Official Samus

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Thanks! Same to yours.

 

[Donghae]

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

^ Ah, two of my favorite franchises, illustrated together. Her visor and torso detail look better every time I see them.

But anyway, I'm curious as to what move she's actually executing here. I don't recognize the animation.. Also, her arm is HUGE. Definitely some range behind that. Possibly more than previous titles? (speculates away)

 

[LaniusShrike]

^ Ah, two of my favorite franchises, illustrated together. Her visor and torso detail look better every time I see them.

But anyway, I'm curious as to what move she's actually executing here. I don't recognize the animation.. Also, her arm is HUGE. Definitely some range behind that. Possibly more than previous titles? (speculates away)

I think it's the first hit of her jab-jab combo.

... by the way, I challenge anybody to position their body like that and deliver an effective punch. Bonus points to anyone who can do it without horribly twisting their ankle...

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

I think it's the first hit of her jab-jab combo.

... by the way, I challenge anybody to position their body like that and deliver an effective punch. Bonus points to anyone who can do it without horribly twisting their ankle...

Give me a Powersuit and i'm in.

 

[LaniusShrike]

Give me a Powersuit and i'm in.

Dang, I guess you're right... if Samus doesn't break every bone and organ when she goes into morph ball mode, I guess she's allowed to bend in improbable ways.

... I wonder if they're every gonna show us what she looks like inside the suit when she goes into ball form.

 

[shinhed-echi]

It makes her punch seem more lady-like. Which is weird because under that armor she always seemed pretty rough.

I'm fairly new in the Metroid fandom, but I bet this might tick off a lot of veteran Metroid fans.

I want to play as her already. Really hope they make her tether like in Melee (minus the whole dodge first, grapple beam second thing which was totally unnecessary) with the attack form from Brawl (zair zapping)

 

[LaniusShrike]

It makes her punch seem more lady-like. Which is weird because under that armor she always seemed pretty rough.

I'm fairly new in the Metroid fandom, but I bet this might tick off a lot of veteran Metroid fans.

I want to play as her already. Really hope they make her tether like in Melee (minus the whole dodge first, grapple beam second thing which was totally unnecessary) with the attack form from Brawl (zair zapping)

Her entire Other M armor design seems more feminine... Suddenly, her Power Armor fits less like a knight's suit and more like a weaponized corset. But it just seems to be the direction and trend that they're officially taking Samus in both design and personality-wise... so... it gets hard to tell who to criticize.

Mrrrr. I do really hope she doesn't just end up like a Barbie doll.

At a certain point it's going to be hard to differentiate this

Spoiler

from this.

Spoiler

Stupid high-heels... I mean, come on.

 

[Donghae]

Her entire Other M armor design seems more feminine... Suddenly, her Power Armor fits less like a knight's suit and more like a weaponized corset. But it just seems to be the direction and trend that they're officially taking Samus in both design and personality-wise... so... it gets hard to tell who to criticize.

Mrrrr. I do really hope she doesn't just end up like a Barbie doll.

At a certain point it's going to be hard to differentiate this

Spoiler

from this.

Spoiler

Stupid high-heels... I mean, come on.

i like high heels ; 3

 

[IsmaR]

Combat Stilettos/Wedges be damned, Samus is Samus, no matter how feminine she's portrayed.

Also I am ashamed that I only just now realized this.
[collapse=ZSS all but confirmed/THEY MADE HER A CLONE]

[/collapse]

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Dang, I guess you're right... if Samus doesn't break every bone and organ when she goes into morph ball mode, I guess she's allowed to bend in improbable ways.

... I wonder if they're every gonna show us what she looks like inside the suit when she goes into ball form.

