History Headscratchers / Metroid

** Did someone say IncrediblyLamePun? ...No, really: the whole business of "acid" in the series works a lot better if you read "acid" as "corrosive chemical solution, makeup unknown." If you're insistent on using the Bronsted-Lowry acid definition, there are tons of those to choose from. Hydrofluoric acid, for example, is arguably much more corrosive than sulfuric acid, despite being chemically much weaker. HF in pretty much any concentration will readily dissolve glass, many plastics, and every metal except iridium, whereas even concentrated [=H2SO4=] does nothing to glass, the higher-strength plastics, lead or tungsten. About the only commonly available materials HF won't dissolve are polyethylene and teflon. To that end, if HF is what's raining down on Urtragia, Samus isn't going to be going for a stroll in it, super armour or no (that explanation also makes sense in-game, since you can see the exterior metal of the Pirate base is ''actually smoking'' where it gets rained on).

* Here's an obvious one: How in the world could Samus curl up into a tiny ball like that?

* The shoulders always bother me. Particularly bad in Prime 3 because there are GF troopers to compare with... and the male troopers, also wearing powered armour, are much narrower across the shoulders than Samus' suit. The rendition of the Fusion Suit in SSBB is also particularly bad, since it doesn't have the usual giant shoulder pads and other bits of decoration which help distract from the width of the shoulder joints.

* In the Prime series, all of the elevators go down, if you're going to a new area. Now, this would be fine, but you go down, don't flip, and then you're in open sky! This bothers me to no end, and it gets really rattling in Prime 2, when you take an elevator down and end up at the summit of a MOUNTAIN!
** Presumably the "going down" loading cutscene only shows part of the trip- there are likely some parts where the elevator goes sideways, or there are boring empty corridors between elevators that we don't need to play. Also, some elevators DO go up.
** I always wondered how anything can survive riding the elevators in ''Prime 2: Echoes.'' The damned things are ''rocket powered,'' and they go from zero to full speed and then back to a full stop instantaneously - by rights the passenger(s), even those in super-powered armour, ought to be smeared across the ceiling or splattered on the platform. Apparently nobody ever explained inertia or momentum to the Luminoth...
*** Well, when heading downward, they actually use the rockets to slow down. Yes, upwards should be a trip into splatter land, but not downwards.
*** This is a world with space ships. I'm sure whatever stops the spaceship from splattering the pilot all over the walls can be adapted to rocket powers elevators.
** The Sanctuary Fortress isn't at the summit of the mountain, it's built into the cliffside. The Temple Grounds, on the other hand, have cliffs all around the edges. They may very well be on a plateau on top of the mountain adjacent to the one the Fortress is on (you have to cross a bridge to get to the Fortress proper).
*** And that would be {{Jossed}} by the map itself. If you zoom out far enough, it shows you the placement of the levels in accordance to the other levels, the areas within the levels, and the height of the levels themselves. The Sanctuary Fortress is the highest on the map.
*** Yes, but the entrance of the Sanctuary Fortress is low; you then cross a bridge to a second cliff, where the actual fortress is.
** In fairness, Retro themselves presumably realised these issues, phasing out elevators in ''Prime 3'' in favour of [[WarpWhistle Samus's ship]] (for both single-planet and interplanetary travel) and things like the Pirates' shuttle trains.
* Speaking of the cliff, such as Sanctuary Fortress, just how does the Luminoth create the visual electronic illusion (the surrounding environment, like all the way down)?
** There probably ''is'' something down there, you know, a certain someone falls out a window.

* The events of ''Metroid Prime'', and indeed the Prime subseries as a whole, began when Samus responded to an open distress signal coming from a research vessel. It turned out to belong to the Space Pirates, so she blasted them repeatedly and then followed their evacuating leader to one of their newer bases of operation on Tallon IV. Let me say that again. The ''Space Pirates'', [[AlwaysChaoticEvil galactic menaces]], sent out an ''open distress signal''. What were they ''thinking?''
** "Oh crap, the experiments got loose! We're all going to die!" ...No, seriously: they probably figured that since they controlled the only remaining habitable planet in the system and Samus hadn't yet found their little hidey-hole on Tallon IV (Pirate Data "Fall of Zebes"), the only people who would hear their distress call would be their fellow Pirates planetside.
** The Pirates have always bordered on being TooDumbToLive, the distress call being just one more example. They even start lampshading it by ''Prime 2,'' in which you start seeing individual Pirate logs busting on the colossal stupidity of High Command and the Science Team. ("Science Team thinks the Metroids can be domesticated... I think Science Team has vapour for brains; I've already lost five troopers to the miserable little parasites.")
** The distress signals were most likely encrypted, like most of their data. Samus is seen to have technology to break their encryption (which the Pirates eventually realise, exasperating them to no end), which would have allowed her to know that there was a vulnerable pirate research station within range.
** Wasn't the distress signal she picked up automated? The computer realising some of the escape pods had been launched? But even assuming the pirates intentionally sent out the distress call, they might have counted on their ability to overwhelm most people who might have responded.
*** In the first case, why didn't they disable the automated signal (or install one in the first place if they made the vessel themselves)? And as for the second point, why would they add "overwhelm the arriving forces" to their list of troubles when they are already getting wiped out by the experiments?
** I always just assumed the whole distress call scenario was a means to lure do-gooders into a trap. Judging from the situation when Samus arrives, it might just be an attempt at luring weak targets in gone wrong.

* How on earth does the recovery system for long-distance falls in the ''Prime'' series work? You miss your jump, poor Samus goes hurtling off into the great beyond, and then you're instantly transported back to the platform you jumped from, with nothing more than a cute little "oof!" noise to mark the mishap. (Hell, Samus yells louder and takes more damage if she trips over a Zoomer.) Since long-distance falls kill you instantly in ''Hunters,'' the magic recovery business in the other games makes no sense at all.
** The best part being that this problem was introduced with Prime II: Echoes, the original Metroid Prime was designed so there were no infinite fall areas to worry about, at least that you could reach.
** Just remember that in this series, Hunters is essentially too bollocksed up to really count. Especially with random things like taking appreciable fall damage.
** It works [[NonLethalBottomlessPits the same way it works]] for [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Link]].
*** I have a theory regarding this. Essentially, every time you fall in either series, you lose health and are then returned to the start point before where you fell, yeah? Easy fix: In Zelda games, Link is warped out of certain death, but the spell needs life energy to run so fast. Same deal for Metroid, except it only pulls from the suits shields to activate the teleport module. The only hole in this logic is why she couldn't just use the short range teleport all the time, but probably doesn't to conserve her shielding. Also, the 'oof' probably means it doesn't cancel the kinetic motion. so she still smacks the ground at her maximum fall speed, which her suits inertial dampers took on.
*** Time distortion/reversal. Can only be used for a short period and explains why you return to the platform, but can't hop over to the next platform with it. It can also be linked to a save point which provides the extra power to bring you the farther distance.
** Also, what I consider disturbing is that some places are technically not bottomless pits (take some Temple Grounds cliffsides, and some of the locations in Corruption, save SkyTown for its cloudy surface)
** I am going to assume GameplayAndStorySegregation. Samus never misses those jumps throughout the canon course of the story because doing so would be fatal (just as she never dies against bosses in-universe even though you, as the player, may see it happen many times). They don't make it a full game over because that would be too annoying, and you lose energy as a gameplay penalty for screwing up instead.
*** Clearly the player's lost sync with Samus. "No, it didn't happen like that..."
** I always thought she takes damage on the trip back to where she was. It's been established that her suit protects her from any type of fall damage, but she could have battled some enemies while taking a long path back. This would be too annoying for the player, so they went with a time-lapse and skipped the boring trek to where you just were each time you fall.
* What were the Space Pirates doing in BSL? Clearly they were up to something... at least before the X took them over.
** Knowing the space pirates, chances are good they got bit in the butt with karmic retribution. They discovered through some means about either the X parasite (something they could have encountered before on [=SR388=]), or about that small lab module stuck off all on it's lonesome on the station, with its supply of goodies, and decided to raid pillage and plunder it. Plus, it's a Federation Science Lab, out in the open without escort. Easy pickings, it would seem to the casual pirate: Lot's of salvageable tech and information for Science Team, and a space station to create a Space Pirate base of operations that could sail through Federation Space without getting shot out of the sky. This idea held true and was panning out, right up until they got eaten by the X. See also: Metroid Prime (Parasite Queens), Echoes (the Ing), and whatever shot them in the face in Corruption.
*** What shot them in the face in ''Corruption'' was them returning to Aether after the Federation had been there to collect Phazon samples. According to a Pirate data log, they quickly went in with a small team to scoop up as much Phazon as possible before the Federation came back. This went surprisingly well. But not long after takeoff, Dark Samus reformed from stray Phazon particles in their cargo bay (see Corruption's intro scene) and wreaked havoc upon the ship. After restoring its body with the Phazon and brainwashing the crew, Prime/Dark Samus went to the Pirate Homeworld to take it over. Later she went to Phaaze and kicked Corruption's plot into high gear.
** Alternate theory: The BSL researchers devoted Sector 1 to reproducing the atmosphere, flora and fauna of Zebes as closely as possible. Then someone said "Hey, didn't Zebes also have Space Pirates?" ''That'' guy didn't last long once everyone else found out.
*** Nope. Sector 1 was a replica of [=SR388=], not Zebes (hence the map code SRX). However, there is a way Pirates could have wound up in [=SR388=]'s ecosystem - see below.
*** This is true, but what about the fact that ''every other sector on the space station'' is carrying organisms from Zebes? Isn't that extremely suspicious? When did BSL get all of these samples? When the planet was a Space Pirate hive? Or when it went from being a Space Pirate hive to a slightly charred asteroid field?
*** I kinda like this theory. Besides, somewhere out there there is a scientist who would go that far for accurate reproductions.
** Less stupid theory: Ridley was held captive there. Can't the Space Pirates go on their own rescue mission every once in a while? Especially after losing their bases and possibly access to their cloning methods?
*** Nope, still a stupid theory; Ridley was not held captive there; their leader(?) Ridley was dead. The Federation cloned him. That's not their leader, unless his genetic memory ever becomes canon.
*** That wasn't established until ''Other M'', which was released after this headscratcher was written. Even with that game in mind, considering how many problems stemmed from Ridley accidentally being cloned, would they really want to do it deliberately? Despite this group's Zebesian work, their goal wasn't to recreate the Space Pirate organisation as a whole (At least, it shouldn't have been. The plot is sounding more and more like a HandWave to recreate all of Samus's classic threats in an effort to prolong the series, isn't it?).
** Alternate, less stupid theory: The Pirates knew that Metroids originated on [=SR388=] from the first Federation survey ship way-back-when. (That was the catalyst event for the original ''Metroid,'' as quoted in the manual. The Feds had just discovered [=SR388=] and sent a survey expedition, which got hijacked en route back to Earth along with their research specimens - including a handful of Metroids in stasis). Samus exterminated the Pirates' original Metroid stash on Zebes, but the High Command wasn't about to let Metroids go so easily and mounted their own expedition to [=SR388=] to capture more. This was the origin of the Tallon Metroid line, and may explain why the Tallon Metroids (as seen on Tallon IV and Aether) look strikingly different from the Zebes version (smaller, more colour variance, get killed by lots of weapons instead of ice+ missile only, etc). During that mission, some hapless Pirate trooper got attacked by X; Pirate command never noticed because they were losing troops left and right to the local wildlife. Since X reproduce asexually and retain the genomes of all their past victims, it's plausible that at least one clonal line retaining the Pirate genome made it to BSL. When Samus started kicking all their lower-order forms around, the X switched to forms with better combat capability, including that of the Space Pirate. Voila.
*** That could work, but shouldn't all the little scrubs in the entry hall change to ferocious combat forms as well? It looks like they can only mimic one creature at a time. With the Big Bad of the games final transformation being the exception, probably due to how many signatures were present in the original host.
*** The Ridley-X battle begins with [[http://Metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Ridley-X1.png the corpse]] becoming [[http://Metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Ridley-X3.png the one you fight]]. Also, the Fish and Pirate X combining in a [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Merman Pirate]]. The X ''can'' change the shape of their "hosts".
** I thought it was established that the Federation was secretly working with them.
** Working with mixing the events in the game with manga here, but the Metroid were developed to destroy the X parasite by the Chozo, under Mother Brain's surveillance. Since Mother Brain was siding with the Space Pirates in the end, they might have heard something about X from her along with the Metroid. Since one of the reasons for destroying BSL and [=SR388=] against Federation orders was to keep the Federation, or anyone else, from using X as a biological weapon, it's possible that the Pirates got intel that X could be useful to them, and the station was a more controlled environment than trying something so dangerous as to track it down something that no longer has a natural enemy in its own environment.
** A lot of the Pirates you meet are in the station's reactor area. Perhaps their true intention was to sabotage the station, causing it to crash into the planet below, destroying all life! Because seriously, even Space Pirates should be able to tell that the place is a shithouse.
*** Aren't these the same Space Pirates that designed their own ships and bases with doors that they themselves cannot open quickly in an emergency? Space Pirates are generally portrayed as dumber than a space sack of space bricks, ''especially'' the command wing (Ridley excluded). Someone high-up could've given the order to sack [=BSL=], the {{Red Shirt}}s grumbled and complained and saw just how risky attempting to loot an obviously compromised research station would be, but still went through with their orders as an alternative to [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-101308.php being launched into the nearest sun.]] Common sense isn't the SP's stock and trade.
** Theory from a fanfiction I once read (which can be found in the fanfic rec's): BSL was built as a training ground for what would essentially be more Samuses. It would have everything Samus had faced so far, so the trainees would end up as strong as Samus. Then the X invaded, and they decided that using the X as an unstoppable bioweapon worked just as well.
** Alternate Alternate Theory: The researchers had some intact Space Pirates in storage to eventually study. BSL had retrieved Ridley's corpse, so grabbing some Pirates while they were at it isn't out of the question.
** My best guess is that the X on [=SR388=] somehow got ahold of Pirate DNA, or possibly the Feds had samples on the BSL. As for Ridley... we know that the one you fight is just a copy, but I've always believed that the frozen one wasn't the real one either. Maybe the Feds were studying a clone they had made? Then again, we know he's in Other M, which is between Super and Fusion, so we may get to see how they got Ridley into the BSL.
** Other M might have explained this one. It's revealed that the Galactic Federation had been experimenting on Zebesians, cybernetically enhancing them to be used as bioweapons. As one would expect, this went horribly wrong, mostly due to Ridley's unexpected appearance. So it might be that they were continuing said experiments on BSL... since Ridley wasn't going to be an issue, seeing as how he was dead and (just in case) frozen solid, they probably thought they would succeed this time around. Then the X Parasites came.
*** The Federation isn't exactly a shining pillar of ethics. They probably captured some more Space Pirates after the bottle ship went under and started experimenting on them and Ridley's corpse at BSL.
* Of course, the above discussion reminds me. What happened to the remaining eight SA-X that were onboard the station? They couldn't have all been on the super happy fun compartment, we only saw the one. Then there was the one that got blown up in the control room... So we're missing like, eight of the buggers, according to ADAM.
** Unless one of them smuggled inside Samus' ship(which didn't happen due to the ship being able to detect them), they were blown to smithereens. It's hard to survive a space station crash. Followed by it self-destructing. And taking the planet it crashed into with it.
*** Simple. They weren't there. Adam was lying about how many there were in order to scare you and get you off the station (after hearing this, you pretty much have free reign to explore the rest of the station, but you'll never see any more SA-X until the endgame. If there were really so many of them, it would be possible to run into them).
*** [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat How long have you]] [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife been on this website]]?
*** SequelHook?
*** No, they're definitely gone. One got nom'd by Metroids. One of them was absorbed by Samus, and the other eight were blown up with BSL, [=SR388=], and the rest of the X.
*** Or, they could just be stranded in space. The only way to destroy X that has been shown is absorbing it's energy. The Chozo created the Metroids specifically for that purpose. Samus having Metroid DNA is able to do it too. Why would an explosion kill all of the X at the end of the game, when they are not shown to be affected by explosions anywhere else?
*** Because Adam says an explosion the size of the BSL will kill X parasites caught in it and one big enough to take a planet will kill all of them in the area. Individual X are shown to be slightly affected by the power bomb. Not damaged but they are still moved about by the blast, maybe once the bangs get too big their defences just can't take it? Draining their energy just seems like a ''much'' preferred and safer method than planet sized explosions.
*** Maybe the X are vulnerable to radiation. A station that size probably ran on one or more nuclear reactors of some description. The ColonyDrop turned those reactors into makeshift nuclear weapons, potentially irradiating the entire surface of the planet and roasting the X (and everything else on SR-388) into radioactive glass (could that be what they meant by "destroyed" when talking about SR-388? Ecologically ruined as opposed to physically destroyed?).

* This should follow the first one on this list. First off, how can Samus even fire that cannon, and then, better yet, why is it that it has a seemingly unlimited supply of ammunition?

