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Metroid Appreciation Thread

Louis_Cypher

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
1,519
The GBA Metroids were fine and fun, but I think they lost something fundamental from Super Metroid. Something amazing about Super Metroid is that it has a narrative without any dialogue and almost without any cutscenes. And the environmental storytelling isn't stuff like graffiti taking the place of expository dialogue. It's just that the gameplay, graphics, level design, and a tiny seasoning of cutscenes (all of which incorporate symbols/structures from larger scifi genre) manage to give what I would call like the "key frames" of a compelling narrative.* The player's mind then tweens the rest. Likewise, the world has all these paths through it and secrets, but the player isn't being like told he should sequence break or do a completionist run. In some respects the true paths feel no less serendipitous than the shortcuts, and the need to gather powerups is fueled less by gotta-catch-em-all and more by the inherent challenge.

The GBA Metroids are more like guided recreations of the Super Metroid experience. Maybe there was only one good story that could just be totally implied from the setting, art, etc., so they couldn't just do another game like the first. But to me, the addition of the dialogues, increased scripted sequences, and the level design -- all of it feels like, "Remember that time in Super Metroid when X happened and it felt like it was emergent? Now it's scripted." Super Metroid repeated/refined stuff from Metroid (like the biomes, the overall gameplay, etc.), but Super Metroid didn't feel like it was following a formula. The GBA ones do. Hard to describe. Like there are lots of rails, some hidden, but that in some respect it's still on rails.

The same is true of SOTN -> GBA sequels, though I think SOTN is quite overrated compared to Super Metroid. At some point, both franchises just had a series of tropes and boxes to check. The core gameplay is fun, and the formulaic approach in a certain sense distills the fun factor, but lost a lot of the sense of wonder.

I've played some of acclaimed indie "Metroidvanias." They're very good, but they also feel very much like they are operating within a set of genre conventions, rather than just experimenting into an awesome form of action-exploration-adventure as with Super Metroid. To be honest, Cave Story might've been the only one that still felt super fresh. Hollow Knight and Ori are very well made, beautiful games and I had a ton of fun with them, but it just feels like I'm always talking to someone, grinding some resource, getting some familiar powerup or what have you. I'm not sure it's possible any longer to recreate the old charm. But I'd like to see a modern Metroidvania that didn't use dialogues, NPCs, shops, etc.

(* The mirror antagonist of Prince of Persia is a rare example that comes to mind from another game of that approximate era.)

I agree with you post entirely. As an aside; one thing I would say about the more linear GBA Metroids is that because I approached the Metroid series in terms of just loving their science fiction world, not having a strong position on Metroidvanias as a genre, I didn't really mind that they had different degrees of freedom. Like I just saw Metroid 4 / Fusion as being a one-off 'chapter' where Samus was more directed, set on a single space station. I wouldn't take it as far as adding stupid JRPG style FMV cutscenes like [the game that shall not be named], but it was like 'what if Samus has a fixed mission onboard a Galactic Federation space station' for one game.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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Fusion isn't just problematic because of its linearity, I love Metroid 2 and that's linear as well, it's that Fusion has terrible writing and its handholding from start to finish without ever letting you forget it. Also, the boss designs are terrible
 

Louis_Cypher

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
1,519
I got quite frustrated on this boss yesterday:

J4ybGCh.png


I did a bit of reading up on Metroid Prime 4, because it's a potential Switch-seller for me, depending on how it turns out. You may remember they re-started development in 2019 with a new studio (Retro), after it failed to live up to Nintendo's expectations under Bandai Namco. They hired a former Halo character designer called Kyle Hefley; some of his artwork is pictured below. I guess although I'm not a fan of how generic some things in Halo look, the armor in those games does at least resemble Samus' power suit.

GyWczE2.png


ygVtf7G.png


EpjmH1s.png


v4OLAcH.png


A Samus model Hefley did for fun years back.
 

Raskens

Learned
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May 7, 2020
Messages
113
I've always hated the term 'metroidvania'. True Castlevania games are action-platformers where you proceed from stage to stage. No interconnected world or anything like that.

I've always called them platform-adventure games instead.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
Prime 4 is in dev hell. If Dread underperforms I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s quietly cancelled.

In other news almost done with Zero Mission (just finished the zero suit sequence) and holy fuck is there a MASSIVE difficulty spike in the game from Tourian on. The game goes from being really fucking easy to pretty damn difficult. Maybe I’m just old and have slow reflexes now,but it’s very noticeable to me on this replay.
 

