List of Metroid characters
is a series of nonlinear science fiction action games published by Nintendo, featuring side-scrolling, metroidvania, and first-person shooter elements. The player character and protagonist of the series is Samus Aran, a space-faring bounty hunter who battles [|Space Pirates] and a species called the Metroid.
Major characters
Samus Aran
Samus Aran is a bounty hunter and the protagonist of the series. Her homeworld was attacked by the Space Pirates, and her parents were murdered by their leader Ridley when she was young, which led to her being taken in by the Chozo, who saved her life and raised her to become a warrior. She wears a futuristic suit with weaponry and movement in mind, allowing ease of movement while having decent armor and blaster cannons. It is also likely the reason Samus is able to survive on other planets. Samus also appears in the Super Smash Bros. series as a playable character.Ridley
Ridley is a high-ranking Space Pirate and major recurring antagonist who serves as Samus's archenemy. A draconic entity, he is defeated by Samus multiple times, but is always revived by the Space Pirates using cloning or robotics. Other than Samus and the titular Metroids, Ridley is the only character that has appeared consistently throughout most of the games in the series. He is directly responsible for the invasion of Samus' home planet and the death of her parents and is the franchise's most frequently recurring villain, though he doesn't typically act as the primary antagonist in individual games.Mother Brain
Mother Brain is a brain-like supercomputer and the main antagonist of Metroid, its remake Metroid: Zero Mission, and Super Metroid. The Chozo created it as a councilor, and as a means to "accelerate their plan to link the galaxy into one unified society". During the Space Pirate invasion of Zebes, it saw the Space Pirates as a "perfect force capable of restoring true order to the universe", and successfully established itself as one of their leaders. At the same time, Mother Brain attempted to persuade Samus to be an ally in order to "build a new age for the universe" by claiming that because it built the power suit that Samus wears, she is indebted to Mother Brain. Mother Brain is depicted as a large brain with cybernetic spikes and a single eye, usually contained in a glass tube which Samus must break in order to injure it. In Super Metroid, Mother Brain also rises from the floor and reveals a grotesque body after her tank is destroyed. Samus seemingly destroys Mother Brain in the original Metroid, but again confronts it in Super Metroid. It was revealed in Metroid Prime 3 that the Galactic Federation had constructed biomechanical supercomputers called Auroras, and that there were plans for a "Future Aurora Complex", which appears to be the Mother Brain depicted in Super Metroid. In the first cutscene for Metroid: Other M, the scene of Mother Brain destroying the baby Metroid is reenacted in an FMV cutscene, and the main antagonist, MB, is an android housing an AI cloned from Mother Brain's genetic material from Samus' suit.Adam Malkovich
Samus' former commanding officer in the Galactic Federation army, he only appears in person in Metroid: Other M, but plays a major role in the events of that game. At first, he does not accept Samus' assistance, but lets up after she defeats a hostile on the bridge. After this, he is responsible for authorizing the use of Samus' weapons, with the exceptions of the Seeker Missile and the Diffusion Beam, which are found instead, and the Gravity Feature, which Samus activates herself while leaving Sector Zero. He is generally cool and collected even when under fire, but some of this is temporarily lost when he sees Ridley on the control room monitor. He was nonetheless able to outwit James when he suddenly appears in the Control Room. Samus and Adam are shown to have had a very close relationship: Samus does not explicitly mention it herself, but he sees her as a daughter as she saw him as a father. It was this that drove him to first detach his ship and a space liner with three thousand passengers on board from a repair ship with his brother on board in the past, and enter Sector Zero of the Bottle Ship in Samus' place in the present: both of these actions were taken for the greater good, and for the good of Samus herself. Upon entering Sector Zero, he activates the laboratory's self-destruct protocol, sacrificing himself. While Samus vows not to grieve his death, she also vows not to forget him, and gives him a thumbs up sign instead of a thumbs down, indicating that she knows what he would have wanted: for her to live her life for the both of them. In Metroid Fusion, it is revealed that the Navigation Computer of the ship is Adam Malkovich's consciousness in computer form. This computer consciousness returns in Metroid Dread, albeit impersonated for most of the game by Raven Beak.Metroid Prime / Dark Samus
Metroid Prime is the titular main antagonist and final boss of Metroid Prime. Its later form, Dark Samus, is a major antagonist in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and the main antagonist of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. As Metroid Prime, it is a strange, black-carapaced, red-eyed creature with a humanoid face within its shell and the ability to control and horribly mutate anything it attaches to. After its defeat, it reforms itself by stealing Samus' Phazon Suit to become Dark Samus, a black-colored doppelgänger of Samus.Metroid Prime was formed when a Phazon meteor known as a Leviathan impacted on Tallon IV, released its living core, and enticed and fused with a Metroid unfortunate enough to cross its path. It caused severe damage to the Chozo colony before the Artifact Temple was built to contain Metroid Prime inside the impact crater of the Leviathan. According to the NTSC version of Metroid Prime, Space Pirate miners discovered the creature, eventually dubbing it "Metroid Prime" after containing it with security units and drones brought to their laboratories to perform experiments. Metroid Prime broke free and managed to assimilate several weapons and defense systems from fallen security units before going back to the impact crater. The PAL and Trilogy versions however deny this, with the Pirate Logs only stating that the Pirates picked up life signals coming from within the Artifact Temple. After Samus gets all of the artifacts, she is able to enter the impact crater and fight Metroid Prime. After its defeat, the creature takes Samus' Phazon Suit to reconstruct itself into a body similar to hers, resulting in the being referred to as "Dark Samus".
