After a harrowing mission to rid the galaxy of Metroids, Rouge’s mission was near successful - all save a lone, baby metroid. As she approached her ship, she heard an all too familiar screech and a crash behind her - leaving SR388 wasn’t going to be that easy...

Also yes, Proteus Ridley here is based off the Egg Dragoon!

this is their dynamic

Echoes and Hunters are really interesting to me because of their place relative to the rest of the series, as basically the closest thing to being self-contained Filler Episodes in Samus's life. It can be argued the Prime games as a whole are a filler arc, what with how you really don't need to play the Trilogy to understand the 2D games' ongoing narrative. Even so, it is still a whole arc within itself; despite being decent standalone titles, the phazon connection spanning all three enriches them in conjunction with one-another, and Corruption in particular leans a lot on the setup the first two provide.

Yet at the same time, while definitely connected to the other two, Echoes is distinctly the odd one out in a lot of ways, and the overarching phazon storyline seems almost incidental at times despite Dark Samus and the background setup of the conflict. It's not confirmed either way, but the dark world could be read as a pocket universe created by the leviathan seed malfunctioning, or a whole parallel dimension that it simply broke through into and created the copy of Aether within. Even if it is the latter, the Ing were probably a byproduct of the interaction of Phazon and the dark dimension, but there is also the possibility the were a distinct entity existing beforehand. Regardless of all of that, the Luminoth and Aether as a location certainly stand out as unique, and are only loosely connected to the bigger picture through a shared history with the Chozo.

Hunters, meanwhile, may wind up tying into Prime 4 through Sylux, but that too is extremely incidental to the main story focus, which is even more outright disconnected from the usual Metroid factions and concepts than even Echoes is. As people have joked about before, it really says something that killing Gorea, a terrible eldritch abomination that singlehandedly wiped out an entire galactic-region-spanning civilization, is probably one of the least important things Samus has done in her career. Even that aside, apart from Sylux and Weavel, most of the other hunters are similarly unique and disconnected from the established story, with Trace and the Kriken Empire in particular standing out as an elephant in the room that are weirdly less relevant than the info on them would imply.

And I love the overarching storyline, both of the Prime games and the series as a whole, and how the different mainline titles are for the most part thematically enriched by their interconnectivity and parallels. (Even Proteus Ridley, for all the problems I have with him, I do appreciate as a clear bridge between Corruption and Super.) But there is also something really fascinating to these two more avant-garde titles, that really expand the universe and try new things, instead of remaining confined to the core concepts the series usually keeps a tight focus on.

There is a risk of going too far and possibly losing sight of the aesthetic/thematic shore, so to speak, but I feel like we're not quite there yet, and I appreciate the effort to branch out. On the flipside, there is again some weirdness to some of this stuff being so confined instead of having a bigger impact, (looking at you Trace) but the level of tightness of the mainline games does kinda work in our favor here. Sure it's weird, but it's not out of the realm of plausibility that the Kriken really are a big deal, but just... elsewhere, and mostly haven't directly relevant to Samus's life outside of this one-off run-in with Trace.

Idk, I'm not really going anywhere in particular with this, I just think it's neat.

Proteus/Meta Ridley 💪

favorite boss in metroid so far?

proteus ridley in samus returns, no contest. i know it's controversial and totally changes the tone of the ending but i'm all for it. i love how it perfectly links together the prime games to the 2d games. and it's such a great fight too, not just as a game but for spectacle with those quick, snappy cinematics. she beats the crap out of him, he beats the crap out of her, and even the baby metroid gets in on the action. it's great stuff, and if it's the last ridley fight we get, it goes out with a bang.

honorable mentions are the dark samus fights because i love evil counterparts, and the rundas fight because i love sad battle music

