Metroid (universe)

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The Metroid universe refers to the Smash Bros. series' collection of characters, stages, and properties that hail from Nintendo's famous Metroid series of science-fiction adventure games. It is one of the company's most successful franchises, and is sometimes considered one of Nintendo's "big five" franchises, of which the other four are Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, and Kirby. The series has had nine official games released thus far (with two more on the way), with most of them being near-universally praised by critics and gamers alike. The series revolves around the space-faring bounty-hunting exploits of a woman named Samus Aran.

Franchise description

The original Metroid was released for NES in 1987, and it was considered state-of-the-art for its time because of several elements of design: It featured a labrynthine world in which the player chooses which direction to explore, making it one of the first highly non-linear game experiences on a home console; It was one of the earliest games to feature a password system (and in fact it had a saved-game slot system in its Japanese release on the Famicom Disk System); and in a landmark moment in game history, it was revealed at the end of the game that the playable character is female, an unusual concept for videogame characters at the time. It has remained one of the most popular games from the NES era. Metroid was expanded and developed as a franchise with the releases of the follow-ups Metroid II: Return of Samus for Game Boy in 1991 and Super Metroid for the Super NES in 1994, and they incorporated and introduced many elements that can be associated with Metroid-style gameplay. Super Metroid, in fact, was declared by issue #150 of game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthy to be the single greatest game of all time.

In spite of this impressive track record for a Nintendo franchise, there would not be an official Metroid game for the next eight years. In fact, the only time Metroid properties have been seen in a video game during this hiatus were in 1999's Super Smash Bros. and 2001's Super Smash Bros. Melee. But the franchise underwent a noticeable rebirth late in 2002 with two near-simultaneous official Metroid releases: Metroid Fusion, developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance, was the official sequel to Super Metroid. But far more notable was Metroid Prime for the GameCube, developed by a previously unknown second-party developer named Retro Studios, and the gaming populace was shocked to find that this game formerly based on a 2D-only series underwent a full 3D restructuring, with gameplay resembling a first-person shooter. This generated a firestorm of controversy prior to release, but by the game's release critics and fans alike found that Prime successfully preserves and develops the Metroid formula of play around a full 3D-world, and that it successfully pulls off a new approach to the first-person shooter genre titled the "First-Person Adventure". Metroid Prime remains one of the most critically acclaimed and highly-rated games ever.

Since 2002, Metroid games have been produced with an increased frequency, continuing to solidify the franchise as one of Nintendo's flagship franchises. Two years afterwards in 2004, another similar pair of official Metroid titles were released by the same respective developers: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is Retro Studios' official GameCube sequel to Metroid Prime, while Metroid: Zero Mission was developed by Nintendo as a redesigned, much-enhanced GBA remake of the original 1987 Metroid, and it features as part of a lengthy post-endgame sequence main character Samus losing her power suit, leaving her forced to contend with enemies in her unarmored form. This suitless Samus has been revealed as a playable entity in Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the popularized name Zero-Suit Samus. Then in 2006, two Prime spin-off titles were released; one was Metroid Prime: Hunters, a Prime-style First-Person Adventure for Nintendo's DS, and the others was the somewhat more comedic Metroid Prime Pinball for DS, which noncanonically redepicts the original Prime in a pinball-table format. These have been the nine games in the series thus far; the upcoming tenth game, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, is in development for the Wii.

The Metroid series takes place in a fictional galaxy featuring several different habitable planets and many races of aliens, some sentient. In almost any given game in the Metroid series, the player takes control of a female bounty hunter by the name of Samus Aran, who uses an enhanced space suit crafted by the bird-man-like Chozo race to carry out solo exploration missions assigned to her by the galaxy's resident Galactic Federation. Among the galaxy's many species of creatures are the titular Metroids, a species of large, flying, jellyfish-like creatures native to one particular planet, and they possess the ability to latch onto victims and siphon a sort of life energy from them to sustain themselves, often resulting in the death of the target. These entities are often the central plot element to each game because their terrifying, almost magical traits are constantly attempted to be harnessed by the series' main villains, the Space Pirates, a sentient but conniving and lawless race that ravages the galaxy, operates outside Federation boundaries, and lives for the glory of galactic conquest. Many Metroid games feature Samus being assigned by the Galactic Federation to raid a planet occupied by Space Pirates, rout them all and their Metroid subjects, and sabotage their operations.

