Samus

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

Samus Aran, destroyer of worlds, terror of the space pirates, the hunter, killing one eldritch abomination at a time.

Samus is a vidya gaem Female Space Marine, not to be confused with the spooky scary daemon in the Horus Heresy series, who wouldn't really be that notable on /tg/ except for the fact that pretty much everything she does or sees in the games she stars in (the Metroid Series) is basically tailor-made to insert into a Dark Heresy or Star Frontiers game. The sheer volume of stuff about her and her universe that /tg/ has found a way to integrate is something to behold, and has led to a lot of awesome and neckbeardery, all at once. She's also a stupidly hot (she's nearly always in top 10 hottest video game girls lists, what with her slender and sometimes buff body, 6'3" height, golden blonde hair and blue/green eyes) and highly intelligent asskicking woman with no social skills, a neckbeard's wet dream come true.

Her modus operandi is to enter a planet's cave system, explore it, and find upgrades hidden throughout, which then open up new areas to explore, using weapons, armor, and other upgrades in lieu of finding keys in chests, The Legend of Zelda-style. Note that if you're not in the Prime subseries, the planets she lands on have a habit of exploding. Yet even then those planets that survived her visits had massive damage equal to that of a Imperium high ordnance orbital bombardment done to enemy controlled sectors, buildings, and ground forces.

Also paid a visit to a Necron-infested shithole.

Games in Which Samus Stars

• The original NES Metroid, released in '86. This game was one of the first nonlinear platformers, and was incredibly influential, kicking off an entire subgenre. Sadly, it hasn't aged well; the large game world has no in-game map, and this is a real problem because the level design sucks. Long vertical shafts you need to explore look the same as long vertical dead-ends, and other dead-ends are actually covered by invisible walls or indistinguishable destructible blocks. The American version has no save function, instead you use a twenty-four-character password.
  • In '03, it received a GBA re-imagining called Metroid: Zero Mission that implemented elements from later titles of the series. Basically Metroid 1 in Fusion's engine with the sequence breaking of Super, and therefore way better.
• Metroid II: Return of Samus, for the original grey-brick Game Boy. This one is sort of a black sheep in the franchise and isn't normally thought too highly of, but it has its fans. The AM2R remake has been extremely well received and is frankly a joy to play.
  • Was given two remakes. The first was the fanmade Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) which is amazing in every way. Too bad Nintendo brought the hammer down a day or two after it was released, but its on the internet now, ha ha ha. Got an official remake not long after in the form of Metroid: Samus Returns (below) for the 3DS, which probably explains why Nintendo came down so hard on AM2R.
• Super Metroid, released in '94. This one is easily the best and most influential of the bunch. The reasons why it's awesome are too long to list here, so let's just say it's really fucking badass and leave it at that. It's notable for formally introducing the notion of "sequence breaking", where the ostensibly linear game is only made so through the implementation of obstacles that can, with practice, be surmounted prematurely. This is very much by design; the game even features tutorials to teach you some basic sequence breaking techniques (the wall jump and the super jump/shinespark), neither of which is required to complete the game.
• Metroid Fusion, released in '02. This one is a lot wordier than previous games, and also a lot more linear, sort of running in the face of the "free-form exploration platformer" design principles the series had demonstrated up to that point. This, naturally, caused flame wars, though it speaks volumes for the series as a whole that you can still get genuinely lost while searching for hidden powerups. It was the latest chronologically in the timeline for 19 fucking years until Dread was finally brought out of development hell. [A very good game, all said an done, look at it.],
• And now for something completely different: Metroid Prime and its sequels. These games keep the exploration premise, but change the skin from that of an action platformer to a first-person-shooter. These were actually made by American developers, which makes sense, given Japan's general distaste for the camera angle - and Metroid was never particularly popular in Japan anyway, which is why Nintendo was more willing to let someone else handle it, which is something they very rarely do with their big franchises. They were generally pretty well-liked in the West, but not so much in Japan. While nowhere near as linear as Fusion, the Prime Trilogy is quite a bit stricter than most Metroid games in terms of exploration. The devs even removed exploits in updated versions to remove sequence breaking opportunities. One thing that is inarguable is that the Metroid Prime trilogy has some of the best music ever composed for video games. The soundtrack is incredibly unique, with very little else like it in video game history, and is one of the only soundtracks that can pull off unironic/100% serious Theremin usage and make it sound amazing. Rock/Metal, Industrial, Electronica, Chiptunes, and Orchestral music are everywhere in games, but the trilogy's soundtrack not only stands out with uniqueness, it's just really beautiful and its great for setting the atmosphere for your games.
  • Metroid Prime 1: Plays a lot like Super Metroid in 3D, right down to having the intro be on a spaceship that explodes followed by running around Pirate-infested Chozo ruins. Introduces Phazon, a living poison that mutates people, and the titular Prime Metroid is the final boss.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Samus investigates distress signals from the planet Aether. Immediately her ship gets hit by magic lightning, and she's attacked by extradimensional invaders looking to use her body as a flesh suit to invade realspace. Turns out Aether got split into two dimensions by Phazon, and the two halves are at war, each side draining the energy from the other, obeying different laws of physics, and utterly inhospitable to creatures from the other. The light side (realspace) has been losing badly, Samus representing the last hope of the moth-like Luminoth to not get their world shattered and their people viciously eaten by ravenous Ing. All the while Space Pirates are trying to test Metroids, and Dark Samus is running around just fucking with everyone. In terms of gameplay, exploration is centers around hunting down the Ing that stole all your gear in both normal Aether and all the cloned rooms in Dark Aether, where the air is toxic but safe zones can slowly regen your health.
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: The first game where you get to see the Galactic Federation in any real detail. Phazon has been spreading everywhere, and the Feds have their hands full with Space Pirate raids. They hire four bounty hunters, Samus included, to investigate a series of Phazon-leaking Leviathan Seeds and cull the Space Pirates and their new leader Dark Samus. Naturally, Dark Samus corrupts all four of them and only Samus is able to resist the doppelganger's mind control. Gameplay starts out with you exploring small separate chunks of four different planets, some of which get more interconnected as you get more gear, and trying to balance how much health you spend on Hypermode.
  • Metroid Prime 4: After a long, dark content drought plagued by entries such as Federation Force, Nintendo finally unveiled the logo and announced the ongoing development of Metroid Prime: 4 at E3 2017... and virtually nothing else is known about it other than that. Originally under development by Bandai Namco, Nintendo evidently became fed up with them and completely scrubbed their progress and had Retro Studios start over from scratch in 2019. Despite the delays incurred from switching developers and COVID-19, Nintendo did confirm that development is still ongoing as of E3 2021. Should Prime 4 continue off of where Prime 3 left off, it's likely that Sylux, the dark horse bounty hunter introduced in Hunters, would play an antagonistic role against Samus. Given Tanabe's 2015 interview where he stated his intentions for a Sylux-centric story, this is a safe assumption.
  • The Prime series also includes two spin offs on the DS. Metroid Prime Pinball, surprisingly for a pinball spin off, is actually very solidly made and seamlessly blends in iconic gameplay elements from the series with excellent pinballage. Metroid Prime Hunters is usually regarded as a rather solid, if short, entry into the series that was one of the first really multiplayer-friendly games on the DS. Pinball is for understandable reasons, not really canon (it is a retelling of Metroid Prime 1), while Hunters neatly stuffs itself in the in-universe two year gap between Prime 1 and 2. Hunters, like the Prime series, added quite a bit of detail to the background of the Metroid universe without explaining too much in depth, maintaining the nebulous mystery that the Metroid setting is known for. It's also unique as being the first Metroid game where characters other than Samus are playable, with the six alien Bounty Hunters introduced in the game being selectable for the Multiplayer modes.
• Metroid: Other M, released in '10. It's best not to discuss this one, as a combination of badly written dialogue, a simplistic yet somehow convoluted story that contradicts itself and prior entries in the series, and a decent gameplay system held back from its full potential by a flawed execution resulted in an even wordier and railroadier game than Fusion that messed with Samus's characterization and continues to cause flamewars on /v/ to this very day. In a series known for its gorgeous and memorable music, Other M also switched to an incredibly generic orchestral soundtrack. It's not poorly done, the composer did a perfectly competent job - it's just a disappointingly generic addition to the discography of the series. It's like going from excellent home or restaurant cooked meals to ready-to-eat dinners; it's technically competent but it's nothing new or interesting.
• Metroid Prime: Federation Force. This "continuation" of the Prime series features no Samus, no Metroids, no proper exploration, absolutely no shared art style with super-deformed chibi characters, space soccer, a crude attempt to chase the co-op multiplayer shooter train on foot years after it left the station for a handheld console rather than the PC, and one of the most lopsided dislike to like ratios of any video game revealed in E3. Five years of frustration and annoyance erupted in a spectacular fashion at its reveal... and it didn't stop there.
  • Fed Force was confirmed for hardcore suckage almost immediately upon release, containing stupidity such as "Master Brain", a plot that's little more than another generic "stop the death star knock off" story, 'wat'-worthy moments like Samus being mind controlled by the space pirates, and slow-as-shit and dreadfully boring gunplay. The game has driven the fandom into despair and rage to degrees that only Command and Conquer fans and Tyranid players can truly understand. It's like if EA wasn't content with just one lore breaking character defiling series mechanics defying game and instead made another one with an awful art style on top of that. And unlike C&C, Metroid fans don't have mods and fan games to content themselves with as Nintendo is anal retentive to absurd degrees regarding fangames. tl;dr FedForce was a terrible idea that's going to be shat on by the entire fandom and even casuals bewildered that Nintendo would yank the fandom's chains in such a way.
• Metroid: Samus Returns. Revealed in the Nintendo Treehouse portion of E3 2017, The aforementioned Return of Samus remake is 3DS only-with new 2.5 D graphics and added content it is a full reimaging of the series' least played entree. Reviews are coming out pretty positive alongside of fan option so it looks like there may be hope yet that Nintendo as more then a passing interest in the series now. Just like the Prime sub series. Samus Returns was made by a Western Studio with minimal involvement from Sakamoto. This time by a studio in Spain. Reception of the game was much better than both Other M and Federation Force. Proving fan statements that "dark" in the current Japanese entertainment environment means pandering to Otakus with Waifu-bait. While those outside of a tiny island can properly portray a bad ass women from the future. With a very small handful of exceptions. It also introduces a rogue evil faction of Chozo, making them the Dark Mechanicus to the Chozos' Adeptus Mechanicus. Whether if something comes from this remains to be seen. Since Mercury Stream also made Dread this is more or less confirmed. It is also the first time Samus's primary rival Ridley is the final boss. With three phases. Hope you like his theme because you'll be listening to all three variants for a good while.
  • Official Nintendo policy and Sakamoto himself more or less deem the remakes(Samus Returns and Zero Mission) as canon over the 8-bit games. Everyone who claims the contrary is lying.
• Metroid Dread. My god, after nearly 20 years the timeline advances! Nintendo pulled back the curtain on this title after briefly mentioning the continued yet clandestine development of Metroid Prime 4 at E3 2021, having been developed by the same studio that handled Metroid: Samus Returns. Its title also betrays that it's the original sequel planned for Fusion (though obviously altered from what it started out as due to the passage of time, both the series and the industry as a whole have grown and changed), released from over a decade and a half of development hell by Sakamoto getting MercurySteam to finally make it a full ass game. Set at an indeterminate time following Metroid Fusion, this entry seems to be doubling down on the survival segments Fusion had by having seven nigh-indestructible Federation robots named E.M.M.I.s relentlessly pursue Samus as she explores the environment. An E.M.M.I is completely impervious to all of Samus's weaponry and can instantly kill her if it manages to catch her, unless she manages one of the two borderline-unhittable counters to break their hold; to take them down, Samus has to find the Control AI (a kind of discount Mother Brain) and kill it, which temporarily powers up her arm cannon into the Omega Cannon. Metroid Dread is stated to be the last game of the story arc between Samus and the Metroids, chronologically at least. Samus investigates a planet suffering an outbreak of the X-Parasites which leads her to battle with an evil Chozo named Raven Beak who betrayed the other Chozo who created the Metroids, wanting to use them as weapons to conquer the galaxy/universe (making him first in the long line of people who wanted to do so). The Metroid DNA infused with Samus means she is in fact the last Metroid. Most shocking of all is that Samus actually talks in one scene in this game.

