Dark Samus

Dark Samus (ダークサムス) was a being of Phazon taking on the form of Samus Aran. She made a brief cameo appearance in the secret ending of Metroid Prime, was a central character and the final boss in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and was the main antagonist in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

First battle
Samus first battles her doppelgänger in the Space Pirate base, after she absorbed some Phazon. For most of the fight, Dark Samus glides around the room, firing the phazon beam and firing missiles. She may also raise a Phazon energy shield to deflect attacks and damage Samus if she is too close. Dark Samus can be very difficult to hit, as she possesses greater speed than Samus, and the pillars around the room make aiming and moving somewhat difficult.

Once half of Dark Samus' health has been depleted, she will begin to glow with Phazon energy. While in this state, she will often rise high into the air to fire Super Missiles or dive at Samus while encased in a ball of energy, both of which have the capacity to reduce the pillars in the room to flaming wreckage. Dark Samus is also immune to all attacks while airborne, and can only be damaged again once she has returned to the ground. After dealing Dark Samus enough damage, she will be defeated, collapsing to her knees and then violently exploding, leaving nothing behind but Phazon particles which float in the air for some time before eventually dissipating.

Second battle
Samus battles Dark Samus again in an elevator at the Sanctuary Fortress. Unlike the last fight, there is more room to move around, and hitting Dark Samus is somewhat easier. Dark Samus retains most of her attacks from before, along with three new attacks. Dark Samus uses two variations of the Charge Beam: either as a thin, blue beam that she sweeps across, or an energy blast that will encase Samus in Phazon. She also utilizes a faster version of the Boost Ball, charging around the arena at blinding speeds (using a charged Light Beam on her will instantly stop her attack). Dark Samus is highly vulnerable to the Dark Beam because she is a being of the light world (and not a Darkling Samus). Super Missiles and the Darkburst can deal heavy damage to Dark Samus, though the former is preferred as the Darkburst is less effective against the speedy target. After dealing enough damage, the boss switches strategy.

Dark Samus now utilizes her stealth generator, rendering herself invisible to the Combat Visor, Samus must then switch to the Dark Visor to track her opponent. Dark Samus will fire Missiles while cloaked and airborne. Once she stops, she is vulnerable to attack. She will also use her dive bomb and boost attack. Once her health has been depleted, Samus will claim victory yet again, as Dark Samus goes to the elevator wall, destroys it, and falls through the chasm.

Final boss
Dark Samus serves as the final boss of the game, now supercharged with Phazon energy to the point where she is transparent. This battle takes place in the Sky Temple Gateway on Dark Aether. This battle proves to be the most challenging due to the fact that Phazon ore lines the walls of the arena, damaging Samus on contact. Compounding the difficulty is the countdown timer. Samus must defeat her dark counterpart in under eight minutes or Dark Aether will destabilize with her in it, resulting in a Game Over. Dark Samus attacks by firing a large beam of Phazon energy. She is still vulnerable to Super Missiles; however, her exposure to Phazon now renders her invisible to the Dark Visor, requiring use of the Echo Visor.

After sustaining enough damage, Dark Samus surrounds herself in a large shield of Phazon, transforming into a being of pure Phazon. The shield is invulnerable to all forms of attack save one: blasts of pure Phazon itself. Samus must use her Charge Beam to draw in and absorb Dark Samus' Phazon energy blasts. However, Dark Samus will also fire larger blasts that cannot be absorbed. If the shield expands and shrinks, Dark Samus will fire small, absorbable blasts. Once Samus absorbs enough Phazon blasts (her Charge Beam will turn blue), she can fire them back at her doppelganger, damaging her. By repeating this strategy, Dark Samus will fall for the last time, attempting to reach out and touch Samus but disappearing before she can do so.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Dark Samus serves as the penultimate boss of the game. This battle can be challenging as exposure to Phaaze's atmosphere, as well as damage causes the Phazon level to fill; when she becomes full, Samus will die from Phazon corruption. If Samus collected a large number of Energy Tanks prior to the confrontation, this will become much less of a threat. In the first part of the battle, Dark Samus hovers around, using her trademark scattershot beam, firing homing blasts of Phazon, using a Phazon-based ground wave (similar to Ridley's), and creating large Phaazite pillars to slow Samus down. The latter attack can be predicted as she will raise her left hand and fire a beam of Phazon in the air. The pillars can easily be destroyed by Hyper Missiles, and often yield Anti-Phazon Units. Dark Samus will sometimes raise a Phazon shield to deflect attacks. All Samus must do is shoot Dark Samus while avoiding her potent Phazon attacks. After enough damage, Dark Samus switches to round two.

