and now game theorists Theatre presents
a dramatic recreation of Bowser stepping
on big blue
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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 sanic it is stronger than Ganondorf
a move that is so brutal and violent
that takes GARP Lane 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 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
ranks 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 ripley 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 V
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 Palu tena 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 we're not much longer than
I expected and that is exactly what
we're gonna do today
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 Olson's believe it or not
the Falcon flyer never actually appears
in any s0 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 s0 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 it's 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
stingrays all cars that we see in Super
Smash Brothers across all that data we
found an average speed of 1080 seven
kilometers an hour which for us still
living in americaland is 675 point 4
miles per hour which is pretty tame by
f-zero standards but for a bunch of
normal fighters that is ludicrous speed
prepares ship so good 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 Wrigley'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 point
two 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 760 1.2 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 as
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 we're all we're all my
math and science nerds add up top
okay so that first step in the equation
is the force of friction S 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 readily
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 race errs 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 Italy 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 hecht
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 life 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 100 and
11% 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 done
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
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 trade 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 sighs 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 s 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 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 long 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 pen
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
race me away this is me a recent away
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