* Not a gameplay/story issue, but did anyone else find the Phendrana Drifts in Prime to be almost emotionally draining? The combination of the music and frozen wasteland had an Ecco-ish induced feeling of isolation for me.
** That was probably the point.
*** I would submit that this is the point of the entire series.
*** Yeah, that was definitely the point of the drifts. The atmosphere is GREAT, too. I felt like I was playing a video game version of ''Film/TheThing1982'' during that section.
*** Really? It always made me feel hopeful for some reason...
* In Metroid Fusion, Samus is attacked by the X and, as she claims, some parts of her armour are surgically removed, radically altering her physical appearance. This is a way to explain how the Samus from Fusion is different from her Prime version... but how is possible that she turn from [[http://www.nbrid.net/images/other/photo_samus0.jpg THIS]] to [[http://thisischris.com/feature/2005/img/MetroidFusion12.png THIS]]? No Just No.

* I've been wondering for a while, how ''exactly'' did the X infect Samus? The suit is airtight and protected by an energy shield. So far, Samus's suit seems to have a crippling weakness to plot.
** Where does that fit in ElementalRockPaperScissors?
*** Assume it beats PlotArmor and is weak to [[PlotHole Plot Holes.]]
** I don't think the suit ''is'' entirely airtight. It likely has some sort of pressure system, where it seals up automatically in the increased pressure of being underwater or the decreased pressure of vacuum, but if you'll recall, poison gas hurts Samus in the Prime series, so in regular environments with breathable atmosphere, there are apparently some openings, probably filtered, for breathing air. The X probably got in through there.
** It's said above that the suit is partly organic, the X might not have even needed to penetrate it. Alternately, they assumed microbial form and snuck in through the smallest cracks.
*** Except that it was acidic gas, and the suit has an energy field around it. So it somehow got past the shields, through the armour, into the organic parts, and then got to Samus herself?
*** The X are shown to go intangible, to the point where Samus can't absorb them if they're phased out. They probably phased past the shield when they attacked Samus.
*** Also, the energy shielding may only protect against energy weapons, while the armour is designed to handle everything else that gets thrown at her. Note that all of the ''Prime'' games feature all kinds of materials getting on Samus' armour, notably her helmet's faceplate (water, bug guts, trash-disposal... um, liquids), which indicates that the shielding isn't deflecting those materials away. Thus the X, being organic and not affected by the shielding, would only have had to get through the armour at some previously mentioned weak point.
*** This then raises the question of why physical attacks still drain energy from the shield. Samus takes nearly the same amount of damage from a high-powered beam as a punch from the Omega Pirate. The only way this is possible is if the shield blocks them, too. In addition, the shield has blocked such things as ghostly attacks and demonic possession, and that Omega punch should have tossed Samus across the room, but didn't. The materials themselves don't damage Samus, but merely obscure the visor and seem to cover the entire suit. Perhaps the shield essentially "hardens" when hit by a physical attack, and those substances can stick to it when this happens. Maybe the X simply wasn't registered as a threat, and the shield didn't react. They are microscopic, after all.
*** About that demonic possession: Samus's armour wasn't initially able to resist Ing possession on its own. Samus needed to acquire the Luminoth's Energy Transfer Module from the possessed creature sent to steal the last of Aether's energy to be able to resist. Strangely, I don't think it was ever explained just what in the module itself would prevent possession. During the short time before she gets it, I don't think the Ing had even bothered attempting to add her to their forces.
*** The Ing never bothered to possess her because the Ing couldn't take a physical form in Aether, and just attempted to possess what they knew. When that didn't work, and she made her way into their home, they tried to possess her, which didn't work either. Also, I always assumed that because, as far as the inventory descriptions say, it's essentially a giant ball of light, and the Ing hate the light...
*** If that were true, and I don't think the module protecting Samus was ever said to do that, the Ing would not have been able to steal it or possess the Alpha Splinter, since his Dark form had it. The more likely explanation is that either Samus or the suit is simply unable to be possessed due to Chozo foresight/wizarding or sheer willpower.
*** It was specifically stated in the log book entry for the transfer module that its core contains the Light of Aether which prevents Samus from being possessed.
*** I think the transfer module doesn't do anything to the Ing. If it did, they wouldn't be able to use it to steal Aether's energy. Since it's made of light, though, when Samus added it to her suit, it basically made it impossible for Ing to possess her. I imagine the light has a [[WeakenedByTheLight burning effect]]...
*** It is stated in-game that holding the transfer module immunises you to possession. The Ing can take it and use it just fine, such as the one leading the final attack on U-Mos that possessed an Alpha Splinter, they just can't possess whatever being is holding it. [[RecursiveReality Which means that particular Ing couldn't be possessed by its fellow Ing]], because I heard you like Ings but we can't put an Ing in your Ing.
*** So, no [[IncrediblyLamePun Ingception?]]
* Ok, so your mission in Super Metroid for the SNES was to rescue the captured Metroid from Ridley. You fail, as the Metroid sacrifices itself to save your life and give you the power to destroy Mother Brain. Alright, I'm cool with that. What confuses me is that, having left the planet sans Metroid, it still says "The mission was completed successfully". The hell it was!
** Missions like that usually go along the lines of, "Retrieve resource or prevent opposition from using it". Samus got the second objective, and royally screwed over the pirates in the process. Basically a success.
** Alternately, it was a continuation of her mission from ''Metroid II'': exterminate all Metroids. That mission was not complete, as the infant Metroid still lived. ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' makes it clear that Samus keeping the thing alive and giving it to researchers was a serious breach in protocol (though apparently not actually illegal). When she's giving her report to the Federation in the beginning of ''Other M'' (right after ''Super''), she specifically cites the "Exterminate all Metroids" objective as being completed successfully.
** [[spoiler: In the first Metroid, Samus's mission is to destroy the Pirate leadership. Kraid, Ridley, and Mother Brain all get better after seemingly dying. In Metroid 2, she's sent to annihilate the Metroids, and brings one back for study. Super sends her to recover the infant Metroid, which is destroyed (ironically, Mother Brain completes Samus's second mission for her by doing this). Fusion has her helping an investigation team on [=SR388=], which directly results in the infestation of the X parasite on the station, riding in on her armour. Other M, she investigates a distress signal on a mission to rescue survivors, and winds up destroying the entire station, as well as recovering only 50% of the survivors in question.]] Can we just say that Samus sucks at the jobs she’s hired to do?
** Her mission in the first Metroid was to destroy all Metroids on Planet Zebes and Mother Brain. She did that quite handily; nearly eliminating Pirate activity on Zebes for at least the period of the Prime Trilogy and perhaps even Metroid II with both destroying Tourian and destroying the Pirate Ship in Zero Mission. Also, if every job she did resolved simply and cleanly, that wouldn't be very [[RuleOfFun entertaining.]]
** Also also, 50% of the survivors is suboptimal, but still better than 0%.
* In Zero Mission, Space Pirates never drop energy. Why is that?
** [[RuleOfFun Because that'd be too easy.]]
** [[GameplayAndStorySegregation There are no energy drops in-canon:]] Like the lethal falls described above, Samus never actually loses enough damage to need a recharge from anything but her suit.
** There might not be energy drops ''anymore'', but they were intended according to the first game's manual. On the other hand, that same manual also said the space pirates ''feared'' Samus's suit for this very reason so maybe they did something to ensure she would not be getting any pickups from them? (The floating electro balls, eye scanners and Iron Ted still leave pickups for some reason)
* ''Super Metroid'' question: How can Crocomire swim through acid and tear down the wall OF SPIKES when he's just well... BONES?
** I'd assume he wasn't completely skeletonised while he was swimming there, but by the time he jumps out all of his flesh had dissolved. Doesn't quite explain how he managed to jump out, tho.
*** Sheer ''' ''Hatred.'' '''
* Metroid Prime, the main villain of the trilogy named after it, can't be an actual Metroid, right? I mean, Metroids were created BY the Chozo, so there's no way a meteor they've never heard of or seen could have one inside it.
** I think the Metroid got in there, was mutated by the Phazon, and Space Pirates provided him some weapons. I think.
** My theory is that there wasn't a Metroid inside it. The Leviathan crashed into the planet and enthralled a Metroid already there as its Guardian, the same thing that happened to Mogenar, Helios, and Ridley. This Metroid ended up eating the Leviathan core and fusing with it, becoming nearly unrecognisable as a Metroid. Chozo lore never mentions that the Worm came with the meteor, just that it appeared afterwards in the Impact Crater. The only problem is that there is no evidence of Metroids on Tallon IV prior to the meteor. That doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any, but it's hard to prove.
** This is why the retcon of ''Trilogy'' and the PAL version regarding the Pirates' knowledge of Prime's existence creates more problems than it solves. The original NTSC version explained why there was a mutant Metroid in the Impact Crater, as well as why it had "''mechanical''" weapons as well as organic ones.
** None of the weapons are explicitly mechanical. Given what some other fully-organic bosses pull, the only evidence we have that Prime's weapons are mechanical is the NTSC version saying they are.
** Prime 3 shows that there are Metroid Primes on Phaaze. I'm guessing one got in before the Leviathan "launched" and made it to Tallon IV. It became the guardian, absorbed Phazon faster than the core could produce, absorbed the core, and essentially began self-producing Phazon. Still doesn't explain the mechanical weapons, but the retcon may have removed the fact that they're mechanical in nature and not natural.
** Those Primes were probably evolved from the Pirate's Metroid stock. Dark Samus knew how powerful Phazon Metroids were. She just killed any that mutated enough to reach Prime level because she didn't want to be challenged.
** My guess is it's not ACTUALLY a Metroid, but its behaviour is similar to a really large, planet-munching Metroid, so they just called it the Metroid Prime.
** It could very well be a Metroid. Remember the variety in Metroid II: Return of Samus and Metroid Fusion? You have the Queen, the Omega Metroid, and all those other weird looking ones in the background of Fusion when you discover Metroids were being bred.

* Am I the only one who can see skull-like faces in the centre of Bryyo doors in ''Corruption'' at a few paces away, or is there someone else sharing my insanity out there?
** They resemble those skull things Reptilicus Hunters wear, now that I think about it.
* Is it just me, or is it kind of odd how Samus constantly refers to herself as a bounty hunter, when she acts far more like a mercenary?

* Why are people so quick to say that Samus has the DNA of all the X-viruses she absorbed? It's only stated that the Metroids ''ate'' the X-virus, not that they obtained their DNA in doing so. It'd be like humans gaining the DNA of every animal and plant they ate. As for the Fusion Suit gaining upgrades back from absorption, that's more because the Core-X's had copied the existing data, which the suit regained, than absorbing the X's DNA. Some fans think Samus is some horrible chimera of a thousand different creatures when she "only" has human, Metroid, and Chozo DNA.
** People tend to get weird thoughts when they obsess over something, in this case, every game after Fusion being a prequel (until Metroid Dread, anyway).
** It seems to me that there's very little evidence either way regarding exactly what happens when Samus absorbs an X. It's never mentioned anywhere that the X can store information in any way other than DNA, which would mean that either Samus absorbs the DNA to gain abilities, leading to the HumanoidAbomination describe above, or her suit is capable of sequencing the genomes of everything that X had previously absorbed and somehow filtering out only the part that is a suit upgrade, all in a matter of seconds, all while in an incomplete, damaged state. Personally, I think the former sounds more likely, but it's all up in the air until either WordOfGod or a sequel.
** Against taking the DNA of food, Samus's suit has adapted other technology before, including Pirate stuff. Absorbing the X also helps the suit repair damage and regain missiles, so why wouldn't larger core X have better healing properties? Metroids eat life energy, not solid food, and the life energy could be used to power shielding, replenish supplies and repair damaged systems. No need for DNA assimilation to be required.

* How come the Dark Suit works perfectly for Samus? That armour was made for the Luminoths, who are essentially giant Chozo-esque moths.
** Samus' suit has always had adaptive properties and is somewhat prone to MegaManning. It's been shown to use Galactic Federation, Space Pirate, Alimbic, and whatever other technology there is flawlessly. Why not Luminoth? It shouldn't be a size issue, either, since the suit managed to turn a giant laser drill into the Nova Beam, or Ghor's Plasma Cannon into a Plasma Beam, or even the Omega Pirate's armour (and body) into the Phazon Suit. There's also the fact that the Luminoth and the Chozo have had some level of contact; there's a Screw Attack on Aether, so they're fairly compatible.

* How could Samus use energy tanks without the suit in Zero Mission?
** When you see the back of the Zero Suit, aren't there three pink spheres? Maybe those are energy tanks, considering that a full one is bright pink/magenta in your energy indicator.

* Why is Anthony Higgs the squad's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_point point man?]] He's the biggest guy in the squad with the slowest-firing weapon ever created in the history of mankind, and it's his ''job'' to be standing between the rest of the squad and restricting their line of fire while being expected to return fire first. Buh?
** The "slowest firing weapon" isn't his primary weapon. He's got a machinegun and a freeze gun just like the rest of them do, too.

