Dear Reader:
Miyamoto the reason behind the various visors in Metroid Prime
Once again, this comes from the Developer’s Voice feature on the Nintendo Channel…
“Mike Wikan likes to tell a story about Mr. Miyamoto asking us during the early design phases of Prime 1, ‘What would it be like if Samus had a bug’s head?’” – Brian Walker, Senior Producer
“And at the time, I remember going back to our office and saying, ‘Switching heads? What does that have to do with Metroid?’” – Mike Wikan, Senior Designer
“He wasn’t asking if she had the head of a fly…” – Walker
“…He was talking about the mechanic of altered perception as a whole.” – Wikan
“And from that, the visor system came to be, where Samus could see different things with different visors and use that as a puzzle-solving element.” – Walker
I’m glad the dev team took the time to decipher what Miyamoto meant with his statement! Taking it at face value would have made one hell of a weird looking Samus!