My Thoughts on “Metroid Prime Remastered”

 

(This is the cover of Metroid Prime Remastered on Nintendo Switch.) 

I finally finished playing Metroid Prime Remastered, and I am finally ready to write my review of it. I wanted to wait until I finished the game and beat the final boss to see that ending where Samus removes her helmet and we see her face unobstructed (and not through the green visor) before I actually started writing this review. It wouldn’t be right if I did. This will also be my first true video game review on this blog. I’ve written posts about video games, I’ve written posts about what kind of video games I would like to see, but I haven’t actually reviewed a game. I haven’t written a video game related post with the My Thought on label. So, this ended up being my first video game review. At least, new one, that Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc review was a repost from DeviantART, but this one is an original post created specifically for this blog. Originally, it was going to be Apocalypse, that 1998 PS1 third person shooter game with Bruce Willis as the playable character and protagonist, Trey Kincaid, but I lost interest and I can only write about something that I’m currently interested in at the moment. Maybe, when my interest in it is renewed, I stumble upon the longplay in my Favorites playlist and watch it, then I’ll review it, but for the time being, I’ll hold off on it. I guess it’s only fair that my first new video game review on this blog is one that I actually played. I mean, I would play Apocalypse (1998), but it isn’t available anywhere as far as I know. It hasn’t been made available on current gen consoles or even on PC, that I’d even be able to play it on PC since I use a Mac 💻 and most PC games (especially those on Steam) are not available for Mac 🖥️💻. 

This is also my first post of July. I wasn’t quite sure going into July what it was going to be. I didn’t know if it was going to my review of the animated Predator anthology film, Predator: Killer of Killers, or if it was going to be a review of Jurassic World Rebirth, the latest sequel and soft reboot in the Jurassic franchise, or if it was going to be a review of this game. Of course, as you’re reading now, it ended up being a review of this game. I ended up finishing it a lot quicker than I expected, I thought it was going to take me even longer to finish the game, because for a while, even though I was making progress (largely thanks to IGN Guide’s Walkthrough of the game), it felt like I had a lot more game to go through, but it turned out there wasn’t. I guess once you collect all of the collectibles, all of the weapon and visor settings, all of the upgrades, missile expansions, and Chozo artifacts, there isn’t much left to do in the game besides fight the two final bosses. 

 

I will probably review Predator: Killer of Killers sometime in the coming days after I have a little bit of a break after writing this (depending on how long it ends up being), because it’s on Hulu, and unlike Netflix, I actually have access to that streaming service and I can watch it whenever I feel like it. I don’t know when I’ll actually get to see Jurassic World Rebirth. I hope that I can see it while it’s still in theaters because it was one of the few movies I was interested in watching and one of the few I actually wanted to see in theaters, but there’s no guarantee. Depending on the rest of the month goes, I may up missing it and I’ll have to watch it when it goes on streaming or VOD (video-on-demand). I know the movie isn’t getting great reviews, it is getting a lot more mixed reviews compared to Jurassic World Dominion, which got mostly negative reviews, which is a bit of a step up but not much, but when has that ever stopped me? I will see this movie regardless of whatever reviews it gets, regardless of whatever the critics say because I disagree with the reviews and what the critics say about these movies in particular. I mean, you’re talking to someone who actually liked Jurassic World Dominion when almost everyone else on the Internet 🛜 hated it. 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Metroid Prime Remastered showing the start screen.) 

 

This game is also my first introduction to Metroid. I knew of Metroid, but I never really had much interest in it before except for the character, Samus Aran. I think she’s pretty hot 😍, and I liked seeing fan art of her online, and I would download it onto my computer 💻 so that I could use them as wallpaper for either my laptop 💻 or my phone 📱. In fact, some of the images featured here will be used wallpapers someday. Most of it is her in her Zero Suit outfit, but I do actually think she looks pretty hot in her suit, especially with how they designed it for this game 😍. But, after I got my Switch, I started wanting to dive more into Nintendo franchises that I had missed out on for many years. I was mostly a PlayStation kid growing up, and I had never owned a Nintendo console before in my life. My younger cousin had the GameCube and the Wii and those only Nintendo consoles that I had any sort of access. I wanted to get a Wii when I was younger but I missed out on that console, and then I wanted to get a Wii U, but I missed out on that console too. So, I had to settle for a Switch, which I suppose will now be called the Switch 1, but even then, I waited until the Switch 1 was near the end of its life and Nintendo unveiled their next console, the Switch 2. But even then, I still wasn’t that interested in checking out Metroid and playing any of the games, I was just into the character of Samus and looking at all the fan art of her, including the sexy fan art 😍. 

 

But, that all changed when I played Star Wars: Republic Commando, that first person shooter Star Wars game from 2005 that was included in that combo pack along with the Star Wars racing game, Star Wars Episode I: Racer, which was renamed to just Star Wars: Racer on the combo pack. It wasn’t so much the game itself that convinced me to finally play a Metroid game and play Metroid Prime specifically, it was more so this review of Republic Commando that I saw that mentioned it. They were talking about the vision settings that Delta Squad has in their helmets in that game, and how Samus has a lot more vision settings in her helmet compared to them, and they actually showed footage from Metroid Prime (I think it was the original, but it might’ve been the remastered version as well), showed the infrared setting and it looked pretty cool. That was enough to convince to finally buy Metroid Prime and play it. Luckily for me, a remastered version of the game was available on the Switch 1. 

 

All I had to do was just wait until I had the money 💵 to actually buy it. I wanted to wait a bit until it dropped in price for me to actually buy it, and luckily it did. It went down to $39.99 💵, which is about $40+tax 💵. Most Nintendo first party titles don’t drop in price, even if they’re just remasters of older games, they’re the same price now that they were at launch, but I guess since this is technically a second party title, it did actually drop in price. $40 💵 is still a lot, especially for the kind of budget that my family and I have to work with, but it is still a lot more affordable than buying a $60 💵, $70 💵, or even $80 💵 game now. To be fair, the only Switch 2 game that is being sold at $80 💵 right now is Mario Kart World 🌏🏎️, it’s still not worth $80 💵, especially based on what I’ve been hearing from reviews of that game, but at least it’s only Switch 2 game and game in general at this time being sold at that price or a similar price. A lot of people are saying that Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) will be $90 💵 at launch, based on how long it has been in development, how much money 💵 it cost to make (it is the AAA game of AAA games, some even referring it to as a “AAAA game”), and Nintendo setting the precedent by pricing Mario Kart World 🌏🏎️ at $80 💵, but I’ll believe it when I see it. 

