Alpha Metroid

After feeding enough, the Metroid larva's skin gets rigid and flakes off. Like a butterfly going through metamorphosis, what emerges from the dead skin is an animal with new abilities and different appearance. That's an Alpha Metroid.

The jelly-like body of the larva can yet be seen in the Alpha's belly, the only spot that can be used to inflict damage on the thing. It's still small compared to the maximum size a Metroid can get, but it is already bigger than the larva. It doesn't suck you energy anymore like the larva did, but it has new attacks, like throwing harmful fluids on you, and charging against you while flying.

The first time this new form of the Metroid appeared was in the game called "Metroid II: Return of Samus". In this game, Samus needs to exterminate the Metroid in the planet SR388, their home planet, where they are multiplying. The first one Samus encounters is a larva sitting on the floor, but suddenly, from it's dead skin, an Alpha Metroid emerges, telling the bounty hunter that this time it won't be as simple as just freezing and blasting the aliens.

These monsters are difficult to kill, but killing them is the only way to advance in the game. There is a pool of acid covering the deepest caverns of the planet, and killing the Metroids is the only way to make the acid sink. The mechanism behind this isn't explained, as was expected for games from that time, but the overall result to the gameplay is that compared to the previous Metroid game, this one is more linear.

The game is also black and white. but the art and the dark atmosphere is still good enough to give the player some chills. There is one unofficial remake of the game, done by one independent gamedev in nine years. The name of the game is "Another Metroid 2 Remake", joking with the fact that many people tried to make an updated version of this classic game, with varying degrees of success (if any), but this particular one was good enough to call the attention of Nintendo, who promptly closed the dev webpage. It sucks, but it was more of an symbolic act, as once something is in the Internet, it's pretty much immortalized. If you wish to play it, just search the torrent or the name on google, and play to you hearts content.

Maybe because of the publicity the unofficial remake got, or for some legal reason I don't understand, Nintendo decided to make it's own remake of the gameboy pocket game, this time to the 3DS. It was announced in this year E3, 2017, that Mercury Steam, the same company behind "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow" series was working with Nintendo to make a another Metroid 2 remake for the 3DS. I can only say that the game looks gorgeous, and I look forward to play it on my 3DS.

The designs of the Metroids are updated, and their abilities probably too. I am pretty curious as to how the game is and how Nintendo will explain those things that weren't explained in the original game, but nowadays gamers just don't let the developers go without explanations, like the acid sea and the Metroid killing connections.

That all being said I still like the original pixel art of the Metroids. With few dots even a design as complex as an Alpha Metroid can be represented! The Alpha is in the end just a transitional form. The forms that come after it build the characteristics that culminate in the Omega and Queen Metroid. But this is a story for another mission :)

Metroid Larva: https://steemit.com/drawing/@deadmosco/metroid-the-infant-larva
Samus Aran: https://steemit.com/drawing/@deadmosco/metroid-samus-aran-the-bounty-hunter