In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Dark Samus arrives in Aether while chasing the planet's Phazon. Shortly after, Samus arrives and encounters Dark Samus many times, eventually defeating her as Dark Aether was destroyed, but a post-credits scene shows Dark Samus reforming herself in deep space.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption shows a team of Space Pirates returned to Aether to pick up Phazon, and eventually found Dark Samus, who killed a third of the Pirates and brainwashed the rest to be their leader. After discovering Phaaze, Dark Samus begins her mission to spread Phazon across the universe - one of the planets hit was the Pirate Homeworld, in order to turn the rest of the Space Pirates into followers of Dark Samus. In an attack to the Galactic Federation vessel G.F.S. Valhalla, Dark Samus steals a supercomputer, the Aurora Unit 313, which is used to implant a computer virus into the Galactic Federation's network of Aurora Units, crippling it. Shortly after, Dark Samus leads an attack on Norion, corrupting Samus and other bounty hunters with Phazon. After Samus destroys the Leviathans of four planets, she goes to Phaaze, where she finally defeats Dark Samus, who then merges itself with the Aurora Unit 313 in a last-ditch effort to defeat Samus. After the Aurora Unit is destroyed, Phaaze explodes, and all Phazon in the galaxy is rendered inert.
Dark Samus appears in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U as an Assist Trophy and an alternate costume for Samus. She also appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with a similar set of moves to Samus, being labeled as an Echo Fighter.
IGN listed Dark Samus as the 88th best video game villain, describing her as being a "creepily evil doppelganger" that never truly dies. TheGamer listed her as the 6th best Metroid character, calling her "one of the most evil and horrifying entities in the series." GamesRadar+ ranked her as being the 4th best fictional evil clone, praising the fact that " evil clones in other games tend to be one-off gimmicks, endured long enough to be the central villain", and stating that unlike "other dark clones just want to bump off their originals, Dark Samus wanted to conquer, and she came awfully damn close – and may come back to do so again".
Sylux
Sylux is a bounty hunter and former Federation trooper, first appearing as a recurring antagonist in Metroid Prime Hunters and later as the main antagonist of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. He is considered to be Samus' rival, harboring a great hatred towards her and the Galactic Federation as a whole. His main weapon is the Shock Coil, an electric-based prototype weapon stolen from the Galactic Federation, which drains energy. He can also transform into a alternate form called the Lockjaw, which acts similarly to Samus' Morph Ball, and has a ship named the Delano 7. In Metroid Prime Hunters, Sylux and five other bounty hunters try to find the "ultimate power" that is said to be located in the Alimbic Cluster. He and the other bounty hunters battle Samus throughout the game, and are saved by her from Gorea at its end. His spaceship appears in the special ending of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which is unlocked after reaching 100% completion, in pursuit of Samus Aran. Sylux also appears in the special ending of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, unlocked if a Metroid egg is rescued in a previous mission, in which he infiltrates a Galactic Federation research station, and releases an infant Metroid from a stasis tube.In Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Sylux and the Space Pirates attack a Federation facility holding a mysterious artifact using Metroids, inadvertently activating the artifact, which sends him, Samus, and several Federation soldiers to the planet known as Viewros. Decoys of Sylux are fought throughout the game. In visions seen by Samus, it is revealed that Sylux is a former Federation marine and the sole survivor of his platoon after a disastrous mission, in which he wanted to capture a Space Pirate superweapon and recklessly disobeyed his superiors, getting his men killed; Samus then destroyed the superweapon as ordered, making Sylux hate Samus and the Federation. After Samus and her Federation allies reach the Master Teleporter on Viewros, Sylux, who was using a healing pod to control Chrono Tower, emerges and fights Samus in another dimension, which serves as the final boss fight and ends in his apparent death. As Samus and her friends are about to leave, Sylux returns and damages the Master Teleporter, forcing Samus' comrades to hold him off, seemingly sacrificing themselves so that she can leave the planet before the Master Teleporter stops functioning.