Metroid Samus Returns

Proteus Ridley Mix

Gunship iii bombing

In Super Metroid, Samus flies her Starship straight to the Ceres Space Colony to deliver the baby to the researchers there. After Proteus Ridley is defeated, Samus and the baby use the Gunship to leave SR388, inadvertently allowing the X Parasites to take control of SR388. During the fight with Proteus Ridley, the Gunship is moved to the background of its landing site. Unlike Return of Samus, Samus will come across Teleport Stations throughout the game, which make backtracking to the Gunship much easier. In Samus Returns, Samus's Gunship restores Samus' health, ammo, and (after obtaining her first Aeion Ability Artifact) Aeion Gauge, indicating that its systems are somehow able to generate Aeion energy. At the end of the game, after eliminating the Queen Metroid and finding the baby, Samus re-boards the ship and leaves the planet. Due to the more linear structure of Metroid II, if Samus wants to revisit her ship to recharge her health and missiles, it will require a large amount of unnecessary backtracking. After landing on the planet, Samus leaves the Star Ship and ventures into SR388. It returns in one of the next chronological entries of the series, Metroid II, where she is sent to SR388 to eliminate the Metroid threat forever. The ship is missing in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid Prime: Federation Force, where Samus has a new, custom-built Gunship that she designed herself. The ship remains there and slowly repairs itself over the course of the game. The ship suffers damage after it is struck by a bolt of lightning composed of Dark Energy during its descent to the surface of Aether, and it subsequently crash-lands in the Temple Grounds Landing Site. What may be the ship's control screen is seen at the beginning of the game, scanning Aether for a landing site before selecting a flight path. This Gunship is chronologically first seen in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, where Samus is sent on a mission to Aether to find out what happened to and assist Galactic Federation troopers who had crashed onto the planet earlier. Samus enters the ship by standing on the topside hatch and pressing down, allowing her to save her game and recharge her energy and ammunition. The ship has three Landing Gear Legs which help it land. The cockpit's advanced machines and monitor panels are derived from Chozo technology. Samus can be seen using a ball pad to control the Star Ship during a cutscene in Metroid: Other M, with the seat body linking directly to Samus. The Gunship sets a flight path with coordinates, such as 78.67.863 in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Ancient Chozo script is inscribed on its hull. There is no other ship like it, so the distinct hull lines mark it to friend and foe alike. It was custom built for her on Aliehs III. It was first seen in Metroid II: Return of Samus, and its design has largely remained the same ever since. This Gunship is easily the most recognisable of Samus' ships. 4.13 Metroid: Samus Returns Strategy Guide.4.3 Super Metroid Nintendo Player's Guide.

Samus has never fought a final boss in a 2d metroid close to her height and that's very funny

Metroid Samus Returns: Samus & The Metroids renders from the credits in HD

Metroid-tober #18 - Proteus

The next prompt is Super Missile

Coolest Metroid boss?

That's a TOUGHIE. I'd say my favorite boss fight atm is probablyyyyy the final boss of Samus Returns (will put the spoiler under a read more for the sake of anyone who hasn't played it)

That'd have to be Proteus Ridley! The music's great, the surprise is cool, and the fight really does a good job of feeling like a true test of your skills that you've learned playing the game; it left a dang big impression on me when I first reached it, and that's as someone who hadn't played Prime yet and didn't realize what a big deal Proteus Ridley is!

Smash Bros. (Part 3 of 5)

Drew all of the Smash characters in one sitting, 8 hours of pencilling and inking straight. I then did two more hours to clean up. Most are in an alternate costume from other media, ask if you wanna know what costume is from where

I know the metroid timeline is purposely pretty vague, but do you have a headcanon for how long it's been since metroid 1? I figure it has to be at least a few years, even in the games themselves don't take place over a long period of time each

I think my initial off-the-cuff guesstimate would be somewhere in the vicinity of eight to ten years, with Samus in Zero Mission being in her mid twenties, and in her early-mid thirties as of Dread. Wanna double-check what little canon info there is later to make sure there aren't any glaring contradictions, and it's hard to say how Prime 4 may alter things or not, but here's my rough guesses about the timeskips between games.

Zero Mission to Prime - A couple years, enough time for the escaped frigate Orpheon to set up shop on Tallon IV before Samus comes calling. For simplicity, let's round to an even number; my instinct would be to say two years, but apparently one source says it is actually three. I'll split the difference and say 2 Years, 6 Months.

Prime to Hunters - A couple months at most, mainly because I'm pretty sure it was said explicitly somewhere that Prime and Echoes were six months apart. 2 Years, 8 Months

Hunters to Echoes - A few months, probably a slightly bigger space on this end of Hunters, but still not too long, in keeping with the aformentioned six-month gap. 3 Years.

Echoes to Corruption - Approximately a year, give or take, allowing for Urtraghus's near-complete seed conversion (unimpeded compared to Tallon IV) and creation of Urtraghan Pirate Phazon Cult, along with the other logistics groundwork laid for their massive attacks seen in the game. 4 Years.

