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109-544: Samus Aran ( Japanese : サムス・アラン , Hepburn : Samusu Aran ) is the protagonist of the video game series Metroid by Nintendo . She was created by the Japanese video game designer Makoto Kano and was introduced as the player character in the original 1986 game Metroid . Raised by the birdlike Chozo and infused with their DNA , Samus Aran is an ex-soldier of the Galactic Federation who became

218-493: A "distinct female character [who does not rely] on cheap thrills to capture the attention of gamers". Nevertheless, much of Samus' media reception came from her sex appeal , and she has been included in many video-game lists that rank women by their physical attractiveness. Paul O'Connor, the lead game designer for Sammy Studios and a fan of the Metroid series, remarked that players empathize and identify with Samus because she

327-450: A 'life'). Examples: In some games, using certain items or abilities requires the expenditure of a resource such as ammunition, fuel or magic points. Some games use a single resource, such as magic points, while others use multiple resources, such as several types of ammunition. Some games also have power ups which increase the player's maximum ammunition or power capacity. Examples: Other power-ups consist of items whose main feature

436-580: A ball to travel through tight areas was initially called the Maru Mari, meaning "round ball" in Japanese, and was rechristened as the Morph Ball in Super Metroid . The Morph Ball was conceived by the developers because it requires less effort to animate than "a cyborg crawling on all fours", and the producer for Metroid , Gunpei Yokoi , took advantage of this shortcut. Samus Aran was raised on

545-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

654-438: A breakthrough for female characters in video games, and is one of the most beloved video game characters of all time by critics and fans alike. Samus is one of the first major female protagonists in a video game. The reveal in the original game has been regarded as a significant moment in gaming by sources such as UGO Networks , Game Informer , and GameDaily . In contrast, Rupert Goodwins of The Independent felt that

763-538: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

872-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

981-548: A galactic bounty hunter. She uses a powered exoskeleton that is equipped with an arm cannon that fires directed-energy weapons and missiles. She executes missions given to her by the Galactic Federation and the Chozo, and is tasked with hunting various antagonistic forces, including the Space Pirates and their leader Ridley , the cybernetic supercomputer Mother Brain , the energy-draining X Parasites and Metroids , and

1090-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

1199-478: A joke on video game controversies regarding the influence of video games on children. In 1984, Sabre Wulf introduced power-ups in the form of flowers which, when blossoming, provided effects such as speed up and invincibility. In 1985, Super Mario Bros. introduced the Super Mushroom , which has entered popular culture, being described as "the quintessential power-up". The original game idea

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1308-401: A limited number of missiles. The Power Suit can be reconfigured into a small, spherical form called the Morph Ball, which allows her to roll through tight areas, such as tunnels, and use Bombs. Additionally, its visor can be used to scan objects to learn more about them, a feature that has been used since Metroid Prime . Aside from her Power Suit, Samus is also in possession of a Gunship, which

1417-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

1526-507: A monster looks like a chest, but will attack the player when they attempt to open it. This is notably seen in the Seiken Densetsu and Dragon Quest series. Treasure chests provide a means for the player to obtain items without paying for them in stores. In some cases, these chests contain items that cannot be purchased at stores. Chests may be locked, requiring a key of some sort. For certain games, keys can only be used once, and

1635-569: A now unknown member of the development team conceived of the idea of making Samus a woman midway through the first Metroid ' s development, which the development team voted in favor of. The game's instruction manual refers to Samus as if she were male to obscure her real sex until the surprise reveal at the end of the game. Her appearance outside of her suit was based on actress Sigourney Weaver in her role as Ellen Ripley from Aliens , and actress Kim Basinger 's roles from 9½ Weeks and My Stepmother Is an Alien . Sakamoto noted that during

1744-557: A pinball version of the first Metroid Prime game. She also appears in Metroid Prime Hunters , where she is tasked with either retrieving or destroying an "ultimate power" while dealing with other bounty hunters. Metroid Prime Federation Force has her as a non-playable character, where she needs to be rescued from the Space Pirates by Galactic Federation soldiers. Outside of Metroid series. Samus appears as

