I was studying some RESTful API development, when I saw the cover of a particular Choose Your Own Adventure book. I'm including the large version of it because there are some very interesting details:
Check out that Space Dude: gold and red space suit, with a green helmet shield. Where have I seen this guy before?
Why, it's Samus from Metroid! Could the two possibly be related? Let's look at some finer details:
- Date of book's publishing: June 1983
- Date of game's publishing: August 1986
- Space Dude's coloring: yellow and red, green visor
- Samus's coloring: yellow and red, green visor
- Writing on Spaceship: SREV III
- Planet of Metroid Origin: SR388
That last detail is mighty peculiar -- SREV III and SR388 are a little similar, right? They both start out with 'SR'. That letter 'E' could easily be reversed to become a 3. And V III? Why, that's 8 in Roman numerals. Perhaps that extra 8 was to get away from the spaceship writing? Or maybe it's just more snappy that way - "Es Ar Three-Ate-Ate".
Perhaps this could have been a case of multiple discovery, but I suspect Metroid character designer Hiroji Kiyotake 'borrowed' some inspiration from their boy Ralph Reese.
Space Patrol may be purchased at Amazon.
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