Metroid Dread lets Samus Aran be a bad-ass at last

I can’t believe I’m writing about the portrayal of Samus Aran again. I didn’t think I’d ever be back here. However, MetroidThe fearIt has awakened me from years of Metroid fan sleep.

It’s 2021, and Metroid fans finally have a new depiction of the veteran bounty hunter, a new adventure, and a new series of reveals about Samus’ history. This Samus portrait has been her most beloved. The fear It has become one of the best-selling Metroid games and is now in its third year. This is the first version that Samus Aran appears in for many players. The fear She was a taciturn, bad-ass woman with an adjustable arm cannon. They don’t know what she was. Always It’s cool.

But Samus’ journey to The fear It has not been perfect. Samus was one of the first prominent female video game heroines, and since her inception, she’s been the subject of decades of arguments about whether she’s too strong to be sexy, or too sexy to be strong. Original Metroid didn’t even reveal her gender except to players able to beat the game fast enough; if they rose to that challenge, they’d learn Samus was not only a woman, but a woman who’d pose and wave at them while wearing a bikini. At the time, the reveal was a gimmicky surprise — and a presentation of her body as a reward reserved only for the most talented (presumed male, presumed straight) players.

Since then, Samus Aran’s appearance and portrayal have fluctuated wildly. The Super Metroid Nintendo’s Player’s Guide described her as a 198 pound, 6’3 muscle maven, but Additional M controversially illustrated Samus as a 5’1, noodle-armed waif. Once Super Smash Brothers added the option for Samus to fight in her Zero Suit (the skin-tight blue body suit she wears under her armor), the tension between Samus’ conflicting physicalities became much more visible, with Super Smash Bros. depicting Samus as a towering Amazon in her power suit and a petite gymnast in her Zero Suit.

Image: Nintendo

Samus Aran’s personality kept fluctuating, too. In-game dialogue and text were absent in three of the first three 2D Metroid Games. Instead, visual storytelling and environment storytelling was used to tell the story. Samus saves the life of a Metroid baby after killing a lot of dangerous, mutated Metroids. Super Metroid. It was up to Samus to share any feelings about this. It wasn’t until Metroid FusionAnd Additional MSamus was suddenly very emotional over Metroid. Not to mention all the stressful times she’d endured in her entire life. The reveal that Samus was a woman — a sexy woman, waving at you — had come as a surprise to players back in 1986. However, the revelation that she was an author came as a surprise to players in 1986. The emotionalThe Metroid fandom was shaken to pieces by this woman. It was a pity that Samus, despite her minimal description in Metroid games’ early days, had not been given enough attention. Fusion And Additional MAlthough it was possible to fill, few liked the result.

As a person who has read and reread the dubiously canonical Metroid manga series, I’m down for a portrayal of Samus Aran as a tender-hearted trauma survivor who’s endured a lifetime of baggage from multiple father figures, very few of whom are still alive. That’s what Additional M attempted. But it didn’t quite stick the landing. Fans of all stripes were disappointed by the results, whether they are feminists who wanted a more complex portrayal of a long-standing videogame heroine or sexists upset that the blonde sexpot was no longer waving at them but actually speaking. Whining. For years afterwards Additional M’s release, the Metroid franchise shuttered its doors, seemingly unable to move forward. With many Metroid fanatics, I made my way to the next stage.

The announcement of Metroid Prime 4A 3DS remake and adaptation of the 1992 2D Metroid video game Samus returnsMade by MercurySteam, a Spanish developer. However Metroid Prime 4It has not yet materialized. Samus returnsIt came out just a few hours after it was announced, giving Metroid fans anxious like mine little time for worry over whether or not the product would turn out to be good. Everyone else was mainlining, however. The Wild BreathEvery night I played on my Nintendo 3DS, my Nintendo 3DS was always at my bedside. Samus returnsIn amazement, and relief. Metroid did it again? Is that possible? I hadn’t dared to dream about it.

