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The Metroid Official Site is an official Japanese website for the Metroid series. It went online on January 20, 2003. It links to offshoot websites for Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime. Unlike later Japanese Metroid fansites, it is not reliant on Adobe Flash Player to function.
As of February 2021, the site is still online and can be accessed at this link: [1]
The front page featured an update history indicating that the site was added to over the course of four months.
- 2003/5/2 - 宮部みゆきさんインタビューを公開しました。 Voice of Userの１１～２１を追加しました。期間限定のコンテンツ公開を終了しました。
- 2003/4/16 - 開発者インタビュー２を公開しました。
- 2003/3/25 - E-COMICの第２話を公開しました。
- 2003/3/19 - 待受画面ページを公開しました。
- 2003/3/5 - 着メロページを更新しました。
- 2003/3/3 - 開発者インタビューを公開しました。
- 2003/2/27 - 関係者インタビュー２を公開しました。
- 2003/2/17 - Voice of Userの４～１０を追加しました。
- 2003/2/13 - 関係者インタビューを公開しました。
- 2003/2/3 - E-COMICのサンプルを公開しました。
- 2003/1/31 - Voice of Userの１～３を追加しました。
- 2003/1/31 - メトロイドプライムのＴＶ－ＣＭ（Ａ/Ｂ）、メトロイドフュージョンのＴＶ－ＣＭ、メトロイドプライムのTrailer2を追加しました。
- 2003/1/30 - 明日、ＴＶ放映に先駆けてMETROID OFFICIAL SITEにてＴＶ－ＣＭを公開します。
- 2003/1/20 - METROID OFFICIAL SITEが開設しました。
Roughly translated, these indicate the site had commercials for Prime and Fusion and a trailer for Prime at one point. These are no longer present.
This page features a visual chronicle of the Metroid series up to that point: Metroid, Metroid Prime, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Short summaries of the events of Metroid, Return of Samus and Super are present below, each with artwork of Samus Aran for the respective game.
Text
- Metroid
- 銀河連邦派遣の調査船は、惑星SR388で未知の生命体「メトロイド」を発見、回収した。しかし、銀河連邦への帰路、調査船は宇宙海賊に襲われ「メトロイド」を奪われてしまう。β線を照射するだけで増殖し、他の生物にとりついてエネルギーを吸い尽くすというメトロイドの能力に目をつけた宇宙海賊は、「メトロイド」を悪用し宇宙征服を企む。連邦の依頼で宇宙の海賊基地と化した惑星ゼーベスに単身乗込んだサムスは、苦闘の末宇宙海賊の地下要塞及びマザーブレインを破壊することに成功した。
- Metroid II: Return of Samus
- 前回の調査で発見されていないメトロイドを調査する目的で銀河連邦が惑星SR388に派遣した調査船が失踪を繰り返す。その原因が惑星SR388の地中深くで活動を続けているメトロイドであるとの結論に達した銀河連邦は、サムスにメトロイドの殲滅を依頼。サムスは地中深くにいたクィーンメトロイドを倒し、任務は完了するが、孵化したばかりのベビーメトロイドには手をかけることはできず、銀河連邦の宇宙科学アカデミーに持ちかえった。
- Super Metroid
- サムスの攻撃から生き延びた宇宙海賊の一部によって、惑星ゼ－ベスは再建されつつあった。そんな折、リドリ－が宇宙科学アカデミーを襲い、宇宙で最後の一匹であるベビーメトロイドを奪い去った。再建された惑星ゼ－ベスに集結し、再びメトロイドを生物兵器として悪用する計画を立てる宇宙海賊たち。ベビーメトロイド奪還のため、そして宇宙海賊の野望を砕くため再び惑星ゼ－ベスへ向かったサムスは、ベビーの命の犠牲のもと、マザーブレインを破壊。宇宙海賊がニ度と復活することのないよう惑星ゼ－ベス自体を爆発した。
This page links to e-manga, a colorized version of the first two chapters of the Metroid manga. The first chapter was added to the site on February 3, 2003, and the second on March 25th. The page on this includes a short plot summary of the manga, and two links to the (no-longer existent) e-manga on Kodansha's website. It was removed before 2015, but the Metroid Database reassembled and translated the e-manga, which is available on the old version of their website (2010-2016) here. They also assembled it in the original Japanese, available here.
"Voice of User" is a page where fans were allowed to submit comments about their appreciation for Metroid. As a predecessor to the Q&A interviews on the Japanese sites for Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, each commenter provided their name, age and a short message. In all, 207 comments were accepted and posted across 21 pages. Every page after the first opens in a pop-up window. The first three pages were added on January 31, 2003, 4-10 were added on February 17th, and the remaining eleven on May 2nd.
This page hosts five interviews with a total of nine people: six Nintendo and Retro Studios employees involved in developing Metroid games, and three individuals who shared their experiences with the Metroid series. The interviewees were Yasuo Inoue, who directed the Japanese Metroid Fusion live-action commercial, Tadashi Konan, founder of The King of Games apparel line which produced a shirt based on Metroid, Yoshio Sakamoto, Kenji Yamamoto and Kensuke Tanabe in a joint interview, Michael Mann, Mark Pacini and Karl Deckard of Retro Studios in a second joint interview, and Miyuki Miyabe, a Japanese genre fiction author who recounted her experiences playing Metroid games. Mann, Pacini and Deckard are the only non-Japanese people to have been interviewed on the Official Site.
The interview with Sakamoto, Tanabe and Yamamoto originally appeared in volume 85 of Nintendo Dream, which was released in March 2003. It was republished on the site in collaboration with the magazine. An unofficial English translation of this interview was published by the Metroid Database on June 15, 2011[1] and can be accessed here. The rest of the interviews were translated into English by Shinesparkers on February 26, 2021 and can be accessed here.
This section of the website offered downloads for Metroid Prime and Fusion-themed flip phone wallpapers and ringtones. These are no longer available.
