Social Disciples of Dark Samus

[Diem]

I don't know if it's me, but she stays in Morph Ball form for quite abit upon using Bombs...

Interesting observation. Maybe she can deploy them faster, but they have more endlag to balance.

About the portal thing, you could say she just had a Leviathan make one for her. And the reason it's blue is because she's warping directly from Phaaze.

Does her down tilt seem... slower? Maybe it packs a bigger punch or hitbox if it's the case.

The airspeed... both of them seem a lot faster and more nimble in the air than Sm4sh Samus. Samus also seems to retain more momentum in the air using missiles.

Dark Samus might have a lower launch angle on her fair. Or it's just DI.

Here's a good Samus video to compare with:

I'm not sure if they changed the sweetspot mechanics for Samus, but it certainly burned Pika from a closer range than it would have in Smash 4.

Yeah, the Leviathan is the only thing that she uses to make her own portals, but we never really see her use them in such a personal capacity. But I'll accept your idea because I think that's cool too. I don't mind personal liberties as long as they make sense.

I watched that video earlier, but it still isn't a great point of comparison. Samus spends a lot of time on the ground, so we can't compare air mobility well. That said, giving it another viewing, the bits of air mobility we do see look to be similar to what we're seeing with Dark Samus. Both are improved over Sm4sh Samus, like you say, hence why Dark Samus seems drastically different, but in reality it might just be a baseline Samus change.

That said, I think it'd make more sense for Samus to be heavier (similar to Mega Man, perhaps) and Dark Samus to be floatier, since Samus isn't very floaty in most of the 2D games. She's quite heavy, and I think with the ability to shoot projectiles faster in the air, it'd make her a pretty scary zoner to zig zag up and down and fire projectiles. Since that's how she plays in the games, it'd be faithful as well as deadly.

Somebody compiled some analyses of the newcomers. Dark Samus included. Apparently her Nair is more of a combo move rather than a kill move like Samus has. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bHjVyDGPVhcZo_Jy7c8fWFtu3MmK-OAu1jE1sDpYv_E/edit

Ah, thank you, that's a pretty nice collection of information. I mean, it's about as useful and valid as any of our observations here, but it's nice to see someone's more organized observations and thoughts.

"Z axis shenanigans." Huh. See, I don't play Smash super competitively, so seeing terms like that is slightly mindblowing. It's mostly somewhere between casual and competitive with my family and friends, where we don't take things too seriously, but we usually play with items off and such. None of us ever get too deep into the competitive stuff, because then that'd suck the fun out of it a bit for us if we took it too seriously. Like, there was one time when I joked about getting good with Cloud, since he's such a top-tier character and all my characters are mid to low tier, and my brother said "If you do that, then I'm going to have to get good with Diddy Kong, and nobody wants that."

That said, I'm gonna probably learn a lot of this stuff because I want to play Dark Samus as well as possible. Which is why I'm hoping that her playstyle and data and everything are both unique and good, because I want my main to be somewhat competitively viable for once. At the same time, if it's not, I won't really complain because I feel bad for all the people genuinely excited for Bayonetta and Cloud that have to be saddled with accusations of just picking the best characters.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Everyone wants and needs to be good with Diddy Kong. The Universe wants you to be at your greatest! Nobody gains anything out of you playing humble.

Anyway, I sort of heard rumors about Dark Samus being floatier than Samus? Anyone can confirm this? Am looking into the Echoes now as to look what to expect from upcoming Echoes.

 

[IronTed]

Everyone wants and needs to be good with Diddy Kong. The Universe wants you to be at your greatest! Nobody gains anything out of you playing humble.

Anyway, I sort of heard rumors about Dark Samus being floatier than Samus? Anyone can confirm this? Am looking into the Echoes now as to look what to expect from upcoming Echoes.

We still can't conclude anything concrete as of now. The blog referred to Dark Samus as floatier, but it's hard to say whether it was referring to her animations being floatier than Samus, or her physics being floatier than Samus.

 

[Diddy Kong]

We still can't conclude anything concrete as of now. The blog referred to Dark Samus as floatier, but it's hard to say whether it was referring to her animations being floatier than Samus, or her physics being floatier than Samus.

The site's text says this:

• "Dark Samus joins the battle as Samus' Echo Fighter. With floatier movement, it's a little different from Samus – and it doesn't roll when dodging or jumping. If you look closely, you can see that its bombs and missiles look a little different, too."
  
  
  

 

[Diem]

Everyone wants and needs to be good with Diddy Kong. The Universe wants you to be at your greatest! Nobody gains anything out of you playing humble.

Anyway, I sort of heard rumors about Dark Samus being floatier than Samus? Anyone can confirm this? Am looking into the Echoes now as to look what to expect from upcoming Echoes.

Ha, I'm sure I've just never been into Donkey Kong. And I'm allergic to peanuts.

About Dark Samus being floatier, yeah, we're trying to figure that out. We can't say anything conclusive right now because we don't have very good Samus footage to compare to. Dark Samus is definitely floaty, but very little Samus gameplay for Ultimate shows off her airborne mobility, so we don't know if they're the same. But at least now we know that we might see more Dark Samus gameplay in the future (I was worried we'd only see the E3 build until release), and hopefully we'll get a match between both of them so we can really look at their movement side by side.

For example, in the latest gameplay, there's a few moments where Dark Samus is firing missiles in the air with very little mobility penalty, able to move forward with her missiles in the air instead of stopping abruptly when firing them, making her look very floaty. That's very different from what we've seen of Samus in previous games, but we can't tell if Samus is also like that in Ultimate, because Samus players don't really fire missiles in the air (because it was bad before). This could either be a huge difference between the two, or they could actually be exactly the same but we just can't tell yet.

The animations might just create the placebo effect that she's floatier. Samus has very solid animations, while Dark Samus's are a much more fluid. Here's a good comparison of their landing animations. Dark Samus's animation gives the impression that she's floatier, but each animation is the same amount of frames, just aesthetically different. So when the same principle is applied to the other animations, it's hard to tell what's just aesthetic and what's statistically different.

