Zebes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zebes is the fictional planet that hosts the headquarters of the Space Pirates in the Metroid video game franchise. It is the second planet from the sun, FS-176, according to the Metroid comic. Its name is sometimes spelled Zebeth due to ambiguous transliteration. Zebes is the locational setting of the original Metroid, its enhanced remake, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Super Metroid. The Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion manuals refer to the Space Pirates as "Zebesians", but later games have revealed them to be nomads, not native to the planet. The pronunciation is disputed: IPA: ['ziːbəs] according to the original US Metroid commercial, but IPA: ['zebəs] according to an unused voiceover from Metroid Prime[1]. According to Metroid Prime, Zebes has a mass of 4.8 trillion teratons and is in the same system as Oormine II, Twin Tabula, Bilium, and Tallon IV.
Samus Aran, the heroine of the Metroid franchise, was raised on Zebes by Chozo after her home on an Earth colony, K-2L, was destroyed by Space Pirates.
Zebes is destroyed by the time bomb at the end of Super Metroid after Samus defeats the Mother Brain, barely escaping the planet with only seconds to spare.
There are mapping discrepancies between Metroid: Zero Mission and Super Metroid because of the Space Pirate Mothership explosion at the end of Zero Mission.
Contents |
[edit] Areas
[edit] Brinstar
In the context of the Metroid games themselves, Brinstar is often the introduction into the game in that it tends to be the first area the player explores which gives them a full feeling of the game. For example:
- In the original Metroid for the NES, and Metroid: Zero Mission for the GBA, the player starts immediately in Brinstar.
- In Super Metroid, the player enters Brinstar after a very short stay in Crateria which involves minimal combat or advancement.
Brinstar is a subterranean area consisting of rock and jungle, featured in Metroid, Super Metroid, and Metroid: Zero Mission. This is one of the largest areas in the game, as well as the home of the enormous reptilian boss, Kraid, in Super Metroid. In Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, Kraid's hideout is a separate area, also known as Kraid's Lair or Kraid. Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission both start in Brinstar, despite the fact that her ship is revealed to have landed in Crateria. When Samus tell of her experiences on Zebes in her childhood, her footsteps and somer-saults can be heard, implying that while the player reads this, she travels to the point where the game starts.
Brinstar has been portrayed in several different ways between the Metroid games, but most thoroughly in Super Metroid, in which it was composed of three parts. The first one the player encounters early in the game is a blue, rocky cave section which contains some of the portions of Brinstar in which Samus began her journey in the original Metroid. This section is often confused with being part of Crateria because of its similar setting, color scheme and the fact they share the same background music. The second area of Brinstar encountered is mostly green and resembles a jungle. The third and final area features red, rock surroundings and looks like a cave.
It should be noted that there is no definite demarcation between the latter two areas. The best indicator is probably the change in background music that occurs when the player enters the cave area, or the change in soil color to a deep red as opposed to the pale pink rock which is still considered jungle Brinstar. The change in soil color may be a result of the nearby volcanic region known as Norfair (see below).
Though it is not seen in-game, according to the Metroid Prime Hunters official guide it is in Brinstar that Samus Aran defeats the Space Pirate general Weavel, which leads to his installment in a cybernetic body.
Brinstar has made appearances in other video games as well. Samus' stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee is called Brinstar, and you can also unlock a Brinstar Depths stage (Kraid's hideout).
[edit] Inhabitants
The following creatures are native to Brinstar in Super Metroid.
- Geemers: Small semi-circular creatures with spikes along their backs. Their intelligence is limited to walking in set patterns along the terrain, meaning that Samus Aran must accidentally run or jump into them in order to be harmed.
- Zeela: Yellow creatures very similar to crabs. They behave exactly like Geemers.
- Rippers: Small brown turtle-like creatures which float back and forth at a set speed. Their shell is extremely hard; nothing short of a Super Missile can destroy them.
- Rocket-Rippers: Variant of the Ripper, coloured red rather than brown, which travels much faster and produces an exhaust flame.
