#Chozo General

[molagboop]

So I put the power of friendship and impractical outfits into Metroid Dread. No suits, no shields: we die in a giant laser hand cannon fight like true warriors.

[batgirlteeth]

thinking about samus' radical design changes from the onset of fusion and how they relate to her self-image. the x parasite didnt just steal her armour, it stole her identity too, her chozo power armour was the one connection she had left to the people that made her who she is, and it was infected and cut out like a cyst and then it quite literally haunted her. her default appearence is then one that is stripped away, laid bare, and shes far more vulnerable.

the only thing that could save her was the most destructive legacy of the chozo, the metroids. then over the course of fusion, she learns that the federation has been cloning metroids for weaponisation themselves, the humanity shes so desperate to hold onto is acting no different to the space pirates, looking to control and conquer. everything she thought she was has either been torn from her or corrupted beyond recognition.

and then dread follows up on this so well by introducing raven beak and the mawkin tribe. we always saw the chozo from this idealised lens, a generous and benevolent civilisation that shared their bounties with the universe. but the truth is that was only their best and brightest, the real reason theres chozo ruins on nearly every planet in the galaxy is because they were conquerors. they were colonisers. and samus herself was yet another soldier being indoctrinated into war for the sake of raven beak's ego. just another weapon. just another metroid.

any vestiges of samus' heritage and the legacies she holds onto have had their facades stripped away for what they are, and its up to samus to define herself. she chooses to become a metroid, the ultimate warrior, because she can defy that legacy and scrounge some good from the dirty hands she was dealt. quiet robe inspires her to do this, by holding onto a fraction of his kindness even after assimilation by the x, because that altruism can shine through no matter how dark it gets.

metroid is about growing up in a fascist society and peeling away the layers of obfuscation and deciding what you want to fight for. also youre transgender

[coldgoldlazarus]

I firmly believe in a Futch Samus

But I think something that might help the discussion is that her presentation, and how she is presented, are two different questions. And this is where most of her official depictions (and to an ever greater extent, the deluge of so, so much Zero Suit fanart) fall short.

Especially when she's coming out of her powersut at the end of the games, is something that bugs me. Show her hair messy and matted as fuck from that helmet. If she is in fact wearing eyeliner like that one post suggested, it should be kinda smudged and leaky by this point. Give us defined abs, not just because she should be portrayed as way more muscular in general anyway, (though that definitely does apply too) but because she's just run five consecutive marathons and fought at least one new space horror and is dehydrated as fuck. (On that note, in more casual scenes like the ZM endcards, show her with a little healthy pudge instead, let her be properly watered!) If she's fresh out of the Zero Suit, she'd probably even have some leg hair.

And just in general? Again, muscles for sure, I think this is one thing everyone is in agreement on. (Her Zero Suit model in Dread is definitely an appreciated step in the right direction.) Scars, too, especially in depictions chronologically placed after Corruption, where we know for sure that the Phazon had some severe effects. (Though other scars in addition would be interesting and evocative.) The extent of her mutations is something I do like being more up for interpretation, and there's been some fantastic different takes out there, but I do feel like at the bare minimum there should be at least something indicating her Chozo and later Metroid influences, even if it's subtle. (I like to go for a prominent beaklike nose for the former.) Age is another debatable one given the ambiguity of the timeline, but some kind of indication there might go a long way.

Samus can be feminine, Samus can be hot, but she shouldn't be Conventionally Attractive Supermodel style hot, with an hourglass waist and unblemished features. And honestly, with her usual portrayals thus far, the choice of presentation kinda fades into the background noise of Default Sexy Woman™, whereas it could be a lot more good and characterful if they paired it with a stronger character design, if she's buff and scarred and still chooses to pretty up afterward. And they could stand to even go further on that front, too, I've seen some great redesigns where she has more ornamentation and jewelry like the Chozo.

She shouldn't be supermodel hot; she should be the kind of hot that comes from and speaks to her power and experience.

[sepublic]

            I want the Metroids in a hypothetical show to ultimately come across as tragic figures; Beings who were made to be exploited, and that’s what happened to them their whole life as a species between their creation and extermination.

            They were created by the Chozo to destroy the X, they were used by the Space Pirates as a bioweapon; In other episodes, we see additional parties like the Kriken Empire, or Kanden, attempt to capture Metroids for their usage. The Space Pirates set a few loose on the Ing while exploring Dark Aether, and it ends with some of those Metroids being possessed. Not to mention the Phazon corruption, where they end up as vectors of Phaaze, and the Federation’s corruption. We still have yet to see whatever dynamic Sylux might have with their Metroid, which is devoted to them on a self-sacrificial level…

            It’s a recurring thread throughout the story named after them that the Metroids are seen as a tool for others to use, and they’re deeply effective at whatever that purpose is; But they never really get a say in things, do they? There is no real say or agency, they’re being fought over a lot of the time, either by Space Pirates or the Federation, or by Samus against some group that wants to weaponize Metroids, so her responsibility is to destroy whatever Metroids have been captured.

            The only real exception to this is Dark Samus; In a way, she kinda reclaimed autonomy after being imprisoned and used by the Space Pirates. In a way, she brings about a certain liberation for her fellow Metroids, the only creatures she’s known to be sympathetic towards; Under her command, the Metroids are far less restricted, and the Space Pirates live in fear of occasionally being targeted as a meal.

            But Dark Samus is still a vector of Phaaze, as I’ve said; So maybe she doesn’t have so much free will after all, maybe this isn’t the Metroids’ revolution. She took control of Phaaze, and planned to sacrifice it; But that was to create more Leviathan seeds, so what difference would it make for a selfless, hivemind organism like Phazon?

            I’m rolling with the idea that Metroid Prime was THE original Metroid that the Marina’s crew found on SR388 and brought back to the known galaxy; The one the Space Pirates used to breed an entire generation of Metroids that Samus and the Federation systematically hunted down, until they were eradicated from that sector of space. Maybe Dark Samus' last lines in a show are not screams of agony, but... Just a simple confession; That she was happy roaming the wilderness of her home, only to have that taken from her as she was made into a weapon, and then a true monster, by the mis/handling of others who didn't care for her.

            Dark Samus had to die, as did Phaaze because like Mother Brain it was a load-bearing component for an invasive life form. Similarly, a lot of the moral justification for killing Metroids was that they were an invasive species; It was not yet discovered that they were artificial bioweapons. Not only was it imperative to protect ecosystems from an invasive threat, but there was obviously a native population thriving where they originally evolved from, and in their true home, Metroids could always live on.

            But then the Federation rediscovered SR388’s location, after the Marina’s Deleter had destroyed that knowledge to keep the Space Pirates from using it. And now the cat was out of the bag, it was only a matter of time before the Space Pirates learned where the Metroid homeworld was, and took advantage of that. The galaxy had survived two Metroid crises, a third was unimaginable. But the Metroids surely deserved to live within their own natural environment, weren’t they entitled to this as living creatures?

            Ultimately, the Federation came to a hard moral conclusion; The wellbeing of the larger galaxy mattered more than one species on one planet, which could still bounce back from their eradication, so the Federation thought. As Adam Malkovich put it, for others to live, some must die; And the Metroids were sacrificed, despite never knowing the situation nor agreeing to it, and how could they as animals who instinctually want to survive? That choice was made for them by others.

            Samus started off pretty unsympathetic, understandably so; She’d experienced firsthand the devastation of the Metroid, barely surviving before coming back to avenge all they’d killed. But as her story continues, and she sees how the Metroids are fought over by others, including herself… Samus begins to develop a bit more pity for them, recognizing they didn’t ask for this and just want to live, which of course means eating as much as they can, whenever they can. But again, she’s someone who loves and appreciates nature, but is also aware of the more brutal, pragmatic reality to it.

            Again, we hearken back to Adam’s quote, because that is the rule of nature. Sometimes you need to kill an animal to feed yourself, and because others must do the same you must kill in self-defense, even if it’s a mother who is poised to recognize any outsider as a threat to her children. Samus doesn’t judge the creature any less for it, nor does she think it should be wiped out, but it’s just the frank material reality of the situation.

            So when she’s commissioned to exterminate the Metroids, a once-unsympathetic Samus has a moral dilemma, considering seriously what the Federation has said. I dunno where the U-Ton arc from Samus and Joey takes place within the larger timeline, but I can see the connections being made at some point; U-ton is not a malicious being and even loving, but when it begins to undergo nuclear meltdown due to its programming, Samus is left with no choice to euthanize U-ton in order to save many innocents from an impending explosion. U-ton itself even agrees!

            And later, Samus finds out on SR388 that the Metroids aren’t natural, but artificial bioweapons; They weren’t just used as bioweapons by the Space Pirates, they were always meant to be bioweapons. And there’s a relief in that, because good! Great! There’s no moral dilemma anymore, the Metroids are unnatural, and inherently invasive to whatever world they come across, including SR388. Samus is obligated to go through with it.

            But in the end, it’s not so simple; U-ton was also an artificial bioweapon, but he was a tragic figure who also wanted to live and grew beyond his programming. Samus would never condemn an artificial sapient being as needing to inherently die. And the Metroids also grew beyond their programming, due to all of the DNA from the various creatures used to create them. The Metroids’ creators DID intend to co-exist with them, they acknowledged that the Metroids did not ask to be created of course; The Thoha did not foresee the Metroids’ metamorphosis, which made them go out of control and start attacking a planet not evolved to withstand them.

            But by the end of the day, the Metroids did exactly what they were made for; But upon shedding their domesticated role by expressing the traits of the natural creatures used in their creation –in essence, the Metroids became more animalistic, more like natural creatures- the nature-loving Chozo chose to abandon them, even attempted to destroy them.

            Perhaps the Metroids are not much different than a pet that was adopted, only to be considered too much of a hassle, an inconvenience to deal with any longer, and abandoned on a street. Put down, even. For creatures so desired, the Metroids are always just not good enough for whoever’s handling them, there’s always some problem to contend with because people don’t unconditionally love Metroids, just what Metroids can do for them.

            Samus recognizes that the Metroids have become more ‘natural’ for lack of a better term, is their mutation not an argument for evolution, for going beyond artificial programming? They become more like the natural animals they came from, shedding programmed control from their creators. Is they any real, inherent difference between natural and unnatural, by the end of the day? The Metroids developed a doting queen, and hatchlings who fiercely love and devote themselves to their parent; That’s an argument for them becoming ‘natural’.

            Isn’t Samus herself technically unnatural? A hybrid, not created through natural means, and she wasn’t even a hybrid to begin with, having Chozo DNA implanted a few years after she was born human. Samus and the Metroids were both created by the Chozo to be destroyers, or the ‘Ultimate Warrior’. That’s what they’re good for, maybe that’s all they’re good for. Does Samus deserve to die for being unnatural? Or does that whole dichotomy have no bearing on that decision, instead it’s just a matter of whether they pose harm that cannot be reduced without killing them?