1853-679: A playable character throughout the Super Smash Bros. series, where she can use her array of weapons in combat against characters from other Nintendo franchises. She first appears in Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 in her Power Suit. Starting with Super Smash Bros. Brawl , the third entry in the series, Samus gets a second character in the form of Zero Suit Samus, who has a completely different moveset. Both forms appear in every Smash game afterward. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate added Dark Samus, whose moveset and model are mostly

1962-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

2071-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

2180-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

2289-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

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2398-521: Is also temporarily granted after the player gets hit or loses a life, so that the character will not be hurt/killed twice in quick succession. The effect is commonly indicated by making the player character flash or blink or by musical cues. Examples: Some power-ups consist of items which help the player avoid or escape enemies or enemy weapons. This category includes "speed boosts" and other power-ups which affect time, which can be temporary, permanent, or cumulative, and "invisibility" power-ups which help

2507-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

2616-643: Is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has

2725-430: Is an example of wasei-eigo (Japanese pseudo-Anglicisms); the sense was coined in Japanese as a compound of "power" ( パワー , pawā , noun) and "up" ( アップする , appusuru , verb) , literally "to up someone's or something's power or abilities". The general meaning of X-up in Japanese is "this will increase your X", and this construction is regularly used in areas such as advertising. Pac-Man from 1980

2834-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

2943-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

3052-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

3161-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

3270-456: Is credited as the first video game to feature a power-up mechanic. Every maze in the game contains four Power Pellets which temporarily give Pac-Man the ability to eat ghosts, turning the tables on his pursuers. The effect of the power-up was illustrated by one of the first cut scenes to appear in a video game, in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other around. The power pellet entered popular culture with

3379-611: Is eventually able to access the source of the planet's Phazon contamination, a meteor impact crater, where she defeats the Phazon-infused creature Metroid Prime. In one ending, the Metroid Prime is shown reforming as a copy of Samus, dubbed in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes as Dark Samus. In Echoes , Samus is sent to the planet Aether, a Phazon meteor-ravaged planet split into light and dark dimensions. There she battles

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3488-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

3597-556: Is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and

3706-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

3815-403: Is nearly always granted as a temporary bonus; otherwise it would negate the challenge of the game. Invincibility (or "invulnerability") comes in two main forms: either the player character merely becomes intangible to harmful things, or can also damage enemies by contact. In either case the character is often still vulnerable to some threats, such as bottomless pits. In many games, invulnerability

3924-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

4033-487: Is often rewarded for indulging in her curiosity. The book Videogames and Art noted that in the original Metroid the player is not briefed on Samus's past or future; the only interaction that they have with the character is by being her through gameplay, while bits of information can be gleaned from the handbook and through concept art, adding, "Samus is very rare for the character intimacy gained solely through game play and for her stasis and then drastic change", referring to

4142-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

4251-619: Is that they are found in large numbers, to encourage the player to reach certain spots in the game world. They have various cumulative effects, often granting the hero an extra life. Examples: Trick power-ups try to trick the player into grabbing them, only to result usually into damage, removed abilities, or player death. Examples: There are many different methods of obtaining power-ups: In many video games, especially role-playing video games , treasure chests contain various items, currency , and sometimes monsters. For certain role playing games, some chests are actually mimics , in which

4360-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

4469-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

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4578-504: Is used in the games to save progress and restore her health and ammunition. Early on, instances of Samus appearing without the Power Suit occur mainly in cutscenes, such as post-game screenshots of her in more revealing clothing, which are unlocked depending on difficulty level, game completion, or play time. Players could control Samus without her suit in the original Metroid using a passcode. Metroid: Zero Mission introduced

4687-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

4796-517: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

4905-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

5014-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

5123-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

5232-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

5341-552: The 2015 short fan film Metroid: The Sky Calls , Samus is portrayed by actresses Jessica Chobot and America Young . Figures based on the character have been produced by various manufacturers. Samus is one of the twelve original amiibo released in November 2014. Nintendo Life suggested that Samus is a mascot character for the Metroidvania genre. As a woman in a male-dominated role, Samus has been widely considered

