Line #29 Fridge/MetroidFusion


1	! Fridge Pages are Administrivia/SpoilersOff, all spoilers below are unmarked!
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3	!!FridgeBrilliance
4	* Why does the SA-X Freeze you and then shoot you you with missiles? Because you have Metroid DNA and that's the only way to defeat them in every other game (minus the Tallon IV variants from the ''Prime'' games).
5	* Why is Neo Ridley ''not'' difficult enough to be considered ThatOneBoss in this game when he's been that tough in earlier games? Simple. X-Parasites may have the ability to mimic knowledge, power, and forms perfectly, but, in Samus' words, "They cannot copy the soul." The X mimicking Ridley may have modified his form to be more powerful, but it lacked the pride and sheer hatred the real deal had that made him such a threat in the first place. It was doomed from the start.
6	* In a brilliant tidbit of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, this is one of the Metroid games where Samus takes the most damage from enemies, at least initially. It only makes sense that after being [[BagOfSpilling partly stripped of her Power Suit and weakened from her X infection]], she would not be able to take much abuse.
7	** This also explains why she's capable of hanging one-handed on ledges without any power-up: since parts of her suit have been removed, she's lighter.
8	* There is one missile expansion in Sector 3 that is almost impossible to skip without Tool Assistance. However, if you ''do'' manage to skip it, the missile expansion will still be gone when you need to go through the room containing it later in the run. Why? [[spoiler:The SA-X most likely took it, since it destroys the two doors you would have used to return from the Super Missile data room.]]
9	* The second form of the SA-X you fight on the Control deck looks like a cross between Samus and an infected Hornoad. Meaning it is possibly the original SA-X, which infects Samus after the Hornoad it had infected/mimicked is killed.
10	* The Omega Metroids in ''Return of Samus'' were outright immune to the Ice Beam and had to be missiled to death, but the Omega here was the other way around, being immune to missiles (even the Ice Missiles) and needing the Ice Beam to kill. Sounds erratic, but in an earlier conversation, Adam told Samus that the Federation was developing means to accelerate the growth of Metroids; a larval growing into an Omega in days, for instance. Without the years to truly develop the beam-resistant carapace and hide that the naturally-grown Metroids on [=SR388=] possess, the Omega retains the traits its larval form possesses and is thus easily subdued by the Ice Beam. The immunity to Ice Missiles is linked to the larval Metroids' own resistance to missiles, a trait that was lost to the Pirate specimens kept in frigid Phendrana or raised on Phazon.
11	* The reason Samus looks so different out of her suit compared to pretty much every other out-of-suit appearance is due to the surgery performed on her at the beginning of the game. Since her power suit had already become a part of her, and considering how different the power suit looks afterwards, it would make sense the the surgery would change the appearance of her body underneath the suit as well.
12	* When Samus is told to beeline from a navigation room to another [[spoiler:because there may be over 10 SA-X around the whole station]], she is given access to a lot of areas due to her arsenal as long as she avoids going anywhere closer to the Main Sector... [[spoiler:However there is no SA-X to be found! Only one, who ambushes Samus at the Bridge. This implies that either Adam was lying or the SA-X eliminated each other to reassure their identity as "Samus"... Until you remember there was an empty Metroid husk in Sector 1. And just what do Metroids eat again?]]
13	* The ADAM AI asks Samus the following: "Did this 'Adam' care for you? Would he sit in a safe command room and order you to die?" Criticizing both Adam's negligent treatment of Samus in Other M & Samus idolizing him despite his questionable capability. Even when she backs her statement up by stating how Adam sacrificed himself to save her life, the AI trumps this by berating him for choosing to do so [[SenselessSacrifice because of the fact that it was ultimately unnecessary]], and calls him foolish.
14	-->'''AI''': When Adam decided who whould live, he chose incorrectly.
15	** ADAM also assures Samus that "One of them will understand. One of them must." If any "One" person would defend Samus through all this, it's highly likely to be Anthony.