In general, expect very little. Echo Fighters are, at their core, alt costumes with a little extra work put in, as Lucina and Dark Pit started out as alt costumes in Smash 4 before being made Echo Fighters. However, they were added as Echoes later in development, but it's clear that the Echo Fighters in Ultimate are planned from the beginning, hence all the extra work going into them. Richter getting his own spotlight in the CG trailer, Chrom having a different Up-B from Roy, and Dark Samus having such amazing animation work all show that these are more than simple alt costumes. I think that Ultimate's new Echoes will be a little more different than Smash 4's in terms of gameplay, but not by much.

What we do know is that some of Dark Samus's moves do electrical and not fire damage, her dash attack launches at a different angle (at least I think we're sure of this), her neutral air seems to be more of a combo move and less of a kill move, and her dodge animations are very different. I'm thinking she might be more of an aggressive and combo-oriented character, while Samus is going to be more about zoning. But those are just first impressions.

 

[ChronoBound]

That's not a lot for 3-4 games that were all major commercial and critical successes. We didn't even get Samus's Prime design ever. Meanwhile the much less so Metroid: Other M as much if not more in just one game. It's clear that Sakurai, and, well most of Japan, have a bit of a bias against the Prime series. After all, they were made in America, for a franchise that's already not very appealing in Japan.

Hence why I never considered Dark Samus to be too likely. If we couldn't get Samus's Prime suit in any of the games, why would we ever get Dark Samus?

Actually, I have read reviews by Japanese gamers on review websites, and they are just as mixed and harsh on Other M as the West is. As a matter of fact, quite a few of the reviews make mention that if you want to play a good 3D Metroid, you are much better off looking into the Metroid Prime trilogy.

Which means we could still have yet to see her third taunt. You know what that means!

Very likely it could be used in a victory screen as well.

I really doubt we are getting Dark Samus's laugh in this game, which is a shame. It would have easily been one of the Top 3 taunts in the whole game. We know all three taunts, and none of them utilize the laugh or appear to (her head does not shake in any of them). It is possible she has it for one of her victory animations, but I am not optimistic there either.

All she did in her previous life as Metroid Prime was gorge itself with Phazon provided by the Tallon IV leviathan, apparently to the point of actually becoming it's own core as a source of Phazon (maybe it ate the core itself?). It's attempt at taking the Phazon suit is an extension of this, and initially she carries on in the exact same fashion in Prime 2. She has absolutely no indication of a sapient mind, until that laugh is heard and later on makes a deliberate attempt to hinder Samus by destroying the Sanctuary Fortress bridge, but is still more concerned with getting Phazon. Only in the final encounter does she truly see and hate Samus as her enemy, trapping her on a collapsing planet for a battle to the death, even though she now has finally had her fill of Phazon. Consuming it didn't just make her stronger, it made her smarter too. And of course once Prime 3 hits she learns to look at the big picture.

I forgot about that honestly that Prime just continually consumed massive amounts of phazon. It is still an interesting thought though. I imagine Dark Samus was mostly concerned with her own survival since phazon was mostly gone on Tallon IV, and she needed it to continue living. She probably burns a lot of "phazon calories" whenever she uses her phazon powers and abilities, and thus needs to constantly "eat".

According to an interview, for those curious about why Dark Samus teleports out of a portal for her entrance, she made it to Aether by range of a short range teleportation.

QUESTION: How did Dark Samus come from Tallon IV to Aether?
ANSWER: Dark Samus has the ability to "short range" warp and used this to move to Aether.

It is impressive that they referenced something very obscure about Dark Samus for her playable appearance. If only she also had her laugh.

Also, on the subject of Dark Samus warp to Aether, it is impressive that Dark Samus was able to seek out the only other planet that seemed to have been hit with a phazon meteor.

As for Dark Samus lacking "sapience" until later in Prime 2, the Pirate scans make mention of her trying to free Metroids from their captivity in Prime 2, and this was before Samus and Dark Samus battled for the first time. Empathy shows that she did possess intelligence for critical thought and self-awareness, as a Metroid herself in her previous life, she felt empathy for those captured Metroids and how it felt to be caged her entire life (the Chozo imprisoned her within the Impact Crater when she was Metroid Prime with their advanced force field).

Damn, where'd you find that unused log? That's really interesting. I guess it was taken out because they couldn't find a place to put it (since it's written after the seed in the Pirate Homeworld is destroyed, but after that is when the game is almost done and there's not really anywhere else to go), but it offers a huge amount of insight into Dark Samus and her plans.

We're probably thinking about this way more than anyone at Retro Studios ever did

Phazon and Dark Samus are done with according to Kensuke Tanabe, so unless he changes his mind or someone else brings her back for some reason, Prime 2 and 3 are all we get, sadly. But at least Dark Samus is immortalized in the biggest Smash game there will ever be, and I'll gladly take that.

The unusued log came from this page:
http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_unused_Logbook_entries_in_Metroid_Prime_3:_Corruption

Lots of interesting stuff there. Apparently the Galactic Federation did have a data file on Dark Samus for one.

By "primitive" it might have been the wrong word. Nearly all life has the motivation to spread and continue its genetic material and lineage. Dark Samus on some level wanted to spread phazon throughout the galaxy not just to conquer it, but to spread the phazon "lineage".

As for Kensuke Tanabe, he said he had no intention of making sequels to Prime until he saw the 100% ending for Prime 1. It is possible although he says Dark Samus and phazon are finished that Dark Samus might be incorporated into a future title in some way due to her unexpected playable debut in Ultimate (personally I am expecting a possible "Dark Samus" mode in Prime 4 as one possibility to "bring her back" but not have to write a convoluted reason for why she is no longer dead).

However, in terms of story, I am not sure how she could be brought back.