 

Plus, even if it is sold at $90 💵 or $80 💵, it’s not a Nintendo exclusive or a Nintendo first party game, so it will drop in price. Maybe not by much, if it is sold at $80 💵 or $90 💵, it may just drop in price to $60 💵 or $70 💵, but that is still better than forking over $100 💵, spending an entire 100 dollar bill 💵 for a single game, especially if there is a chance that the game may not be finished when it’s first released and may have bugs and glitches. If it was released unfinished and was littered with bugs and glitches, there would be a huge backlash bigger than the backlash towards the initial buggy release of Cyberpunk 2077, because of how much more people are anticipating GTA 6 and how much longer they’ve been waiting for that game compared to Cyberpunk 2077. If Rockstar Games fucks this up, they will not hear the end of it, at least for a few months until the gaming community moves onto a different topic. But, it would be cool if the game dropped to $50 💵 or $40 💵 like Metroid Prime Remastered is currently being sold for. Not that I’d actually go out and buy GTA 6 when it finally comes out next year, since I’m not interested in GTA. I was never really a GTA fan and I’ve never played any of the games, including the last mainline entry up until now, GTA 5. 

 

I was always more into Saints Row owing to the fact that I played Saints Row 2 on the Xbox 360 when I was younger. One of my mom’s boyfriends post-her divorce from my dad had one and brought it with him when he came to live with us prior to him and my mom getting married (your third and final marriage), and one of the games he had was Saints Row 2. This is also how I was also introduced to Left 4 Dead 🧟‍♂️, since he also had the first Left 4 Dead 🧟‍♂️ game. I wanted to play the second one, but never got the chance to after I moved out of my mom’s house (or rather apartment since we moved out of that nice house we had in Paradise Hills in Ventana Ranch in Albuquerque, and we moved into an apartment for awhile) to go live with my dad in Alamogordo briefly before moving into my grandparents’ house in Acoma after my dad relapsed and where I’ve been living ever since. It’s the same story with Saints Row, I only played the second one, never played the first one, or the third one, or the fourth one. I also never played that reboot that came out in 2022 that everyone hated and pretty much killed the franchise and the studio behind the franchise, Volition. But, based on my short experience playing that one game, Saints Row 2, I was hooked and I still prefer Saints Row over GTA, and I would sooner pick up a Saints Row game if another one came out than pick up a GTA game, even if Saints Row as a whole is often unfairly labeled as a “GTA clone.” 

 

 

 

(This is a picture of Samus Aran as she appears in Metroid Prime Remastered.) 

I can confidently say after playing this game that I am now a fan. This game got me into Metroid, which is fitting because the original Metroid Prime is what got a lot of people into Metroid, the people who grew up with that particular generation of gaming. Now I’m interested in checking out some of the other Metroid games that are available on the Switch 1 like Metroid Dread, the latest 2D Metroid game and the latest game chronologically in the timeline because Metroid has a pretty complicated timeline. I’d even play Metroid: Samus Returns, which is a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, even if that game’s existence is a bit controversial due to the fact that there was a fan remake of Metroid II called Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus (AM2R) that Nintendo went out of its way to shut down, claiming that it was “infringing on their copyright ©.” 

 

So, the fact that Nintendo went and made their own Metroid II remake after what they did to AM2R was seen as a slap in the face to a lot of fans. Or maybe not since as it turns out, the game actually came out on the Nintendo 3DS and isn’t even available on the Switch 1, and only Metroid games we have on the Switch 1 so far are Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime Remastered. I mean, Metroid Dread was made by the same studio that made Metroid: Samus Returns, MercurySteam, so it’ll sort of be like playing Metroid: Samus Returns. I would also like to play the sequels to Metroid Prime, but neither of them were made available on the Switch 1 and may not even be made available on the Switch 2. Speaking of the Switch 2, I probably won’t be able to play Metroid Prime 4: Beyond when it comes out sometime this year (unless the release date gets pushed back to next year), even though I would like to play it after playing Metroid Prime Remastered because I probably won’t be able to get a Switch 2 for a while. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (These are the logos and covers for both AM2R and Metroid: Samus Returns. I was wrong, Metroid: Samus Returns was not released on the Nintendo Switch, it was instead released on the Nintendo 3DS, and was never ported to the Switch 1. So, the only two Metroid games that we have on the Switch 1 so far are Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime Remastered.)

 

 

 

 

I got a PS5 for Christmas 🎄 last year, and I want to focus on playing that and getting games for that, building a collection, and I want to try to get the other Switch 1 games that I have on my list that I want to buy before getting a Switch 2. Plus, considering how much money 💵 the Switch 2 costs at the moment, I would much rather spend that money 💵 getting either a new laptop 💻, or a new desktop 🖥️, or both. Who knows, maybe it’ll be like what happened with the Switch 1, where I won’t get it until it’s near the end of its life, and Nintendo’s about to unveil their next console. And I do think Nintendo will make another console after this, even though they did kind of say that the Switch 2 would be their last console (before it was confirmed to be the Switch 2), because of how well this console has sold so far 🤑, and because there are still enough people in the company that don’t want it to go the way of Sega after the failure of their last console, the Dreamcast. If they do make another console, it’ll probably just be a Switch 3 rather than a completely new console entirely. 

 

I wish it was, Nintendo had always been innovative and creative, coming up with entirely new consoles instead of making new iterations of the same one, but they haven’t been like that since Satoru Iwata died. Any innovation and creativity that Nintendo had left when it came to their consoles died with him. So now, Nintendo has taken a similar approach to Sony and Microsoft where they’ll just release a new Switch console every generation just like how Sony releases a new PlayStation console every generation, and just like Microsoft releases a new Xbox console every generation. So, if I do get a Switch 2, it’ll only be to please Metroid Prime 4 and Donkey Kong: Bananza 🍌, but considering Metroid Prime 4 will also be released on the Switch 1, maybe I won’t need to get a Switch 2 to play that game, but I will if I want to play Donkey Kong: Bananza 🍌, which I do because it looks like a really good game. 

(This is the cover art for the Switch 2 release of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the much anticipated fourth game in the Metroid Prime series. This cover says “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition,” so there will be a “Nintendo Switch 1 Edition,” and it will be released on the Switch 1 simultaneously as it is released on the Switch 2. Which I think is a nice gesture and a nice way to reach out to those of us who don’t own a Switch 2 and can’t afford one at this time. So, I might be able to experience Metroid Prime 4 with the rest of people who have been waiting for this game way longer than I have without having to buy a Switch 2.) 