Later updates added a one-hit death mode so you can have fun times (or have your no-hit run enforced by the game), among other things. The smallest, most pathetic of enemies become just as deadly as an E.M.M.I. bot in this mode, so spatial awareness is a must. Around the same time as this was added the game defied the odds and won something at the notoriously Western IP-biased Game Awards, meaning Dread may have singlehandedly made Nintendo pay more attention to the black sheep of its big properties.

Characterization And Shit

Samus Aran is the protagonist from the Metroid video game series. When she was three years old, Space Pirates attacked her homeworld, a small out of the way mining colony called K-2L because of the presence of a crystal called Aflorite which could be used to fuel space ships. At first, they just demand Rodney Aran (Samus's father, leader of the colony) to hand all mined supply over to them while their ships blockading all travel to and from the colony, but when he refused they quickly sent in troops to destroy all shield generators and communications before bombing the majority of the colony then going in and killing everyone except for Samus in a horrifically violent manner, because from what little we've seen of Space Pirate culture they glorify sadism and bullying the weak. Oh and their leader, a sadistic space dragon called Ridley, tried to kill lil' Samus for trying to befriend him, but her mom pushed little Samus out of the way and was charred to death and promptly eaten in front of her, and her father snuck aboard their ship before using a repurposed damaged blowtorch to blow up all the stolen crystals (and himself) to destroy the Space Pirate's main supply ship.

Samus was left for dead, but for the grace of the Chozo, an ancient, long-lived, highly advanced, psychic, slowly aging and dying out bird-like species of aliens. Their lowering numbers were due to spending a little too much time reaching enlightenment and not enough time making eggs; that and a run of severely shitty luck for the last century or so, what with evil glowing space rocks, their own creations turning on them, and the pirates thinking that their homeworlds are a cool place to kick it whittled them down quite a bit.

At any rate, they rescued her, raised her, enhanced her with the best parts of their genes so she could survive on their homeworld of Zebes, and trained her in the art of combat, giving her a suit of powered armor to fight the Space Pirates. After reaching adulthood the age of fourteen according to the manga that functions as her origin story (apparently the Chozo didn't know that much about human growth cycles), Samus went to work for the Galactic Federation for a while, and then left to work on her own as a bounty hunter. Well, that's what the writers call her; much like most countries, literal bounty hunting is illegal in Japan, so nobody at Nintendo realized what exactly a bounty hunter is until Metroid Prime's American developers explained it. So... while that's technically her title, she's more like a freelance soldier on retainer with the Galactic Federation. Or something.

She soon came into conflict with the Space Pirates again; they had seized her adoptive homeworld, killed off most of what little remained of the Chozo with maybe one or two dozen of the old bird people remaining (who all promptly fucked off into isolation), and were attempting to weaponize dangerous creatures known as Metroids, hovering jellyfish-things that drained life-force. She fought them, and came face-to-face with Ridley, the space dragon who had killed Samus' mother right before her eyes and boasted about eating her parents' corpses in front of her. She defeated him as well, and then destroyed the Mother Brain (the Chozo's defense AI who went rogue and tried to kill them, ultimately joining the Space Pirates) triggering the Space Pirate base's self-destruct sequence.

The Space Pirates tried several more times to weaponize the Metroids, using a substance called Phazon to mutate them (and mutate themselves, for that matter); Samus defeated them time and again, even coming face-to-face with an evil, Phazon-born twin of herself. She also squared off against Ridley time and again, as the Pirates resurrected him in increasingly-creative ways, first cyborgizing him, then upgrading his cybernetics, then upgrading his cybernetics and then mutating him with Phazon.

After making a costly but devastating assault on the Space Pirate Homeworld, the Galactic Federation decided that it would be cheapest to send Samus to destroy the Metroids once and for all, rather than having to pay her to deal with each new iteration of the Metroid threat. Even this plan was of limited success, because no matter how many Metroids Samus killed, there always seemed to be more (and this also seemed to be true of the Space Pirates themselves); even when the galactic population had been reduced to one Metroid, the Pirates managed to steal it, but finally, they were exterminated once and for all.

Unfortunately, the Metroids were needed to keep a population of dangerous, adaptible, mind-controlling parasites in check, and without the Metroids, the parasites were able to reproduce without limit. After getting almost killed by one of these creatures, only to have her life saved by an emergency injection of Metroid DNA, Samus wiped them all out, but given the number of times that the Metroids and Space Pirates have supposedly been "exterminated without a trace" and come back, the so-called "X parasites" won't be gone for long, especially as the Federation has already tried cloning Metroids and Space Pirates before. Samus put a stop to those efforts as well, but she earned the enmity of the Federation in the process; at the moment, it seems that she's on the run. At this point, all we can do is wait for her next mission.

As for Ridley, his history with Samus after she stopped being afraid of him goes like this:

• Blown up with missiles. (Metroid and Zero mission)
  • A robot built like Ridley was blown up much the same way. (Zero Mission)
• Knocked off a cliff with lasers and then exploding. (Prime)
• Brought back again as an improved cyborg, shot in the mouth, fell down an impossibly deep geothermal shaft, and then blew up. (Prime 3: Corruption)
• Brought back as an even more improved cyborg except mutated with Phazon, shot repeatedly in vital organs, overloaded with more Phazon, and then blown up so spectacularly he disintegrated into little blue particles. (Prime 3: Corruption again)
• Comes back as a partially regenerated Cyborg again to try and steal the infant metroid on SR388 with fewer metal parts than last time. Is shot to hell and back and repeatedly attacked by a metroid before having to abandon much of his cyborg parts due to heavy damage and get the hell off the planet. It could also be because his lost body parts eventually healed back though. His next appearance had a fully organic body with no cybernetics or missing limbs (Metroid: Return of Samus)
• Manages to successfully steal the infant Metroid in the Ceres station because this time Samus just had her basic power suit and power beam. Is then chased down and blasted apart with missile and beam fire some hours later as Samus conducts a one woman exterminatus. And then the entire planet he was on blew up so fiercely it could be seen for light years. Safe to assume even he couldn't survive that. (Super Metroid)
• Cloned off of the little bits of him remaining on Samus' suit (by the Federation), shot repeatedly in the head and mouth (a couple of times -- he didn't stick around to let Samus finish him off). Finally, he got all the life energy sucked out of him by a queen metroid and left as a mummified corpse. (Other M)
• Said corpse was hauled out of Bottle Ship into BSL and stuffed in a freezer where it shattered, but was cloned by the X-parasites. Samus blew that up, too, and absorbed the remnants to get her Screw Attack back. Then she crashed the station into the planet that it was orbiting, destroying them both. This time with no DNA left to clone Ridley from, and with Ridley being completely absent from Metroid Dread, this seems to be his final death, but knowing the giant lizard he’s probably got some backup clone body or relative that will start chasing Samus in the next game. (Fusion)

Which is still a better track record than Failbaddon, because Ridley is costing the Federation assets that it cannot easily replace.

Ridley is highly competent and experienced at his role of being both muscle and a general, and is incredibly sadistic and ruthless. When not faced with Samus, he can deal extreme damage and devastation and was a scourge on Federal society for years. The problem of course is that he is faced with a protagonist equipped with the war gear of the most advanced factions to have ever been seen in the galaxy/universe whose suit can plug and play any piece of tech (or even someone's superpowers) like they're god damn USB sticks who has made it her life's goal to make him pay. So his constant, increasingly over the top defeats aren't completely without excuse.

Personality-wise, there's not much to say about her - she never speaks in the majority of the games and serves primarily as a silent protagonist for the player to identify themselves with. Fusion had some brief snippets of inter-monologue, some short conversations, and even some mentions of Samus's life before she was a bounty hunter, usually relating to her former CO, Adam. Other M attempted to expand on the relationship between Samus and Adam, but it backfired spectacularly to say the least.

In Metroid Prime, scanning the various logs of Space Pirates would reveal that the pirates refer to Samus as "The Hunter of Our Kind", always in the reverential form, always scared shitless of every mention. Essentially she's shown there to be a completely ruthless hunter that will ALWAYS catch space pirates eventually, to such an extent that they can never escape her once she's on the trail. The pirates on that Frigate mention in their logs that they've pretty much lost all hope as soon as they discovered that Samus was tailing them. At the same time, we do still get little snippets of characterization here and there, with her mourning a little when finding brave Federation Marines dead at the hands of the Ing in 2, and frustration and grief at the corruption of her fellow Hunters in the finale.

Pre-Other M material (i.e. a number of manga, Fusion, and the handful of notes she makes to her logbook, as well as some scenes in Metroid Prime) paint her as a noble soul, much more concerned with doing what is right than what is technically the letter of the law and deeply passionate about protecting those who cannot protect themselves with a noted soft spot for children. When Retro wanted to implement a bounty hunting mechanic into Metroid Prime 3 and explained the concept to Nintendo, Nintendo adamantly refused and clarified that "Bounty Hunter" was actually a mistranslation and she wouldn't stoop to murdering and capturing other sapient beings for pay, with Retro describing that it was revealed that she was more of a "Pro Bono" Hunter, who does the public good without expectation of recompense. She was also something of a fiery tempered hot-head who'd disregard regulations and plans to go off and do her own thing in her youth but mellowed out once she came of age. She seems to be an introspective and somewhat introverted person with at least something of a scientific streak as well as a pretty nifty hand at engineering, having designed her own ship.

tl;dr Like most Nintendo protagonists, Samus is very much an incorruptible spark of nobility in an often very dark universe (with Metroid perhaps being the grimmest with the relentlessly cruel space pirates, a deeply corrupt federation, the all corruptive phazon, the demon-esque Ing, the "zombie virus cranked up to fucking eleventy one" X-parasites, the "Xenomorphs on radioactive steroids" Metroids, and the Lovecraftian God-like Gorea just to name a few issues), an ever dependable hero who will go alone and smite the hordes of evil no matter the odds and come out victorious in the end even at personal loss to herself. So very much a Nobledark sort of hero. She's more of a Knight Errant in space than she is a proper bounty hunter. Indeed if you take a look at her, you'll see knight tropes everywhere. A warrior who came from a child orphaned by a dragon and lawbreakers, raised by monks to be a hero of prophecy destined to wield an incomparable weapon to smite the darkness wherever it may be by traveling the lands, or stars in this case.