* More of a fandom thing, but...why do [[StrawFeminist some people]] complain so much about the Zero Suit? Three things come to mind:
** It covers her from head to toe. That's the exact ''opposite'' of {{Stripperific}}. Yes, it's skintight, but see point three.
** As has been pointed out elsewhere on this wiki, unsuited Samus now wears ''more'' clothing than she did in the older titles where she'd be wearing a bikini-type garment under there.
** I'm fairly certain that if PoweredArmor existed, whatever you wore under it ''would'' have to be pretty form-fitting, since you'd want something to protect you from the moving parts, but that wouldn't get caught on the moving parts. Or provide too much padding to the point you couldn’t fit into the armour.
** That's a good one, but most straw feminists will always find something to complain about, just because Samus is sexy, it means, in a feminist's eyes, that she should not be ''allowed'' to wear such clothing that denotes her good looks, otherwise she would be antifeminist. Yep, go [[IncrediblyLamePun figure]]...
** While it doesn't make sense to complain about the Zero Suit, since it is more conservative than Samus's previous casual wear, if you're looking for end game fanservice one could complain that one is always seeing the same thing now. The more logical complaint(or praise) is the Prime games opted to give you TheEndOrIsIt teasers [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks rather than more woman flesh.]]
** Another logical complaint isn't so much the Zero suit itself but that Samus is more frequently seen without armour now. Most annoyingly, unarmoured Samus is as viable as armoured Samus in ''Super Smash Bros Brawl'', when ''Zero Mission'''s game play says otherwise. In ''Marvel Vs Capcom 3'', unarmoured Arthur sucks because unarmoured Arthur sucks in ''Ghost And Goblins'' gameplay. Why can't Nintendo be as consistent with Metroid as Capcom is with its series?
** So... make a character completely suck simply for the sake of respecting main-series canon in a non-canon fighting game where the developers selectively throw individual series' logic out the window for the sake of gameplay? Do any of the other inconsistencies between either of these games and the games their rosters come from bother you as well? What you also seem to be ignoring here is that Arthur's armours act like power-ups whereas ZSS acts as a completely different character that can't be easily switched from. Making her her just as as ineffective outside of her armour as she was in her own series would be punishing the player for using Samus's Final Smash and turn her into a JokeCharacter that nobody would want to use. Another thing you seem to be ignoring is the fact that ZSS, while faster, is both lighter and weaker than she is in her armour, so it's not like they didn't take the differences between those two states into account. Her being just as effective outside of her armour doesn't change that fact.
** That someone seriously discussed making Zero Suit Samus playable at all before Samus was given something else she could actually do in ''Metroid'' games is bothersome enough and just as annoying that there were plenty of things to give her that would at least ''resemble'' what we know about ''Metroid''. Arthur's unarmoured form sucking is consistent to how he ''always'' plays and was inevitably going to be added in some form since it is a ''core'' part of ''Ghost N Goblins''. Zero Suit Samus was just a quick and a recurring EasterEgg and a one time UnexpectedGameplayChange. Yes making ''that'' as good as armoured Samus is bothersome, making the "Zero Suit" playable to begin with was just strange and could have been done without. Given that Smash Bros runs on nostalgia, a whip based move set for a character not featured yet would have been preferable and would have been better gameplay-wise by not having what is supposed to be a game changer hampered by immobilisation due to double layered DVD load times and an involuntary control change. At least Zelda and the Pokemon Trainer do not get a "change now or suffer enemy {{limit break}}" ultimatum and their alternate forms are nowhere near as contradictory to their own games.
** The blatant fanservice is unneeded, since in Metroid games, seeing the Zero Suit either means something bad happened, or you just beat the game(possibly with a good time or completion rate, or both). Complaints can simply be pointing out derailment of an element without any hint of feminism. If fanservice was the problem, we'd be swamped in as many complaints about Gandrayda. But people really aren't looking for fan service in Metroid or from Samus. Her orange(or purple) armour with its giant shoulders and arm cannon is one of Nintendo's most iconic images. The sight of it is fanservice enough. Nintendo used to be proud players weren't particularly interested in seeing Samus's skin (see Nintendo Power's preview to the Hunters game for the DS). Now they can't show it off enough, even though the people playing the game ''still'' aren't particularly interested.
* Where exactly does the Impact Crater level in ''Metroid Prime'' take place? Is it in that huge floating chunk of rock where the Artifact Temple is, or is it underground under the crater itself?
** It's inside the crater itself.
* So anyways, apparently some people are finding it odd that Samus is wearing high heels in [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Sm4sh]]. I can understand that (because it's impractical - who would wear high heels into ''battle''?) but the thing I find odd is the fact that it's "Sexist" and "Sexualising" to show her wearing High Heels, and is "feminising her"... so why're [[http://Metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Metroid_endings showing Samus in her underwear as a reward to the player for beating the game under certain conditions]], letting her fight in a skin-tight suit and letting her waltz into battle [[http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120603232608/Metroid/images/f/f6/Metroid_Justin_Bailey.png wearing another impractical suit]] okay, but ''not'' high heels? I know I know - RealWomenNeverWearDresses, but how come I've never seen people complain about that kind of stuff?
** Those stuck solely to the ending. This is throughout the entire game. And at least the Zero Suit, though fanservicey, initially had a more practical design; it's why the trope SpyCatsuit exists after all. This is kicking out the practical to make more room for fanservice.
** If that's the case, then why didn't anyone raise any fuss about the Justin Bailey code? Because it's older?
** Because the Justin Bailey code was just an extra thing that took a lot of work to unlock in a game most people could not even beat the "easy" way and was never referenced again. The Zero Suit was an important plot point that has not only become a PlotTumor, but the continued usage of the Zero Suit, in Super Smash Bros in particular, misses the entire point of why the Zero Suit was used in the first place. Seeing it indicates Samus lost her armour and thus died or is now in a weakened state. The poison mushroom and miniaturised state are unfavourable conditions in Super Smash Bros, just like they were in Super Mario Bros, but Zero Suit gets special treatment because woman flesh=fan service. Never mind Metroid fans would rather have a playable Dark Samus, Sylux, Ridley or something.
** Also, it’s kinda hard to say whether the publications of the day complained about it (I do know that Super Play magazine had some female writers and that launched in 1992). One would have to go to magazine scans or the specimen printings themselves, and find the reviews and articles about the Metroid games to check that out. But with legacy reviews, appraising video games decades after they came out, that particular avenue may be easier to research.
* I don't know if I'm the first one to ask this but here goes... just how the hell did all those Metroids end up on Phaaze? I initially thought that it was the Space Pirates who brought them all there, but considering that they have hives on Phaaze, not to mention the Metroid Prime husks (which I assume would take some time and a lot of Phazon to grow to that stage), it brings me to question just when and how Metroids were first introduced to Phaaze. Any thoughts?
** The Space Pirates probably brought them there, or maybe Dark Samus took them there, after appropriating Metroid stashes from the Pirates. The Leviathan is capable of reaching Phaaze very quickly, Phazon can cause rapid maturation of Metroids, as seen in Prime 2. And Phaaze is made of the stuff.
* If ''Metroid Prime'' takes place right after the original ''Metroid'' and/or ''Metroid: Zero Mission'', then how did Samus get the Grapple Beam that she loses during the beginning of ''Prime''? The Grapple Beam wasn't a power up in either the original or ''Zero Mission''.
** The Prime version of the grapple beam is different than the Super Metroid version. It's explicitly stated to be ''Federation'' technology, used in sporting events, is more or less non damaging, and has a different launching point (on the left arm as opposed to the arm cannon). She could have picked one up shopping, or at some outpost like Norion. Prime 3 renames it the Grapple ''Lasso'' to clear up any confusion.
* Why is Metroid usually considered on par with Mario and Zelda, despite the fact that its sales pale in comparison to theirs?
** Because it made its debut in the same time period as Mario and Zelda on the same console, was a very iconic game, and became at least critically successful if not financially. Though after ''Other M'' its status as one of the "Big 3" is eroding. If ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' is any indication, its replacement is either ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' or ''Franchise/FireEmblem.''
** The Metroid series, as a whole, also features much better games, if far fewer (something else to factor into raw sales data... there are far more Mario and Zelda games than Metroid games). The original Metroid completely shattered what an 8-bit game could be, Metroid II was a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel, and Super Metroid is still considered one of the best video games ever made, standing up quite well even with modern super-advanced modern 3D sandbox games. And the Prime series managed to be startlingly good despite reservations about completely changing what kind of game it was and it’s DevelopmentHell (having to skip a console generation). Heck, there are fans who even say that, plot issues aside, Other M is actually rather good from a pure gameplay standpoint. Basically, the original Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games went on to define what video games were for several years, with a lot of other games attempting to copy their success, and they've all managed to fairly successfully adapt to changes in video game technology and stay relevant to modern gamers, while having heaps of nostalgia value for older gamers. Metroid also hasn't experienced the oversaturation of Mario and Link, so the fanbase for Metroid is still passionate about every new game (or hints of potential new game at some point in the future maybe), instead of the rather apathetic response to a new Mario or Zelda game ("Ah, another one. Well, I'll wait and see if it's any good.")
** The times ''Metroid'' was one of Nintendo's "Big Three" were brief and fleeting. ''Metroid'' broke ground by showing untapped potential in platform games and opening the door for more player character experimentation, but novelties aside it didn't wow that much in Japan. The USA was where the biggest impact was, so the sequel was made (even more) with USA in mind, but the third entry ''Super Metroid'', on top of being a TroubledProduction, didn't catch on in the States because ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' was getting all the attention. The series went dormant (probably for the better) until ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' proved to be a critical disappointment and the Nintendo 64 put a bunch of Super Nintendo games in bargain bins. A lot of people suddenly realising ''Super Metroid'' was a great game, combined with Samus in the ''Videogame/SuperSmashBros'' games, got ''Metroid'' back into focus and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' sold very well. Nintendo thought they had a real franchise on their hands at that point, but got cold feet about other companies adapting the series, while every ''Metroid'' game after "Prime" failed to sell as well. "MOM" and ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force'' just cemented that a ''Metroid'' franchise was far off, but it never has been too close anyway. The first game and the first ''Metroid Prime'' were the only times ''Metroid'' was close to ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''The Legend Of Zelda''. ''Metroid'' remains an important series akin to ''VideoGame/FZero'' (which also bordered on "Big Three" status once), ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot more of), ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot less of), ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'', ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', ''Franchise/StarFox'', ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'', ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'', etc, but ''Pokemon'' it's not, ''Fire Emblem'' it's not, ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' it's not. Not yet.
** I'd say it comes down to influence. All three came out around the same time on the same exact console, and the franchises they spawned have gone on to have ripple effects across the entire medium. Mario is the quintessential PlatformGame, countless action/adventure titles owe as much to ''Zelda'' as they do computer and tabletop games, and ''Metroid'' is the namesake for an entire genre of action titles. Yes, it isn't anywhere close to being one of Nintendo's best-selling franchises; heck, it's probably their lowest-selling franchise that still gets new installments almost every console generation, kept alive mostly by Sakamoto and Tanabe being high-ranking producers at Nintendo. But there's a legacy there that's greatly respected in the Western gaming sphere, and so it gets the honour of being one of the Big Three for us, even if so many other Nintendo series arguably deserve that slot more.

* Why are people discussing VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns as if it's canon? They're suggesting stuff like it confirms that the Prime games are canon, and that VideoGame/MetroidPrime4 will acknowledge it. Are you forgetting that this game was a remake to [[VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus an already existing title]]? The two games tell the same story, but in ways that can't possibly overlap. Only one of them can be canon, and I see no reason that Nintendo would de-canonise Metroid II just for some remake.
** For the same reason people consider VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission as canon. In the only other instance of a remake in the Metroid franchise, the new story overwrote the preexisting canon. Why would that change here?
** Is anyone suggesting ''Metroid Zero Mission'' isn't canon? Jettisoning both remakes from continuity would be ideal.
** Ideal why? Why not presume that, as posited above, Metroid II is the official report that she conducted for the Federation, but Samus Returns is the way it actually went down in reality (and reflecting various gameplay/story choices made in the 26 years of sequels to the original game since its release, along with whatever else they saw fit to add)? Note that Metroid Fusion was rejected for a remake subject by Nintendo (at least, for now), because Metroid II was deemed to benefit from such a treatment more.

* The ending of ''Zero Mission''. Samus escapes the exploding Space Pirate Mothership in what seems to be a Space Pirate Vessel. How did Samus get back to Federation-controlled space to get a new ship in time for Prime 1/Metroid II without her being shot/bombed to Hell by the Federation military after appearing on their radar? And broadcasting something to the effect of "I'm a friend, don't shoot." is ''exactly'' what an enemy trying to pull an ISurrenderSuckers attack would broadcast.
** She wouldn't say "I'm a friend", she'd say "I'm Samus Aran." And no enemy is dumb enough to pretend to be SAMUS FUCKING ARAN.
* Zero Mission is "what really happened" in canon, while they kept the original NES Metroid merely as her "official incident report". While I can understand Samus not wanting to discuss more personal matters regarding her past on the planet with the Chozo, how does the rest of it work? "There were no rank-and-file Space Pirates, just random creatures. Kraid was barely my height and Ridley was such a non-threat it was like fighting a mentally handicapped kangaroo. Mother Brain was barely anything. Now pay me."
** If she isn’t contractually obliged to note the size/threat level of the bosses she fought, then she doesn’t. She completed the mission as stated (“destroy Space Pirate leadership”) and supplementary detail wasn’t relevant. After all, her presumption would have been that she killed all of them, not yet realising about their JokerImmunity. If the NES Metroid as we play it was like a “training simulation” for future bounty hunters based on the report (or something) then the designers of the simulation spitballed what those aspects must have been like. Maybe there were Space Pirates in both depictions, but so few were mentioned in the incident report that they skimped on that detail. Maybe they were maning some of the turrets which appear at first glance to be automated, in defence of the Mother Brain. If you’re also concerned about how she failed to mention the additional, gigantic Space Pirate installation, well maybe she filled out the report fast in part to be free to go and wage war against more Space Pirates to try and stop their criminal activities, as she does in the ''Prime'' series.
* When fighting Experiment Z-57, Samus already has the gravity suit which gives her normal physics in water and protects her against extreme cold and lava! When Z-57's Core X dip itself into lava, she could've just jumped into the lava and absorb the Core X. Instead, she hanged onto a ledge. Why?
** She may have just assumed the Core X died. As ''Dread's'' ending shows, Samus clearly has made incorrect assumptions about the X before.
* In Metroid II, in the area with the Screw Attack (the Nintendo Power guide may refer to it as the "Grand Cavern") there is an inexplicable area with pure darkness where you really can't navigate it without blind guesswork or a guide (and even at that, with more guesswork). The objective is to obtain one missile and one energy tanks (granted, you don't ''have'' to pick up every collectible in the game). There is no illumination whatsoever, the only thing visible out of the black void is Samus's Morph Ball and her bombs. Because of this, there's no way to even tell whether you're going left or right besides laying bombs and seeing if they are trailing you (in which case you're still bearing in the direction you're holding on the D-pad) or if they're stationary (in which case, so are you). There are similar areas in other Zelda and Metroid games, but in those they have ''some'' means of illumination (e.g. the lamp in LTTP, firebugs in Super Metroid). You may say that well, the limitations of the Game Boy meant they couldn't simulate degrees of illumination, but at least in the DX mod I'm playing, you can see a low-lit version of it as you transition to another room. So why couldn't they use that and at least have bomb blasts light up your immediate surroundings more? Because I enjoyed the rest of the game, this isn't Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike, but yeah, what were they thinking? If you figure you'd have to be at least an older kid to competently play this relatively intricate and complex game, well, wouldn't most kids (and some adults even!) be put off by an almost totally blind puzzle? Maybe to the point of not wanting to complete the game? One hopes that both remakes of this game injected a modicum of common sense into the area, or perhaps just reworked or cut it entirely.
** Same poster: AM2R definitely improves it, using limited illumination in the vicinity of the Morph Ball, such that you can find your way around.

** Ideal why? Why not presume that, as posited above, Metroid II is the official report that she conducted for the Federation, but Samus Returns is the way it actually went down in reality (and reflecting various gameplay/story choices made in the 26 years of sequels to the original game since it's release, along with whatever else they saw fit to add)? Note that Metroid Fusion was rejected for a remake subject by Nintendo (at least, for now), because Metroid II was deemed to benefit from such a treatment more.

*** Yeah, that was definitely the point of the drifts. The atmosphere is GREAT, too. I felt like I was playing a videogame version of ''Film/TheThing1982'' during that section.

** Alternately, it was a continuation of her mission from ''Metroid II'': exterminate all Metroids. That mission was not complete, as the infant Metroid still lived. ''Videogame/MetroidOtherM'' makes it clear that Samus keeping the thing alive and giving it to researchers was a serious breach in protocol (though apparently not actually illegal). When she's giving her report to the Federation in the beginning of ''Other M'' (right after ''Super''), she specifically cites the "Exterminate all Metroids" objective as being completed successfully.

** The times ''Metroid'' was one of Nintendo's "Big Three" were brief and fleeting. ''Metroid'' broke ground by showing untapped potential in platform games and opening the door for more player character experimentation, but novelties aside it didn't wow that much in Japan. The USA was where the biggest impact was, so the sequel was made (even more) with USA in mind, but the third entry ''Super Metroid'', on top of being a TroubledProduction, didn't catch on in the States because ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry'' was getting all the attention. The series went dormant (probably for the better) until ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' proved to be a critical disappointment and the Nintendo 64 put a bunch of Super Nintendo games in bargain bins. A lot of people suddenly realising ''Super Metroid'' was a great game, combined with Samus in the ''Videogame/SuperSmashBros'' games, got ''Metroid'' back into focus and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' sold very well. Nintendo thought they had a real franchise on their hands at that point, but got cold feet about other companies adapting the series, while every ''Metroid'' game after "Prime" failed to sell as well. "MOM" and ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force'' just cemented that a ''Metroid'' franchise was far off, but it never has been too close anyway. The first game and the first ''Metroid Prime'' were the only times ''Metroid'' was close to ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''The Legend Of Zelda''. ''Metroid'' remains an important series akin to ''VideoGame/FZero'' (which also bordered on "Big Three" status once), ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot more of), ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot less of), ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles'', ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', ''Franchise/StarFox'', ''Videogame/NintendoWars'', ''Videogame/{{Pikmin}}'', etc, but ''Pokemon'' it's not, ''Fire Emblem'' it's not, ''Videogame/AnimalCrossing'' it's not. Not yet.

* Why are people discussing VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns as if it’s canon? They're suggesting stuff like it confirms that the Prime games are canon, and that VideoGame/MetroidPrime4 will acknowledge it. Are you forgetting that this game was a remake to [[VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus an already existing title]]? The two games tell the same story, but in ways that can't possibly overlap. Only one of them can be canon, and I see no reason that Nintendo would de-canonise Metroid II just for some remake.

** Ideal why? Why not presume that, as posited above, Metroid II is the official report that she conducted for the Federation, but Samus Returns is the way it actually went down in reality (and reflecting various gameplay/story choices made in the 26 years of sequels to the original game since it’s release, along with whatever else they saw fit to add)? Note that Metroid Fusion was rejected for a remake subject by Nintendo (at least, for now), because Metroid II was deemed to benefit from such a treatment more.

*** Yeah, hey, that's almost as good as [[VideoGame/StarFox Dinosaur Planet]].

** The times ''Metroid'' was one of Nintendo's "Big Three" were brief and fleeting. ''Metroid'' broke ground by showing untapped potential in platform games and opening the door for more player character experimentation, but novelties aside it didn't wow that much in Japan. The USA was where the biggest impact was, so the sequel was made (even more) with USA in mind, but the third entry ''Super Metroid'', on top of being a TroubledProduction, didn't catch on in the States because ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry'' was getting all the attention. The series went dormant (probably for the better) until ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' proved to be a critical disappointment and the Nintendo 64 put a bunch of Super Nintendo games in bargain bins. A lot of people suddenly realising ''Super Metroid'' was a great game, combined with Samus in the ''Videogame/SuperSmashBros'' games, got ''Metroid'' back into focus and ''Videogame/MetroidPrime'' sold very well. Nintendo thought they had a real franchise on their hands at that point, but got cold feet about other companies adapting the series, while every ''Metroid'' game after "Prime" failed to sell as well. "MOM" and ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force'' just cemented that a ''Metroid'' franchise was far off, but it never has been too close anyway. The first game and the first ''Metroid Prime'' were the only times ''Metroid'' was close to ''Super Mario Bros'' and ''The Legend Of Zelda''. ''Metroid'' remains an important series akin to ''Videogame/FZero'' (which also bordered on "Big Three" status once), ''Videogame/{{Kirby}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot more of), ''Videogame/{{MOTHER}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot less of), ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles1'', ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', ''Videogame/StarFox'', ''Videogame/NintendoWars'', ''Videogame/{{Pikmin}}'', etc, but ''Pokemon'' it's not, ''Fire Emblem'' it's not, ''Videogame/AnimalCrossing'' it's not. Not yet.

** Same poster: AM2R definitely improves it, using limited illumination in the vicinity of the Morph Ball, such that you can find your way around.