Based on what I’ve said so far, you can probably surmise that I actually like the game, and you’d be correct. I think that this is a really good game, and I really enjoyed playing it. It’s a good introductory game, like if you’ve never played a Metroid game before like I hadn’t, then this game is a good place to start, and it’s stand alone enough to where you really don’t need to have played those other games to even remotely understand this one. That’s why I was surprised to learn that wasn’t a reboot, but rather a prequel. It is still a reboot to some degree, it’s a soft reboot, it brought Metroid, into the third dimension, and it reinvented the series in a big way. It did something none of the other Metroid games before it had done before, and it took it in a new direction. Except, it didn’t really since not all Metroid games after this followed this game’s lead and kept its tone and gameplay style, and was spun off into its own series. Playing this game made me want to check out the sequels, but none of them are available on the Switch 1. 

 

Maybe, they might be made available in the future through that Nintendo Online subscription service, since they’ve been releasing a lot of their older games through that service. But, those are just emulated games, I want something that gets the remastered treatment like this did. Especially since the sequels we do have so far, look like they have pretty good stories, even if the third game, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is a bit more contentious amongst the fanbase, not as contentious as Metroid: Other M, but still pretty contentious. We still have no idea what the story for Metroid Prime 4 is going to be or where it will even sit within the timeline, if it’ll be a prequel set in between the first two Metroid games like the other Metroid Prime games are, or if it’ll be a sequel continuing the story from where Metroid Dread leaves off. Based on what little we’ve seen from the trailers and based on the trend that these games have followed, I’m guessing that it will still be a prequel and that will still set in between Metroid and Metroid II. Also, one more thing I’d like to mention before I continue, I will be using the titles, Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Remastered, mostly interchangeably when talking about this game for the rest of this review going forward, unless it’s relevant for me to specify that this one is the Remastered version from 2023 and not the original version from 2002. 

 

 

 

(This is a transparent PNG image of Samus Aran as she appears in both Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Remastered.) 

There is a lot of backtracking in this game, which was a bit tedious at first, because it takes you long to get from one location to another because there’s no fast travel or teleportation, and there are no vehicles, all the traveling you do in this game is on foot. There is a ship, Samus does have a ship that she uses to get from planet-to-planet, but you don’t actually use it during gameplay, like you can’t get inside the ship and then fly around the planet. The ship is just a save point, you go there, save your game, replenish your energy and your ammunition, and that’s about it. This is a game where you have to manually save, there is no auto save. This game was made before auto save was a standard feature in video games, and even then, auto save is starting to be phased out in more recent and is being more frowned upon in the industry and by the gaming community. The only franchise that I know that I can think that still uses auto save is Call of Duty. If there are more video game franchises nowadays besides Call of Duty that use auto save, let me know. So, make you save at every save point you find because if you aren’t careful, you’ll lose all your progress, and you’ll have to start over from your last save point. Which, depending on where and when your last save was and how long it took before you to saved again or if you even saved again, could be about an hour or even several hours worth of gameplay. 

 

I don’t know exactly how long this game is, I haven’t read it anywhere online, the back cover of the case doesn’t say, I didn’t play the game in one sitting and I didn’t time it, but I’m guessing that it’s about 6 hours long, maybe 7 hours, or even 8 hours. Definitely not 10 hours, 11, or 12 hours or something absurd like that, it is a lengthy game (or at least that’s what felt like to me), but it’s not an RPG (role-playing game) or a JRPG (Japanese role-playing game 🇯🇵), it’s not a game that goes on and on, and is over 14 or 15 hours long, maybe even longer. Unless you’re like a beast at this game and can easily beat it one sitting without saving, like you’re a speed runner or something, then I would highly recommend you save as often as you can. As soon as you spot a save station, go to it and save. I’m not the best player at this game, I did make a lot of mistakes on my playthrough, and it was fairly challenging for me at several points even though I was playing it at normal difficulty, so if I didn’t save every time there was a save station, I wouldn’t  gotten very far in this game and I would’ve kept doing the same things over and over again. 

I would often find myself getting lost while trying to find my way through Talon IV, trying to get from one location another and trying to find the items I needed to progress, and I had trouble even figuring what I was supposed to do next since the game doesn’t actually give you any objectives, like it doesn’t tell you to go here or do that, you have to figure it out for yourself. That does give the game some degree of nonlinearity, but it’s not fully nonlinear, it’s still pretty linear. That’s what I’ll say about it, It’s linear, but it’s also nonlinear at the time if that makes sense. Apparently though, backtracking is a fixture of this franchise. Most Metroid games have some degree of backtracking, at least the ones that follow the usual formula. The games that deviate from the usual formula like Other M, don’t have as much backtracking, though I could be wrong on that. But, Metroid Prime sticks pretty close to the usual formula. The only big difference is that it’s in 3D, it has 3D graphics and 3D gameplay, and it’s in a first person point-of-view. 
 

But everything else is the same, it’s a game where you play as a silent protagonist and you’re isolated on this other planet, and you to explore and find your way through that planet while facing against the native wildlife as well as some space pirates, some other types of enemies, and of course Metroids. And when you have a game that prioritizes exploration, and progressing inch by inch, there tends to be a lot of backtracking, a lot of you going back to areas you’ve been before, or getting to explore an area that you couldn’t previously explore now you have to right item, the right key, the right weapon, or the right upgrade. That’s why people love Metroid Prime as a whole because it translated the formula and usual gameplay loop of the 2D Metroid games into 3D. It added a few things while largely maintaining what people associate with Metroid. That’s why people don’t like the games that deviate from the formula, like Metroid Prime 3 did or like Other M did. They just like the ones that keep things largely the same, but add a few new things like 3D graphics or a first person perspective, or both. Which is a bit odd to me. 

 

You’d think fans of a franchise would get tired of seeing the same ol’ thing and would something new to shake things up and keep things fresh, instead of just wanting more of the same except slightly different. And there really aren’t as many defenders of the more divisive entries in the franchise like Metroid Prime 3, Other M, and Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Metroid Prime 3 has the most amount of defenders out of those three, but the one that has the second most amount of defenders is Federation Force, a game that got slammed when it was announced and when it first came out, for not having Samus Aran in it and for not looking like a Metroid game at all. For many years, it was seen as the worst of the series, like it was Metroid to what Bomberman: Act Zero was to Bomberman, or like what Umbrella Corps was to Resident Evil. But now, people sort of look back on it fondly and say that it’s not as bad as people said it was and people were too harsh on it just because it wasn’t a mainline entry and didn’t have Samus as the protagonist. Now, Other M is seen as the bad one and there aren’t many defenders of it, which is odd to me because of the two, Other M looks way better than Federation Force, like it looks more like an actual Metroid game, it has Samus in it, she’s the protagonist and the sole playable character, and it tries different things and is much more ambitious than Federation Force. 