Wargear

As would be expected of the inheritor of one of her galaxy's most advanced civilizations, Samus has ready access to some of the most overpowered weapons and armor in existence. Even weapons and tech not created by the Chozo can still borderline effortlessly be integrated into her power armor for use at her leisure. Unfortunately for Samus, despite becoming a force no natural disaster could ever compete with by the end of every game, some unprecedented event or catastrophe resets her suit to a much more basic form at the beginning/near beginning of almost every single main-stream sequel that follows. While the obvious, practical reason this happens is entirely to make the game an actual game, the fluff reasons tend to be pretty hit-or-miss (if there even is a reason) These include:

• Getting shot down while leaving Zebes, which also somehow completely destroyed Samus' power suit. This resulted in Samus having to infiltrate a Space Pirate-occupied Chozo temple in order to get a completely new Power Suit. While actually occuring rather far into the game, it does completely negate literally every weapon, armor and utility upgrade Samus collected until then. (Zero Mission)
• Getting caught in a chain reaction of explosions while investigating a derelict Space Pirate Frigate. The damage causes her suit to malfunction and reboot in the most basic loadout (Prime)
• While investigating the planet Aether for a Federation Patrol that went MIA, Samus entered a portal to an alternate version of the planet. She was promptly mugged by the resident Ing, each of which stole a piece of tech that Samus had to hunt down and pry from their cold, dead claws to retrieve. In another instance of post-game downgrading, despite acquiring weapons capable of sending their targets into alternate dimensions, Samus voluntarily reverts her suit and weapons to their pre-Aether adventure state and returns the tech to the Luminoth before departing. (Prime 2)
• While mounting a defense against a Space Pirate invasion of Norion, Samus was ultimately corrupted by Phazon. While this didn't necessarily remove many abilities, it did require a refit of her Power Suit to keep her from turning into another Dark Samus. (Prime 3)
• While there was no explanation, Samus began her Metroid-Extermination mission on SR-388 and her second raid on Zebes in her basic Power Suit. Possibly to avoid losing some of the fancy toys she picked up between the first Metroid game and now? (Metroid II and Super Metroid, respectively)
• In a rather unusual turn of events, Samus retained most of her armor abilities from the beginning of Other M, but lacked the clearance to use them initially. In a way, this does kind of make sense, as flying around in a giant energy death ball while dropping bombs that atomize borderline anything with a pulse doesn't exactly create an environment conducive for allied Federation forces. That said, it's safe to say Samus isn't retarded enough to indiscriminately nuke friend and foe alike, so it's kind of a hollow excuse. (Other M)
• While escorting a research team on the recently de-Metroided SR-388, Samus is infected by an X-Parasite. Shortly afterwards, Samus narrowly escaped death when she lost consciousness and her ship ejected her before it crashed into an asteroid belt. Scientists had to surgically strip Samus' still-active power suit down in order to operate, with the infected parts consequently becoming a murderous clone of Samus at the peak of her power. Samus, on the otherhand, was left with a watered down power suit that actually rendered her genetically incompatible with several of her former abilities while making her cripplingly weak to anything cold. (Fusion)
• When sent to investigate signs of a possible X-Parasite sighting on planet ZDR by the Galactic Federation (as the only one immune to them), Samus gets thoroughly bodied by Raven Beak. Rather than kill her, however, Raven Beak saw some latent potential within her and simply decided to take a majority of Samus' gear and install it within the E.M.M.I hunting her. (Dread)

Ultimately all these increasingly dramatic incidents prove to be minor inconveniences at best, as even when completely stripped of her fancy toys and tools, Samus still reclaims most if not all the lost equipment in short order. More often than not, she even picks up yet more powerful goodies along the way too.

Standard Suits

These suits often have some incarnation or another in most Metroid titles, with Samus usually starting in either the Power or Varia suit, depending on how bad her suit got scratched that day.

Power Suit: The base and vanilla form of Samus' power armor, the power suit was tailor-made specifically for Samus by her adoptive Chozo parents. Able to be summoned and dismissed at will, the power suit provides basic protection against hostile environments and any local fauna that might be feeling extra frisky. Ultimately, the basic power suit is actually rather fragile and is probably comparable to Eldar mesh armor for all the protection it provides, of course ignoring the shields that make up her actual defence. While a number of games start Samus off in this, several others go ahead and just have Samus keep the more advanced Varia suit instead.

Varia Suit: The iconic suit Samus is most often portrayed in, the Varia suit is a stark upgrade over the Power Suit in every way. In addition to a much improved defense, the Varia suit provides incomplete protection from high temperature environments (unsurprisingly, substances like lava still severely damage the suit) and is often acquired relatively early on in most games. It's also the first suit that gives Samus unyieldingly massive pauldrons. Its durability would probably compare to Space Marine power armor, while sacrificing none of her insane mobility (in fact, she often gets far more potent mobility enhancing upgrades after this armor upgrade). It also provides complete immunity to acid in Zero Mission, though apparently Zebesian acid isn't anywhere near as strong as Pirate Homeworld Acid or Fuel Gel given that those can still damage the shielding of the suit.

Gravity Suit: Often the last or second to last suit upgrade acquired, the Gravity Suit offers complete immunity to high temperature environments, yet higher defensive capabilities, and allows Samus to operate in both underwater and underlava environments completely unrestricted. While Samus still retains her super-olympian maneuverability, this thing is probably comparable to Tartaros-Pattern Terminator armor for all the punishment it can take.

Non-Standard Suits

These suits are all unconventional, one-off suits Samus acquires either through circumstance or being "gifted" to her.

Phazon Suit: An unintended "upgrade", this is actually a corrupted version of Samus' Gravity Suit that was created when a giant, Phazon-enhanced Space Pirate fell on top of her and melted. While no negative traits manifested, it provided Samus with immunity to most forms of Phazon and the ability to channel it into a highly destructive beam of energy (in the right circumstance). Samus loses it when Metroid Prime attacks her in a last ditch effort to save itself. This sort of works; though Samus walks away unharmed, Metroid Prime is able to use the Phazon Suit to reconstitute itself into Dark Samus. (Prime)

Dark Suit: A piece of Luminoth technology, the Dark Suit was created to provide some protection from the lethal atmosphere of Dark Aether. This suit falls roughly in between the Varia/Gravity suit in that an upgrade confers the unrestricted movement underwater the Gravity Suit is capable of, but lacks the physical and environmental protection it has. It also has a noticeably different design from most of Samus' suits, due to its Luminoth heritage. (Prime 2)

Light Suit: A fuck-awesome suit that seamlessly merges Luminoth and Chozo tech into one of the sleekest looking suits Samus has ever worn. In addition to the complete immunity to the toxic atmosphere and water of Dark Aether, it confers Samus with the ability to ride through the shafts of light spread across Aether, allowing instantaneous travel between the major regions of the planet. Unlike almost every other suit downgrade Samus goes through, Samus voluntarily returns the Light Suit tech (and presumably all other related weapons and armor upgrades) to the Luminoth after she destroyed Dark Aether. (Prime 2)

PED Suit: A Federation-modified version of Samus' Varia suit that, while intended to contain and harness Samus' Phazon corruption, actually made her more susceptible to said corruption. This suit allows Samus to tap into the Phazon she naturally generates post-corruption and use it to empower her attacks and defense dramatically (most attacks cannot damage her). The cost, however, is that should she engage this mode and not vent or maintain this rapidly-generating energy for too long, it will result in her transforming into a second Dark Samus, which is an automatic game over. Upon destroying the sentient planet Phaaze (and thus the source of all Phazon), Samus reverts back to her Varia suit. (Prime 3)

Hazard Shield: While not called a suit upgrade outright, this Metroid prime 3 only upgrade serves the gameplay purpose that a new suit upgrade does. Though the changes it makes to the suit are fairly low key, making Samus' pauldrons shaped like D12 dice instead of the usual spheres, by the time you get them Samus' phazon corruption has already progressed far enough to give most of her suit; particularly her limb armour, a purple hue that's a fairly deliberate visual reference to the Gravity Suit. This upgrade makes Samus immune to the very worst of corrosive chemical agents that can damage even the normally acid immune Varia Suit's shielding; letting her take a dip in fuel gel or take a stroll outdoors in the space pirate homeworld where centuries of pollution from unclean industrial technology have fucked up the atmosphere so hard that the raindrops there are some of the most destructive chemical agents in the universe.

Fusion Suit: A watered down power suit that was created as a result of Samus' Metroid hybridization. Due to inheriting the genetics of the Metroids, Samus gains the ability to consume X-Parasites simply through contact, but gained a crippling weakness to cold environments and weaponry. Aesthetically, due to the fact a majority of her original suit was surgically removed, the Fusion Suit is thus far the slimmest suit Samus has ever worn, lacking any sort of major armor plating (including a complete lack of pauldrons). The introduction of Metroid DNA also created a fleshy coating to ensconce a majority of her armor, giving it a very organic, muscular appearance. Per Metroid Dread, she is still utilizing a variant/upgraded version of the Fusion Suit that once again has prominent pauldrons, but still has muscular tissue weaving across her armor.

Metroid Suit: Gained at the climax of Dread. This suit was gained upon the Metroid DNA within Samus fully awakening mere moments before Raven Beak could kill her at the conclusion of their final duel. The suit itself is almost entirely organic in design, resembling some form of carapace with harsh, red lines of energy lining it (and more than a passing resemblance to Dark Samus, albeit palette-swapped). Though she only had this suit for a brief time, it immensely increased Samus' metroid characteristics, enabling her to rapidly drain the life force of Raven Beak and the flying command center they were in to the point that it simply dropped out of the sky. Unfortunately, Samus had little to no control of this ability and risked draining her own starship of energy simply from interacting with the controls of the ship. Fortunately, an X-Parasite infected Quiet Robe willingly allowed itself to be absorbed, providing enough Thoha DNA to suppress Samus' metroid abilities and revert her back to her Gravity Suit. It is unknown if Samus retains the ability to activate this suit or if it has been suppressed permanently. During the brief segment where the player controls Samus in this suit she has unlimited health and can only die if the timer before ZDR exploding runs out.

Standard Arm Cannon Loadouts

Another feature synonymous with Samus' Power Suit is the highly advanced multi-purpose gun that always comprises her suit's right arm. Her armament varies between games; some versions simply stack beam upgrades while other beams are mutually exclusive selections. That said, there is always a golden standard readily available to her.