I like to imagine she partially dematerializes using the Chozo Tech. Converts to some type of conscious energy while within the suit, even partially when not in morph ball mode. It helps me and my over-analytical-ness to cope with the fact she's entirely disproportionate, and her out of suit figure totally doesn't match in suit (and never really has). I have an image or two displaying that, but honestly have no idea how to upload it in those spoiler tags you guys are using. /Newbie

 

[LaniusShrike]

I like to imagine she partially dematerializes using the Chozo Tech. Converts to some type of conscious energy while within the suit, even partially when not in morph ball mode. It helps me and my over-analytical-ness to cope with the fact she's entirely disproportionate, and her out of suit figure totally doesn't match in suit (and never really has). I have an image or two displaying that, but honestly have no idea how to upload it in those spoiler tags you guys are using. /Newbie

I suspect that's what happens, too. The Space Pirate logs make it pretty clear that their experiments have shown that there's no way to maintain a physical body in morph ball mode.

Not sure if it really works with explaining away in-suit and out of suit proportions, though...

(spoiler tags are [ collapse ] <hidden stuff> [ /collapse ] except without the spaces)

 

[IsmaR]

I always figured that the pirates are just kinda dense. Both mentally and literally/physically.

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

As far as disproportions go, its primarily a shoulder width thing.
V

Spoiler

Most apparent is the impossible shoulder width and oversized arm. Other than that, the other M model actually does decently well.

Spoiler

Here is the shoulder thing again, using the prime model. Try to visualize your shoulders extending out 4x your waist, and having your arms come straight down from there... yeah.. A picture of her Zero suit self from Prime as a comparison

As far as the morph ball, The prime model really supports the dematerialization theory
V

Spoiler

It's literally shown as a ball of light. You can even see through to the other side

EDIT: I suppose, when you really think about it, Most of Nintendo's Human characters aren't anywhere close to being proportional. Example: The Mario Brothers. Still, you can see it in all of her screenshots so far

 

[IsmaR]

You sure know your stuff, K2L. That said, there's still a bit of pics/references you may be missing. I did my best to find as many as I could.

Now first up, my theory is that the suit larger than most people give credit/account for. It may seem as if Samus is smaller/scaled down in Smash, but then again it's Smash. Canon holds about as much worth as Ganondorf's sword does. To add to this theory, I don't think the suit is just slip-on-Power-Ranger-PJ's, and has layers, including an exoskeletal "mesh" seen as the "black metal" under her neck and such. To add to this, I don't think the suit ends where her body does. Leave a bit of elbow room, as evidenced below. Could explain why the "shoulders" seem so disproportionate at times.

[collapse=First up, Prime stuff]

I know, I know. Not my favorite model either. But it's worth noting that the particular suit I chose (Fusion Suit) is the slim/smaller version, compared to the standard Gravity Suit. Even in this "sleek" form, the suit is still significantly bigger than her.

Including two here to show off the angles. Whilst the arms look smaller, thereby more possible for her hands to reach all the way, the proportions as far as shoulder length have the same effect as the pics you posted. While I doubt Samus has short arm, the overall bulkiness of the suit just makes it seem like "Rule of Cool" is all the justification needed to give Samus said size comparisons.

Moving on to the concept art:

These are primarily what drove me to come to my conclusion/theory listed above. While Samus herself has been stated to be an Amazon-Warrior-status athlete due to genetic manipulation/infusion of Chozo blood, the suit still dwarfs her size. The 2nd pic illustrates nicely the idea of under-armor/layers.[/collapse]

Next, we have Samus most recent appearance, which is what her new Smash self is based off of.
[collapse=Other M. Small children and haters proceed cautiously]

Other M does its best to show Samus' constant "materialization" power/link to her suit, so we get a fair amount of shots like the above. I honestly think it was well done, but that's another topic. The main point I wanted to address was the significant arm difference. While her suit has massive arms, she herself has fairly small ones. I think the under-armor/layers theory gives her a way to control both her suits' arms (specifically the arm cannon) without stretching them out to Donkey Kong sizes of ridiculousness.

tl;dr - Arms small, probably controls suit arms through Chozo tech shenanigans/RULE OF COOL/magic.[/collapse]

Winding down, I'll post perhaps the best evidence yet. (I'll probably have to fit the Morph Ball stuff in a future post. Been working on this for TOO long..)