 

Federation Force just looks safe, and like it was only made to cash-in on the Metroid IP, to capitalize on name recognition, and also keep the franchise alive in some form even if it wasn’t a mainline entry. But, it didn’t work since Federation Force was a huge failure, it sold poorly and is possibly the worst selling Metroid game in history up to this point. But then again, the Jurassic fandom doesn’t really accept change just wants more of the same, which is why they rejected those human/dinosaur hybrids that were in that early draft of Jurassic Park IV, before it became Jurassic World. It’s also why they rejected the giant locusts in Jurassic World Dominion. “Giant bugs don’t belong in a Jurassic movie” they said, “there aren’t enough dinosaurs” they said, even though giant locusts work just as well in a Jurassic movie as dinosaurs do (or any other prehistoric creature or genetically altered 🧬 for that matter), and there are plenty of dinosaurs in the movie. Same thing with the Friday the 13th fandom, they rejected Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday because of how different was and how little Jason is in it physically. He’s in the whole thing in spirit since the whole plot revolves around him gaining the ability to possess people’s bodies using a parasitic worm demon 🪱, but he’s not in it physically where he has the hockey mask and the big hulking body and is played by Kane Hodder. Fans may say they want something new and different, but when they actually get it, they reject it and just ask for more of the same. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is another picture of Samus as she appears in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Remastered.)

 

 

 

 

But, the backtracking became less tedious over time as I progressed further through the game, and I became more familiar with the map, and I found all of the entry points and shortcuts, but that was largely thanks to IGN Guide and their walkthrough of the game. Same thing with many of the collectibles in this game, I was only able to find most of them thanks to IGN Guide, and seeing them point out where all the mission expansions, beams, visor settings, and upgrades were. Same thing with the bosses too, the bosses in this game are difficult most of them, and I was only able to figure what to do and how to beat them by watching IGN Guide’s walkthrough. Although, I will say that of the bosses that I faced throughout this game, the most difficult one for me is probably the Omega Pirate one. It took me a couple of nights and several times to finally beat that boss and get the Phazon suit. It’s either the Omega Pirate or Metroid Prime that is the most difficult boss in the game, at least for me. Meta Ridley actually wasn’t as hard as I thought he was going to be, like it took me a few tries to finally beat him, but I was able to figure out what to do and I was able to beat him in one sitting, in one gaming session. And he was a lot easier to beat than I was expecting. The Omega Pirate is a lot harder of a boss than Meta Ridley, which might be a bit of a letdown considering that he’s Samus’s arch nemesis and he’s second to last boss in the game. 

 

At least, the titular Metroid Prime was pretty difficult, like it took my three nights to finally beat him, or her, or it. The worst part is it’s a multi stage boss battle since Metroid Prime has two forms, it’s insect or arthropod like exoskeleton, and then the Core, which has the more jellyfish-like Metroid look 🪼 that we’re more familiar with, although the face kind of reminds me of the aliens 👽 from Independence Day, the Harvesters, specifically of their exoskeletal form (their bio suits). And it was one of those boss fights that makes you fight regular enemies while fighting the boss, in this case, you fight a bunch of different Metroids while you’re fighting Metroid Prime’s Core form, the standard Metroid, the Hunter Metroid (or Metroid Hunter I think it’s called in the game), and then the Fission Metroids, which are quite possibly the most annoying enemies in the entire game 😤 due to the fact that they’re impervious to all of your weaponry and they split into multiple Metroids, hence why they’re called Fission Metroids, and each Metroid they split into is a different color and can only be killed with the beam that corresponds with that color. The yellow Metroids can only be killed by the Power Beam, the purple Metroids can only be killed by the Wave Beam ⚡️, the white Metroids can only be killed by the Ice Beam 🧊, and the red Metroids can only be killed by the Plasma Beam 🔥.

 

It gets so overwhelming having to deal with them besides there are so many of them, and while you’re focusing on killing one of them, another one attacks them. It’s even worse when they’re attacking you while you’re also trying to fight a boss, especially one like Metroid Prime, who can easily drain your health very easily with each attack. Luckily, the only time the game makes you fight these Fission Metroids is during the second phase of the Metroid Prime fight, when Metroid Prime loses its exoskeleton and its Core is exposed, and the only thing you have to kill the Core is to shoot it with a Phazon enhanced beam. But, that gets kind of annoying when you have those stupid Fission Metroid grabbing onto your face, draining your health, making you vulnerable to Metroid Prime’s wave attack, wasting your time, causing you to miss your opportunity to use the Phazon pools to enhance your beam with, and forcing you to have to go down into a ball and use a bomb to kill it. But, I was able to get through that boss fight just in the nick of time, with just a little bit of health left, even with those Metroids pestering me. So, thank IGN Guide, you’re a lifesaver. You’re the only reason why I was able to get as far in this game as I did, and why I was able to beat it. Without you, I would’ve been stuck at the beginning of the game. Like, I probably would’ve stuck at Phendrana Drifts, not knowing where to go or what to do when you first get there. 

 

 

 

(This is a wallpaper image for Metroid Prime Remastered.) 

The story is pretty interesting. It’s a bit vague, it’s a bit cryptic since it isn’t really spoon fed to you and you aren’t explicitly told what’s going on or what you’re supposed to do, since Samus doesn’t talk and there are no other characters in the game besides her who can talk and tell us what’s going on through exposition. You have to piece it together yourself, mostly through scanning and reading the Chozo lore, which you can find on the walls of the Chozo ruins or the Pirate data, which you can find on the computers in the labs and in the Phazon mine that you traverse through throughout the game. Which is one thing that need stops being a bit tedious, having to scan everything 🙄. It isn’t a requirement, you aren’t required scan everything or anything for that matter (except for maybe the elevators), but it is strongly encouraged and you’ll need to do it if you want understand the story and complete the game to 100%. I didn’t scan everything that there was to scan in the game since I didn’t really start going out of my scan as many things as I could until I started watching IGN Guide’s multi part walkthrough, and I missed a few things. I also didn’t collect all of the energy tanks or missile expansions. So, I ended up only completing the game to about 86%, which isn’t bad, that is still a lot, but it’s not 100%. The only thing you’d actually be required to scan are the elevators, you’ll need to scan those to activate them and access different parts of the map, like the Talon Overworld, the Chozo Ruins, the Magmoor Caverns, Phendrana Drifts, and the Phazon Mine. 

