Category:Metroid

The Metroid (メトロイド, Metoroido) is a series of science fiction adventure video games produced by Nintendo. Metroid chronicles the missions of bounty hunter Samus Aran to protect the galaxy from the depradations of the Space Pirates and their attempts to harness the power of fictional organisms such as the Metroid against civilization. The series is also noted for nonlinear gameplay.

The Metroid series currently consists of twelve games across many different video game platforms. All of the games in the series have been both critically acclaimed and commercially successful, though each installment has seen varying levels of success. It is also one of Nintendo's best selling franchises with 17 million games sold.

Series
The dozen games in the Metroid series focus on the adventures of Samus Aran and her assignments to wipe out threats to the Galactic Federation presented by the Space Pirates and their attempts to harness various biological weapons such as the Metroids and the also the radioactive and mutagenic compound Phazon. The first Metroid game had Samus exploring the planet Zebes to stop the Space Pirates from exploiting the Metroid species to conquer the galaxy. She confronts the cybernetic lifeform Mother Brain, as well as its guardians, Kraid and Ridley.

The chronology of the Metroid fictional universe does not match the release order of the games. This section will list the games in chronological, rather than release, order.


 * Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission (1986/2004): Samus travels through the caverns of the planet Zebes to stop the Space Pirates from exploiting the Metroid species for galactic domination. She confronts the cybernetic lifeform Mother Brain, as well as its guardians, Kraid and Ridley. In the 2004 remake Metroid: Zero Mission, it is retconned that she was ambushed by Space Pirates after defeating Mother Brain and escaped from Zebes, and her ship crash-lands back on the surface. Stripped of her Power Suit and her ship destroyed, she is forced to infiltrate the Space Pirate mothership in order to find a way off the planet with only an emergency pistol for protection. After receiving a fully powered suit from deep within the Chozo ruins, she defeats Mecha-Ridley and escapes from the mothership before it self-destructs.
 * Metroid Prime (2002): Samus receives a distress signal in her new ship and travels to Tallon IV to stop the Space Pirates from exploiting a powerful radioactive substance known as Phazon. She discovers that the Chozo once settled on this planet, and their disappearance, as well as the emergence of Phazon, is due to a meteor impacting the planet decades ago. After ruining a Space Pirate mining operation and collecting the twelve Chozo Artifacts that allow access to the sealed impact crater, she confronts, and seemingly destroys, Metroid Prime, the apparent source of the planet's Phazon corruption.
 * Metroid Prime Pinball (2005): Not a separate canon game in the Metroid storyline but actually retells the story of the original Metroid Prime in pinball format. Despite playing as a pinball game, there are a number of powerups that can be collected in the multi-game mode, including missiles and power bombs. The game was the first to be bundled with the Nintendo DS Rumble Pak.