** If she isn’t contractually obliged to note the size/threat level of the bosses she fought, then she doesn’t. She completed the mission as stated (“destroy Space Pirate leadership”) and supplementary detail wasn’t relevant. If the NES Metroid as we play it was like a “training simulation” for future bounty hunters based on the report (or something) then the designers of the simulation spitballed what those aspects must have been like. Maybe there were Space Pirates in both depictions, but so few were mentioned in the incident report that they skimped on that detail. Maybe they were maning some of the turrets which appear at first glance to be automated, in defence of the Mother Brain. If you’re also concerned about how she failed to mention the additional, gigantic Space Pirate installation, well maybe she filled out the report fast in part to be free to go and wage war against more Space Pirates to try and stop their criminal activities, as she does in the ''Prime'' series.

** As a side note, I'm fond of the theory that, after they lost Pirate Homeworld (best planet name ever) to the Galactic Federation, they needed help. The Kihunters offered it. This caused a great deal of conFusion for the Federation, as the Kihunters were also space pirates. In order to clear things up, they hastily named the original race after their sole remaining base. Thus, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion call them "Zebesians".

* I know I read in some game description or guide book that Samus had a living suit. This was supported in that the X of Metroid Fusion, who copy the DNA of their victims, could replicate the Power Suit down to the visor in under 5 seconds. But besides maybe the Ing being living things using her weapons, this really isn't shown evidence anywhere else. [[RetCon Is it is or is it not?]]

* Who packed BSL with enough explosive charges to take a ''planet'' with it when the self-destruct goes off? Whoever they are, they have [[MemeticMutation vapour for brains]].
** BSL is full of biological weapons. The explosives are either there for sterilisation purposes (in case something escapes; which is exactly what happened) or the BSL itself is a weapon.
** I've always assumed the planet-destroying explosion (technically it doesn't destroy the planet as you can still see it on the radar, just blow most of the surface into orbit) was not caused by the explosive self-destruct mechanism itself, but by the explosion causing the station's reactor to go critical. Assuming the station was powered by antimatter or something a breach in the reactor could cause an enormous explosion.
*** Actually, the self-destruct explosives seem to be much more powerful than the reactor overloading- that's exactly the reasoning ADAM gives to why you have to stop the reactor overload earlier on. But as said above, BSL is packed with all kinds of top secret bio-weapons, special projects of dubious legality and some of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy, a thorough self-destruct has several purposes: a containment failsafe, a reason for invaders to be hesitant to use heavy weapons, and plausible deniability.
*** Thoroughly destroying a space station is one thing. Taking an entire planet with it is another. That transcends plausible deniability and goes straight on into "making it worse". With a thorough enough self-destruct, you can at least claim the station never existed, but when a PLANET [[EarthShatteringKaboom suddenly disappears]] because of your secret illegal experiment lab, that's harder to explain away. There just isn't a good Watsonian reason for why the station could destroy [=SR388=]. Of course, a probable Doylian answer is that someone on the development team went, "Super Metroid was awesome, and it ended with a planet exploding. We should blow up a planet again. That'll make Fusion awesome."
*** The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually ''[[https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/Metroid/images/5/5b/BSL_research_station.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20070723165250 [=SR388=]'s asteroid moon]]''. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam ''rammed it'' straight into [=SR388=], and detonating the core would have finished the job.
*** In a Watsonian sense, it may have been a combination of the explosion and the impact. There's a decent chance that the station is both large enough to be analogous to an extinction-level meteor, and have shielding to keep it from burning up in atmosphere, and if things were timed right- which they probably were- and the self destruct went off the moment it hit the planet, it would increase the force with which it hit the planet. Like a bullet hitting an egg.
** The planet wasn't completely destroyed. The station became a meteor like the one that took out the dinosaurs, causing [=SR388=] to fall into a nuclear winter as the reactors' fallout and impact debris overcasts the atmosphere and rains down. The surface of [=SR388=], and all X on the planet, are now radioactive glass. It's as good as destroyed as the radiation precludes all attempts to go back on the planet for at least the next thousand years.

* Fusion is chronologically the last game in the series. This means that Prime 3 took place at least a year or two beforehand. What happened to the design for the Ice Missiles in that time which prevented them from digging them up immediately when the Federation realised Samus couldn't use the Ice Beam?

* In Fusion, the X infect Samus's suit and create the SA-X. Fine. Then they start dividing and create more SA-X. Um... How? How did some virus/bacteria/amoeba looking thing recreate lost Chozo technology? Can they now cannibalise metals and recombine them to create any alloy they want? I think that would make them at least as valuable as 'infinite energy' Metroids.
** They ''are'' that useful, if they could be used. But they can't. The fact that they're impossible to control is kinda a plot point. Plus the Power Suit isn't exactly technology as we know it, its solid energy and whatnot and may have enough organic composition to replicate with a little metal ingestion.
** It's likely part of the X ability to process data and make things out of it. They've shown the ability to turn data (which is just information) into a functional Varia shielding effect, as well as all of Samus' beam weapons. They can apparently use any type of information to accomplish this, such as the information stored in DNA as well as the other upgrades. It's entirely possible they can also do this with nonorganic material if they have a molecular composition to work with (like the Nightmare and B.O.X's armour as well as their organic parts.) As long as they have the power suit's specifications and data, they can make more copies.
** Indeed. By all accounts, they can reproduce matter at its most basic level, copying the very atomic structures themselves.
** I've always figured that the X synthesise an organic substitute for inorganic materials.
** The Chozo could be using organic material, after all, plastic is organic and apparently limestone has the right make up of carbon too and can be produced by living things. Maybe ''Chozo'' managed to synthesise the organic substitutes. It would explain why the X were so hard for them to deal with that they made the life-sucking abominations called Metroids.

* How is Samus clambering across the ceiling rungs in Metroid Fusion? The arm cannon doesn't open at the arm (and you would see a hand coming out anyway if it did) and the free hand comes off for a bit. It could be magnetic, but it would have to be a very strong magnetic field to support her weight long enough to get the other arm over to the next rung. I guess the arm cannon could have biological components, and it could be the remains of the grapple beam, but that doesn't explain how it could be half-working if it's not there, otherwise it wouldn't work at all, so probably not related to the grapple beam. I have been wondering this for years and no one else seems to notice this in Fusion.
** Maybe there is a tiny claw inside the arm cannon?
** Prime 3 shows that the arm cannon can open up like a claw to "grab" things, making clever use of the {{kibble|s and bits}} from how it opens up to shoot missiles. Creator/{{Retro| Studios}}[[{{Retcon}} active]] explanation?
** Although it doesn't open up when she grabs the ladders. Maybe it contains an electromagnet strong enough to hold Samus's weight.
** In SSBM, Samus uses the Grapple Beam from the arm cannon, so that could be an explanation. Alternately, the game designers didn't think that one through.
** In some pictures (e.g. the iconic one on the cover of ''Metroid Prime'', and indeed one with Samus holding both arms at her side in the Fusion suit) the arm cannon seems to be at least a few inches longer than her left, unadorned arm. So, unless there’s a claw on the top side of it, it would be awkward to swing from anywhere else on the cannon (that is between it, over to the left hand, and back). So, the most likely thing is that it has a strong magnet (Samus’s suit is capable of any manner of incredible things with it’s high technology) where she can attach it at any suitable point to the rungs to produce a [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal comfortable cadence of clambering]], much like you would have normally with simply two unadorned arms.

* At the beginning of Fusion, the X infect the Power Suit and steal/copy its abilities. When Samus absorbs one of the Core X into herself, she gets those abilities back. Does that mean that Samus no longer needs her suit to use those abilities? Like can she Speed Boost or Space Jump anytime she wants?
** Samus is "eating" the X the same way a Metroid does, turning it's mass into energy for herself, and thus for her suit (the two are linked, as shown in Fusion's opening stating parts of her old suit had to be surgically removed). The abilities, on the other hand, are not being absorbed directly into her, but rather into the suit (the X has to pass through the suit before Samus can "eat" it). The core of the Fusion suit is still the adaptable, modular Chozo tech, so it somehow analyses and incorporates that data into a power-up for the suit itself.
** The suit is damaged, Samus 'eating' the x also repairs the suit. Usually that's just restoring shielding and ammunition but Core X also restores suit functions.
** Metroid Dread may go into more detail about this question.

* In Metroid II, in the area with the Screw Attack (the Nintendo Power guide may refer to it as the "Grand Cavern") there is an inexplicable area with pure darkness where you really can't navigate it without blind guesswork or a guide (and even at that, with more guesswork). The objective is to obtain one missile and one energy tanks (granted, you don't ''have'' to pick up every collectible in the game). There is no illumination whatsoever, the only thing visible out of the black void is Samus's Morph Ball and her bombs. Because of this, there's no way to even tell whether you're going left or right besides laying bombs and seeing if they are trailing you (in which case you're still bearing in the direction you're holding on the D-pad) or if they're stationary (in which case, so are you). There are similar areas in other Zelda and Metroid games, but in those they have ''some'' means of illumination (e.g. the lamp in LTTP, firebugs in Super Metroid). You may say that well, the limitations of the Game Boy meant they couldn't simulate degrees of illumination, but at least in the DX mod I'm playing, you can see a low-lit version of it as you transition to another room. So why couldn't they use that and at least have bomb blasts light up your immediate surroundings more? Because I enjoyed the rest of the game, this isn't Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike, but yeah, what were they thinking? If you figure you'd have to be at least an older kid to competently play this relatively intricate and complex game, well, wouldn't most kids (and some adults even!) be put off by an almost totally blind puzzle? Maybe to the point of not wanting to complete the game? One hopes that both remakes of this game injected a modicum of common sense into the area, or perhaps just reworked or cut it entirely.

* In Metroid II, in the area with the Screw Attack (the Nintendo Power guide may refer to it as the "Grand Cavern") there is an inexplicable area with pure darkness where you really can't navigate it without blind guesswork or a guide (and even at that, with more guesswork). The objective is to obtain one missile and one energy tanks (granted, you don't ''have'' to pick up every collectible in the game). There is no illumination whatsoever, the only thing visible out of the black void is Samus's Morph Ball and her bombs. Because of this, there's no way to even tell whether you're going left or right besides laying bombs and seeing if they are trailing you (in which case you're still bearing in the direction you're holding on the D-pad) or if they're stationary (in which case, so are you). There are similar areas in other Zelda and Metroid games, but in those they have ''some'' means of illumination (e.g. the lamp in LTTP, firebugs in Super Metroid). You may say that well, the limitations of the GameBoy meant they couldn't simulate degrees of illumination, but at least in the DX mod I'm playing, you can see a low-lit version of it as you transition to another room. So why couldn't they use that and at least have bomb blasts light up your immediate surroundings more? Because I enjoyed the rest of the game, this isn't ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike, but yeah, what were they thinking? If you figure you'd have to be at least an older kid to competently play this relatively intricate and complex game, well, wouldn't most kids (and some adults even!) be put off by an almost totally blind puzzle? Maybe to the point of not wanting to complete the game? One hopes that both remakes of this game injected a modicum of common sense into the area, or perhaps just reworked or cut it entirely.

** She may have just assumed the Core X died. As ''Dread's'' ending shows, Samus clearly has made incorrect assumptions about the X before.

* So anyways, apparently some people are finding it odd that Samus is wearing high heels in [[VideoGame/SmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Sm4sh]]. I can understand that (because it's impractical - who would wear high heels into ''battle''?) but the thing I find odd is the fact that it's "Sexist" and "Sexualising" to show her wearing High Heels, and is "feminising her"... so why're [[http://Metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Metroid_endings showing Samus in her underwear as a reward to the player for beating the game under certain conditions]], letting her fight in a skin-tight suit and letting her waltz into battle [[http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120603232608/Metroid/images/f/f6/Metroid_Justin_Bailey.png wearing another impractical suit]] okay, but ''not'' high heels? I know I know - RealWomenNeverWearDresses, but how come I've never seen people complain about that kind of stuff?

* So anyways, apparently some people are finding it odd that Samus is wearing high heels in {{VideoGame/SmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Sm4sh}}. I can understand that (because it's impractical - who would wear high heels into ''battle''?) but the thing I find odd is the fact that it's "Sexist" and "Sexualising" to show her wearing High Heels, and is "feminising her"... so why're [[http://Metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Metroid_endings showing Samus in her underwear as a reward to the player for beating the game under certain conditions]], letting her fight in a skin-tight suit and letting her waltz into battle [[http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120603232608/Metroid/images/f/f6/Metroid_Justin_Bailey.png wearing another impractical suit]] okay, but ''not'' high heels? I know I know - RealWomenNeverWearDresses, but how come I've never seen people complain about that kind of stuff?

** Moreover, the only place her height and weight are mentioned is in the ''Metroid II'' manual, which displays 190 cm, 90 kg (6'3, 198 lb) next to a picture of the suit while also describing its various functions. It's possible that the 190 cm/90 kg represents the armor alone, and Samus' own height and weight are a mystery. One person said she's 5'11, 148lbs but did not source it.

*** The Nintendo Power Player's Guide mis-typed, and this has been repeatedly confirmed by Nintendo itself. All specs given from the development teams have always been on the suit itself as 190 cm(6'3) and 90 kg(198-200 lbs), never Samus. Being that you have to account for internal foot lift of two to three inches at the pad, another inch and a half to two inches for the armor boot heel, And then an inch to inch and a half armor thickness, and you get a needed five to six inches required allowance that she has to be smaller than the suit for a snug fit. So Samus herself is no more than 5'9, 5'10 pushing it, which is still a respectably tall height for a woman of implied Irish descent.
*** So the suit is 6'3, made of metal and weighs 198 pounds? Makes sense, if it's especially thin, if it's cybernetic elements and armaments are impossibly light. But those are bigger assumptions than just going with 6'3 198 matching up with expected human BMI and ''Super Metroid'' Samus not being a thin waif meaning she very well could weigh as much at that height. Of course that would also put armored Samus between 6'5 and 6'7. Either way, Samus taller than the average man anyway you try to slice it. Even if you think "without the power suit" and "personal data" are both typos, the suit [[https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Samus_Aran?file=Samus_Aran_Varia_suit_Super_Metroid_Player%27s_Guide_1994.jpg only allows for about four inches]] of extra height. Samus outside of the power suit is 5'11 at minimum, 6'3 at maximum unless the illustration is a typo as well.
** Here's another head-scratcher regarding her height; if Samus is 6'3", how freaking TALL must Anthony Higgs be, considering he's about a head or so taller? The Metroid Wiki even lists his height as "at least 7 to ''8''" feet...are GF Troopers on steroids or something? Adam and the rest of the 07th also seem slightly taller than her, though I'm willing to write that off as an artifact of the perspective in some of the cutscenes.

** At the very least, the armor adds to her height quite noticeably. In "Other M," when in the armor Samus towers over Adam Malkovich, but without the armor, she's a few inches shorter than him.

** Also, don't forget that Samus's physiology is quite different from a humans. It's possible she's simply a lot more dense.
*** Or less dense, making her weight less despite (apparently) increased muscle mass and function. Muscle is typically denser than fat, so someone with more muscle may actually weight more than someone of the same height with more body fat who's actually overall larger. Also, when discussing "weight" in a science fiction series, you have to ask "what planet?" as weight is a function of mass affected by gravity. Earth's moon has one-quarter the gravity of Earth, so a 200-pound person on the moon would only weight 50 pounds, while their mass is unchanged. Samus may be less dense, and thus have less mass in kilograms than her 6'3" height and extremely athletic (even superhuman) musculature would imply, since a lot of her physique is apparently informed by her infusion of Chozo DNA. And the Chozo are a bird people. . .
*** Planets are irrelevant to calculating weight so long as enough gravity is present to move a scale. The grams, pounds, what have you, they will always come out the same regardless of gravity so long as the scale still functions. The mass doesn't change. Planetary gravity becomes factor when comparing how much effort it takes to move any given number of your unit of choice compared to a planet with different gravity.(I lifted 200 pounds on the moon, which was like lifting fifty on the Earth)

** In the 2D games, the Morph Ball is exactly half Samus' standing height, which is quite plausible - a reasonably flexible human in the fetal position can fold him/herself down even a bit smaller than that. (I did the research and discovered that a 5'4" female folds down to about 2'6", 2'4" if she really pushes it.) Thus, the Morph Ball mod just reforms portions of the armor into a sphere around curled-up Samus, who's basically doing somersaults inside it. As for the Prime games, the Morph Ball looks teeny-tiny due to camera angle. If you roll right up against a door or some other object of regular height and watch the fold/unfold animations, the ball is still right around half her standing height.
*** Just to nitpick, the Metroid 3 Morph Ball is somewhat less than 1/2 her height, because Samus is roughly 2.5 blocks high in that game.

*** We get a great view in Metroid Prime. When she unlocks it, she curls up in a completely reasonable way, starts to spin quickly and glow, and then the two halves come to cover her. No contortions or folded space requires.

*** Incidentally, this would be a few inches shy of two meters. The canon diameter for the Morph Ball is one meter, so it actually adds up and even accounts for an inch or two of armor plating.

*** Well, although I'm personally in favor of the ghost/energy/spatial folding explanations, its possible that instead of constantly flipping inside the ball, she could be in a stationary position and there could be an outer layer which does all the spinning, and she navigates via her external sensors.