 

There is an optional narration which I didn’t even know about until I was far into the game that you can turn on while play the game that does explain a bit more of the story and explain more of Samus’s motivations and why she’s there, and why the Space Pirates. I didn’t play the game with the narration on, I played it how most people play it, but the option is there if you want the story explained to you upfront and you want to have a better understanding of what’s going on or what Samus or the Space Pirates are doing without having to piece it together yourself and read a bunch of text in a log book. That is a pretty boring and uninspired way to tell this story, and  I can see why so many people don’t about the story in this game or even know what the story is. To them, everything that happens on Talon IV during this game is just random events that happen while Samus is exploring this alien planet. If I play this game again in the future, I might play it with the narration on just to see what it’s like, if I like it, then I’ll leave it on and play every subsequent playthrough with it on, if I don’t like it, then I’ll turn it off and play every subsequent playthrough with it off. And of course, if you don’t want to do the narration, there’s always lore videos on YouTube that you can watch.

The basic gist of the story is that Samus is after some Space Pirates who have set up shop on this planet called Talon IV and are conducting illegal experiments there, and she quickly learns that this planet used to be a Chozo colony and it once had a population of Chozo living on it. For those of you unfamiliar with Metroid lore, the Chozo are these bird-like aliens 🐦‍⬛👽 who Samus has a deep connection with because a group of them took her in and raised her as one of their own after another alien 👽 named Ridley (who was the military commander of the Space Pirates) killed her parents on the Earth colony 🌎, K-2L when she was a kid. They even mixed Chozo DNA 🧬 into her DNA 🧬 so that she could survive on their planet, the Chozo colony, Zebes, and that had the added effect of enhancing her strength, her speed, her agility, and her senses. So Samus isn’t even fully human, she’s a human/alien hybrid 👽, and because she was combined alien genetics 👽🧬, she has abilities beyond that of a regular human. All this time, I was under the impression that Samus was a super soldier who was created or bred to be a warrior like UniSols from Universal Soldier or the Clone Troopers from Star Wars or like General Zod and the other military Kryptonians from Man of Steel, or was trained to be a warrior from childhood like the Spartans from Halo or the First Order Stormtroopers also from Star Wars, before I actually played this game. 

 

I mean, she still technically is, she was genetically modified 🧬 with Chozo DNA 🧬 and then was taught in the Chozo’s warrior ways from a very young age. It’s just that it’s not the human military doing this, or I guess the Galactic Federation military doing this, but rather an alien race 👽, and she used her skills to become a bounty hunter rather than become soldier or a marine in some military. Not that Nintendo even knew what a bounty hunter was when they gave Samus that title 😒, like how could they not know what a bounty hunter was before they gave that job title to Samus 🤦‍♂️? You’d think they’d at least have some understanding on what a bounty hunter was based on what they’ve seen in Star Wars, even if bounty hunters in real life are nothing like bounty hunters in Star Wars or any other science fiction story. And I’m sure the term “bounty hunter” is in the Japanese language 🇯🇵, they could’ve at least looked it up in the dictionary before just throwing that title onto Samus without knowing what it means. If you’re going to give a character a specific job or a specific title, the least you can do is learn what that job title is before you actually use it. 

 

There’s a lot more to the Chozo than that, like that they’re a highly advanced civilization and they had an empire that spanned the entire galaxy and predates the Galactic Federation (more on that later), and how they split into two different factions, one faction that preserve their imperialistic warrior-like ways and then another faction that wanted to choose a more peaceful path, but that’s a bit too much to get into at this time. The Chozo that lived on Talon IV chose the more peaceful path and abandoned all technology in favor of living in harmony with nature 🍃, kind of like the Ba’ku people from Star Trek: Insurrection. But at some point, in the recent past, before the events of the game, an asteroid ☄️ carrying a radioactive substance ☢️ called Phazon (which the Talon IV Chozo called “the Great Poison ☠️”) crashed into the planet, killing all of the Chozo that were living there, and contaminating the environment, and mutating the wildlife. Even the Chozo themselves were affected by the Phazon as it caused some of them to come back as malevolent spirits called Chozo Ghosts, which are really annoying enemies in the game 😤 that can drain your health real fast if you don’t dodge their attacks and are really difficult to kill until you get the X-Ray visor, then it becomes a lot easier to fight them since you can actually see them at all times and aim at them better with your targeting system to shoot them. But, they’re still a pain in the ass even when you can see them with the X-Ray visor 😤. 

 

The Chozo are an endangered species on the verge of extinction, and several planets that they once colonized are now devoid of any Chozo, they’ve been completely depopulated, and Talon IV is one of the planets where the Chozo population has been completely wiped out for a variety of different factors, because of war (an invasion by an external force or internal conflict), because of science experiments gone wrong, because of environmental factors, or a combination of all three of those. Phazon originates from a planet called Phaaze, and it’s the substance that the Space Pirates are using in their experiments, enhancing themselves and creating bioweapons including Metroids to conquer the galaxy. For those of you who don’t know, Metroids are these parasitic jellyfish-like aliens 🪼👽 that drain the life energy of anyone or anything they grab onto with their pincer-like appendages. They were heavily inspired by the Xenomorphs in the Alien franchise, and are what this whole franchise is named after. Despite that, they do share one similarity with the Space Vampires from Lifeforce, in that also feed on people’s life energies, though they refer to it as “life force” in that movie, hence why it was called Lifeforce, whereas they refer to it as “life energy” in the Metroid franchise. I wonder if the people who made the original Metroid game took any inspiration from that movie as well since it came out one year before the game. Lifeforce came out in 1985 and the original Metroid came out in 1986, same year as Aliens (the long awaited sequel to Alien) oddly enough. So, the developers could have seen Lifeforce as well and taken inspiration from it for the Metroids themselves. I learned while researching for this review that in-universe, they originated from the planet SR388 and were actually created by the Chozo (the Thoha Chozo to be exact) along with the evil supercomputer, Mother Brain 🧠, who is the actual main antagonist of the entire Metroid franchise, though both were originally created with peaceful intentions in mind before they both became threats to the entire galaxy. 

