Gorea

Gorea
Series	Metroid
First Appearance	Metroid Prime Hunters
Year Created	2006
Created by	Nintendo Software Technology

Gorea is the main antagonist of Metroid Prime Hunters. It is a powerful, malevolent being of unknown origin capable of absorbing weapons and powers from other lifeforms.

History

Gorea invaded the Alimbic Cluster millennia ago. It crashed on Alinos in a form resembling that of a comet, then surfaced as a shapeless gas. It quickly assumed the form of a monstrous, three-legged Alimbic and began destroying the Alimbic race on every planet they inhabited and spreading chaos throughout the Tetra Galaxy. Gorea would consume its victims' energy, either leaving them dead or in a coma-like state, and it not only resisted the weapons used against it, but it seized and copied them, thus using the Alimbics' own technology against them. It presumably accomplished all this through the use of glowing tendrils found inside its waist.

In a last, desperate attempt to contain it, the Alimbic Order used a device called the Seal Sphere to trap Gorea. As an extra precaution, they put the Seal Sphere in the prison ship "Oubliette" and used the Alimbic Cannon to send the ship into another dimension, the Infinity Void. The Seal Sphere used the Alimbics' psionic energy, thus causing the race's extinction in the physical world.

After an untold amount of years following these events, Gorea sends out the telepathic message to lure Bounty Hunters from across the universe in promise of "Ultimate Power" within the Alimbic Cluster, in an attempt to escape from its prison. Samus Aran and six other bounty hunters (Kanden, Noxus, Spire, Sylux, Trace, and Weavel) get the message, and head for the Tetra Galaxy to investigate.

Powers and abilities

Gorea's powers bear some similarities to Metroid Prime: It is capable of absorbing and assimilating the weapons of its opponents using its tentacles, demonstrated when it absorbed the powers of all six hunters. As stated in the Alimbic Lore, Gorea can also drain the life energy out of its victims, leaving their bodies as withered husks, a similar ability to the Metroids. Gorea possesses some form of telepathy, as it was able to lure the hunters to the Alimbic Cluster, and is capable of teleportation as well as levitation.

Battle

Phase 1

When Samus Aran enters Gorea's chamber in the Oubliette, she sees the other Hunters shooting at a large ornate orb in the center of the room, releasing Gorea, who immediately attacks the other hunters and obtains their weaponry.

After morphing two cannon-like arms, Gorea challenges the onlooking Samus in its old form of a monstrous Alimbic in the lower levels of the Oubliette. It cycles between the six weapons it acquired from the Hunters. It also swipes at Samus with its arms if she comes too close. It also attempts to stomp her if she accesses her Morph Ball form. However, its shoulders become vulnerable to the antithesis of the weapon it is using at any one time. If one shoulder accumulates enough damage, Gorea loses that arm, but regrows it in a few moments. If Samus successfully destroys both arms in quick succession, Gorea tries to regenerate by floating in the air and drawing energy from the Seal Sphere. At this point, Samus can attack the Seal Sphere to damage Gorea with whatever weapon she had used to destroy its arms. However, Gorea will retalitate by grabbing Samus with its tendril and throwing her around the room, as well as using its tendrils to grab the Trocrasin the room and use them as projectiles. Curiously, the tendrils used to grab Samus and the Trocras generate from the Seal Sphere and not its waist as previously seen.

Once Gorea accumulates enough damage, it appears to be destroyed.

Phase 2

However, Gorea has a second form. Samus can only find and battle this form if she shoots the six panels on the wall of the prison she fought the first form in with their corresponding weapons, in the order indicated by the "Alimbic Prophecy" lore scans. After Gorea is defeated, the panels teleport it and Samus to a new arena.

Gorea's second form resembles the first, but without any limbs and floats around, capable of teleportation. The Seal Sphere is free-floating and vulnerable; all Alimbic essence has left the sphere, and Gorea is trying to draw energy from it. It is still Gorea's weak point, but is now impervious to all of Samus's weapons. The six orange spots on Gorea's lower flap-like appendage serve as a health bar, even though Gorea already has an official one. The more damage dealt to Gorea, the more of those spots turn black. Shortly after the battle begins, Samus receives a message from her ship that guides her to the Omega Cannon, located at the bottom of the arena. With it, Samus is able to slay Gorea for good.

Trivia

• Gorea is the fourth antagonist to be a mimic of one of its past opponents, the first being SA-X, the second being Dark Samus and the third being Gandrayda. Out of all of these, Gorea is also the only antagonist to not mimic Samus.
• The Alimbic Lore entry Gorea 01 states that "The horror shrieked its name: GOREA." This insinuates the creature is not only capable of telepathic communication, but vocal speech as well. Another possibility is that the Alimbics merely named the creature after the sound of its vocalizations, as opposed to Gorea actually speaking and identifying itself. Whichever the case, none of the sounds made by the entity during Samus's encounter with it even vaguely resemble the word "Gorea".
  • Interesting to note however, is that Gorea arrived on Alinos in a different form from what Samus encounters in the Oubliette. The sound it produced when it first invaded Alimbic territory may have been exclusively to Gorea's original form.
• The impact site where Gorea first arrived as a comet can be visited on Alinos' Crash Site. Scanning the area reveals the following: Severe architectural damage. Evidence of unidentifiable interstellar matter, a result of an extraterrestrial collision. This could, however, be the crash site of Sylux's Delano 7, as it can be seen earlier on flying overhead and leaving a smoke trail.
• The enemy kill record, in the Records option on the Main Menu, does not change after the fight with Gorea.
• In the Alimbic Pride 04 lore, "the cancer" is said to have left Alimbic survivors in a state in which it seemed that their spirits had been sucked dry, and seemed to have grown stronger with each victim. This is similar to a Metroid organism.
• Though Gorea was only shown absorbing the six bounty hunters' abilities, Gorea's shoulders in its first form resemble those of Samus's Varia Suit.
• Much of the info gathered about Gorea seems somewhat similar to certain aspects of Phazon and its delivery methods (via a cosmic body impacting a planet, like a meteor). .
• The music heard when battling Gorea 2 is a remix of Metroid Prime Battle, the music heard when battling Metroid Prime's second form.
• Gorea is the only final boss in the Prime series not to be related to the Metroid Prime creature itself.
• The concept of attacking Gorea's arms with different weapons at different times is similar to the battle with Metroid Prime.
• The shoulder region of Gorea's arms seem similar to orbs, similar to Mogenar in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
• Gorea will not attack Samus if she stands in the outer ring of the arena when it enters its first Seal Sphere form.