16	* SA-X's ability to be outsmarted and outmaneuvered is a byproduct of its life. While it has all Samus' weapons it is without any experience using them in a fight or for exploration. It just blows up whatever is in it's way. The only thing it fights is Samus. It never has to learn to fight in ways other than throwing its power around. And when you get away from it by hiding in a room, you do so in a way that didn't blow stuff up. It can't think of ways to explore that don't involve destroying its environment.
17	* It never made sense why the Chozo would bother to create a species as dangerous as the Metroids. Sure, they’re powerful weapons, but they devour absolutely anything and rapidly metamorphose into extremely dangerous forms. Why bother with something the headache? This game answers that with the X-Parasites. The enemy that is not only powerful on its own, but capable of becoming absolutely anything. The only possible counter for this species is the ultimate predator: one that can devour anything that lives. The Metroids are a massive threat, but [[GodzillaThreshold a necessary last resort.]]
18	* Why don't the X-Parasites absorb the Dachoras or Etecoons? Aside from being rather weak, the main abilities of those 2 species (walljumping and shinespark) are rather pointless for an alien species that can phase through objects and float around.
19	* Samus maintains that the X are evil and destroys them to save the galaxy. Adam mentions that the X are gaining intelligence. Eventually, they stop worrying about themselves individually and instead seek to preserve their race by blowing up the station and killing Samus, the only person in the galaxy who can stop them, and the Metroid, the only race that can kill X. No X ever seems to care about anything other than X, however. Fast-forward to the end. Samus plans to destroy the station, the planet the X came from, and the X entirely. The X counter-attack with the only X powerful enough to kill her: SA-X. After she beats SA-X, the X stop attacking her altogether, they don't even try to slow her down on the way to her ship. Then, during the battle between Samus and an Omega Metroid, the SA-X arrives and saves Samus, which allows her to escape. The X are pretty much doomed at this point and so is the Omega Metroid, so if they wanted to take out their enemies, all they had to do was wait. I believe that the act of offering itself as a power-up to Samus could have been three things: 1. Respect and possibly compassion to another race, indicating that the X had evolved beyond total xenophobia. 2. A way to preserve itself as a legend instead of complete obliteration. 3. Returning Samus' suit as a gesture of courtesy. Samus does not appear to notice this, but I think the X were developing signs of intelligence beyond assimilation or AlwaysChaoticEvil. Another reason ''Fusion'' is my favorite Metroidvania game. -{{Ekul}}
20	** It could have even been a TakingYouWithMe situation.
21	** Fourth option: instinctive, animalistic "use whatever means available (coughSamuscough) to destroy the Omega Metroid" reaction, without realizing the whole ColonyDrop bit.
22	** Maybe the SA-X was trying to steal Samus's ship so that the X could survive. Only no one counted on the Eticoons and Dachora actually doing anything. And most likely, the Omega was holding a much larger "This is a Metroid, '''KILL IT'''" sign than Samus was.
23	** A MUCH more reasonable option is that it was trying to kill the thing that was more of a predator to the X. Metroids are an X's only predator, and compared with Samus, who has only partial Metroid DNA, and an overgrown Omega Metroid, what do you think the SA-X would target first?
24	*** Possibly all of the above. The X had found a WorthyOpponent in Samus, or at least SA-X did. As she absorbed so many of them, she would act as a depository of DNA for them which may one day be extracted to make more of them. Also, Samus, both as a gene bank and a worthy opponent, was facing off against an enemy she couldn't beat and who the X had personal enmity with. So, the most reasonable solution was to work with the only one capable of killing it.
25	*** A depository of DNA is unlikely. The X are the DNA stealers, not the Metroids.
26	*** Or better yet, the X saw evidence that Samus was a predator of ''their'' predator; having failed to kill an Omega metroid, they chuck the thing that kills Omega metroids, to wit, Samus Aran, at it, after equipping her with the means to do so. If it hadn't been for all X being erased by the colony drop, Samus would presumably have helped them hugely by killing any remaining metroids. Certainly, she had so far...