            Did she remember the Ing in deciding yes, and then when Samus hesitated? The Luminoth had to be chosen over the Ing because there simply isn’t enough energy, both will die if one doesn’t. And Dark Aether and the Ing are violent and considered unnatural, so it’s okay right? The Luminoth were there first and are far less of a threat to society. But the Ing still had a culture, had begun to make a civilization; People prioritize civilization as proof of sapience and sapient lives always matter more, but isn’t civilization also unnatural? So which is it, then? The more animalistic Ing or the industrial Luminoth? The Ing are so alike to the Metroids in tragedy, doomed to either starve or take, doomed to be demonized for wanting to live.

            On a meta level, there’s also something to consider: Many criticized Samus Returns for losing the environmental storytelling of the original when it came to the Metroids’ lair. In the original game, it became more barren the closer Samus got to the queen, implying and justifying the Metroids as an invasive species, even before the reveal in Fusion of their artificial nature. By contrast, Samus Returns kept the wildlife thriving within Metroid territory.

            But maybe this does work out, with an adaptation; The Metroids found a way to survive and co-exist with other species, technically, by fitting into the larger ecosystem. There’s a bit of a Jurassic Park “Life finds a way” element to the Metroids’ origins, how they manifest suppressed traits from the DNA used to create them. Fittingly, the Jurassic Park franchise also discussed the right for its dinosaurs to live, acknowledging them as unnaturally brought back, and themselves technically hybrids anyhow, an invasive species displaced from their natural time AND habitat.

            This led to the government agreeing to let them be wiped out in an imminent eruption, which the protagonists fight against, only to find themselves roped in with those who want the dinosaurs to survive so they can be exploited. The Federation gave the order for Samus to kill ALL Metroids, and the ones they bred for their own use came from the infant that Samus was supposed to destroy, per the Federation’s orders; The Federation is not a monolith, hence Sakamoto intending for the perpetrators of Sector Zero to be a rogue faction.

            But I digress; The point is that the Metroids could’ve found a way to survive, in fact the desolation from the original game could’ve merely suggested it as their territory, and not that Metroids threatened all of SR388 itself. The Federation could’ve found a way to keep the Metroids alive, is that not what Ceres ended up doing? And what it would’ve kept doing, had the Federation not succumbed to its own greed.

            Samus destroys all but one Metroid, and sees herself in it, but with Samus in Ridley’s place now. Of course she spares the Metroid… But in the end, the Space Pirates DO capture it, and do use it to begin breeding other Metroids hostile to Samus, that she ends up having to destroy. And Mother Brain kills the infant.

            But it doesn’t end there, because then Samus becomes part-Metroid through the infant’s own DNA herself, and it’s what allows her to destroy the X. Everyone clamored for the Metroids to die, but it was only when they were murdered, that suddenly people clamored for them to be brought back; Only when the Metroids are wanted and needed, it’s only when they’re convenient that they’re allowed to live. But Sector Zero is destroyed and Samus is the last Metroid.

            Is this her penance for her crime, or is this her reward for not committing to it? Unlike the Metroid, Samus is a sapient being who can understand and adhere to morality and the law, so she can temper her own appetite for the sake of others; She isn’t even cursed by it, unlike the pure Metroid. Maybe the Metroids could’ve been able to co-exist with at least the Federation, who could’ve found a way to control them like Mother Brain did; Metroids technically co-existed with the Space Pirates under her control. People have made preserves for artificial creatures and even bioweapons abandoned by their creators.

            But in the end, as seen with Mother Brain and the Space Pirates; If they can be tamed or at least controlled in some degree, then they can be weaponized. No power like the one the Metroids wield should exist; And alas, the only way to remove that power is to remove the Metroid entirely. There will always be bad actors, hence the phrase, “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

            And the Metroids didn’t even want to misuse this power, nor ask for it; It was just given to them by the Chozo, and then that power was taken from them and given to someone who could control it. Meaning the Metroids were abandoned again, after being asked for again, once the Federation and even Raven Beak realized Samus could perform the same purpose against the X.

            In the end, the Metroids’ existence was simply deemed too much of an inconvenience to tolerate; They did not choose to survive and evolve this power to do so. Everything about them has been in the hands of others. Even their one ‘savior’ in Dark Samus was an entity so far-removed from them. The actual Samus herself would become essentially Metroid Plus; All of the DNA that went into the Metroids, plus hers and Gray Voice and Raven Beak’s. Suddenly, the Metroid itself was eclipsed by someone else, and discarded for a newer, shinier toy.

            Maybe that’s what happened to Samus, too; The Chozo of Zebes raised her, then fled when Mother Brain betrayed them, and never came back for her. But then Raven Beak comes back, as someone who initially helped create Samus, and then left her behind; But suddenly he decides he wants to rule the galaxy, and that’s when he conveniently comes back into her life to use Samus against her will. She is often mistaken for Metroid on a meta sense, and then became a literal Metroid from an in-universe stance.

            But that might be more fitting, in the end; There’s not much of a distinction between Samus and the Metroid and it’s blurred first by a doppelganger called Dark Samus, and then by Samus herself. The name Metroid means Ultimate Warrior in Chozo, and that’s exactly what she was raised to be as a child; And can children really decide for themselves? Samus did not choose to lose her original family, nor did she choose to be found by the Chozo.

            Did she choose to stay on Zebes with them, instead of being taken to a human foster family? Could Samus really be said to have chosen being their champion, their sole warrior, or was she actually groomed into a weapon? Is what Raven Beak had planned for her much different than what the Chozo of Zebes intended; The only difference being the scope of what Samus was supposed to fight against? Gray Voice gave Samus DNA too, not just the Mawkin warlord.

            And when Samus proved an inconvenience to Raven Beak because she would not obey his commands, like an animal she was meant to be put down; Samus by the Mawkin, the Metroids by the Thoha. She would have clones replace her, domesticated ones, just as the Marina’s Metroid from SR388 was to be isolated, having already imprinted on the queen, while the Metroids created from it would be used to serve Mother Brain; History would repeat itself with the Infant, too.

            What choice was there for the Metroids; To be either destroyed, or live in servitude to others who would throw them against any obstacle, ready to be replaced should they somehow die. What chance did they have, discarded for doing too well what they had been expected to do? Maybe with the Chozo they could’ve lived had they failed their purpose, but the ones after them who would be made to rectify that? The X’s bane was destined to die with them.

            Maybe Dark Samus’ crusade was the Metroids’ revenge against the galaxy, for both what had been done to them and would later be committed; She would be their spite against all who defined them only by their usefulness within a society. A way for the Metroids to take down their enemies with them… So what about the X, who end up briefly ignored by a Metroid created by the Federation, from the DNA of the infant that Samus kidnapped; Instead, it will go after that very Samus.

            As Ishiro Honda put it: “Monsters are tragic beings, they are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” The Metroids just wanted to live, but the way they were designed made them incompatible with life, including against a parasite that could resemble any life, and thus needed to be destroyed in any of those forms. Fittingly, Honda’s quote was about Godzilla; A natural creature irradiated, mutated, aggravated by humanity’s need to create stronger weapons so they could control others.

            The natural creatures the Metroids came from were put to together to create the Ultimate Warrior, and many were left endangered with SR388’s destruction, necessitated only by the X who spread unchecked because the Metroids were wiped out. The Metroids were irradiated and transformed by Phazon, made addicted to it because it was the nearest food source, and of course they’d go for that.

            They were defined as weapons meant to be useful for others and that’s all they’d be recognized as, despite showing a capacity to be so much more than their creators intended, so much more loving and deserving of their own existence. And only one just like them would recognize this, yet be cursed with the inability to convince everyone else the same, as she bore a similar reputation before and especially after carrying on the Metroids’ life through her. Samus IS Metroid, and the real twist isn’t that she isn’t, or becomes that; It’s that she’s always been. It’s hard to trust that others want to know the real Samus beneath the armor weapon, and especially after the mutation.

            But there are those who do, and those who love and care for Samus as a person could be doing the Metroids the justice they’ve always been cheated out of but deserved. And maybe Samus can rest easier, knowing that whether or not she should bring back the Metroids if she had the chance, if there was a way to protect themselves and the galaxy from that power, that at least something lives on and even thrives; That’s how she felt when she left SR388 with the Infant.

[kosmonauttihai]

So I have Thoughts about the shape of Samus's helmet visor.

The appearance of her suits in general varies slightly in each game, even without an obvious big plot reason like in Fusion, but considering the suit is part of her body and responds to her thoughts and emotions, at least some of these slight changes might be diegetic, too, and subtly indicative of things relevant to the game's plot (spoilers for those, btw) and how she feels about it.

Throughout the games, there's overall a progression of the visor going from a simple shape, wide and rectangular around the eyes (with rounded corners in the first game), to more of a triangle with sharp edges and notches. .

Metroid 1 .

Metroid: Zero Mission .

Metroid Dread

There are some interesting out-of-universe implications, too, but focusing on the in-universe ones - while early games Samus isn't exactly naive and insecure, life experience does bring confidence in what you can handle, and I personally like to think that Samus's age in Zero Mission and in Dread is early twenties and mid-fourties, respectively (or whatever's the equivalent of those ages for her, considering she is a Chozo, too, and may not age at the same pace as most humans), and she certainly has reason to become more emotionally closed off and disillusioned as she faces more betrayals and loss of loved ones. .

Metroid Prime .

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

After Prime 1, if we go through the games in story order, the middle of her visor starts to tilt down a bit more and the outer corners up, gaining a subtly fiercer look. You could even think of the extra angles the visor shape gets in the Prime sequels to represent her outlook on her career gaining more complexities; old enemies becoming victims to new, increasingly eldritch ones, and allies trying to use the same hazardous resources the enemies are wreaking havoc with. Phaaze and the Ing being threats to the rest of the universe but also really just doing what's their way of surviving.

The notch at the middle is rectangular, a shape associated with stability, though. Things aren't turned too upside down yet, and it also resembles the visor on the Galactic Federation soldiers' helmets, as Samus is working in cooperation with the Federation at the time and is still on good terms with them.

(I don't think it's been made clear yet where Prime 4 fits on the timeline, and we don't know much about its story yet, but fwiw the visor shape seems to be the same as in the other Prime sequels.) .

Interestingly, the notch in the middle is inverted in the Dark Suit. At this point Samus isn't working for the Federation, but is on a new, personal mission. .

The most narrow her visor gets is in Samus Returns, where it also looks uncannily like Dark Samus's visor, because Samus is kind of the bad guy of Metroid 2's story (at least until the worst guy shows up). Metroids are dangerous, but it's not their fault others want to use them as weapons. Samus isn't ignorant of that even at the beginning, but she convinces herself this must be done, until she gets to the last one and has to confront what is happening - she is once again in the middle of a massacre, where the last survivor is a young child who in their innocence tries to befriend the terrifying alien responsible, only this time she isn't the child. .

