History Franchise / Metroid

Vote for [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/Metroid?open=all#ygx2tb6t the best game in the series here.]]

** Ridley started as a dragon Space Pirate, and adds more to this title in the ''Prime'' games, culminating in him being a [[UpToEleven mutant cyborg dragon space pirate]].

** Samus never manages to keep her fully powered-up suit between games, though more recent entries at least let her hang onto the Varia upgrade. Usually. In games where she keeps the Varia (Excluding the first Prime, see below) it does nothing.

* CompletionMeter: More recent games have a percent counter that rises as you collect items.

* MeaningfulName: Both "Samus" and "Aran" have long been considered [[UsefulNotes/IrishNames vaguely Irish]] in origin, Samus said to be a variant of Séamus (James)[[note]] A persistent myth seems to be that it's a ''real'' Irish name and the standard female variant of Séamus - it's not, as like English Irish doesn't have a female equivalent to James, or even a diminutive like "Jamie" in use as a woman's name.[[/note]], though in recent years the developers revealed it actually comes from [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball Pelé's]] real name, "'''Aran'''tes" and the mistaken impression that his first name was something like "Samus"[[note]]It's actually Edson - his full name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento[[/note]]. That said, "Séamus/James" is an offshoot of "Jacob", meaning "one who supplants/conquers/holds the heel" is actually surprisingly apt. The Aran islands are also three settled islands off the west coast of Ireland, giving you something akin to "She who supplants / isolated locations" (and the island imagery is fitting for such a [[IWorkAlone loner]] [[TheDrifter hero]]).

* SchematizedProp: Many of the more recent games have taken up this trope, most notably using a Power Suit schematic as the item/weapon status screen (''Zero Mission'', ''Prime'', ''Prime 3'', ''Super'', ''Fusion''; the schematized suit was also seen in the instruction manual for ''Metroid II'', which labeled her Left Hand of all things).

* LegoGenetics: Samus is a human being genetically enhanced by Chozo blood. By ''Fusion'', she's also part-Metroid - although [[DownplayedTrope not as blatant as the trope normally implies.]] She doesn't change too much. Her immune system and body regulation have changed, but both could be justified.

** The Aeion abilities seen in "Samus Returns" are said to be closer to magic than the other Power Suit functions, with the beam burst in particular resembling the charged hyper mode fire that had been achieved through mostly technological means.

* MeaningfulName: Both "Samus" and "Aran" have long been considered [[UsefulNotes/IrishNames vaguely Irish]] in origin, Samus said to be a variant of Séamus (James)[[note]] A persistent myth seems to be that it's a ''real'' Irish name and the standard female variant of Séamus - it's not, as like English Irish doesn't have a female equivalent to James, or even a diminutive like "Jamie" in use as a woman's name.[[/note]], though in recent years the developers revealed it actually comes from [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball Pele's]] real name, "'''Aran'''tes" and the mistaken impression that his first name was something like "Samus"[[note]]It's actually Edson - his full name is Edson Arantes di Nascimento[[/note]]. That said, "Séamus/James" is an offshoot of "Jacob", meaning "one who supplants/conquers/holds the heel" is actually surprisingly apt. The Aran islands are also three settled islands off the west coast of Ireland, giving you something akin to "She who supplants / isolated locations" (and the island imagery is fitting for such a [[IWorkAlone loner]] [[TheDrifter hero]]).

Vote for the best game in the series [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/Metroid?open=all#ygx2tb6t here]].

* FauxbaFett: Most bounty hunters, including Samus herself, to some extent or another. Sylux is probably closest to the original though.

* BerserkButton: If Samus is pointing her arm cannon at you and you just happen to be a member of a race of intergalactic bloodthirsty aliens, ''don't beg for mercy.'' A space pirate tries this in the manga, and an already enraged Samus [[RantInducingSlight goes ballistic]], reminding him that he was about to ignore the pleas of a little girl they marked for execution.

* SuddenlyVoiced: In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', Samus finally spoke her taunts. However, they sounded... odd. In ''Other M'', she speaks for the first time in her own series, but it fell... [[IncrediblyLamePun flat]]. (There were previously plans to have voiced narration from Samus in ''Metroid Prime'', but said narration was removed, leaving Samus with no voice lines for that game.) [[spoiler:She also gets voice acting in ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'', but she has only one line, and it's in Chozo.]]

* SuddenlyVoiced: In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', Samus finally spoke her taunts. However, they sounded... odd. In ''Other M'', she speaks for the first time in her own series, but it fell... [[IncrediblyLamePun flat]]. (There were previously plans to have voiced narration from Samus in ''Metroid Prime'', but said narration was removed, leaving Samus with no voice lines for that game.)

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''Metroid Prime Pinball'' qualifies.

** Samus suffered this problem early on. First she had brown hair, then the NES Varia Suit [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair turned it green]], and Benjamin Itoh made her a [[DarkSkinnedRedhead Dark Skinned Purple-head]]. It wasn't until Super that she was finally cemented as a blonde. Plus, her various facial features and hairstyle fluctuated. However, once ''Zero Mission'' hit, her appearance seemed to standardize.