Spoiler

This sells it for me. Right down to having little lifts at the bottom to make her slightly taller (I admit, the thought of current ZSS having shoes inside of metal boots is dumb, but eh). Whereas the big shoulder pads are mostly technological padding/fluff, the arms of the suit aren't just slip-on gloves that cover her real arms, and have that exoskeleton idea I mentioned. Granted, this was for Super Metroid and since then has no ground, but I think something similar today would justify everything, right down the Lanky-Kong-length-arms.

Perhaps the best comparison of all, however, comes from Smash itself. The unreleased/event trophy from Melee:

Seriously, just look at that for a sec. If Zero Suit Samus was in Melee and proportioned according to this reference, she'd be YOUNG Link sized, if not smaller. They obviously tinkered with it in Brawl to make her Final Smash have some kind of sense behind it, but I think this is as close to Smash adhering to canon as can be found.

Overall, I repeat: It's most likely just rule of cool/reality being unrealistic that justify everything in Smash. I doubt any developers think this much into it.

 

[Kamiko]

While that cutaway picture helps with the idea of how the suit could make sense, the point at which the shoulders rotate is still usually too far out for belief. So I'll just go right ahead and agree with the whole "rule of cool" thing. I do, however, think it shouldn't be too hard to make a Samus that matches properly without screwing around with the overall look of the suit.

The Morph Ball on the other hand is just silly.

 

[LaniusShrike]

Huh, the pictures are really interesting... I guess, in conclusion, the power suit proportions only make sense on the designs where the suit-arms themselves are wider and connect lower on the torso allowing Samus's real arms to settle in the inside.

But... yeah. Rule of cool, there you go.

Also shows that I was wrong about it currently fitting her like a corset- the waist is just the only part of the suit that isn't oversized for her. Huh.

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Oh. Wow. I was not expecting such a fleshed out response so quickly! these forums continue to surprise me. Excellent points IsmaR. I had considered to the layered armor theory previously, as well as the concept of the suit extending beyond her body (mech style), but had been too focused on the shoulder disproportion concept to more extensively search last night.

If my memory serves me correctly, the next to bottom image is from the Super Metroid era, and the Smash games are the first to render that particular armor in 3-D. When using that model coupled with that inside look of how she fits into the suit, as qdMdp says, the proportions make sense. Though, the way her arms sit in the armor looks like it would only work when her arms are in firing position.. But, back to the plus side, with having the Varia shoulder modifications entirely filled with electronics rather than her actual shoulders, the concept of them being temperature control units seems much more plausible. I'll be shamelessly adding that concept art into my Metroid folder...


I actually agree that Other M did well on the materialization of her armor, as well as the concept of it being sort of linked to her willpower (It was a very green-lantern-esque). For clarification, I'm not a person who anyone needs to tread lightly with when discussing Other M, though I understand why you'd be wary. There are definitely haters galore lurking about. Anyway, OM had its definitive flaws, I still loved that game for what it was: Another Metroid game.

Back on topic, as much as I love the layering/mechlike concept, and as well as it works in some games, I don't feel like even it works on the SSB4 model for Samus. They contort her to make her into a fighting character, rather than a hunter primarily relying on her ranged arsenal like in the games. Besides Other M of course. Though, in hindsight, It makes much more sense that they'd pick her Other M model for Smash 4 (besides "newness") when one considers her drastic change in combat style in that game, as compared to all of her other 3-D appearances.

But like you said, the developers probably don't get this in depth. If they did, imagine how long the development cycles would become.. -shudders-. You're right, it boils down to the Rule of Cool in the end. The proportional sacrifice will be well worth the ability to play my favorite virtual character in one of my favorite franchises another time, anyway. Still, wonderful input. It's a first for me to find people with their own fleshed out thoughts and opinions on such matters.

 

[Mind Ranger]

Did anyone notice how her charge shot charges much quicker than before?

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Did anyone notice how her charge shot charges much quicker than before?

I totally didn't. Do you have a link?

