Metroid (series)

The metroid series is a Sci-Fi series made by nintendo on August 6, 1986 in Japan and later for the Nintendo Entertainment System in August 1987 in North America. The Metroid games chronicle the missions of bounty hunter Samus Aran in a science fiction setting with parallels to the Alien movies, with similarities including a female, alien-fighting protagonist, climactic self-destruct countdowns, similar character names ("Mother" versus "Mother Brain" & "Ridley" being the name of Alien's director, for example), and general tone.Central plot elements are the Metroid organisms, and the Space Pirates which try to exploit the Metroids' powers. The gameplay combines adventure based on exploration and item-gathering with platformer and shooter dynamics. The Metroid games are particularly associated with nonlinear gameplay.

As of August 2007, 10 games in the Metroid series have been released. This includes four side-scrolling games (Metroid, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Super Metroid, and Metroid Fusion), a port and a remake of Metroid, a spin-off Nintendo DS game (Metroid Prime Pinball), a first-person adventure game with wireless and online multiplayer (Metroid Prime Hunters), and a complete trilogy, with the third game in the trilogy Metroid Prime 3: Corruption released for the Wii on August 27, 2007 in North America, October 26, 2007 in Europe, November 8 in Australia, and December 31 in Japan.[3]

The Metroid games are set in the same fictional universe. They share most main characters and fundamental gameplay elements with a few notable exceptions.

Game-play The game-play of all Metroid games revolves around Samus collecting items, or power-ups, that give her the ability to surmount obstacles. Many of the items recur throughout the series, with some modifications, such as the Morph Ball, which allows her to curl into a small ball to access tight spaces and drop bombs. Despite the series having a chronological element to it, each game requires the acquisition of new beams for Samus's arm cannon, as well as a varying number of suit upgrades. This is usually not explained in the plot; exceptions include Metroid Prime, where a power surge causes Samus to lose all of her upgrades, Metroid Prime 2 where her upgrades get stolen by the Ing, and Metroid Fusion, where she is attacked by X parasites in the beginning of the game and her Power Suit is surgically removed.[4] In other games, such as Metroid Prime 3, Samus starts out with a number of upgrades she previously had to find, for example, the Space Jump and Varia Suit.

The main enemies of the games in the Metroid series are divided into two groups: bosses and final bosses. Each game contains multiple bosses that are often encountered by entering a large sealed room and engaging in combat with a large creature. When successful, the room opens and allows further progress, usually resulting in the acquisition of an item. Final bosses at the end of each Metroid game usually consist of a fight similar to a normal boss, and then a timed dash back to Samus' gunship to complete the game. In Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, these timed escapes appear at the beginning, as well, although in Metroid Prime 3, the timed sequence is to prevent destruction rather than escape from it.[citation needed]

In Metroid and Super Metroid, Kraid and Ridley make appearances as bosses, and Mother Brain appears as a final boss. In some of the games, a Metroid in some form can take the role of a boss, and sometimes even a final boss. The combat model for bosses and final bosses is usually standardized, though there are a few exceptions throughout the series.

The Metroid Prime titles diverge from the typical gameplay of the series by presenting the game through Samus's first-person perspective. As a result, the Prime titles contain heavy first-person shooter elements while retaining the sense of exploration and item collection from the 2-D series. An additional element present in the Prime series is the ability to scan creatures and objects to obtain information about them.