Zero Suit Samus

Zero Suit Samus is a character from the Metroid series. When Samus uses her Final Smash, Zero Laser, her Power Suit breaks apart, turning her into Zero Suit Samus.

Character description
Samus gender was debated during the development of Metroid, the series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto recalls: "We were partway through the development process when one of the staff members said 'Hey, wouldn't that be kind of cool if it turned out that this person inside the suit was a woman?'". The developers voted on the concept, and it passed. The game's instruction manual refers to Samus as if she were male to keep her true gender a secret until the end of the game. Thus, Samus was one of the first major female protagonists in a video game.

Samus spent her childhood with her family on the mining planet K-2L. The planet was raided by Space Pirates, who were looking for bounty. The leader of the Space Pirates, Ridley, killed most of the people in Samus's colony, including her parents, and then destroyed the planet. Orphaned, Samus was found by a bird-like alien race known as the Chozo, who brought her to their home planet Zebes. Samus was infused with Chozo DNA to give her a strong resistance to foreign environments, then trained as a warrior and given one of the alien race's artifacts, a powered exoskeleton called the Power Suit that biologically entwines itself with Samus's mind and body.

Samus is motivated at least in part by wrath as well as an accompanying sense of duty, since her "bounty hunting" helps the galaxy get rid of unsavory elements such as the mysterious lifeforms known as Metroids, who can drain life energy and are frequently used as biological weapons. She also takes the opportunity to exact revenge on the pirates who murdered her family. Since , Samus has been accompanied by her gunship, which is used in the games to save progress and restore health and ammunition.

Samus's suit can be enhanced by power-ups, the first introduced being the Varia Suit. When the Varia Suit is destroyed, however, Samus dons the less protective Zero Suit. Both of those are worn by Samus in the Super Smash Flash and in the Super Smash Bros. series.

In the first Metroid, her gender was kept a secret until the end of the game—the instruction booklet for the game referred to her character as male. If the player completes the game quickly enough, she is first revealed as female at the end of Metroid. Typically emotionless, Samus reveals some of her true self in Metroid Fusion. Without her suit, she let slip some emotions while dealing with her artificially intelligent computer. In Metroid II: Return of Samus, Samus bonds with a Metroid, which later sacrifices itself to save her from Mother Brain in Super Metroid. Seeking revenge, Samus destroys Mother Brain in a scene that is "more than a little emotionally charged".

In the Chozo's scrolls, Samus is recorded as The Newborn, an "orphaned warrior filled with vengeance". Thanks in part to her Chozo heritage, the Chozo consider her the hope of their race. The Galactic Federation sees her as the protector of the galaxy, and the Space Pirates refer to her as the Hunter.

In Super Smash Flash 2
Zero Suit Samus' inclusion is hinted at because of her inclusion in  and the reveal that she would appear in the classic Power Suit. Her moveset is taken directly from Brawl. Her sprites are based on her appearance in  which was also the basis for her appearance in Brawl.

Trivia

 * In Super Smash Flash 2, Zero Suit Samus and Samus are separate characters like in . However, they were revealed to be separate characters in SSF2 before it was known in 3DS and Wii U.