Thursday, March 27, 2014

So, how long until a new Metroid game?

Unsurprisingly, we've had total radio silence since Other M. But it's been almost four years, and STILL NOTHING. Heck, you could say it's been seven years since the last Metroid game worth playing. The gap between Super and Prime? Eight years.

So clearly they know Other M has gone over like a fart in a church, and people want so little with it they probably decided to let the storm pass before doing anything else with it - or at least announcing it to the public. (Yet at the same time they don't have any issues acknowledging it in SSB4.) But if you told me back then that by March 2014 there still wouldn't have been word of anything, I would've called you crazy.

So, prediction time. How long until we get to play a new Metroid game? (Release, not announcement, just to be clear). I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say the second half of 2016. Winner doesn't win anything but bragging rights, mind you. That is, if they even remember they made that prediction to start with.

(And just to make this clear, Retro producers confirmed in an interview many years ago that this was purely a coincidence that got the HOENN CONFIRMED treatment by fans. Especially considering "nearing completion" usually means release within seven years.)

15 comments:

  1. I know right, what's going on? Metroid is considered one of Nintendo's best franchises, why isn't it being treated like one of them? Maybe the team don't like the Wii U or 3DS? That was one of the reasons why there was no N64 Metroid game?

    In the Metroid department, I'm currently playing Metroid 2 (the old GB game,) it isn't half linear isn't it?

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    1. I would assume the reason why they didn't like the N64 as far as Metroid went was the fact that it was the console that marked the transition to 3D, and it's likely that they didn't really know how to make a good Metroid game in that kind of environment.

      I mean, why would the Wii U not work for a Metroid game? I have no idea. I really think Other M is to blame for this pause.

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    2. Then I'm going to suggest the fact that it isn't as popular in Japan as it is here. The reason why they didn't want to do Metroid 64 was because they didn't like the controller and they believed SM was a tough act to follow.

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    3. The cited reason that there was no Metroid on the N64 was because they couldn't think of a good enough story in time.

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  2. I have a feeling that we'll hear something about a Metroid game of some form or another during E3 this year, but then again with how widely condemned Other M was, I wouldn't be surprised if they took this generation off too be honest. I mean there have been bad games from the core Nintendo franchises before, but I think this was the first time even staunch apologists couldn't forgive a title.

    Then again, Nintendo really loves clinging to their core of AAA franchises and they have exhausted quite a few of them now. With Mario Kart and Smash coming out at some point this year, they pretty much have Zelda and Metroid left before the cycle starts over again. E3 shall be interesting this year to say the least.

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  3. I keep hoping they'll at least give us a Zero Mission-style remake of Metroid II, at least. The closest I've seen to that is this http://metroid2remake.blogspot.com/ . A new Wario Land game (more like 1 or 2, 3 and 4 were getting too different, and don't even get me started about the insanity that is the Wario Ware subseries) would be fantastic. But no, let's just put out more and more of the same tired Mario formula, over and over and over again.

    ...and this is why the Wii U is doing so badly.

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    1. The Wii U has only 2 Mario games... And both of them are good. Sure, New Super Mario Bros U is a repeat of all the previous games of the series, but it's still the absolute best out of all of them. It pretty much reached the pinnacle of what 2D Mario sidescrollers could achieve. The only thing it would have needed to be absolutely perfect is a level editor, which Nintendo actually had planned for it, but scrapped the idea because they weren't able to make it complex enough to satisfy veterans while still being user-friendly enough for newcomers. (Which is a shame, because it would have added tons of replayability to the game)
      But don't get me wrong, I do agree that Metroid 2 needs a remake. Couldn't get into the Wario Land series though... I played all of them, but never actually finished any except 4.

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    2. Scratch that, I thought when I first typed this that I had indeed played all Wario Land games, but I didn't play the 3rd one and I sure as hell completely forgot Wario Land "Shake It" was a thing.

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  4. Even worse than this drought of Metroid, where is the next F-Zero game? Thats been even longer and its just as beloved as Metroid.

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    1. I'm... not really sold on that notion, to say the least. Maybe in Japan, where nobody cares about Metroid anyway, but in the West? Not a chance in Norfair.

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    2. Indeed, a quick look at sales numbers tells me just that. Aside from the original F-Zero, which indeed sold a lot, the second best-selling one is F-Zero X at 1.10 million, a bar most Metroid games easily pass, to the exception of Zero Mission, Hunters and Pinball. Even Other M sold more than F-Zero X!

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  5. I'm going to play devil's advocate and say nintendo's break from metroid is probably for the best, and I wish they treated Mario and Zelda with the same delicacy. To be perfectly honest, I would have been perfectly satisfied if there were no Zelda releases between the oracle games and A Link Between Worlds (Some of you may be forgiving of Wind Waker's pushover difficulty and sidequests that make up a bigger portion of the game than the pittance of required dungeons, but I'm not). Other M was the Sonic 2006 of metroid. It's been forever stained with the stigma and I think it's wise to wait a few years before giving it another go (or never touch the franchise again, but even I'm not that cynical). Ever since the late n64 and gamecube era, nintendo's games have felt forced to me and I think they would have been more natural if they were given more time. I wish they did more original stuff like Pikmin and Animal crossing during that time instead of focusing effort on mario and zelda games just because we supposedly needed more mario and zelda. Some gamers have opened up to Luigi's mansion and feel that it was unappreciated during it's time now, but I have a theory the game may have been more iconic if it was some other character than Luigi. Not that ninja house thing that it was going to be at first, that sounds stupid to me, but something else that was like a kid-friendly resident evil. Then again, doki doki panic worked out better when it was changed into Mario 2, so what do I know. Miyamoto struck genius when he oversaw the creation of Metroid Prime. It wasn't made just to be a successor to Super Metroid. Like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, it was meant to be a revolutionary 3D game, not a mandatory sequel to one of their best franchises. Then He Who Must Not Be Named came in to insert his fanfiction all over it in other M and the series has been laid to rest for the moment.

    The only two of the "best" Nintendo franchises I would say have never faltered in the slightest are Mother/EarthBound and Pokemon. Mother because, well, it's Mother, dangit! It only has 3 games total and they are all treated with the delicacy and the revolutionary mindset I was talking about. And pokemon because, even though so many complain about it being the same thing over and over with no story, that's the secret to it's success. It knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything bigger than that. Gamefreak knows that the pokemon games are games, not movies with the pretense of being games, and it has a solid formula with room to endlessly make addons without feeling like cheap rehashes. It's like doom 2, where all they did was keep it mostly the same with a few changed mechanics and more content added in, and nobody complains about doom 2 (well, some people do, but I digress).

    Those are just my stupid, uneducated opinions. I went on way longer than I should have.

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    1. Whoa whoa whoa, TIME OUT. Let me get this straight. You theorycraft Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword out of existence (already a heinous crime), and WIND WAKER is the one you need to excuse yourself for?

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    2. Besides... a lot of people think the Oracle games were lazy and half-assed. They basically just copy-pasted Link's Awakening with a new gimmick... twice. Capcom showed that they could easily make their own standalone Zelda game of impressive quality when they made Minish Cap, so... it's really weird for me to go a step back. I can't get myself to play them. I've seen a lot of pictures and footage of them and Link's Awakening's visuals blend horribly with the few brand new elements they added. Also, they removed invincibility frames, which is an absolute outrage from a programming stand-point.

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    3. I really can't judge Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword because I haven't played them. Never got any 7th or 8th generation consoles.

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