The original Metroid 2's visor is more what now seems like the visor's baseline shape, but considering the only point of reference at the time was Metroid 1's design, this change, too, was a distinct step in the darker and edgier direction in that context. .

Super Metroid's visor having that "baseline" shape again resembling Zero Mission's is because the game is older than ZM, SR, and the Prime series, but going in story order and treating the remakes as Metroid 1 and 2, it still kind of makes sense it goes back to that shape. Samus's mission in Super Metroid is to rescue the Metroid larva, an innocent kidnapped by her worst enemy who will undoubtedly use it to hurt other innocents - a pretty straightforward good vs evil setup.

That along the way she kills a bunch of creatures that would perhaps also count as innocents (R.I.P. Crocomire, who gets in the way but doesn't even attack until the player does, and may have had no affiliation with the Space Pirates at all) doesn't catch up to her until the SA-X shows up in her old suit, looking and acting like the killing machine she was, as if to mock how easy it was for her to forget things aren't so simple when she was the one with superior firepower. .

And Other M may be Other M, but the design detail of having Samus's visor show so much of her face and be less opaque a lot of the time does fit her being more emotionally vulnerable, and having more trouble protecting herself from and suppressing how much she shows the effects of old and new trauma. .

The Fusion suit has several features reflecting her being a Metroid now, including her helmet seeming to have fangs on the sides. The notch extending from the top of the visor shape in the middle is sharp, too, as opposed to the rectangle notch in the Prime suit's visor. Along with the outer corners of the visor being tilted up, it also makes it look a little like there's another set of fangs biting into the visor from above, making her helmet like a Metroid larva that's enveloped her head.

Samus joining the species of the dangerous creatures she has fought for years, and has then come to see in a more sympathetic light that's still tainted with guilt of being responsible for their extinction and not being able to save the last of them… isn't exactly voluntary or without some crisis of identity. Maybe the Metroid part of her swallowing up the rest is a a little what the situation feels like to her, and something she fears becoming more than a metaphor. .

The Metroid suit, on the other hand, she dons after embracing that Metroid side of herself, welcoming letting it take over if that's what it takes - and turns out it doesn't, Metroid Samus is still Samus. The sharp notches are now extending down from the bottom of the visor and up from the outer corners. They're no longer biting into the window of who Samus is inside, the visor now has fangs. .

Metroid Dread also has Samus dealing with her Chozo heritage at its focus, and the shape of her visor in her standard suits resembles a bird in flight. .

Dread's visor also reminds me of the Light Suit's. I think it's pretty likely Samus sees parallels between the Luminoth and the Chozo, and wants to help them like she might feel she couldn't help her own people. But without the sharp beak, the shape in flight doesn't look so much like a bird. Perhaps a moth instead? This is a suit she only wears while representing the Luminoth as their champion and gives back at the end of the adventure, but despite everything that happens in Dread, when her suit returns to regular levels of Metroid, the bird visor is still there.

Also it's interesting that the first game where her design hadn't quite gotten to its iconic look yet has the only particularly rounded visor, despite how round, smooth shapes are found prominently elsewhere on her suit, and the shape language of character design usually associating rounder shapes with heroes and sharper ones with villains. Round = friendly, sharp =dangerous etc. I'm sure it has to do with some contrast making things more visually interesting, too, but I can also fit the contrast being between the general silhouette of the armor and the window into the person inside it with the above.

The suit is durable and powerful, sure, but the toughest component is still Samus herself.

[beevean]

You wanna do an analysis on one of your faves?

Do one on Samus! It's the right time!

Of course :P

Well... Samus is hard to describe, because she has changed so much in three decades.

The general Power Suit is iconic for a reason. In the older games, it was bulky, not apt for speed but very much apt for exploring a hostile world. It made Samus look like an advanced, cold, deadly robot.

Nowadays that people are inherently born with the knowledge that she is a woman :P her Suit has become a tad more feminine, mostly in the hips department - not enough to look too booby, but enough to be more streamlined and agile. (the size of the Varia Suit's massive shoulders is to this day wildly inconsistent :P)

Not surprising, then, the direction took in Dread, where the suit is sleeker than ever: Samus doesnt' look unprotected, but she's elegantly stripped to the essence without losing her cool factor.

You can tell in which decades those suits were designed :P

But I find Samus herself more interesting.

I remember reading a thread on r/metroid of someone, who was probably eaten for dinner that day, who was glad that Samus looks very feminine under the Suit, because you wouldn't expect the big hero of the galaxy to look like a cute woman, especially coming out of such a cold robotic suit. I do see their point. In part, her design (blonde, blue eyed, slim, conventionally pretty) is a child of its time. I think nowadays she would have been designed to look more like Abby from TLOU2, and I mean it in the most neutral of ways: Samus, overall, feels like a male character who was genderswapped at the last minute. And yes I know that it's exactly the case because the big reveal in M1 was mostly a joke, but I mean writing wise too.

My favorite design for Samus will always be SM, because yes, I do like my Samus to be athletic:

She should look well trained, for the job she has, and I wouldn't even mind more scars on her body, especially of the Phazon kind. (also I'm biased because I like buffer women :P) This is also where I insist that the two-piece looks better on her than the Zero Suit: while admittedly the latter would protect her skin better under the Power Suit, aesthetically the two-piece draws your eyes on her toned limbs and stomach, so while it is more revealing, I feel it's a more "tasteful" kind of fanservice than the Zero Suit which clings onto her curves. (not to open a can of discourse, it's my personal preference)

But I find interesting that she keeps her hair long and she puts on make up. Think about it: why would she put on make up when her face is hidden to the rest of the galaxy? No matter where she learned it, whether it was from the Chozo as something culturally different from our make up, or from female companions when she trained in the GF, it's easy to guess that Samus likes her appearance and puts care in it for herself and herself only. I do think it fits what we know of her personality: she's not a showoff, but she's not humble either. Combine this with the previous talk about the two-piece: Samus is shown going around places like that. Overall, both in appearance and personality, she exudes masculine confidence in a feminine way, something that would be so easy to mess up, but with one exception it has been kept fairly consistent.

[alligator-with-a-top-hat]

Gonna meditate on Ridley’s importance to the Metroid series, edited from comments I made on a video about him. After some thought, it’s clear to me that every appearance of his after the first ties him strongly to the theme of each individual game. Analysis under the cut, in in-game chronological order.

Zero Mission's whole premise is being a new spin on a familiar story, showing us things we never thought about in the NES game. Zero Mission's cutscenes show him commanding the Pirate Mothership and deliberately tracking Samus down. His robotic double, Mecha Ridley, is the new final boss stopping her escape from Pirate patrols. It's an organized, calculating side to the Pirates never seen before in the 2D games. The game is about insight into the past, and we gain insight through Ridley.

Prime is about respecting our history and the dangers of wasteful exploitation. Ridley is the face of the Pirates on Tallon IV as they discover and abuse Phazon, and his opening salvo in his boss battle is to bomb the Artifact Temple. However, the Phazon hurts the Pirates as much as it hurts their enemies, and the boss battle ends with the statues of the ancient Chozo blowing Ridley away in violent, laser-y retribution. The game is about destructive exploitation, and Ridley shows what happens to those who go too far for power.

Corruption is about the corruption of the body and spirit by violence, as represented by toxic Phazon. At the beginning, Ridley is his crafty old self, hounding Samus on Norion and forcing her into a boss fight he knows she cannot escape on her own when he knocks her into the generator shaft. But at the end of the game, he reappears, corrupted by Phazon, as an animalistic guardian of the leviathan seed on the Pirate Homeworld, little better than a guard dog. It parallels Samus' own journey as she is corrupted by Phazon, put on a leash by the Federation, and forced to kill those like her. The game is about corruption, and Ridley shows the end of those taken by the corruption.

Samus Returns is like Zero Mission in that it is about shedding new light on an old story, but it goes deeper than that. Samus sparing the Metroid hatchling is the single most important decision in the series, so it's no surprise that the remake should have Ridley -- whose most famous moment in the manga was making the opposite decision in regards to Samus -- appear to try and tear them apart. His appearance also foreshadows his role in Super Metroid, and putting aside the change in tone from the original Metroid II, his appearance gives Samus and the baby Metroid a chance to develop their bond in a way that had mostly been told, not shown. The game is about Samus' moment of mercy, and Ridley is there to see if she can really do it.

Super Metroid is about Samus and the baby Metroid's bond. Samus throws her plans away to recapture the baby Metroid, and in the end it sacrifices its life to save her. Lo and behold, Ridley is the one who separates them, and when she kills him, she finds only the broken Metroid capsule, a tantalizing clue that brings her no closer to the baby Metroid. The game is about what matters to Samus, and Ridley is the one who takes it all from her.

Other M is a game about nothing. Samus does not impact the plot in any significant way because other people sideline her and handle the plot for her. Ironically, Ridley still fits this theme -- he appears as a cloned baby to annoy and distract Samus, has a boss battle that makes no sense in context, and finally is eaten by a poorly foreshadowed Queen Metroid and never comes up again. The game is stupid and Ridley is handled stupidly.

Fusion is about identity and the past. Everything is flipped upside down when Samus is infected by an X parasite, loses everything, and discovers that the monster trying to kill her is, essentially, her. The power of the Metroids, her eternal enemy, becomes the key to her success and survival. In an important scene, the Federation, which Samus has trusted since her Zero Mission, is revealed to have recreated the Metroids. Immediately after this upsetting revelation about an entity she has worked for for years, who does she encounter in the Federation's facility? That's right, Ridley, who has even been possessed by an X parasite as if to mock her situation.

It's not all bad, though. Fusion is the game where Samus finishes Ridley for good (seeing as he doesn’t return for Dread), and fittingly enough she finally comes to terms with part of her past when she reconnects with ADAM. It's a game about the past. Ridley is that past, and Samus finally puts him behind her.

Ridley is so special not just because of his cunning nature and terrifying brutality, but also because of how neatly he fits into the puzzle of Samus' life. He’s a relentless phantom that embodies the violence she cannot escape. He represents everything Samus must overcome to finally find that "true peace in space" from the NEStroid end screen.

Thanks guys 👋

[maryaustria]

top 5 metroid suits?

I had more to say about this than I thought lol

5. Varia Suit (Prime)

This one is her most iconic version of the varia suit and her most iconic suit in general. There is a lot to love. The way Retro studios managed to translate her suit into 3d. How it seems practical while not being too realistic and still looking very scifi. It is both simple, but also full of small details to enjoy. The weird knee pads (spikes?) and the huge shoulder pads. I think the only thing i could say that is bad would be the colors. They are fine, but they blend a bit too much with each other. It's not a huge deal breaker but it's something. It works with making her stand out a lot from everything else. Thats doesn't come into play often in prime since it's a fps, but it comes up more often in 2d or other m.

Since I brought it up, the varia suit from other m isnt that much worse than this one. It is pretty simplified, but it works, especially for that game.

