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The history of the Metroid Series


phart010

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Metroid fans? You mean "Super Metroid Fans".

It seems like most complaints about Metroid games that aren't Super Metroid is that they're not Super Metroid.

At some point, if 2 or 3 out of, what, 15?, titles are your jam you aren't a fan of the series. 

I'm not a Metroid fan per se but I enjoyed playing almost every title. I found Other M was fantastic and I still go back to Metroid Prime Pinball on the regular.

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1 hour ago, WhyNotZoidberg said:

Metroid fans? You mean "Super Metroid Fans".

It seems like most complaints about Metroid games that aren't Super Metroid is that they're not Super Metroid.

At some point, if 2 or 3 out of, what, 15?, titles are your jam you aren't a fan of the series. 

I'm not a Metroid fan per se but I enjoyed playing almost every title. I found Other M was fantastic and I still go back to Metroid Prime Pinball on the regular.

Metroid 1, 2, 3 and to a lesser extent, Fusion, ZM and Samus Returns are what Metroid fans want. The problem is that the genre of Metroid games was significantly changed after Super Metroid. People have a hard time recognizing this, because while they can recognize that they really like Super Metroid, they have a difficult time defining precisely what the genre of this game is.
 

I believe this is why fans have coined the term “Metroidvania.” Koji Igarashi recognized that Metroidvania stands as its own unique genre. Fans realize there are some key ingredients that they really appreciate about the genre, but they are integrated into the experience so seamlessly, that it’s really hard for people to pinpoint exactly what those ingredients are.

Likely even Nintendo doesn’t know precisely what it is that made Super Metroid so great, and this may be why we haven’t seen another 2D Metroid in such a long time. The producer of the series was Gunpei Yokoi and he died after Super Metroid was completed before any Metroid sequels were made.  Making Metroid without him is like making Megaman without Keiji Inafune. It can be done as we’ve seen with Megaman 11, but it took a long break and there was a lot brainstorming that had to be done to figure out what made the series great.
 

There is definitely still a market for this type of game as we are seeing a resurgence in this Metroidvania genre through the indie developer market.

 

Edited by phart010
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1 hour ago, WhyNotZoidberg said:

At some point, if 2 or 3 out of, what, 15?, titles are your jam you aren't a fan of the series. 

I mean, I don't know. I'd call myself a Super Monkey Ball fan because I think the first two games are amazing, despite being frustrated with over a dozen subpar spinoffs, collections, and re-rereleases.

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43 minutes ago, phart010 said:

Metroid 1, 2, 3 and to a lesser extent, Fusion, ZM and Samus Returns are what Metroid fans want. The problem is that the genre of Metroid games was significantly changed after Super Metroid. People have a hard time recognizing this, because while they can recognize that they really like Super Metroid, they have a difficult time defining precisely what the genre of this game is.
 

I believe this is why fans have coined the term “Metroidvania.” Koji Igarashi recognized that Metroidvania stands as its own unique genre. Fans realize there are some key ingredients that they really appreciate about the genre, but they are integrated into the experience so seamlessly, that it’s really hard for people to pinpoint exactly what those ingredients are.

Likely even Nintendo doesn’t know precisely what it is that made Super Metroid so great, and this may be why we haven’t seen another 2D Metroid in such a long time. The producer of the series was Gunpei Yokoi and he died after Super Metroid was completed before any Metroid sequels were made.  Making Metroid without him is like making Megaman without Keiji Inafune. It can be done as we’ve seen with Megaman 11, but it took a long break and there was a lot brainstorming that had to be done to figure out what made the series great.
 

There is definitely still a market for this type of game as we are seeing a resurgence in this Metroidvania genre through the indie developer market.

 

I was just playing dumb with semantics, but I'll argue that the series has 15 (14? w/e) games across 4 genres including video pinball and if you like less than half the titles and only in 1 of the genres the series offer, you're not a fan of Metroid as a whole. You are a Super Metroid & Co. fan.