Regardless, like you said, her inclusion in Ultimate has given her possibly an enduring legacy, Ultimate has only added 8 newcomers so far (with only three months left until the game's release), and Dark Samus managed to be among the few added.

 

[Crystanium]

According to an interview, for those curious about why Dark Samus teleports out of a portal for her entrance, she made it to Aether by range of a short range teleportation.

QUESTION: How did Dark Samus come from Tallon IV to Aether?
ANSWER: Dark Samus has the ability to "short range" warp and used this to move to Aether.

It is impressive that they referenced something very obscure about Dark Samus for her playable appearance. If only she also had her laugh.

Actually, aside from the impressive "short range" warp, Dark Samus' ability to warp was mentioned in the pirate log, Security Breach. "The Dark Hunter teleports into the base at will. Our security has proven next to useless against her."

Also, on the subject of Dark Samus warp to Aether, it is impressive that Dark Samus was able to seek out the only other planet that seemed to have been hit with a phazon meteor.

What I'm curious about is how far Aether was. It's a rogue planet, so it's just out there drifting. UGPS J0722-0540 is a brown dwarf that is 13 light-years away from Earth. This is the closest I could find for an actual rogue planet (or star, really). That's 76.42 trillion miles. When I read the Q&A (because I was curious about how Dark Samus got off Tallon IV), I thought even a "short range" warp was ridiculous in terms of travel when compared to the Universe.

Anyway, for anyone interested, Larry Lurr did a video yesterday on analyzing Dark Samus. Someone in the comment section by the name of Jolic kainako mentioned that at the 19 second mark (it's actually 38 seconds, since the video was paused at 19 seconds with Dark Samus using z-air), Dark Samus goes from Charge Shot to dash away. I didn't see any frames indicating a roll, nor a shield to dash away. Normally, if one charges Charge Shot and then moves left or right on the analog, Samus will roll. But, Dark Samus didn't.

And now ZeRo uploaded an analysis on Dark Samus not long ago. About 33 minutes ago.

 

[Metallinatus]

Analysis from yours truly, ZeRo:

 

[Meta_X]

If we're linking Dark Samus analysis videos, then I gotta share Doeboy's which he released today, he's been working hard on it for a while:

 

[Diem]

Actually, I have read reviews by Japanese gamers on review websites, and they are just as mixed and harsh on Other M as the West is. As a matter of fact, quite a few of the reviews make mention that if you want to play a good 3D Metroid, you are much better off looking into the Metroid Prime trilogy.

I really doubt we are getting Dark Samus's laugh in this game, which is a shame. It would have easily been one of the Top 3 taunts in the whole game. We know all three taunts, and none of them utilize the laugh or appear to (her head does not shake in any of them). It is possible she has it for one of her victory animations, but I am not optimistic there either.

I forgot about that honestly that Prime just continually consumed massive amounts of phazon. It is still an interesting thought though. I imagine Dark Samus was mostly concerned with her own survival since phazon was mostly gone on Tallon IV, and she needed it to continue living. She probably burns a lot of "phazon calories" whenever she uses her phazon powers and abilities, and thus needs to constantly "eat".

According to an interview, for those curious about why Dark Samus teleports out of a portal for her entrance, she made it to Aether by range of a short range teleportation.

QUESTION: How did Dark Samus come from Tallon IV to Aether?
ANSWER: Dark Samus has the ability to "short range" warp and used this to move to Aether.

It is impressive that they referenced something very obscure about Dark Samus for her playable appearance. If only she also had her laugh.

Also, on the subject of Dark Samus warp to Aether, it is impressive that Dark Samus was able to seek out the only other planet that seemed to have been hit with a phazon meteor.

As for Dark Samus lacking "sapience" until later in Prime 2, the Pirate scans make mention of her trying to free Metroids from their captivity in Prime 2, and this was before Samus and Dark Samus battled for the first time. Empathy shows that she did possess intelligence for critical thought and self-awareness, as a Metroid herself in her previous life, she felt empathy for those captured Metroids and how it felt to be caged her entire life (the Chozo imprisoned her within the Impact Crater when she was Metroid Prime with their advanced force field).



The unusued log came from this page:
http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_unused_Logbook_entries_in_Metroid_Prime_3:_Corruption

Lots of interesting stuff there. Apparently the Galactic Federation did have a data file on Dark Samus for one.

By "primitive" it might have been the wrong word. Nearly all life has the motivation to spread and continue its genetic material and lineage. Dark Samus on some level wanted to spread phazon throughout the galaxy not just to conquer it, but to spread the phazon "lineage".

As for Kensuke Tanabe, he said he had no intention of making sequels to Prime until he saw the 100% ending for Prime 1. It is possible although he says Dark Samus and phazon are finished that Dark Samus might be incorporated into a future title in some way due to her unexpected playable debut in Ultimate (personally I am expecting a possible "Dark Samus" mode in Prime 4 as one possibility to "bring her back" but not have to write a convoluted reason for why she is no longer dead).

However, in terms of story, I am not sure how she could be brought back.

Regardless, like you said, her inclusion in Ultimate has given her possibly an enduring legacy, Ultimate has only added 8 newcomers so far (with only three months left until the game's release), and Dark Samus managed to be among the few added.

Oh wow, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. Including that there was apparently supposed to be a huge Citadel and Space Pirate presence on Phaaze. My guess is that it was cut either due to time constraints or because you spend much of the game fighting Space Pirates, so having more in the final area would just be kind of more of the same, so it's better that Phaaze looked more organic and we got to see some more unique creatures. Might be a bit of both reasons, too.

Because of that, it's harder to say how much of these should be considered canon, unfortunately. Perhaps anything not pertaining to the Citadel itself could be considered canon. In which, we can also say definitively that Dark Samus controls Phaaze, not the other way around, as one of the logs says "We learned that Phaaze is alive, and that, like us, it is subject to her will." Which just cements how crazy Dark Samus's rise to power is. She starts as something totally alone in the world, but later is able to bend whole literal planets to her will.