Edit: I looked around and found the clip from the Direct showing of the villager's moveset. When Samus charges and fires her shot there, it does look much faster.

 

[Ridley_Prime]

Maybe it's the Accel Charge from Other M at work.

 

[Mind Ranger]

I totally didn't. Do you have a link?

Edit: I looked around and found the clip from the Direct showing of the villager's moveset. When Samus charges and fires her shot there, it does look much faster.

Sorry for late response

But yeah, it looks to be a bit more useful now

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Sorry for late response

But yeah, it looks to be a bit more useful now

No problem! It definitely could be. It makes me wonder what else they may have sped up, or maybe slowed down.

 

[IsmaR]

Still, wonderful input. It's a first for me to find people with their own fleshed out thoughts and opinions on such matters.

Bit late to respond, but the pleasure is mine. It's equally seldom I can have such discussions with people I haven't already befriended on here (Ridley_Prime's the only one that's active anymore, at that). You can rest assured I'll be looking forward to seeing more of your ideas and insight on here.

 

[IYM!]

Did anyone notice how her charge shot charges much quicker than before?

or maybe the speed of the game is faster than brawl, i hope so

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Anyone who still questions the morph ball just take a look at this. It also covers alot of other stuff too!

WARNING: May cause some brains to self-destruct!!

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

^While he's almost exclusively bashing the necessity of the morph ball powerup, and marveling over contortionists, he neglects to mention the fact that:
1. You can see through the morph ball in the first prime game, meaning Samus probably isn't just rolling into the fetal position, unless she becomes transparent for no apparent reason while in ball mode.(Refer to an earlier post on this page for a picture example).
2. The morph ball is capable of jumping, dropping heavy and light explosives, using magnetic rails to traverse walls and pathways, speed boosting, quickly evading enemies, being launched by kinetic cannons and devices, activating doors and electronics, dropping from great heights, moving rapidly in almost any direction, etc . Call me crazy, but I'd say that outweighs crawling.

For clarification Gilius, this comment isn't meant to bash you. Just not a fan of that video . Disregarding everything he missed, he did have some interesting ideas as far as measuring out the pixels and comparing things to Samus's canonical height. Anyway, thanks for the post!

 

[TheAccursedHunter01]

I disagree with Pat on this Game Theory. The Morph Ball is not necessary for Samus to crawl through small spaces, I realize that, but imagine trying to crawl through a small space in the Power Suit. The Morph Ball allows Samus to maneuver much faster than she would otherwise and she would be able to adequately defend herself. Not to mention she has access to the bombs, and most importantly, the Power Bombs. I'd say a good Game Theory for the next Metroid based video would be about if Samus can actually fit inside the suit to see if the proportions are right(especially in the Prime games, which is an issue discussed in this thread or something in the SSB4 Samus discussion) and how fast the Speed Booster actually is, since it says ingame that she travels at Supersonic speeds. If she's really running around at the speed of sound when using the Speedbooster, how does she not pulverize all of her organs upon suddenly stopping?

 

[Z1GMA]

No Morph Ball - no Metroid.

Do want Speed Booster for her in Smash, though.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

I'd say a good Game Theory for the next Metroid based video would be about... how fast the Speed Booster actually is, since it says ingame that she travels at Supersonic speeds.

Do want Speed Booster for her in Smash, though.

Since the Speed Booster allows her to travel at Supersonic speeds, I think we already have a good idea about what that might be.

Part of the problem is initializing the boost run. Not sure what to do there other than add an auxiliary move (button) or tech. She needs to be able to transition into it and some of the momentum should carry into her jumps and run-offs as well. Crouching while running in the boost state should give access to some other abilities such as a lunge and leap, toned down of course.

 

[IsmaR]

Supersonic =/= Super Sawnik at all. I think of it more along the lines of a hybrid item effect of the Bunny Hood and Screw Attack (in that everyone you come in contact with gets hurt). Also the technique you're describing is called the Shinespark. I'd actually love seeing it as a recovery/special, or just some kind of special ability.