Nintendo

Metroid DreadIt has been almost 20 years since it was first imagined as a sequel to the original. Metroid Fusion (2002). Yoshio Sakamoto has been producing and directing several of the games since the beginning. MetroidThe EMMI robots to stalk Samus was the brainchild of, The fear early on, but video game technology wasn’t there. Sakamoto’s partnership with MercurySteam for the Samus returnsThe Nintendo Switch and its capabilities allowed for the realization of a long-held wish.

But I’ve been burned before. Yoshio Takamoto was the one who had originally written this story. Fusion And Additional M, the two games that depicted a version of Samus whose lack of confidence didn’t match up with the capabilities she’d demonstrated — or, at least, capabilities I had demonstrated — in Metroid, Metroid 2And Super Metroid. Samus may have PTSD. Even though the symptoms might be contradictory, I believed that he had it.Additional MAnd Fusion I was not able to get a realistic portrayal about a wounded warrior from them. Instead, they depicted Samus as insecure and simpering, looking to her male superiors for advice that she’d never seemed to need or want before.

At the very least, based on MercurySteam’s remake of Metroid 2I was confident that exploration and platforming would make me feel happy. Metroid Dread. The story could have been filled with a sexist, paternalistic, cringeworthy dialogue between Samus (and the AI recreation) of Adam Malkovich her ex-commanding officer. My role would be to play the game, and I’d be Samus with the cooler visor. I always had been in the past, even when the game didn’t match my imagination. The Samus from the game was cool, but I didn’t expect it. She has never had the opportunity to be.

Image: MercurySteam/Nintendo

Metroid DreadSamus Aran finally proves that she is a badass, despite every expectation and odds. The game acknowledges Samus’ long list of father figures who’ve told her what to do, but rather than follow the path of other games that explore daughters’ tension between respect and rebellion against their paternal influences, Metroid Dread is a tribute to the solitary slog of Samus’ career.

Samus is the only one who can do her job. AI Adam may give her advice and admonishments along the way, but she’s the one who’s actually scrambling through smog-infested corridors, leaping over fiery lava pits, collecting ancient artifacts and plugging them into her shambling cyborg body. She’s the one exploring and uncovering the world around her and, as usual, it’s hostile as hell. Sometimes she faces adversaries that make her eyes widen in terror; in other moments, she meets longtime foes and shrugs in boredom, the jaded warrior who’s seen it all (and seen it again in her nightmares, and hopefully, gone to therapy since then). She’s afraid of the new threats, but she’s inured to the familiar ones. She’s not a cold-hearted cypher who never feels fear. She’s a human; she shrugs, she cocks her head, she struts, and she struggles.

Of course, there’s the Metroid of it all as well — the morph ball, the super missiles, and so on. It’s not easy to master the pattern in boss fights. I was so impressed with my ability to get past them that Samus appeared as unfazed, hyper-competent and unfazed. It was a challenge to unlock every corner of the map in order to obtain all the energy and missile upgrades. This required both quick reflexes and critical thinking. All of that, on its own, would have been enough for me, as indeed it was in MercurySteam’s Samus returns.

Image: MercurySteam, Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

But The fear It’s more than that. It’s also a surprising redemption for Sakamoto’s ability to tell Samus’ story, after Fusion And Additional M felt like missed opportunities to expand on the heroine’s mysterious past. The fear doesn’t include much story, and its few narrative reveals are the height of melodrama — but it’s juicy rather than cloying. The best thing about Samus’ portrayal is that it is minimal without being overly dramatic; it has enough to be illustrative but not too much.

Metroid’s best games did not have much of a story. There’s still mystery left in The fear Find out more about Samus and her thoughts about it all. Because of her body language and the words she uses in ancient Chozo, I am now more confident than ever about seeing a true multifaceted Samus. She’s just mysterious enough to leave me wanting more, and finally, I feel some hope I might get it. She’s traumatized and brave, reeling at new information while also being confident and competent enough to take it on board and move forward, always forward. While the credits were rolling, I thought: Could this be the woman that she always intended to become?

After all these years, I’m glad I finally got the chance to meet her.