Metroid: Samus Returns

[Cyhwuhx]

The footage so far only seems to support my thoughts: more combat oriented, less exploration/ability employment. Metroids themselves seem like Mario/Zelda bosses in having clearly defined attack patterns and marks, instead of providing windows of opportunity for additional damage. Shadow Complex is only prevalent in the aiming really.

 

[edit] Before people reboot this into yet another episode of "Cyhwuhx hates whatever-the-hell-he-criticises-this-time-around", I'm having a vastly different perspective on the franchise here, looking specifically to the Super-Fusion-Zero Mission legacy and its evolving gameplay depth and empowerment of players. That doesn't mean the Primes and Other M (for instance) are bad games, they are just not the core Metroid experience I'm searching for.

 

Guacamelee! for instance started off as being shallow, but managed to combine both the combat abilities with traversal and got insanely close. Axiom Verge simply hit the target. Samus Returns so far just shows the abilities being in place, but little of their deployment besides cameos. That will simply require a hands-on approach. it also suffers from the simple fact that AM2R exists and actually feels as a natural extension to Zero Mssion, thus being more in line with what I'm searching for.

 

Also keep in mind my remarks basically generate a random, personal string of numbers to be stuck behind a  "9." to begin with. That being said, it really feels like they've chosen the path of most resistance with both MP and M:SR.

[HarMGM]

Hmm, the big issue i've got with Axiom Verge, AM2R and Zero Mission is that those games seem to have gotten stuck in this weird Super Metroid feedback loop. Where Super gets placed on this pedestal of untouchable game design only to be polished to a sheen.

 

Games like Guacamelee!, Shadow Complex and now this new remake of RoS seem a bit more forward looking. In the sense that, yes we have a metroidvania but what can we combine it with to create something that we can move forward with rather then keep looking back to 1994 as some sort of pinnacle.

[Cyhwuhx]

21 minutes ago, HarMGM said:

Hmm, the big issue i've got with Axiom Verge, AM2R and Zero Mission is that those games seem to have gotten stuck in this weird Super Metroid feedback loop. Where Super gets placed on this pedestal of untouchable game design only to be polished to a sheen.

 

Games like Guacamelee!, Shadow Complex and now this new remake of RoS seem a bit more forward looking. In the sense that, yes we have a metroidvania but what can we combine it with to create something that we can move forward with rather then keep looking back to 1994 as some sort of pinnacle.

 

Good thing the loop ended with Zero Mission then, eh?

[HarMGM]

It's to bad Other M replaced it.

[Dig Dug]

I saw someone suggest this is 30fps. If that's true thenI think a lot of designers don't really understand why that kind of thing is important sometimes. Super Metroid ran at 60 FPS and to this day still remains the most emergent Metroid game due to the degree of control given to the player. Yes I am putting it on the pedestal but it deserves it for its mechanical function more than anything else.

Samus has so many things in that game that they never used again in later metroid games, the sprint button being an obvious one. Nintendo don't know what to do with metroid games so they just attempt to refine the game play each time but every time they do that with a 3rd person metroid game they lose something from Super. Fusion was linear and stripped down for a handheld. Zero Mission was sleeker but again also stripped down slightly for the GBA, Other M is what it was. Compared to the effort gone into some other Nintendo games Metroid seems almost creatively bankrupted in its design by comparison.

When I look at this I just see them doing the same thing again. They are clearly trying to give players more "control" with the new aiming tools but it is done so at the expense of the flow, same with these special attacks. It looks more modern and sleek sure but I'm going to make the argument now that even with all these new things the combat will be no more emergent than super metroid (in fact considering all the things you can do in super it might actually be less emergent).

[HarMGM]

29 minutes ago, Dig Dug said:

I saw someone suggest this is 30fps. If that's true thenI think a lot of designers don't really understand why that kind of thing is important sometimes. Super Metroid ran at 60 FPS and to this day still remains the most emergent Metroid game due to the degree of control given to the player. Yes I am putting it on the pedestal but it deserves it for its mechanical function more than anything else.

This being 30 FPS is incredibly disappointing. Metroid really benefits from running at a full 60 FPS.