And for the record I really hate the term "Metroidvania" which is used to described a Castlevania game with Metroid elements. Now we'll say Metroidvania for games that have very 0 vampires in them so really they're just Metroid-like games.

Edited by WhyNotZoidberg
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As opposed a specific type of Castlevania game, I think of the term Metroidvania more broadly represents games that are similar to Super Metroid and Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
 

These games both did something extremely well. What exactly that something is, I can’t define. But they both did it, and so many games over the years have attempted to replicate it with varying degrees of success 

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1 hour ago, phart010 said:

As opposed a specific type of Castlevania game, I think of the term Metroidvania more broadly represents games that are similar to Super Metroid and Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
 

These games both did something extremely well. What exactly that something is, I can’t define. But they both did it, and so many games over the years have attempted to replicate it with varying degrees of success 

Besides featuring interesting characters, super tight controls, mind blazing movement strats, cool visuals, excellent sfx and ost and superior presentation you mean?

People often talk about the freedom of exploration, but really it's more like the plot walls are further away than usual. Similarly, you can go many places in ALttP but you'll eventually need an item of sorts to unlock other portions of the game.

But they both have something that's also found in the og Dragon Warrior, a game in which you are 100% free to roam around anywhere (some doors might need keys) but you'll get killed by tougher monsters. But what if you don't? That's all that's preventing you, but there are ways around that.

In SM and SotN, there are many places you can't access but a lot of how everything is set up has players asking themselves "but what if I could?" So really it's not so much exploration of the map as much as exploration of the game's limit. And in SM and SotN, this is done very organically. Probably accidentally just like the combos in Street Fighter II. And pulling these often pixel-perfect stunts doesn't feel like exploiting bugs in the game.

When a game comes out and does it intentionally, players feel it and it's not as rewarding because it doesn't come from the player's effort, it's just another challenge in the game.

Edited by WhyNotZoidberg
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This is going to be a REALLY LONG 3.5 months waiting for Metroid Dread 🔥😡🔥 

I really wish Nintendo waited to reveal this game a few days before it hit shelves

Doesnt help that YouTube algorithm keeps on reminding me that this is coming out 😭

Edited by phart010
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Can't wait for Metroid Prime 4: Metroid Snap!

Samus has lost all the data! Her younger sister, the spunky brat Lamus, is on vacation on Zebes and it's up to her to gather all the information about the life forms on Zebes. She will take pictures of these critters in the wild and send the data back to Samus!

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Editorials Team · Posted
37 minutes ago, WhyNotZoidberg said:

Can't wait for Metroid Prime 4: Metroid Snap!

Samus has lost all the data! Her younger sister, the spunky brat Lamus, is on vacation on Zebes and it's up to her to gather all the information about the life forms on Zebes. She will take pictures of these critters in the wild and send the data back to Samus!

I'm down 😂

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  • 1 month later...


New video reporting on the latest Metroid Dread update. Apparently they will be making the game in such a way that you get power ups earlier than the intended order. They specifically called this out as being similar to sequence breaking in Super Metroid. This is very good news.

I wasn’t going to preorder because I was hoping for another round of collectors editions. But I think might just go ahead and preorder from GameStop to get the little preorder bonus .


Edit: Just captured some imagery that flashed by quickly in one of the new trailers they put out:

8A1657B2-2663-41CF-AE55-D7B6AA0ADA87.png.677a9bf6ea1fd28be4b95269fb10b0d7.pngB76274C3-6CC1-4502-A605-5A6FE9FD1399.png.18b408b2138895d77b6b9d0b51582dde.pngE13A4FB3-932B-4844-A87C-2685DD824A61.png.1bd91d3f4491ed040b70c1ef3fd36d8f.pngC86FD255-2AED-4689-8ECD-E2B8BD7F621D.png.b16722f3c1ac051a2e3f119f31cc4539.png

Edited by phart010
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  • 2 years later...

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