The Decline

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2009
Messages
7,248
Location
Everywhere
I've always hated the term 'metroidvania'. True Castlevania games are action-platformers where you proceed from stage to stage. No interconnected world or anything like that.

I've always called them platform-adventure games instead.

Castlevania 2 had an interconnected world.
 

Raskens

Learned
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I've always hated the term 'metroidvania'. True Castlevania games are action-platformers where you proceed from stage to stage. No interconnected world or anything like that.


I've always called them platform-adventure games instead.

Castlevania 2 had an interconnected world.

I know, but the first one didn't and the rest pre SOTN did not have an interconnected world.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,471
AM2R > Super Metroid
Does this make me a hipster? Fusion is crap, though. Has too much Other M DNA in it, and the series is still recovering from that disaster. Name a good decent official Metroid game that was released since 2010. Prime 4 is vapourware. Maybe Metroid Dread will turn out to be okay, but I'm not interested in playing another okay Metroid game (I also don't own a Switch).

Prime 1 > 2 >= 3
My main complaint about Echoes is the overall layout of the game world. The world in Prime 1 has an organic feel to it. Echoes looks like it was designed by an algorithm with a checklist. The big temple in the center of the map with 3 linear paths that each lead to one of the 3 big areas that you have to clear in order. And each area has to have a shortcut to every other area that you can unlock later in the game. I don't know, it feels so artificial. Prime 1 also has better flow. Gameplay is only interrupted by elevators. The game handles loading times pretty well. Doors will usually open without delay when you get close to them, the door to the Crater being that one big exception. When I replayed the series a few years ago I noticed more longer load times in Echoes. And there are also extra loading cutscenes when you jump between light and dark world that slow the game down further. Even the Boost Ball has a longer cooldown now. They also "fixed" rocket launcher cancelling. Everything feels slower, like it's holding me back. But the game has a great atmosphere. The high-tech fortress is among my favorite areas in the series. And it's also more challenging than the first game.
Corruption focuses too much on story and characters with more cutscenes and dialogue that have no place in a Metroid game. And Hypermode is broken. Exploring the individual planets is still fun, though.
 

The Dutch Ghost

Arbiter
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
681
The GBA Metroids were fine and fun, but I think they lost something fundamental from Super Metroid. Something amazing about Super Metroid is that it has a narrative without any dialogue and almost without any cutscenes. And the environmental storytelling isn't stuff like graffiti taking the place of expository dialogue. It's just that the gameplay, graphics, level design, and a tiny seasoning of cutscenes (all of which incorporate symbols/structures from larger scifi genre) manage to give what I would call like the "key frames" of a compelling narrative.* The player's mind then tweens the rest. Likewise, the world has all these paths through it and secrets, but the player isn't being like told he should sequence break or do a completionist run. In some respects the true paths feel no less serendipitous than the shortcuts, and the need to gather powerups is fueled less by gotta-catch-em-all and more by the inherent challenge.

The GBA Metroids are more like guided recreations of the Super Metroid experience. Maybe there was only one good story that could just be totally implied from the setting, art, etc., so they couldn't just do another game like the first. But to me, the addition of the dialogues, increased scripted sequences, and the level design -- all of it feels like, "Remember that time in Super Metroid when X happened and it felt like it was emergent? Now it's scripted." Super Metroid repeated/refined stuff from Metroid (like the biomes, the overall gameplay, etc.), but Super Metroid didn't feel like it was following a formula. The GBA ones do. Hard to describe. Like there are lots of rails, some hidden, but that in some respect it's still on rails.

The same is true of SOTN -> GBA sequels, though I think SOTN is quite overrated compared to Super Metroid. At some point, both franchises just had a series of tropes and boxes to check. The core gameplay is fun, and the formulaic approach in a certain sense distills the fun factor, but lost a lot of the sense of wonder.

I've played some of acclaimed indie "Metroidvanias." They're very good, but they also feel very much like they are operating within a set of genre conventions, rather than just experimenting into an awesome form of action-exploration-adventure as with Super Metroid. To be honest, Cave Story might've been the only one that still felt super fresh. Hollow Knight and Ori are very well made, beautiful games and I had a ton of fun with them, but it just feels like I'm always talking to someone, grinding some resource, getting some familiar powerup or what have you. I'm not sure it's possible any longer to recreate the old charm. But I'd like to see a modern Metroidvania that didn't use dialogues, NPCs, shops, etc.

(* The mirror antagonist of Prince of Persia is a rare example that comes to mind from another game of that approximate era.)

I am a little less 'harsh' towards the Metroid games on the Gameboy Advance, but I really understand your viewpoint on this.
How the journey and the world is more used for 'story telling' rather than cutscenes and dialogue.