** Samus is the only human to appear in the series with a name that isn't immediately recognizable in modern language(it's actually Greek in origin, the name of 3rd century Macedonian poet). Even her parents are named "Rodney" and "Virginia" in the manga.

** Samus is the only human to appear in the series with a name that isn't recognizable in conventional language(it's a corruption of Brazilian Football player Pele's birth name). Even her parents are named "Rodney" and "Virginia" in the manga.

** The gameplay lacks many of the refinements found in the latter ones (maps, shooting kneeled/[[DenialOfDiagonalAttack diagonally]]), and put it straight into NintendoHard territory.

** ''Super Metroid'' had an item switch function, allowing the player to turn on and off whichever upgrades they wanted. While wave and ice could be stacked, the Spazer and Plasma beams were mutually exclusive. Tricking the game into turning on both led to a number of glitch beams. Furthermore, prior to the 2002 games cementing their names, the Morph Ball and Grapple Beam were referred to as the Morph'''ing''' Ball and Grappl'''ing''' Beam, respectively. Some {{Game Mod}}s fix this, but most leave it alone, likely to avoid potential bugs.

At the same time, Nintendo had made the controversial decision to move the series to 3D on the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube GameCube]], with American Creator/RetroStudios at the helm. ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' emerged as an unusual [[FirstPersonShooter FPS]]-adventure title, [[AnachronicOrder set between the first and second games]]. While the shift to becoming an FPS was [[ItWillNeverCatchOn initially met with confusion and doubt from fans]], and raised concerns that Nintendo was merely trying to leverage the series to compete with Microsoft's ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' (which was shaping up to be a Big Deal, even during development), the result won fans over and received much critical acclaim, including "Game Of The Year" awards from many publications.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'': Dark rooms are pitch black, implying she can't see in them.
** ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'': When Samus enters the nocturnal Sector 6, there is a small light circle around her and dimmer surroundings, implying she does have some form of limited night vision ability.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'': This would become a gameplay element with the Infrared Visor that does allow for adequate vision in dark areas, except for the fact that Samus has to steal it from a Space Pirate lab as her base suit never had this ability, so it's not standard.

''Metroid'' is a series of games produced by Creator/{{Nintendo}} that began in the 1980s, and is best known for being the precursor to the exploratory {{Metroidvania}} genre. They star the armored BountyHunter Samus Aran, with most installments revolving around her interactions with dangerous energy leeches called Metroids and her quest to annihilate the SpacePirates that plague the galaxy and killed both her human birth parents and [[InterspeciesAdoption adoptive bird-like Chozo]] family. Creator/GunpeiYokoi (the mind behind Nintendo's early portable gaming hardware like the UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch and UsefulNotes/GameBoy) and Creator/YoshioSakamoto (who would go on to produce the ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' and ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven'' series) are often the most credited for the franchise's creation.[[note]]To paraphrase Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the core creative team that birthed the series consisted of Satoru Okada (created the basic concept of the series as being the "anti-''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]''"), Yoshio Sakamoto (character designer who was "forcefully asked to participate" in the creation of the first game, only to become the overseer of the franchise going forward), Makoto Kano (scenario writer), Hiroji Kiyotake (character designer), and Gunpei Yokoi (who headed the R&D1 division and thus served as the producer).[[/note]]

* PosthumousCharacter: Adam Malkovich is long dead by the events of ''Fusion''[[spoiler, though his BrainUploading lives on as your MissionControl]]. ''Other M'', which takes place before ''Fusion'', shows his actual death to start the climax.

* LegacyBossBattle: Ridley, a SpacePirate pterodactyl/dragon-thing, has made an appearance for a boss fight in every game in the franchise except for three.[[note]]''Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'', ''Metroid II: Return of Samus'', and ''Metroid Prime Hunters''[[/note]]

%%* GoForTheEye: Frequently.

** Even in the most modern Metroid games, Samus' missiles always cap out at 255, despite that number only arising due to hardware limitations in the original game[[note]]The maximum number of missile expansions actually ended at 230, but the password system could be tweaked to push it to 255[[/note]]. (Later Zelda games quickly did away with the 255 money Cap, for example) It's just always been a part of the series, and let's face it, any more would make 100% Completion even more insane than it already is, never mind how unbalanced it could make the game.
** Samus' Morph Ball form also came about because of the hardware limitations making the developers unable to get Samus to crouch or crawl. Needless to say that these days, we have the technology, and yet the morph ball remains regardless. Its upgrades and speed are likely reasons.

* GravityIsPurple: The Gravity Suit, a recurring upgrade for Samus, is purple-colored in most games (The ''Prime'' games make it more bluish gray). However, a more literal example of this trope is in ''[[VideoGame/MetroidOtherM Other M]]'', where the Gravity Suit is just a feature of the Varia Suit instead of its own thing. Activating it causes Samus to be surrounded by a purple aura, turning her immune to all gravitational effects. In addition, in ''Other M'', passages with strong gravity have dark purple walls.