 * Metroid Prime Hunters (2006): When the Federation receives an unusual telepathic message, Samus is sent to the remote Alimbic Cluster in the Tetra Galaxy to uncover the rumored "Ultimate Power." Six rival bounty hunters that also heard the message actively attempt to secure the power before anyone else, including Samus. It transpires that the promise of ultimate power was actually a lie sent by the creature Gorea, sealed away by the Alimbics in a void between dimensions. After killing Gorea, Samus and the 6 bounty hunters all leave the cluster, empty handed, but alive.
 * Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004): Samus is sent to investigate the planet Aether after a squad of GF Marines was lost there. Samus finds them all dead, killed by several creatures, mainly consisting of an evil race called the Ing. Upon meeting the only remaining member of Luminoth (the others were frozen in stasis chambers until the end of the game, where the last of the energy is replaced, and Dark Aether is destroyed), Samus learns Aether has been split into two dimensions by a meteor similar to the one that crashed on Tallon IV. Samus helps save Aether from the Ing, but encounters Metroid Prime once again, now called Dark Samus, a heavily mutated being who had copied Samus' genetic code and stolen her Phazon suit at the end of her Tallon IV adventure.
 * Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007): Space Pirates shut down Galactic Federation computer systems and then engage in large scale combat in an attempt to further spread Phazon. Enormous Phazon-based seedships, known as Leviathans, impact planets and begin corrupting them with Phazon. Samus is charged with destroying the 'Phazon Seeds' and restoring functionality to the Federation's computer network. After purging three planets of Phazon (including the Space Pirate homeworld), the Federation locates the source of Phazon, planet Phaaze, which is made entirely of Phazon. As the Federation engages the Space Pirates in orbit, Samus enters the depths of the planet, and succeeds at finally destroying Dark Samus and Phazon once and for all.
 * Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991): Following the events of the previous chapters, the Galactic Federation deems the Metroid species too dangerous to exist, and, after their own failed attempts, employs Samus to travel to the Metroid homeworld, SR388, and exterminate the entire species. After killing every Metroid, Samus finds an unhatched egg behind the Queen Metroid's chamber. Before she gets the chance to destroy it, it hatches a tiny Metroid larva which imprints Samus as its mother. Helping her escape back to her ship, it is handed over by Samus to the Galactic Federation's research station for study.
 * Super Metroid (1994): The study on the Metroid hatchling was astounding, it was found that Metroids can produce energy as well as absorb it, however before the scientists could conduct further research, Samus received a distress signal from the research lab. She returns just in time to see Ridley stealing the hatchling, having killed all of the scientists. She then follows Ridley to the rebuilt base on Zebes to stop the Space Pirates in their new plan to clone the Metroids and use them as a weapon. She kills the reborn versions of Ridley and Kraid, as well as new guardians Phantoon and Draygon, in order to confront Mother Brain once again. Samus is nearly killed in the battle, but is saved, and her suit supercharged, by the Metroid hatchling, shortly before Mother Brain kills it. Samus proceeds to destroy Mother Brain, and once again escapes Zebes during a countdown to an explosion. This time, the entire planet explodes, taking with it the few remaining cloned Metroids.
 * Metroid Fusion (2002): While acting as a bodyguard for researchers on the planet SR388, Samus is infected by a creature known as the X Parasite, originally the prey of the Metroid species. Doctors surgically remove portions of her Power Suit and cured the X infection with a vaccine created from the DNA of the baby Metroid from her previous adventure. The vaccine not only allowed her to survive the parasite, but to absorb them to power up her energy and weapons. She is then sent to investigate a disturbance at the space research facility, Biologic Space Labs, where researchers attempted to contain the infected Power Suit. It is revealed that an X mimicking Samus, nicknamed the SA-X, has taken control of Samus's suit and released other X parasites inside the other specimens, infecting the entire station as they assimilate other organisms. Samus soon discovers that the SA-X have multiplied, and that as many as ten of the beings are wandering the station. While trying to destroy SA-X, Samus not only discovers the frozen remains of Ridley, but she also uncovers a Federation research program to grow new Metroids. The Federation's goal was apparently to continue the research Ridley had interrupted years ago by cloning Metroids from the very same DNA extracted from the last hatchling from SR388. Realizing the threat this would pose, Samus's CO computer, Adam, suggests that she self-destruct the station, as well as alter its propulsion to intercept with SR388, causing the station's self-destruct vaporization field to include the planet, guaranteeing the elimination of the X and Metroid threat once and for all. Samus is confronted by one of the SA-X, which after taking a substantial amount of damage, mutates into a hideous beast. After Samus destroys the host, the parasite itself flees. After changing the station's propulsion to intercept with SR388, Samus races back to her ship before the station crashes, only to run into a large Omega Metroid. Samus is quickly defeated, at death's door, when the parasite she just defeated reforms into the SA-X, and attacks the Omega Metroid. The Omega Metroid defeats the SA-X, but this allows Samus to absorb the SA-X parasite and recover all her abilities. She manages to destroy the Omega Metroid, and escape in her ship moments before the station crashes.