Samus Aran (ShinRyoga & Reuben Kee)

Idle animation of Samus Aran

In the early 2000s, ShinRyoga and NeoAnkh were in the middle of creating King Bowser when Shin realized she'd be better off spriting something that would require much less detail. Thus, Bowser was put on hold, and with some input from NeoAnkh, ShinRyoga & Reuben Kee's **Samus Aran** was born.

## Known info

Samus was being worked on at a slow, yet steady pace in early 2003, being 8% complete in April, and had an entire moveset drafted out for her. According to this moveset, Samus would've been a six-button character, although with only two actual attack buttons--the rest were reserved for beams of different varieties. Samus's moveset mainly focused on projectiles, and was mainly inspired by *Metroid Prime*, a game that had just come out when Shin and Neo had started working on her. Samus was also planned to be capable of swapping between a normal mode and a Morph Ball mode, where she would've gained a new set of specials, including "Bomb", a move where she lays down a bomb; and "Boost Ball", a move where she rams into the opponent by boosting forward. Shin admitted that even though Samus wouldn't have as many features as her and Neo's previous creation Super Mario, Shin nevertheless stated, "I do think you will enjoy her when she's complete." However, when Shin's website died later in 2003, it took Samus with it, and NeoAnkh had stopped creating M.U.G.E.N content around the same time. The project would not be revived until a few years later, this time with a whole new programmer.

On July 20, 2007, Reuben Kee, also known as just Reu, announced that he had been working on his own version of Samus. The sprites were to be made in a similar fashion to his Dragon Claw, in that they were prerendered images of a 3D model. In Samus's case, her model was loosely based on the one seen in *Super Smash Bros. Melee*, with a few details added here and there. Reu was very adamant about creating the character--it's just that there was one flaw. Reu had never played a Metroid game. Coincidentally, ShinRyoga had announced that she had found a then-unknown programmer sometime before Reu's Samus was announced, which got people in Reu's WIP thread wondering amidst all the suggestions. Reu eventually spilled the beans, and said, "Well there's a reason why I have a ShinRyoga sprited Samus Aran with basic movement on my MUGEN."

However, as ShinRyoga had disappeared by the time Reu had started the WIP thread, Reu wanted to prioritize creating his version of Samus first. He did note, though, that if Shin were to ever come back, they would join forces once more to create something that would more closely resemble what Shin envisioned. In the meantime, Reu continued editing the Samus model he was using, and eventually gathered enough ideas in the thread for a complete moveset. Ironically, the moveset Reu was using for his Samus ended up being similar to what Shin had drafted nearly 5 years prior, with a strong focus on projectiles, right down to moves that referenced *Metroid Prime*. Reu summed Samus up as a character with limited combo ability that functioned either as a keepaway character a la Cable from *Marvel vs. Capcom 2*, or a zoner a la Vice from *Capcom vs. SNK 2*.

Further progress on Reu's Samus was deliberately kept under wraps, though Reu continued posting updates in the thread until September 2007. Either way, Reu scarcely posted on forums and the like, so when a few people were suggesting ideas to him on November 24, 2007, they didn't think anything about the lack of a response. The very next day, it was revealed that Reu had died in a boating accident on the 23rd. This effectively terminated progress on Samus for good.

## Search efforts

Partly out of mourning and partly due to personal reasons, Shin retired from the M.U.G.E.N community shortly after Reu passed away. This hasn't completely stopped her though, as she described in 2018 that with the ever-growing output of high-resolution characters, she'd be willing to consider restarting Samus, although on the condition that she get better at spriting in higher resolutions. It's likely that Reu's version will never be released out of respect.

## Sources

1. ↑ Archived copy of ShinRyoga's website from April 2, 2003
2. ↑ Archived copy of Samus's WIP page, circa April 17, 2003
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 MFG: SAMUS ARAN
4. ↑ MFG: Something terrible has happened to Reu...
5. ↑ MFG: ShinSamus Art - (Formerly ShinRyoga)