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Samus Aran
Metroid series character
File:Metroidprime3 1.pngSamus Aran in her Varia Suit, as she appears in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
First game	Metroid (1986)
Created by	Makoto Kanō

Samus Aran is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Metroid video game series. Introduced in Metroid (1986), Samus is a bounty hunter fitted with an armor suit with weapons that include a cannon, missiles, and beams. Throughout the series, she executes missions given to her by the Galactic Federation while hunting the antagonistic Space Pirates and their leader, Ridley, along with the energy-draining alien parasites called Metroids. Orphaned at a young age, Samus was brought up by the Chozo alien race. They trained her as a warrior and gave her the Power Suit, featuring abilities such as collapsing Samus into a sphere to roll through tight areas such as tunnels.

Makoto Kanō created the characters for the original Metroid while Hiroji Kiyotake designed them all, including Samus. The idea to make Samus female came up partway through the development of Metroid, when the developers determined that it would be an interesting twist to reveal her true gender at the end of the game. Her character was designed to be a cross between the style of Super Mario games and The Legend of Zelda series. Samus is one of the first major female protagonists in any video game, and she has been considered one of the best video game heroines.

Development

The original Metroid was designed to fit the style of a cross between the side-scrolling gameplay of the Super Mario games and the exploration and puzzle-solving of the The Legend of Zelda series, with inspiration from science fiction. The characters were created by Makoto Kanō, while Hiroji Kiyotake designed them all, including Samus. The game's atmosphere was influenced by Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Coincidentally, the film's sequel Aliens (1986) was released the same year as Metroid, inspiring the game's developers to create a female lead in the vein of Sigourney Weaver's character, Ripley. Series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto recalls, "We were partway through the development process when one of the staff members said 'Hey, wouldn't that be kind of cool if it turned out that this person inside the suit was a woman?'" The developers voted on the concept, and it passed. The game's instruction manual refers to Samus as if she were male to keep her true gender a secret until the end of the game. Samus was one of the first major female protagonists in any video game, and Sakamoto noted that the developers have tried to express her femininity without turning her into a sex object. Samus's Morph Ball ability, in which she collapses into a sphere to travel through tight areas, was conceived by the developers because it required less effort to animate than "a cyborg crawling on all fours", and the producer for Metroid, Gunpei Yokoi, took advantage of this shortcut.

Characteristics

File:Gunship screencapture.png

Samus's gunship in Super Metroid

Samus spent her childhood with her family on the mining planet K-2L. The planet was raided by Space Pirates, who were looking for bounty. The team's leader, Ridley, killed most of the people in Samus's colony, including her parents, and then destroyed the planet. Orphaned, Samus was found by a bird-like alien race known as the Chozo, who brought her to their home planet Zebes. Samus was infused with Chozo DNA, then trained as a warrior and given one of the alien race's artifacts; a suit of armor. It is a biological uniform called the Power Suit, which entwines itself with Samus's mind and body. Samus enlisted in the Galactic Federation Police, but left due to her grief following the death of her commander, Adam Malkovich. She now works as a freelance bounty hunter, and is called on by the Galactic Federation to execute missions "because of her superior skills and sense of justice". Samus is motivated at least in part by wrath as well as an accompanying sense of duty, since her "bounty hunting" helps the galaxy to get rid of unsavory elements such as the mysterious lifeforms known as Metroids, who can drain life energy and frequently used as biological weapons. She also takes the opportunity to exact revenge on the pirates who murdered her family. Typically, one of her suit's arms carries a cannon, which can be charged to shoot an extra-powerful blast, a limited number of missiles, and ice beams. Samus' suit can collapse into a sphere, a mode called the Morph Ball, allowing her to roll through tight areas such as tunnels. The suit can scan objects to learn more about them, and has a grapple beam used to cross large distances, such as chasms. Since Metroid II: Return of Samus, Samus has been accompanied by her gunship, which is used in the games to save progress and restore health and ammunition.

Samus suit can be enhanced by power-ups, the first introduced being the Varia Suit. In the original Metroid, it gave a pinkish color to the Power Suit, but in Metroid II: Return of Samus, because of the limited monochrome graphics on the Game Boy, the Varia Suit was given giant shoulder pads to differentiate it from her other suits. The design has remained with the suit ever since. The difference between suits was explained on Metroid: Zero Mission, which after completing her first mission on Zebes, Samus was shot down and her Power Suit was rendered useless. There, she re-visited a Chozo shrine that she first visited as a child, and received upgraded armor, with the larger shoulder pads. When the Varia Suit is destroyed, Samus dons the less protective Zero Suit. She wears a unique suit in Metroid Fusion called the Fusion Suit, a weakened version of the Power Suit. Other suit upgrades in the series include the Phazon Suit, Hazard Suit, and Light and Dark Suits. Also in the Metroid Prime series, the eponymous Metroid Prime creature fuses with the remnants of Samus's Phazon Suit to become Dark Samus, an evil doppelgänger of Samus.

File:Metronosu-2.gif

Samus when she is first shown to be a woman.