Dark Samus will now use Phaaze's energy to heal herself. Samus must shoot her down before she finishes. Samus must be careful as Dark Samus will summon Dark Echoes to confuse her when healing. Samus can easily distinguish Dark Samus from her Echoes via the X-Ray Visor; she will be colored red while the Echoes fade into the monochrome coloring of the Visor. Samus can also look at their visors to distinguish them in the later part of the fight, as Dark Samus' visor is blue and the Echoes have no visors. Dark Samus will also leap into the air and slam the ground, creating a large shockwave of Phazon energy. Otherwise, this phase of the battle is the same as the first. After another round of damage, Dark Samus switches strategy again.

In this phase of the battle, Dark Samus uses her Echoes to attack Samus. The Echoes possess all of Dark Samus's attacks. The number of Echoes summoned increases as the battle goes on (only up to two Echoes). Dark Samus and her Echoes attack in concert, floating in the air and shooting Phazon blasts at Samus, and using Ghor's plasma beam while spinning with another Echo. Samus can avoid this attack by using the Morph Ball, as it is impossible for her to jump over the beam each time it comes around. Using the Hyper Ball to kill the Echo can end the attack quickly. Dark Samus may also fire the Plasma Beam from the air and drop down and may or may not produce a shockwave. The Echoes will also spin around the arena, trying to hit Samus. They may also charge Samus at full speed. The Echoes should be immediately destroyed, or they will merge with Dark Samus, granting her temporary invincibility. This also "overloads" the X-Ray Visor, making her appear a very light color, making her extremely difficult to see. So as long as Samus keeps the energy bar from filling and dodges the boss' powerful attacks, Dark Samus will fall with ease. However, this brings up the next fight: Dark Samus will merge with the Aurora Unit 313.

Powers and abilities
As Dark Samus, the creature utilized many abilities similar to Samus, in more powerful forms. She could fire two types of Phazon beams (which the scan mentioned to be altered versions of the Power Beam) at enemies in the form of either a continuous stream of small shard-like bursts, or a thin laser Beam which she shot in an arc. She possessed standard Missiles as well as Super Missiles to blast opponents into bits. Also, she used what appeared to be a Phazon-charged Ice Spreader attack. She could also do a powerful dive bomb attack (which could be a Phazon-based Screw Attack, Shinespark or a combination of both), a Phazon Boost Ball that generated vast amounts of kinetic energy in alarmingly short times, raise pillars of crystallized Phazon in this form, is capable of both flight and levitation, and can render herself invisible; it is interesting to note that her Morph Ball form contained an eyeball on each side of the sphere. However, when Dark Samus consumed too much Phazon, she gained the disadvantages she possessed as Metroid Prime: although she was eventually able to render herself invulnerable to all conventional weaponry, Phazon fired at her could overload and destabilize her, resulting in her generating very powerful Phazon attacks to discharge the used Phazon radiation from her body, including a massive beam of pure, highly concentrated Phazon.

In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Dark Samus' abilities are further augmented. In addition to most of her previous abilities, she can now produce near-perfect clones of herself (fittingly called "Dark Echoes") and is much more resilient to Phazon attacks (though Hyper Missiles are still effective on her). Combining with the Echoes temporarily also allowed her to form a purple energy shield around her body which rendered her invulnerable until she had to separate back into herself and the Echoes. After she unleashed the massive blast of Phazon at the four Hunters using what appears to be a version of the Charge Beam, the corruption within them seemed to be connected to Dark Samus; after the defeat of each hunter, a strange, black, wraith-like entity in the shape of Dark Samus would appear above the hunters, and fly off into space, presumably back to Dark Samus herself. This seems to be the manner through which she gained the Hunters' abilities, such as Ghor's Plasma Beam, Gandrayda's ground-based energy wave, and the ability to create giant Phazon pillars like Rundas could with ice. It is also possible that this entity was a form of Dark Samus herself interpreted as some sort of astral projection, which she used to possess the Hunters. She also has the ability to merge with the stolen Aurora Unit at the climax of the game, a technique which may have also been adapted from Ghor or connected with her apparent possession abilities. After this merge, the mutated Aurora Unit is capable of launching out holographic-like Dark Echoes from its eye; these copies will either shoot at Samus or enter Morph Ball mode and boost around the area in an attempt to ram her (reminiscent of her attack in the previous game). She is notably more agile in Corruption than in Echoes, able to perform graceful backflips and cartwheels.