They both became threats to the galaxy because of their association with the Space Pirates, a malevolent force and a scourge on the entire galaxy that the Galactic Federation has been facing long before the events of the first Metroid game from 1986. The Mother Brain 🧠 took control of the Space Pirates (as well as taking control of Zebes) and is using them to try to take over the galaxy, serving as their supreme commander. And the Metroids are being used as weapons by the Space Pirates under the direct command of the Mother Brain 🧠, to sow chaos and conquer the galaxy, spreading them as far and wide as they can. For this reason, the Galactic Federation called upon the help of Samus and other bounty hunters like her to deal with this threat and defend the galaxy because even though they’re a galaxy spanning government with their own military and police force, the Galactic Federation Army and Galactic Federation Police respectively, the situation has gotten out of hand and the Space Pirates have become too much for them to handle by themselves. So, they need the help of bounty hunters to defeat the Space Pirates because if they succeed, they will topple the Galactic Federation and the entire galaxy will be under their control, or under the control of the Mother Brain 🧠 to be more specific, despite the bounty hunters being free lance and not being under the direct control or payroll of the Galactic Federation. 

 

They also gave Samus permission to wipe out the entire Metroid species from the galaxy because of how much of a threat they had become due to the Space Pirates’ proliferation and manipulation, though that doesn’t happen until later on in the timeline. The Metroid Prime games take place before the Galactic Federation gave Samus carte blanche to wipe out an entire species from existence. She didn’t follow through with that since she kept one Metroid alive and became attached to it and became its adopted mother, Baby, at least until the Baby sacrificed itself to help Samus defeat the Mother Brain 🧠 in Super Metroid, though its DNA 🧬 was later used to create more Metroids and was used to create a vaccine 💉 to save Samus after she got infected by an X Parasite (which also originates from SR388), altering her genetics 🧬 further and making her the first human/Metroid hybrid. She already had Chozo DNA 🧬 inside her prior to this, so she has even more alien DNA 👽🧬 inside of her, and she is more of a hybrid and less of a human than she is. So, the Baby Metroid still lives on inside of her, along with the rest of Metroid species. 

Yes, Metroid is yet another science fiction franchise with a Galactic Federation. Lilo & Stitch has one, Rick & Morty has one, Doctor Who has one, The Fifth Element has one, although theirs is called the United Federated Territories or just the United Federation, and of course Star Trek famously has one and is really the one that started this whole trend, although, like The Fifth Element, theirs is called the United Federation of Planets and not the Galactic Federation. This is probably where Luc Besson got the inspiration for the name, the United Federated Territories in The Fifth Element. There are a lot more than that, but those are the examples I felt like listing. I even went back and re-edited my Lilo & Stitch (2002) review to include all these examples I just mentioned including Metroid. It just gets confusing which Galactic Federation you’re talking about and you have to clarify which Galactic Federation from which franchise you’re talking about. Star Wars really shuck things up by having a galactic government be called the Galactic Republic and another one called the Galactic Empire. There even multiple Galactic Republics in Star Wars, there’s the High Republic (which is exclusive to canon), the Old Republic, and then the New Republic. I know a lot of people don’t like Rebel Moon, but Rebel Moon also avoided having this cliché or trope by having its galactic spanning government be called the Motherworld, instead of something more expected like the Galactic Empire, the Galactic Republic, or the Galactic Federation. Though, compared to something like Lilo & Stitch, the Galactic Federation in Metroid is presented as a lot more morally grey. 

The Metroids on Talon IV were mutated with Phazon, giving them abilities that other Metroids throughout the galaxy do not have and creating new types of Metroids that have never been seen before. That’s how we got the Hunter Metroids and the Fission Metroids. Samus also learns that an enemy from her past has returned and is also on the planet in a new form, Ridley, the purple pterodactyl-like alien 👽 that murdered her parents when she was younger and serves as a military commander for the Space Pirates. The Space Pirates brought him back using cybernetics, and he became Meta Ridley, more machine than living thing, and even more twisted and evil than he was before. I’m guessing the character was given the name Ridley in reference to Ridley Scott, the director of the original 1979 Alien movie. The asteroid ☄️ that killed the Chozo on Talon IV, was also carrying a lifeform, the true source of the Phazon, Metroid Prime. Samus must face these enemies as well as the mutated wildlife on Talon IV all while she recovers pieces of her malfunctioning suit and gains new weapons and gear, and upgrades for those weapons and gear, and even gets a couple new suits like the Gravity Suit and the Phazon Suit, which is really just the Gravity Suit irradiated with Phazon. She gets that suit after the dead Omega Pirate falls on top of her, and melts into Phazon rich goo, and her suit absorbs the Phazon. 

 

Yeah, this is one of those games, where you start out with all of your gear and all of your abilities in the tutorial section, but then the game just strips it all away from you and forces you to reacquire it all over the course of the game, piece-by-piece. Like, with the backtracking, this is a feature of the series rather than a bug, as Samus is always losing her suit or pieces of her suit in every entry, and every game is about regaining her suit, or pieces of her suit, while also gaining new suits and abilities. Like, the Gravity Suit in this game gives her the ability to walk and run underwater 💦 unimpeded as easily as she moves on land, and also probably allows her to move in Zero G environments, but she mostly just uses it to move underwater 💦 in this game, and the Phazon Suit gives her the ability to move through Phazon rich environments without dying and also enhances the beams in her arm cannon whenever she steps into a Phazon pool like during the second part of the Metroid Prime fight. Her normal Varia Suit gives her the ability to move around in hot environments 🥵 like the molten hot Magmoor Caverns 🥵 without dying. I don’t think there’s a single game in this series where she doesn’t lose her suit or lose some of her gear and has to regain them over the course of the game. If they really wanted to do something new, they’d  have her with her suit, all of her weapons, and all of her gear through the entire game. They don’t have to even have her with all of her suits available, like maybe she could start out with the Varia Suit fully intact with all of the weapons and gear included, and then have her gain new suits along with the way as the game goes on, like the Gravity Suit and whatever kind of new suit they want to introduce. 

 

 

(These are two pieces of fan art of Samus Aran in her Zero Suit outfit. The first one was by AztoDio, and the second one was by Jarckius Art.) 

Samus is in top form in this game. I already said that I thought Samus was hot 😍 with her suit off and in her Zero Suit outfit, but after I played this game, I actually think she’s pretty hot with her suit on. Like, when she’s running and then jumping down those holes 🕳️ after Metroid Prime in the final boss fight, and she kind of spins in mid air while she does it, I thought that she was pretty sexy 😍. I don’t know if anyone feels the same about that as I do or not, but that’s the way I felt while doing that boss fight and after playing the game. She went from being mistaken for a guy ♂︎ in the original Metroid back in 1986, to becoming one of the most beloved female video game characters ♀︎ of all time. Not just because guys ♂︎ think she’s hot underneath that suit 😍, and with the suit on 😍, but because she’s badass and can stand toe-to-toe with any of the major male video game characters ♂︎ out there. She’s strong and fearless in the face of danger, but she has a softer and more vulnerable side to her. She is mostly a silent protagonist for most of this series, but there are moments in these games that humanize her and show that she isn’t just a stoic badass in a suit with an arm cannon. 