 

As for Super being the most emergent. Well i'm not really sure I buy that. Quite a few ideas it uses to give more control to the player were originally introduced in Metroid II on Game Boy(The space jump notably). You could even say that RoS is even more emergent due to the addition of the Spider-ball(removed from Super, alas). Not only that but Super is the game where Nintendo first starts using unnecessary 'key' items such as the Super Missile and Power Bomb that serve no other purpose then to lock you out of certain areas, thereby taking control away from you in a certain sense. It's something that became even worse after that with Other M being the outright nadir of that type of design.

 

One of the things i'm enjoying about the videos are the extra uses you can get out of something like the grapple beam, grappling enemies and flinging them onto the floor. Looks to give the player an enormous sense of power.

[Cyhwuhx]

This is why Zero Mission is the ultimate form of the template, neatly taking everything introduced during the main numbered ones and merging it into a reimagining of the first. Super Metroid might be an Old One, but Zero Mission gives you way more freedom in how to tackle the gameworld, both by design and sequence breaks. To me Zero Mission was anything but stripped down, the handholding really was there to be ignored if you were a veteran.

[scottcr]

What do I know... but of Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, Other M and the Prime games... Super is my least favourite.  It just becomes so brain crushingly frustrating in places and opaque.  To be fair to Super, I played both Fusion and Zero Mission first... and Super felt like a real step back.

 

I really enjoyed Other M and it's the only one of the 2D ones I've actually fully 100%ed.

 

And I think I'm going to have to fundamentally disagree with Cy when it comes to opinions on 3D games.

[Dig Dug]

Super Metroid is an odd game when put next to other Metroid games. Watching how Super Metroid has developed as a speedrun game over the last few years has certainly changed my opinion on the game. A lot of the emergence in that game comes from how well the player can "master" Samus. When you get good at Super Metroid, and I mean really good, it becomes one of the best examples of flow I've ever seen in a game.

That said a lot of this is helped by certain exploits that players can abuse such as mockball (morphball while keeping the sprint speed) and the physics allowing you to make jumps you're not actually supposed to make.

On top of that you also have the power up customization and secret special moves like Crystal Flash (trade 10 missiles, 10 super missiles, and 11 power bombs when health is below 50 to full refill) and the special beam attacks (trade a powerbomb for a charge attack).

 

Zero Mission is the most solidly designed Metroid game when it comes to intended skips (the acid worm skip in Kraid was thought to be accidental until someone found a video of the developers doing it) but in terms of malleability Super Metroid is untouched thanks to the fact you can beat the game bosses in any order if you know how. It really is an amazing piece of work. Zero Mission is a far more refined game but Super is far more flexible.

[Cyhwuhx]

And that's the core I want(ed) Nintendo to develop further. But it's something they fundamentally do not understand anymore. Retro made great in-roads in finding their own type of flow in 3D, but that was done in by Japan's meddling, resulting in Corruption which is arguably the least Metroid of the Primes. The franchise died when R&D1 was dissolved.

 

Guessing the depth of Metroid is regarded as being too hardcore, even though its principles were applied to Breathe new life into the latest Zelda of all things. Hell, sequence breaking the temples is praised and the entire system seems to be designed from teh start to allow for such dynamics. It's plain weird that Nintendo doesn't want to use this in the franchise that basically put the practice on the map in the first place. Or maybe M:SR will surprise after all. Are there any speedrunners at Treehouse?

[Dig Dug]

Even if there was their skills wouldn't mean much if they don't already know the game inside out. It would be like asking a fighting game player to play a new game on stream for 30 minutes and asking them if it is okay when they need the full break down on the thing and many hours of play in order to give an informed option. 

[Cyhwuhx]

1 minute ago, Dig Dug said:

Even if there was their skills wouldn't mean much if they don't already know the game inside out. It would be like asking a fighting game player to play a new game on stream for 30 minutes and asking them if it is okay when they need the full break down on the thing and many hours of play in order to give an informed option. 

 

True, but at least we could read a lot out the person's attempts to initiate abilities/moves. Haven't seen an attempt to a one-sided walljump ascend for instance. (No word on the Speed Booster as well.)