Power Beam: Just as the Power Suit forms the foundation for all of Samus' other suits, so too does the Power Beam for almost all of Samus' weapons. In all cases, the Power Beam is a relatively weak energy weapon that makes up for its minimal damage output with an absurdly high rate of fire and unlimited ammunition. In almost all circumstances, the Power Beam is rendered obsolete by all other beam technologies, if it's not outright upgraded into them. In the first game and zero mission, it requires the Long Beam to be able to shoot across the entire screen which also gives it a bit of a damage boost but in every other game the Power Beam seems to have the long range function by default.

Missile: One of the few weapons Samus regularly uses that requires ammunition, Missiles are often utilized against moderately armored foes and to destroy various pieces of terrain or barriers barring Samus' path. In the Prime series of games, Missles are able to lock onto and track targets. This makes them modestly useful against fast and/or airborne targets. Additionally, an upgrade in Prime 2 and 3 allows Samus to fire up to 5 of them simultaneously, either in a spread, tracking up to 5 separate targets, or all 5 locked onto one single target.

Super Missile: Another ammunition reliant weapon, the Super Missile is a high-powered projectile that deals heavy damage to most targets. While in most traditional games it uses an entirely separate ammo, the Prime games simply utilize 5 standard missiles in conjunction with a charged beam to fire. In the first two prime games, every Beam type has a Super-Missile variant, with the form, function and ammo cost changing based on the beam. Each is still usually a powerful blast that can hit multiple enemies with one shot, however several of these variants have limited or situational uses compared to the standard Super Missile.

Charge Beam: Not necessarily a beam in its own right, this upgrade adds the functionality to focus any beam's energy into a single charged shot (as the name implies). While dramatically reducing the rate of fire, the resulting charged beam is often many times more powerful than the standard shot and usually amplifies the secondary effects the beam might cause. In Fusion, it also upgrades the base beam, making it fire crescent wave shots that do more damage and can potentially hit more than one target at a time.

Ice Beam: Occasionally a direct upgrade, occasionally an alternate beam altogether, the Ice Beam is a low-to-non damaging weapon that is primarily used to immobilize hostile targets to use as either parkour platforms, or to shatter through judicious use of missiles. The Prime variant of the Ice-Beam is notable for having a Super-Missile variant called the Ice Spreader, which fires a medium-sized sheet of freezing energy over an area. The most prominent targets for this beam are the namesake Metroids Samus often finds herself hunting, with almost all sub-breeds and evolutions having a horrible weakness to it.

Wave Beam: Often a direct upgrade of the Power Beam, most incarnations of the Wave Beam increase the damage of Samus' primary energy projectiles while allowing them to completely phase through most terrain and structures. In most cases, there is no additional effects tied to the beam itself, though being able to kill someone in the next room over is hardly arguable. Interestingly, the Prime version of this weapon is drastically different. With a slightly slower rate of fire than the Power Beam, and not retaining the wall penetrating aspects all other versions have, the Wave Beam is an electric-based energy weapon that will moderately track targets that Samus locks onto. Additionally, many targets hit by the charged shot are stunned for several seconds, allowing Samus to swiftly dispatch them in the interim. The Super-Missile variant unleashes a devastating torrent of energy that latches onto targets, it depletes missiles at a rapid rate in order to fuel. Also kinda gives off ghostbuster vibes while channeling it. While generally not amazingly useful for most situations, the Wavebuster combo makes an invisible drone that serves as the boss guarding the power bombs a complete joke since it automatically tracks the fucker and stunlocks it to death, sparing you from what is otherwise a difficult fight with an enemy that hits like a truck and can only be manually targeted.

Plasma Beam: Usually a near-endgame upgrade, the Plasma beam dramatically increases the damage of Samus' base projectiles. In most cases, the Plasma beam also penetrates targets, allowing Samus to slaughter multiple enemies with only a few well-aimed shots. Similarly to the Wave beam, the Plasma Beam is considerably different in its Prime incarnation. With a shorter range, but same rate of fire as the Power Beam, the Plasma Beam is the strongest conventional weapon available to Samus, with the Charged shot being slightly stronger than a super-missile. Additionally, the few creatures not outright disintegrated by a charged shot are usually set ablaze afterwards. If Samus is feeling a bit like a Salamander or Sister of Battle, she can use the Super Missile variant of the Plasma beam to channel a high-powered flamethrower to roast whatever moronic creature pissed her off.

• Works a bit differently in Prime 3: it's a direct upgrade to the Power Beam, deals somewhat increased damage to armored Pirates, charged shots deal damage-over-time to enemies, and it can melt scrap metal and solder circuit boards to solve environmental puzzles. But besides that it deals no increased damage on its own, to force the player to keep using Hypermode instead.

Spazer Beam: Alternatively known as the Wide Beam in Fusion, this direct upgrade splits Samus' projectiles into three separate shots, without sacrificing rate of fire or beam strength. It allows Samus to hit multiple targets simultaneously, or simply broaden just how much space she can fill with overpowered dakka.

Non-Standard Arm Cannon Loadout

Similarly to the specialized, one-off suits Samus acquires, there are select beams that only ever see one, maybe two incarnations.

Phazon Beam: While some variant of this exists in all 3 Prime games, they're all situational, specialized beams that rely on either an external factor or risk in order to use. Even though they differ drastically, each is an extremely powerful weapon that does ludicrous amounts of damage to a given target, with most of said targets being impervious or highly resistant to all other weaponry Samus has access too. As stated though, the circumstances that Phazon can be used as a weapon are severely limited and either require an external source of Phazon, or the usage of Samus' own energy to access. (All 3 Prime games). The Phazon beam is quite different in all three games, in the first it only activates when Samus stands in pools of pure Phazon produced by the Metroid Prime and only has an automatic firing mode that spits out a spray of blue laser beams of death that are the only thing that can hurt the true form of the metroid prime, while also one shotting the metroids it spawns (even the nasty Fission Metroids that can normally only be damaged by the beam corresponding to their color). In metroid prime 2 it is gained by using the charge beam to suck up phazon particles Dark Samus vents in her final, phazon overloaded form to cause her hurt and if you hack the game to fire it at anything else it basically one shots them. In Prime 3 it's basically a standard beam whose charge shot function is to very rapidly fire a lot of bursts, the damage is toned down since it's not a final battle supermode, but it is necessary to beat phazon based enemies or enemies engaging hypermode in anything resembling a timely manner. It still packs a hell of punch so even against the enemies it's not required to kill it's a useful weapon.

Dark Beam: Unusual in that it is a beam that utilizes ammo, the Dark Beam concentrates the energies native to Dark Aether into a relatively slow moving projectile that, when charged, immobilizes targets with tendrils of darkness that sear their bound targets with its malevolent energies. Additionally, the Super-Missile variant rips open a portal to an alternate dimension and drags hapless, nearby creatures and humanoids into what is effectively a miniature black hole that tears them apart on the molecular level. Unsurprisingly, using this beam on the denizens of Dark Aether is like trying to kill a shark with a water gun, so it is largely useless in that dimension. Also behaves like a pseudo-Ice Beam, in that dark blobs immobilize targets (including Metroids) for easy missile kills. (Prime 2).

Light Beam: Like all the other beams in Prime 2 (Power Beam exempted), the Light Beam relies on ammunition to remain effective. Similar to the (Prime) Plasma Beam, the Light Beam fires off rapid fire, short range bursts of focused light energies that burn through Ing and things possessed by them like a hot knife through butter. The charged shot functions like a shotgun, firing a spread of individual shots that ignite targets indiscriminately. Contrarily to the Dark Beam, the Super-Missile variant of the light beam creates what is basically a miniature sun which slowly drifts forward immolating all in its path. Upon striking an enemy or surface, it then explodes in a burst of fire. Overall serves as a pseudo-Plasma beam, with charged attacks giving it the firepower of the BFG 9000 but coloured white instead of green. (Prime 2)

Annihilator Beam: A combination of both the Light and Dark beams, using both of their ammo reserves to function, the Annihilator beam is among the most lethal of all Samus' rather diverse selection of weaponry (seeing as how she had to rip it out of an Ing-possessed robot roughly half-again taller than an Imperial Knight, one would hope it would be respectively powerful). The lore says it slams dark ammo and light ammo into each other to create antimatter, which in turn slams into regular matter for a big bang. While shot-for-shot not as powerful as using the Light Beam vs. Ing or Dark Beam vs. Non-Ing, its rapid rate of fire, range, generous tracking capabilities and with no enemy resisting it make this beam a potent all around force to be reckoned with. The Super Missile variant of the Annihilator beam, upon firing, instantaneously strikes the first target or surface it was pointed at and creates a sizable rift in space that rips apart everything unfortunate enough to be in the area. This power comes at a heavy price though, consuming both a number of Samus' missiles and a sizable portion of both her Dark and Light beam ammo reserves. (Prime 2)

Metroid Prime Hunters Beams: Each of the Bounty Hunters introduced in Metroid Prime Hunters had a unique beam that Samus was able to acquire for her personal use over the course of the game. Each of these beams utilized ammo in order to fire, much like the Dark and Light beams from Echoes. While Samus was able to utilize these weapons effectively, they had more powerful effects in the hands of their original hunters.

• BattleHammer: Weavel's signature weapon, this rapid-fire beam lobs a steady stream of explosive rounds at medium ranges. This beam has no charged variation and each shot detonates upon contact with any surface. When Weavel uses it, the rate of fire decreases, but the damage and explosion radius of each round increases significantly. Additionally, when Weavel cuts himself in half (his "morph ball"), his legs transform into a stationary turret that lobs BattleHammer shots at nearby foes. The BattleHammer is notably a nuclear weapon, not in the sense that it fires nuclear warheads, but that its shells apparently are so heavy they need a nuclear reaction to launch. Okay then.
• Imperialist: Trace's signature weapon is the only instance of a sniper-type weapon introduced in any Metroid game and fires a big red hitscan laser, which unfortunately makes it really easy to track where the shot came from. While it has no charge ability and an incredibly low rate of fire, it has the single longest range of any other weapon available to the hunters (to the degree that it actually has a scope functionality) and can kill any of the Hunters with a headshot. While the weapon itself doesn't change in the hands of Trace, it does cloak him while he stands still with it equipped.
• Judicator: Noxus's signature weapon has a slow rate of fire as it shoots forth shards of supercooled plasma chilled to just a smidgen above absolute zero, but deals respectable damage at mid range with the shots ricocheting off of surfaces. When Samus or any other hunter charges the beam, it fires three shots at once in a manner quite similar to a shotgun. Noxus, however, converts it into a short-ranged sheet that instantly freezes any enemies engulfed by it.
• Magmaul: Spire's signature weapon is functionally a grenade, launching short-ranged chunks of superheated magma waiting for an excuse to explode into rock vapour that can bounce off surfaces until they either detonate a few seconds later, or on contact with hostile forces. Charging the shot results in a much larger blast radius that does significantly more damage, with Spire's Magmaul igniting enemies engulfed by it for additional damage.
• Shock Coil: Sylux's signature weapon is the only sustained fire beam available, launching a short-range arc of "high density neutrinos" (even though the amount of neutrinos you'd need to cause harm to a living being would need so much energy you're better off just using your "lance bombardment ain't shit" levels of energy instead to kill the guy) that latches onto nearby targets automatically and rapidly drains their health. As time progresses, the damage done per second increases to absurd levels and can slaughter enemy hunters in mere moments. Unlike anyone else who uses it, Sylux absorbs all damage done point for point, making him extraordinarily hard to kill in close quarters.
• Volt Driver: Kanden's signature weapon operates like a hybrid of the power beam and wave beam (prime 1). Basic shots are for all intents and purposes, just the power beam. Charged shots, however, transform into a slow moving explosive that does significant damage to enemies caught in its blast. Kanden's charge blast homes in on nearby targets and disrupts their visors in a burst of electricity. Said to have "terawatts" of energy in every shot, meaning each impact is comparable to a tactical nuclear warhead or greater than the entirety of the world's energy demands. It is also said to draw this from the planet's magnetosphere which is even sillier as powering even one of these shots would drain an entire thunderstorm dry.
• Omega Cannon: The super weapon of the Hunters game, the Omega Cannon is a single shot beam that does massive damage to everything within a massive radius, including the user in the multiplayer mode where it kills literally anyone who can see the blast. In the single player it doesn't do anywhere near as much self damage but you can fire it more than once. Due to the unique nature of this beam, it is only available during the fight against Gorea in the Single Player, or only on one stage in the Multiplayer as a power up.