*** That explanation's from the ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'' fancomic ''Metroid: Third Derivative'', which is decidedly Fanon, even if the author did get a [[IKnewIt surprising amount of things right]] about ''Prime 3''

*** Other M has Samus actually shift into green energies that materialize into the Morph Ball though. Now a scary thought is what happens if Samus has a panic-attack like she did when facing Ridley... while in Morph Ball mode.

** Agreed. The original Power Suit isn't bad in any of its appearances, and even if you look at the sprite change from Zero to Power/Varia in Zero Mission, the shoulder spacing remains approximately equal if you account for the extra armor at the shoulders (pay attention to the angle of her upper arms, it's just about the same). On the other hand, the Fusion Suit's shoulders are so broad as to be ridiculous, and unlike the other suits, the Fusion model can't claim that the spread is due to shoulder pads, armor layers or anything else. Apparently the X parasite doomed Samus to a lifetime of crippling musculoskeletal issues.
** See [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/File:PowerSuit_Diagram.jpg this picture]] from the Metroid Wiki for a nice x-ray view of the suit that actually makes sense when it comes to shoulders. The sleeker Prime look, though? No idea.
*** There exists a cross section of the Prime suit, and I recall it showing that Samus' armpits are actually a good deal above the joint of the upper arm armor and flank.
* How can the Galatic Federation seem so helpless to the Space Pirates in a good portion of the Metroid games, but somehow stepped up and kick ass as much as Samus in the third Prime game? I wouldn't say that since they could use Phazon as a weapon that they suddenly gained courage to fight harder because I saw many non Phazon troopers fight just as much.

** GF Troopers are war machines, plain and simple. They are designed, trained and equipped to fight medium and large scale battles and be victorious through superior tactics and numbers, if not technology. When Samus encounters them (and watches them die a lot), they're usually isolated or pinned down, which is always a bad situation. Samus is called in for missions where a) the situation is unknown, b) a large scale attack would be catastrophic, or c) her expertise in a particular field is well-known (space pirates, metroids, phazon). In short, GF Troopers are dedicated to straight-up action. Samus is dedicated to straight-up infiltration and sabotage, as well as recon.

** The vaccine I believe is not the same kind you would use to cure a person. Think of the vaccine for the [=AUs=] like using an anti-virus on your computer. Also, remember that the medic tells Samus that the Phazon in the hunters' bodies didn't pose any threat at first, so they could use it to go into hyper mode at any time. They only realized the dangers later after Samus first experiences phazon overload on Bryyo and concluded that the same thing probably happened to the other hunters. On top of that, the Phazon in Samus and the others came directly from Dark Samus, so it's safe to assume that she (Dark Samus) would try to control the hunters once they were weakened by too much Phazon use.

** Different poisons work differently on different species. A virus that kills mold probably won't hurt jellyfish. The virus was made to take down Aurora units, not augmented humans in adaptive exoskeleton power suits. The federation had plenty of time to come up with a cure for their computers, they didn't have time for Samus, plus Samus's condition, while dangerous to her own health, was still beneficial to a Federation in crisis.

* And for that matter, why does Samus just lose all upgrades whilst somehow escaping from the exploding Phaaze [[OffscreenTeleportation OFFSCREEN]], most of them lost Technology? Her Power Suit may be the epitome of adaptable technology and protection, but it loses all upgrades when a bee just touches it. Maybe that's why the Chozo scattered 20 million upgrades all over any galaxies.

** In Metroid Prime the Chozo Lore describes Samus's equipment as ancient weapons. Acquiring a plasma wave is the equivalent of digging through some ancient ruins and finding a knife. The Chozo giving the screw attack to the reptilicus would be like you showing someone a wheel. The Chozo have advanced for better things and most of the creatures they left behind aren't smart enough to make use of what they left behind. That old knife you find? It'll probably break because its so old, so her ancient powerups likely tend to wear out.

** She leaves it all back at the Samuscave and just travels with what she needs? If she does need anything that got left behind.. Well, the chozo left their spare powersuit parts EVERYWHERE for just such an event. (I doubt samus would sell any of it, don't want any of that stuff in the wrong hands if you can help it)

** Samus opens doors by shooting them which, I'm assuming, isn't the normal, proper way of operating a security door. The pirates presumably have swipe cards or retina scans or RFID tags or something to let the doors know when someone authorized is trying to get through. Shooting them simply serves as a manual override, and as Metroid Prime indicates, the material of the door determines what kind of stimulus will cause a short in the "door go open now" circuit.

** Probably because it glows. What would be really cool is if they flew through the gap between the two armor halves, and the ball of energy in the center fried them like a bug zapper.

* In the prime series, all of the elevators go down, if you're going to a new area. Now, this would be fine, but you go down, don't flip, and then you're in open sky! This bothers me to no end, and it gets really rattling in Prime 2, when you take an elevator down and end up at the summit of a MOUNTAIN!
** Presumably the "going down" cutscene only shows part of the trip- there are likely some parts where the elevator goes sideways, or there are boring empty corridors between elevators that we don't need to play. Also, some elevators DO go up.
** I always wondered how anything can survive riding the elevators in ''Prime 2: Echoes.'' The damned things are ''rocket powered,'' and they go from zero to full speed and then back to a full stop instantaneously - by rights the passenger(s), even those in super-powered armor, ought to be smeared across the ceiling or splattered on the platform. Apparently nobody ever explained inertia or momentum to the Luminoth...
*** Well, when heading downward, they actually use the rockets to slow down. Yes, upwards should be a trip into splattter land, but not downwards.

** In fairness, Retro themselves presumably realized these issues, phasing out elevators in ''Prime 3'' in favor of [[WarpWhistle Samus's ship]] (for both single-planet and interplanetary travel) and things like the Pirates' shuttle trains.
* Speaking of the cliff, such as Sanctuary Fortress, just how does the Luminoth create the visual electronic illusion? (the surrounding environment, like all the way down)

* Anyone else notice that Samus' armor isn't radiopaque? In both ''Prime'' and ''Prime 3,'' you can clearly see the bones in her hands and arms ''through her armor'' with the X-ray visor. How she hasn't died of radiation poisoning multiple times over, I cannot begin to guess - a material that can't stop low-energy X-rays certainly won't be stopping anything higher-energy, such as neutrons, high-energy X-rays or gamma rays, and might not even be able to deal with beta particles. Oops.

*** Okay, I'll bite. 1) What form of radiation is the visor detecting that can penetrate armor plate but not bone? 2) Why doesn't it penetrate any other metal in the environment? 3) Why doesn't it penetrate the Pirates' armor? Bonus points for not using AppliedPhlebotinum.
*** The Pirates don't have endo-skeletons, just the enhanced exo-skeletons. No bones to see in them.
*** It's a very advanced MRI, mmkay?
** Theres no "probably" about it. Quite simply X-Rays do not work that way. Think about every time you've ever had an X-Ray. The doctor wasn't able to see an image of you in some kind of monitor on the machine. Instead, X-Rays capable of passing through flesh but not bone are projected through you and onto a photographic film. A major property of X-Rays is that they develop photographic film, which is how they get an image of the skeletal structure. The reason they are shown like that in fiction is because people associate X-Rays with being able to see through things. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) ''does'' allow one to see through things, and is used for procedures where X-Rays would be unfeasible or dangerous (such as scanning the brain for tumours or aneurisms). Its either that, or some fictional kind of radiation with properties that allow it to see through armour but not bone (maybe the electron structure of calcium ions or something), as well as being ''highly'' reflective, so that it will come back to the visor after being emitted.

** The issues with the x-ray visor seeing through armor but not bone can probably be answered fairly simply by her genetic modifications. Samus was infused with Chozo DNA. Her bones might have some traces of heavy metals in them that reinforce their structure while adding a small amount of weight, while also making them more reflective to x-rays. It would also explain how she survives the superfast elevators in Echoes.
** What's bothering me is this: Who says that it has to use X-rays to be called an X-ray Visor. Its not like all those X-ray goggles you hear so much shoot out X-rays. Why can't it be a highly advanced scanning system, allowing it to penetrate substances it is familiar with? Considering they have spaces stations and ships all over the galaxy that the can somehow get to at a moments notice, this seems plausible.

** How about this; It is indeed an advanced scanning system, and there's plenty of evidence for that as established in universe "X-ray" is simply a slang term for a device that can see through things in that way.

* The events of ''Metroid Prime'', and indeed the Prime subseries as a whole, began when Samus responded to an open distress signal coming from a research vessel. It turned out to belong to the Space Pirates, so she blasted them repeatedly and then followed their evacuating leader to one of their newer bases of operation. Let me say that again. The ''Space Pirates'', [[AlwaysChaoticEvil galactic menaces]], sent out an ''open distress signal''. What were they ''thinking?''

** The Pirates have always bordered on being TooDumbToLive, the distress call being just one more example. They even start lampshading it by ''Prime 2,'' in which you start seeing individual Pirate logs busting on the colossal stupidity of High Command and the Science Team. ("Science Team thinks the metroids can be domesticated... I think Science Team has vapor for brains; I've already lost five troopers to the miserable little parasites.")
** The distress signals were most likely encrypted, like most of their data. Samus is seen to have technology to break their encryption (which the Pirates eventually realize, exasperating them to no end), which would have allowed her to know that there was a vulnerable pirate research station within range.
** Wasn't the distress signal she picked up automated? The computer realizing some of the escape pods had been launched? But even assuming the pirates intentionally sent out the distress call, they might have counted on their ability to overwhelm most people who might have responded.

** I always just assumed the whole Distress Call was a means to lure do-gooders into a trap. Judging from the situation when Samus arrives, it might just be an attempt at luring weak targets in gone wrong.

*** They aren't insectoid, their armour just looks like that. When you seem them without it they're clearly reptilian.

** As a side note, I'm fond of the theory that, after they lost Pirate Homeworld (best planet name ever) to the Galactic Federation, they needed help. The Kihunters offered it. This caused a great deal of confusion for the Federation, as the Kihunters were also space pirates. In order to clear things up, they hastily named the original race after their sole remaining base. Thus, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion call them "Zebesians".

*** The Space pirates ''aren't'' a single species; they're a criminal empire made up of several different species. The Space Pirate mooks in the Prime series are a different species than the ones in the 2D games, which is why the former are reptilian while the latter are more Insectile=Crustacean. The 2D game Space Pirates are canonically called Zebesians, but they aren't FROM Zebes. They just appropriated the name after conquering it, the same way that most people who call themselves "American" are actually 100% European in all but place of birth.

*** I'm pretty sure it's indeed confirmed that Space Pirates aren't one single species. They're one big crime organization that calls itself the Space Pirates. So far there are three major Space Pirate types featured in the series. 1) Insectoid, better known as the Zebesians, appear in all the 2D games, Prime 2 and Other M. 2) Reptilian, featured in Prime 1. 3) Insect/Reptile hybrid, featured in Prime 3, though they may be the same as the regular reptilian variant, except less bulky. If they are a different species then it would explain why Elite Pirates and Berserker Knights look so different. Ridley is also of a completely different species than most other Space Pirates, same goes for Kraid. It's safe to assume that the Space Pirates are a syndicate of amoral species that work together.
*** It has already been confirmed in [[http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/08/06/the-art-of-prime?page=5 developer interviews that the Space Pirates "are" a single species]]. It's just that they are quite diverse (like dogs and humans, albeit far more exaggerated). It's also worth noting that they do perform genetic experiments on themselves in order to increase their combat ability, which might also further explain their visual diversity.

*** I have a theory regarding this. Essentially, every time you fall in either series, you lose health and are then returned to start, yeah? Easy fix: In Zelda games, Link is warped out of certain death, but the spell needs life energy to run so fast. Same deal for Metroid, except it only pulls from the suits shields to activate the teleport module. The only hole in this logic is why she couldn't just use the short range teleport all the time, but probably doesn't to conserve her shielding. Also, the 'oof' probably means it doesn't cancel the kinetic motion. so she still smacks the ground at her maximum fall speed, which her suits inertial dampers took on.

** Knowing the space pirates, chances are good they got bit in the butt with karmic retribution. They discovered through some means about either the X parasite (Something they could have encountered before on [=SR388=]), or about that small lab module stuck off all on it's lonesome on the station, with its supply of goodies, and decided to raid pillage and plunder it. Plus, it's a Federation Science Lab, out in the open without escort. Easy pickings, it would seem to the casual pirate: Lot's of salvageable tech and information for Science Team, and a space station to create a Space Pirate base of operations that could sail through Federation Space without getting shot out of the sky. This idea held true and was panning out, right up until they got eaten by the X. See also: Metroid Prime (Parasite Queens), Echoes (the Ing), and whatever shot them in the face in Corruption.

*** This is true, but what about the fact that ''every other sector on the space station'' is carrying organisms from Zebes? Isn't that extremely suspicious? When did BSL get all of these samples? When the planet was a space pirate hive? Or when it went from being a space pirate hive to a slightly charred asteroid field?

*** That wasn't established until ''Other M'', which was released after this JBM was written. Even with that game in mind, considering how many problems stemmed from Ridley accidentally being cloned, would they really want to do it deliberately? Despite this group's Zebesian work, their goal wasn't to recreate the Space Pirate organization as a whole. (At least, it shouldn't have been. The plot is sounding more and more like a HandWave to recreate all of Samus's classic threats in an effort to prolong the series, isn't it?)
** Alternate, less stupid theory: The Pirates knew that metroids originated on [=SR388=] from the first Federation survey ship way-back-when. (That was the catalyst event for the original ''Metroid,'' as quoted in the manual. The Feds had just discovered [=SR388=] and sent a survey expedition, which got hijacked en route back to Earth along with their research specimens - including a handful of metroids in stasis). Samus exterminated the Pirates' original metroid stash on Zebes, but the High Command wasn't about to let metroids go so easily and mounted their own expedition to [=SR388=] to capture more. This was the origin of the Tallon metroid line, and may explain why the Tallon metroids (as seen on Tallon IV and Aether) look strikingly different from the Zebes version (smaller, more color variance, get killed by lots of weapons instead of ice+ missile only, etc). During that mission, some hapless Pirate trooper got attacked by X; Pirate command never noticed because they were losing troops left and right to the local wildlife. Since X reproduce asexually and retain the genomes of all their past victims, it's plausible that at least one clonal line retaining the Pirate genome made it to BSL. When Samus started kicking all their lower-order forms around, the X switched to forms with better combat capability, including that of the Space Pirate. Voila.

*** The Ridley-X battle begins with [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Ridley-X1.png the corpse]] becoming [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Ridley-X3.png the one you fight]]. Also, the Fish and Pirate X combining in a [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Merman Pirate]]. The X ''can'' change the shape of their "hosts".

** A lot of the pirates you meet are in the station's reactor area. Perhaps their true intention was to sabotage the station, causing it to crash into the planet below, destroying all life! Because seriously, even space pirates should be able to tell that the place is a shithouse.
*** Aren't these the same space pirates that designed their own ships and bases with doors that they themselves cannot open quickly in an emergency? Space pirates are generally portrayed as dumber than a space sack of space bricks, ''especially'' the command wing (Ridley excluded). Someone high-up could've given the order to sack [=BSL=], the {{Red Shirt}}s grumbled and complained and saw just how risky attempting to loot an obviously compromised research station would be, but still went through with their orders as an alternative to [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-101308.php being launched into the nearest sun.]] Common sense isn't the SP's stock and trade.

** My best guess is that the X on [=SR388=] somehow got ahold of Pirate DNA, or possibly the Feds had samples on the BSL. As for Ridley... We know that the one you fight is just a copy, but I've always believed that the frozen one wasn't the real one either. Maybe the Feds were studying a clone they had made? Then again, we know he's in Other M, which is between Super and Fusion, so we may get to see how they got Ridley into the BSL.
** Other M might have explained this one. It's revealed that the Galactic Federation had been experimenting on Zebesians, cybernetically enhancing them to be used as bioweapons. As one would expect, this went horribly wrong, mostly due to Ridley's unexpected appearance. So it might be that they were continuing said experiments on BSL...since Ridley wasn't going to be an issue, seeing as how he was dead and (just in case) frozen solid, they probably thought they would succeed this time around. Then the X Parasites came.

** Unless one of them smuggled inside Samus' ship(which didn't happen do to the ship being able to detect them), they were blown to smithereens. It's hard to survive a space station crash. Followed by it self-destructing. And taking the planet it crashed into with it.
*** Simple. They weren't there. Adam was lying about how many there were in order to scare you and get you off the station. (After hearing this, you pretty much have free reign to explore the rest of the station, but you'll never see any more SA-X until the endgame. If there were really so many of them, it would be possible to run into them.)

*** No, they're definitely gone. One got nom'd by metroids. One of them was absorbed by Samus, and the other eight were blown up with BSL, [=SR388=], and the rest of the X.

