Samus Aran is one of the most unique protagonists in Nintendo’s lineup in large pa💖rt due to the fact that she’s the same character each game in a continuous story. Mario is always Mario, but his games don’t exactly connect in a linear, narrative sense. The Legend of Zelda games have an established continuity, and but Link is constantly being swapped out for different incarnations of the character. Samus stands alone as the one protagonist who has starred in a continuous story with no reboots since their debut. As a result, she comes off as perhaps the most dynamic of🐈 Nintendo’s characters.

At the very least, she’s the charac🥃ter w🐼ith the most secrets under her belt. Even though the Metroid franchise tends to be rather li𓄧beral with releases, games rarely if ever coming out back to back, the mere fact that Samus has stayed one character all throughout has done wonders for her lore. Games can expand her strengths while also showcasing her greatest weaknesses. She’s a dynamic character with depth, one who’s almost always in control, but at tiꩲmes weaker than portrayed as super fans will understand. She’s stronger than she looks and far more vulnerable than she lets on. She’s the one and only Samus Aran.

25 WEAKNESS: Samus Often Forgets Her Upgrades

Samus, like Mega Man, often finds herself the victim of her own forgetfulness. While she tends to bring the most essential items from mission to mission, she’s prone to leaving vital equipment behind for whatever reason. This is most egregious in the first three games where she carries over virtually nothing, requiring he⛄r to find new upgrades.

At least she's never forgotten her keys at home. 

It’s not as if Samus’ equipment is being damaged. Unlike most games, players control Samus from start to finish, often resulting in her🌸 final escape actually playing out in-game. There’s simply no room for a cutscene to break her e🌃quipment since the gameplay shows this isn’t the case. The only logical explanation is that Samus just isn’t considerate of her previous upgrades.

24 SUPERPOWER: Chozo DNA Flows Through Her

You might have missed this tidbit as it’s quite understated ﷽in the series itself, but Samus isn’t entirely human. Having been raised on Cಞhozo to specifically become a Chozo Warrior, Samus was injected with Chozo DNA as a child. This augmented her abilities severely. While she’s still mostly human for the most part, she has biological advantages over other characters within the series as a means of explaining some of her more superhuman feats.

23 SUPERPOWER: Samus Can Jump Dozens Of Feet In The Air

Speaking of superhuman feats, Samus sure can jump pretty high can’t she? You might think that’s just because her adventures take her to planets with different gravitational pulls, but Chozo’s gravity is actually denser than Earth’s. Physically, Samus is just naturally capable of jumping incredibly high thanks to the environment she was raised on. If she ever visited Earth, sh🗹e’d likely be 🍎capable of pulling off some rather impressive acrobatics.

22 WEAKNESS: Samus’ Best Abilities Are Locked Away

Oh Other M, what did yo📖u do to Samus? Arguably worse than Samus forgetting her equipment from game to game, Other M canonized that idea that Samus actu൲ally has most of her upgrades and abilities locked away by her commanding officer, Adam. Not only does this utterly tarnish the image of Adam the series had been building up for decades, it puts Samus at a disgusting disadvantage.

Thank you for making Samus terrible, Other M!

The bureaucracy of having her best skills locked away intentionally cripples Samus as a character in a means to “balance” her. The problem is that a bounty hunter like Samus doesn’t need “balancing” from a narrative standpoint. This is theܫ series creator giving her a massive weakness for no reason other than to downplay how strong she actually is.

21 SUPERPOWER: The Zero Suit Isn't Just For Show

As aesthetically pleasing as Samus Zero Suit is, it’s not just there for visual flavor. Samus’ Zero Suit plays an incredibly specific purpose when it comes to Samus’ backup opಌtion. Should she ever lose her Power Suit for whatever reason, as seen in Zero Mission, she’d be able to rely on her Zero Suit.

Although lacking in defensive and offensive properties, Samus’ Zero Suit augments her natural acrobatic abilities. With the Zero Suit, Samus can move faster, crawl into tight spaces, and put her flexibility and natural talent to use. The💝re’s a good reason she survives the en🧸d of ZM ꧑without her Power Suit and it’s thanks 𒉰to the mobility the Zero Suit gives her.

20 SUPERPOWER: The Plasma Beam Will Cut Through Anything And Everything

Samus’ Plasma Beam might actually be the best feature her Arm Can🍰non is capabl✃e of. Not only can it pierce right through enemies and break down doors, Prime establishes that the Plasma Beam can also melt ice, implying there’s actually an intense amount of heat travꩲeling with each beam.

Plasma: not even once. 

You wouldn’t wantꦰ to get hit by one of Samus’ attacks in general, but the Plasma Beam would probably be the worst to get attacked with. One minute you’d have a hole in your chest and the next you’d be melting.

19 WEAKNESS: Her Power Suit Doesn’t Actually Fit

Looking at concept art of Samus’ Power Suit brings with it an almost uncomfortable realization: her Power Suit doesn’t actually fit. To be specific, it’s the shoulder pauldrons that don’t exactly work with her physical body. They’re a bit too big and a bit too close to everything else in the suit itself. This means that, when Samus is🤪 wearing her suit, the pauldrons areཧ either piercing into her shoulders or breaking them. That’s not exactly the prettiest image, is it?

18 SUPERPOWER: Samus Is A Genius

There’s nothing to indicate Samus is dumb, but she’s perhaps far more intelligent than you may have initially believed. The biggest hint towar🤪ds her secret genius lies in the data entries one can find in Metroid Prime. In Prime, Samus can scan various enemies and objects to ge🐈tဣ a reading on them.

Since she’s all alone, however, the implication is that she’s doing quick research and actually compiling these logbook entries on her own. As Sa🎐mus is a reliable narrator, we can take for a fact that all these entries are true, giving the impression that Samus must be incredibly smart to do all this research.

17 SUPERPOWER: The Morph Ball Makes Samus Very Hard To Hit

The Morph Ball is one of Samus’ best upgrades in ꦡthe entire franchise, not only because it allows her to fit into spaces she otherwise wouldn’t be able to, but because it makes her an extremely difficult target to hit. In her ball form, Samus is able to shrink down to about 1/10 of her body’s mass, allowing her to avoid damage on the fly.

You can't hit what you can't see. 

In the right setting, Samus can use her Morph Ball to flee from enemy encounters, outmaneuver bosses, or just dodge at the right time only to pop back up and🧜 offer a counterattack. We take for granted just how amazing the Morph Ball is since it’s mainly used for ꦚmobility purposes in-game, but it has a lot of combat potential too.

16 WEAKNESS: The Power Suit Makes Movement Incredibly Difficult

The Power Suit lives u🌜p to its namesake by making Samus all the more powerful, but it does bring with it a rather nas♒ty drawback. While you’ll never personally feel the weight of it playing the games, Samus’ mobility is limited when wearing the Power Suit in-universe. She loses the ability to pull off many of her natural acrobatics and instead has to rely on upgrades to jump higher, pull off spins, and get through tight spaces. There are workarounds in place to ensure she never gets herself stuck, but the Power Suit is very much a suit armor first and foremost.