Nova Beam: Both an upgrade to the Prime 3 Plasma Beam and a new take on the the traditional Wave beam, the Nova beam has the capacity to ignore and simply pass through surfaces and armor comprised of a material known as Phazite. When used in conjunction with the X-Ray visor, Samus can use it to identify vital organs of certain enemies like Metroids and Space Pirates, and snipe them with a single shot. This allows Samus to kill formerly formidable Space Pirate Commandos like they were some backwater Conscript fresh out of boot. (Prime 3)

Hyper Beam: An extremely potent weapon (in game stats show it does enough damage to kill most anything in one hit, even a number of bosses), Samus only obtains this weapon from the Sacrifice of the Baby Metroid she rescued. It makes extremely short work of the recently resurrected Mother Brain, and aids in Samus' hasty escape from Zebes as it begins to explode following MB's death. It's not explained if this beam was simply a temporary effect of the Metroid's energy infusion, or if it's a permanent weapon upgrade Samus shelved following the mission. Regardless, it is safe to say Samus no longer possesses it.

• A new version of this appears at the end of Dread. Samus taking energy from Raven Beak allows her gun fire a giant continous red energy stream of pure death. Samus first using it on Raven Beak after he's infected by an X-Parasite and blasts him to tiny parasite. She then uses the beam to finish off the X-Parasite, not even needing to absorb it like the others. The player gets to play around with this for the escape sequence. Everything shot by this beam is killed instantly, enemies, obstactles that are immune to beams, everything.

Diffusion Beam: A pretty forgettable beam originating from Other M that is rather uniquely; for Other M that is; acquired the conventional metroid way by destroying a drone miniboss that has the requisite technology that Samus then acquires after defeating it. It doesn't really seem to affect the base beam all that much, but it gives the charge shot a big sparkly area of effect to wipe out large numbers of enemies at a time. It's pretty boring overall though the SFXes it produces are kind of pretty.

Utilities and other abilities

In order to progress through otherwise impassable obstacles and terrain, Samus has access to a wide variety of multi-purpose tools that aren't necessarily used strictly to vaporize anything with sharp teeth (that doesn't stop her from using some of these tools to do just that anyways). The recurring ones are as follows:

Morph Ball: Another iconic ability, and often one of if not the first upgrades acquired (if not already just loaded in by default), this allows Samus to transform into a compact sphere roughly 1 meter in diameter. In addition to allowing her to slip into otherwise tight spaces, it also allows her to activate a good many devices through rather conveniently shaped power conduit sockets. This form has a variety of abilities and weapons exclusive to it as well:

• Bomb: Sometimes included by default, other times a separate upgrade, Samus can use this to lay up to 3 consecutive energy bombs that serve multiple purposes. In addition to being the default manner of attack for the Morph Ball, the bombs are also used to destroy weakened or lightly armored structures, to power on aforementioned power conduits or devices, or to propel Samus into the air in a technique aptly named the "bomb jump". As of Samus Returns, the bomb upgrade now has no limit on the number of bombs it can have on screen at a time as a convenience factor. A rather obscure trick is that in some two dimensional games, if you have a beam charged and enter morph ball mode you'll drop a whole bunch of bombs, not exactly useful as usually the charge shot would do more damage but it is still there all the same.
• Power Bomb: One of the most powerful weapons Samus gets access to, Power Bombs are used to destroy heavily armored structures and terrain while straight up obliterating anything within its rather large blast zone. Unlike the regular bomb, the Power Bomb is reliant on relatively limited ammunition. It has some combos with the beams in Super Metroid but these are obscure tricks the game never tells you about of somewhat questionable utility that have never appeared since Super Metroid. It's also used as fuel for Samus' crystal flash move, another obscure super metroid only manoeuvre that sacrifices Samus' stocks of ammo to restore her shielding to full capacity.
• Spider Ball: The first strictly non-lethal upgrade to the Morph Ball enables Samus to cling to most surfaces and scale them with ease. This ability is somewhat limited in the Prime franchise, as it can only cling to magnetic rails specifically designed for it so as to not trivialise platforming or open Pandora's box of level geometry abuse.
• Spring Ball: Basically it lets her jump in morph ball mode without having to wait for a bomb to detonate. It's mostly a convenience thing and while not initially present in the first two prime games, it's a default ability in prime 3 and was retroactively added to the other two in the re-release. It notably makes the Spider Ball Guardian, perhaps the most frustrating boss in Metroid Prime 2 due to its reliance on extremely exacting morphball platforming puzzles and very limited opportunities to recover shielding, much easier on any difficulty.
• Boost Ball: Exclusive to the Prime games, this allows Samus to charge up her Morph Ball with energy and launch forward at high speeds. In addition to letting her act as a literal cannonball, it is also used to perform sick tricks in half-pipe structures and burst through things like metal grates. Aside from the Speed Boost, this is Samus' fastest "standard" method of travel.

Grapple Beam: A coherent beam of energy that allows Samus to tether to points either in the environment or on specific creatures. Environmentally, it allows Samus to swing from point to point, crossing otherwise impassable or treacherous crevices and the like. Not usually an offensive weapon, Samus still does use the Grapple Beam to rip off shields and armor of certain enemies in order to promptly execute them. When charged with Phazon, she can also either use it to either sap all the energy/phazon out of a target, or flood it with so much Phazon that it simply explodes in a shower of gore and blue goo.

High Jump Boots: Like the name implies, this boosts the height and speed of Samus' base jumps. Effectively outmoded the moment she acquires the Space Jump.

Space Jump: Another common ability, the Space Jump effectively gives Samus the ability to fly by letting her jump repeatedly through the air. As an efficient and expeditious manner of travel, it is admittedly lacking, but as it normally has an unlimited number of uses, it still allows Samus to bypass almost every environmental obstacle not involving water, lava or destructible terrain. Combined with the screw attack however, it lets Samus be a constantly moving whirling buzzsaw of death that's almost impervious to attack while instantly destroying nearly everything it touches. The Prime series limits the Space Jump into a single mid-air jump, though the reasons for this are strictly for the gameplay.

Screw Attack: An augment of the Space Jump, the Screw Attack envelops Samus in a sheathe of energy that outright evaporates all lesser creatures that come into contact with it and severely injures everything else. As it is activated by jumping through the air, Samus can remain in this state almost indefinitely and can only be knocked out of it by a similarly powerful attack or projectile (like the SA-X who can also use the Screw Attack). In the Prime games, it functions similarly, however it allows Samus to propel herself forward up to 5 times as well as wall jump up specific surfaces.

Speed Boost: This upgrade allows Samus to run at ludicrous speeds, enveloping herself in a shroud of lethal energy that not only lets her simply charge through anyone foolish enough to stand in her way, but also straight up ram through a variety of terrain that would otherwise block her way. This energy can be temporarily stored by abruptly crouching mid run, then promptly used to propel Samus in a completely different direction, or simply launch herself through the air until she collides with a solid object in a technique called the "Shinespark".

Aeion: A unique energy found on SR-388 that was responsible for the Metroid's original evolutions and the power source for a variety of abilities Samus can perform, should she have the Aeion reserves needed.

• Scan Pulse/Pulse Radar: Upon activation, a wave of energy bursts forth from Samus, identifying hidden items, pathways or destructible terrain that may have otherwise escaped Samus' notice.
• Lightning Armor: A protective and damaging shield of green lightning, Lightning Armor allows Samus to enter otherwise hazardous environments and avoid taking damage from attacks, at the cost of Aeion energy for damage absorbed.
• Beam Burst: Exchanging the ability to use her Charge Beam, this turns Samus' arm cannon into a fully automatic, rapid-firing weapon capable of outputting an immense barrage of firepower, while her Aeion reserves allow.
• Phase Drift: Arguably one of the most powerful abilities Samus had access to, this enabled her to perform any action 50% faster than normal. This effectively slowed the flow of time for Samus while active, allowing her to easily outmaneuver enemies and cross unstable terrain before it can collapse underneath her feet.
• Phantom Cloak: This ability functions as a cloaking device, silencing any movements Samus makes while rendering her invisible to most enemies and sensors. Her Aeion gauge depletes much more quickly if she moves or fires any weapons while it's active.
• Flash Shift: Another evasive ability, Flash Shift grants Samus up to three consecutive bursts of speed, enabling her to swiftly dodge enemy attacks or quickly close the distance for a counter attack.

Visors: Often only playing a role in the Prime series, Samus' visor is surprisingly one of the most useful tools at her disposal. The default mode it is in is simply the Combat Visor, which displays her HUD as well as an advanced targeting system that lets her lock onto opponents or objects should the need arise.

• Scan Visor: Though it wouldn't seem it, the Scan Visor is probably the single most powerful tool Samus has access too. In addition to providing background information on individuals, native flora, fauna, etc., it allows her to quickly translate most alien languages at a glance, identify structural or anatomical weaknesses on a target, hack into computer terminals and remotely activate a great many devices when the need arises. As this is never a function Samus has to acquire from an external source, it's also safe to say it's just a baseline feature of her Power suit.
• Thermal Visor: This gives Samus thermal-based vision. Kind of self explanatory, really. Still relatively useful in low-light or otherwise visually obscured conditions.
• X-Ray Visor: Another relatively straight forward visor, this gives Samus the ability to see through a variety of terrain, structures, enemies, or other miscellaneous objects. In Prime 3, it can be used in conjunction with the Nova Beam to simply snipe the vital organs of a good many foes, killing them with as few as one to two standard shots. This was the first variant visor to appear in the series, as an equivalent called the X-Ray Scope was an optional power-up hidden in the Brinstar region of Super Metroid.
• Dark Visor: Kind of a hybrid between the Thermal and X-Ray visor, the Dark Visor allows Samus to track cloaked enemies by seeing into other dimensions.
• Echo Visor: This gives Samus the ability to "see" sound, including sounds that are otherwise outside the normal range of hearing. Used in conjunction with the Annihilator beam to interact with sonar-based equipment.
• Command Visor: Essentially a remote control for Samus' ship, this allows her call down bombing runs, use her ship to lift massive objects out of the way, or simply tell it to land in another location. Surprisingly one of the least useful visors Samus uses, as 99% of the time, she's not in a location or position to utilize her ship offensively.