Also, whoever at Retro wrote this didn't do so without a huge smile on their face:

"The Pirates call this planet Urtraghus, meaning "Large Booty"."

Weird that Tanabe wasn't one of the people who planned Dark Samus. Given that he seems to be the one who laid the seeds for Sylux to be a major player, I would've thought he had some hand with Dark Samus. Though I'm glad it at least seems to have made an impression on him. Dark Samus may have some extra legacy after all. Especially due to her inclusion in Smash, which will have renewed interest in the character, as well as generate new interest.

Funnily enough, over a decade ago I invented my own "Dark Samus mode" in the previous games. Before Prime 3 came out, I think, I made some videos of a Machinima of sorts I planned to make, using Action Replay codes to enable the Phazon beam in Prime 1 and 2 at all times, roleplaying as Dark Samus. When I was like 9 or 10 years old. It was bad, but at least I only did like one episode. I'd link the videos, but since I wanted to use them for my upcoming video project, I went to look and couldn't find them, and it turns out that my little brother, who had access to my old YouTube account through my dad, deleted all my old videos for some reason. My dad definitely wasn't happy.

Unfortunately, it's rare that we get anything cool like that in games anymore. I remember in the Spider-Man: The Movie game, you could play through the game as Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin, and it was super fun. In Resistance: Retribution for the PSP, if you linked the game with Resistance 2 on PS3, you unlocked a whole new campaign with altered gameplay.

The most we ever get to cool different modes are ones that increase difficulty, which is really lame to me. Fusion Mode in Samus Returns is a relevant example, as you get the Fusion suit, but it also makes the game way harder. Developers don't really get creative with this stuff very often. Even cheat codes have gone out of style, mostly due to the invention of achievements and online leaderboards. I'd trade that stuff for cool cheat codes any day.

But hey, we have the Dark Samus Amiibo through Smash, so that has to unlock something in Metroid Prime 4. Worst case scenario is it's just concept art and stuff, but we'll have to wait and see.

Actually, aside from the impressive "short range" warp, Dark Samus' ability to warp was mentioned in the pirate log, Security Breach. "The Dark Hunter teleports into the base at will. Our security has proven next to useless against her."

What I'm curious about is how far Aether was. It's a rogue planet, so it's just out there drifting. UGPS J0722-0540 is a brown dwarf that is 13 light-years away from Earth. This is the closest I could find for an actual rogue planet (or star, really). That's 76.42 trillion miles. When I read the Q&A (because I was curious about how Dark Samus got off Tallon IV), I thought even a "short range" warp was ridiculous in terms of travel when compared to the Universe.

Anyway, for anyone interested, Larry Lurr did a video yesterday on analyzing Dark Samus. Someone in the comment section by the name of Jolic kainako mentioned that at the 19 second mark (it's actually 38 seconds, since the video was paused at 19 seconds with Dark Samus using z-air), Dark Samus goes from Charge Shot to dash away. I didn't see any frames indicating a roll, nor a shield to dash away. Normally, if one charges Charge Shot and then moves left or right on the analog, Samus will roll. But, Dark Samus didn't.

And now ZeRo uploaded an analysis on Dark Samus not long ago. About 33 minutes ago.

I'm sure that Retro didn't really think it through when determining how Dark Samus got to Aether, and "short range warp" was a simple and quick way to handwave the issue. A better answer would be that she stowed away with the Space Pirates like she did between Prime 2 and 3, but that would create some more questions.

Though that quote from Prime 2 is interesting, and I'm surprised I'd forgotten about it. I still interpret that the "teleportation" is really just her materializing from Phazon still, like when Samus encounters her in Torvus Bog, as opposed to her coming through some kind of portal.

If we're linking Dark Samus analysis videos, then I gotta share Doeboy's which he released today, he's been working hard on it for a while:

Thank you so much for this. I watched the whole thing and it was really well done. He made a gaff with the Echo Fighter thing, because as I pointed out some time ago, they're called "Dash Fighters" in Japan, so unless Sakurai was aware of the localized term, then it had no bearing one way or the other.

But this is actually a well-researched, well-edited, and well-done analysis. I'm going to be honest, the pros' analyses we've been seeing are pretty lazy and seem more about capitalizing on the demand for analysis of new characters rather than giving an honest and thorough breakdown.

ESAM made his video right away off the tiny amount of footage from the Direct and website that don't offer a whole lot of substance due to how little there is to analyze. He said (and then it was repeated elsewhere) that the dash attack angle was more like Samus's from previous games, which I was always skeptical of, because it looked like it was just that the other character was at a low percentage. With the more recent footage, we can see that the dash attack is just like Samus's. It's just because of how knockback is handled differently in this game that it looked different.

ZeRo's wasn't even edited. He's just going back and forth in a video player and it's really hard to watch or pay attention because he's trying to keep up with the footage, stopping and starting, making it not enjoyable to view and difficult to really listen to. If he'd edited a video together instead, we could have better visualization and organization to what he's talking about, but right now his video is a mess. But he's the biggest Smash 4 player, so I guess it doesn't matter how little effort he puts into his content.

So thanks for sharing something from a lesser-known content creator who made some better quality work.

The biggest takeaway is that it does seem that Dark Samus has a shorter/faster roll. I didn't even catch that in the gameplay we saw. It's not by a huge margin, but Doeboy put it very well in saying that it's a whole unit of human reaction time shorter than Samus's, so there is a tangible benefit. This could, again, help differentiate Dark Samus as a more aggressive and mobile character, while Samus is more of a zoner.

Also the effect of the electrical properties of attacks is well-explained. If in practice it makes Dark Samus more of a combo-based character, then this all starts to make a little more sense. But if it just makes it easier for players to DI out of combos, then it goes the opposite direction. So I'm a little worried about that. Thankfully this game will see balance updates that should hopefully improve any characters with such issues, similar to how Samus was improved in 1.1.5.