 

Her being mistaken for a guy ♂︎ in the first game was intentional on the part of the developers. They wanted people to think that she was a guy ♂︎ for most of the game, so that it would juxtapose when they finished the game fast enough and it’s revealed that she’s actually a woman ♀︎. But, by the time Metroid Prime came along, everyone kind of knew that Samus was a woman ♀︎, even if they never played a Metroid game before, like me. So when they designed her suit, they gave it a more feminine appearance ♀︎, giving it more of a shape that conforms to a woman ♀︎’s body, since there no longer any question about whether or not she was a woman ♀︎ or not. Fans had already gotten over that hurdle, they knew she was a woman ♀︎ and had accepted it. Not just accepted it, but embraced it, and just because they found her attractive 😍. And since they gave her suits a more feminine appearance ♀︎, it was easy for guys ♂︎ like me to find her attractive with the suit on 😍. But, the weird thing about me is that it’s only with this game that I find her attractive with the suit on 😍, that I find her suit attractive 😍. I don’t feel that way about the other suits in the other games, at least not yet, but here, in this game, I find her attractive with the suit on 😍. 

 

Something that I learned about Samus while playing this game is while she’s wearing the suit (either one of them), she can turn into a ball. It’s called the Morph Ball, and she mostly uses it to get through small or tight spaces. There are entire areas of the game can only be accessed by using the Morph Ball. I didn’t know she could do that 😲, that’s a really cool ability and it really sets her apart from other similar (male ♂︎) video game characters like Master Chief, the Doomguy, or I’m sorry, the Doom Slayer, and Isaac Clarke. My favorite one is the Spider Ball, which allows you to go up these magnetic rails which are usually a faster way to get a destination or it’s a way to avoid obstacles or hazards ⚠️. I like the sound that it makes you while you’re going up the magnetic rails, it’s a really cool sound effect. 

 

Speaking of sound, I can’t believe I almost forgot to talk about the music in this game. The music in this game is fantastic, it’s mostly electronic or even techno sounding music, but there are few orchestral tracks as well, such as the choir music that plays when you go into the Magmoor Caverns, and softer piano music 🎹 when you enter the Phendrana Drifts, or the theme for the main menu which combines the choir music with the more electronic sounds of the soundtrack, it’s great. I like the theme for the Phazon Mine, it’s an appropriately ominous theme for such a dark place. Originally they were going to go with a more rock soundtrack with a heavy emphasis on guitars 🎸, and while I do think that would’ve been cool also (I like that idea a lot more than a lot of other people do), I do like the music they ultimately went with. It gives its own identity while still sounding like a Metroid game. She does remove her helmet at one point in the game, and we do see her face at the very end after she defeats Metroid Prime, and they actually changed the look of her face for the remastered version from how it looked in the original, and some fans were upset by that 😠. But, after seeing both faces side-by-side, I think her face in the remaster looks a lot better and they were right to change it. 

 

 

 

(This is another piece of fan art of Samus in her Zero Suit outfit. This one was done by an artist called PumpkinSinclair 🎃. It shows a couple of, what I assume to be Federation soldiers, grabbing Samus’s ass, each cheek individually, while she has both of her arms behind her back, and looks kind of upset 😑 but not enough to actually stop them. There was one comment underneath this image that Samus’s internal monologue asking herself she’s just letting these guys ♂︎ grab her ass like this. Me thinks she’s a bit horny and wants to be touched like this. It gets lonely out in space being a bounty hunter 😅. This artist normally does NSFW art 🔞, or not safe for work artwork 🔞, but this is one of the few images that he’s done that’s a bit SFW, or safe for work, or safer for work, so I felt like showing it here, since I talked so much about how I think Samus is sexy 😍 and many people, mostly guys ♂︎, do.) 

It is interesting talking about the development of this game because Metroid Prime wasn’t always meant to be a Metroid game. It wasn’t even developed in-house by Nintendo (as in Nintendo of Japan 🇯🇵), meaning that it’s not technically a first-party title. It was actually a second party title and was developed by a studio based in Houston, Texas called Retro Studios which is owned by Nintendo, the Lone Star State, the eastern neighbor and great rival to New Mexico, my home state. It was actually going to be a complete original game that Retro Studios wanted to make called MetaForce. According to the lead developer on the game, John Whitmore, MetaForce was to be a third person shooter action-adventure game starring three hot female characters ♀︎, emphasis on hot 😍, called Metahumans (no relation to the Metahumans from DC) due to their DNA 🧬 being enhanced to give them superhuman abilities. As you do. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is the flag of Texas.)

 

 

 

 

The plot was going to involve three Metahumans, the three main playable characters, going up against a Neo-Nazi scientist 👨‍🔬 who wanted to use their DNA 🧬 to create a master race. Again, as you do, if you’re a Nazi scientist 👨‍🔬. The reason why they wanted to have three female main characters instead of male characters is that they felt that people would want to stare at three girls’ asses ♀︎ in a third person shooter game rather than three dudes’ ♂︎, the prevailing mindset amongst game developers back then. That’s also why they were so adamant about making the three female leads ♀︎ attractive, because a lot of gamers back then were men ♂︎ and boys ♂︎ (straight men and boys ⚤♂︎), and if you are going to make them play as women ♀︎, you better make them attractive, or at least, as attractive as graphics in the late 90s and early 2000s would allow. 

 

Each Metahuman would have a different play style with one girl ♀︎ being a firearms specialist and most of her gameplay involving guns, one girl ♀︎ being a ninja 🥷 with psychic abilities and most of her gameplay involving stealth, martial arts, swords, and psychic powers, and one girl ♀︎ being a rifle wielding assassin and most of her gameplay involving sniping. The game was also going to be 30 hours long and be split into three acts, with each act focusing on a different primary antagonist and would presumably have you play as one of the three female main characters ♀︎, with each one having an act entirely dedicated to them (that’d be a way for them to bypass the technical limitations of doing a co-op game with having all three characters on screen during gameplay and being able to switch between the three), until it all culminated in them staring down the main antagonist, not the Nazi scientist 👨‍🔬, but a mind-controlling South African 🇿🇦 who is the true mastermind behind everything. 