Allies, Enemies and Misc

Allies

Galactic Federation: Basically the UN in SPESS, (most of) the Federation is a relatively benevolent government that governs over its subject worlds in a relatively fair and just manner. However, it is noted to be extremely sectionalized, with different groups having different approaches to governance and military tactics. Samus often works for or with groups of Federation forces in dealing with Space Pirate incursions and other potential threats to galactic peace (including the very rare inter-service conflict). In more recent times however, a darker side seems to be more and more prevalent, with not just one, but two attempts to breed and weaponize Metroids (after they ordered them to be wiped out, mind you) as well as the intention to do the same with the X Parasites. This last endeavor was thwarted by Samus. This has made her an enemy of one particular subsection of the Federation (which is officially unnamed, but has been given the nickname. see below)

• The "Ringleaders": A collection of military and ex-military bureaucrats, amoral scientists, and war profiteers. this particular group of war hawks are the ones trying to clone Metroids and later X Parasites for use as bioweapons. Due to a botched translation job, the English version of Other M doesn't make it clear they are a distinct political party in the Federation, and the English version of Fusion leaves them out entirely. In the Japanese Other M they are politically defeated, turning the Federation as a whole back into Samus's allies and employers once more. Though apparently, some still remain, time will tell if they become antagonists in the future game.(Metroid gear solid.)

• Adam (Ship AI): The first NPC introduced in a Metroid game, heck the first interactable character other than Samus at all at the time, the AI came with the ship the Federation gave Samus after she survived getting space AIDS as part of the deal. Acts like every other stereotypical AI command center in gaming with a go here, kill this, fix that type deal it till Samus decides to go suicide run the BSL station when she finds out about the hidden program they had running there. After calling out her stupidity and hearing her rant about Adam it apparently uploaded his memories and personality then proposes a better solution and repeats his catchphrase to convince Samus it was him. Whether he was uploaded when she got the ship or the AI uploaded the personality on the fly is unknown. As of Metroid Dread, he is still serves as Samus' mission advisor.

• Adam Malkovich (Human): Currently the only relevant GF character, Adam Malkovich served as a commander for GF forces and often as Samus' commanding officer during joint missions together. His relationship with Samus was intended to be like that of a surrogate father-figure, though the main source material he's involved tends to cause a lot of debate regarding how well that was portrayed. He's also an alleged military genius, though between forcing Samus to shut down most of her gear, splitting up his team (who all together couldn't handle the threats they were fighting initially, much less divided) and freezing Samus with an ice beam right in front of a live Metroid despite admitting that he didn't know if cold weapons even worked on them, this also is a hotly debated claim. He later sacrificed himself to blow up said Metroids, though a copy of his personality was uploaded as an AI that acted as a liaison between Samus and the Federation while she was aboard the BSL. (a running theory is that he faked his own death, and that he is in fact sylux)

Chozo: Samus' foster parents aren't really around anymore, but they were originally a militant warrior people who prided in scientific progression and enlightening the lesser races. However, as they mellowed out in their old age, many of them sought to explore their more spiritual aspects, with many forsaking their technology to live in harmony with the natural world. The Thoha, one of the major Chozo tribes, were such a group. Between dying out from old age, getting slaughtered by Space Pirates/Ridley, getting nuked by Meteors filled with Phazon and generally fucking off to parts unknown, their ruins and technology are currently the only known remnants of their civilization. A far more militant group are known as the mawkin Who decided to stick with the militant warrior traditions, and were led by a psychotic tyrant with galactic domination ambitions. (as usual Samus ended him)

• Grey Voice: One of the only two named Chozo, Grey Voice was a curmudgeon who initially objected to adopting Samus before relenting with the knowledge that she literally had nowhere and no one else to go to. To help her adapt to Zebes, it was Grey Voice's DNA that was used to genetically enhance Samus into what she is today. While he feigned servitude to Ridley and Mother Brain to avoid getting his people wiped out, he eventually dusted off his old power armor and tried to kill the two of them despite having been genetically engineered to be incapable of violent acts. Ultimately Ridley slaughtered him and most of the remaining Chozo in response. Is highly likely to be a thoha.
• Old Bird: The other named Chozo, Old Bird was friendlier than Grey Voice and actually played with toddler Samus a little bit before the Space Pirates raided her colony. He also tried to teach her the lesson that just because someone looks different, you can always find good in them and become friends in the end. Suffice to say, this advice backfired spectacularly when 3-year old Samus told Ridley this and he responded by incinerating her mother. When they returned to investigate the carnage, Old Bird was the one who found her amidst the ruins and basically strong armed Grey Voice into adopting her. After the events on Zebes that decimated the Chozo population and killed Grey Voice, Old Bird led the precious few Chozo who survived into hiding, leaving their ultimate fate unknown.
• Quiet Robe: The first living, breathing, unmasked Chozo to ever be portrayed in the flesh in a Metroid game. Quiet Robe rescued Samus from the clutches of an E.M.M.I. during her mission on ZDR and informed her as to the identity of her true enemy on the planet, Raven Beak. Leader of the mawkin. Quiet Robe revealed to Samus that the Thoha Tribe, to which he was the sole survivor of, were the Chozo who were responsible for the creation of the Metroids and the only ones with the genetic code capable of controlling them. After informing Samus of what the E.M.M.I were programmed to steal, Quiet Robe was assassinated by a robotic Chozo Warrior. Later, his body was infected and controlled by an X-Parasite who used his knowledge to re-activate all the remaining E.M.M.I and send them after Samus.

Luminoth: Giant bipedal moth people, the Luminoth are an elder race much like their Chozo buddies. Unlike the Chozo, the Luminoth are still around and kicking (if only barely. With only a few dozen of them left, they are all but extinct thanks to their war with the Ing, though the war has ended, and they are now recovering). They are known to have met and collaborated with the Chozo on a few projects, as well as assisting the Galactic Federation with cleaning up residual Phazon on their planet, but they have not done much since.

• U-Mos: The last sentinel of the Luminoth, U-Mos was charged with watching over the remainder of his race (who were in stasis at this point) and defending the final remnants of planetary energy remaining on the original Aether. While initially wary of Samus (and despite her initial distrust of him), his heartfelt pleas for her to save his people and planet, as well as the threat the Ing would possess should they escape to the galaxy at large/the universe as a whole (Metroid is inconsistent on whether it's intergalactic or not) gained Samus' cooperation. To aid in her one-woman war, he eventually gifted her the slick-as-hell Light Suit. Notably considered to be a pretty young man; especially for someone entrusted with the duties of chief guardian and head of state; by the standards of his species at 250 years of age though he mostly got the job because nearly everyone with more experience was dead by the time he was elected. Kind of like a twenty five year old ending up as head of the administratum or Captain General of the Custodes.

Alimbics: Yet another elder race, the Alimbics were insectoid-like beings who, like the other elder races, had a thing for science and technologies of borderline magic. Originally from another galaxy altogether, the Alimbics engaged in some minor trading of tech with a variety of races such as the Chozo, Vhozon, Kriken, etc. Ultimately, a love-craftian horror named Gorea came to their civilization and began assimilating their race to grow stronger. The leaders of their race sacrificed themselves in a process to seal Gorea away in an alternate dimension. The fate of any remaining Alimbics (who weren't assimilated) isn't entirely clear, but they're presumed to be either extinct or in the same plane of existence their leaders went into upon sealing Gorea.

Baby Metroid: The last "natural" Metroid in existence, this infant Metroid hatched right in front of Samus just after she had slain the last Queen Metroid. It immediately imprinted on Samus, who couldn't bring herself to kill a defenseless baby. She quickly took it to a Galactic Federation research lab for safe keeping, only for Ridley to show up, kill everybody on the station and steal the metroid. Samus eventually found the Metroid on Zebes, who had grown to massive proportions of its original size and nearly killed her before recognizing her as her "mother". It slinked off in shame before intervening in Samus' fight against Mother Brain, draining the later's energy and feeding it to Samus. Turns out MB didn't really appreciate this, and so she killed the Metroid before it could attack again. (which caused it‘s surrogate mother to go on one hell of a rampage) This would have been the end of the story if not for the fact that the Federation would later use what genetic samples they had of this metroid to later save it's mother's life from that X infection.

Enemies

Ridley: Sometimes heralded as the leader of the Space Pirates, other times just a high-ranking warlord or an enforcer, Ridley is one of the most evil fucks in the galaxy/universe. Despite being a fully sentient and highly intelligent being, he takes extreme pleasure in the bestial brutality of indiscriminate slaughter of anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be on the same planet as him. His sadism even goes so far as to gloat to Samus who was at the time, only a teenager and was caught in her first ever PTSD episode about eating her freshly murdered parents (while mimicking their voices) before promptly killing her adopted chozo-dad. What's worse, is that in most cases he kills people just for the shits and giggles (which, by Nintendo's standards, is pretty damn dark) rather than to fulfill some ulterior motive or power play. He joined the space pirates as an enforcer of its mysterious High Command not for any higher goal or even for his own gain, he's only in it because he likes to hurt and kill people and the space pirates were the army that would let him do that the most. As mentioned above, he currently holds the Nintendo record of fastest respawn times (Even Ganon from LoZ usually takes at least a lifetime or longer to reincarnate, Ridley just pops back a week later like it's just another damn day at the office). While most Nintendo villains are evil in a grand, cosmic way; Ridley is mean and cruel in a very personal and ugly way and his opposition to Samus is born entirely out of personal rather than destiny related reasons and ideology is only in play to the extent that "I deserve to have fun by killing and torturing people" versus "That's really fucked up" is an ideological conflict. As of Metroid Dread, he has yet to reemerge in some shape or form, so for now it is modestly safe to assume he has perished permanently. Until some Space Pirates eventually pull back the curtain on a secret clone army of the dragon, at least.

• The only major Metroid games Ridley is absent for are Metroid Prime 2, Metroid Prime Hunters and Metroid Dread. He was formerly absent from Metroid II: Samus Returns, but a cybernetic iteration of him randomly popped in to fill the role of final boss in the remake of it.
• While the Metroid Prime, Mother Brain, and High Command are all more influential or powerful than he is and he's always operating as someone else's soldier, he's Samus' arch-enemy, not them. As mentioned before, Samus' conflict with him is almost entirely driven by personal reasons and at the same token, he's the only reoccurring villain who definitely opposes her for reasons beyond being an obstacle in his plans. The others are her enemies or villains; only he can genuinely claim to be her nemesis.