In Echoes, Dark Samus seems to be somewhat incomplete; this is supported by the fact that she is constantly absorbing Phazon, looks slightly deformed, and has a range of chaotic attack moves. In Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime's tentacle was broken off of Samus prematurely, possibly not absorbing enough DNA to create a whole, stable Dark Samus. Dark Samus seems to act mentally unstable in Echoes cutscenes, even laughing maniacally in several instances. In the same game, Dark Samus also became physically unstable due to excessive Phazon exposure. While her physical body continues to be unstable in Prime 3: Corruption, she is surprisingly calm and attacks in a more organized and orderly method, suggesting she has absorbed sufficient Phazon to reach a stable mentality; this also explains how she was able to brainwash the Pirates, plan the coordinates of the Leviathan impact locations, and steal Aurora Unit 313.

Dark Samus is a very durable life-form, able to regenerate from any injury short of total atomic disruption, and traveling unaided through space and freely between the Dark and Light Dimensions of Aether, and even showing immunity to the caustic atmosphere of Dark Aether. She can survive in the vastness of space, travel through it, and survive the explosions of planets, even dimensions. This is how she has constantly been able to regenerate herself after defeat and fly to another planet for Phazon absorption. Her incredible regenarative abilities combined with Phazon-ehhanced versions of Samus' devastating abilites make her nearly impossible to defeat. In fact, she may have temporarily held the place of most powerful being in the Metroid universe. During the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, she singlehandedly defeated the highly skilled bounty hunters Rundas, Ghor and Gandrayda. Though Samus held up better than the others, Dark Samus defeated all four of them with one blast of Phazon. Considering Samus herself seldom loses battles, even against ten-meter tall opponents, this is an impressive feat. Her massive durability at the climax at Phaaze, even against Hypermode's chaotic and devastating power just furthers this possibility. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption also reveals her to be sentient and capable of long-range planning, as noted through a series of Space Pirate data logs that record the fanaticism she inspires among the mind-warped pirates. They detail her plans and how she reacts to certain events, and credit her with being something near a deity whose rule of the galaxy will be great. She might have been and may still be the greatest threat ever to the Galactic Federation, and Samus's most powerful opponent to date.

Personality
Dark Samus, as her name implies, is shown to be cold, calculating, and merciless. The lives of her opponents hold little to no value to her. When necessary, she uses her allies to her own gain. A prominent example of this is when she corrupts Rundas, Ghor, and Gandradya and uses them to battle Samus, only to absorb their powers upon their defeats. The extent of her cruelty is described in one of the Pirate Logs, where she is said to have ordered her Pirate forces to jettison the surviving crew members of the G.F.S. Valhalla raid into space.

Dark Samus only seems to show compassion toward Metroids, like herself. In Echoes, she takes an interest in the Metroids being researched by the Pirates in Agon Wastes and frees them.

Dark Samus is also greedy for Phazon, as, throughout the entire Prime series, her goal is to consume said-substance. She will kill anyone in her way, as the Space Pirate Logs in Echoes mention that Dark Samus only killed those who denied her it.

Her personality undergoes a great change between Echoes and Corruption. In Echoes, she's portrayed as unstable and unpredictable, shown by her maniacal laughter and chaotic attack patterns. In Corruption, she's significantly calmer. She's shown to be quite cunning, capable of long-range planning, and remains calm even if her plans are not going accordingly. The massive invasion she led on Norion would have succeeded, if not for Samus Aran.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
A "Dark Samus" appears in "Co-op Event Match 7: Battle of the Dark Sides". This one looks more like The Legend of Zelda series's Dark Link (whom she is partnered with), in that the character is only a black silhouette of Samus.

Dark Samus also has a trophy based on her Echoes appearance, which reads:

"A twin image of Samus, encountered near the beginning of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Dark Samus is identical to Samus in every way but color--she even uses similar attacks. There are many theories on the origin of Dark Samus, but none are proven. Dark Samus uses Phazon for energy and can absorb it to heal damage. Samus encounters Dark Samus a number of times."

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, 2004

This trophy description is inaccurate, as Dark Samus' appearance does differ quite a bit from the original Samus', and her origins are known in that she was born from Metroid Prime.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
Dark Samus will appear as an Assist Trophy along with Mother Brain and a Metroid, using three of her attacks from Corruption: the scattershot (its wide range has noticeably been reduced), launching the three large Phazon orbs which quickly home in on their target, and lastly, the Phazon shield raised from the ground-up. She dashes across the floor while floating and jumps to reach the nearest opponent, only touching the ground when landing and attacking. She can be made to flinch when hit by an attack. After several moments, she looks towards the screen while slightly lifting her arm cannon before vanishing.