27	*** Also, despite having both Samus' knowledge of how to kill Metroids and the equipment at its disposal to hunt and kill Metroids, the SA-X consistently failed to hunt and kill anything Metroid on its own power. It failed to find and/or kill Samus on multiple occasions, and was even overpowered by her when they finally engaged each other in a one-on-one fight. It was easily overwhelmed by Baby Metroids in the Restricted Area. Those baby Metroids were ejected and destroyed with the SA-X by the station's automated systems, which denies the SA-X even that small victory. The SA-X barely managed to tickle the Omega Metroid before getting taken out in one swat. The only thing left for the SA-X to do towards killing even one freaking Metroid was to give its Ice Beam to the accomplished Metroid hunter so she can kill the Omega Metroid herself.
28	*** The moment SA-X came to Samus aid was also the moment her Energy Low alarm sounded. Maybe it heard and came to investigate?
29	** In ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'', an X possesses a friendly Chozo, who ends up sacrificing himself to allow Samus to escape before the planet blows up, just like in this game. And X-possessed Chozo that were loyal to Raven Beak before being possessed ''remain'' loyal to Raven Beak. It seems that an X that retains a sentient organism's form for any meaningful length of time gains sentience of its own. And since we know they retain the memories of their hosts (since the X-possessed scientist was able to sabotage the BSL station's reactor), it stands to reason that they're influenced by the memories of their host. Which means that the SA-X, at least on some level, would consider ''themselves'' Samus. And if no one Samus is strong enough to stop this particular Omega Metroid, then the only solution is to empower the strongest Samus with the equipment she needs to finish the job. It would serve the dual purposes of both allowing Samus to escape, and guaranteeing that at least some X survive the impending crash in some form, even if it's just as nourishment and memory.
30	*** Adding onto that, remember what ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime''[='s=] intro says about Samus? "But among the stars, there is one light that burns brighter than all others. The light of Samus Aran. Her battles extend beyond her life, and etch themselves into history." The SA-X proved this: By becoming the real Samus' weapon, its battle extended beyond its life. And by allowing her to survive, it etches itself into history; whatever battle Samus wins, whatever enemy Samus vanquishes, whatever heroic deed she accomplishes from then on, is also the legacy of the SA-X that guaranteed her survival. And in the end, Samus' personality won out, her light burning so bright that even a pale copy of the original turned the ravenous monster into a hero. The SA-X's sacrifice proved that ''Metroid Prime''[='s=] intro wasn't just prose, but fact.
31	* I always assumed that Samus wanted to eliminate the X because it was her job as a bounty hunter to carry things through. I then realized that, as a bounty hunter, she had no obligation to do so once Adam told her to stay put and wait for the Federation. She disobeyed, but possibly not out of her own humanity. It's possible that the Metroid vaccine in her body had infected her just like the X did, and that she had become part Metroid. Playing through, I noticed that colliding with the Metroids that inhabit the Restricted Section while you try to escape does no damage to you (it just slows your jump). I thought it an example of Mercy Invincibility at first, but realized that those very Metroids may have recognized her as one of their own. It makes more sense when you figure out that the Metroids were designed to fight the X by the Chozo. How do you make a better predator than the Metroids? By combining it with the very thing that wiped them out. The X may have realized this and chose to live on as a part of Samus despite being absorbed harmlessly and turned into "food". The reason the Omega attacks you is nothing less than the fact that it's going to die no matter what, and that it wanted to establish itself as the ultimate predator again by killing Samus ''first''.
32	** Weren't these metroids descendants of the Baby? We don't have much evidence one way or another that metroids possess genetic memory, but we do know that they possess good memory and that while most of them have little metroid sacks, some seem to reproduce by budding (namely fission metroids), which would, presumably, copy memory. We know the reproduction had to be asexual, because the federation only had one metroid at their disposal.
33	** Or it could have been, you know, just a wild animal.
34	*** All the above is based on a interesting assumption. That the Omega Metroid wouldn't survive re-entry. Are ''you'' willing to bet it won't? Is ''Samus''? Are/is ''X''?
35	*** If it survived re-entry, would it survive ''the planet being blown to chunks?!?''
36	*** Sure, if you remember Omega Metroids can fly(like who ever worked on ''Metroid Fusion'' seemingly didn't)
37	*** As of the second game's remake, Omega Metroids have been officially retconned into not being able to fly.