I'm hoping Dark Samus isn't too good, but also hoping she's better than Smash 4 Samus. Because if she's too good, then people will use her just for the utility (like Bayonetta), and if she's too bad, then she won't be very viable. A nice "goldilocks" zone is what I'm hoping for.

 

[IronTed]

That unused scan data is interesting, and raises the question of canonicity. Since it remains unused, it's probably not though.

So not only did Prime have a lot of unimplemented content, but Corruption did as well, and that game was even delayed. Hopefully Prime 4's developers don't have the same issues.

 

[Aetheri]

Some very good analyses. I`m even more excited to play as Dark Samus, even if a lot of her differences are minimal, I'm still stoked!

Just over three months!!!

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

I made color swaps of the newcomers plus potential ones and I posted my Chrom one in his thread so here’s Dark Samus.

Green is based off Samus’s Green outfit
Grey is based off Ghor
Blue is based off the Metroid prime 2 color plus rundus
Red is based off the Aurora unit kinda
Purple is from the site
Blue is Sylux
Orange is Samus

Thoughts?

 

[Garo]

I appreciate especially Doeboy's effort, but all analyses fail to mention one thing: We can't be sure if Samus' stats are different from the E3 build in the build we see Dark Samus in. This could mean that some perceived differences in frame data, knockback or damage do not actually exist.

 

[meleebrawler]

Diem If only more people around here shared your optimism regarding less-than functional or undertuned demo moves...

 

[Crystanium]

Oh wow, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. Including that there was apparently supposed to be a huge Citadel and Space Pirate presence on Phaaze. My guess is that it was cut either due to time constraints or because you spend much of the game fighting Space Pirates, so having more in the final area would just be kind of more of the same, so it's better that Phaaze looked more organic and we got to see some more unique creatures. Might be a bit of both reasons, too.

Because of that, it's harder to say how much of these should be considered canon, unfortunately. Perhaps anything not pertaining to the Citadel itself could be considered canon. In which, we can also say definitively that Dark Samus controls Phaaze, not the other way around, as one of the logs says "We learned that Phaaze is alive, and that, like us, it is subject to her will." Which just cements how crazy Dark Samus's rise to power is. She starts as something totally alone in the world, but later is able to bend whole literal planets to her will.

I tend not to think that things that didn't make it into the game aren't canonical. It seems to be that these entries didn't make it in for whatever reason, possibly including time restraints. Even without that scan for the logbook, think about the name of the location Dark Samus battles Samus. It's called Sanctum. Due to the religious themes in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, this is a fitting name for the location. Sanctum is from the Latin, which means "holy". Dark Samus was already deified by the space pirates. (Read Space Pirate Data - First Disciples and The Source Discovered.)

Also, whoever at Retro wrote this didn't do so without a huge smile on their face:

"The Pirates call this planet Urtraghus, meaning "Large Booty"."

Pirate Homeworld is still accurately called Urtraghus, due to the Urtragian Shriekbats, just as those on Bryyo were Bryyonian Shriekbats, and those on Elysia were Elysian Shriekbats.

I'm sure that Retro didn't really think it through when determining how Dark Samus got to Aether, and "short range warp" was a simple and quick way to handwave the issue. A better answer would be that she stowed away with the Space Pirates like she did between Prime 2 and 3, but that would create some more questions.

Though that quote from Prime 2 is interesting, and I'm surprised I'd forgotten about it. I still interpret that the "teleportation" is really just her materializing from Phazon still, like when Samus encounters her in Torvus Bog, as opposed to her coming through some kind of portal.

I thought perhaps Dark Samus left with Meta Ridley on a ship, but there wasn't any evidence to lead to that. It's unknown whether or not Meta Ridley escaped while Samus was dealing with Metroid Prime. Although you can always encounter space pirates multiple times in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, I suspect the reality would be that they would have been driven away, just like they were in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption upon returning to the Pirate Homeworld. Since she's capable of teleporting anyway, it makes sense for her to do so here. Besides, Samus' first encounter with Dark Samus shows Dark Samus opening up a portal to Dark Aether, which is later inaccessible in the same location. There are portals Samus can activate with the light or dark beam, but they're always their after she's gone through, even if her exit leads to a location where she's unable to enter. This is different from what we see Dark Samus do.

 

[The Legendary Beast]

I made color swaps of the newcomers plus potential ones and I posted my Chrom one in his thread so here’s Dark Samus.

Green is based off Samus’s Green outfit
Grey is based off Ghor
Blue is based off the Metroid prime 2 color plus rundus
Red is based off the Aurora unit kinda
Purple is from the site
Blue is Sylux
Orange is Samus

Thoughts?


View attachment 159478

These are really cool, good job!

I really want this as an alt.

Spoiler

Eyes and all, but I'd take just the colours changing like yours.

 

[Crystanium]

I still prefer my brother's version of Dark Samus in the varia suit because the helmet looks deep red and crisp, the orange and yellow looks subdued and natural, and the green seeps in and comes off as radioactive.

 

[Ridley_Prime]

Admittedly, haven't posted or caught up on new posts here in awhile, but reading up on the posts here that went into most of the Metroid lore was certainly refreshing.

On that note, the Metroid Prime (exoskeleton) easter egg on Phaaze is still flabbergasting to me. I had heard about it around when it was first discovered, though didn't spot the exoskeleton husks myself in-game when I was traversing through Phaaze, so this screenshot of them in the Genesis Chamber gave me the perspective I needed.



The real question is, were there other Metroid Prime's that were allowed to thrive? i.e. leave Phaaze, and go conquer and corrupt another planet like the one we know did to Tallon IV, or did those Prime's somehow just die as husks like you see above? Did Dark Samus condone those Metroid Prime's existing, or eliminate them so as to not have competition from her former brethren? Definitely still feel there were some things left unanswered, even as much light as Phaaze had shed on the whole matter like with Leviathans.


