Tell me if you've heard this one: A character in a bright yellow space suit hunts underground space aliens, and at the end is revealed to be a woman.

But I'm not talking about Metroid. A game called Baraduke did it a year earlier.

Whether Baraduke inspired Metroid or not, both appear to share a number of mutual influences.

What's currently got my brain occupied is the yellow spacesuit. Why yellow? Who does that?

It turns out Alien does it, at least in the concept art printed in various magazines. While the final suits have bits of yellow, the concept art version are clearly yellow all over.

And look at this long guns that I don't recall seeing in movie, but look just like in Baraduke?

It'd be an amazing coincidence if Baraduke didn't take some inspiration from that Alien image. But were Alien's yellow space suits inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey?

2001 also had red suits. Could this have inspired the yellow/red suit in Metroid? Or just a coincidence?

Maybe it was 2001 colors mixed with the proportions in this piece of Alien concept art?

But coincidences do happen. Athena was released a month before Metroid but fuctions like Metroid in reverse:

Athena gets stripped down to a red bikini but gains bits of armor if you play good.

Samus wears a suit of armor but gets stripped down to a red bikini if you play good.

Unless Athena and Metroid also shared some mutual influence. Were red bikinis a big thing in Japanese culture at the time? Was there a particular cultural moment involving an iconic red bikini?