Torizo

"Torizo" is a term used to refer to "living" Chozo Statues. According to the Chozo Lore "Statuary", some specially infused Chozo Statues can exert their influence to defend artifacts and serve as sentries. The Torizo are often misunderstood as either evil Chozo or robotic copies.

Encounters
There are three Torizo that appear in Super Metroid. The "Bomb" Torizo is the first, found in Crateria. It tosses bomb-like objects at intruders. Samus Aran battles it within minutes of arriving on the planet. At first, it appears to be a normal Chozo statue holding the Bomb upgrade, but when Samus takes the upgrade, the statue breaks apart and the Bomb Torizo rises out of the rubble. To defeat it, Samus must shoot at its chest with her Power Beam and Missiles. It continues fighting even after its head is destroyed (internal fluids can be seen dripping from the wound for the rest of the battle). It is very weak, as even the uncharged beam can damage it. Missiles also inflict significant damage to it, destroying its head before it is eventually immobilized. In the PAL version of Super Metroid, it is possible to skip this Torizo via Arm pumping.

The second Torizo is colored gold and Samus encounters it in Ridley's Lair in Norfair. Compared to the Bomb Torizo that Samus encountered earlier in her mission, the Golden Torizo is stronger, faster, and far more intelligent. As well as being able to spew explosive Item Spheres and energy waves at Samus like the weaker version (though the latter attack is now shot at an incredible rate), it can open its chest to seemingly 'lay' egg formations that quickly hatch into bird-like creatures (resembling Wallfires) that melt away after charging forward at Samus. Normal Missiles are mostly ineffective against the Golden Torizo, who will simply turn to the side and dodge them, though with proper timing, they can still damage it. Super Missiles are not entirely effective either, as the Golden Torizo usually grabs them and throws them back at Samus, damaging her. However, it can only hold one Super Missile at a time, so a barrage of missiles can damage it. The only truly effective weapon is the Charge Beam (especially when combined with the Plasma Beam), as the Torizo cannot grab or evade a charged shot. This Torizo is colored gold at first, but it gradually gets duller until it is colored brown much like the original Bomb Torizo. Unlike the weaker version, however, it doesn't lose its head when close to defeat. Upon defeating the Golden Torizo, Samus will be rewarded with the Screw Attack.

A simple way for Samus to avoid the Golden Torizo's tedious attacks is by firing Missiles; the Torizo will stop whatever it is doing in order to side-step the Missile.

The third Torizo is located in Tourian, but it crumbles to a pile of dust at the slightest touch, most likely due to the Baby siphoning its energy. Whether or not this variant was stronger than the Golden Torizo is never known.

Trivia
A Torizo can also be seen walking around the Brinstar stage of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

There is a glitch where the first Torizo will employ the high-speed wave attack and missile-dodge of the second Torizo, making it much more difficult to defeat and adding a much bigger challenge early in the game. This can be seen after the player has deleted a partially completed save file and restarted, so that action may be a cause of this abnormality.