Alejandro Roura animation


Trivia

 * Dark Samus was known as Samus Oscura in Spanish and Italian, Dunkle Samus in German and Samus Sombre in French.
 * Interesting to note is that in Metroid Prime 3, if Samus were to succumb to the Phazon inside her while in Corrupted Hypermode (as was the case for the other Hunters), she transforms into what appears to be a "new Dark Samus", or something resembling it, leading to an alternate Game Over screen.
 * Andrew Jones did a 1,000 self-portrait series of himself and later claimed that "my portraits are quite a departure from my metroid concept work, but I think you would be surprised that there are a few of the portraits that were the inspiration behind the final bosses in prime 1 and two."
 * Kensuke Tanabe had not considered making a sequel to Metroid Prime until having seen the game's final scene.
 * Dark Samus is one of four beings to ever best Samus in a fight by canon. The others are Ridley and Mother Brain in Super Metroid ' s opening and ending, respectively, along with an Omega Metroid at the end of Metroid Fusion.
 * It is possible that Dark Samus is composed of Space Pirate DNA, as the Phazon Suit contained strands of the Omega Pirate's DNA.
 * Although Dark Samus usually glides across the floor, she is seen walking in the cutscenes prior to the first battle in Echoes, as well as in the ambush in the Control Tower in Corruption, and finally, in the above animation videos by Alejandro Roura.
 * Contrary to popular belief, Dark Samus is not vulnerable to the Light Beam. She is in fact weak against the Dark Beam (and by extension the Darkburst) as she is a life-form that was born in the normal (light) dimension.
 * In all of her battles, Dark Samus will always attempt to deflect a Missile by bringing up an energy wave. It is possible to bypass this by forcing her to use the same shield (either by shooting a Missile at her or getting close to her) and then firing the projectile right after the shield vanishes. If hit by a Super or Hyper Missile, Dark Samus will recoil and scream and/or groan in pain.
 * Although Dark Samus is said to be wearing a version of the Varia Suit in Echoes scans, the suit she is wearing is technically the Phazon Suit. However, Samus' Phazon Suit is only a slight variation of the Varia Suit, and Dark Samus' a variation over that.
 * According to promotional storyboard designs, the scene where Dark Samus points her Arm Cannon and fires Phazon at Samus in their first encounter in the beginning of Echoes is based on the climax of Aliens: "D.S. points a gun at Samus. When camera is fixed, Samus slightly twists her neck. * Refer to the scene in "Alien 2" climax when Ripley points flame gun at Mother Alien."
 * As she dies in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the camera pans to Dark Samus' raised left fist. She opens it quickly, mirroring the scene of her "birth" in the ending of Metroid Prime where her open hand clenches into a fist. After her death, the scene cuts to the bubbling Phazon seed within Samus disappearing, completing the imagery of the festering pool of Phazon that Dark Samus was derived from.
 * Dark Samus was partly inspired by the Ruins Test in Metroid: Zero Mission, during which Samus fights a mirror version of herself.
 * Dark Samus is referred to as a class Platinum-AAA threat level by the Space Pirates in Echoes. How much this increased by Corruption is unknown.
 * Another Side Story seems to indicate that Dark Samus acted as a god to the Pirates, and her Phazon was a holy blessing. She is referred to as the Dark One, Black Demon, Esteemed One (similar to Samus being called the Entrusted One in Chozo Lore), and Dark Samus is also implied to have called Phaaze the "Promised Land".

List of appearances

 * Metroid Prime (100% ending & concept art.)
 * Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Bonus Disc
 * Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
 * Metroid Prime: Episode of Aether
 * Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Preview
 * Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
 * Another Side Story
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Trophy)
 * New Play Control! Metroid Prime (100% ending & concept art.)
 * New Play Control! Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
 * Metroid Prime Trilogy
 * Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (Assist Trophy)

Music

 * Music from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, titled "Darkness":
 * Music from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, titled "Dark Samus":

Darkness is a remix of the Zebetite theme in Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission. During the final battle in Echoes, the Escape! theme was played because she is fought while escaping Dark Aether. Darkness is remixed once more in the battle against the AU 313, which further resembles Zebetite.

Gallery
For concept art, see Dark Samus' Gallery.