I'm still wanting the Space Jump effect to be added to the Screw Attack. At least let it give her multiple "jumps" that give no vertical gain, ala Prime/Other M.

 

[Crystanium]

Hey, everyone.

I think Samus should be allowed to charge her beam while walking/running, or even fire multiple beams while doing so. I also think she should be able to angle her shots.

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

I was totally thinking of a Screw Attack Final Smash earlier. I made a mental comparison closer to Pikachu's Final Smash with slightly differentiated movement (almost bounce-like in between "jumps") . It isn't really something I'd want implemented, but it's fun to visualize.

The Prime style screw attack would be wonderful. Maybe at the very least a single jump dash attack? Replacing the current tackle-ish move. Probably not practical I suppose.. Still, those visualizations :D

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

Hey, everyone.

I think Samus should be allowed to charge her beam while walking/running, or even fire multiple beams while doing so. I also think she should be able to angle her shots.

That would definitely make her more true to the classic Metroid titles, and I'd love it, but that depth of combat might be a bit too much to balance. Correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: er, I didn't even think about this. Sorry for the double post

 

[IsmaR]

*glomps Dryn*

 

[shinhed-echi]

That would definitely make her more true to the classic Metroid titles, and I'd love it, but that depth of combat might be a bit too much to balance. Correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: er, I didn't even think about this. Sorry for the double post

I would be more than fine if she could at least charge her shot while on air like Mewtwo and Lucario can. But I won't deny that being able to shoot angled shots, or charge while running would be AMAZING. Especially now that Mega Man has such a loyal moveset to the original source material.
(I don't think while running will work... however angled shots I can get behind)

Wonder why it would be so hard that while you charge, you can aim with the joystick.

 

[Another K-2L Survivor]

I would be more than fine if she could at least charge her shot while on air like Mewtwo and Lucario can. But I won't deny that being able to shoot angled shots, or charge while running would be AMAZING. Especially now that Mega Man has such a loyal moveset to the original source material.

Oh, I'm not Denying the amazingness. I'd pay for that moveset! I just didn't see it happening..

 

[Crystanium]

*glomps Dryn*

Hehe. Yes, I have returned. Samus will always be my main. I'm glad to see you're still around, too. I should be hanging around SWF for a while.

 

[Crystanium]

That would definitely make her more true to the classic Metroid titles, and I'd love it, but that depth of combat might be a bit too much to balance. Correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: er, I didn't even think about this. Sorry for the double post

I think Mega Man will be able to angle his beams. R.O.B. was able to in SSBB. So if MM can do that, Samus should be able to, too. After all, it was Samus, not MM, who was able to angle her shots. So if MM can do it, but Samus can't, then they have it all backwards.

 

[TheAccursedHunter01]

Supersonic =/= Super Sawnik at all. I think of it more along the lines of a hybrid item effect of the Bunny Hood and Screw Attack (in that everyone you come in contact with gets hurt). Also the technique you're describing is called the Shinespark. I'd actually love seeing it as a recovery/special, or just some kind of special ability.

I'm still wanting the Space Jump effect to be added to the Screw Attack. At least let it give her multiple "jumps" that give no vertical gain, ala Prime/Other M.

I've beaten every Metroid game except for Prime Pinball, so I know what the Speedbooster and Shinespark are. Just setting the record straight first. I was simply saying that if Samus travels as fast as the games say she does while using the Speedbooster, how does she not receive internal damage for stopping on a dime? Trying to debunk this on Game Theory might be entertaining. Second, how you talk about the Speedbooster/Shinespark could be a good way to implement it into Smash 4. However, considering you have to run for a couple of seconds to activate the Speedbooster I doubt it will ever be a dedicated move outside of it kind of being referenced in Samus' dash attack. I think it would be pretty cool if you could use it in Adventure mode in Smash 4 in some form. That could be a new gimmick/mechanic, every character has some special ability in Smash 4's Adventure Mode and you have to utilize them in order to explore everything, get hidden trophies, etc.