Very likely the GBA titles tried to emulate Super Metroid too much. Perhaps the time between the releases played a role, the designers maybe feeling that they had to remind the players of Super Metroid's content. Those gamers who perhaps never played Super Metroid.

Or perhaps they are indeed stuck in a certain approach or mindset of what they think makes up a Metroid game.
I have seen it in other games, and even other media.
This idea that something depends or recurring elements.

I also get you regarding dialog, shops, grinding, etc.
Perhaps that is also a reason why I sometimes don't want to replay a certain Metroid game so soon again.

Sorry, but I can't give you any suggestions now on what could give a really fresh approach to a Metroidvania game.

Prime 4 is in dev hell. If Dread underperforms I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s quietly cancelled.

In other news almost done with Zero Mission (just finished the zero suit sequence) and holy fuck is there a MASSIVE difficulty spike in the game from Tourian on. The game goes from being really fucking easy to pretty damn difficult. Maybe I’m just old and have slow reflexes now,but it’s very noticeable to me on this replay.

I honestly hope (I hate that word, hope is a lie) that Prime 4 is not cancelled as I would really like one more title, perhaps serving as a sort of 'closing chapter'.
Perhaps this time a more personal adventure. There would still be a threat to the Galactic Federation, but things don't get to the scope of Metroid Prime 3 with big space ship battles, multiple space hunters, 'epic storyline'.
Rather it is just Samus doing a mission of her own during which Metroids happen to appear.

Its been a while since I played Zero Mission. I hated some of the shine spark segments, but I think the stealth section should not give me much trouble.

Does this make me a hipster? Fusion is crap, though. Has too much Other M DNA in it, and the series is still recovering from that disaster.

Probably already mentioned here but Fusion was before Other M, and did the same plot threads much better.
Other M was the bad repeat and was really not required.

Prime 1 > 2 >= 3
My main complaint about Echoes is the overall layout of the game world. The world in Prime 1 has an organic feel to it. Echoes looks like it was designed by an algorithm with a checklist. The big temple in the center of the map with 3 linear paths that each lead to one of the 3 big areas that you have to clear in order. And each area has to have a shortcut to every other area that you can unlock later in the game. I don't know, it feels so artificial. Prime 1 also has better flow. Gameplay is only interrupted by elevators. The game handles loading times pretty well. Doors will usually open without delay when you get close to them, the door to the Crater being that one big exception. When I replayed the series a few years ago I noticed more longer load times in Echoes. And there are also extra loading cutscenes when you jump between light and dark world that slow the game down further. Even the Boost Ball has a longer cooldown now. They also "fixed" rocket launcher cancelling. Everything feels slower, like it's holding me back. But the game has a great atmosphere. The high-tech fortress is among my favorite areas in the series. And it's also more challenging than the first game.
Corruption focuses too much on story and characters with more cutscenes and dialogue that have no place in a Metroid game. And Hypermode is broken. Exploring the individual planets is still fun, though.

My main frustration with Echoes was that the game felt unfinished sometimes such as the Dark World, and that a lot of assets seemed to be recycled from Prime 1.

I also found the Dark World somewhat unimaginative.
Based on some of the concept art I think the Dark World equivalents of the locations could have been more interesting, the Ing Hive that serves as the counterpart to Sanctuary Fortress really being this organic living structure for example, with pieces of technology sticking out.
Giving the player the feeling as if they are in a creature rather than a building.

I agree with what makes Corruption different, but I did not dislike it. As long of course that Prime games are not going to focus more and more on those parts.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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Mar 22, 2013
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If anybody wants to replay the original Metroid, I can recommend the M. Planets project. It's a mostly faithful recreation of Metroid for PC. I played around 40% so far. Some differences to the proper game, enemies respawn the moment they are out of the screen, which usually would be highly annoying, but the item drop rate has also increased that makes farming for HP or rockets far easier. Your main sprites looks subtly different. The recoil when enemies hit you has been reduced, which has pros and cons. The big ones are that you have now a map and when you die you respawn at save points with full health and rockets. Also you can activate/deactivate weapons in the menu.