Corruption to Federation Force - Merely a few months, as Samus would still have to have been recovering from her phazon corruption for the pirates to have feasibly captured her, and for the Federation to switch gears from their now-useless PED technology to Project Golem. (Meanwhile, I hold the headcanon that the Pirates are quite vast and decentralized compared to what the games claim/imply, thus the Urtraghan Phazon Cult was not representative of the entirety of the Pirates, and the Doomseye crew were a completely different branch who had been setting up seperately from the Urtraghans during the same time period, and were unaffected by their fall.) For rounding purposes, let's say that's four months, putting us at 4 Years, 4 Months.

Federation Force to Samus Returns - This space is the big unknown variable, especially given this is most likely where Prime 4 will fall, and we don't yet know whether it will ultimately be a one-off or start a brand new trilogy or what. But for now, assuming only Prime 4 goes in this space, I'll give it something like a round two years, with P4 happening closer to the back end of that, to lead fairly directly into Samus Returns with only a few months between them, with whatever incident occurs there finally spurring the Federation to order the Metroid extermination. But if they do wedge in even more games after Prime 4, I would stretch this section out to three or more years. But for now, 6 Years, 4 Months.

Samus Returns to Super - I detailed in another post that while I originally agreed with the general consensus that Super follows extremely closely off of SR, I have since changed my mind. Even though I have my issues with the forced inclusion of Proteus Ridley and the general tonal mishandling of Metroid II's ending, if we are to aknowledge that that event occurred, I feel like Super must make far more sense with some temporal distance between it and SR. Ergo, I posit that rather than them being a week apart at most as popular consenus goes, there must be a minimum of four months between them. Enough time for Ridley's attack to be written off as a fluke, and somewhere in that time Samus and the hatchling Metroid embarked on an adventure that convinced her it was unsafe at her side - either in too much danger, or too much of a danger to others, or both, thus prompting her to bring it to Ceres Station, kicking off the events of Super. So going with that conservative estimate of four months, that puts us at 6 Years, 8 Months.

Super to Fusion - (I am of course just not aknowledging Other M in this timeline. Fed Force is overhated IMO, but I don't have enough patience for OM.) Given that enough time must have passed between Samus Returns and Fusion for the Biologic Space Laboratories asteroid space station to have been set up around SR388 and brought into operation for the habitats to be filled, but the X parasite propogation on said planet only reached the station shortly before Fusion begins, I would guess about a year or so passed, with the bulk of that time being spent simply building the station before operations proper began only a month or two out from Fusion's opening. But that's relative to Samus Returns; relative to Super I would estimate that gap to be somewhere around eight months, bringing our total up to 7 Years, 4 Months.

Fusion to Dread - This is another kind of weird one given how Dread just has Samus working with the Federation again, even if presumably on rockier terms than before. There must have been at least a solid couple-month stretch of initially dealing with the fallout of Fusion, then things settle back into an uneasy status quo, before the transmission comes that sets off this newest adventure. At the same time, not too much of a long stretch, given Samus still has the Federation-loaned purple Gunship and her new/old AI friend. So another eight-month stretch there puts us at 8 Years.

If I say Samus is like, 24 in Zero Mission, (given it seems she was in her early 20s when she was with the Federation, and had already been a bounty hunter of good repute for a couple years as of ZM) then that puts her at roughly 32 (or 33 or 34 if I do stretch out the period between FF and SR) in Dread, which just feels right to me. These are of course all rounded to exact numbers, I imagine the actual stretches of time to be a bit more uneven, but still amounting to this overall length.

Kyo talks about character design: Ridley

Ah, Ridley... where do I go with him?

Creepy, violent, sadistic, cruel, cunning, immortal.. so many adjectives for him. Even his clone’s clone still rocks peoples’ socks off with his design. Let’s start with the beginning; his original design from Metroid.

Look at this utter goof! Funky spade on the end of his tail, the ring-shaped mouth, the multiple dot eyes- he seems less threatening and more cuddly! His sprite itself is much more draconic, as is other artwork, but I can’t ignore this little fella. I’d like to see this design cameo someday. Moving on to his next appearance; Super Metroid.

Super Metroid cements Ridley’s status as a spindly, spited dragon of extraterrestrial origin. This design is very important, as it’s the main template for every Ridley design past this! I still have my own problems with it, of course; the neck joints to the chest in an odd fashion, and his legs are always folded up as he’s crouching. Obviously done since it would be harder to joint his legs for when he’s flying all over the place, but it’s odd that his legs are so static.