4. Dark suit

I love how imposing this one is. Especially in this artwork. The suit is a perfect fusion between the Chozo and the Luminoth technology and makes it look like Samus put on the clothing of one of the Luminoth.

Despite being called the Dark suit it manages to not come across as evil however. Initnimdating, yes, but never really evil. The phazon suit from prime 1 looks more evil. To me, if you isolate it from the Luminoth connection, it looks more like a suit they would use to perform heavy duties. A real workers suit. Combined with the gravity booster later on it also has something of a diving suit.

3. Gravity Suit (Dread)

The dread variants of the main suits all show how much her suit manages to evolve since we last saw it in fusion. It makes the suit seem much more organic than anyone ever thought it would be, as it literally starts to grow back. It's not like Samus went to a mechanic and asked them to repair her suit. You can tell the suit isn't completely back either, since you still have parts that look like muscle tissue covering the suit as if there was exposed flesh from a still healing wound.

That was just about the main suits in dread in general, but what about the actualy gravity suit? Well for starters I have to confess that I never really like the gravity suit design much. It was still cool, and purple is my fav color, but I feel like they never made it look as good as they could in the past games. The colors were either too off balanced so that either the purple or the middle of the suit were either too saturated or too dull.

With dreads version that's an issue. It's the perfect purple. It's not too bright so it distracts from the main body and It's not too dark for it to not be noticable. It's not a simple color change like in past games. Samus seems bigger, more bulky in her suit now, making her seem more of a threat now, which is a nice progression for the player, where they can see themselves and how far they have come. I also love the little detail of the green lines starting to run along the main body, really seeling the feeling of the suit evolving with the change.

2. Fusion Suit

I did use a picture of the metroid prime version, but this includes all versions.

This one I love because of how big of a contrast it is to Samus's usual suits. While not always as bulky as the prime suit for example, they are still always big suits. Even when they try to be more sleek in their design, they still manage to look more robust than this one.

The fusion suit is Samus's suit stripped of all it's protective plating, revealing the soft flesh of it's inner workings. It's our first look at how the suit might work. It sells the idea that samus is really bonded with the suit, the whole covering looking more like organic muscle than actual machine. It makes her seem more vulnerable than before, while not making her seem incapable of doing something. With the heavy armoring gone she seems more agile, faster than before. What she lost in defense she makes up for it speed and freedom of movement. If it weren't for the helmet parts on the top, you would have a hard time telling apart the suit from the actual body.

Side note: I'm still so upset that it didn't return in the remastered version. There's no legal way to get it in prime one now.

1. Metroid Suit

Honestly I don't see this one being topped at any point. The way it suprised me when it showed up in dread was such a great suprise.

Well what's so great about it? To start with it, the design is-

I mean it looks like-

ough thats so...

yessss.....

YESSSSSSSS

To be a bit more serious, it is a pretty solid the design. The suit once again makes itself look less like an actual suit, and more like a living organism. This time however, instead of showing of the bond between Samus and her suit or to reveal the soft insides, it makes the suit look more like an actual creature. None of the parts her look like they belong on some high end piece of technology. Even the arm cannon and visor somehow manage to look like they are made of skin and bones.

The way the story builds up to it also adds so much to why I like it so much. The way it gets teased during the last emmi fight for example, or how you get some foreshadowing at the very start of the game. It's a nice conclusion to the fact that she had the metroid dna injected into her, making it the second time this safed her life and the third time the baby saved her.

I could probably talk a bit more, but I think that was enough for now.

suit v coll i lik :]

[monsterfuckerconfessions]

ANON IS SO RIGHT ABOUT THE CHOZO

i am so shocked that more people aren't down atrocious for Raven Beak HOLY SHITTT i would service him any day. Size difference is a major part of monsterfucking for me and is a major part of my attraction in general and watching Raven Beak grab and lift up the 6'3 (190.5cm or 1.9 meters for those of y'all who use that system) Samus Aran by the throat during their fight had me feeling some type of way. GODD i wish i was in her place in that moment.

That man is fucking massive, easily 12ft at least and i need him inside me so bad,,why cant he be real

.

[master-of-47-dudes]

I think one of the most interesting storytelling decisions in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is that the Ing have no lore files. The Luminoth have a ton of info on them but you really know nothing about the Ing at all besides their being universally hostile, apparently intelligent, and only what the creature scans and Luminoth's point of view of them tells you.

It's actually kind of a weird absence. It's obviously intentional; a way to make the Ing seem too alien and hostile to truly be in any way sympathetic or relatable (as opposed to the Space Pirates whose lores paint them as a mixture of amoral/unfettered by ethics, hilariously incompetent, pathetic, and unlucky, and downright diabolical).

Even Dark Samus, who also leans hard into the light/dark dichotomy that the game themes itself around, has more depth and revealed motivations than the Ing through its/her actions thanks to the Space Pirate lores and the secret ending of the first Metroid Prime.

Of course, Dark Samus is also a subversion of that theme as well, but that's a different rant.

With the Ing, it's simply... they exist, they are intelligent, and they hate everything the light world stands for. Why? There is no known motivation. The game's narrative and the Luminoth lead us to believe Dark Aether is entirely unnatural, an anomaly that sprung into existence when the Phazon meteor struck it.

Exploring Dark Aether does seem to lend itself to that conclusion. The Ing do not seem to build, outside of the immense ingworms and the containers made of smaller, weaker ing. They do not seem to have clear domiciles, simply existing around Dark Aether. They have a hierarchy, and the Ing Hive is said to be their home, but the Ing Hive is also just a very literal Dark reflection of Sanctuary Fortress; architecturally identical to its Light counterpart in most ways, despite the obvious artificial nature of it. The same applies to Lower Torvus!

Any construction that exists in the Dark world and not the Light World is generally something the Luminoth built there during the war, or that the Ing stole.

Any construction that exists in the Light world and not the Dark world is something built after the Luminoth made their last stand: the Space Pirate base in Agon, the desperate attempts of the Galactic Federation troops to secure a site before they were overrun.

But while the Ing do not build or care for their own, they’re not unintelligent. Their greatest asset in the war was not their ability to overrun their enemies with numeric advantages (which they had and used), but their ability to adapt to and appropriate every weapon the Luminoth used against them.

Without that, without strategy and cunning, the Ing would not have been able to turn the tides of the war in their favor; the Luminoth's technical advantage was TOO big; the Luminoth weapons Samus utilizes in Echoes make that obvious, with the Light and Dark Beams offering firepower far in excess of standard Chozo faire and the Annihilator Beam's interaction with the Luminoth's crystals and beacons making it the ultimate weapon against the Ing. The Dark Suit? A near perfect defense against the hostile Dark Aether's atmosphere.

And yet the Ing could possess the Luminoth, the creatures of Light Aether, the defenses the Luminoth made to protect themselves...

The Ing's greatest asset is theft, to the point that even their world is stolen. A copy, all the structures they call home simply copy-pasted into existence by a bizarre cosmic incident and not things they built themselves.

I suppose these weird aliens stand out in the Metroid series by being one of the most alien things Samus encounters, outside of Phazon itself- and them being a unique creation of Phazon lends itself to that bizarre, eldritch nature of the substance as a living thing.

...but God damn do I wish we got to see their perspective.

[average-transdalorian]

Okay one more thing before I go to bed

The lack of “Samus Aran Becomes A Mandalorian” fics I have seen is a travesty

Like. First of all, the parallels between Samus experiences + Chozo culture and Mandalorian culture in general are. Very present. Samus is an orphan who was brought up by a warrior people and given a set of armor that is both better than most other armor you’ll find and spiritually significant (at least, from what I could gather), and taught how to fight to a BREATHTAKINGLY competent degree in part so she could get revenge for her slaughtered maan’aliit (original/birth family).

Add onto that what it takes to be Mandalorian: following the Resol’nare

Bajur (education): Samus has been shown to learn a LOT of different information throughout the Metroid series. From scanning shit to watching and mimicking wildlife to just being an information sponge, Samus Aran is always willing to learn. We don’t know if she’d be willing to teach a protege yet, but given how she acts about the baby Metroid (specifically in the remake of Samus Returns and in Super Metroid, I am trying to not learn more about Other M than I already know), it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that she would be willing to teach a protege.

Beskar’gam (armor): Samus’ power suit looks more similar to modern beskar’gam than some ancient sets do. Like. Some sets don’t even have a t-visor, which she *does*. She also has some variation of most Mando’ad armor technology in her power suit at some point, and like I said before, it reads to me as spiritually significant. All it’s missing is a check by a Goran to make sure it’s still in good shape and counts as beskar’gam

Aliit (family/clan): she’s gotten vengeance for her maan’aliit AND killed her dar’buir (no-longer-parent, which I most certainly class Raven Beak as), who was implied to have killed her Chozo aliit. She seems to be a clan of one now, but signs certainly point towards her taking care of her aliit when she has one

Aranov (self-defense): she is Samus fucking Aran, I do not need to elaborate

Mando’a (language): not applicable, she hasn’t had a chance to learn it

Mand’alor (leader): she’s willing to both follow and question orders, iirc. We don’t see her having a sole leader (Other M isn’t real and can’t hurt me), but I don’t think she would find following a Mand’alor to be too objectionable

TLDR: some author(s) send Samus to the GFFA and make her Mandalorian pretty please

[molagboop]

After referencing numerous diagrams, avian necropsy records, and my own prior knowledge of human musculoskeletal structure, I have devised speculative anatomical structure for Chozo.

We'll start small with my first attempts to properly chart basic skeletal structure from last year (seeing as how that's what I used as a jumping off point), then move on to the research-based stuff. I wanted to walk through the process of solving problems presented by the skeletal structure.

First we have a cursory look at the ribcage. Drafted June 7, 2023. Leaning into the more humanoid appearance.

New addition, May 2024: a first shot at sussing out wing bones. These bones need to be much, much larger to accommodate the full breadth of the limb: this is just a rough outline. The skeleton also needs to bear muscles that are strong enough to carry the Chozo in flight, hence the new protrusion on the chest: a keel. Two variants of this new breast came out of this drawing session: one with a large keel that extends below the sternum and one with a normal keel.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Human ribcages have this ridge along the bottom that the last six ribs are attached to (noted in grey on the image above). We're not doing that with the Chozo ribcage.

The sternum is the structure in the middle, which the ribs are attached to. See those two bones attached to the top of each side of the sternum, stretching away from the center of the ribs and forming sort of a capital "T" silhouette? Those are the clavicles. When you're drawing any humanoid form, the clavicles are an excellent landmark (and as I've been taught, the first place you should start on anatomy after you've laid out your pose, armature, etc).

It's also part of why wings are so difficult to suss out on Chozo skeletons. In birds, a bone that consists of a fusion of the two clavicles is a crucial part of flight: the clavicle bridges the gap between the ribs and the arms, and for birds, the wings are their arms. That's problem number one: effectively consolidating two pairs of arms on one torso.

