October 12, 2010
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Obligatory Metroid post
Don’t read if you don’t want Metroid Other M spoilers.
And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
That said, I have a few things that need to be said about Other M.
Ridley, okay I can buy that. He even looks cute and fuzzy as a baby, and gives a purpose to the other zebesians.
The Nightmare, it sorta fits, but is this the same one from Fusion, or is it a separate one? That’s a nasty piece of security right there. Also, it’s much easier to fight in Other M than it was in Fusion. I am grateful for that.
MB, alright sure, but metroids that can’t be frozen? No.
The metroid queen. Fuck that noise. There was no hint of that at all. There should have been at least one broken metroid shell. When I found Ridley’s corpse, I was thinking, hey, maybe it’s another giant mutated baby metroid. I can deal with that. No. Metroid queen. Fuck you Team Ninja, and shame on you Nintendo. For shame.
But it fits, and no one can deny that. It fits because there was time to make a new queen. If we draw out a timeline of the events of the Metroid saga, we can see how it all fits, and with a little imagination, see just how it happened that a metroid queen made it to the Bottle Ship.
NES Metroid/Metroid Zero Mission – Samus’ initial mission to Zebes to destroy the metroid threat, by destroying the space pirate AI “Mother Brain” (stolen/warped AU? never explained). Samus completes her mission there, even going so far as to take out the space pirate leader, Ridley (and in Zero Mission, the first Meta Ridley).
Metroid Prime, Prime 2, Prime Hunters, Prime 3 – After their base on Zebes was blown up, the pirates discover and start experimenting with Phazon. Samus is sent in and kicks ass, putting down more Meta Ridley’s, a phazon version of herself, other bounty hunters, another warped AU, and destroys the phazon planet. These missions serve no purpose other than to put in a necessary delay in the timeline, show that she’s not the only bounty hunter in the galaxy, and to cement Samus’ reputation as a galactic savior. They’re more like side-missions… really long side-missions.
Metroid II – Samus is sent to SR388 to eliminate the metroids once and for all. It is possible that the GF already knew about the mutated metroids and possibly took samples from SR388 for further study on the research station in Metroid Fusion, and subsequently (or at the same time) the Bottle Ship in Other M, during the period between some time prior to Zero Mission and the Metroid Prime missions. That seems to be the only way the events in Other M and Metroid Fusion fit. And also lends a bit of nefariousness to the GF since it and the renegades on the Bottle Ship both seemed to be researching the weaponization of the metroids in both locations.
Super Metroid – Samus goes back to Zebes to eliminate the space pirate threat once and for all. As the story goes, she went immediately from SR388 to Ceres Space Colony to deliver the metroid hatchling, and almost immediately had to return due to an attack on that colony. She finds that Ridley has been resurrected (cloned?) and Mother Brain has been rebuilt (also cloned, or another stolen AU?). According to what I think is official canon story, in the Nintendo Power Super Metroid mini-comic, Mother Brain is said to be the space pirate leader. This could just be an inconsistency due to lack of due diligence on the GF’s part. It should be noted that mutated metroid DNA realistically should not have been able to be gathered from Samus’ suit at this time because it would have been washed off in Maridia, or burned off in Norfair, and Ridley’s domain (lava and acid work wonders on destroying organic matter). But that’s beside the point. On a side note, Samus meets up with and later saves the lives of the Dachola and Eticoons (they teach her how to do the boost jump and wall jump, respectively). These little guys come up again in Fusion.
Metroid Other M – Post Super Metroid, supposedly when Samus’ suit gets cleaned, zebesian DNA and Ridley’s DNA gets pulled from her suit and sent to the Bottle Ship to create zebesian bioweapons. They must have already had a mutated metroid on the ship to mutate into the queen and be controlled by MB. Which is still bullshit because there should have been a broken metroid shell laying around somewhere. And seriously, Samus should have gone to fight MB, not Adam, but hey, he had to die somehow to make his appearance in Fusion fit. Metroids she can’t destroy, my ass. By this time Samus has already fought creatures far more powerful than those metroids. Adam seriously underestimated Samus right there and it cost him his life.
Metroid Fusion – Samus is sent back to SR388 to help a research team investigate the planet, minus the metroids, since she explored it top to bottom, only to find the X Parasite. She is sent to a nearby research station where metroid DNA (which it turns out they had in spades on that station) helps her body to fight off the infestation. On that station there is a segregated section used for metroid research, and various levels of mutated metroids are found there, and Samus actually fights an omega metroid. She also discovers that the Dachola and Eticoons are in this station as well, and they end up saving HER this time around.
All of this, taken into account with the events in Other M, and other guesswork, two possibilities arise: one, a mutated metroid must have been moved from this station to the Bottle Ship sometime between the Zero Mission, Metroid Prime games, and Super Metroid, or two, the Bottle Ship received a mutated metroid sample from SR388 as well as the research station in Fusion, let that metroid mutate into a new queen, and didn’t let any metroids she produced mutate. There are other possibilities, but these appear to be the most realistic.
I could be wrong about the whole damn thing. The only ones who can say for sure are the people at Nintendo.