38	** Other M allows for another possible explanation. Both the Omega Metroid in Fusion and the Queen Metroid in Other M were cloned from the baby Metroid in ''Super''. This means that the baby, and, by extention, ''all of her clones,'' are potential Queens. Samus also has the same DNA from the same baby Metroid inside of her. Could the Omega be attacking in order to weed out the competition for the position of Queen? -[[Tropers/DarkeLourd DarkeLourd]]
39	*** You sound like the guys on Wikitroid. But I agree with the very 2nd option: that it was just a wild animal killing everything in sight. FTLOG, Samus was part Metroid, you think it'd not attack her if you know that, but no.
40	*** I disagree with the above theory and agree with [[Tropers/DarkeLourd DarkeLourd]]. Contrary to what many people both in and out of universe believe, [[ItCanThink Metroids can think]], even though we can't know what is going on in their heads. I also like to argue that perhaps the (other?) reason it attacked was because it recognises her as another survivor of the lab's explosion and has strong opinions about that of one type or another. [[Tropers/MewVictini96 MewVictini96]]
41	*** Maybe the Omega was only acting in self-defense. In gameplay it will attack you if left alone, but perhaps, as far as the plot is concerned, Samus shot the Omega first, seeing it as a danger or an obstacle preventing her escape.
42	*** Maybe it attacked because it saw her as prey. [[EpilepticTrees I mean, she did absorb quite a few X parasites throughout the game...]]
43	*** Or just competition for the same prey. Predators are territorial already, and the two eat the same thing.
44	* It wasn't until my third playthrough of ''Fusion'' that I realized that Adam was a subversion of HAL-9000 of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. There's even an "open the doors" line as a ShoutOut! -Duke
45	** Not just that, but the first time that you get a hint that something might be wrong with your new CO is a great homage to 2001 as well. After Samus restores her Plasma beam, Adam starts acting confused, and pauses for a moment, saying 'Wait... Wait a second... More trouble. Hold on.' and isolates a new problem in ARC sector. HAL acts similarly when Dave begins to question him too much, saying 'Just a moment, just a moment.' and isolating a problem with the [=AE35=] unit. Now you have to ask yourself 'How exactly ''did'' the Nightmare escape?'
46	*** And late in the game, Adam tells you that there are 10 SA-X patrolling the station looking for you. However, this is at the point of the game where you can go anywhere and pick up all the items you missed earlier, and if you do, you don't ever run into any SA-X. Why? Because Adam was lying to Samus and trying to scare her into leaving the ship.
47	*** It's easy to say how Nightmare escaped. After Samus activates the security doors level 3 (yellow) and gets the ice missile data, you return to the navigation booth to learn about the emergency in PYR. On the way back Nightmare's shadow can be seen in the background of the large room. So Samus released it.
48	** It does seem plausible that Adam may have had a hand in B.O.X. reappearing, conveniently after Samus unlocks the red hatches without his permission, recovers a couple unanticipated upgrades, and gets a glimpse of unauthorized areas. If nothing else, the way he acts during the conversation when he sends into back into Sector 6 seems fishy.
49	* The purpose of the BSL station in Fusion is supposed to be study of the lifeforms on SR-388, but aside from one sector, most of the cretaures you encounter are ones from Zebes, up to the Space Pirates themselves. This bugged me until Other M came out. It seems likely that after the station in Other M got wrecked, the Federation just moved their secret bio weapon program to a different station, which also explains why both Nightmare and Ridley's corpse are aboard BSL. The whole "study the life froms of SR-388" thing was probably never anything more than a cover for the operation.
50	** Or perhaps an expansion of said operation. Maybe someone looked at the wildlife on SR388 and said, "Hey, these ones look pretty vicious too. Let's add them to the experiment pool."
51	* Whenever Samus defeats an X-assimilated boss, and the subsequent Core-X, the ability or power-up she recovers is typically related to attacks used by the boss. She gets the Morph Ball from Arachnus, the High Jump and Jump Ball from Zazabi, the Speed Booster ability from Serris, and so on.