5450-477: The Galactic Federation receives a video from an unknown source showing an X Parasite alive in the wild on planet ZDR. To investigate, they send 7 EMMI (Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier) units, but after losing contact with the units, they hire Samus once again as she is the only being in the universe immune to the X. Upon arriving on ZDR, Samus is attacked, left unconscious and stripped of her equipment by an unknown Chozo warrior. From there she travels through

5559-536: The Ing, creatures that are able to possess other organisms, and Dark Samus. In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007), Dark Samus infects Samus with Phazon, which slowly corrupts her and further forces her to prevent it from spreading to other planets. By the end of the game, she renders all Phazon inert by destroying its original source, the planet Phaaze, and permanently destroys Dark Samus. Samus also appears in other Metroid Prime games, including Metroid Prime Pinball ,

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5668-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

5777-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

5886-482: The Power Suit, Samus leaves and enlists in the Galactic Federation. She leaves after a dispute with her commanding officer, Adam Malkovich , but continues to assist them as a freelance bounty hunter afterward. Samus first appeared in Metroid in 1986. The Galactic Federation sends Samus to track down the Space Pirates on their home planet of Zebes. Deep within their base, she battles Mother Brain , and escapes just as

5995-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

6104-544: The Zero Suit, a form-fitting jumpsuit that she wears beneath the Power Suit. In Metroid: Other M , the Zero Suit is capable of materializing the Power Suit from within itself. She is 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) and 90 kilograms (200 lb) while wearing the Power Suit. The Super Metroid Nintendo's Player's Guide describes Samus as 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) tall and weighs 198 pounds (90 kg) without her Power Suit. Her signature ability to collapse into

6213-413: The ability to shoot fireballs at enemies, respectively. Konami 's 1985 game Gradius had the first use of a selection bar where the player could select which power-up effect to trigger, instead of having a fixed instant effect. In 1986 and the years after, the concept of permanent power-ups appeared in the action role-playing genre in the form of perks . Power-ups can be classified according to

6322-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

6431-601: The ambiguity of who might be in the suit made it "hardly a breakthrough for feminism". Various critics have discussed Samus' relation to sexuality; she was regarded as being one of the least sexualized female video game characters in the 2007 book Gaming Lives in the Twenty-First Century: Literate Connections , a belief shared by Steve Rabin in "Introduction to Game Development". Justin Hoeger of The Sacramento Bee appreciated that she

6540-461: The animated series of the same name. In the comic series, set before the events of Metroid , Samus is portrayed as brash, money-hungry, and fiercely independent, and title character Kevin Keene is depicted as her love interest. Samus also appears in various print adaptation of Metroid games. Samus appears as the main character of the 2003–2004 manga series Metroid , telling her backstory up to

6649-498: The baby Metroid fully grown, who sacrifices its life fighting a reborn Mother Brain. She gains Metroid powers and escapes the planet before it explodes. She later appears in Metroid Fusion , where she becomes infected by the X Parasite but is saved by DNA made from the hatchling. She explores a Space Station infected by the parasite and seeks to prevent it from spreading. She discovers Metroids are being grown here, and destroys

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6758-474: The bar, so that more effort is required to obtain them. The selection bar was first used in Konami 's 1985 game, Gradius . "Perks" are a variation of the power-up mechanic, but permanent rather than temporary. The concept of permanent power-ups dates back to the early NES action RPGs , Deadly Towers (1986) and Rygar (1987), which blurred the line between the power-ups used in action-adventures and

6867-562: The base self-destructs. She appears again in Metroid II: Return of Samus , where she is tasked with exterminating the Metroid species on SR388. After defeating the Metroid Queen, she finds a lone baby Metroid that imprints on her, and she spares its life. This story is retold in the remake, Metroid: Samus Returns . Her nemesis Ridley steals the hatchling in Super Metroid , who Samus pursues through Zebes. She finds

6976-513: The character to "an actual human being who's using the vastness of space to try and put some distance between herself and the past". 1UP.com ' s Justin Hayward found the portrayal "lifeless and boring" and "nonsensical". GamesRadar wrote that Other M painted Samus, widely considered a strong female lead character, as "an unsure, insecure woman who desperately wants the approval of her former [male] commanding officer". The A.V. Club echoed