All games in the series constitute a single Metroid continuity. In the original Metroid and its remade version Metroid: Zero Mission, Samus is tasked by the Galactic Federation to go to Planet Zebes and stop the Space Pirates from exploiting the Metroid species for galactic domination, and she battles their leaders, the dragon-like Ridley and the biomechanical brain-like entity the Mother Brain. Then in the full Metroid Prime subseries, Samus thwarts similar operations by the Space Pirates to exploit Metroids as well as a radioactive substance titled Phazon. Following these events, the Federation deems the Metroids too dangerous to exist, so Samus is to exterminate the entire species in their homeworld of SR388, and she does, but spares one apparently domesticated hatching and decides to donate it to the Federation for research. In Super Metroid, however, Ridley steals the hatching, and Samus must defeat the Space Pirates and Mother Brain once again on Zebes. With the Metroids seemingly exterminated for good, Samus is soon attacked by the Metroids' original prey, the X-Parasite, and in Metroid Fusion she ultimately saves the galaxy from a deadly X-outbreak by destroying SR388 with the collision of an X-infected Federation space station into it; though she saves everything from a potential catastrophe, it is uncertain whether Samus will be prosecuted by the Federation for destroying the space station.

In Super Smash Bros

The Metroid franchise is represented as one of several "standard universes" found in SSB, with one character and one stage.

Character

• 
  Samus: A bounty hunter in a technologically advanced and flexible power suit, Samus is an orphan from a Space Pirate attack. She was harbored by the benevolent Chozo race at a young age and infused with their heritage and technology, and she now serves the Galactic Federation as pretty much a one-woman army against the menace of the Space Pirates and their attempts to use the life-stealing Metroids to conquer the universe. Samus explores the worlds and routs all enemies within them by the decree of the Federation, and she acquires many weapon systems and upgrades to her suit such as missile launchers and heat protection during her expeditions. As a fighter, however, Samus is low tier because her attacks lack power, and she must rely on her chargeable projectile.

Stage

Super Smash Bros. features one Metroid-themed stage:

• Planet Zebes: This stage is designed to resemble the general environment and hazards of the caverns of the titular planet that Metroid and Super Metroid take place in. It is a big platform with several small platforms above it, and the stage features an ocean of acid that periodically rises up and submerges the lower portion of the stage. Touching the acid will damage a character and send him flying upward. One of Samus' primary foes, Ridley, is seen swooping about in the background as well.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

While Melee is much bigger than Smash, there is only one character, with two new stages, one new Item and a bunch of new trophies.

Character

• Samus is still the only playable Metroid series character, probably because of the solo nature of Metroid games and how they do not seem to feature notable supporting characters. Samus returns with her signature missile launcher as her new Smash-B move.

Stages

Super Smash Bros. Melee features two Metroid-themed stages:

• Planet Zebes: Brinstar: This stage is the spiritual successor to the original Planet Zebes stage, and it features a nearly identical layout; aside from the visuals, the only real difference to this stage is that parts of the stage can be damaged by players attacks, and destroying these can cause the elevated platforms to rise upwards to steep angles and the big lower platform to break apart into two.
• Planet Zebes: Brinstar Depths: A difficult stage to keep on top of, this is essentially a giant, craggy, circular mass of rock that floats above lava, and the stage is routinely rotated by the gigantic lizard Kraid in the background. It is easy to find yourself slipping off it and unable to grab onto any ledge. Many players dislike the stage and it is banned from competitive tournament play.

In addition, in the fourth stage of the game's Adventure Mode is an area called the Brinstar Escape Shaft which forces the player to jump up to the top of it via multiple platforms before a timer finishes. Failure to do so will result in a lost life.

Item

Melee is the first game in the series to introduce a Metroid-themed item:

• Screw Attack: In many of the Metroid games, late in the game an upgrade called the Screw Attack can be collected and equipped by Samus, and when she forward-jumps her body becomes a whirling instrument of destruction that can destroy most of which she touches. As an item in Melee, when a character holds the Screw Attack orb, whenever that character jumps and double-jumps he whirls around in the air in a fashion similar to Samus' Up-B attack and does lots of hits to opponents that the character jumps into. These hits do tiny damage and have no knockback, however. Then the character can hurl it at an opponent and the opponent will automatically jump up whirling. In both cases this item serves a disruption tactic.

Full Trophy List

• Samus Aran's three game trophies
• Screw Attack
• Kraid
• Chozo Statue
• Samus' Starship
• Metroid
• Ridley
• Samus Unmasked

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Characters

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• Samus is shown by trailers as a returning character for Brawl, visually touched up to look like her more detailed incarnation in the Metroid Prime series, but otherwise apparently retaining her gameplay. Her Final Smash, the Zero Laser, is a huge beam that literally blows off her own armor to become a pile of throwable Power Suit Pieces and renders her as a new playable character, Zero Suit Samus. It is currently unknown if there is any other way of accessing this form, or if Zero Suit Samus has any way of returning to armored Samus.

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• Zero Suit Samus from Metroid: Zero Mission is playable via Samus' Final Smash. She fights acrobatically and carries a projectile attack in the form of her handheld Paralyzer gun. It is unknown if there is any other way to play as Zero Suit Samus at this point.

Music

• Ridley's theme from various Metroid games is confirmed to be included in Brawl. Whether or not this means Ridley will be playable in this installment of the Smash Bros. series is currently unknown.