Status of Metroid uncertain after Other M. (2024)

http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=156704

No, they're not just referring to Other M. Every Metroid title since Prime 1 has sold worse and worse. Although I really fail to see how they could've thought releasing Prime 2 among the biggest names of the day like Metal Gear Solid 3 was a good idea.

Oh yes they can. About time too. I'm sure I'm not the only one getting tired of Nintendo beating its stable of dead horses.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery.Goodfae: a mafia web serial

I think the issue might be that people want a game similar to Super. Thing of it is, ever since Prime, each game seems to have been more and more story-focused, as opposed to exploration-focused.

Take the Prime series as an example. The first Prime was, dare I say it, basically Super in 3D, which was an amazing thing. The main thrust of the game was exploration and discovery. There was story, yes, but story you discovered by scanning everything in sight. You were alone, and you had to figure out for yourself what had happened, and what was going on. It sold the isolation and loneliness. Plus, the powerups you got were just interesting enough to keep hunting for, and did well at letting you explore. When you found a new area, it was generally because you simply applied your new stuff to older things you'd seen before. I think it did well because it was really good at what players had come to expect from Metroid.

Echoes was a little more story-focused than the first Prime. There was still a lot of exploration and story-scanning, yes, but you weren't alone. From the first, you had an advisor, if not a companion, in U-Mos. He told you the situation, and what needed to happen. No longer were you tromping about the planet's rather roughly-connected surface in search of the next place you could go: now you knew that you had to go to this place before going to this place in order to get to the Energy Controllers. Also, you knew early on who the final boss was going to be. In the first Prime, you heard whisperings about the "Worm" early on, but it wasn't until much later that you learned just what the Metroid Prime was, where it was, and how you could confront it. In Echoes, Dark Samus shows up early and often. The ammo system may also have contributed to lower sales.

I haven't played all of Corruption, but it seems to me it's even more story-focused. Samus is surrounded by living characters who dialogue with her often. She's got the Federation backing her, and instead of 1 planet divided into a number of sections, whose connections you have to find, it's a bunch of planets that they send you to one after another. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but the continued reduction of the player's feeling of... let's say initiative... may have affected things.

I certainly know that was probably the case with Fusion. A large complaint was the lack of choice in a lot of things. ADAM told you where you needed to go and what you needed to get, and that was final. You don't argue with the computer.

And I hear that Other M had something similar, but I can't comment as I have not played it myself.

So... what I'm saying is that if they could bring back the sort of unguided exploration (or else, guided only by what you're able to pull off at the time) that we had in Super and Prime, things might pick up.

edit: Wait all they said is they're letting it "cool for awhile"? You made it sound a bit more dire.

edited 27th Apr '11 8:14:27 AM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

There will be a next gen Metroid Prime. That's all I can say at this time.

Jonah Falcon

If it's all you can say... I suppose asking for a source is futile?

Not saying I don't believe you , just hoping that you're in a position to tell us your source. If not, I understand.

I have a message from another time...

Let's just say Nintendo is very intent on bringing the core Nintendo user back.

Jonah Falcon

The problem of the series that Super was the last properly FREE one. They slowly took out all that made the frickin' Trope Namer of Metroidvania an actual Metroidvania which is what chased the people off. The big frak-up was that there were three progressively awesome Castlevania Metroidvanias on the DS. And no Metroids. GBA had Fusion which was awesome, but unwelcoming to the core fanbase with its linearity, and Zero Mission which was a linearized (but thankfully, not as much as Fusion) remake of the first one. It's like they INTENTIONALLY were trying not to repeat the success and fanaticism surrounding Super. And from what I've heard, Other M throws Character Derailment into the mix for some bizarre reason as well.

Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.

Not Metroid. Super Metroid. Big diff.

Jonah Falcon

Prime was basically a 3D Super in terms of exploration. The first one, anyway.

I have a message from another time...

Zero Mission isn't really linear. They put in so many intentional sequence breaks it wasn't even funny. The problem with Zero Mission was that it is on the same planet as Super Metroid. Zero Mission's problem is therefore is that it's not Super Metroid. We need a truly new 2D Metroid, it's a crying shame the DS never got one, when the DS Castlevanias were so good. The games are also rather short. You beat the game, get the items, and that's it. At least the Castlevania games have the bonus areas, the whole map filling stuff which Metroid has never really capitalised on, the rpg elements, and all the different weapons, armours, subquests, etc. Metroid just has "get all the items, get few items, beat it faster."

