"Sakamoto thinks his ideas of Samus supercede the customers. He is wrong. And there is no "real" Samus, no authority who decides the "actual" Samus personality."
Just what is the basis of this claim?
From a legal standpoint, Nintendo owns the rights to their characters, including their basic template. It is simply erroneous to argue otherwise.
In terms of fiction, the template of a character is the basis of the player's relation to that character. Samus is a female bounty hunter in an orange suit. That fact is not negotiable. When you buy the game, you buy into that character.
Furthermore, Samus takes action in the games; going to Zebes, destroying Mother Brain, etc. That is pre-defined, and it, too, tells of her character. Failing to appreciate the fact that everything that happens (everything that can happen) in a game is the result of a designer's work is a grave fallacy; deny the designers, and you deny the game. Failing to appreciate what this means in terms of characterization is another; I suggest you study critical theory.
These things do not preclude the player's ability to form his own idea of a character, mold and express it through play. That fact is pivotal, I think. However, the player's input is ulterior to the content provided by the designer, and is still subject to the rules of the game. One does not negate the other.
"Obviously this does not contradict what I said as it's up to the player how they view her. However I do not pretend not to have issues with elements of characterization in previous games (though there is none in 1 and 2 and really barely anything in Prime that isn't widely open to the player's interpretation) which led up to Other M."
What?
Metroid 1 laid the foundation of the character of Samus. She never spoke, but the game told us her story. We cannot say for certain what she thought during the game, but the essence of it implied in her actions; she accepted an extremely dangerous mission and persevered in her quest to oust the foes that destroyed her benefactors. What you make of that is up to you, yes, but that has nothing to do with the medium used to convey the story.
Metroid 2 had Samus spare the baby Metroid. No single other event has ever contributed as much to Samus' character.
Edit: theRepublic covered that better than I did, though I mentioned only the in-game elements used to communicate a story/character.