52	* When the Adam AI talks Samus out of sacrificing herself to destroy the X, he's talking her out of doing ''exactly'' what the original Adam did to destroy the unfreezable Metroids in ''Other M''. This is either a case of massive irony, or the Adam AI knew how he died and must have regretted it.
53	* There's been a lot of discussion over the SA-X's intentions in defending Samus from the Omega Metroid at the end. Was it saving Samus out of respect? Or was it merely challenging the apex predator, disregarding Samus entirely? Whatever the case may be, it's a dark inversion of the ending of ''Metroid II'': a remorseless killing machine has a change of heart at the last minute and spares the very thing it's been hunting.
54	* I seem to be the only one to have noticed this so far, but when the meltdown happens and you defeat the scientist X, you are told by Adam that the scientist it got the codes from survived until recently. Much earlier in the game, around the time you get the missiles (I think it's actually on the way to the control room), you pass through a hallway with a couple of blue zombies in it. In the background is the dead body of a single scientist. If you pay attention, you'll discover that this is the only human dead body in the entire game, suggesting that the scientist who "survived until recently" died shortly before Samus reached that hallway and hasn't had time to decompose, be eaten, or be otherwise destroyed.
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56	!!FridgeHorror
57	* One of the big plot holes Metroid: Other M featured was the idea that Samus's suit came undone if she fell unconscious. It directly contradicts this game, in which Samus is stated to have lost consciousness and had to have parts of her suit ''surgically removed''. There had to be some sort of middle ground to explain both being true, and this awful realization is one such way: Samus may have been unconscious, but far from unfocused: The infection was causing an intense fever dream, and Samus was fighting for her life in it. In other words, if Samus was not having an X-induce ''seizure'', then she was having a severe nightmare.
58	* The Etecoons and Dachoras you save at the end of the game are very likely the same ones you could optionally save in Super Metroid. Which means if you didn’t save them in Super Metroid...
59	* After Samus [[spoiler:sends the BSL Research Station en route with SR-388 to destroy BOTH]], everything is good, the galaxy has been saved once again... Or was it? [[spoiler:After preventing the reactor meltdown in Sector 3, Adam mentions the possibility of the X-Parasites trying to destroy the station because Samus is a larger threat to X-Parasites somewhere in the galaxy! This implies there are MORE planets infected by this shape-shifting blob, and SR-388 was only one of them.]]
60	** I always took his comments as meaning [[spoiler: the X are trying to destroy the station because Samus represents a road block for them ''to'' escape to the rest of the galaxy. He's saying the X see Samus as an existential threat to their species. They're right to, in the end.]]
61	* It's stated that there were 10 SA-X because the X reproduces by asexual division... well, taking that into consideration let's remember another X infected the Ridley's clone and he's a dragon who is able to survive the vacuum of the outer space...
62	* So you've beaten the Nightmare. It's a deadly beast that obliterated half the ARC sector and flooded part of the rest. Think on it; this horrible cyborgic MechanicalMonster was on this station THE WHOLE TIME. IT WAS ALWAYS THERE. Nightmare could have found you at any time, and there was absolutely nowhere you can hide from him. No chance of survival if you were jumped; he'd kill you.
63	** Also, still about Nightmare, It says a lot about the mental state of the leaders of the GF. I mean, just to design it you need to be disturbed, and the fact it's only ever found on GF ships means they're not just building their own EldritchAbomination in a box, but they're recreating the monster. And you've been helping to keep these people in charge.
64	*** Well, [[WhatDidYouExpectWhenYouNamedIt What Did They Expect When They Named It Nightmare?]]
65	*** Actually, the Nightmare didn't appear until you opened level 3 security locks, used to contain it. After that, it was released, and you could see its shadow in Sector 5(ARC), and eventually, you had to fight it due to it being infected by the X parasites.
66	*** Also, it cries before it loses it's mask. IT KNEW WHAT IT WAS BEING FORCED TO DO. IT WANTED TO DIE.
67	*** That relies heavily on it still being the original Nightmare. If you notice, the background of the arena is a giant mass of wires and metal. The Nightmare you were sent after is already long-dead, just like Serris. What you fight is the X-clone in both boss battles.