*** Because Adam says an explosion the size of the BSL will kill X parasites caught in it and one big enough to take a planet will kill all of them in the area. Individual X are shown to be slightly affected by the power bomb. Not damaged but they are still moved by the blast, maybe once the bangs get too big their defenses just can't take it? Draining their energy just seems like a ''much'' preferred and safer method than planet sized explosions.
*** Maybe the X are vulnerable to radiation. A station that size probably ran on one or more nuclear reactors of some description. The ColonyDrop turned those reactors into makeshift nuclear weapons, potentially irradiating the entire surface of the planet and roasting the X (and everything else on SR-388) into radioactive glass. (Could that be what they meant by "destroyed" when talking about SR-388? Ecologically ruined as opposed to physically destroyed?)
* Also, is there a chance that Samus will regain her traditional armor in the next move forward in the series? the Fusion Armor looked neat and all in the promotionals, but it looked kind of silly in the 3d rendering that Retro put in Prime.
** Of course. The fusion suit only looked like that because it was a regular suit that had been stripped down- she was in such a rush to get into action after her X-ectomy that she didn't have time to replace the removed parts which later became the SA-X, and during the game itself she was a bit preoccupied with weapons, ammo, and functional armor boosts (gravity suit, for example) to get bits that presumably add only extra defense and/or comfort. Presumably at some point before the next chronological game, she'll get new shoulder pads and an outer armor layer. The Chozo certainly seem to have left enough junk behind for her to replace pretty much anything, at any rate, if Prime 3 gives a reasonable sample of planets.

*** Chozo Survive, just not as Samus would know them. Lore specifically states they go beyond their old limits and leave. They come back when Phazon hits Tallon IV, but then end up leaving again when it starts making them go crazy.

*** The arm spikes are supposed to be reminiscent of metroid teeth and the [[http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080714195104/metroid/images/c/cb/FusionSuit_Perspectives1.PNG three-eyed....thing]] is supposed to be reminiscent of the three "energy stores" you can see inside the metroids. Remember, her suit is at least partially biological, and was fused to her during the healing process. Both her and her suit have been heavily changed by the Metroid Vaccine.

*** What do we know about her regular beam? The bullets are very slow, very bright, and they cause her nozzle to smoke. Looks like some kind of hot fluid to me (fuel gel?).
*** Look carefully: that wavy effect isn't smoke, it's a mirage caused by excess heat coming off the barrel. Of course, that shouldn't happen in depressurized environments (Frigate Orpheon, GFS ''Valhalla'') since there's no atmosphere to set up the convection effect, but oh well...

* Not a gameplay/story issue, but did anyone else find the Phendrana Drifts in Prime to be almost emotionally draining? the combination of the music and frozen wasteland had an Ecco-ish induced feeling isolation for me.

* In Metroid Fusion, Samus is attacked by the X and, as she claims, some parts of her armor are surgically removed, radically altering her physical appearance... This is a way to explain how the Samus from fusion is different from her Prime version... but how is possible that she turn from [[http://www.nbrid.net/images/other/photo_samus0.jpg THIS]] to [[http://thisischris.com/feature/2005/img/metroidfusion12.png THIS]]? No Just No.

* On that subject, this long-haired troper would like to know how she manages to fit all of that hair into her helmet and how it all falls out again without tangling or catching on something. Most people would shave their head under such circumstances.

*** Agreed. Think about it, considering HOW MUCH R&D dollars we already spend on penis pills, bust enhancement, and hair care products, there's no doubt much of modern-day hygienical troubles have been solved in the future! And then you add Chozo tech into the mix (at least for members of the military) and you have bodily maintenance that is quite possibly even easier than The Jetsons, even when in the midst of battle. See also TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 or at least the Sisters anyway (since most of the men have standard military cuts.)

** Also agreed. I've always thought the long blond hair didn't really go so well the 'this is not glamor-girl, this is a real warrior' vibe she had going on. [[http://images.wikia.com/metroid/images/e/ea/MOM_boxart.png The newer game]] does something about this.
* I know I read in some game description or guide book that Samus had a living suit. This was supported in that the X of Metroid Fusion, who copy the DNA of their victims, could replicate the Power Suit down to the visor in under 5 seconds. But besides maybe the Ing being living things using her weapons, this really isn't shown evidence anywhere else. [[RetCon is it is or is it not?]]

*** Umm... I think that her suit thing was told by Sakamoto's FAQ(You can read it in Metroid Database) not the manga...(And it would make sense why it always disappears when she dies)

*** Yes they did, they replicated it ten times. A core X forms itself into a fully armored Samus right before her eyes before taking on Omega Metroid.
*** Keeping in mind that in this series, phazon can corrupt machines, and ing can posess machines.. so might as well let X replicate machines too. Chozo statues anyone?

** My guess is that the ice beam can freeze enemies in midair by the use of anti-grav particles in the shot. Of course, this will get shot down rather quickly.
** According to ''Hunters'', the Judicator is near Absolute Zero. Since the Ice Beam is better in every way, it presumably just broke physics rather spectacularly. ''Absolute freakin' Zero.''

** For what it's worth, In other M flying enemies hit with the freeze beem now freeze and clatter to the floor insteaed of staying aloft. Some shatter, some don't.
** Rundas had the ability to generate ice and control the movement of the ice he generated. Metroid Fusion showed that several biological creatures had abilities similar to the power suits, such as Serris to the speed booster. The ice beam was likely based on Rundas's species, or at least off the same in story principle, and likely could have further upgrades to go beyond merely suspending things in air (and it does if you use the power bomb ice beam combo in Super Metroid)

*** See, that's not true. I'm not sure about other games heated areas, but in Super Metroid, the Ice Beam actually does freeze enemies for a shorter time in Norfair than other areas.
* And what about THE BOMB in her Morph Ball mode... Did she crap them? Of course, this is Badass, but still...

*** "You want a piece of me? Well, ''here you go''!" (Personal theory: Small sample of charged explosive dropped through the morph ball shell. Only a very small amount of the actual material is needed, and it's possible that it can be regenerated over time- for example, plant or protista matter [fungus is too {{Squick}} to suggest]. This or the limitation on charges is what keeps Samus from using more than three morph ball bombs in quick succession.)

** I don't think the suit ''is'' entirely airtight. It likely has some sort of pressure system, where it seals up automatically in increased pressure of being underwater or the decreased pressure of vacuum, but if you'll recall, poison gas hurts Samus in the Prime series, so in regular environments with breathable atmosphere, there is apparently some openings, probably filtered, for breathing air. The X probably got in through there.

*** Except that it was acidic gas, and the suit has an energy field around it. So it somehow got past the shields, through the armor, into the organic parts, and then got to Samus herself?

*** Also, the energy shielding may only protect against energy weapons, while the armor is designed to handle everything else that gets thrown at her. Note that all of the ''Prime'' games feature all kinds of materials getting on Samus' armor, notably her helmet's faceplate (water, bug guts, trash-disposal... um, liquids), which indicates that the shielding isn't deflecting those materials away. Thus the X, being organic and not affected by the shielding, would only have had to get through the armor at some previously mentioned weak point.
*** This then raises the question of why physical attacks still drain energy from the shield. Samus takes nearly the same amount of damage from a high-powered beam as a punch from the Omega Pirate. The only way this is possible is if the shield blocks them, too. In addition, the shield has blocked such things as ghostly attacks and demonic possession, and that Omega punch should have tossed Samus across the room, but didn't. The materials themselves don't damage Samus, but merely obscure the visor and seem to cover the entire suit. Perhaps the shield essentailly "hardens" when hit by a physical attack, and those substances can stick to it when this happens. Maybe the X simply wasn't registered as a threat, and the shield didn't react. They sre microscopic, after all.
*** About that demonic possession: Samus's armor wasn't initially able to resist Ing possession on its own. Samus needed to acquire the Luminoth's Energy Transfer Module from the possessed creature sent to steal the last of Aether's energy to be able to resist. Strangely, I don't think it was ever explained just what in the module itself would prevent possession. During the short time before she gets it, I don't think the Ing had even bothered attempting to add her to their forces.

*** If that were true, and I don't think the module protecting Samus was ever said, the Ing would not have been able to steal it or possess the Alpha Splinter, since his Dark form had it. The more likely explanation is that either Samus or the suit is simply unable to be possessed due to Chozo foresight/wizarding or sheer willpower.

*** I think the transfer module doesn't do anything to the Ing. If it did, they wouldn't be able to use it to steal Aether's energy. Since it's made of light, though, when Samus added it to her suit, it basically made it immpossible for Ing to possess her. I imagine the light has a [[WeakenedByTheLight burning effect]]...
*** It is stated in-game that holding the transfer module immunizes you to possession. The Ing can take it and use it just fine, such as the one leading the final attack on U-Mos that possessed an Alpha Splinter, they just can't possess whatever being is holding it. [[RecursiveReality Which means that particular Ing couldn't be possessed by its fellow Ing]], because I heard you like Ings but we can't put an Ing in your Ing.

* Who packed BSL with enough explosive charges to take a ''planet'' with it when the self-destruct goes off? Whoever they are, they have [[MemeticMutation vapor for brains]].
** BSL is full of biological weapons. The explosives are either there for sterilization purposes (in case something escapes; which is exactly what happened) or the BSL itself is a weapon.

*** Actually, the self-destruct explosives seem to be much more powerful than the reactor overloading- that's exactly the reasoning ADAM gives to why you have to stop the reactor overloard earlier on. But as said above, BSL is packed with all kinds of top secret bio-weapons, special projects of dubious legality and some of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy, a thorough self-destruct has several purposes: a containment failsafe, a reason for invaders to be hesitant to use heavy weapons, and plausible deniability.

*** The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually ''[[https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/metroid/images/5/5b/BSL_research_station.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20070723165250 [=SR388=]'s asteroid moon]]''. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam ''rammed it'' straight into [=SR388=], and detonating the core would have finished the job.
*** In a Watsonian sense, it may have been a combination of the explosion and the impact. There's a decent chance that the station is both large enough to be analagous to an extinction-level meteor, and have shielding to keep it from burning up in atmosphere, and if things were timed right- which they probably were- and the self destruct went off the moment it hit the planet, it would increase the force with which it hit the planet. Like a bullet hitting an egg.
** The planet wasn't completely destroyed. The station became a meteor like the one that took out the dinosaurs, causing SR-388 to fall into a nuclear winter as the reactors' fallout and impact debris overcasts the atmosphere and rains down. The surface of SR-388, and all X in the universe, are now radioactive glass. It's as good as destroyed as the radiation precludes all attempts to go back on the planet for at least the next thousand years.
* Ok, so your mission in Super Metroid for the SNES was to rescue the captured Metroid from Ridley. You fail, as the metroid sacrifices itself to save your life and give you the power to destroy Mother Brain. Alright, I'm cool with that. What confuses me is that, having left the planet sans Metroid, it still says "The mission was completed successfully". The hell it was!

** [[spoiler: In the first Metroid, Samus's mission is to destroy the Pirate leadership. Kraid, Ridley, and Mother Brain all get better. In Metroid 2, she's sent to annihilate the Metroids, and brings one back for study. Super sends her to recover the infant Metroid, which is destroyed (ironically, Mother Brain completes Samus's second mission for her by doing this). Fusion has her helping an investigation team on [=SR388=], which directly results in the infestation of the X parasite on the station, riding in on her armor. Other M, she investigates a distress signal on a mission to rescue survivors, and winds up destroying the entire station, as well as recovering only 50% of the survivors in question.]] Can we just say that Samus sucks at her job?
*** Her mission in the first Metroid was to destroy all Metroids on Planet Zebes and Mother Brain. She did that quite handily; nearly eliminating Pirate activity on Zebes for at least the period of the Prime Trilogy and perhaps even Metroid II with both destroying Tourian and destroying the Pirate Ship in Zero Mission. Also, if every job she did resolved simply, that wouldn't be very [[RuleOfFun entertaining.]]

*** [[GameplayAndStorySegregation There are no energy drops in-canon:]] Like the lethal falls described above, Samus never actually loses enough damage to need a recharge from anything but her suit.
*** There might not be energy drops ''anymore'', but they were intended according to the first game's manual. On the other hand, that same manual also said the space pirates ''feared'' Samus's suit for this very reason so maybe they did something to ensure she would not be getting any pickups from them? (The floating electro balls, eye scanners and Iron Ted still leave pickups for some reason)
* I know this only from word of mouth, but in Metroid Prime 3, if you don't get through the one Pirate Homeworld part with four guys, Admiral Dane says something like "We don't have enough guys, we need to pull out", and then you just randomly die. Would it have killed them to at least have a pirate or something parachute his way in and laser you to pieces with a high-powered particle beam?
** Because if they did, someone would inevitably ask why didn't the parachuting particle beam Pirate parachute down and particle beam Samus at the earliest opportunity. If you've got a cool parachuting particle beam Pirate at your disposal, surely you'd want him to parachute and particle beam folk at any time, rather than an arbitrary point in time that just happens to be conductive to parachute particle-beaming.
*** I will PAY you to say this three times fast.
** What problem did they have with making you go back to the rendezvous and get more bombers, then return?
** Like many things, GameplayAndStorySegregation: Samus didn't fuck up. The instant death is just a flimsy way to show that you failed, and force you to succeed.

** I'd assume he wasn't completely skeletoniced while he was swimming there, but by the time he jumps out all of his flesh had disolved. Doesn't quite explain how he managed to jump out, tho.

** I think the Metroid got in there, was mutated by the Phazon, and Space Pirates got him some weapons. I think.
** My theory is that there wasn't a Metroid inside it. The Leviathan crashed into the planet and enthralled a Metroid already there as its Guardian, the same thing that happened to Mogenar, Helios, and Ridley. This Metroid ended up eating the Leviathan core and fusing with it, becoming nearly unrecognizable as a Metroid. Chozo lore never mentions that the Worm came with the meteor, just that it appeared afterwards in the Impact Crater. The only problem is that there is no evidence of Metroids on Tallon IV prior to the meteor. That doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any, but it's hard to prove.
** This is why ''Trilogy's'' ret-con regarding the Pirates' knowledge of Prime's existence creates more problems than it solves. The original NTSC version explained why there was a mutant Metroid in the Impact Crater, as well as why it had "''mechanical''" weapons as well as organic ones.
*** None of the weapons are explicitly mechanical. Given what some other fully-organic bosses pull, the only evidence we have that Prime's weapons are mechanical is the NTSC version saying they are.
** Prime 3 shows that there are Metroid Primes on Phaaze. I'm guessing one got in before the Leviathan "launched" and made it to Tallon IV. It became the guardian, absorbed phazon faster than the core could produce, absorbed the core, and essentially began self-producing phazon. Still doesn't explain the mechanical weapons, but the ret-con may have removed the fact that they're mechanical in nature and not natural.
*** Those Primes were probably evolved from the Pirate's Metroid stock. Dark Samus knew how powerful Phazon Metroids were. She just killed any that mutated enough to reach Prime level because she didn't want to be challenged.
** My guess is it's not ACTUALLY a metroid, but its behaviour is similar to a really large, planet-munching metroid, so they just called it the Metroid Prime.
*** It could very well be a metroid. Remember the variety in Metroid II: Return of Samus and Metroid Fusion? You have the Queen, the Omega metroid, and all those other weird looking ones in the background of Fusion when you discover metroids were being bred.
* Okay; Samus was genetically modified to survive living on Zebes, mainly due to the atomsphere and the harsh ''acid'' rain that's common in the Craterian ''acid'' rain storms. Even Space Pirates are never seen in the Zebesian ''acid'' rain, though Samus can actually survive the ''acid'' rain in just her Zero Suit and without an umbrella. So. Space Pirate Homeworld: How in the chrome-handled, double-barreled, fuel-injected, special limited edition '''hell''' does the ''acid'' rain '''seriously''' harm Samus? Logic dictates that the Space Pirates should have some tolerance to the atmospheric acidity in the air (Otherwise they wouldn't have survived long enough on the planet to develop Hazard Shields), but the rain there cuts through Samus like Occam's Razor through a poorly constructed metaphor.

** Did someone say IncrediblyLamePun? ...No, really: the whole business of "acid" in the series works a lot better if you read "acid" as "corrosive chemical solution, makeup unknown." If you're insistent on using the Bronsted-Lowry acid definition, there are tons of those to choose from. Hydrofluoric acid, for example, is arguably much more corrosive than sulfuric acid, despite being chemically much weaker. HF in pretty much any concentration will readily dissolve glass, many plastics, and every metal except iridium, whereas even concentrated [=H2SO4=] does nothing to glass, the higher-strength plastics, lead or tungsten. About the only commonly available materials HF won't dissolve are polyethylene and Teflon. To that end, if HF is what's raining down on Urtragia, Samus isn't going to be going for a stroll in it, super armor or no. (That explanation also makes sense in-game, since you can see the exterior metal of the Pirate base is ''actually smoking'' where it gets rained on.)
*** There's a reason the Pirate Homeworld is an EternalEngine except for the Leviathan- everything else gets ''melted away''. It's possible that the acid rain has corrosive Phazon content too, given how deeply it's infected the planet.

