Samus vs. The Galaxy

1up has a look back at the Metroid series during the 20th anniversary of Metroid for the NES. From the article: "Metroid's gameplay isn't beloved exclusively. Fans love the series' heroine, Samus Aran. Samus is hard to define as a character, which adds to her appeal. In the scrolls of the Chozo, the avian race that raised her after she was orphaned, she's recorded as The Newborn, and the hope of their depleted race. To the Galactic Federation, she's the protector of the galaxy. To Space Pirates, she's the Huntress, or a handful of vulgar alien words. To gamers, Samus is mostly an enigma. Unlike other game heroines, she hasn't spread herself and her secrets everywhere like a high school senior of ill repute. Samus' motivations still command respect and a certain degree of awe."

Comments

Samus Aran is a Girl?!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Friend of mine got Super Metroid on the SNES when it first came out. He was a big Metroid fan, having played both the NES and Gameboy versions to death. Anyway, on the SNES version, when you died, Samus' suit disintegrated and Samus herself emerged wearing some kind of underwear getup. Nothing too risque thankfully. There was also a high pitched scream as you died.

My friend's first reaction: "Why is there a girl in Samus Aran's suit?".

The fact that Samus Aran is female has absolutely no bearing on the gameplay of Metroid. Anyone who plays the game for long enough will cease to care. At best, its a marketing novelty factor, like the flashy suit or spaceship. When you really, truely play a game for dozens of hours, superflous things like that fade into obscurity.

My friend wasn't alone. I'll bet there were many fans of Metroid who has let this fact completly escape them. If asked the question: "Are there any female lead characters in some of your favourite games?" I'd wager many, many Metroid fans would be streched to answer "Metroid" quickly. This is because, a true gamer will simply not care, and these facts will slip their minds.

It's like if you were asked to name a game with a black lead character. You might be harded pressed to do it, because you simply didn't care. And no, it's not the game you were thinking of.

If you want to make the characters "ethnicity" part of the game, the only way to do that is to make such things user customisable. A la MMORPGs, Oblivion, etc, . Other than that, the specifics of the characters themselves, outside of their in game abilities, are irrelevant, as any avid gamer will tell you. Who ever picked Blaze because she was a woman? I mean come on?

The game is the gameplay. It isn't the graphics, or the hype, or the characters, or the style, or the studio, or the music. These are only minor parts of the core that is the game. People need to stop getting distracted by things that concern other entertainment industries, because they only loosely apply to video games. The game is the gameplay. No amount of marketing can change that.

Re:Samus Aran is a Girl?!

[StocDred]

At best, its a marketing novelty factor, like the flashy suit or spaceship

I dig what you're saying, but how can the original Metroid be faulted for marketing novelty when the fact that Samus is female is only revealed if you were a super-player? Nintendo didn't make a big deal about her gender in early marketing; she looks like a pixellized robot on the box cover. Most players simply had no idea because they never finished the game. Back then we had no internet to ruin things within .5 hours of a game's release.

Samus's reveal was more of a bonus surprise for dedicated players than anything else. And, motivational underwear aside, she still remains an early and inspiring example of a female video game heroic avatar. Which is cool, having diversity of leads in video games (male, female, alien, young, old, heroic, evil etc). I hope you're not arguing against that.

And not too long ago, there was an article about how often male players choose a female character, even in games that are not customizable or online. So, window dressing does matter. Yeah, gameplay is important, but story and characters and immersion are also important. Calling it "irrelevant" is an unfair whitewash.

Of course, turning Samus into an obviously mega-hot Lara Croft / Witchblade / Lady Death style of female "role model" is pure marketing... but that's more of a latter day invention. And I still would say Nintendo hasn't milked that in the way that Tomb Raider or Bloodrayne a hundred other games have.

I'd wager many, many Metroid fans would be streched to answer "Metroid" quickly.

And I would wager you're totally wrong on that one. Fans are on that.

Re:I definitely remember

[dilbert627]

Even the instruction manual that came with the game referred to her as a "he". I guess it was intentional... Keep the character mysterious, then at the end of the game you realize it's a girl.

Metroid's popularity died in Japan

[Rayonic]

Sadly, none of the recent GBA or Gamecube games have sold well in Japan. See: http://vgcharts.org/worldtotals.php

Metroid Prime: 120,000 units
Metroid Fusion: 180,000 units
Metroid Prime 2: 70,000 units

I can understand why the Prime games haven't sold, because the Japanese market has the whole "FPS games are scary and confusing" thing going on. But Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission were very much in the style of the old 2D games.