68	*** The real Nightmare isn't even onboard the BSL, unless someone was stupid enough to build two of them. The real Nightmare is on the Bottle Ship in Other M, and is just about as nasty as Nightmare-X. The logical conclusion is that someone entered the room after Samus had slain Nightmare onboard the Bottle Ship (possibly the Deleter), found a piece of biological tissue from the destroyed Nightmare, sneaked it unto a ship and transported it to the BSL-station, where the X Parasites found it and assumed Nightmare's form, all while the computer knew about it (and knowing the Metroidverse, it's not impossible that the BSL could've had a biological AI that might have been infected by the X Parasites as well).
69	*** It's likely either the same Nightmare or a second built one. The Nightmare is GONE in the Epilogue of Other M, suggesting the GF removed it after the main incident. And the GF is definitely stupid enough to construct a second one, if not simply rebuild the existing one. The reason it probably was a real Nightmare at first is that the way Adam talks about it in Fusion all but states there was a living, breathing Nightmare on board being researched for military applications. The real nightmare was indeed on the Bottle Ship but it's quite likely the GF brought it to BSL and rebuilt it or used their data on the original to build a second. The Deleter could not have removed it since the Deleter was clearly dead by the final events of the game (All indications was that it was James, who Madeline fed to the Queen Metroid.), plus in the epilogue the entire Nightmare (And Ridley.) were gone, suggesting the GF removed it entirely, not just a sample. As for the BSL station having an organic computer, while possible, it's unlikely. The X had to do things such as MANUALLY overload the boiler, wait patiently for Samus or the SA-X to let them in new areas, manually choke up the reactor silos, and try to kill Samus before she could start the self-destruct. If the computer had been an X host, they could have blown up the whole station without sending an X to the boiler, could have completely unlocked all hatches at the same time and overrun the station before Samus even arrived, shut down power immediately upon Samus' arrival and kept her contained where they could send some powerful combat forms to kill her, and simply halt the destruct sequence. Not to mention we've seen nothing like station systems try to kill Samus except for the security robot, which could have been responding to the X threat at first by trying to kill anything that moved as a simple solution (Later it clearly plays host to X.).
70	** Nightmare's appearance alone is NightmareFuel. The creature's design and expression suggests it's in constant agony. Hell, its mask has markings that look like tear-streams and a frowning mouth that looks like it's been ''stitched shut''!
71	** But the worst part, what little we saw of Nightmare's biological components started melting as it took damage. The fact that it still had eyes, teeth, and a mouth despite having no visible skeleton as it melted suggests it's just a semi-gelatinous blob held together by a mechanical shell and its own gravity manipulation powers. The fact that it lost the ability to control gravity before the melting started to worsen supports this.
72	* Perhaps one of the more frightening aspects of ''Fusion''. Though according to the opening narration death is often pretty much the inevitable conclusion of an X infection, certain events and enemies fought in the game seem to imply that until the host is dead the X can actually control the host and change its cellular makeup until it does die. This may imply that the unwitting X host might be fully aware of what the X is making it do up until the very last moments of its life. It might very well be that an X parasite prefers controlling a host until it dies before assuming a form directly. It also appears that some hosts can survive infection once the X is disrupted, but most hosts, such as the Nightmare or BOX, seem to die horribly if their parasite is disrupted.
73	** Sounds like [[{{Franchise/Halo}} the Flood.]]
74	* Samus now has Metroid DNA, which is horror all it's own. For one the Federation would want to do experiments on her. Two, she now can feed on the energy of living beings. Odds are any game that picks up where Fusion leaves off might make her into a VillainProtagonist.
75	** This has yet to be seen, though ''Dread'' showcases just how valuable and dangerous Samus can be with her new Metroid DNA.
76	* Another one regarding Nightmare: prior to it breaking out (and presumably being infected by the X either before or after escaping), you can see it flying erratically around in the background. It's most likely freaking out and constantly flying about in a blind panic trying to avoid infestation. The Galactic Federation created a living weapon so terrifying that only the name Nightmare would suffice, [[HorrifyingTheHorror and its last moments in containment are spent fleeing for its life.]]
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Context Fridge / MetroidFusion