Kraid: A massive, morbidly obese Godzilla that serves as another high-ranking Space Pirate commander. Despite having a position similar to Ridley's, he's not remotely as revered or competent as his draconic counterpart; a detail likely noticed by most of the Space Pirates in charge of rebuilding Ridley every time Samus kicks his ass. To that extent, Kraid has only ever stood in Samus' way twice, both times on the planet Zebes (it's entirely probable that his size prevents most conventional ships from moving him anywhere else anyways). Even though he was planned to show up in Metroid Prime in a deeper section of the Phazon Mines, it wasn't until Metroid Dread where he makes a re-appearance chained up in a facility with no explanation or fan-fare as a boss fight. Samus was resolutely unimpressed with his reappearance and dispatched him rather effortlessly.

Mother Brain: A giant, literal brain that functioned as something of an overseer for the Chozo society. Over time, she grew rather sick of cleaning up after Space Pirate raids and the Chozo's new pacifistic outlook on life and began wishing to instill her concept of "order" unto the galaxy/universe. To this end, she conscripted Ridley and the Space Pirates to act as her personal army in a bid to take control of the Galactic Federation to achieve this goal. She also seemed to think that the Metroids are the perfect life form, and sought to evolve them into a fully intelligent race. Suffice to say, between her second death and the extinction of Metroids, the odds of her goal being realized are real fucking slim.

Space Pirates: These awesome fuckers have been the biggest thorn in the Federation's side since god knows when. The exact nuances of their government and society at large aren't really clear (different games show them as Arthropods or Reptoids, not helped by the official stance they are an amalgam of many species) but they are an extremely militaristic race that tends to have a "might is right" mentality. Despite this, they are still a fairly advanced race in their own right and are capable of creating (crude) technology that allows them to rival the Galactic Federation. Unlike the Federation, the Pirates are much less concerned with the safe applications of said technology, so much of their newer or experimental technology tends to be considerably less refined than their GF counterparts. Their tech also tends to suffer from particularly fatal flaws (such as notable vulnerabilities to specific beam weapons, or high equipment temperatures making them liable to explode). The R&D aspect of their technology also tends to have a staggering mortality rate on the personnel testing it, a hilarious example being when they tried (and failed) to copy Samus' Morph Ball. After Prime 3 and Super Metroid they have been almost completely defeated, having lost both their homeworld and their backup bases on Talon IV and Zebes, though as with any video game antagonist it wouldn't be hard to bring them back if Nintendo really wanted.

• Disciples: A sect of Space Pirates who worship Phazon as a holy substance, and Dark Samus as their new goddess. During Prime 3 they held most of the political power in the Space Pirate hierarchy, though the destruction of Phaaze means any survivors probably aren't high on the totem pole any longer.

Ing: When Aether was hit by a Phazon-infused meteor, the impact in tandem with the Phazon reacting with the natural energies of the planet split Aeither between two dimensions of reality. Most of the Phazon and half of this planetary energy shifted over to the half that became known as 'Dark Aether'. This realm became populated by the Ing, literal daemons of darkness who possessed and killed things in the original Aether (not necessarily in that order either, their possession abilities aren't even limited to organics which the Luminoth found when the Ing turned their war machines against them) in order to slaughter the Luminoth and steal the remaining energy to stabilize their dimension and erase the original planet. Once Samus drained every bit of planetary energy and murdered their Emperor, the entirety of Dark Aether imploded upon itself, taking the rest of the Ing with it (many of whom were so desperate to escape their apocalypse they tried to force themselves through an unstable portal to a realm that's atmosphere would've very likely killed them anyways). This is kind of noteworthy, as this is the first instance of complete and utter genocide Samus has committed against a fully sentient (if strictly hierarchical and extremely hostile) race to the point of extinction.

• Metroid Prime 3 gives a hint to their origins with a minor enemy known as the Phaaz-Ing which looks and acts an awful lot like a recoloured version of an Inglet. It's likely that the Ing Horde was birthed from a collection of Phaaz-Ing that hitched a ride on the leviathan heading towards aether and were mutated by the dark dimension when Aether's bizarre energies sent the meteor into another dimension.

Dark Samus: The first of Samus' doppelgangers, Dark Samus is an extremely mutated Metroid first appeared as titular final boss in Metroid Prime. After it was defeated by Samus it survived by stealing the Phazon Suit to effectively turn into a deranged murder-clone of her. While she was relatively directionless on Aether, she eventually became obsessed with spreading Phazon corruption to every known planet of importance. Due to being almost pure Phazon, Dark Samus' personality is twisted and manic. The Space Pirates corrupted by her came to see her as something of a prophet or harbinger, with many all but worshiping her. Her final death came with the destruction of the planet Phaaze, which effectively cause all Phazon to become inert and fade away.

SA-X: The Samus Aran X-Parasite was created shortly after a Federation sponsored visit to the recently de-Metroided SR-388 when one of the little STD blobs crawled into Samus' suit. After promptly infecting and copying her at the height of her power, it began wreaking havoc on the Space Station it was contained in. By the time Samus was strong enough to face off against it, it had asexually reproduced into no less than 10 copies of a fully powered Samus. All these copies are presumed to be destroyed along with the entirety of SR-388 and the Space Station they were held on. Unlike Dark Samus, this thing might have copied some of the original's personality, though mostly it seemed to imitate just the part that was obsessed with murdering metroids. Given that the X-Parasite mimicking Quiet Robe willfully sacrificed itself to bring Samus' metroid form under her control so that she could escape the about-to-explode planet ZDR, it may be more towards the former.

E.M.M.I.: Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier, E.M.M.I.s are cybernetic probes created by the Galactic Federation for the express purpose of tracking down and identifying potential X-Parasites on a recently identified planet known as ZDR. To do this, they made these things out of "the toughest stuff" in the galaxy, to wit, none of Samus' conventional weaponry can damage an E.M.M.I. under any circumstances. Of course, all the E.M.M.I. sent to ZDR went rogue and now want to take a sample from Samus... by impaling her with a massive proboscis-like needle. Upon encountering Quiet Robe, he reveals that Raven Beak has re-appropriated the E.M.M.I., equipped them with some of Samus' stolen gear and has tasked them with extracting the Metroid DNA from within her so that he can create an army for galactic conquest. As their acronym suggests, E.M.M.I. adapt their forms to better track their prey. As far as Samus is concerned, she has to spend a majority of her time fleeing from these robots, as the most she can do is potentially escape their grasp if they manage to pin her. Why the Federation thought designing a droid this difficult for their top bounty hunter to deal with when she's still working for them is an enigma at best. Fortunately, by the time Samus encounters the last E.M.M.I, she's able to dispatch of them by using her Metroid abilities to simply drain them of their energy.

Raven Beak: An evil Chozo who leads the warlike Mawkin Tribe. The Thoha Tribe contracted him to stop the Metroids after they ran out of control on SR388. He obliged in their request, but upon the the Thoha requesting that they destroy SR388 to ensure the Metroids and X-Parasites couldn't pose a threat, Raven Beak betrayed and slaughtered them. Raven Beak instead decided to hop on the bio-weapon bandwagon and use the Metroids as weapons for galactic conquest, only sparing Quiet Robe from the Thoha genocide as a means to control them. However, his plans were delayed slightly after it was revealed that an X-Parasite managed to infect one of his soldiers and was wreaking havoc upon ZDR, the Mawkin base of operations. By the time Raven Beak managed to contain the X-Parasites, all of his soldiers had succumb to the parasite, leaving him as the sole survivor. Undeterred, Raven Beak set out to resume his plans for the Metroids, only to discover that while he was preoccupied with the X, Samus had wiped out all the Metroids on SR388. Again undeterred, once he discovered that Samus had been inoculated with Metroid DNA, he shifted his plans to capturing Samus to harvest her DNA. To this end, he leaked footage of an X-Parasite to the federation and captured all the E.M.M.I. units dispatched to investigate by the time Samus got to the planet. Though he was originally planning on simply killing Samus during their initial encounter, his plans shifted once he noticed Samus' latent Metroid DNA was beginning to awaken. Thus, he knocked her out, stole most of her powersuit's equipment and disseminated them to the E.M.M.I under his control and engineered a majority of the trials Samus had to endure with the intention of fully awakening her powers for his personal use.

• Raven Beak thus far is the most powerful opponent Samus has ever faced (you don't survive an outbreak of X-Parasites by being easy to kill); even at full power, he is able to best Samus in combat in both of their encounters, Raven Beak emerged victorious. Only upon Samus' metroid powers fully awakening did he lose against her.
  • Raven Beak is the source for the other half of Samus' Chozo DNA infusion, providing the martial prowess the Mawkin (and by extension, the former Chozo people) were known for. In a sense, this effectively turns him into Samus' bird Darth Vader-dad. This relation does little to prevent Metroid-Samus from going full Doomslayer on him.

Bounty Hunters

While all of them were or are enemies of Samus, a few of them were allies for a short time, or would otherwise be likely to ally with her in normal circumstances. Their motivations also continue to prove that Nintendo still only has a tenuous understanding of what a bounty hunter actually is.

Sylux: A "Bounty Hunter" who apparently has a hate-boner for the Federation. All that's really known about him is that he's native to the planet of Cylosis, he stole his power suit and the Shock Coil weapon from the Federation and when he's not spending his time killing their outlying forces, he's stalking Samus across the Galaxy/Universe. Unlike the other hunters introduced in his debut game, it seems that Nintendo has actual plans for him. Plans big enough to build an entire trilogy around him as either an antagonist or Deuteragonist. (Hunters, likely Prime 4 as well)

Rundas: An alien bounty hunter with cryokinetic powers, Rundas was initially employed alongside several other hunters to work with Samus on Norion. He had your typical cool-guy type attitude with an arrogant flair, but was at least competent enough at his job to justify part of it. Among other things he saves Samus from falling to her death. Following his corruption and deployment to a planet called Bryyo, he lost his mind and was enthralled to Dark Samus. After being defeated by Samus, he regained his sanity, though either upon realizing what he'd done or possibly Dark Samus' overriding his will, he killed himself with his own ice powers before having his essence absorbed by Dark Samus. Visually, he kinda looks like a Wraithlord from 40k. (Prime 3)

Ghor: A cyborg bounty hunter who would often donate his rewards to the victims of his marks, Ghor utilized his space ship as a mech suit to murder the hell out of any Space Pirates in his way. He has a weird sort of split personality thing where out of his mech suit he's like a kindly robo-grandpa, but when he's in the suit he becomes EXTREMELY ANGRY AT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. He's also something of a tech expert (being a cyborg, this is unsurprising), and is able to remotely access computers and networks with a flick of a hand. Despite falling to corruption much like his bounty hunter colleagues, Ghor regained enough mental clarity to tell Samus how to repair the damage he inflicted on an orbital station and its resident AI overseer before retreating to attack her ship. Much like Rundas, he too was consumed by Dark Samus upon his defeat at Samus' hands. (Prime 3)