And yeah, great recolors Venus. ^ Had saw the orange "Varia Dark Samus" on twitter before, tho not sure if it was made/posted here or there first but regardless... Still pretty sold from what's been shown of DS's latest Smash gameplay. The morph ball bomb differences and such are certainly serviceable enough for an echo.

 

[NintenRob]

Hopefully we get some answers to these inconsistencies in Prime 4

 

[Ridley_Prime]

The worst inconsistency of Metroid Prime (the creature) is the implication in a pirate log in one of the versions of MP1 that Prime got its exoskeleton form by absorbing weapons and armor from nearby space pirates (presumably the beam troopers based on how it fights in the first phase battle), but the posted Phaaze easter egg seems to indicate the exoskeleton body is a natural part of a Metroid Prime lifecycle... Not to mention Tallon IV’s Metroid Prime was trapped/sealed by the Chozo in the Leviathan from which it came, so how would space pirates even get to it?

 

[ChronoBound]

The worst inconsistency of Metroid Prime (the creature) is the implication in a pirate log in one of the versions of MP1 that Prime got its exoskeleton form by absorbing weapons and armor from nearby space pirates (presumably the beam troopers based on how it fights in the first phase battle), but the posted Phaaze easter egg seems to indicate the exoskeleton body is a natural part of a Metroid Prime lifecycle... Not to mention Tallon IV’s Metroid Prime was trapped/sealed by the Chozo in the Leviathan from which it came, so how would space pirates even get to it?

The scans in the game's revision (European and Trilogy version) fix this plothole, by saying that Prime never escaped the Impact Crater, and the Pirates were unable to reach it. I think Prime always had it exoskeleton in the European/Trilogy scans as well.

 

[Garo]

My own theory (or headcanon if we're using a trendy word) was that Metroid Prime absorbed the missile attack from Meta Ridley after he fell into the crater. Dunno how much sense that makes, but I remember there being something in one of the scans (European version) that made me think this. It's been a while though, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[meleebrawler]

My own theory (or headcanon if we're using a trendy word) was that Metroid Prime absorbed the missile attack from Meta Ridley after he fell into the crater. Dunno how much sense that makes, but I remember there being something in one of the scans (European version) that made me think this. It's been a while though, so maybe I'm wrong.

The most likely explanation is that the tech Prime obtained was from the Chozo, they created Metroids after all so it's the only logical way for it being there before Pirates.

 

[Diem]

Had most of this post typed up on Friday, but it got lost somehow. Oh well.

I made color swaps of the newcomers plus potential ones and I posted my Chrom one in his thread so here’s Dark Samus.

Green is based off Samus’s Green outfit
Grey is based off Ghor
Blue is based off the Metroid prime 2 color plus rundus
Red is based off the Aurora unit kinda
Purple is from the site
Blue is Sylux
Orange is Samus

Thoughts?


View attachment 159478

I like the gray and blue ones. The blue one appeals to me because it reminds me of some of Dark Samus's Prime 3 renders, like the one in my signature. The gray one because of the use of red, which is my favorite color. Especially when combined with black, like with the Phazon Suit, which is what Samus should've gotten to replace the Dark Samus alt color (Phazon Suit alt color to replace the Phazon-based alt color), but instead we got the random yellow one. Hopefully Dark Samus gets a Phazon Suit alt color, since I'll be playing her instead anyways, and it'd also make sense for her. If Phazon was red instead of blue, and thus Dark Samus was always black/red, she'd be more of a favorite character than she already is.

We're probably going to get a bunch of made-up ones for Dark Samus, though. A Phazon Suit one is the most likely one to be beased off of the games. Maybe a PED one, too, since that'd be distinct enough from Samus's color scheme.

I appreciate especially Doeboy's effort, but all analyses fail to mention one thing: We can't be sure if Samus' stats are different from the E3 build in the build we see Dark Samus in. This could mean that some perceived differences in frame data, knockback or damage do not actually exist.

Diem If only more people around here shared your optimism regarding less-than functional or undertuned demo moves...

I mean, it's possible that Echo Fighters will be the last characters balanced. Since they require so little work, they might be lowest on the priority list compared to characters with completely new movesets, so for all we know Samus and Dark Samus could be exactly the same right now, besides animations and the obvious electrical effects. We could all just be morons.

My interest in pre-release gameplay is solely to get a general sense of the character, rather than trying to analyze exact details. Dark Samus definitely looks floaty in the gameplay we saw, but it's possible that Samus is the same, we just haven't seen that demonstrated. Whoever was playing Dark Samus in that footage was clearly knowledgeable of how the character works, whereas Samus players so far have been playing Samus based on how she played in Smash 4 and not how she plays in Ultimate, hence they're not in the air very often.

For example, the roll looks to be faster than Samus's, but no one can seem to agree on whether it is or not. Some analyses say it's faster, some say it's the same. What we really need is for a build with Dark Samus to be demoed at an event and for a pair of people to demonstrate the two at the same time so we can see, but I think that the E3 build is the only public demo we're going to get, unfortunately.

Because the bottom line is that there will be changes between what we're seeing now and when the game releases. They got feedback from players at E3, so that gives the team a little less than 6 months to adjust the game based on that alone. Samus's dash attack could be reverted to how it was in Smash 4 if they take ESAM's feedback to heart, for example. By extension that could affect Dark Samus as well. The only question is just how different will the final game be from the E3 build.

I tend not to think that things that didn't make it into the game aren't canonical. It seems to be that these entries didn't make it in for whatever reason, possibly including time restraints. Even without that scan for the logbook, think about the name of the location Dark Samus battles Samus. It's called Sanctum. Due to the religious themes in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, this is a fitting name for the location. Sanctum is from the Latin, which means "holy". Dark Samus was already deified by the space pirates. (Read Space Pirate Data - First Disciples and The Source Discovered.)

Pirate Homeworld is still accurately called Urtraghus, due to the Urtragian Shriekbats, just as those on Bryyo were Bryyonian Shriekbats, and those on Elysia were Elysian Shriekbats.

