Oh, more rambling about Metroid actually.
One of the things that's really cool about both Metroid Fusion and Metroid Dread (spoilers for Dread I guess) is that they both tackle Samus having to come to terms with her seeing herself as a warrior and a weapon and how this perception of herself is dangerous- and this is very much tied to her having this implicit concept of the power suit being her real, outer self!
After all, Fusion reveals that Samus's suit is fundamentally bonded to her body- literally hooked to her nervous system to the point that the armor has to be surgically removed.
And not only that, but the addition of the metroid vaccine changes Samus- and changes her suit- dramatically. And it also makes her suit more malleable to change as she changes further as seen in Dread.
But anyway, to my main point:
Metroid Fusion is a game that explores the consequences of Samus's actions on SR-388. Her hesitancy to complete her extinction mission at the end of Metroid II was redemptive, yes, but in removing the baby metroid she still unleashed a far worse threat to the world.
Super Metroid explores the immediate consequences of her actions, of course. But while Super Metroid shows her being punished for having shown mercy to the baby metroid as the Space Pirates take advantage of her hesitation, Fusion gives Samus an opportunity to redeem herself for the extinction event she caused (by causing another, bigger extinction event as she is well known for doing).
But in order to do this, she has to confront the monster that is herself. To slaughter an entire species as she did with the Metroids- not impersonally or accidentally but descending into the depths and mercilessly executing every last one of them- Samus had to be a cold, impartial weapon.
And to Samus, that is what she is. It's why the suit is her second skin- she's a warrior. A weapon. Except... Samus still has humanity underneath that. The SA-X, however...
The SA-X is a mirror of that aspect of Samus taken to the logical extreme: A cold, heartless, living weapon of mass destruction. The ultimate warrior, with no ability or desire to hesitate or hold back or regulate itself in the destruction it can unleash.
It's natural that Samus is more introspective in Fusion, forced to deal with a stubborn computer that brings to her mind memories of her former CO (because it is him) while having to confront the darkest and most violent version of herself and question what it is that makes her different from the SA-X. She ultimately concludes it IS her humanity- and having the foil of Adam, a reminder and anchor to the more human side of herself, helps her to come to terms with that.
And then in Metroid Dread, she's forced to confront this struggle once more. Except this time, she faces this aspect of herself from within. Stranded in the depths of ZD-R, Samus is forced to overcome the EMMI over and over- they are not an existential threat to the universe at large like SA-X was, but they are just as durable, just as dangerous on an individual scale as it was to her while being far more targeted and unrelenting.
After all, the SA-X had better things to do and greater motivations beyond chasing down and killing Samus, and only really harassed her when their paths crossed. And the SA-X was intelligent enough to toy with Samus- to use the immense power at its disposal to mock and harass its weakened adversary instead of going straight for the kill.
The EMMI had only a singular purpose: Hunt down and kill Samus Aran as efficiently as possible.
Samus was forced to confront every single one of them head on in order to progress- she had to let go of fear and hesitation and embrace overwhelming power to shred them to pieces. She had to become the weapon again, to embrace being the ultimate warrior because the only way to escape ZD-R alive was to do so. Not to mention Adam, anchor to her humanity that he is, was removed and impersonated by Raven Beak to encourage Samus to embrace losing herself to becoming a weapon once more, to embodying the metroid within her and becoming an Ultimate Warrior.
Quiet Robe tried to give her an out, and almost succeeded in bringing her back. Then she screwed that up by releasing the X parasites (whoops) and things went from being a personal threat (only Samus's life wS on the line) to a massive, existential one again.
By the time Samus faced down Raven Beak, she really had lost just about everything that made her different from the SA-X. Fighting him, she was an embodiment of rage and destruction- an incoherent, screaming beast practically foaming at the mouth to destroy the enemy in front of her. This was something that Raven Beak did deliberately, forcing her to absorb genes from X Parasites that held the keys to forcing the feral metroid cells in her to the front while simultaneously putting Samus into a position and mindset where it was "embrace this part of yourself or die", but it's a part of her that was always there.
And so we end up with the Metroid Suit. The embodiment of Samus at her most powerful, now even surpassing her former peak in Super Metroid as the massive energy reserves gifted to her by the sacrifice of the baby were now generated by her own being. But it's also an embodiment of Samus at her least controlled- no longer able to hold back or even prevent herself from being a force of destruction, to the point that Adam had to stop her from touching the controls of her ship because she would simply drain it of energy.
It's funny that in the end, SA-X gives Samus her power back while Quiet Robe-X gives her humanity back, but in the end Samus is able to escape and left to contemplate what she has gained and lost from this experience.
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