Samus typically works alone. She never speaks in any of the games, conversing only through text dialogue. In the first Metroid, her gender was kept a secret until the end of the game—the instruction booklet for the game referred to her character as a male. She is first revealed as female at the end of Metroid, depending on how quickly the player completes the game. Typically emotionless, Samus revealed some of her true self in Metroid Fusion. Without her suit, she let slip some emotions while dealing with her artificially intelligent computer. In Super Metroid, Samus bonds with a Metroid, before it sacrifices itself to save Samus from Mother Brain. Seeking revenge, Samus destroys Mother Brain, in a scene that is "more than a little emotionally charged". In the Chozo's scrolls, Samus is recorded as The Newborn, an "orphaned warrior filled with vengeance". They consider her the hope of their race, while the Galactic Federation see her as the protector of the galaxy, which she considers herself, thanks in part to her Chozo heritage. The Space Pirates refer to her as the Hunter. Samus is 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) in height and 198 pounds (90 kg) in weight.

Appearances

In the series

In Metroid (1986), Samus is tasked by the Galactic Federation to track down Space Pirates on their home planet of Zebes. At the end of the game, she battles Mother Brain, the organism that controls the planet's defenses, leaving the planet just in time to avoid its self-destruction. In Metroid II: Return of Samus (1992), the Galactic Federation once again commissions Samus to exterminate all Metroid creatures on the planet SR388. She travels deep into the planet's caverns, where she encounters a Metroid Queen. Dispatching the creature, Samus comes across a small hatchling Metroid, which she spares. The Metroid follows Samus to her gunship, after it imprints on her. In Super Metroid (1994), Samus's adopted Metroid is stolen by Ridley. She travels back to the Space Pirates' base on the planet Zebes. Locating the now fully grown Metroid, Samus discovers a new and more powerful Mother Brain. She defeats it with the help of the Metroid, who sacrifices itself to save Samus. In Metroid Fusion (2002), Samus returns to the planet SR388, where she becomes infected by X Parasites, forcing her to separate from her infected armor. Before the X Parasite spreads further, Samus crashes the space station containing the specimens into SR388.

In Metroid Prime (2002), Samus learns of the mysterious mutagen called Phazon. She visits a Space Pirate station before encountering Ridley. Afterward, she travels to the planet Tallon IV, a Phazon-corrupted Chozo colony in ruins. After collecting twelve Chozo artifacts, Samus is able to access the source of the Phazon contamination, a Phazon meteor. In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004), Samus is sent to the planet Aether, a Phazon meteor-ravaged planet split into light and dark dimensions. This time, Samus faces off against the Ing, creatures that are able to possess the dead. In Metroid Prime Hunters (2006), Samus competes against eight other rival bounty hunters in a race to recover an alien ultimate weapon. In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Samus is infected by Phazon and is slowly corrupted by the mutagenic while she works to prevent it from spreading from planet to planet.

In other media

Reception

Despite Nintendo's intentions, Samus is considered by many to be a sex object. Paul O'Connor, the lead game designer for Sammy Studios, described Samus as a "quiet and mysterious presence in Metroid Prime". He felt a connection with Samus after sharing her exploration of an alien world and the catastrophe it experienced. O'Connor commented that curiosity about the unknown is a human trait, remarking that players empathize and identify with Samus because she is often rewarded for indulging in her curiosity. IGN remarked that Samus has a "cult following unlike nearly any other female game character out there". In a poll on IGN, 73.8% of 70,000 voters believed that Samus would win in a fight against Master Chief, the protagonist of the Halo series. Visitors also voted in favor of Samus against both Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series, and Solid Snake of the Metal Gear series. The website also nominated Samus among video game characters for their Stars' 2007 Badasssss! Awards! IGN readers chose Samus as the most requested character who should have her own movie franchise. The website remarked that "her tragic past is perfect for the silver screen", especially the loss of both her parents to the Space Pirates. Among their list of voted characters, IGN considered Samus to be the video game character that "could lead the pack of videogame adaptations that actually manage to live up to the source material". The website believed that Samus's theme song should be "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" by Aerosmith because she "spends her time running around in a manly battle suit blasting first and taking names later". Samus also appeared in multiple GameFAQs "Character Battle" contests, winning the "Character Battle V" in 2006.

GameDaily ranked Samus seventh on a list of the Top 50 Hottest Game Babes, describing her as "a refreshing change of pace, a tough, no nonsense warrior that isn't afraid to remove her famous orange and yellow power suit and let her hair down, especially to reveal her skin tight clothing". The website also ranked her number one on a list of the Top 25 Nintendo Characters of All Time, noting, "Out of all the Nintendo characters out there, there's no one better than this intergalactic bounty hunter." In another article in which they designate her as the Babe of the Week, GameDaily considers Samus the video game industry's "first dominant female, a femme de force that didn't rely on a man to save her". UGO.com ranked Samus 11th on a list of the Top 11 Girls of Gaming, calling her "one of gaming's most deadly foxes". They also ranked her eighth on a list of the Top 50 Hottest Sci-Fi Girls, noting, "Since then, Samus has been the ultimate heroine; we'd argue more important than Tomb Raider's Lara Croft." The website noted that the original "jaw-dropping moment" was when Samus was revealed to be a woman in the original Metroid. GameTrailers named Samus number one on a list of the Top Ten Women of Gaming, and number three for Axe's Top Ten Gamer Babes. IGN ranked Samus as the third-best character for Super Smash Bros.