We have a few bones to add onto the human skeleton in order to make flight possible for Chozo. First, we'll assume all bones are hollow. This makes them lighter, demanding considerably less energy to lift them off the ground in the first place.

I've modified the sternum to add a keel, which the base flight muscles are going to be anchored to.

First pass at revising the skeletal structure. I made a few modifications unrelated to the wings. The pelvis is similar to that of a human, though a little wider to accommodate egg-laying. I may end up reworking the pelvis entirely to make it more bird-like, but I'm more interested in making those wings fit at the moment. Chozo have a human femur/patella, and avian lower legs.

Here's a thing I slapped together in 3 minutes in January of last year to illustrate which bones are where for the layman. Onto different matters.

Skeleton, labeled.

Generally, the wings' humerus is attached to the scapulacoracoid, a bone attached to the keel that's sort of Y-shaped. That's how a real bird's shoulders are structured. Humans posses a scapula (shoulderblade), which has two protrusions: the acromion process and the coracoid process. The acromion process is where our humerus joins the shoulder. The coracoid process in humans is not exactly big enough nor ideally shaped to anchor flight muscles to.

At first, I had three ideas:

Invent a new bone attached to the keel that serves the function of the coracoid.

Modify the scapula to fit a new bone that anchors the flight muscles (the scapulacoracoid is analogous to the human scapula, after all).

Forego the keel and invent a bone on the spine that does the same thing.

To start, I added the furcula, a Y-shaped bone on the sternum, flanking the keel. Fun fact: not all birds have a furcula (better known as the "wishbone" in some parts of the world).

Real quick muscular structure layout sans flight muscles.

First pass at the flight muscles. Not the most accurate wing muscles in the world (neglected to depict the muscles near the tip of the wing, for one).

In this model of the musculature, a good deal of the flight muscles around the breast and torso are hidden by the pectoralis major, much like several non-flying human muscles.

Flesh applied over muscle.

Feathers applied over flesh.

That was my first attempt at constructing the Chozo skeleton. You'll notice the wing bone solution is inelegant. See, wings are analogous to arms. Their metacarpals are finger bones. In order to give Chozo both arms and wings, we'll need to deviate from both avian and human skeletal structures to make the pieces fit together.

I can't make the flight muscles stretch comfortably over the clavicle: that has the potential to impede motion in the arms. My first idea in the second round of flight bone shenanigans was to invent a second bone that fit between the spine and the scapula, like shoulder-bound plate tectonics (working name "scapula trellis"). I wasn't wholly confident that I could configure flight muscles in a logical manner even with this setup.

At one point I consulted Raven Beak's model. Note the patches on the back of the torso on the powersuit: that's where the wings emerge in phase 2. It looks like they're anchored to the scapula or an adjacent structure.

Barring the fact that his wings are absolutely ridiculous, I wasn't sure I could work with this. Gorgeous structures, but the feathers don't seem big enough to handle flight.

So I was left to brainstorm, and drafted up a few sketches for a second scapula to anchor the wings' shoulder joints to. I was more confident in this than I was the previous design, but I wanted to fish for ideas from other parts of nature.

Enter dinosaurs. Specifically, the Pteranodon with its shoulder girdle.

The addition of a shoulder girdle as an anchor for the yardarm (the term I'm using for the humerus of the wing, applicable only to creatures that have both wings and arms) seemed like a better solution. Positioning it below the scapula allows me to place the wings a little lower on the back, providing minimal interference between the two sets of limbs.

Whether we're rolling with the shoulder girdle or a second scapula, the intended result is the same: the wings have moved down on the back of the torso (personally, I'm digging the girdle, but the second scapula is on the table if anyone else wants to try their hand at this).

Muscles from the back, illustrated. Note the distance between the deltoid (shoulder muscle) and the wings. The shoulder girdle is situated in the lower-middle of the back of the ribcage.

A few notes: the acromioecstasia exists because the muscle that usually connects between the body and the patagialis longus on real birds is located on the pectoralis major. If I emulated that, we'd have flesh crossing over the deltoid to reach the front of the body, which would obstruct movement of the arms. We don't want that, so I moved that section of the wing to the back. We're compensating by adding additional musculature up front.

Wing muscles from the front. All three pectoral muscles are attached to the keel. The pectoralis medius is an extension of the pectoralis major, running beneath it and several other muscles. The pectoralis minor (also known as the supracoracoideus) lies beneath both the major and the medius. The pectoralis medius and major are responsible for the downstroke, while the supracoracoideus raises the wing between flaps.

Flight is very taxing on the individual. Power suit wearers actually have an easier time flying than non-wearers because the suit passively offsets the metabolic demands of flight with its own Energy.

It's important to note that these sizes are not necessarily "to scale". Chozo wings should actually be much bigger than my canvas permitted me to show. I had to keep increasing the size of the canvas on one of my files to accommodate a reasonable wingspan, but even that's not broad enough! I had to stop expanding the canvas for the sake of my CPU. If any muscles look too dinky or the scale seems off on some bones, that's why: I just needed to swiftly illustrate where things are.

A Chozo's total wingspan should at least be twice the individual's standing height. Any smaller and there's no lift.

I still don't necessarily consider the wings "solved": if any speculative biology enthusiasts want to weigh in further on the subject, feel free!

After laying out the bulk of the skeleton (and before solving the wing problem), I decided to go a little further in my studies. Thus, we have organs.

First, the digestive system.

The esophagus is self-explanatory. Food goes in through the beak, traveling into the body through the esophagus.

The crop is used to store food: this is where digestion begins. Many parents regurgitate mushy, enzymatic food for their children from the crop. Very nutritious and promotes growth.

The proventriculus is the first half of the stomach: protein bonds begin to break down here. Gastric fluid produced here aids the gizzard in mushing things.

The gizzard is where the bulk of food-crushing occurs. Breaks larger matter down through transfer between areas within the organ.

The liver and gallbladder are crucial in digesting fats. Real bird livers have two lobes: the left is smaller than the right. Two bile ducts from the liver connect to the distal duodenum: the right duct is connected to the gallbladder. Chozo only need one.

The duodenum is the start of the small intestine, running in tandem with the pancreas. Pancreatic enzymes created by the latter assist in completing digestion, processing sugars, etc.

Digestion is finished in the other sections of the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed.

Chozo kidneys largely resemble their human counterparts. Connected to the lower half of the gastrointestinal system. Urate is disposed of through the cloaca, transferred from point A to point B by the thin ureters bridging the kidneys to the large intestine.

Bacterial fermentation in the ceca extracts nutrients from plant material that can't be digested through enzymatic breakdown. The ceca and large intestine also reabsorb moisture, forming the solid portion of indigestible waste. The ceca are larger in tribes that eat more fruit and other plant products. Mawkin ceca are fairly small: they live quite an active lifestyle, and plant matter supplements their all-rounder diet with meat as the foremost staple.

The large intestine is the end of the line. Renal and intestinal waste is ejected here. The end of the reproductive tract forks to the distal segment to facilitate egg laying. Mammals have considerably larger large intestines than Chozo to dry out waste before expulsion.

Next we have the respiratory system. The trachea takes in air and delivers it to the lungs. Unlike mammalian lungs, Chozo lungs are inelastic: they don't expand and contract. The air sacs do all the expanding and contracting: they're connected to the lungs through a network of bronchii.

The high metabolic rate required for flight demands a ton of oxygen, and Chozo respiratory organs are designed to do just that. The mechanics are fascinating but I won't take up too much of your time explaining the finer points. Wikipedia's write-up on the circulatory system of birds is a good place to start if you want to dive deeper.

The short version is thus: air enters through the nostrils, traveling into the bronchi through the trachea and syrinx (the syrinx helps Chozo vocalize). The bronchi deliver air to the lungs. When Chozo inhale, the posterior and anterior sacs expand: the posterior sacs take in fresh air while the anterior sacs fill with air that has already passed through the lungs. Air is constantly circulating through the lungs, and it's a one-way flow.

Parabronchii are microscopic tubes that run perpendicular to the blood capillaries. Parabronchii efficiently diffuse oxygen from the air into the blood.

The next image set deals with a few extraneous vital organs. I'm not going to illustrate the nervous system nor arterial network, just as I neglected to illustrate all the bronchi in the respiratory system. That's a lot of tubes!

The circulatory system is pretty standard, but it pulls largely from Dread. Here's the thing: in the pre-boss fight cutscene for Raven Beak (aptly named 0086_comanderorbital_video_artwork_01.webm in the files), we see him contributing to Samus' biological makeup. His heart is set firmly in the center of his chest.

This is anatomically accurate to real birds! Bird hearts are placed similarly in the center of the chest, flanked by the left and right lobes of the liver (linked image is a labeled black and white illustration of a dissected pigeon, showing most of the major organs).

The brain is exactly what you think it is. No, the most interesting part of this last image set is the harus.

The harus is an accessory to the lymphatic system. You'll notice its proximity to the respiratory system. Lymphatic capillaries accompanying the parabronchi network filter more harmful atmospheric molecules into the harus, which makes use of specialized cells to recycle these molecules in a process that synthesizes ATP. In addition to this, the harus helps maintain the body's proper pH levels in hostile environments. This organ is what allows the Thoha to breathe in Zebes' toxic atmosphere.

Headcanon time: the majority of non-powersuit related genetic alteration done to Samus Aran in her youth is related to this organ: her respiratory system was altered with the proper instructions to produce specialized harus cells on their own without needing to transplant the organ. Samus can breathe on Zebes because her lungs can perform the function of the harus while she breathes.

Full-size pngs for everything are available on Ko-fi and Patreon. The canvas for this project was pretty big because I wanted to be able to capture the scale of the wings somewhat.

ADDENDUM, May 16, 2024: Chozo should have a modified pelvic bone that more closely resembles a synsacrum, not a humanoid ilium: I am a fool and completely forgot to make alterations in that department.

[cheshiregengarart]

Rough thumbnail for a painting I want to do of a few chozo in Phendrana Drifts. I've always wanted to draw this area. Just after some general feedback and tips. Also, should I do this as a digital painting, or as a watercolour? Thoughts?

[coldgoldlazarus]

Suddenly remembered a dream I had a few years back about Prime 4. I was in this lush sandstone-y underground area, looked like a greener, less dilapidated and dusty version of Chozo Ruins in some ways? Enclosed roof, but with strategically-placed skylights boring up through who knows how many layers of rock to let sunlight in.

And there were these long, narrow "windows" at eye level, but with really fancy decorative trellis patterns instead of glass, providing views into adjacent rooms. At one point I glanced through one and saw like four or five rooms in a row that all had these trellis windows connecting them; and then hopped into a Morph Ball tunnel that led me to the furthest one.