Okay, the really big ones seem to be that there are two other modes, a full new map somewhat modeled after the original Metroid with extra bosses, enemies and items and more areas and stuff (haven't played that yet) and a randomized world mode that's currently only in beta. There's also a randomizer for the original Metroid where items are randomized, not the map though.

https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4952.0.html

 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
It annoys me when people talk about Metroid having a story. The games don't really need one. Which is good, because by the end of Dread...

she is a human girl that has been infused with Chozo, Metroid, and virus X DNA that has somehow biologically merged with her mechanical suit. Trying to tie these games together with a story has been actively hurting them.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
but with the added gimmickry that comes from having the wiimote controls.
People talk a lot about this as if it was a bad thing, but I actually really appreciated it. There were a lot of neat little touches to it, and the core mapping of wiimote arm <-> cannon arm, grapple arm <-> nunchuck arm worked great. It was actually kinda close to a 1:1 mapping of in game action to real life controls, all the way down to how you basically couldn't reach the bottom buttons on the wiimote with that hand, so you have to use the other one (just like how Samus clicks stuff on her cannon arm with her free hand). It was basically the one redeeming feature of a game that was otherwise pure decline from Echoes.

Obviously if you play it on an emulator it's going to feel bad.
Just a reminder that you can use a wiimote with an emulator. Including motion controls if you buy or build an infrared bar to shoot lasers at the wiimote (it's called a sensor bar, but is actually an emitter).
 

The Dutch Ghost

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May 26, 2016
Messages
681
It annoys me when people talk about Metroid having a story. The games don't really need one. Which is good, because by the end of Dread...

she is a human girl that has been infused with Chozo, Metroid, and virus X DNA that has somehow biologically merged with her mechanical suit. Trying to tie these games together with a story has been actively hurting them.

Well I don't mind a storyline, like in the Prime games. But the storylines in the Metroid games have become so incredibly convoluted.
Fusion was still fine with me, but all the backstory that has been added over the years and now Dread has not done much good to the setting.
 

Louis_Cypher

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Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
1,519
It started with the manga, which added all that stuff like Zebes being Samus's home at one time. Apparently some people love it, including the Metroid teams that have worked on the games. To me however they made that perennial mistake that ruins franchise after franchise; they explained things that were better left alone or to more competent world-building, and made the world smaller by tying the main character into an existing location.

3V7uUuF.png
 

J1M

Arcane
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May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Yes, at this point each game makes the setting feel smaller because it feels the need to name drop everything before it, which implies that is the extent of the universe.
 

The Dutch Ghost

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Joined
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Messages
681
It started with the manga, which added all that stuff like Zebes being Samus's home at one time. Apparently some people love it, including the Metroid teams that have worked on the games. To me however they made that perennial mistake that ruins franchise after franchise; they explained things that were better left alone or to more competent world-building, and made the world smaller by tying the main character into an existing location.

Yeah, I also felt that Samus should never have had a connection to Zebes.
Or perhaps even the Chozo.
Just that she had a powersuit that was compatible with their left behind technology.

With the first couple of games I got the impression that the 'mysterious bird people' whose statues and tech you came across were long gone.
The same with the Metroids. That if they were created (I don't think the first three games even implied that), that their creators were long extinct.

Same rather with the Space Jockeys from Alien. Their species and civilization were so far in the past that most of it had turned to ruin with only some still functioning pieces.

I liked there to be some focus on them, and get some answers. But not completely reviving them and bringing them back.
 
Last edited:

The Dutch Ghost

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May 26, 2016
Messages
681
Yes, at this point each game makes the setting feel smaller because it feels the need to name drop everything before it, which implies that is the extent of the universe.

I always disliked the whole small universe/everything needs to be connected with another.

I was reading one of Brian Daley's old Star Wars books today again. He wrote a couple of Star Wars books with Han Solo being the main character, these books were set before the original movie/Star Wars IV (and when it was the only movie of the franchise)
How much world building Brian did in his books, expanding on elements in Star Wars, and adding a lot to it later media would reuse and expand on.

What annoyed me a lot is that I knew that a lot of later Star Wars media writers seemed to lack a lot of Brian's world building skills, only able to build on what had already been established or feeling the need to expand some random references or background elements mentioned in earlier SW media. Or worse, deciding to retcon certain elements to fit their oh so much better storylines.

I don't mind that sometimes a writer takes a reference from a conversation or something mentioned in an older story, and expand on that or show on that.
But this is what Star Wars, and Star Trek expanded universe material seemed to become, just continuously expanding on elements from the movies, series, or other older books. The writers apparently either having no confidence in their owns skills, or simply not really any creativity of themselves.

And now we have that in the Metroid series.
Everything needs to be connected.
The origins of Samus' powersuit need to be explained.
Even more details on the Chozo when manuals and the backstory we got in Prime 1 and 3 were sufficient.

World building has become a lost skill. People just want to recycle what is already made up.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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A lot of times writers of spin-off material have very tight restrictions on what they can add to a universe, and the more popular those spin-offs get the more restrictions are in place.
 

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