I thought perhaps Dark Samus left with Meta Ridley on a ship, but there wasn't any evidence to lead to that. It's unknown whether or not Meta Ridley escaped while Samus was dealing with Metroid Prime. Although you can always encounter space pirates multiple times in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, I suspect the reality would be that they would have been driven away, just like they were in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption upon returning to the Pirate Homeworld. Since she's capable of teleporting anyway, it makes sense for her to do so here. Besides, Samus' first encounter with Dark Samus shows Dark Samus opening up a portal to Dark Aether, which is later inaccessible in the same location. There are portals Samus can activate with the light or dark beam, but they're always their after she's gone through, even if her exit leads to a location where she's unable to enter. This is different from what we see Dark Samus do.

It depends on whether or not they should all be considered non-canon, or just the ones that conflict with something that wasn't cut. For example, the first log listed ("The Raid") says that the Space Pirates attacked Federation ship sent to Aether and stole the Phazon they collected, but we know that didn't happen because the Federation successfully collected that Phazon and used it to develop the PED. However, that single unused entry doesn't fit with all the others, so its reasons for being cut are likely different and related to a change in backstory as opposed to an entire part of the game being cut.

There's also a Japanese-only series of Space Pirate journals that were put online to promote the Wii versions of the first two Prime games in Japan called "Another Side Story," which gives an additional perspective of the Space Pirates between Prime 2 and 3. Unfortunately, the translation on Metroid Database is no longer there because they redesigned the site a while ago, took down a bunch of features and their forums, and haven't gotten around to fixing any of that stuff yet despite months having passed. Gotta love it when that stuff happens.

And yeah, I know the planet is still actually called that because of the Shriekbat scan, but that translation in the cut logbook entry could not have been written with a straight face.

The portal at the beginning of Metroid Prime 2 is probably as justified as the "short range warp" explanation; which is to say, not very justified at all, and more done out of convenience. They just needed the scene to communicate a number of things in a specific way, so they bent the rules a bit in order to help establish others. At that point in the game, they needed to show the portal system, Dark Samus, the Ing, and Dark Aether all at once. The only thing standing in the way of that was the fact that portals don't usually disappear, so when that's the only rule standing in the way, it's easier to just break it for that one scene than to find a way to work around it. All things considered it's a pretty genius scene that accomplishes a lot with very little.

 

[Izanagi97]

ZeRo's wasn't even edited. He's just going back and forth in a video player and it's really hard to watch or pay attention because he's trying to keep up with the footage, stopping and starting, making it not enjoyable to view and difficult to really listen to. If he'd edited a video together instead, we could have better visualization and organization to what he's talking about, but right now his video is a mess. But he's the biggest Smash 4 player, so I guess it doesn't matter how little effort he puts into his content.

Yeah, this bit right here is why I find it so annoying to watch his analysis videos even if the points are good (then again, doesn't he do most of this stuff on Twitch then upload particular clips of it to YouTube)

 

[Porygon2]

There's also a Japanese-only series of Space Pirate journals that were put online to promote the Wii versions of the first two Prime games in Japan called "Another Side Story," which gives an additional perspective of the Space Pirates between Prime 2 and 3. Unfortunately, the translation on Metroid Database is no longer there because they redesigned the site a while ago, took down a bunch of features and their forums, and haven't gotten around to fixing any of that stuff yet despite months having passed. Gotta love it when that stuff happens.

Can be partially accessed through archive, though its laggy.
A good boxing ring title in part 4 — Black Demon. Any other suggestions?

 

[IsmaR]

The Accursed/Dark Hunter

Alternatively for the tongue-in-cheek reference, Dark Echo

 

[Garo]

Gonna guess the boxing ring title will be The Dark Hunter. The NOE translations were a bit more tongue-in-cheek though. If that trend continues, we might get something like Hunter in the Dark or The Prime Suspect.

 

[Crystanium]

The portal at the beginning of Metroid Prime 2 is probably as justified as the "short range warp" explanation; which is to say, not very justified at all, and more done out of convenience. They just needed the scene to communicate a number of things in a specific way, so they bent the rules a bit in order to help establish others. At that point in the game, they needed to show the portal system, Dark Samus, the Ing, and Dark Aether all at once. The only thing standing in the way of that was the fact that portals don't usually disappear, so when that's the only rule standing in the way, it's easier to just break it for that one scene than to find a way to work around it. All things considered it's a pretty genius scene that accomplishes a lot with very little.

Whether it's done out of convenience or not doesn't matter. I think it helps explain how Dark Samus escaped Dark Aether when it was crumbling around her.

 

[Diem]

If the title is anything but "The Dark Hunter" I'll be disappointed. But that would require the NoA localization team to be familiar with their Metroid Prime lore. They got Ridley's right, so hopefully they will do the same for the other Metroid rep.

Yeah, this bit right here is why I find it so annoying to watch his analysis videos even if the points are good (then again, doesn't he do most of this stuff on Twitch then upload particular clips of it to YouTube)

I guess that makes sense if it was originally on Twitch, because there's not much editing to be done there. But the way it was presented made it seem like it was a pre-recorded video, rather than a stream. Even if it was a stream, the better way to do it would be to at least take notes beforehand about certain moments and their timeframes so that it's not as messy. Honestly a text writeup would've been more effective.

Can be partially accessed through archive, though its laggy.
A good boxing ring title in part 4 — Black Demon. Any other suggestions?

Found a better link to it. Apparently MDb didn't completely scrap the old site, it's just hard to find. But it's still a huge pain to deal with because the links to the other pages don't have the "old site" part in the URL, so the only way to navigate them is to change the part and page numbers in the URL manually.

Here it is. Reading through it for the first time in some time, it's nothing very substantial. It just basically repackages many of the Space Pirate logs from the games to form, well, another side story. I thought I remembered it being something more unique, but I guess it was just sort of an abridged version of the lore for those unfamiliar.

