Metroid

Metroid title screen

The Metroid series, a creation of the late Nintendo visionary Gunpei Yokoi, is a series of shooter/platformer games featuring female bounty hunter Samus Aran on various missions. The first Metroid game provided one of the first highly nonlinear game experiences on a home console.

The eponymous in-game Metroids are reasonably large, jellyfish-like creatures with quadrapartite nuclei. They are capable of siphoning an undetectable life energy from any living organism; generally causing the death of the victim in the process. Metroid II established a five-stage life-cycle in which the Metroids go through two stages of ecdysis followed by two stages of mutation. Thus maturing through four previously unknown forms: Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and Omega. Metroid Prime introduced two new forms: Hunter Metroids, which sport tentacles enabling long-range energy siphoning; and Fission Metroids, which divide into two new Fission Metroids (with different elemental weaknesses) after absorbing a discrete amount of energy.

Games

The release order of games in the Metroid series is as follows:

Metroid (1986 - NES / Famicom Disk System)
Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991 - Game Boy)
Super Metroid (1994 - SNES)
Metroid Prime (2002 - Nintendo GameCube)
Metroid Fusion (2002 - Game Boy Advance)
Metroid Zero Mission (2004 - Game Boy Advance)
Metroid Prime2: Echoes (TBA, tentative title) - Nintendo GameCube (More information will arive in E3 in May)
Metroid Prime: Hunters - (TBA, tentative title) - Nintendo DS

The chronology of the Metroid fictional universe does not match its release order. It is as follows:

Metroid: Zero Mission (a remake of the original Metroid)
Metroid Prime
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Super Metroid
Metroid Fusion

The music of the first game was composed by Hirokazu 'Hip' Tanaka. The music of Super Metroid was composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano.

Metroid Prime

Metroid Prime is a first-person adventure video game developed by Retro Studios and released by Nintendo in 2002 for the GameCube console. According to the fictional universe that the Metroid series is set in, Metroid Prime is the interquel of the first two installments of the Metroid series, the original Metroid and Metroid II: The Return of Samus. Metroid Prime takes place on the planet Tallon IV. The title also features connectivity bonuses with Metroid Fusion.

Prime built upon the gameplay of its predecessors while adding many new elements, making it the pinnacle of the series. Few games can match the incredible level design and atmospheric environments. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is due out by the end of 2004 and will boast, among other things, even better graphics than the original.

Metroid Prime also has a variety of "secret worlds." Secret Worlds are glitches in rooms where you can actually jump out of the room and find out how the room was made.

Metroid II: Return of Samus

In Metroid II, Samus Aran returns in an all new adventure to exterminate the Metroids, now venturing to their home planet, SR388. Instead of the long corridors and doors you have to blast open with your regular gun, now you have to destroy Metroids in order to progress to the next area.

In addition to blasting Metroids, you also have new skills. The Space Jump allows Samus to jump repeatedly in the air. When combined with the Screw Attack, it can shred any enemies by flying into them. The jump can also be used to access other areas. Other new items include the Plasma Beam, Spazer Laser and the Spider Ball, which allows Samus to climb walls and stick on ceilings while in the maru-mari form (Morphing Ball).

Colour Version

There was also an colour version announced at the time of the release of the Game Boy Colour. Some pictures were shown but the game never saw daylight despite the release of the colourised version of the the Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Super Metroid

(See: Super Metroid)

Super Metroid is the direct sequel to Metroid II: Return of Samus. In the game plot, Samus returns to the Planet Zebes to destroy the Space Pirates before they use the last living Metroid larva to accomplish their plans of galactic domination.

With gameplay similar to the last game in the series, Super Metroid was one out of the most popular games for SNES when it debuted in 1994, and it remains popular.

Metroid Fusion

Metroid Fusion is the first game in the Metroid franchise to appear on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance portable platform. It is the sequel to the highly critically acclaimed SNES game Super Metroid. Metroid Zero Mission would be the second one to appear on Game Boy Advance. Metroid Fusion is chronologically set last according to the fictional universe that the Metroid series takes place.

Graphics

The graphics are very similar to those found in Super Metroid for the SNES and Super Famicom and are rendered in 2D. The game is a side-scroller like the Super Mario franchise.

Gameplay

The player becomes Samus Aran a galactic bounty hunter who must spelunk through an artificially maintained habitat onboard a space station which, along with Samus, has been infected with a parasite called X. She must regather the special abilities and weapons she has lost to neutralize the threat to the station. Along the way she encounters obstacles and enemies, including a highly-dangerous X mimicking her at her strongest.

Special features

Owners of both Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion can unlock new features in Metroid Prime using the GBA-to-Gamecube cable. If the player completes Metroid Prime, they can unlock Samus' "Fusion Suit" for use in Prime; if they complete Metroid Fusion, they can unlock an emulated version of the original NES/Famicom Metroid.

Metroid & Alien

Some fans have noticed similarities between Metroid and the Alien franchise: both series have a strong female lead, a dangerous alien creature, and an organization that wants to use the alien as a bioweapon.

The sequels to both series have the female lead travel to the aliens' homeworld (SR-388 and LV-426), and end up fighting the alien queen. Also, the female lead is merged in some fashion with the alien in the fourth part of each series.

It is also worth noting that a major recurring boss in the Metroid series is named Ridley, which is also the first name of the director of the Alien movies, Ridley Scott.

Metroid movie

In 2004, the Hollywood Reporter announced that film director John Woo optioned the rights for movie adaptations of Metroid from Nintendo. Woo will produce the movie and also has the option to direct it. The first film in the potential franchise is scheduled for a release before 2006 and will document the origins of Samus Aran. [1]

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