The place was also laid out ridiculously exacting to a grid, not a diagonal or rounded corner to be seen, and this extended to the etchings in the walls too; almost felt like it could have been made in Minecraft if not for the level of detail. I eventually found a door leading outside to a gulley, and found that aside from some ramps, the entire surface here was also super terraformed to fit into that grid structure; looked like erosion had messed that up in some spots, but for the most part it was eerily regimented. Again going back to the minecraft comparison, unlike that where the terrain generation still makes natural-looking hills and curves even out of meter cubes, here even the layout of the different levels looked really artificial and squared-off. Almost 2D-Zelda-esque, honestly, if rendered into 3D. But at the same time, the amount of like, vines and moss and tall grass and other weird alien shrubs all over the place kept it from feeling creepy, just kinda weird.

The gunship (Classic edition, I think) was parked nearby, and I got into it. Instead of a destination select like in Corruption, though, I just got a cinematic fixed third-person view while controlling it manually, which also had the side-effect of making the surroundings look even more like an isometric game. I slowly hovered up, then turned east (based on the position of the sun; it was early afternoon) and took off, and enjoyed watching more of that weird landscape pass below me. It took several minutes, but finally came to a medium-large canyon, which seemed to mark a border between that terraformed garden landscape, and untouched natural geology.

I tilted my camera down a bit to better see what was ahead of me, and on the other side of the canyon was arid scrublands with cacti and stuff, with a big gradual slope up to a pair of absolutely massive mesas in the distance, so far away that the haze in the air rendered them dark sihouettes against the sky, and towering well above even the Gunships's current elevation. I angled toward the gap between them, and around then was when the dream either shifted to something unrelated, or I just woke up.

[sepublic]

The Project Golem mechs function quite similarly to Samus, even plugging their arm cannons into interfaces to receive data, operate devices, etc. From a Doylist perspective, the developers probably wanted to make a Metroid multiplayer based around Samus’ gameplay; But Samus is only one individual, how does this fit into the canon? So they made some Federation lookalikes to explain it. These mechs still act very Samus to appeal to the Metroid iconography.

From a Watsonian perspective, you know how one of the signs of improving technology is the ability to make it smaller, and more efficient? It could be that the Federation was a little humiliated by having to rely on one bounty hunter the whole time, and attributed a lot of her success to the tech she wore. There’s obviously so much more to what makes Samus such a great warrior than that, but still.

Project Golem was a way to ensure the Federation was prepared for any Space Pirate attack. And if the Aurora Units are any indication, the Federation has already emulated Chozo tech with their own weaker knock-offs before; More quantity to make up for a lack of quality. Because look at how enormous the mechs are, they’re Omega Pirate-sized! Both the Aurora Units and Project Golem were revealed in the Prime series, in two successive games involving an increase in Federation presence within the story and gameplay…

My point is: During the Dread arc, Raven Beak goes on a whole tirade about how the Federation is comprised of weaklings who have to depend on just one Chozo warrior to survive. Imagine how helpless they’d be against an army, surely at this point the Federation has made it clear they’ve given the reins to Samus in general; May as well just get it out of the way, take initiative because who can stop them? It was meant to be… It doesn’t matter that the Federation is trying to be more independent by making their own Samuses, because

The Federation knows it’s weak, that’s why it’s been scrambling so much to imitate its superiors, and pitifully too. Besides, they mistake the technology as the only part of Samus that matters; But Raven Beak knows the person, the Chozo training and philosophy inside, is just as important. Maybe moreso. He has no shortage of Chozo tech to work with, so what Raven Beak lacks, he’ll work with.

[destiny-smasher]

Stuff From 2023!

List of things of note I experienced in 2023! A few things didn't technically release in 2023, I'm sure, but yea. Will contain my 'Top 10 Games I Played in 2023' as well.

Firstly, something I played a lot of this year in bursts but doesn't quite crack my Top 10 is Vampire Survivors. Very addicting, did some very fun goofy shit that had me laughing and engaged in a lizard brain way. Appreciated the many Castlevania references and jokes, too.

A couple of games I played every weekend for a few hours across many weeks this year were Project Zomboid and Roots of Pacha, both in a group 4. We had lots of fun with those two, and I think they're both great co-op time-sink games. Zomboid is a zombie survival sim that has way more attention to detail than its graphics may imply. It's still in early access but the depth to its is honestly pretty dang impressive. Pacha iterates on the Stardew Valley formula in a ton of small but deliberate, thoughtful ways that make for a nice twist on that Harvest Moon style game.

REMAKES

There were so many great remakes this year, on top of just amazing games in general, I can't fit them all into my Top 10. So here's a segment dedicated to most of the remakes I loved this year.

The remake of Super Mario RPG was such a surprise, and turned out very damn well. That game, turns out, is very near and dear to my heart and I did not fully appreciate that until this remake was revealed. It comes just shy of cracking my Top 10 list and that's honestly only because I finished Mother 3 finally right at the tail end of the year. This game manages to still feel weirdly fresh even today just due to how fucking strange it is, and the remake speeds up the pacing a bit while also adding in some new mechanics and a chunk of new post-game content. Everything was handled so well. This is like the new gold standard of complete one-to-one remakes of sprite-based games imo. I will admit the artstyle is a bit 'off' in some ways but I think it's very clean looking and captures that 90's CGI spirit really well, all things considered. And the music, OOF, so damn good.

The remake of Dead Space I don't have much to talk about, but it's very well produced. It's remade so well, in fact, that it felt like my memories of the original, even though I know it's not an exact recreation. Very well done and still holds up as a great horror action game with these improvements.

The remaster of Metroid Prime is so impressive it feels like a remake, even if the game is identical to the original aside from presentation and some control changes. It's an iconic classic, and yet I have no patience to do the Chozo Artifact stuff, so I actually did not roll credits on this version BUT still thoroughly enjoyed reliving the game with a very nice new coat of paint. It makes me excited to see what Prime 4 will look like on, I expect, more powerful hardware.

SHOWS/MOVIES

The year started strong with a TV adaptation of The Last of Us. While I've come to have conflicted feelings with the franchise at large, mainly due to its leading boss man, I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of this series. Very well done adaptation that picked and chose what to keep and what to change and honestly makes for a better story as a whole if you ask me, while not really replacing the game's tactile interactive tensions. Cannot wait to see what they do with Part 2 tbqh. I loved that game more than the original but also felt it was worse as an overall game/experience/narrative. But a fresh take on that same plot could potentially address a lot of the issues I had with Part 2, while simultaneously not really 'replacing' it, either.

The Bear. If you haven't seen it, it's just. Very good television. Two seasons in and it's sitting up there chasing Mr. Robot and Better Call Saul as one of the best live action series I've ever seen. Season 2 did such a great job of giving us deeper dives on the various characters and building toward an organic and rewarding conclusion that still leaves room for another season to theoretically wrap things up. Nothing too crazy with this show, it's super down to earth, and it owns that very well with editing and pacing that varies per episode, kind of in line with the different character perspectives.

Super Mario Bros.: The Movie had me worried for a while, mainly due to the animation studio and casting. And while I'm still not 100% sold on this celebrity casting, I will admit it didn't weight the experience down -- even if it's still the second weakest element by far. The weakest element is the writing. It's not, like, offense -- it's loyal to the source material and works, it functions. But it's not doing anything beyond pushing us from set piece to set piece. If anything, the movie is a bit too short for all of the stuff it's cramming in. But on the upside, there is a lot of amazingly rendered visuals and music to take in. A real treat for fans of the franchise, and the most loyal gaming adaptation in movie form, I would say.

Across the Spiderverse is in essence the first half of a two part film. That makes it kind of difficult to talk about, especially when it's also a sequel, and the production sounds like it was marred with bad management and crunch. But the results they came up with actually met my hopes and expectations for a sequel, and that is saying something, as I had very high expectations. I completely adore this film's stupendous sense of style, editing, framing, writing, and the way it's making meta-commentary on multiple levels on top of just being an effective narrative on its own. This is animated storytelling running at full capacity in my opinion, and in general just film doing all of the kinds of things film can do. So it's no wonder that there's still a rub -- this is the first half of the story they planned. The editing, animation, framing, effects, acting, action sequences, music, writing, theming, just Farore's sake, this is SUCH a damn banger of a film and one of the best movies I've ever seen, which, again, is kind of insane given the circumstances. I can only hope they don't fuck up the conclusion.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was quite the surprise announcement, and as it turns out, quite the surprise adaptation. I won't spoil much but I will say that by the end of the first episode, it becomes very apparent that this series is no mere by-the-books adaptation, and does something unique and edifying, even if it still maintains a certain surface-level depth I wish the franchise would push beyond. Either way, I enjoyed it way more than I expected to going in, and I think it makes for a great companion to the rest of the series. The animation style was super fun, as well, with some great action sequences.

But Blue Eye Samurai sucker-punched me, having released before I'd even known about it. This show is something else, something unlike any other animated show I've seen besides Arcane. And it's not like it's mimicking Arcane, it's just the closest I can think to compare it to: a quality, thoughtfully framed, thoughtfully written, made-for-adults animated series. It tows the line between fantasy and realism in a refreshing way, its protagonist is great, its cast is compelling, its plot goes to some neat places, and things just feel very well thought-out and well-executed. Slap this in second place behind Arcane as the TV series I am the most excited to see more of in the future, just ahead of The Bear.

Something I did near the end of the year was watch The Hunger Games movies, back to back over the course of like, a week. Have not read the books but man, watching these sure made me interested in doing so at some point. I totally get why people were so enamored with this franchise, and honestly, I think its themes and messages are more relevant now than they were when this franchise was at the peak of its popularity. The films certainly have glaring issues for my tastes but yea, I managed to really enjoy them as a whole despite my lack of mainstream sensibilities. Looking forward to reading the books eventually.

Another thing my wife shared with me was 花ざかりの君たちへ (often called 'Hana-Kimi' for short). Specifically, the 2007 version, as, uh, apparently there are multiple adaptations of this. It was a live action Japanese drama about a high schooler who was born female but transfers into an all-boys school, identifying as a boy while she is there. There's more to it than that, and I won't say it handles everything the best (it's from the mid 2000's) or concludes things in quite the way I'd have preferred. Not to mention it's kind of weird seeing many tropes I'm used to seeing in anime rendered by physical, real actors. BUT it was overall a really sweet, adorable, funny, heartfelt, and reached for pro-queer expression in a time and place when that wasn't mainstream yet (and honestly kinda still isn't depending on who you ask).

Good Omens Season 3 also dropped this year. I actually don't have much to say partly because I think a big element of it is just not knowing what to expect going into it! But it was also very good, very fun, pretty damn gay, I really enjoyed it and am crossing my fingers hard they get to wrap it up the way they want.

All right! Onto my personal top 10 GOTYs.

TOP 11 GAMES

(I played and finished in 2023)

11) Mother 3

The one entry on this list that did not actually come out this year -- in fact, it's never technically released outside of Japan. Originally release in 2007 on the Game Boy Advance, this quirky RPG has developed quite the reputation. I started playing the fan translation back in like 2020, and only got around to finally finishing it this year. While that likely did tarnish the experience a bit for me, so does the final third or so -- it kind of drags on a bit, and any old school format RPG that requires grinding to progress can become a bit of a chore.