** Actually, it's simple - we don't play through the day-to-day life of Samus bounty hunting because it would consist of her easily smacking around thugs and ne'er-do-wells with pistols while she's wearing powered armor and carrying the arsenal of a small European country on her. We only play through the portions of her life where she's not bounty hunting because nothing else could challenge her.
*** Please, we all know if they wanted to make a Metroid game about bounty hunting they would just throw in yet another contrived reason for Samus losing all of her upgrades (probably after an easy introductory mission where she has all her weapons to help her apprehend the thug). When she starts out the games without equipment, the local equivalents of ''porcupines'' and ''bats'' are a threat to her. I think a bunch of criminals prominent enough to get bounties on their heads would be competent enough to put up a fight against her in that state. Especially if they hide out in wild areas (so Samus can do her usual dealing-with-the-local-flora-and-fauna thing) or if they are members of criminal organization with a lot of mooks to throw at her.
*** From a gameplay standpoint, perhaps, but in the canon story of Metroid the above described scenario makes absolutely no sense. Zoomers have ''never'' been a threat to Samus, no matter what upgrades she has at the time. Even the power beam is stronger than what most other factions have to offer as an anti infantry weapon. Samus is supposed to be the best of the best at what she does, and no criminal, not even one at Sylux's level, has ever been presented as a dire threat.
*** I always just assumed the Federation has an open bounty on any and all Space Pirates.

** Going by super Metroid, no, Kraid seems to be a member of a different species. Similarity to Reptilicus? Could have just evolved to fit similar niches on different planets. Kraid and Reptilicus have different morophology, most noticable in the arms and the belly and the golems are made of living rock. Kraid has scales.

** By "harnessed for the good of galactic civilization" it most likely meant "turned into living batteries", like what the Pirates intended for them as their secondary purpose (after they sucked the life energy from enemies and victims). The Metroids are also more-or-less animals, while the X-parasite is a cunning and relentless thing seeking to escape SR-388 and infest the galaxy (Adam states this during the game).
** That's true, the only plans for Metroids were their energy production. Of course, we all know that Metroids drain life energy from their prey. In order to harvest the energy, the Metroids must be fed with living things. That's an entirely different can of worms, though. Anyway, both Metroids and X are ridiculously dangerous and any help they could provide is outwiegh by the risks by an enormous amount. Adam specifically mentioned the Federation's interest in the X-Parasite's endless ''military'' applications, as well.
** The Metroids are likely to be incredibly interesting biological studies as well, what with their ability to mutate into all kinds of forms and downright impossible anatomy. And they're much, much easier to contain than the X. (read; ''possible'' to contain)
** That and Samus has been fighting Metroids long enough that she no longer really fears them- she knows what to expect from them and what they can do. Metroids are dangerous but predictable and well studied. X-parasites are newly discovered, suddenly lacking their natural predator and seem to be learning and evolving at a ridiculously rapid rate- the best thing to do was to make them extinct ASAP. If any survive, Samus is probably going to change vocation from Metroid hunter to X hunter.
*** And since she's in trouble with the authorities... she'll be an [[VideoGame/MegaManX X hunter maverick]]!

* The original NES Metroid back story explicitly states that Federation researches came up with the name "Metroid." That's cool. But Fusion's manual has a passage in it which says metroid can be roughly translated to "ultimate warrior." Ugh. I can accept that being a massive coincidence... but it seems far more likely the writers forgot that the Chozo didn't name their creation "metroid."

* What's the dark energy of the dark beam made of?
** Luminoth logs state that they tried to overload the Ing with their own dark energy, and so used a concentrated form of Dark Aether's atmosphere.
** Then what's the 'Entangler' made of, considering that tentacles actually come out of your arm cannon if you wait long enough?
*** The description just says "shadow tendrils." The whole thing is rather inconsistent, switching between dark matter, dark energy and shadow energy. Since it also says it's the same thing that powers the Ing, it probably takes after their tentacle-y nature or something.

*** Why does it have to fizzle/distort ''at all?'' It's ''glass'' (Or whatever the universe's {{Unobtanium}} equivilent of glass is). Granted, electrical interference might cause the HUD elements to flicker or distort, but there's nothing realistic about electronic interference preventing Samus seeing through a fully ''transparent material''.

** Maybe it uses some sort of technology which is similar to an LCD or LED screen, but each R/G/B lamp becomes transparent when it's "off", thus allowing for a transparent visor (possibly with something tougher over it on the outside). The static is caused by electromagnetic waves inducing a current and causing the individual [=LCD=]s (we'll just pretend that's what they are) to flicker in and off. Or perhaps the image data is transfered by some sort of localised radio frequancy (simlar to the connection between the coils of a transformer) and thus subject to static from particularly strone interference.
** Another thing about the visor is that the world should be seen in a tinted color. Green, blue, that slick orange that the best sunglasses have.
** The head scratching caused by Samus's visor can ultimately be tracked back to Retro's decision to make it see through. Had they not let us see her face through it, it would have been easier to buy as a screen, much like the head scratching over proportions when they made the suit less bulky. However, in Prime 3, her face isn't visible through the visor when it is scanning. Presumably, normal sight is blocked completely by the hud elements when using the X-ray, Dark and Echo visors as well, which could be why she only sees static when those are overloaded. The combat visor showing full color instead of a tint could be a design feature, it would explain why it can be distorted or fuzzy when tampered with but never outright blinding.
** My theory is that the hud is projected in a similar way to the hud used for Iron Man's armor in the movies, with a holographic projector. The reason that the combat visor can get interference is simple. The hud is being projected and the whole projection area gets clouded with static.
* Why are people so quick to say that Samus has the DNA of all the X-Viruses she absorbed? It's only stated that the Metroids ''ate'' the X-Virus, not that they obtained their DNA in doing so. It'd be like humans gaining the DNA of every animal and plant they ate. As for the Fusion Suit gaining upgrades back from absorption, that's more because the Core-X's had copied the existing data, which the suit regained, than absorbing the X's DNA. Some tropers think Samus is some horrible chimera of a thousand different creatures when she "only" has human, Metroid, and Chozo DNA.
** People tend to get weird thoughts when they obsess over something, in this case, every game after fusion being a prequel.

** Against taking the DNA of food, Samus's suit has adapted other technology before, including Pirate stuff. Absorbing the X also helps the suit repair damage and regain missiles, so why wouldn't larger core X have better healing properties? Metroids eat life energy, not solid food, and the life energy could be used to power shielding, replinish supplies and repair damaged systems. No need of DNA taking required.

** Just because it's iconic. It's like asking why Ocarina of Time Link didn't make the Zora or Goron Tunic his default clothes after getting them just because they work better or why Mario's default colors aren't Fire Mario instead. SSB Samus defaults to Varia for that reason, and it probably explains Other M's intro as well (even if it doesn't make sense). As for the retcon comment, that seems to be going a bit far. There's nothing to say that they're trying to get rid of the Gravity Suit.
*** Later on in Other M, once she reactivates it, Samus never receieves a color change from activating the Gravity Suit, instead sporting a shiny purple aura when the Gravity Suit is warping gravity for her.
*** My fears regarding the issue have not been laid to rest in light of [[http://www.siliconera.com/2010/08/23/metroid-other-m-comes-on-dual-layered-dvd-has-no-gravity-suit/ recent information.]]
* How come the Dark Suit works perfectly for Samus? That armor was made for the Luminoths, who are essentially giant Chozo moths.
** Samus' suit has always had adaptive properties and is somewhat prone to MegaManning. It's been shown to use Galactic Federation, Space Pirate, Alimbic, and whatever other technology there is flawlessly. Why not Luminoth? It shouldn't be a size issue, either, since the suit managed to turn a giant laser drill into the Nova Beam, or Ghor's Plasma Cannon into a Plasma Beam, or even the Omega Pirate's armor (and body) into the Phazon Suit. There's also the fact that the Luminoth and the Chozo have had some level of contact; there's a Screw Attack on Aether, so they're fairly compatible.
* Why in the world did they place Samus in a regular infantry unit during her stint in the military? Even in her suit's most rudimentary form she can kill with two shots from the power beam what takes a GF trooper a whole magazine. With all her upgrades, she has, off the top of my head: a sustained running speed that would get her a speeding ticket on any road in the United States, more armor than some nuclear hardened bunkers, more missiles than a B-2 has bombs, not just the ability to fly but also to kill nearly anything she touches instantly while doing so, and an infinite ammo beam weapon capable of melting animals the size of elephants in seconds. She's closer to a main battle tank in terms of capabilities, if a main battle tank could fly. And they put her in...an infantry unit. Not even special forces, where she'd be far too visually distinct for covert ops but at least would have a chance of needing even a fraction of her abilities. This is a person that can take on an entire fortified planet and win, and they stick her in with the grunts. Pearls before swine.
** Maybe because she didn't have all those upgrades? She couldn't even use the Plasma Beam, Gravity Suit, Space Jump and Power Bombs until a certain point in Zero Mission and she starts that game with: the Short Beam (that is to say, a Power beam that can travel a couple meters before fizzeling out of existance,) and the Power suit. Now, admittedly, Hunters, Prime 2, Prime 3, and Fusion show missiles to be pretty common tech, (the Super missiles seem to be mostly Chozo until the Federation finally works them out in Fusion, the Ice Missiles were the product of either a corrupted Rundas or late Federation science, the Diffusion Missiles only showed once, and while Fusion did have the Feds finally delivering Bombs and Power Bombs, It's kind of useless without the Morph Ball,No?) but standard missiles hardly makes a difference against most situations.( That and I don't get why you think she was ever standard infantry in the first place, she says she was "Federation Army" but such an organization would be subdivided with many specialties. Adam's unit, for example, seems very much like a "Special Forces" unit with it's small size, and distinct skillsets and personalities.)
*** I suppose you may have a point, depending on where the flashbacks fall in the chronology. While the short beam was only default in the first game and the remake thereof, and Other M is set after Super, it's possible the flashbacks are from before the first game. I was mostly judging based on what I've seen from trailers, as it's not out here yet, but I suppose we'll know for sure in a few days.
*** Nope, in the flashback, she has the characteristic spherical shoulders, which was acquired at the end of Zero Mission.

*** ^^ This is from the same people who forgot what color the Gravity Suit is, and you're gonna complain about what upgrades she did or didn't have because of the shape of her shoulders? That, and all of the flashbacks have the shoulders, regardless of when they're supposed to be in the timeline. It's much more likely that she was stuck with the short beam, maybe missles during her Army days before she found everything else. (^ Though you're right that Samus in the game has no excuse.)
*** Actually, if you look closely in one of the flashbacks, Samus is wearing her pre-Chozodia, non-spherical-shoulders suit.

** The Prime 3 missiles were adapted from Rundas's powers, and work differently than the federation variant in fusion.
*** In which case, why could Samus use them?
*** Side affect of mutual phazon corruption and adaptive powersuit.
* Ok, I don't know why you would remove the one weakness of something so dangerous you'd be willing to contract a bounty hunter to genocide them, and so uncontrollable that no one has successfully harnessed their power (except the Chozo, who created them) but in principle I can understand that. What bugs me is the fact that, if they have metroids that are resistant to cold, why did they use metroid DNA that wasn't resistant at the start of Fusion? Other M's Adam tells Samus that they have them, so she would know about it. In principle I suppose I could see how they would want an exploitable weakness on their MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds in case she ever goes rogue, but then it doesn't make sense that Fusion's Adam would make recovery of the Varia suit such a priority. Besides, since Samus knows about it, why wouldn't she say anything to them about it?

*** Maybe after the events of Other M, the ones at BSL were specially modified to retain the vulnerability to cold throughout the life cycle just in case?
*** Also worth remembering is that in ''II'', Samus could only use one weapon at a time. In Fusion, she has multiple beams combined into a single weapon, which probably had the power to penetrate the Omega Metroid's casing.
*** She's only able to damage the Omega Metroid after she regains her Ice Beam from the SA-X, though. It was invulnerable to her missiles and other beams, even the one that can pass through most everything else.
*** It might be that penetrating isn't enough (internal energy-damage resistance), and cold isn't enough (that strain having external cold resistance), but in combination, it can deliver the cold to the cold-vulnerable innards, bypassing the resistant exterior.
*** As of the second game's remake the Metroids now retain their vulnerability to cold throughout their various forms (except maybe the Queen).
* In Fusion, the X infect Samus's suit and create the SA-X. Fine. Then they start dividing and create more SA-X. Um... How? How did some virus/bacteria/amoeba looking thing recreate lost Chozo technology? Can they now cannibalize metals and recombine them to create any alloy they want? I think that would make them at least as valuable as 'infinite energy' metroids.
** They ''are'' that useful, if they could be used. But they can't. The fact that they're impossible to control is kinda a plot point. Plus the Powersuit isn't exactly technology as we know it, its solid energy and whatnot and may have enough organic composition to replicate with a little metal ingestion.
** It's likely part of the X ability to process data and make things out of it. They've shown the ability to turn data (which is just information) into a functional Varia shielding effect, as well as all of Samus' beam weapons. They can apparently use any type of information to accomplish this, such as the information stored in DNA as well as the other upgrades. It's entirely possible they can also do this with nonorganic material if they have a molecular composition to work with (like the Nightmare and B.O.X's armor as well as their organic parts.) As long as they have the power suit's specifications and data, they can make more copies.
*** Indeed. By all accounts, they can reproduce matter at its most basic level, copying the very atomic structures themselves.
*** I've always figured that the X synthesize an organic substitute for inorganic materials.
** The Chozo could be using organic material, after all, plastic is organic and apparently limestone has the right make up of carbon too and can be produced by living things. Maybe ''Chozo'' managed to synthesize the organic substitutes. It would explain why the X were so hard for them to deal with that they made the life sucking abominations called Metroids.

* So the Space Pirates steal stuff from other people, right? Yet they punish their own if they steal from other Space Pirates... Hypocrite much?
** You mean to say...''the villains'' are wrong!? They're pirates, this sort of MoralMyopia comes with the territory. The phrase "honour amoung theives" exists for a reason.

** Radiaton clearly penetrates her armor, as seen when looking at her hands with the X-ray visor.
** Samus's suit has radiation shielding, made apparent in the first two Prime games. The X-Ray Visor is an Easter egg so you can see Samus's trigger finger. Also, as said earlier, X-Ray goggles don't actually shoot X-rays, the X-ray visor needs to use actual X-rays as much as Apache hellfire missiles need real hellfire. Prime 3 gives her ship a medical bay too, the futuristic high medicine could be very effective if you don't buy high technology providing shielding and using substitutes.
*** Samus is part Chozo, and since Samus obtains the X-Ray visor as a Chozo artifact once, one can conclude that Chozo are immune to radiation. Otherwise, the Chozo had made a piece of equipment that's lethal to the user. If Chozo, and thereby Samus, are immune to radiation there's no need for armor that protects against radiation. Alternatively, Samus's suit can't keep radiation out, but its life support system fixes up any damage to Samus's DNA and cellular structure. Phazon might be too powerful a substance for the suit to handle, so it can't fix Samus up in [=MP3=].
* Why are metroids called parasites when they're clearly predators?

** BizarreAlienBiology

* Samus's concentration based suit. The way it shuts down in Other M clearly contradicts how it works in Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Fusion. Why did no one at Nintendo bring that to the M team's attention? More importantly, how are they to explain the discrepancy in future titles? Story wise the new system may not be anymore implausible than the old one but the old one is embedded in the franchise and has had much more time for fans to get used to.

** So then, Adam, who can't beat Ridley, has a weapon powerful enough to kill the one who ''can'' beat Ridley in two shots? The one with a basic beam better than the special force's anti infantry? If the scene wasn't implying she lost her suit because of some mental issue because of a sense of betrayal then we get a plot hole either way.
*** I've seen it referenced somewhere that part of what makes her suit so extraordinarily durable is the use of some form of active defense, somehow preparing for blows before they land, and that when an attack takes her by surprise it can do much more damage than attacks normally would. Plus, Adam could easily have a deeper knowledge of the weaknesses of her suit than Ridley has.
*** Problem here, if that is indeed the explanation for one infamous shut down scene, it still does not explain the other, as It started fizzling out even though Ridley was not damaging Samus. She's been grabbed by him numerous times without losing the suit and if he was squeezing her hard enough to damage it then the unarmored Samus should have been crushed when the armor faded away.

** As has been pointed out elsewhere on this wiki, Unsuited Samus now wears ''more'' clothing than she did in the older titles where she'd be wearing a bikini-type garment under there.
** I'm fairly certain that if PoweredArmor existed, whatever you wore under it ''would'' have to be pretty form-fitting, since you'd want something to protect you from the moving parts, but that wouldn't get caught on the moving parts.
*** That's a good one, but most straw feminist will always find something to complain about, just because Samus is sexy, it means, in a feminist's eyes, that she should not be ''allowed'' to wear such clothing that denotes her good looks, otherwise she would be antifeminist. Yep, go [[IncrediblyLamePun figure]]...

