It's Critter Time!

JarylGaren wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 2:34 pm

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:58 pm I love this series so much and wish the release gaps were... less frequent.

god, same.
I think that's where Nintendo's almost pathological need to innovate and think of new gameplay hooks to "surprise and delight" players is actively a detriment, because that then leads to long gaps of nothing (Metroid, Kid Icarus, F-Zero, Star Fox, for example) and the occasional stinker (shout-outs to Paper Mario: Sticker Star)
then again, I have my own hot take about Star Fox, namely that literally everything the fandom makes is more interesting than anything Nintendo themselves would do. And yes, I am also talking about all the gay porn

I get not wanting to make the same stuff over and over again, but also, sometimes it would just be nice to have a new game that's pretty damn good, that maybe doesn't necessarily reinvent the entire genre or series, but is just fun to play.

Yeah... Nintendo's constant need to innovate and come up with new gameplay hooks is detrimental to the release schedules of some games, in particular their weaker-selling IPs like Metroid, F-Zero and Star Fox, and I'm incredibly certain that it's fueled by how game critics were like "why it play the same as the game from (x) years ago :/" 20 - 30 years ago.

Frankly, I'd be fine if the gameplay for the 2D games stayed similar to Dread, as I feel Dread represents the 2D series at its most refined. 3D, Prime without a doubt, because the last time they tried experimenting with the gameplay of a 3D game we got Other M. That is to this day the only Metroid game I have not finished and I have zero intentions to finish it because GOD.

SnowyTasha wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 3:17 pm Frankly, I'd be fine if the gameplay for the 2D games stayed similar to Dread, as I feel Dread represents the 2D series at its most refined. 3D, Prime without a doubt, because the last time they tried experimenting with the gameplay of a 3D game we got Other M. That is to this day the only Metroid game I have not finished and I have zero intentions to finish it because GOD.

Dread is awesome, I agree. I feel like that one would be a very good blueprint to add new weapons and tools into to play around with.

To be fair, I actually kinda liked Other M's gameplay overall, but I do agree that forcing you to control a 3D action game with a d-pad, for instance, is a baffling decision.

there's already been plenty said about the story of the game online, so I won't go too deep into it, but even there I feel like there were some interesting ideas where the execution was lacking.

like, it's a game where I definitely see the flaws and issues it has, but I managed to enjoy my time with it still!

JarylGaren wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 5:00 pm

SnowyTasha wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 3:17 pm Frankly, I'd be fine if the gameplay for the 2D games stayed similar to Dread, as I feel Dread represents the 2D series at its most refined. 3D, Prime without a doubt, because the last time they tried experimenting with the gameplay of a 3D game we got Other M. That is to this day the only Metroid game I have not finished and I have zero intentions to finish it because GOD.

Dread is awesome, I agree. I feel like that one would be a very good blueprint to add new weapons and tools into to play around with.

To be fair, I actually kinda liked Other M's gameplay overall, but I do agree that forcing you to control a 3D action game with a d-pad, for instance, is a baffling decision.

there's already been plenty said about the story of the game online, so I won't go too deep into it, but even there I feel like there were some interesting ideas where the execution was lacking.

like, it's a game where I definitely see the flaws and issues it has, but I managed to enjoy my time with it still!

I hate Other M to the point where I don't consider it canon and tell people interested in picking up Metroid that it can be safely skipped lol

Yeah, that's fair, lmao

Other M is an incredibly divisive game, after all

It's Character Assassination: The Game. Samus was always depicted as being incredibly independent to an extreme fault, regularly turning down her CO Adam Malkovich's orders when serving the Galactic Federation military, and always going in on missions alone. Suddenly, she's depicted as subservient to Adam, not being able to do things on her own without him giving her permission to do so. In Fusion, the first game where Samus has a speaking role, she's depicted as respecting Adam, despite her objections to his orders. Adam is depicted as being weirdly cruel and sadistic in Other M, most notably with the hell run where he doesn't authorize the Varia Suit until she's nearly done with it. Also in Fusion, Samus is shown as understanding the great danger that she's in due to the SA-X (lol) but nonetheless remains stoic even in the face of something that will very likely kill her... in Other M, she has a panic attack when faced with Ridley, an enemy she's faced numerous times at that point. You could argue that there's the trauma of Ridley being her parents' murderer but. Again. She's faced Ridley multiple times before that point.

It's just. There's so much wrong with the game, from the control scheme to the story (especially the story!!!!) and to my understanding the Japanese script is only slightly better with Samus' characterization, but I'm not sure how Adam's characterization is because I've only seen Samus'.

still makes me wonder if there's actually something to the theory I heard a bunch of times over the years that Other M was originally supposed to be a prequel set before Metroid 1/Zero Mission, and then they decided to put it after Super and before Fusion for some reason.

honestly... I could believe it. Maybe it'd make the story more salvageable.

I have heard about a mod that tries to make it better through... The Geek Critique, I think it was? idr what it's called, but I think that while you might be able to salvage the gameplay there's not much that can be done to salvage that train wreck of a story.

I heard about a gameplay mod for Other M too, but I also can't remember what it's called. ^^"

on another note:
I hope we won't have to wait another eternity or two for a sequel to Dread, like we had to wait for Dread itself, lmao. I wanna know where the series goes next after *gesticulates at the entire Metroid Dread endgame*
there's certainly a lot of potential for really cool shit happening!

I remember first hearing about Dread during lunch in middle school.

I was 12. It came out when I was in my late 20s.

CyanSorcery wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 1:17 am We've seen a lot of people discuss about how they were disappointed the EMMI only showed up in their zones and wanting something like Fusion where they can show up at any time, but the problem is that then you have to test them showing up at any point in the game, when anything is happening, and it creates the possibilities for a LOT of edge cases. It wouldn't be very scary if the guy showed up just to be stuck in a wall

I don't mind them being constrained to a zone, but moreover that it is clearly telegraphed that they will ONLY be in those zones and that the area is so disparate visually to the rest of the area

I think it would be nice if there was at least a little ambiguity instead of the game clearly telegraphing that "oh this door is to the EMMI zone" if you hadn't already spotted that on your map, which is what deminishes the "dread" so to speak.

i ended up sacking off Dread purely because i hated the EMMI encounters lmao. i love to get instakilled by failing what feels like a 2 frame input

like maybe it was just years of rust but that game felt substantially more difficult than any other metroid even early on and i do not have the patience for that

The EMMI take some time to get used to. Trying to figure out if you have enough runway to break the shield & then having to remember the button combination that you've used only twice before to fire off the mega beam that blasts their faces off.

I think my main annoyance with Dread is that the parry timing absolutely did not work for me for one of the bosses near the end (Z-57) and it took the wind out of my sails and I never continued after that.