"Nonsense. Samus had a personality before, even if you ignore the manga.
She's always been portrayed as stoic, but she's had a consistent humanizing characterization throughout the series. Sparing the hatching in Metroid 2 and donating it to science in Super Metroid demonstrated her compassion. And don't forget that she was visibly saddened by the destruction of the Chozo Temple at the end of the first Metroid Prime game, and mourned the deaths of her fellow bounty hunters at the end of Prime 3. She's always been shown as a strong and compassionate character, who certainly wouldn't break down in front of Ridley and need a token black sidekick to save her. That characterization via her actions, not to mention the backstory-via-scans in Prime, were a much better way to tell a story in a Metroid game, and it worked. It fleshed it the mythology of the Metroid universe, and humanized Samus.
But Sakamoto ignored all that, and turned her into an angsty, dependent crybaby. To deny that she had a character before is to demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the franchise."
Home
She's always been portrayed as stoic, but she's had a consistent humanizing characterization throughout the series. Sparing the hatching in Metroid 2 and donating it to science in Super Metroid demonstrated her compassion. And don't forget that she was visibly saddened by the destruction of the Chozo Temple at the end of the first Metroid Prime game, and mourned the deaths of her fellow bounty hunters at the end of Prime 3. She's always been shown as a strong and compassionate character, who certainly wouldn't break down in front of Ridley and need a token black sidekick to save her. That characterization via her actions, not to mention the backstory-via-scans in Prime, were a much better way to tell a story in a Metroid game, and it worked. It fleshed it the mythology of the Metroid universe, and humanized Samus.
But Sakamoto ignored all that, and turned her into an angsty, dependent crybaby. To deny that she had a character before is to demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the franchise."