Unlinke the Zelda Timeline, the Metroid timeline always made sense. Funny though, now that we have an official Zelda timeline, the Metroid one seems to be a complete mess. Except that it isn’t. All you have to do is ask Mr. Sakamoto, the “Boss” of all things Metroid and you have your answer…
Here is the Timeline:
Metroid: Zero Mission (retcons the original game)
Metroid 2: Return of Samus
Metroid 3: Super Metroid
Metroid: Other M
Metroid 4: Fusion
And that’s it. But wait, I hear you, what about all the other games? Well, simply put, they do not exist in Metroid canon. At least that is what Sakamoto said when he released Other M. And I am here to explain that.
You see, Other M got some serious slack for showing a different Samus than we were used to. The Prime games pretty much defined Samus. The problem is though, that the Prime Samus is NOT the Other M Samus.
In Other M there is a scene where Samus is shocked to see Ridley again. That was a huge problem for all of us, since she had already defeated him what, six times now? So why be shocked? Simply put, she has only defeated him once. And that was in Super Metroid.
As the final strech of Zero Mission shows, Ridley was not dead when Samus defeated him in that game. So Samus was not suprised when he showed up in the Intro to Super Metroid, where she finally killed him. So no wonder she was scared to death after he returned in Other M.
The character of Samus that we thought we knew from prime did not exist. Mr. Sakamoto statet personally that for him, the Prime games are a different Series. Think of it as an alternate universe.
Nintendo does not care about those things, but we as fans do. So let me make it clear once again:
Classic Series Timeline:
Metroid: Zero Mission (retcons the original game)
Metroid 2: Return of Samus
Metroid 3: Super Metroid
Metroid: Other M
Metroid 4: Fusion
The other games all stand for themselfs. That means that the Prime Trilogy is its own universe, the DS games (Pinball and Prime Hunters) are their own sub series and the original game is just a relic, not canon and all.
I hope to have cleared things up now…
Edit: ”The games that I’ve been involved with in the Metroid series have been on the NES, GameBoy, Super NES and the GBA. I actually didn’t have a lot of input on the Prime series. But when they’re doing with Other M here, it’s not so much a different universe, it’s just a different part of the story. You can’t say that there’s no relation here; it’s probably best to think of them as being in parallel in this world.” – Sakamoto in an interview on Joystiq
Unfortunately, you are wrong in many aspects. The Prime series are still seen as canon, as they have released two official timelines (on the Prime 2 Bonus Disk and the Metroid: Zero Mission japanese website) showing that the Prime series and classic series were in the same timeline. There has been no official timeline released afterward that shows the Prime series as non-canon.
Also, where is Zero Mission is shown that Ridley is still alive after he was defeated? The final boss battle in that game is Mecha Ridley, not the actual Ridley. Get your facts straight before assuming the Prime series is not canon. Zero Mission also happens to have a lot of shoutouts to Prime 1.
That was all retconned in Other M, simply as that. The game itself features a lot of text that retcon the prime games. Also, I edited the article qith a quote from Sakamoto stating that he himself views the Prime games as a parallel series. Much like marvels Ultimate Universe or the Lords of Shadow games to Castlevania. So perhaps instead of insulting me, YOU might want to get your facts straight.