Mysterious = cool.

[Rob T Firefly]

The fact that so little has been actually revealed about Samus really helps get fans interested in her. Without much of a backstory, people can't get wrapped up disliking it, and may even subconsciously fill in the gaps with whatever cool details they want. It's also the mysterious knight-in-armor aspect, like how Boba Fett had developed such a cult following after the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Fett looked really cool, he acted badass, we only saw him for a few fleeting scenes, and the main characters seemed to know just enough about him to be afraid. How could he possibly not be the pinnacle of awesome?

If they ever do up a Metroid RPG with hours of dialogue and flashbacks to Samus' past, watching her parents get killed outside a theater which inspires her to fight crime or some damn thing, interest in her would wane just as Boba Fett lost a big chunk of his cult following when the prequels tried to heavily feature him and his origins.

Re:I think I speak for everyone when I say...

[steveo777]

Yeah, basically any explosion near your face in either prime will show her reflexion for a second. It works very well with underwater explosions. There are also some 'mirrors' throughout the first game where you can see yourself move around, but the images on them are very poor. But they're suposed to be, considering that if they were used for mirrors, they haven't been cleaned for a long time. -enjoy!

Samus is awesome.

[Maul]

Samus is one the most interesting game characters, and is probably the most intriguing of Nintendo's main heroes.

It may have been just a side effect of the fact that Metroid was never popular in Japan, but Samus has a lot of mystery factor that I think actually helps the player try to get inside of the the character for themselves.

In Super Metroid, the player starts to get a hint about the motivations Samus may have. In fact, the backstory that was developed for Samus (Her colony was destroyed by space pirates, she was raised by Chozo and given Chozo blood, etc.) appeared around the time of Super Metroid. The eManga released around Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime is just an updated version of that story. It may be a better revision of that story than what they had originally, but that backstory did exist since 1994 or earlier. Even so, much of Samus' personality, motivations, etc. still needed to be inferred by the player.

I very much enjoyed the depiction of Samus in Metroid Prime. It is obvious that the character is female, you can see the reflection of Samus' face and hear her voice once in a while (though like Link, she doesn't speak words), but they don't make a huge deal of it aside from that. By scanning the Pirate data, you can basically see how large a threat Samus is now considered by the Pirates, so you know the character you have control over is powerful. You can ultimately imply that Samus is fairly silent and solitary. Samus' pursuit of the pirates, in my opinion, is not simply revenge oriented. Many developers would have had Samus yell, "Hey, Ridley, this is for my mom!" while blowing him up. Sure, Samus may have a grudge for what the Pirates did, but I think her primary motivation is to stop them from causing any further harm.

This is the version of Samus I like the best.

While the bonus endings often reveal Samus in swimsuit-like attire, I like the fact that Samus shows up with the appropriate equipment to get the job done. Whereas many game heroines dress in next to nothing, or something totally impractical for what they are doing, Samus wears a heavy combat suit.

I'm not sure I like the Zero Suit Samus that will be in the new Super Smash Bros. game. It would really destroy the series to try to make Samus into more of a Lara Croft / DOA Girl type character.

Plot follows

[phorm]

The plot follows the gender-lines to a small extent, however. When a baby metroid emerges at the end of the old gameboy version, the first thing it seems it Samus and thus it assumes she is its mother. Rather than killing the critter, Samus allows it to life, eventually turning it over to some (supposedly benevolent) scientists... which leads to the SNES version in which the metroid sacrifices itself for her.

Yes, it could have been done with a male lead, but the 'mother' subplot does more easily track with a female lead character. Metroid is probably one of those games that could make a decent movie. Decent base plot, but nothing too deep in any particular direction that it could be too easily ruined. Tomb Raider wasn't all that bad for a VG movie (and it was fairly popular), so I wonder how one about a female bounty hunter who is savior of a lost race would do...

Re:I think I speak for everyone when I say...

[tritium6]

Worth noting is that Nintendo does take off the suit for the upcoming Super Smash Brothers Brawl on the Wii. Pic at http://www.animaxis.com/images/products/131627.jpg . You can see a (very brief) glimpse of her in this trailer, but you gotta wait for it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kfixYJ7zvTk She does have a very "womanly" shape. Does this mean Nintendo is cashing in on Samus' female aspect?