[Dig Dug]

4 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

 

True, but at least we could read a lot out the person's attempts to initiate abilities/moves. Haven't seen an attempt to a one-sided walljump ascend for instance. (No word on the Speed Booster as well.)

I don't think they'll ever allow one-sided wall jumping back in a metroid game with how controlling Nintendo like to be with quality control now.

[the_debaser]

I can never decide between Prime 1 and Super. They're up there as two of my favourites ever, Prime especially so when it was on the Wii with its lovely pointer controls. 

 

Prime Hunters is probably the worst Metroid game because the controls are pure wank. I'd rather play Fed Force. 

[scottcr]

I really don't understand this sequence breaking and speed-running thing.  Like those ultra hard Mario levels on Mario Maker... what is the point?!?!  

[dataDave]

2 hours ago, HarMGM said:

Hmm, the big issue i've got with Axiom Verge, AM2R and Zero Mission is that those games seem to have gotten stuck in this weird Super Metroid feedback loop. Where Super gets placed on this pedestal of untouchable game design only to be polished to a sheen.

 

Games like Guacamelee!, Shadow Complex and now this new remake of RoS seem a bit more forward looking. In the sense that, yes we have a metroidvania but what can we combine it with to create something that we can move forward with rather then keep looking back to 1994 as some sort of pinnacle.

 

I played Super Metroid for the first time back in 2011. It was great, but I wasn't overly impressed. I don't really understand the madness surrounding it - I much preferred Zero Mission and especially Fusion (my first Metroid).

Roll back to Christmas 2009 and I was playing Symphony of the Night for the first time. Wow... It instantly shot into my top 20 games of all time. Absolutely timeless, what a masterpiece.

[scottcr]

Super Metroid wasn't designed to have all these exploits in them... they're effectively bugs.  So, holding that up as some kind of essence of Metroid is just odd.

 

 

[Kevvy Metal]

1 hour ago, Dig Dug said:

I saw someone suggest this is 30fps. If that's true thenI think a lot of designers don't really understand why that kind of thing is important sometimes. Super Metroid ran at 60 FPS and to this day still remains the most emergent Metroid game due to the degree of control given to the player. Yes I am putting it on the pedestal but it deserves it for its mechanical function more than anything else.

 

Well... 60 interlaced fields per second on your old 240p CRT with scanlines for the unusual field. 

Those games had to run at that  screen update... and instead the whole game engine would slow down when things went over budget. 

Slow down.. the frame rate of yester-year. 

[scottcr]

What I want is to jump about as a space bounty hunter, kill space pirates and metroids, explore, find new areas, backtrack like fuck (but not in a frustrating way) and fight big cool bosses.

 

pew pew pew

[Cyhwuhx]

1 minute ago, scottcr said:

Super Metroid wasn't designed to have all these exploits in them... they're effectively bugs.  So, holding that up as some kind of essence of Metroid is just odd.

 

 

 

Yes, bugs. That became features in Fusion. That's the entire thing: players find bugs, devs polish them into features, gameplay deepens.

[Cyhwuhx]

Just now, scottcr said:

What I want is to jump about as a space bounty hunter, kill space pirates and metroids, explore, find new areas, backtrack like fuck (but not in a frustrating way) and fight big cool bosses.

 

pew pew pew

 

Go and enjoy Federation Force then. God knows the game needs it.

[Let us measure]

23 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

Guessing the depth of Metroid is regarded as being too hardcore, even though its principles were applied to Breathe new life into the latest Zelda of all things. Hell, sequence breaking the temples is praised and the entire system seems to be designed from teh start to allow for such dynamics. It's plain weird that Nintendo doesn't want to use this in the franchise that basically put the practice on the map in the first place. Or maybe M:SR will surprise after all. Are there any speedrunners at Treehouse?

 

The combat system in Other M was the most hardcore Metroid has been in terms of the options available to the player to take down baddies though, even though the game is seen as pedestrian in other respects such as secret areas.