%%* PersonalSpaceInvader: The titular Metroids, many other creatures to lesser degrees.

** The Space Pirates themselves avert this. Samus is usually sent in to Pirate hideouts post-piracy. The Pirates steal the first discovered Metroid in the manual for both ''Zero Mission'' and the original game. You can see the Pirates in action in the opening sequence of ''Super Metroid'', when Ridley steals the Baby from the research station. [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Presumably, pangalactic police prevent protracted piratical processes,]] only summoning up their favorite bounty hunter(s) to go in and blow up the place when they track down the actual lair, which would probably be largely immune to a head-on raid by Federation forces. The Pirates also did some pirating in ''Corruption'', in which they hijacked an entire Federation battleship: the [=GFS Valhalla=], murdered its entire crew, and stole its onboard Aurora Unit. Later, they tried to pull the same trick against the [=GFS Olympus=]. They didn't count on The Hunter being aboard, to say nothing about the other three hunters you'll be working with.
** Samus herself plays it straight, as she doesn't do any "bounty-hunting" except in the first game/''Zero Mission'', ''Metroid II'' and in the prelude to ''Fusion'' (catching specimens from SR-388 for the Federation). Supposedly, Creator/RetroStudios wanted to add bounty-hunting side missions in ''Corruption'', but this was vetoed by the higher-ups from Japan, who, rumor has it, [[ValuesDissonance thought it made Samus look like a criminal, having evidently never considered what "bounty hunter" means]]. This is averted in the manga, however: she specifically notes that she's charging for the bounty on one specific being.

** Samus' suit is described to be "modular", which means it can also identify other technologies and adapt them into itself. The suit is able to form new abilities just by absorbing "data" acquired from rooms and the DNA of the X parasites in ''Fusion''. Hell, SPACE PIRATE tech will work on it in some games.

* PosthumousCharacter: Adam Malkovich is technically this, although ''Fusion'' puts an odd spin on it. ''Other M'', which takes place before ''Fusion'', shows his actual death to start the climax.

** You regained your iconic abilities in ''Fusion'' by defeating X-clones of creatures that could utilize those abilities, like Arachnus with the Morph Ball and Serris with the Speed Booster. Some bosses did this unusually, but Missiles and Morph Ball Bombs were downloaded, for some reason that would justify the Metroid-shaped "backpack" the Fusion Suit has instead of the thrusters the previous design had.

** In ''Dread'', each of the EMMI have an ability that Samus copies from their remains after destroying them. It's unclear whether the EMMI were provided with Samus's abilities or not... one character claims that the EMMI are capable of redesigning themselves (suggesting they developed those powers on their own), but [[spoiler:that character is later established to have been deceiving Samus the whole game]].

* SpacePirates: The primary antagonists for most of the series, though the name is a bit of a misnomer, being that they are an multispecies alien army that performs piracy incidentally as part of their larger goal of interstellar conquest. They are the main villains in almost every game up to ''Super Metroid'' timeline-wise, and still manage to make minor appearances even in the games where they aren't. Out of 14 games in the franchise, the only game that does not have a single Space Pirate in it is ''Metroid II: Return of Samus'' and even then, its remake ''Samus Returns'' [[spoiler: adds in Ridley as its final boss battle.]]

** ''Echoes'' has [[spoiler:the Sky Temple, where the Climax Boss is fought, and it's gateway, where the True Final Boss is fought]].

** ''Dread's'' final boss battle is [[spoiler: in Itorash, on the main bridge of Raven Beak's command ship floating high in the skies of ZDR.]]

** ''Metroid Prime 2'' does something similar, where, after losing most of her starting abilities to a mob of Ing, she has to regain them in one-on-one boss battles where they're used against her.
** The Phazon Suit from the Omega Pirate in the first Prime. ''Metroid Prime 3'' has Samus gain the Ice Missiles, Plasma Beam, Grapple Voltage, and all the Phazon upgrades this way.

* ChainReactionDestruction: Many bosses and planetary bodies exhibit that behavior.

* GoForTheEye: Frequently.

* PersonalSpaceInvader: The titular Metroids, many other creatures to lesser degrees.

* ActionGirl: One of the earliest video game examples, and ''easily'' one of the most well-known. While she wasn't even close to being the first playable female character by a long shot (a [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/inventories/80sheroines.htm Hardcore Gaming 101 article places her as #32]]), what's notable about Samus is that she is the last woman standing of a wave of 1980s video game heroines who managed to survive into modern pop culture and remains quite influential as the star of her own franchise. Most of her fellow female contemporaries have been long forgotten, with the closest comparison to her probably being Athena Asamiya who debuted in ''VideoGame/PsychoSoldier'' (also in 1986), but later migrated to ''Franchise/KingOfFighters'' and is now one of many playable fighters in that series lineup.

* ActionGirl: One of the earliest video game examples, and ''easily'' one of the most well-known.

* SpacePirates: The primary antagonists for most of the series; only three games didn't have them as the main attackers, and in two of the three, they made cameo appearances anyways.