And here’s one of my favorite looks, Neo-Ridley! The constant movement, the way he moves his claws in a groping pattern, like it’s rehearsing for when it grabs you... I like it so much because it strays slightly from the Ridley formula, while still retaining that gruesome identity. Its head is far more rounded at the end instead of a pterodactyl-like spike. Those small.. orifices? Are they holes, or are they smaller, vegetal wings?... the red stuff just behind his second spike. Neo-Ridley’s chest is covered in spikes, while his limbs are very smooth and rubbery, contrasting how Ridley is just completely covered in hard surfaces. Its legs actually move and writhes as it attacks Aran, which is appreciated. The beak is more angled, something we’ll be seeing more of later... Neo-Ridley aims for Ridley’s more eery, creepy nature, an overall tone of Fusion.

Metroid: Zero Mission replaces the original game in canon, and it brings us one another smooth Ridley! While I do like the look of his design from Zero Mission, it’s far too smooth for my liking. Zero Mission also brings up another question I have; was Ridley green before his first disintegration? I used to think yes, but then there was the Metroid manga. Was he green there? Or was he purple? I don’t know. Not much to say here; his legs don’t move as much as Neo-Ridley’s, which is my major gripe with it.

META RIDLEY... GOOD. Turning Ridley into a cyborg had to be one of the best ideas the series has had. The neon orange energy wings, the small, lower jay replacement, those frankensteined arms and robotic lower body- Ridley has been though hell and back, and he wears the scars proudly. A shame being a cyborg is both a blessing and a curse for him- pesky weak points make everything bad.

Prime 1 Meta Ridley? Good. Prime 3? BETTER. Meta Ridley gets a visual overhaul in the third of the trilogy, and I adore it. It’s so refined compared to his last iteration! An updated body! It’s much more sleek and organic looking, and you can actually see the energy field ripple on his wings. It’s also slightly blue, which hints at his Phazon corruption...

Like Neo-Ridley and the Prime 3 Meta ridley proceeding him, Omega Ridley is far more cobbled together. Much more of his flesh has regenerated thanks to the Phazon, and his wings have become singed and tattered. It’s a rather menacing design, if a bit busy on the eyes- what love about Prime 3 Meta Ridley, but mixed with exposed flesh and wire.

Proteus Ridley is another one of my favorite designs since it bridges the gap of Meta and normal flesh. He’s much more flesh than Omega Ridley, with his tail, left arm, and right leg being the only fully mechanical parts of him left. The use of neon yellow is a cool highlight concept. We don’t see that color often, with good reason, but using it here is just delicious on the eyes. The piece of metal covering his hunchback and the metal neck brace are some of my favorite elements. He’s healing, but not quite fully.

... this is the one design for Ridley i’m not a fan of, honestly. It’s just so.. odd, to me. His proportions are just way off; too thick, too much muscle. The tail is also really weird to me- it just looks like a sword taped on the end, guard and everything? His chest is way too beefy, his beak is way too thin and flat, wings seem too long, and his neck is STRAIGHT. STRAIGHT? Who on god’s earth thought it would be a good idea to give him a straight neck?! Ridley doesn’t do straight, beefy neck. And green eyes? Not a bad choice of color, but where’s the yellow??

And finally, we get to it; the Smash design, one of my favorites. The cracked, dry, armor-like skin with the weak flesh showing in between? A ridged, indented body like some sort of living skeleton? And covered in spikes?? A proper beak?! This, my friends, is quintessential Ridley. It SCREAMS dangerous and aggressive, and is spindly, yet sturdy looking. The massive amounts of spikes on his body is the one good thing Other M supplied. He’s just a walking pile of knives and death! Pretty much exactly what he is.

Who can forget Mecha Ridley, though? Because I sure can’t.

Mecha Ridley, the final boss of Zero Mission, is an incomplete robot made by Ridley in his own image, and tells us exactly what Ridley thinks of himself; the perfect killing machine. Sure, it isn’t quite perfect, as he never finishes it. The way it fights is a result of that, too, relying more on its missile silo than a proper Ridley-like battle. Oh, what could have been! It may or may not being the inspiration for Meta Ridley’s cybernetics aside, robots are always cool to look at. Especially silver, neon green ones this no lower body.

I knew proteus ridley was coming, but i didn't expect it to be such a huge fight, with awesome cutscenes and samus and the baby metroid teaming up. What a great finale to a great game

Ridley - Metroid

The me of the past that uploaded is so excited to be disappointed about Ridley not being playable in Smash Switch.