** Another logical complaint isn't so much the Zero suit itself but that Samus is more frequently seen without armor now. Most annoyingly, unarmored Samus is as viable as armored Samus in ''Super Smash Bros Brawl'', when ''Zero Mission'''s game play says otherwise. In ''Marvel Vs Capcom 3'', unarmored Arthur sucks because unarmored Arthur sucks in ''Ghost And Goblins'' Gameplay. Why can't Nintendo be as consistent with Metroid as Capcom is with its series?
*** So... make a character completely suck simply for the sake of canon in a non-canon fighting game where the developers selectively throw individual series' logic out the window for the sake of gameplay? Do any of the other inconsistencies between either of these games and the games their rosters come from bother you as well? What you also seem to be ignoring here is that Arthur's armors act like power-ups whereas ZSS acts as a completely different character that can't be easily switched from. Making her her just as as ineffective outside of her armor as she was in her own series would be punishing the player for using Samus's Final Smash and turn her into a joke character that nobody would want to use. Another thing you seem to be ignoring is the fact that ZSS, while faster, is both lighter and weaker than she is in her armor, so it's not like they didn't take the differences between those two states into account. Her being just as effective outside of her armor doesn't change that fact.
*** That someone seriously discussed making Zero Suit Samus playable at all before Samus was given something else she could actually do in ''Metroid'' games is bothersome enough and just as annoying that there were plenty of things to give her that would at least ''resemble'' what we know about ''Metroid''. Arthur's unarmored form sucking is consistent to how he ''always'' plays and was inevitably going to be added in some form since it is a ''core'' part of ''Ghost N Goblins''. Zero Suit Samus was just a quick a recurring EasterEgg and one time UnexpectedGameplayChange. Yes making ''that'' as good as armored Samus is bothering, making the "Zero Suit" playable to begin with was just strange and could have been done without. Given that Smash Bros runs on nostalgia, a whip based move set for a character not featured yet would have been preferable and would have been better game play wise by not having what is supposed to be a game changer hampered by immobilization due to double layered DVD load times and an involuntary control change. At least Zelda and the Pokemon Trainer do not get a "change now or suffer enemy {{limit break}}" ultimatum and their alternate forms are nowhere near as contradictory to their own games.
** The blatant fanservice is unneeded, since in Metroid games, seeing the Zero Suit either means something bad happened, or you just beat the game(possibly with a good time or completion rate). Complaints can simply be pointing out derailment of an element without any hint of feminism. If fanservice was the problem, we'd be swamped in as many complaints about Gandrayda. But people really aren't looking for fan service in Metroid or from Samus. Her orange(or purple) armor with its giant shoulders and arm cannon is one of Nintendo's most iconic images. The sight of it is fanservice enough. Nintendo used to be proud players weren't particularly interested in seeing Samus's skin.(see Nintendo Power's preview to the Hunters game for the DS). Now they can't show it off enough, even though the people playing the game ''still'' aren't particularly interested.
* How is Samus climbing on the ceiling rungs in Metroid Fusion? The arm cannon doesn't open at the arm (and you would see a hand coming out anyway if it did) and the free hand comes off for a bit. It could be magnetic, but it would have to be a very strong magnetic field to support her weight long enough to get the other arm over to the next rung. I guess the arm cannon could have biological components, and it could be the remains of the grapple beam, but that doesn't explain how it could be half-working if it's not there, otherwise it wouldn't work at all, so probably not related to the grapple beam. I have been wondering this for years and no one else seems to notice this in Fusion.

* So anyways, apparently some people are finding it odd that Samus is wearing high heels in Sm4sh. I can understand that (Because it's impractical - who would wear high heels into ''battle''?) but the thing I find odd is the fact that it's "Sexist" and "Sexualizing" to show her wearing High Heels, and is "feminizing her"... so why're [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Metroid_endings showing Samus in her underwear as a reward to the player for beating the game under certain conditions]], letting her fight in a skin-tight suit and letting her waltz into battle [[http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120603232608/metroid/images/f/f6/Metroid_Justin_Bailey.png wearing another impractical suit]] okay, but ''not'' high heels? I know I know - RealWomenNeverWearDresses, but how come I've never seen people complain about that kind of stuff?

*** If that's the case, then why didn't anyone raise any fuss about the Justin Bailey code? Because it's older?
*** Because the Justin Bailey code was just an extra thing that took a lot of work to unlock in a game most people could not even beat the "easy" way and was never referenced again. The Zero Suit was an important plot point that has not only become a PlotTumor, but the continued usage of the Zero Suit, in Super Smash Bros in particular, misses the entire point of why the Zero Suit was used in the first place. Seeing it indicates Samus lost her armor and thus died or is now in a weakened state. The poison mushroom and miniaturized state are unfavorable conditions in Super Smash Bros, just like they were in Super Mario Bros, but Zero Suit gets special treatment because woman flesh=fan service. Never mind Metroid fans would rather have a playable Dark Samus, Sylux, Ridley or something.

** The Space Pirates probably brought them there, or maybe Dark Samus took them their, after appropriating Metroid stashes from the Pirates. The Leviathan is capable of reaching Phaaze very quickly, phazon can cause rapid maturation of Metroids, as seen in Prime 2 and Phaaze is made of the stuff.

** The Prime version of the grapple beam is different than the Super Metroid version. It's explicitly stated to be ''Federation'' technology, used in sporting events, is more or less non damaging, and has a different launching point. She could have picked one up shopping, or at some outpost like Norion. Prime 3 renames it the Grapple ''Lasso'' to clear up any confusion.
* How does ''Echoes'' make sense in light of ''Corruption''? Allow me to explain.\\
\\
In ''Prime'', an asteroid came and hit Talon IV. The asteroid started spreading Phazon, generated by some creature. The Chozo built the Cipher to contain the spread of Phazon, saving the planet from being consumed. From Corruption, we know that this asteroid was a Leviathan sent out by Phaaze that just so happened to hit Talon IV. The Leviathan, doing its usual thing, sought out a strong native creature and infested it with Phazon to protect the Leviathan's core. That creature was likely a Metroid the Chozo had around, hence the Metroid Prime. That's the standard pattern of the spread of Phazon, which the Chozo stopped with the Cipher. That all fits together reasonably well.\\
\\
So what the hell happened on ''Aether''? A Leviathan crashes into the planet, OK. And this... causes the planet to split into two. It also somehow causes the creation of "dark" forms of life on the dark form of the planet.\\
\\
I mean... Phazon can do that? In both Prime and Corruption, all it did was manipulate and corrupt life forms. Sure, Thardus was a bunch of rocks given sentience by Phazon, but that was through careful experimentation by the Space Pirates. What happened on Aether was completely random and not in keeping with anything that happened in either other game in the sub-trilogy.\\
\\
There's no Leviathan seed. The closest you might be able to say is that Emperor Ing counts, but even that's iffy. While there is Phazon present, nothing really seems to happen because of it, outside of Dark Samus using it to sustain herself.\\
\\
The closest guess you might be able to make is that Phazon somehow interacted with the special energy of Aether, causing this unique event. The stuff Corruption says about where Phazon comes from and how it's spread really does make Echoes seem very strange and contradictory.
** In the first Prime game, Phazon was shown to have the capability of corrupting ''ghosts'', as it was stated in the Chozo lore that Phazon actually drove their spirits mad. So the idea that Phazon had a unique interaction with Aether's planetary energy, causing it to split into two dimensions, seems fairly plausible by comparison.
** A scan in Corruption stated that Aether was already dimensionally unstable before the Leviathan hit it. Something about that light powers the moth's technological wonders.
** If you want my headcanon about it, my guess is that Dark Aether is actually subspace, i.e. the dimension where starships go to circumvent the "no-going-faster-than-light" rule. Aether occupied an unstable region of space, and the Leviathan's impact caused it to occupy both dimensions at once. It damages Samus because of the extreme amounts of radiation there. As for where the dark lifeforms came from, that's explained in-game: they're native wildlife of Aether possessed by the Ing. As for the Leviathan seed, it's implied to be the Sky Temple, with the Emperor Ing as its Core Guardian.

** The Metroid series, as a whole, also features much better games, if far fewer (something else to factor into raw sales data. . . there are far more Mario and Zelda games than Metroid games). The original Metroid completely shattered what an 8-bit game could be, Metroid II was a surprisingly improved sequel, and Super Metroid is still considered one of the best video games ever made, standing up quite well even with modern super-advanced modern 3d sandbox games. And the Prime series managed to be startlingly good despite reservations about completely changing what kind of game it was. Heck, there are fans who even say that, plot issues aside, Other M is actually rather good from a pure gameplay standpoint. Basically, the original Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games went on to define what video games were for several years, with a lot of other games attempting to copy their success, and they've all managed to fairly successfully adapt to changes in video game technology and stay relevant to modern gamers, while having heaps of nostalgia value for older gamers. Metroid also hasn't experienced the oversaturation of Mario and Link, so the fanbase for Metroid is still passionate about every new game (or hint of potential new game at some point in the future maybe), instead of the rather apathetic response to a new Mario or Zelda game ("Ah, another one. Well, I'll wait and see if it's any good.")
** The times ''Metroid'' was one of Nintendo's "Big Three" were brief and fleeting. ''Metroid'' broke ground by showing untapped potential in platform games and opening the door for more player character experimentation, but novelties aside it didn't wow that much in Japan. The USA was where the biggest impact was, so the sequel was made (even more) with USA in mind, but the third entry ''Super Metroid'', on top of being a TroubledProduction, didn't catch on in the States because ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry'' was getting all the attention. The series went dormant (probably for the better) until ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' proved to be a critical disappointment and the Nintendo 64 put a bunch of Super Nintendo games in bargain bins. A lot of people suddenly realizing ''Super Metroid'' was a great game, combined with Samus in the ''Videogame/SuperSmashBros'' games, got ''Metroid'' back into focus and ''Videogame/MetroidPrime'' sold very well. Nintendo thought they had a real franchise on their hands at that point, but got cold feet about other companies adapting the series, while every ''Metroid'' game after "Prime" failed to sell as well. "MOM" and ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force'' just cemented that a ''Metroid'' franchise was far off, but it never has been too close anyway. The first game and the first ''Metroid Prime'' were the only times ''Metroid'' was close to ''Super Mario Bros'' and ''The Legend Of Zelda''. ''Metroid'' remains an important series akin to ''Videogame/FZero'' (which also bordered on "Big Three" status once), ''Videogame/{{Kirby}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot more of), ''Videogame/{{MOTHER}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot less of), ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles1'', ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', ''Videogame/StarFox'', ''Videogame/NintendoWars'', ''Videogame/{{Pikmin}}'', etc, but ''Pokemon'' it's not, ''Fire Emblem'' it's not, ''Videogame/AnimalCrossing'' it's not. Not yet.
** I'd say it comes down to influence. All three came out around the same time on the same exact console, and the franchises they spawned have gone on to have ripple effects across the entire medium. Mario is the quintessential PlatformGame, countless action/adventure titles owe as much to ''Zelda'' as they do computer and tabletop games, and ''Metroid'' is the namesake for an entire genre of action titles. Yes, it isn't anywhere close to being one of Nintendo's best-selling franchises; heck, it's probably their lowest-selling franchise that still gets new installments almost every console generation, kept alive mostly by Sakamoto and Tanabe being high-ranking producers at Nintendo. But there's a legacy there that's greatly respected in the Western gaming sphere, and so it gets the honor of being one of the Big Three for us, even if so many other Nintendo series arguably deserve that slot more.

** Samus is "eating" the X the same way a Metroid does, turning it's mass into energy for herself, and thus for her suit (the two are linked, as shown in Fusion's opening stating parts of her old suit had to be surgically removed). The abilities, on the other hand, are not being absorbed directly into her, but rather into the suit (the X has to pass through the suit before Samus can "eat" it). The core of the Fusion suit is still the adaptable, modular Chozo tech, so it somehow analyzes and incorporates that data into a power-up for the suit itself.
** The suit is damaged, Samus 'eating' the x also repairs the suit. Usually that's just restoring shielding and ammunition but core x also restores suit functions.

* Why does Samus have such a drastic change in her stance towards trying to control and experiment on Metroids? In ''Fusion'' and ''Other M'' she seems to view the Federation experimenting on Metroids to be about as dangerous and stupid as Weyland-Yutani trying to benefit from xenomorphs. But earlier, she herself spared the last Metroid on [=SR338=] and delivered it specifically to be used for research! While the research station was destroyed shortly thereafter, it was not because of anything the Metroid itself did. Plus, the Space Pirates had previously domesticated Metroids very successfully. While Mother Brain's psychic powers were a major factor in that, this does not necessarily mean all attempts to control Metroids with other means are doomed to fail. The Federation was at least cautious enough to keep their Metroids contained on a space habitat, not on a populated planet.
** That was all before Samaus found out that the Federation had apparently started acting like the Space Pirates and we all know how she feels about the Space Pirates. When she brought the infant Metroid to the Ceres station, it was literally the only Metroid left in the universe and it was an infant, having only hatched mere hours previously so it was relatively harmless. Plus, Samus had assumed that the Federation would try to study and replicate the Metroids mysterious energy abilities for the betterment of the galaxy since, you know, they're supposed to be the good guys. Come Other M and Fusion, we find out that not only are they not doing that, but are in fact breeding them for military applications (which the Pirates tried and failed to do) but were also planning to use the much more dangerous X Parasites similarly. And even if the Pirates managed to keep the Metroids relatively secure and controlled, the Federation doing the same isn't the point. The point is the blatant hypocrisy of sending Samus on a genocide mission in order to prevent the Pirates from using the Metroids, and then turning around and pulling such an incredibly vapor-brained stunt, basically going "duh, we changed our minds, fuck you, Samus".
** There's a difference between captivity and domestication. Space Pirates successfully held Metroid in captivity, they did not domesticate them. Mother Brain's psychic powers amounted to a metroid snaking on her grey matter. Every game that has both metroids and Space Pirate has Space Pirates being eaten by out of control metroids. Of course she would think the federation trying to weaponize and strengthen such predators a bad idea. Simply studying how they work and potentially harnessing their for energy production was risky enough.
* Why are people discussing VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns as if its canon? They're suggesting stuff like it confirms that the Prime games are canon, and that VideoGame/MetroidPrime4 will acknowledge it. Are you forgetting that this game was a remake to [[VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus an already existing title]]? The two games tell the same story, but in ways that can't possibly overlap. Only one of them can be canon, and I see no reason that Nintendo would de-canonize Metroid II just for some remake.

** Because Metroid fans desperate for content wouldn't buy FF if there's something else concrete on the horizon. Or less cynically, Ninteno wanted to give AM2R as much time as possible to come out, even if they were planning to shut it down for legal reasons, and they didn't want confusion between the fangame and SR.
* Do the Space Pirates do any actual piracy? Most of their goals (and the actions they take to pursue them) are much more political or militant, aimed and destabilizing or outright overthrowing the Galactic Federation, rather than robbing people for profit. This would seem to make them terrorists or insurgents or rebels or invaders or something else along those lines.

** They don't seem ideologically motivated, nor do they ever broadcast ideological based demands. That rules out terrorists. And they seem to have their own uncontested territory in addition to that they take, so insurgents probably isn't it either. Space Pirates simply seem to be a society hostile to the Galactic Federation, albeit that still puts them a little outside simple pirates, even if they do steal things.

* The ending of ''Zero Mission''. Samus escapes the exploding Space Pirate Mothership in what seems to be a Space Pirate Vessel. How did Samus get back to Federation-controlled space to get a new ship in time for Prime 1/Metroid II without her being shot/bombed to Hell by the Federation Military after appearing on their radar? And broadcasting something to the effect of "I'm a friend, don't shoot." is ''exactly'' what an enemy trying to pull an ISurrenderSuckers attack would broadcast.

* Zero Mission is "what really happened" in canon, while they kept the original NES Metroid merely as her "official incident report". While I can understand Samus not wanting to discuss more personal matters regarding her past on the planet with the Chozo, how does the rest of it work? "There were no pirates, just random creatures. Kraid was barely my height and Ridley was such a non-threat it was like fighting a mentally handicapped kangaroo. Mother Brain was barely anything. Now pay me."

** The times ''Metroid'' was one of Nintendo's "Big Three" were brief and fleeting. ''Metroid'' broke ground by showing untapped potential in platform games and opening the door for more player character experimentation, but novelties aside it didn't wow that much in Japan. The USA was where the biggest impact was, so the sequel was made (even more) with USA in mind, but the third entry ''Super Metroid'', on top of being a TroubledProduction, didn't catch on in the States because ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry'' was getting all the attention. The series went dormant (probably for the better) until ''Videogame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' proved to be a critical disappointment and the Nintendo 64 put a bunch of Super Nintendo games in bargain bins. A lot of people suddenly realizing ''Super Metroid'' was a great game, combined with Samus in the ''Videogame/SuperSmashBros'' games, got ''Metroid'' back into focus and ''Videogame/MetroidPrime'' sold very well. Nintendo thought they had a real franchise on their hands at that point, but got cold feet about other companies adapting the series, while every ''Metroid'' game after "Prime" failed to sell as well. "MOM" and ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force'' just cemented that a ''Metroid'' franchise was far off, but it never has been too close anyway. The first game and the first ''Metroid Prime'' were the only times ''Metroid'' was close to ''Super Mario Bros'' and ''The Legend Of Zelda''. ''Metroid'' remains an important series akin to ''Videogame/FZero'' (which also bordered on "Big Three" status once), ''Videogame/{{Kirby}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot more of), ''Videogame/{{MOTHER}}'' (which Nintendo makes a lot less of), ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles1'', ''Videogame/{{Splatoon}}'', ''Videogame/StarFox'', ''Videogame/NintendoWars'', ''Videogame/{{Pikmin}}'', etc, but ''Pokemon'' it's not, ''Fire Emblem'' it's not, ''Videogame/AnimalCrossing'' it's not. Not yet.