7085-587: The characters that made Nintendo "what it is today". IGN ranked her as the third-best character for Super Smash Bros. Where Jeremy Parish of Polygon felt her Zero Suit "works as demonstration of the questionable design decisions" for female characters in the Smash series, he regards Samus as "by far the toughest lady in Nintendo’s stable of characters". Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek felt that Samus stood out among

7194-575: The course of the Metroid series, developers constantly try to express her femininity without sexually objectifying her. Sakamoto and Kiyotake said that the character's last name "Aran" was taken from Edson Aran tes do Nascimento, the birth name of the famous football player Pelé . She did not speak in the original NES games, and in Super Metroid , she only spoke in the prologue. Samus broke her silence further in Fusion and Other M , although

7303-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

7412-577: The events of Metroid . Adapting Samus' soldier background as previously provided in Captain N: The Game Master , the series was written by Kouji Tazawa and illustrated by Kenji Ishikawa. Samus is featured as a mentor character in the manga series Samus and Joey and its sequel series Metroid EX . Famous across the universe as the "Guardian of the Galaxy", Samus trains a young boy, frontier planeteer Joey Apronika, as her successor. In

7521-423: The first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese

7630-583: The game world, spawned randomly, dropped by beaten enemies or picked up from opened or smashed containers. They can be differentiated from items in other games, such as role-playing video games , by the fact that they take effect immediately, feature designs that do not necessarily fit into the game world (often used letters or symbols emblazoned on a design), and are found in specific genres of games. Power-ups are mostly found in action-oriented games such as maze games , run and guns , shoot 'em ups , first-person shooters , and platform games . The term "power-up"

7739-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

7848-428: The key is destroyed during its use. For other games, having a particular type of key means that the player can open any of the chests with a matching lock. For most games, once a chest has been opened, the contents remain empty, although they may be repopulated with possibly different items during different stages of the game. This is different from perishable containers, such as crates and jars, which tend to reappear if

7957-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

8066-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

8175-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

8284-483: The latter received criticism due to what many reviewers described as poor character development and inferior voice acting. The developers decided to revert to Samus' original concept in later games. In October 2021, producer Yoshio Sakamoto explained the reason why Samus barely speaks in Metroid Dread is "to convey the current situation of Samus or what Samus is thinking right now, this would be better conveyed to

8393-537: The mining colony K-2L, and when she was a child, the planet was raided by Space Pirates led by Ridley in an attack that killed her parents and destroyed the colony. The orphaned Samus was then found by a bird-like alien race known as the Chozo , who brought her to their home planet, Zebes. To keep her alive, they infused their DNA into granting her superhuman athleticism and a strong resistance to foreign environments. After training her and granting her one of their artifacts,

8502-477: The misgivings about her immaturity, petulant behavior, and misguided loyalty. In Metroid Dread , several people noted that Samus never talks as a protagonist. Alex Donaldson of VG247 has claimed that the game proves that Samus is cooler than Master Chief , but Ian Walker of Kotaku criticized and said that "Samus doesn't need to be an emotionless robot to be badass". In his review of Super Smash Bros. , GameSpot ' s Jeff Gerstmann called Samus one of

8611-609: The only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little

8720-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

8829-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

8938-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

9047-418: The planet to reach her ship on the surface, having to contend with the near invincible EMMI and other threats on the way. Samus also appears in the Metroid Prime series , starting with Metroid Prime . She explores the planet Tallon IV, which contains a Chozo colony in ruins and a Space Pirate base. There she learns of Phazon, a mysterious mutagen that can alter the genetic material of any organism. Samus

9156-533: The player avoid enemies. Examples: Some power-ups help the player enter new or previously inaccessible areas, or " warp " to another level. Access abilities, depending on the game, can be required to progress normally or be entirely optional. Examples: Health-restorative power-ups typically consist of items which restore lost health (most typically in medical kits, food, or as energy), or items which increase health capacity and 1-ups (which give an extra chance to continue playing after losing, commonly called

9265-482: The player exits the area and then returns. Instead of having players collect a power-up that is instantly activated, the players may be allowed to select which power-ups they want to use. This is commonly implemented through a 'selection bar' which contains a number of power-up effects. To access the bar, the player must collect power-up items; the more they collect, the further along the bar they can access. The more powerful power-ups are traditionally placed further along

