Mach speed because they get the best gas mileage relative to their wing design once you start getting much faster than that You actually start getting air disturbances from minor shock waves that are produced as you get closer to the speed of sound now I don't think that any of that was intentional by the smash team I just think it's a really cool coincidence that ridley finds himself flying at those speeds Well, I suppose it's cool for him. It is absolutely devastating for whatever cute Nintendo mascot finds themselves unlucky enough to be gripped in his talons. Let's talk damage shall we? People who fall off motorcycles at speeds over 50 miles an hour can expect to get some third-degree road rash If not worse, now third-degree road rash much like third-degree burns are no joke like exposed muscle and bone No joke, so if that's 50 miles an hour Ridley here is dragging people along the road over ten times that speed level imagine how much more damaging and painful that would be Oh wait you don't have to I calculated it for you to get a better idea of what Ridley Road Rash would look like it's helpful to understand conceptually What road rash actually is? Why does it hurt to get a sprain? Well scrapes are caused by friction that's why it doesn't hurt when you go down a slip and fly a slip and slide is specifically designed to have low friction the rougher the surface though the more friction there is and the worse the damage is gonna be and there are a few things as rough as Asphalt and prove it. We actually have a special guest today a portion of Los Angeles's roadways Los Angelenos you wonder why your potholes are so bad It's a bunch of us youtubers stealing pieces of your roadway for entertainment YouTube videos Congratulations, but seriously, look at how rough this thing is. It's like the world's most aggressive loofah sponge yeah this is bad, but there's one other component of friction here that we have to take into consideration What's called the normal force force which acts perpendicular to the direction of your motion? it's basically a more complicated scientific way of saying, "Hey the harder you're pressed down into something, the more friction you're gonna have." This combination of the two factors the Roughness of the surface and how hard you're pressing down when you're rubbing them together is expressed by a fun Mathematical formula F equals u n now whoever says Sciences and fun hasn't learned about frictional force equations, am I right? up top! uncomfortable silence We're all we're all my math and science nerds add up top Silence Okay, so that first step in the equation is the force of friction F sub f which equals the coefficient of friction little you look in number a number that represents the roughness of the surface times the normal force and The thing that we just talked about. So to know just how much of Mario's face is being turned into a human pavement eraser Imagine this is Mario. We need to determine two separate things. First. How rough is the track of big blue and Secondly how much deadly rage is Ridley putting into his dragging side-b attack as he rubs Mario's face against it and you get this Oh, Mario that's a couple inches shorter and Also a scratch knuckle cue The first question is easy We'll assume that the track is just asphalt like most other NASCAR tracks now in all fairness f-zero racers Do use futuristic magnetic levitation systems that let them hover above the track So there is a slim chance that the tracks made of some smooth metal like titanium But considering the fact that Ridley performs this move across all sorts of surfaces Across all different textures using asphalt here isn't gonna be that much of a stretch therefore our coefficient of friction is going to be 0.9. Then comes the question of how hard Ridley's pushing people down into the stage. Now Ridley doesn't seem like the type to pull his punches So what's calculated as though he's pushing his victim down into the ground using his full weight Ridley in the games Doesn't have a cannon weight heck, Ridley doesn't even have himself a cannon height I mean his size is Constantly changing across the metroid series. You thought the ridley is too big meme was only an argument for smash brothers fandoms Ah think again friends. Here's Ridley's height compared to Samus in the original Metroid for the NES and Here is his height in metroid zero mission Which is supposed to be a remake of this original game in Metroid 1. Here's Ridley He's like 25% taller than Samus and then over here in zero mission. He is a literally 111% taller than Samus he is literally Double samus's height. And if you want more examples of Ridley's fluctuating size over the course of these games Montage time! So, why does any of this matter? Well, Ridley's size relative to Samus is important because, while Ridley doesn't have himself a cannon size Samus does, according to the Metroid to manual Samus in her suit is a hundred and ninety centimeters tall Which means that she is six foot three inches. From there We can use smashes character scaling to our advantage for like the first time ever in one of these theories It allows us to settle the disagreement that exists around exactly how big ridley is relative to Samus Obviously the scaling in these games isn't exact But if there's one thing that we can count on it's that these games try to be somewhat faithful to their source material I mean Sonic is really fast Bowser is slow but powerful and heck Villagers stone cold stare is just as soulless as it ever was in the animal crossing games Fire Burning And, with that said, we can actually find out that Ridley's model appears to be about 25% taller than Samus the same as he was back in the Metroid 1, so we're gonna go with that, that would make him 238 centimetres standing up or about 7 foot 10 inches tall Using this approximation of Ridley size, we can actually now estimate his weight based on all the details from Ridley's design He most closely approximates an American alligator a reptile that actually weighs in between 200 and 400 kilograms or in americaland 440 pounds and 790 pounds With his height just under 8 foot Ridley would actually trend on the smaller size for the species So we're just gonna take that lower bound as the range 440 pounds now ladies and gentlemen, it is finally time to have some fun and by fun I mean plugging hypothetical numbers into a scientific formula that has a cute