Thankfully, Mother 3 did earn its hallowed reputation in my eyes now that I have experienced it. I totally get the passion for this game now, and I am a convert. It makes me want to finally finish Mother 2, aka Earthbound. But here's the biggest thing about Mother 3 I weirdly did not expect going in, yet smashed my face in like a hammer by the time I finished it:

without Mother 3, there is no way Undertale/deltarune would exist.

The DNA for Toby Fox's works is achingly obvious in its relation to this game, specifically. I won't spoil anything and I won't go into my long list of evidence like an Ace Attorney case, but trust me, there is ample evidence to make this claim.

And that also means that Mother 3 stands on its own merits as doing things that RPGs just plain were not doing in 2007, and in some ways still aren't today. Aside from some pacing issues further in, the characters in your party aren't as developed as much as I'd like. BUT the overall narrative it tells, especially in those opening chapters, have a rare kind of earnest, human magic to them that most games just don't let themselves fall into. And it concludes in ways I did not expect and yet offered clarity as to why it is so beloved, and how Toby Fox was so inspired to put his own mark on the gaming landscape.

I owe a great deal to Undertale, personally, and as such, I also owe a great deal to Mother 3. You don't need to have played others in the series to enjoy it, you'll just be missing some referential stuff here and there. It's quite playable and unique by today's standards and I strongly recommend it if you want an RPG that is heartfelt, funny, fun mechanically, and has some simple but hard-hitting things to say about the world we live in, and what we are doing to ourselves and that world.

10) Super Mario Bros. Wonder

What can be said that hasn't been said already? Nintendo knocked it out the park with this one. This was everything I've wanted in a 2D Mario for like 15 years. The only thing 'missing' from it is playable Rosalina, but hey, we finally got Daisy in a mainline Mario game, so I'll take it. After a decade or so of dragging their feet with low-effort but enjoyable 2D games, Super Mario Wonder finally, at long last, captures what makes Nintendo games great and with their best foot forward. They haven't done 2D Mario this well since World on the SNES in 1991. And they have never put this level of production into a 2D game since... ever?

This is one of the all-time best 2D platformers out there, and for once it finally feels like 2D Mario is running on all cylinders as a big budget passion project kind of game. You love to see it.

9) Scarlet Hollow

This game isn't technically finished yet, as it is episodic, and its developers wanted to release Slay the Princess in the interim, but that doesn't stop its quality from being good enough to make my list. This game is doing the kinds of things visual novels should be doing, the kinds of things I wish to do in a sense with my own visual novel development.

It's a horror themed experience but balances the high tension with actual real stakes very well against mostly down-to-earth conversations, with lots of great tricks and touches of presentation you don't typically see in indie visual novels, along with a fantastic art style, charming characters (my favorite character has turned out to be the one I immediately disliked at first, and that's rare for me), and meaningful choices.

I can't wait to see how this one wraps up but even as it stands it's one of the best things I experienced in 2023.

8) Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Redeemed

I will admit I skipped Xenoblade Chronicles 2 after giving it an honest go in like, 2019 or so. A few hours in and i couldn't stomach it, the tonal whiplash from Xenoblade 1 (one of the best RPGs I've ever played) was too much for me. But then Xenoblade 3 came out last year, and is also one of the best RPGs I've ever played, even better than the original for my tastes.

But I wasn't prepared for the DLC to drop a whole ass side-game on us, a self-contained prequel to 3 that serves as narrative cohesion to tie the whole trilogy together with a bow on top, complete with perfectly tuned fanservice (and not the sexy kind, although grown-up Rex and Shulk, well, yes) that really respects its fanbase for investing hundreds of hours in this franchise.

Matthew is easily one of my all-time fav RPG main characters, probably the favorite RPG main character when I think of it (as main characters specifically go, anyway), and his game is a fraction of the length of many RPGs out there. But as usual, the entire cast had their charms, the story was nicely paced, the gameplay and overall length was just about damn perfect for what I could want from the genre.

As an expansion to a pre-existing game, this is one of the top 3 best expansions/DLCs I've ever played. When taken as a side story to an overarching trilogy, I'm not even 100% in on the lore and I still enjoyed the hell out of it, it's just the kind of thing that hits a tone of 'damn, video games are a fucking unique medium that we can do specific narrative things with across years of telling a story.'

I don't know where Monolith Soft is going next, though the ending certainly offers some intriguing teasing, but I suspect I will be there day one to see it, and am looking forward to it.

7) Pikmin 4

Given the long wait (10 years!) one might understand fan concern over the state of Pikmin 4. Turns out, that extra time was spent making this game fucking good. It's not the largest, most impressive, most complex, most inspiring, most 'anything' game I played this year, and yet I can't help saying that this is a damned good video game. It really nailed what it set out to do as a sequel, incorporating just the right ideas to spice up the formula while bringing things back to how Pikmin 2 was, and improving on the series in basically every way -- including stuff to do!

This is easily the most Pikmin game... in a Pikmin game. I still haven't 100%'d it. Without giving away any details, I'll just say that when a game rolls credits and you're only like, halfway through its content, and it just keeps going, that's just kind of wild. It would've felt like a great game even then, but the breadth and depth it ends up going to in order to keep giving you ways to engage with its wonderfully detailed world and addictive mechanics, I love it.

I just want more of it. Give me DLC with more Dandori content, the formula and feel just works so well at this point.

6) Sea of Stars

How the hell I forgot to include this one on my list initially is boggling. Easily one of the best indie games I've ever experienced. The writing is nothing to, well, write home about, but it's not bad. And in fact the story has a lot of great things going on, from an interesting world to a very potent arc with the leading support character (who, let's face it, is kind of more the main character than your two main characters).

The game's art and music are phenomenal, capturing the essence of 90's era RPGs but clearly doing things not capable back then. Made even sweeter, the game is a prequel to the studio's prior work, The Messenger, which I also played and adored in tandem, kind of going back and forth between the two once I was partway into Sea of Stars. The way this RPG repurposes songs from Messenger as well as all kinds of seemingly superfluous elements but makes it feel cohesive is pretty great.

The game also trims a lot of the fat you'd find in older RPGs, as well as lets you customize your experience in a modern way using collectibles you can toggle on and off to grant all kinds of effects, like increasing or decreasing the difficulty in various ways.

The homage paid to classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG is clear but it's not at all copy-cat-ing, instead wearing those inspirations proudly on its sleeves and forging its own path with its own ideas. A fantastic collection of party members, a wonderful world, amazing presentation, and environments and pacing that help it stand apart from the genre that inspired it. I wish we got to know the leads better, there is a lack of character growth in many ways, but that's me grasping at straws to critique, it's just a fantastic experience and the studio should be very proud of what they've accomplished.

5) Hi-Fi Rush

This is gonna be a running trend from here on out, but on any other year, Hi-Fi Rush would've been my GOTY, easy. From this point on, we're talking measures of inches rather than miles in terms of my love for these games.

Hi-Fi Rush finally delivered on something I have waited like 20 years for: a rhythm action adventure where playing the game in sync with the music felt fucking cool and gave me emotional resonance in a way only this medium can. The humor was charmng. The visual aesthetic is almost peak 'my taste.' The music was groovy with a few tracks I did not see coming but loved seeing how they were incorporated. The story was surprisingly fun! The characters were fantastic, I loved the entire main crew in a way I rarely ever do and would jump at the chance to spend more time with (and hey, there's a whole bunch of post-game I have yet to do, so I intend to in 2024).

The only real thing I could reasonably ask for from this game is a way to play as those other party members in post-game content or new-game plus or something. And who knows, maybe we get that some day. Even if we don't, what they came up with here is the next best thing besides. And what we got is one the most video-gamey video games I have ever played, a real classic and one I think will go down as one of my all-time favs. A passion project given meaningful time, budget, and creatives to bring it to life.

Had this game offered multiple playable characters, a bit more development in its story, and maybe a stronger climax, it'd be higher. I still love it to death and want more games like it regardless.

Hi-Fi Rush is exactly what kind of game we could have gotten more of if the Internet hadn't pushed gaming into a 'live service' direction. It is literally the spirit of a PS2/GameCube game given modern form. And either way, we did get it, at least, in that form, and it fucking rocks.

4) Resident Evil 4 (Remake)

This year was big for remakes and remasters, but one stands tall above the rest, if you ask me. The original RE4 has stood as my fav in the franchise, the one that got me into the franchise, the one that got me into M-rated games in the first place. Lots of nostalgia, but it's held up surprisingly well over the years despite some limitations of the time (mainly the controls) and some older-fashioned sensibilities ("with ballistics, too~").

But Capcom fucking nailed it with this reimagining. Like Final Fantasy VII: Remake, this game is not a remaster, or a one-to-one recreation. It is a brand new game, built from the ground up, reimagining the original entirely, complete with new mechanics and story. But unlike with FF7, this is also shockingly authentic and loyal to the original at the same time. It remixes elements from the original game, maintains most of the original's map design, adds in new stuff, removes some of the more goofy shit -- and even 90% of what feels 'removed' is revealed to be repurposed for the Ada side story DLC.

It looks great, it sounds great, the adjustments to characters and story are improvements across the board, (except for Hunnigan, RIP) the gameplay is improved in intensity and feel and action and replayability. And yet despite all of this, it balances that campy tone of the original just enough to still evoke what I loved about the original's tone. And it doesn't outright replace the original game, either. The two are now like different recipes of the same sandwich or something. There's reasons to revisit the original, though for me this has now replaced the remake of RE2 as my fav in the franchise.

I really don't know where they go from here but I will look forward to it, and regardless, they fucking nailed this one.

3) Street Fighter 6

Two Capcom games, back-to-back? They had a fucking good year in my eyes. The interesting thing about this particular entry is that unlike the others on this list, I will be continuing to play this one for hours and hours into 2024, especially with more fighters still planned. And in another year, this would've easily been my GOTY.

After all, Street Fighter 6 is the single-best traditional fighting game I think I've ever played. And while fighting games are my overall personal favorite genre, I'm more of a Smash player who also loves the hell out of Street Fighter and then dabbles in Tekken and whatever else releases. Street Fighter has always been one of my go-to top multiplayer games since I got into the franchise with SF4 in 2010. While I did enjoy SF5 well enough, it just didn't keep me hungry to come back for more like 4 did. SF6 has fixed that problem by way of a multitude of changes.

It has easily the most fun single player mode I've seen any fighting game have. Like, yea, The Subspace Emmisary (and even then, I don't love that mode like other folks do, I kinda think it's... fine?) but tbqh World Tour is just better in most every way. You get to build your own fighter, earn and mix and match different costumes and individual character special moves with each fighter's fight style. You get to just hang out with the SF characters, get to know them as people, their hobbies, their fears, their insecurities, their passions besides just beating the shit out of each other. On top of this, the realistic art style shift (a by-product of the RE Engine) seals the deal on what Street Fighter 6 is aiming to do: humanize its cast.