Whether it's done out of convenience or not doesn't matter. I think it helps explain how Dark Samus escaped Dark Aether when it was crumbling around her.

It's possible that the portals have some connection to Phazon, which would definitely allow Dark Samus to manipulate them. The toxic gas in Dark Aether is actually Phazon, which is why Dark Samus is unaffected, so perhaps the portals are due to Phazon as well. It's possible that the Ing and all the "Dark" energy and qualities are just some mutated form of Phazon that was created due to the unique event and circumstances of Dark Aether's creation. In which case, Dark Samus would probably be able to create her own portals.

 

[MetroLSD]

I wish she had clawed feet like she did in Echoes :/

 

[IsmaR]

Said it in the Ridley thread, but I'm hoping we get an updated demo build soon (even if only to spectate rather than play ourselves online).

I'm jonesing to see more of Dark Samus' alternate color schemes.

 

[Izanagi97]

Said it in the Ridley thread, but I'm hoping we get an updated demo build soon (even if only to spectate rather than play ourselves online).

I'm jonesing to see more of Dark Samus' alternate color schemes.

It's probably more likely they're gonna reuse the E3 build for the rest of the Demos

 

[Diem]

Said it in the Ridley thread, but I'm hoping we get an updated demo build soon (even if only to spectate rather than play ourselves online).

I'm jonesing to see more of Dark Samus' alternate color schemes.

It's probably more likely they're gonna reuse the E3 build for the rest of the Demos

Yeah, unfortunately we're probably not going to get an updated demo build, because that would take some work to get done when there's far more important things to worry about three months away from release.

That said, if the Best Buy demos this weekend are updated and revealed to have Dark Samus, I *will* take a trip to LA next weekend and try to get as much info as possible. Well, maybe. LA is like a 6 hour drive from here and that's expensive. And I've never been there before. But if it could reasonably work out, I'd go for it.

In the meantime, check out Cryophase on Twitter. He/she has been posting some really fun artwork over the past month. Not a on board with some of the "gross" artwork, but stuff like this makes me happy.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Androobie]

This could just be someone lying, but I figured it could be useful info. According to this guy, Nintendo said Dark Samus was floatier at the Best Buy event.

 

[Diem]

This could just be someone lying, but I figured it could be useful info. According to this guy, Nintendo said Dark Samus was floatier at the Best Buy event.

View attachment 162839

He's referring to the official blog post from last month. Dark Samus isn't playable in any public demo (it's the E3 demo again), so I doubt the Nintendo guys going around to these Best Buys know anything more than we do. Hence why they can't give us any straight answers, like "Oh, Dark Samus has 15% less air friction" or something, because they're only being told what they need to know. Especially since the character balance is probably going to keep being tweaked until release, so anything they say now could be outdated by December. Best to keep things vague and not be incorrect than to be specific and be misleading.

In fact, I just looked back at the official Tweet from Nintendo Versus last month, which says "Chrom and Dark Samus join the action! These Echo Fighters are based on Roy and Samus, but they’re slightly different and have their own feel." That could mean literally anything. Dark Samus's unique "feel" could just be that some of her moves are electric, not fire, which is the one confirmed difference we know of.

What someone needs to do is try out Samus at one of these events and mimic what the Dark Samus player was doing in the one gameplay video we have. That's the only way we can find out anything at this point in time, because it's clear that Dark Samus won't be playable until the game releases.

It's entirely likely that the whole "floatier" thing is an intentional placebo. You maintain the easy balance that Echo Fighters are made for, while also tricking the player into thinking it feels different. Because once you start altering a character's movement properties and weight, that changes a lot in terms of how they interact with the rest of the game, and requires careful attention. It's unlikely that Echo Fighters will receive that much distinction. But by just changing the animations to give the impression that a character moves differently, they then feel different, despite there being no statistical difference. It's pretty genius, actually. A little disappointing, but genius.

However, I do think that it might be possible for Samus and Dark Samus to have different movement properties in the end. The exact definition of "Echo Fighter" is still unwritten, and the original definition we had was broken in the last Direct with Chrom and Dark Samus, who defied expectations. We thought they had to have the same exact moveset--Chrom broke that. We thought they had to have the same animations--Dark Samus broke that. It's possible they're also breaking the rule that they have to have the same weight and movement properties, too, we just can't tell yet.

Part of the problem is that the only points of reference we have are Dark Pit and Lucina, who were late additions to Smash 4 and are basically just alt costumes with slight tweaks. It's obvious that the new Echo Fighters in Ultimate are much more substantial than they are, and were planned from the beginning, so that means more time could be spent on their attributes as well.

In that sense, we could look at things on a "clone scale," on a scale of Wolf (far from the character he's based on) on the right to Dark Pit (almost exactly the same) on the left. I'd say that Dark Samus, Chrom, and Daisy will be to the left of Dark Pit, but to the right of the middle (characters like Falco, Toon Link, etc.). Exactly how far to the right or left they are is yet to be determined.

Hopefully Sakurai or another reliable source can clear things up sometime soon. Until then, expect Dark Samus to not be floatier, but hope that she is.

 

[Turnips and Daisies.]

movement properties,

Actually, the official definition just explains that walk/run speed is different, but I think it’s only to cover stuff like Daisy’s float properties. Usually the movement properties are the same yes.

Sakurai said that they first work on animations and taunts, then they adjust parameters.

 

[Sin Slash]

Isabelle has just been announced to be a unique fighter while Dark Samus is just... Samus. Its assist trophy was more faithful to its character than it is now. Good work Sakurai

 

[Aetheri]

Isabelle has just been announced to be a unique fighter while Dark Samus is just... Samus. Its assist trophy was more faithful to its character than it is now. Good work Sakurai

To be fair....Isabelle is much more popular and a lot more relevant. As well as from a series that is a lot more popular than Metroid.

Dark Samus is honestly lucky to be playable at all...

Though I do have to mention she's not that unique as she's clearly a semi-clone of Villager...