 

100%ing OM gave access to a super play video from the menu which, in true Team Ninja fashion, showed off some amazing gameplay that speed runners would have been able to emulate. Shine-sparking through Nightmare's head and taking him down in ten seconds flat was a highlight. Using that sort of technique just wouldn't have occurred to the average player.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that contrary to your belief, Metroid isn't particularly dumbing down or becoming less deep. It's maybe becoming more accessible, which is great because even the untouchable Super Metroid is a pretty hard sell for people coming to the game for the first time nowadays (see Scott's post).

 

The trailer for this looks great and I've got a lot of faith in Mercury Steam, who seem to have adopted Team Ninja's approach to versatile combat.

[Dig Dug]

The "essence" of a game I would argue is defined by its code. The code is the law of the game. These exploits in super metroid may have been unintended but they help characterize the game as much as the exploits helped characterize and popularize (and later influence the successors of) games such as Quake, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Super Smash Bros Melee.

[Nespresso]

Even if this turns out to be a subpar Metroid game I will buy it as I want Nintendo to know that I want more Metroid games starring our favourite intergalactic bounty hunter.

 

For fuck's sake.

[Cyhwuhx]

Just now, Let us measure said:

 

The combat system in Other M was the most hardcore Metroid has been in terms of the options available to the player to take down baddies though, even though the game is seen as pedestrian in other respects such as secret areas.

 

100%ing OM gave access to a super play video from the menu which, in true Team Ninja fashion, showed off some amazing gameplay that speed runners would have been able to emulate. Shine-sparking through Nightmare's head and taking him down in ten seconds flat was a highlight. Using that sort of technique just wouldn't have occurred to the average player.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that contrary to your belief, Metroid isn't particularly dumbing down or becoming less deep. It's maybe becoming more accessible, which is great because even the untouchable Super Metroid is a pretty hard sell for people coming to the game for the first time nowadays (see Scott's post).

 

The trailer for this looks great and I've got a lot of faith in Mercury Steam, who seem to have adopted Team Ninja's approach to versatile combat.

 

I'm not exactly talking Other M down in terms of combat, that was always its strong suit and I liked it for what it did, but it toned down heavily on exploration and secrets. That one missile tank you could reach with a bomb jump but was not allowed because it wasn't the "right way" really annoyed me to bits. Other M's downfall was the story really, Adam's orders in particular overshadowing everything else and cementing is as bad. Though the Ridley PTSD, The Baby and recycling Fusion's plot didn't help.

 

Other M is perhaps the most direct sequel to TRoS out there though. Even moreso than Fusion. It works within that frameset. If M:SR manages to follow in its footsteps, then by all means it should be great. Metroid II doesn't exactly has a backstory that could hamper the other elements.

[R0b]

48 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

 

Go and enjoy Federation Force then. God knows the game needs it.

 

Yes, classic Metroid minus sequence breaks definitely = Federation Force.  Wise lessons from a superfan, @scottcr!

[Cyhwuhx]

1 minute ago, Rob Rule said:

 

Yes, classic Metroid minus sequence breaks definitely = Federation Force.  Wise lessons from a superfan, @scottcr!

 

That's not what either of us meant. 

[dataDave]

I really want to try Federation Force. What's it like with three other people? I quite liked the DM mode in Hunters.

[gizmo1990]

 

Screw the naysayers!

[Klatrymadon]

The disappointing thing for me is how familiar everything looks here. Metroid II is this incredibly bizarre game with a really sparse, stark soundtrack, and yet here we have something that looks exactly like a 3D update of Zero Mission (which was a surprisingly cheerful affair that lacked the claustrophic, chthonic horror of the earlier Metroids), with all the usual done-to-death environments being wheeled out - yellow Chozo ruins, Norfair-like high-temp bits, etc. It even uses the lower Norfair theme from SM for little more than branding purposes (it was originally used to build dramatic tension at the key point of your descending into your arch-nemesis' lair, so this feels dull-witted). The series' aesthetics seem to have become formalised and ossified in such a way as to preclude the thrill of encountering something new and surprising, and what they've ossified into is pretty humdrum. And I hate myself for saying that, because I am fully on board with the idea that Metroid fans are the absolute worst.