Is it still wacky as fuck? Is it still comical and weird and goofy? Hell yes, it is. Is the story mode deep in its narrative? Not in the slightest. But it's still stepping confidently in a direction fighting games should be trying to, not being too self-serious, but also being earnest.

And I haven't even touched on the mechanics! The Drive System alone is a brilliant addition that adds a sort of 'stamina' system that works so well to add an extra layer of decision making and tension. The game's not perfectly balance imo but for how much is here it is surprisingly damn well balanced, especially given they have insisted on not pushing out a single balance patch since it launched in June. For most any other competitive game, that would be like suicide for the scene, but the game seems to be thriving and selling extremely well for the franchise. And it's earned it.

I will absolutely be continuing my warrior's journey into 2024 and I can't wait to see what else Capcom has in store for this game.

2) Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Out of every game I played in 2023, Tears of the Kingdom is easily the most technically impressive. From a design standpoint, from a 'how in the hell is the Switch doing all of this without exploding' standpoint. From a 'holy hell how is there this much stuff in a single player game' standpoint. From a 'oh my goddesses that stupid batshit idea I had 100% worked because it actually did make sense' standpoint.

Where Breath of the Wild opened our minds as to what an open world game could be -- fully designed like one giant interconnected 'level' -- Tears of the Kingdom replied in much the way I expected: it pulled a Super Mario Galaxy 2. What I mean by that is that this is a direct sequel, building directly off the foundation of the original. You know. Like video game sequels almost always used to. And which many very successful ones still absolutely do.

But Tears of the Kingdom somehow managed to wow me all over again by adding to that open world's verticality in insane ways -- the Depths alone are probably my favorite 'mechanic' from any Zelda game ever besides the time loop of Majora's Mask (and what that did for the story and gameplay). But beyond the scale of the world basically doubling and then some (floating islands and caves on top of Depths), I was curious how this game could stand tall after Elden Ring, which is easily in my top 10 favorite games of all time at this point. Elden Ring was Fromsoft's reply to BOTW. And yet Tears of the Kingdom still managed to have something new to say in spite of that very strong reply.

Tears of the Kingdom opened the door to let players essentially create their own mechanics. By removing the abilities Link had to engage with the world before, and replacing them with a brand new toolset that includes abilities you just... don't see games give you, because they'd be 'overpowered,' TOTK designs its massive world in ways that invite you to use those 'overpowered' abilities however you see fit.

Being able to interact with the world and objects in this way, being able to fuse them together to create all kinds of effects, or new methods of transportation, even interacting with things not just spacially but in respect to time, it's nuts and fun and I've already poured like 130 hours with still so much I haven't done. And that's the thing: this game wasn't designed to be 100%'d. It was designed to just... be experienced, as much or as little as you want. And games on this level of scale/budget just do not have the guts to let so, so much 'content' be missed out on. And this game does.

It's a technical achievement and while I had my doubts with how strangely little Nintendo had to show, I am very glad that the experience itself manages to breathe new life into one of my all-time favorite games while improving on it in so many ways. It won't convert you if you didn't love the original -- this is a Super Mario Galaxy 2 style sequel, after all. But it's essentially replaced the original in ways I didn't think would be possible.

The story? Oof. Uh, not so much the story, let's ignore that part. That's what Nintendo wants you to usually do, anyway. But everything else, just. Din-damn.

It expands upon the first game's already fairly open-ended nature in an exponential way that I suspect developers will spend years to come trying to pin down, much like how they've spend the past 6 or 7 years trying to replicate BOTW's open world design.

For much of this year, I thought this was personal GOTY. And for many it will be, because it's just an extremely impressive video game.

Number 1...?

Going into this list, I kept telling myself, 'man, on any other year, this would be my GOTY. And if you know me personally you likely have already figured out what my GOTY is by omission. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized just how close these top 5 games are, it really is like centimeters instead of inches, and they each -- well, every game I've mentioned here, beyond the Top 10, as well -- offered something edifying that I was very satisfied with.

And no, it's not Baldur's Gate 3. While I have spent hours playing it in co-op and a little bit solo, that game's just not really for me, exactly. Like, I can enjoy it, and I have massive respect for the dev team and what they accomplished with it. But I don't much care for D&D, and the game just didn't do very much for me personally, I lack the motivation to finish it. Remove Karlach from the game and I have next to nothing to really attach myself to, personally. I definitely get why it's many people's favorite game of 2023, though, and I do think it's a bit of a wakeup call for what can be accomplished by just making a GAME instead of struggling to contort it into a service etc.

Street Fighter 6 is fucking fantastic but it could still use some more actual fighters and incentives to keep playing besides monetizing its players in weird ways. I love it, and it will be the game from 2023 I end up playing the most (it already is, I think). But if it ended as it is, I would be very satisfied.

Hi-Fi Rush is oozing with originality and style and I adore it to death, and when I finished it, I was very satisfied.

Resident Evil 4 kept me addicted for over 100 hours, had an amazing DLC expansion, oozes replaybility in the specific ways I like for a single player action game (rogue-likes besides). I am extremely satisfied by it.

Tears of the Kingdom is so massive and fun to just explore that I know I will continue to play more in the months to come. Will I ever revisit it entirely? I'm actually not sure! That massive length does lend some repetition, even if it's the kind I find therapeutic and satisfying.

And that's what made me realize something. My personal GOTY did not just satisfy me. It made me hungry. It filled me up in a way I didn't think was possible and yet I still hunger for more, because I enjoyed it that fucking much. I played through it twice and still hunger for more. I know I will play it a third time eventually, but mainly I just have not been to remove from my brain the particular ways it made me feel, ways that only a video game can. Nothing about it felt like it needed to be overlooked.

SF6 and RE4 had dubious monetization, TOTK had a story I found to be like 90% boring and it still maintains many of the flaws of the original. And Hi-Fi Rush, while amazing, just didn't scratch the particular itch this game did for me.

1) Lies of P

If you told me that Lies of P was a game developed by some sub-division of FromSoft, I'd believe you. Which is to say I would also believe that it was made by people who wanted to break free from some of the shackles of the now infamous 'soulslike' genre.

A narrative that actually makes sense by the end? Opening up options for the player without requiring specific stat levels? Encounters and boss fights that feel ravenously challenging without just feeling like cheap bullshit? Music that crosses borders beyond 'angry chorus, angrier orchestra'?

Lies of P doesn't quite eclipse Elden Ring, but that's an absolutely unfair comparison given the utter scope and scale and variety that game packs. But Lies of P improves at the FromSoft formula in specific ways, while making concessions in others, and as a result it's just an experience that seeped into my brain like no other game this year, not even Tears of the Kingdom, despite that I put half the hours into this one.

I love all of the games I have mentioned here, you could honestly swap around the order of this top 5 and I could mentally meander a way to justify why, no, actually, this one was my favorite game of 2023. In a year so awful for the people who make games, yet so amazing for games themselves, Lies of P is exactly the kind of game I needed. I needed someone to show me that you can make something directly inspired by someone else's work, yet fine tune it in all the right ways to make it stand just as tall in terms of quality and design. Lies of P made me feel things in ways only a handful of games ever do -- and I would actually count Hi-Fi Rush among those in a regard.

But Lies of P also told a story I found compelling. It had mystery, tension, buildup, it started off seeming like it would do the vague FromSoft schtick only to 100% come together, make sense, be rewarding, and offer a 'true ending' that I got on the first playthrough, organically, without looking things up, because it just... felt right. Not only is the game adapting FromSoft's formula into something its own, it's also doing that with the story of Pinocchio. The gameplay and the story congeal together not in the 'perfect' way that it does with games like Celeste or Undertale, but rather in a more... messy way, like a puppet aching to become a real boy.

The game is full of loss, in its world and for you as the player, who will die many times. But unlike much of FromSoft's catalogue, I never once felt like I died because of bullshit. Was I trolled? Sure, the game definitely 'trolls' you in classic FromSoft fashion, lulling you into a sense of security only to sweep you off your feet. But unlike how FromSoft does it, these circumstances can always be avoided if you're cautious. And if you're not? Hey, 'We got you! We gooottt youuu, haha' and you lose a couple minutes of progress, rather than like fifteen minutes and also an entire level's worth of souls because oh right, this section you just got through is kind of bullshit cheap.

Don't get me wrong, I love Dark Souls. But the thing is, Lies of P takes the parts I love about Dark Souls, admits it can't pull off quite the intricate web of level design, but then throws away everything I do not like about Dark Souls, improves on the things I already liked, and then pushes me to meet it on its level.

The satisfaction of being a boss you spend an hour, two hours on, cannot be understated. It's a feeling unlike any other, and one only this medium can provide. And Lies of P kept me motivated, like Sekiro before it, to keep improving, keep growing, keep trying. And unlike Sekiro, it gave me so many more tools to play with, to learn, to balance in an arsenal with intent. Enemies have elemental weaknesses if I so choose to exploit them, the moveset of one weapon's handle can be applied to a completely different blade, my robotic arm can leverage things in a pinch, or be the backbone to dealing with a boss. Mastery is rewarded with practice. A vicious boss that annihilates you in five seconds can be defeated without a single scratch if you practice enough. Mastery, creativity, quick thinking, and reacting are all rewarded here.

I am more than the hands pulling the strings, I am more than a puppet, I am human. And games like this can only be made by humans, who get that specific itch that only video games that challenge us can scratch. It's not an itch everyone has, but that's why it's my GOTY and not yours, innit?

With its unique setting, its wonderful music, its cozy hub area, its narrative that offers just enough to make me care, but not so much that I am bored or feel misled, its amazing boss designs, and its wonderfully tactile and engaging combat, Lies of P is a game I just can't stop feeling something about whenever I am reminded of it.

It epitomizes so much -- not all, but much -- of what I love about what video games can do, what adaptations can do, and much like how Toby Fox was inspired by Mother 3, what people can do when they are inspired by someone else's work.

As far as I can tell, this is developer Round8's debut game, and just. Holy hell, what a way to come out swinging. I haven't seen a debut game hit this hard since, I don't know, Bastion.

Close your eyes. Come to me. Feel all right.

I did, and I do, and given what you teased at the end of this game, I have extremely high hopes of what you come up with next. And in a landscape where things feel more difficult to get excited for with each passing year, much less new IP, it's so damn refreshing to have both Hi-Fi Rush and this game standing out as signals that, hey, some folks are still willing to invest bigger budgets into new games, new ideas.

Again, a battle of centimeters here and at this point I should wrap this up and go to bed.

But yea, Lies of P reminded me of what makes me, specifically, human, in a very particular way that only it has. And I honestly think out of all of single player games of 2023, I think it will actively stand out in my heart the most in the years to come.