 

The Neo-Nazi was the secondary antagonist and the main focus of the second act as he was hired by the South African 🇿🇦 to stir up trouble and distract the three girls ♀︎ while he did other things elsewhere. Given he associated with a Neo-Nazi, I’m guessing that he was an Apartheid South African, an Afrikaner who missed the good ol’ days of Apartheid rule in South Africa 🇿🇦. But, at some point, Nintendo saw their progress, specifically Shigeru Miyamoto saw their progress, and after making a few suggestions, they decided to turn it into a Metroid game instead and make it a first person shooter game with action-adventure platforming elements, and the rest is history with them making two sequels after this, with a third one well on the way. Still, I wouldn’t mind if they actually revisited MetaForce and turned it into a real game since it sounds really cool and fun. I learned all this from watching DidYouKnowGaming’s video on the game. You watch it too by clicking here.

 

 

 

(This is a fake poster for the canceled John Woo Metroid movie. It even has a fake release date, May 2, 2009) 

 

 

 

 
Metroid is one of those things that I’m surprised hasn’t been made into a movie yet, live action or otherwise. Of all of Nintendo’s properties, I think Metroid is the one that uniquely lends itself to a live action movie. John Woo (the director of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer (1989), Hard Boiled, Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off, Mission: Impossible 2, Windtalkers, Paycheck, Silent Night (2023), and The Killer (2024) to name but a few) was attached to direct a live action Metroid movie at one point in the 2000s, don’t know that one would’ve turned out, but it ended up not happening due to them not being able to come up with a script and due to Nintendo not being interested in making a Metroid film adaptation at the time. Both problems, the writing problems and the rights problems, were caused by Nintendo since the writers had a tough time coming up with ideas for the script because they were unable to grasp the character of Samus, what her personality was, what were her fears, her wants and desires, her goals, and wanted to get her right and be as faithful to the games as well. 

 

So, they asked Nintendo about Samus’s character so they could get a good idea of what she was like and then come up with a story based on what Nintendo told them, and Nintendo couldn’t answer. They didn’t know anything about the character of Samus, and hadn’t even thought about the questions the writers were asking them. She was just a silent protagonist, a cipher that was just there for people to play as during gameplay, no different from those little pixelated lines in Pong or the earlier depictions of Mario and Luigi in the early Super Mario Bros. games. That’s all she was to them, she didn’t have a personality or a fleshed out backstory. So, they were no help to the writers in coming up with a story for the movie and what to do with Samus’s character and writing a fully realized script based on that. Nintendo also got really protective of the Metroid franchise after Metroid Prime came out and was a huge success, and they didn’t want these Hollywood screenwriters to be ones to flesh out Samus’s character, they had their own ideas of what they wanted to do with Samus’s character in the games, so they passed on the movie and didn’t give it their blessing, so the production company, Tiger Hill 🐅 weren’t able to move forward with the project. 

 

So, they just let the film rights lapse, and just continuing doing their own thing. The producer working on the canceled film project, Brad Foxhoven said that it was a “lose-lose situation” for them because even if Metroid Prime wasn’t successful, Nintendo still probably wouldn’t have given them the go ahead to make the movie because they would’ve seen Metroid as being no longer viable and needing to be reevaluated, and a movie based on it as waste of time that wouldn’t make any money 💵. This is why Nintendo is such a difficult company to work with for the movie business, and one of the many reasons why they’re a difficult company in general. Judging by that live action commercial for Metroid Prime that Alex Proyas directed (and Jeffrey Combs narrated), I think he would’ve made a good fit to direct Metroid movie, at least pre-Gods of Egypt 🇪🇬. I’m surprised they didn’t ask him to direct a Metroid movie. 

 

There are even a few actresses have wanted to play the role as Samus, such as Ronda Rousey and Brie Larson. I would’ve said Ronda Rousey a few decades ago, but then I actually saw her act and…😬 no, I don’t think she should play the role 😑👎. And while I don’t hate Brie Larson as much as lot of other people do, I still don’t think she’s right for the role other than she’s a natural blonde 👱‍♀️. I guess because her role as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers is so similar to Samus in that she’s very stoic and hardly ever shows any emotion, but she wouldn’t be my first choice. But, I’d still pick her over Ronda Rousey. She is a better actress than she is. My first choice would’ve been Katie Sackhoff, I mean she already kind of looks like her in Metroid Prime Remastered, but now she’s kind of too old for the part, I think you need someone a tad bit younger to play Samus especially if you want this to be a long running film franchise. If it was an older and seasoned Samus, then yeah, I’d say Katie Sackhoff was perfect. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Metroid Prime Remastered showing Samus without her helmet at the end of the game. Can you see the resemblance between her and Katie Sackhoff? No? Is it just me 🤷‍♂️?) 

 

 

 

 

 

Any actress who gets cast as Samus will have to be okay with not showing their face for most of the runtime and not having any dialogue or very little dialogue. Which might work out for Ronda Rousey since it’s a mostly physical role, she won’t have to show her face for most of it, and she’ll have very little dialogue meaning we won’t have to hear try to deliver lines convincingly. If they give her a lot of speaking lines, then that would be a recipe for disaster. It would be a movie that people would clown on for years, like the 1995 Judge Dredd movie. Unless they made Samus a chatterbox and had her remove her helmet constantly, which I don’t see happening. I actually wouldn’t mind if Samus talked more in the live action movie, like maybe they could have her not talk for the first half and then had her talk from then on out after a certain point, that would be fine and I think the fans would be okay with that. But the helmet thing is non-negotiable, she has to keep her helmet on for the majority of the movie, only have her remove her helmet very seldomly and in a few select moments. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is a piece of Metroid fan art by the artist on DeviantART, GeniusFetus, depicting Samus wearing the Fusion suit from Metroid Fusion, though it is a different interpretation of it. This is a great piece of artwork by GeniusFetus, it makes me think that if there ever is a Metroid movie, he should be one of the concept artists.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fans would be upset if they had her constantly removing her helmet or if she went the majority of the movie without it. Again, just like with Judge Dredd (1995). Which wouldn’t make sense since that helmet and her suit provide her protection when she goes bounty hunting and is her main source of power and has all of her weaponry. It wouldn’t make sense for her character to venture out in space and land on a planet without a helmet. As long as it’s not Sabrina Carpenter, I’ll be happy. Not that I have anything against Sabrina Carpenter, I just don’t think she’s right for the part, and I could easily see some Hollywood exec suggesting her because she’s blonde 👱‍♀️, she’s hot 😍, and she’s a popular name right now. But, given how successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie back in 2023 was, I’m sure we’ll get a Metroid movie eventually, sooner rather than later. And who knows? maybe I might be the one to direct it, or at least write it, even if I am pretty inexperienced with the Metroid franchise as it is.

 

 

 

 

(This is another wallpaper image for Metroid Prime Remastered, showing the logo and Samus herself up against a backdrop of the Phendrana Drifts.)