9374-403: The player not through actual words or actual voice, but more with acting or visuals. I want the player to think, 'What is going on? What is Samus feeling right now?' That is why I decided to go this way for this game". Despite Samus being identified as a bounty hunter, Nintendo later admitted that the occupation was initially chosen because they did not know what a bounty hunter was and simply liked

9483-420: The power-up can be time-limited, have a limited number of uses, last until the player is hit, last until the player is killed, or last until game over . Examples: Defensive power-ups typically consist of items like shields (usually a " force field ") surrounding the character that deflects projectiles or absorbs a certain amount of damage, or invincibility/invulnerability. In the case of invincibility, this

9592-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

9701-459: The rest of the cast due to concept, design, and backstory. He also appreciated Zero Suit Samus appearing in the game as a nod to the first Metroid game. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan ,

9810-645: The revelation that she is a woman. Her controversial portrayal in Metroid: Other M received mixed reactions. Unlike other Metroid games, where Samus took full advantage of weapons and abilities available, she deactivated most of them until Commander Adam Malkovich authorized their use. G4 TV considered Samus needing permission to use her equipment and Samus' anxiety attack upon seeing Ridley as "sexist". According to GamePro , though Other M ' s story and Samus's monologues did not compel them, "it helped contextualize her entire existence" which developed

9919-784: The rogue Chozo warrior Raven Beak . Samus appears as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series. She also features in other media, including films, manga series, and a comic book continuation of the TV series Captain N: The Game Master . As one of the earliest female video game protagonists, Samus is noted for her role in establishing positive gender representation in video games , though her portrayal in Metroid: Other M received criticism. Conceived by scenario designer Makoto Kano and designed by Hiroji Kiyotake , series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto has stated that

10028-508: The same aside from animations and design. Samus makes cameo appearances in the games Galactic Pinball (1995), Super Mario RPG (1996), Kirby Super Star (1996), and Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997), and a non-playable appearance in Dead or Alive: Dimensions by Metroid: Other M co-developers Team Ninja . Samus is featured in a series of comic books called Captain N: The Game Master , published by Valiant Comics in 1990, based on

10137-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

10246-517: The space station to destroy both the X and the Metroid. Metroid: Other M expands Samus's backstory and emotional scope, such as her brief motherly connection to the Metroid hatchling; the deep respect for her former commanding officer and father figure Adam Malkovich; her reignited feud with Mother Brain in the form of the android MB; and overcoming a posttraumatic episode upon once again encountering her arch-nemesis Ridley. In Metroid Dread ,

10355-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

10464-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

10573-427: The title, seeing her as an "altruistic" and "motherly" adventurer. Samus Aran is typically seen wearing the Power Suit, a powered exoskeleton which protects her from most dangers she encounters and can be enhanced by power-ups collected during gameplay, and is generally a silent protagonist . With the Power Suit's Arm Cannon, Samus can fire various energy beams, charge beams to shoot an extra-powerful blast, or launch

10682-584: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Power-up Items that confer power-ups are usually pre-placed in

10791-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

10900-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

11009-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

11118-433: The type of benefit they give the player. Power-ups can give players a new weapon, or transform the player character into a more aggressive form that increases its attack power or makes some enemies vulnerable. This also includes "nukes", which are weapons that destroy every enemy on the screen at once; these are prevalent in many different genres including vehicular combat , run and guns , and platform games . The effect of

11227-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

11336-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

11445-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

11554-735: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

11663-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

11772-540: Was not a character who existed for sex appeal , as well as her "tough" personality. A writer for the Toronto Star however, felt distaste for the "sexual politics" surrounding Samus, feeling that she was neither a character created for sex appeal, but was also not a "leader in the struggle for video game civil rights". Featuring her in their 2004 list of "top ten forces of good" (one section on their list of top 50 "retro" game characters), Retro Gamer regarded her as

11881-581: Was to have an always big Mario as a technical advance, but later the power-up was introduced to make him "super" as a bonus effect. The development team thought it would be interesting to have Mario grow and shrink by eating a magic mushroom, just like in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . Other power-ups introduced in this game were the Super Stars and Fire Flowers , which gave Mario invincibility and

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