The Metroid team really need to replay Super and also the Castlevania titles. The Castlevania titles have a bit of plot here and there, yet don't sacrifice it and make you go around a single area and railroad you. Well, Ecclesia did a bit, due to opening up levels, but that kind of harkened back to its origins, so it had good reason.

At the same time, this article links to the main one, which is probably just a rumour. The girl even says "You know stuff by sleeping with someone who works at Nintendo" which makes her sound like an attention whor* to me.

And yeah, Prime 3 is pretty linear, with half of its upgrades being f*cking useless, and Other M is literally like Fusion in 3D with more cutscenes and very linear (to the point of straight lines!) in terms of level design.

Well, every Metroid title after Prime 1 was worse and worse. Both Echoes and Corruption have their charm and are good games yet they still don't rival Super and Prime. And the less that's said about Prime Hunters and Other M, the better.

edited 27th Apr '11 8:54:37 AM by Ana

Why should they? Exactly who is this "core" user base? Everyone who didn't buy a Nintendo 64, or a Gamecube, the DS hackers, the Wii pirates? It is strange though, Echoes was up against big titles at the time, and Metroid Prime 3 got barely any promotion. That promotion went to Super Smash Bros Brawl, and one of the Wii casual titles, that were huge sellers. This wasn't bad business, its just silly, they should be surprised 3 sold as well as it did. No one was crying about how long it took to surpass the sale of Super Mario Bros or Pokemon Red and Blue.

Metroid has a lot of places it could go, and I would miss it. But if Nintendo's afraid, so be it. Other M failed to appeal to its target audience and alienated the traditional target audience. Maybe its time to take a break, let the back draft blow over. Edit Hunters was a good game.

edited 27th Apr '11 9:30:17 AM by Cider

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Me, being of my personal opinion, found all of the console Prime games quite enjoyable (Hunters... was made by a different group and didn't really appeal to me), much more so than any of the 2D Metroid games. Keep in mind, there's probably two pools of fans, probably with a lot of overlap, between both the 2D games and the 3D ones.

edited 27th Apr '11 9:03:23 AM by Usht

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

That's been Vapor Ware for years.

Yes, Hunters is a good game. Just not a Metroid game.

Nah, it's a Metroid game just like Zelda II is a Zelda game, it was just an experiment that tends to stick out a bit.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

Was Dread ever actually a real game? I thought it was an Urban Legend of Zelda that just got referenced in Corruption.

Dumbo

Zero Mission isn't really linear. They put in so many intentional sequence breaks it wasn't even funny.

I know about the sequence breaks. But none of those matter once you reach the end of the original game's story since it's fully linear from then on, and B-sides, the leading-by-the-hand the Chozo statues do was probably irritating not only for me. It's crazy that Monster Tale is the closest we have to a proper DS Metroid (since Scurge Hive is isometric, not side-scrolling), crazy!

edited 27th Apr '11 9:23:43 AM by Noelemahc

Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.

Sakamoto alluded several times to Dread's existence as a project and that it's not quite sure when and if it will be finished. Maybe it started as a Urban Legend of Zelda and became a Sure, Why Not?, who knows

edited 27th Apr '11 9:12:54 AM by Ana

Prime 2 is actually the least linear Metroid Prime game if you factor in glitches, due to one glitch allowing you to skip the entire suit loss sequence.

Every Metroid title since Prime 1 has sold worse and worse.

Hunters was the second best selling Metroid game. Sure, it was an awful, bastardized, linear FPS with a Samus sticker pasted on the cover, but it sold well.

edited 27th Apr '11 10:59:52 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

If they're just waiting long enough that we can collectively pretend Other M never happened, I'm cool with that.

If not, well, at least Corruption was a nice last hurrah. Not as good as some of the others, but it would at least be some closure, unlike with some other series that were abandoned/never were revisited.

I want two things:

• New 2D Metroid game.
• Metroid 5. I want to see where they take the story with new less-human Samus. Everything since Fusion has been prequels sandwiched between Zebes and SR 388.