Gandrayda: A Shape-Shifter who can copy the appearance and some abilities of other people/races, Gandrayda was an arrogant show-off bitch who was skilled at infiltration (a shape-shifter who specializes in infiltration, shocking, I know) and liked to toy with her targets before killing them, usually as one of their supposed "allies". Unlike the other two bounty hunters who were corrupted, Gandrayda actually seemed to embrace her new powers and role under Dark Samus and above her Space Pirate legions. Just like the two hunters before her, however, she was defeated and ultimately slain by Samus and Dark Samus, respectively. (Prime 3)

Weavel: The only other named Space Pirate. During one of her raids, Samus wasn't as thorough as she thought she was and didn't quite kill Weavel, just horribly maim him. Thankfully, some of his chaps had enough tech that all they really needed was his brain and spinal column and shoved that into a robotic shell that could split in half and turn its legs into a battle turret. Since then, he's been a bounty hunter for the space pirates, causing chaos wherever he can. An interesting note is that his anatomy is practically human in design when most Space Pirates are digitgrade insectoids with crab-claw hands. Possibly was an attempt to replicate Samus' power suit, since it'd hardly be the first time they've tried. (Hunters)

Kanden: An individual from a race called "Enoema" who was used as an experiment to create an ideal super-soldier. The process worked, physically speaking, though Kanden's mind couldn't handle whatever the hell they did to him and caused him to go insane. Evidently, he now has the single-minded goal to become the single greatest bounty hunter in existence, and is willing to kill anyone or anything to prove it. He uses his Volt Driver and the electromagnetic field he emits to disrupt enemy suit systems. (Hunters)

Trace: A member of the insect like Kriken, Trace is currently undergoing the rite of passage for his people: to find a suitable planet to conquer or to claim powerful technologies to help the Kriken Empire become stronger than the Galactic Federation or any force of Space Pirates. He happened to decide that the Super Weapon all the other hunters were also seeking happened to be the perfect prize, and so joins the rat race for it. He fights primarily by sniping at long range, or by cloaking himself and ambushing his prey. (Hunters)

Noxus: One of the few bounty hunters on this list that actually has some sense of morality, Noxus is a Vhozon who uses his position as a "bounty hunter" to basically be Batman without the whole "no guns" policy. His conflicts with Samus were primarily because he believed she was just as unworthy as all the other hunters who were looking for the super weapon mcguffin featured in Hunters, or simply because he only trusted himself to keep it out of the wrong hands. Any other day of the week, it's likely that he and Samus would probably get along just fine. Has a notably goofy alt-mode in that he literally just hugs his legs to his chest and spins around on his tip toes like a top and attacks by sticking his arm out to hit things. (Hunters)

Spire: A morally neutral dude who's the last surviving member of the Diamont race, all he wants to do is find out what the hell happened to his people (who mysteriously vanished without a trace). Evidently his job as a "bounty hunter" helps him get around or access any information he seems to deem important for that cause. Likely the only reason he had any beef with Samus is because he thought that the Super Weapon everyone and their dog was looking for could give him answers to what happened to the Diamonts and he didn't want to risk losing the opportunity to someone else. (Hunters).

Misc

Phazon: An organic, highly radioactive substance that can be utilized as an extremely high-yield energy source, but is likewise extremely toxic to almost all organic life exposed to it. This semi-sentient substance, when left to its own devices, perpetuates itself by corrupting any nearby matter (organic or no) and converting it into yet more Phazon. Unrefined, Phazon often takes shape as lightning blue and black tendrils or actual physical crystals. Refined or pure Phazon takes the form of a gel-like fluid, and as can be expected, is considerably more potent in both energy yield and in its mutagenic effects on lifeforms. Exposure to Phazon, even briefly, can have severe detrimental effects on the physical and mental well-being of anything that comes into contact with it. In the "best" case scenario, individuals corrupted by this substance gain powerful new abilities and become stronger and more resilient, but they often become psychotic, erratic and extraordinarily hostile towards anything and anyone else. In most cases, creatures or individuals will die horrible, painful deaths caused by unstable, uncontrollable mutations. Select few creatures can ever find a "happy medium", but the few who survive are often still very unhinged and often have dramatically reduced life spans from the prolonged exposure. The substance itself originates from a planet called Phaaze, which was effectively a single massive super-organism. Phaaze "reproduces" by gestating massive Phazon meteors named Leviathans within it's womb (yes, the planet actually has functioning genitalia) then hurling them into space with the hope that they impact a planet. Upon impact, the Leviathan selects and heavily modifies a powerful creature to act as a guardian for the Leviathan itself (the namesake Metroid Prime and Emperor Ing were two such guardians) while it begins to spread Phazon throughout the planet. Had Samus not destroyed all these Leviathans, they would have eventually transformed their host worlds into more Phaaze planets. Dark Samus, once she got her shit together, implanted a sophisticated Galactic Federation AI into Phaaze and used it to forcibly launch Leviathans at specific worlds in an effort to subdue/destroy all other life in the galaxy/universe and turn everything into Phazon. Ultimately, Samus managed to destroy all of Dark Samus' leviathans and, true to her reputation, permanently ended the Phazon threat by blowing up Phaaze (which somehow rendered all Phazon completely inert, which begs the question of how sustainable Phaaze's reproductive system would actually be - maybe the Phazon only becomes independent when it fully creates another Phaaze?). Was ripped off in the expanse by the proto-molecule.

Metroid: The eponymous creature for which the franchise is named, Metroids are artificial creatures created by the Chozo specifically to combat the X-Parasite they discovered on SR-388. The initial form resembles a floating jellyfish with two sets of fangs instead of tentacles, however many different evolutions and sub-breeds spawned depending on what forms of energy they have consumed or been exposed to, though the "traditional" life stages involve Metroids metamorphizing from floating jellyfish into massive insect/dinosaur hybrids. On this note, Metroids derive sustenance entirely from energy; primarily by rapidly draining the life force out of any living creature (and any powered armors they also may be wearing) until it turns into a withered husk and crumbles to dust. This, combined with their surprising resilience to most conventional weaponry makes them extremely dangerous and apparently prime candidates for weaponization through both the Space Pirates and Galactic Federation. That said, they do have a notable vulnerability to extreme cold and can still be killed by sustained, concentrated fire. Eventually, the Galactic Federation officially recognized the danger they possessed to the galaxy/universe at large (while being completely unaware of the X-Parasite that was being kept in check by them), and ordered Samus to commit full-scale genocide on them.

X-Parasite: The "original" life consuming entity on SR-388 (seriously, that place could put many-a death world to shame with the kind of fauna regularly growing there), X-Parasites are roughly basketball sized yellow blobs that infect organic creatures, consume them from the inside while propagating rapidly, then ultimately kill their original host and shape-shift into near perfect copies of them. If their mimic-body is killed, they can even just make a new, identical body a few seconds afterwards if their true forms aren't killed in time. They also assimilate the host's memories in order to properly mimic the creature, and can utilize that knowledge for their own gain. Once they realized the threat Samus possessed to their species they attempted to scuttle the station with her on it. In the form of a BSL scientist they utilized the host's knowledge to destabilize the main reactor's cooling system to cause a meltdown and cause a destructive chain reaction. Later on, upon learning Samus's weakness to cold, they bred a cold sub-breed solely designed to chase down and kamikaze into her to freeze her to death by absorption. But after she acquires a way to mitigate this weakness and went through a room full of the new breed absorbing them all without harm they then flee just like the rest of their brethren. They're immune to almost all known weaponry and are able to infect people or creatures even through vacuum-sealed power armor, which arguably makes them more dangerous than the Metroids created specifically to kill them. This is especially true for creatures with cybernetic or robotic implants/cybernetics/equipment, as not only can they be infected by the X-Parasites, but their technological components can also be fully replicated. This includes but isn't limited to Samus' power suit, missile launchers, beam cannons and even gravity generators. Despite the Galactic Federation's intentions to the contrary, Samus has likely ensured their total extinction when she blew up the lab they were contained in alongside SR-388. Until it was revealed some had made it off-world to ZDR, which also got blown up, so they might be extinct now but since they've now gotten off-world before who's to say they didn't do the same elsewhere?

TLDR: An even worse version of what the monster from the 1982 movie 'The Thing' would have become if it landed on a zoo space station and not an area of barren tundra.

In Warhammer 40,000

Daemon

The other Samus that you probably aren't here for.

Near the end of the Great Crusade, the Luna Wolves pacified a planet catalogued as 63-19, known to its inhabitants as Terra. In the final stages of compliance, a Luna Wolves speartip went into the Whisperhead Mountains to eliminate a rogue force loyal to the planet's slain emperor. During the descent, the drop ships picked up a transmission that appeared intended to scare them, a repeating whisper of the following:

"Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw on your bones. Look out! Samus is here."

Then the Legionary Xayver Jubal succumbed to Samus's corruption and it possessed him, using him to attack the speartip. After a concerted effort, Garviel Loken killed the mutated Jubal and had his warped body destroyed. Horus ordered the suppression of the records of the encounter, especially Jubal's corruption, and denied that "Samus" was anything supernatural. Horus is a traitor to mankind, and any reports of the Adeptus Astartes succumbing to Chaos are clearly lies and propaganda. --Commissar Rosethorn

Samus becomes a recurring character in the Horus Heresy series. He is summoned by various traitor forces into various corpses at key battles like Calth and the Siege of Terra, and proceeds to die in every one of these appearances. Forge World gave him a model called "Samus, Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm." Apparently he is a daemon prince of the Ruinstorm and may have killed Dorn had the duel continued any longer. Though the only one to make that claim was Samus himself, so it's hard to take that boast seriously.

Upon attempting to fight Metroid's Samus for the right to be the one true Samus, the Daemon Prince was promptly pile driven and then drop kicked so hard he has yet to do anything of importance since the Horus Heresy.

Samus Aran

The hunter Samus Aran is indoctrinated by the Chozo (and then given Chozo genes at the age of three, and given that she lacks feathers, a beak, or talons they probably gave her the "latent psychic and superhumanly strong and fast" genes and not the "bird people" ones.) and (as of Metroid Fusion) part-Metroid, which does not endear her to Imperial authorities, but her power suit has massive pauldrons that demand respect, and would put a Space Marine to shame. For this reason, not to mention her status as a one-woman Exterminatus, Samus is sometimes portrayed as a Primarch of a legion of Female Space Marines. It's said that the Space Pirate xenos describe the hunter Samus Aran to each other with the same chant as the aforementioned warp-entity: "Samus; it means the end and the death. Samus is all around you. Samus will gnaw on your bones..." She also possesses a righteous hatred for the space pirates, who are responsible for her orphaning and loss of a homeworld, twice, once for her birthworld and parents on K-2L, and again for her adoptive Chozo parents and world on Zebes. The pirates even fear to mention her name just calling her the Hunter, treating her as if she were some kind of supernatural spirit of vengeance more than a person.