Crocomire



The Crocomire is a miniboss in Super Metroid. It is found in Norfair on the way to finding the Grapple Beam. The Crocomire cannot be killed by conventional means. Samus's weapons, such as Missiles, Super Missiles, and the Charge Beam shot into the mouth only succeed in making the beast take several steps backward, depending on the power of the weapon. When not being attacked, it sluggishly lumbers forward. Thus, the battle is sort of a shoving match between Samus and the Crocomire. The beast shoots fireballs from its mouth (that Samus can destroy for health and missiles) and will try to rake her with its claws. Behind Samus lies a wall of spikes. Behind the Crocomire lies a pit of superheated Lava. (Once Samus obtains the Grapple Beam, she can go across the substance and receive an Energy Tank.)

After managing to push the Crocomire into the superheated lava and witnessing its horrible, gruesome death (its skin melts right off), the fight is seemingly over - yet Samus is still locked in the room, and she observes a trail of bubbles traveling away to the other side of the chamber. When she reaches the wall of spikes, the screen rumbles for a brief moment, and the Crocomire's skeleton rips through the wall. However, due to the fact that it is now only a pile of bones, it falls apart in front of Samus with a humorous noise.

Super Metroid manual
"This huge creature has sticky skin and spits plasma balls. When adventurers attempt to fight the Crocomire, it becomes angrier with every blow."

Interview
Interviewer: Huh? Made it dirty?

Mashita: Apparently, the characters I drew were fairly cute. Characters like Crocomire were so charming that when they were killed, the player would feel sad about them.

Osawa: He wanted to them to look like Fujiko Fujio's work! Then Yamane came into the picture.

Mashita: When that happened, the characters became harsher so that the player could defeat them.

Osawa: Fujiko Fujio became Hino Hideshi!* (Laughs)

* Fujiko Fujio was the two-person manga team behind Doraemon. Hino Hideshi is a famous horror manga artist. 

Trivia

 * Curiously, the Crocomire will not only take no damage, but become enraged and charge forward much further than it normally would if the player uses a Power Bomb against him. It is the only boss in Super Metroid to have this sort of behavior.
 * Curiously, while Crocomire is indeed fought in Norfair, it does not seem to be at all adapted to the environment; the creature is inside an unheated room and the lava in which it falls into destroys its skin, pointing to the fact it cannot tolerate any form of heat. Why Crocomire was in the unsuitable (and mostly heated) Norfair region is unknown. However, it should be noted that the lava present in the chamber is more intense than the lava seen everywhere else in Upper Norfair; this superheated lava is commonly found only in Lower Norfair, therefore insinuating that Crocomire was possibly adapted to Upper Norfair's more common lava and heated regions.
 * In the second Castlevania title for the Game Boy Advance, Harmony of Dissonance, the player will eventually come to an area called the "Cave of Skeletons." In it, there are giant skulls which can be used as ramps to get to the next part of the area. Since Super Metroid paved the way for all 2D Castlevania games from Symphony onward, this game appears to pay a specific homage to the franchise by making these skulls bear an uncanny resemblance to the Crocomire's. There has been no official verification that this is an homage, however.
 * Some Space Pirate weapons look similar to the Crocomire's skull.
 * There is a glitch with the Crocomire. Samus must simply get the Grappling Beam via the reset glitch and grapple its body. The Crocomire is now able to be pulled around with disembodied legs and arms. Its tongue should stay in place, flopping around.
 * If one uses a hacking device to get the Hyper Beam ahead of time and then fires it into the Crocomire's mouth, it will do so much damage to it that the Crocomire will dash straight into the lava after only a single shot.
 * Curiously, when the Crocomire's skeleton falls apart, the sound it makes is similar to that of a Dry Bones from Nintendo's Super Mario series, and it is particularly similar to the sound made by Dry Bowser falling apart at the beginning of the boss battle with him in New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. Dry Bowser is a form of the series' main villain and a derivative of the Dry Bones species concept. Dry Bowser first appears after the player drops Bowser into a pit of lava (in the classic style of the series); first Bowser rears up out of the lava to roar at Mario, then disappears. Dry Bowser then does the same. Like this brief appearance by the Crocomire, Dry Bones (and therefore Dry Bowser) are also living skeletal creatures. Whether Crocomire's appearance as a living skeleton, only to fall apart moments later, was a reference to the Dry Bones or not, or whether Dry Bowser falling apart at the beginning of his boss battle was meant to be a reference to the Crocomire, is unknown. The similarity is especially striking considering that Dry Bowser is formed when Bowser falls into a lava pit.
 * Oddly, Crocomire's skeleton has only one pair of lower legs when Crocomire has two pairs of lower legs. This may be a result of the creature's skeleton not having been able to remain completely intact after its swim across the room and the destruction of the spiked wall.
 * Crocomire and Spore Spawn are the only bosses in Super Metroid to leave behind remains after their death. In Crocomire's case, it is his skeleton. Kraid and Draygon are two other bosses who leave behind their bodies, but both quickly sink into the ground.
 * Vorash in Metroid: Other M is facially similar to Crocomire.
 * The name Crocomire may be a portmanteau of the two words "crocodile" and "mire."
 * The boss battles with the Omega Metroid in Metroid Fusion, the Kiru Giru in Metroid: Zero Mission and the Desbrachians in Metroid: Other M involve Samus firing at them to push them back, similar to Crocomire.
 * The Super Metroid manga has a strip called Looks Happy, Looks Sad, where Samus jumps onto Crocomire's head and counts its eyes, overjoyed that all eight are completely round. Samus does not notice that the embarrased Crocomire is crushing her with the Spikes on the wall.
 * In Donkey Kong Country Returns, made by the studio that created the Metroid Prime Trilogy, has what appears to be Crocomire's skull in the background of the Foggy Fumes level.

Unused Content

 * The Crocomire was originally going to be a boss (presumably in Norfair) in Metroid: Zero Mission, but was cut for unknown reasons. Its sprite can still be accessed by hacking the GBA ROM, but the existing animations are seemingly unfinished and there's no death sequence. Unlike in Super Metroid, this Crocomire's coloration was much darker. Also notable is that it does not have its signature rough skin, indicating that the damage was meant to be inflicted in this game. An IPS patch has been released that transforms Crocomire into a working boss.
 * Crocomire artwork created by Sammy Hall, presumably for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption also indicates it was scrapped from that game as well.
 * There is an unused creature in Super Metroid, known as a Stoke, that resembles a miniature Crocomire.