acronym to remember it solving for f we find that the frictional force is 2478 Newtons which is Meaningless Newtons are always weird to interpret so you know what today we're not caring about the digits we care about the damage, so let's translate this into some destruction, shall we? Now, in a past episode of game theory covering just how deadly Mario Kart races are, we determined that in a car wreck for every mile per hour you're going over 30 You're gonna lose one millimeter of your body, roll the clip since the average thickness of human skin is 1.3 millimeters at 31 miles per hour you hit the ground you're looking at losing most of the skin that's covering up your delicate inner parts Ridley is dragging you 650 miles per hour faster than that, that means 65 centimeters of your favorite characters body is just disappearing into the pavement That's this, and then another one of these and then, like five more centimeters 25.5 inches Over two feet of human flesh or poke a flashier Kirby flesh just gone erased Also notice how Ridley is actually doing the dragging over your character's body He's not using you like the long end of a pencil here. He is dragging you looooong ways that means each and every inch of your body is feeling the burn and then guess what it's not feeling that burn anymore because it's Just ground away into nothingness. It is gone. Your body isn't two feet thick I mean you might be thick but not that thick you're just gone, and wait that's not all, that number is assuming you don't have a 400-pound space dragon shoving your face into the dirt if you don't think that's gonna affect the numbers at all Well, then you don't game theory, bro If you're not having two feet of your body just outright erased was bad now for every mile per hour over 30 Ridley's going suddenly You're losing yourself three point five millimeters of flesh Yeah that is two thousand two hundred and seventy five millimeters of flesh ripped clean off your body nearly 90 inches or seven and a half Feet rubbed into the ground by this one move It doesn't matter if he's holding you sideways up ways down ways diagonal ways Who cares? You are just gone, you are rubbed away into oblivion the pencil that your body eraser is attached to is suddenly squeaking against the paper that it's trying to erase because the metal is now hitting it and Just thinking about that sound is making me cringe the worst feeling ever just pencil's man Sure, your damage counter may only be reading a mere 17 percent or 20 percent or whatever But Ridley has just cheese grater your Jigglypuff into the ground in this game. Yeah, it's all for fun It's all cute. Oh, look at our favorite characters punch each other in the face. Yeah, super fun No in real life if you do the math Ridley is literally ripping you to shreds Using the ground forget mariokart being the deadliest Nintendo game ladies and gentlemen We have ourselves a new champion So the next time you're looking at that huge roster of faces all begging you to choose them now with the new additions of Joker and piranha plant There's only one clear choice to make, if you want to brutalize your opponent and I mean really make them hurt. The choice is obvious Ridley everytime, even if you don't officially win the match you and I and all the rest of us theorists will know that you are doing a heck of a lot more damage than Nintendo over here cares to admit But hey, that's just a theory, A GAME THEORY! Thanks for watching! Erase me away This is me erasing away Ah no, I'm being rubbed into a dirt, it's very painful! (LOL)
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MatPat, the whole episode was interesting, but I want to correct something.
The speed probably higher than 0.88 mach since air friction is also accountable.
Did you see when he drags mario, his knees also touches the ground.
The N=2753, I still wander where did you get that( probably mario weight). But that's not important, the acceleration in the clip after a few sec is 0. Which means F = m.a F = 275.3 x 0 F = 0 W =Ff Which means he's flying. So his actual Ff is 2753N.(which is correct to the theory, that if his W is bigger than his N he will also face the same fate as his victim)
Correct me if I'm wrong.
But that just a theory, a Physics Theory. Thanks for reading
What's worst mario kart blowing you to pieces to the point you have to scrape the remains of the street or riley turning you into a smeared red streak within seconds.
Oh wow, that was a bit more gore-y than I'm comfortable with. Just imagning a real life scenario of someone being painfully ground in the road like that. O_o
I do get an impression that the F-Zero racetracks will use a futuristic almost frictionless material though. Just a hunch feeling. But that'd hardly maake a difference anyway unless it's literally zero friction.
It also makes perfect sense that Samues, who defeats Ridley on the regular, would survive this attack because most metals don't grind down nearly so easily (plus her power suit would surely be some advanced super alloy thing). She and Mega Man may be scratched up and need a paint job, but otherwise functional. Most other characters? Paste.
It also made me strangely happy to see Matpat reference the Metroid II manual as it's the only undisputably canonical source of her height. Players guides and especially third party media like books, movies, manga, etc. are not canon unless specifically stated to be so by the creators (as with the Halo novels).
Granted, it is very unlikely asphalt would be used on the track since the reasons for asphalt (porous, adhesive friction material ideal for traction to tires) become irrelevant with a hovering/flying craft while the problems (maintainence, need to reseal, etc.) persist. As a petrolium product it may get really expensive in a futuristic setting. And I thought F-Zero's tracks were magnetic with other terrains (like dirt or grass) being obstacles because they weakened the G-Diffuser's magnetic connection to the track. But because asphalt heightens the grotesque, Mortal Kombat nature of Ridley's attack, I can still approve of it.
The saiyajin didn’t die due to Frieza, they lose to a battle with Ridley!!
Also Ridley should be in Mortal Kombat
Joker shoots a literal god in the face, Bayonetta punches another god through the solar system, Ryu can reshape the surface of the moon if he gets angry....Ridley just stabbing someone doesn’t look that impressive