- Cacatac: Appears to be a plant but is actually animated. Swells to a larger size before expelling spike-shaped projectiles in all directions.
- Spore Spawn: This is the boss of this area, fought pretty early for the super missiles. He combines falling spores (hence the name) and a waving motion of his elongated plant-like neck to attack.
- Sidehoppers: These come in a couple sizes ranging from small, medium, large, and even large spiked ones only found in lower Norfair
- Zeb: Mysteriously, Brinstar (and many other areas in Zebes) are covered in green pipes which look similar to the pipes in Super Mario Bros., another Nintendo game. The Zeb flies out of these pipes at the enemy. However, it is very lightly armoured and does not do much damage. They continue to attack in infinite number, so standing in front of a pipe and repeatedly killing them for their health or missile powerups is an easy way to recharge in the absence of an energy station or missile station. There is a unique pipe enemy for each region of Zebes. Also, in the Original Metroid if you killed a Zeb that left an item, no more would attack until the item was collected.
[edit] Music
Especially in the video game music subculture, Brinstar is famous for a few of its soundtracks. The theme from the original NES incarnation of Brinstar is perhaps the best known Metroid song of all and has been remade several times for other Metroid games such as Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid Prime, and also the Super Smash Bros. series. The Super Metroid Brinstar themes are not as popular, but are considered masterpieces by many game music enthusiasts. The track used in the green jungle area was remade as the default BGM for the multiplayer mode in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, while the track used in the red soil area was remade and used for the Hydrodynamo area in the same game. The Red Brinstar theme is also featured in a portion of Maridia.
[edit] Crateria
Crateria is the surface area of Zebes. In Super Metroid, it is expanded towards the Metroid escape shaft and Mother Brain's room, and a new area is created. It is featured in Super Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, and Samus' ship is landed there in both games. Because of a steady stream of acid rain, few creatures live there, and plant life is apparently limited to moss and small grass. This constant torrent of acid rain may have created the cave complex found beneath the surface of Zebes. Some creatures in Crateria include the KiHunters, flying allies of the Space Pirates that glide with their wings through the air.
[edit] Chozo Ruins
This is the intermediate area between Crateria and Chozodia in Metroid Zero Mission. The first Unknown Item (Plasma Beam) and the Power Grip can be found here.
[edit] Maridia
Maridia is the water-flooded area of Zebes in Super Metroid. This area is in between Brinstar, Crateria, the Wrecked Ship and Norfair. The player can get to this place from Crateria or Brinstar by elevator and glass bridge (break with a Power Bomb) respectively. Maridia is almost entirely underwater and is home to many different creatures, such as new Pirates that can only be taken out with the new Plasma Beam, the mini-boss Botwoon, a snake-like creature that constantly flows into and out of its hole in the wall to attack you, and the boss of the area, Draygon, which is a huge crustacian resembling a lobster (and also has a skull formation on its forehead and on other various places on its body). Some fans think that parts of Maridia may consist of debris from the Mother Ship that Samus destroyed in Zero Mission. It is the largest area in Super Metroid.
[edit] Inhabitants
Maridia is also home to many sand pits which, due to being submerged, are now sinking sand pits. Samus also may find Mochtroids, the pirates' attempts at cloning Metroids, which only have one nucleus, as opposed to the Metroids' three. There is also a machine-like creature called the Shaktool, with grinding gears for feet to cut through hard rock/sand, and creatures resembling shellfish.
[edit] Norfair
The Norfair is a magma filled labyrinth, the lowest point in Zebes the player can explore. In Super Metroid, Norfair is divided into two sections, the upper portions being the Hot Lava Area, the lower portions being the Ancient Ruins Area, which is apparently an ancient Chozo civilization amidst the heat and fire. It is the home of Ridley, the most famous of the Metroid villains. In Metroid: Zero Mission, Ridley's domain is known as simply Ridley, while in the original Metroid, it was known as Hideout II.
The music from Lower Norfair (from Super Metroid) was reused for Metroid Prime's Magmoor Caverns.
Being so close to the core of Zebes, Norfair, especially the innermost part, is the hottest natural region of Zebes. The extremely potent heat generated by the magma is capable of melting even the most resilient of metals, which necessitates the obtainment of the Varia Suit. This upgrade protects Samus from intense heat, although not as well as the Gravity Suit, which in addition to providing protection from the heat, also enables Samus to swim through lava without losing energy (in Super Metroid, this is true only in the upper levels of Norfair).
Continuity discrepancies can be found when comparing the versions of Norfair as shown in Super Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, as the Super Metroid version is fairly consistent in its depiction of Norfair as a hot, somewhat hellish environment, where Zero Mission also shows Norfair as being hot and inhospitable, but not throughout, as some parts (such as where the ensnared Imago mini boss is fought) are more jungle-like, almost reminiscent of Brinstar from Super Metroid.
Inhabitants of Norfair include: Viola, Multiviola, Dessgeega, Holtz, Gamet, Polyp, Geruta, Nova, Dragon, Zebbo, Mella, and Squeept.
[edit] Wrecked Ship
This area consists of a spaceship which has crashed into a body of water. Some people have speculated that the Wrecked Ship is the Space Pirate ship that is destroyed at the end of Metroid: Zero Mission; however, director Yoshio Sakamoto has said that this ship is not the Space Pirate Mothership. The location in Zero Mission is also interesting in that some of the rooms before the section look vaguely like the rooms in Crateria in Super Metroid. The rooms before this section and the first part of the mother ship also have versions of the Wrecked Ship's music from Super Metroid (both areas have different versions).
[edit] Inhabitants
[edit] Environment
The ship is partially submerged. It is very heavily damaged, and when Samus first arrives, the electricity is not functioning. After defeating Phantoon, the power is restored, and doors requiring electricity can be opened. This area is very unusual in the fact that unlike most areas, which first require exploring and then finding the boss of the area, the Wrecked Ship area requires the boss to be defeated before the rest of the area can be explored.
[edit] Chozodia
This area used to be the Chozo's domicile where Samus was raised. Here the huge Chozo temple stands and large wall painting of Chozo exists within it. This painting, called Chozo Trial, gives Samus, who lost her suit, an ordeal to acquire the more familiar Power Suit. Samus beats this ordeal and takes back power against Space Pirates. This area is only seen in Metroid: Zero Mission.
[edit] Space Pirate Mothership
The spaceship which transported Ridley and some Space Pirates to Zebes in Metroid: Zero Mission. Samus explores this at the end of the game. The ship is linked to Chozodia, which the Space Pirates are investigating. In Zero Mission, Chozodia was overrun by Space Pirates after being linked to their mothership by a Power Bomb-breakable tube. Contrary to popular belief, it did not appear in Super Metroid as the Wrecked Ship.
[edit] Tourian
Tourian is the subterranean fortress of Zebes and where Mother Brain and the Metroids lurk; the only way to enter the Tourian is by defeating the bosses of Zebes: Kraid and Ridley, and, in Super Metroid, Phantoon and Draygon as well.
While the rest of Zebes is formed from natural caverns, Tourian is entirely artificial. No creatures patrol the corridors except the Metroids, and Rinka projectors which line the floors and ceilings. Red Zebetite barriers protect Mother Brain, who resides in her transparent case.
In Super Metroid Samus Aran is able to explore part of the old ruined Tourian from Metroid/Metroid Zero Mission as part of Crateria.
After defeating the Mother Brain, a self-destruct countdown commences, leaving Samus only a few minutes to reach the planet's surface, board her gunship, and blast off. In the original Metroid and Zero Mission, Tourian's destruction only damages a small part of Zebes, but Super Metroid's countdown leads to the destruction of the entire planet.
None of the Tourian areas feature complicated melodies for background music. Metroid, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Super Metroid all use use a similar simple melody. The first two have a constant bubbling sound effect in the background (in the original Metroid, this music is also used in Kraid's and Ridley's rooms); Super Metroid also uses a continuous mechanical hum and every few seconds a growling sound.
|
Metroid • Return of Samus • Super • Fusion • Zero Mission |
