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Super Metroid Appreciation Station

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So, as you may or may not know, Super Metroid -a game which is now old enough to legally drink in Canada- just came out on the Wii U virtual console for thirty cents this week. Miiverse integration has provided an absolutely fascinating look at two types of players:

  1. Veterans who are breezing through and using screenshots to show off their sequence breaking techniques
  2. Kids playing for the first time and being either astounded at how good the game is, or are completely lost and keep asking why metroid cant crawl

Personally, I'm a huge Metroid fan. I never played the games at all until a few years ago, when the Metroid Prime trilogy came out for the Wii. I would have been nineteen at the time. Since then, I've played Metroid every time I feel hopeless. My playthrough of Prime 1 was over the period where I came out and my social life went to hell. I didn't finish it until some time after I had left home. A long period of unemployment followed that, where I got through every major game (I skipped the second half of Metroid 1, plus I skipped Prime Hunters and Pinball); with the last game I finished being Super Metroid. Playing it now (in a suitably hopeless time) feels entirely different from playing it that first time. My mental process has changed from "now what's the next part of the map I need to go to" to "look at all of these places I can go to!" The game has become a completely different animal based entirely on skill and experience, and that is rad. I'm excited to see where this goes.

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I will appreciate Super Metroid with you. What an incredible, phenomenal game. For as much as I adore them, I've never actually played most of the Metroid games. I haven't owned a Nintendo system since the N64, so I missed out entirely on Prime. I did, however, beat Metroid Fusion close to half a dozen times and played Hunters on a borrowed DS. Fusion is as close to Super Metroid as they ever got again from a purely mechanical experience. It's awesome.

 

It's also hilarious to see people experiencing Super Metroid for the first time and being really frustrated by what seems obvious through a nostalgic lens, but I don't think it's sad. Games of this type aren't build to be puzzles anymore. I hope those kids all work through it!

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There were a lot of little things in Super Metroid that I love.  Those creatures that show you how to wall jump and shinespark, the wrecked ship, moonwalking, the one miniboss who tries to attack you when he's nothing but bones, the weird plant miniboss, the mini-Kraid and the mysterious corpse outside Kraid's lair, the

.  I could go on for a while.  Good times.

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Last year I played and beat for the first time the original Metroid, aided by the save feature on the 3DS. It was _incredible_ and I'm hoping to be able to play Super Metroid on the 3DS too some day. I've never played it myself, but have watched a friend play it for hours and hours. It was so atmospheric and beautiful; a pleasure just to watch.

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Never got a Super Nintendo when it came out, even though I'm of the age where all my peers claim it's the defining console of their lives. I just started up Super Metroid a few days ago and I had to internet a few times already. First was the Morph Ball, as I didn't know how to activate it, second was the pink door. i had shot a missile at one earlier, but it didn't open up. Turns out I needed five missiles to open it. Wut?

 

Maybe I'll just go back to Duck Tales, as I've never played that one either.

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I have started about 12 games of Super Metroid over the years, but have never completed it. That said, I absolutely love it every time I play, it's just one of those games that I often forget about when something newer and shinier (and/or school work) comes along and then I have to restart a playthrough a year later or something. It's also one of the few games that has really communicated atmosphere to my partner. She has watched me play a few games (most recently sitting next to me for about half of Shadow of the Colossus) but never really plays them herself. One day she stayed in my bed all day when I went off to work, and ended up spending her time playing Wii Virtual Console. I remember coming home and the first thing she said to me being "Man, that Super Metroid is fucking SCARY. I didn't know 2D games could do that."

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It's my favorite game of all time, for the reasons of having an excellent soundtrack, art direction, atmosphere, exploration, guided / hinted progress, and the open room available to sequence break in so many ways. I know it's actually impossible for anything to be perfect but I can't help but claim that this game is perfect for me.

 

We used to rent the SNES a lot when I was a kid. We always got two games too - Super Metroid and/or Donkey Kong Country. Super Metroid just devoured all my free time. I started into my sort of speed-running of it not too long after taking in everything the game had to offer for atmosphere. I remember the goal stated in GamePro was to beat it in under 2 hours (on the in-game clock), and the first time I did it felt really special. I discovered a preferred-route or two when it came to item collecting to take the time down, but it wasn't until highschool, years later, that I actually learned some of the more advanced speed run tricks. Then I just went apeshit with the game.

 

Eventually, somewhere during the 2006 - 2008 years, I landed my best completion time for a 100% run. 38 minutes. But I've lost my touch at the game. I tried to pick it up again this afternoon, not really trying for a speed run, and a combination of not playing it for a while and a busted controller (tried to change the control scheme to compensate and that didn't work) made me feel inept.

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I've tried playing Metroid games before... I just can't get into them. I just dislike the whole "Find a new item then go back and look through every room to find the place to use the new item to progress".

I will say, that of the Metroid games that I have played, Super Metroid was probably the most fun to me. But at the same time, I still could not finish it, not for lack of skill, but because I just didn't want to keep playing it.

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I've tried playing Metroid games before... I just can't get into them. I just dislike the whole "Find a new item then go back and look through every room to find the place to use the new item to progress".

I will say, that of the Metroid games that I have played, Super Metroid was probably the most fun to me. But at the same time, I still could not finish it, not for lack of skill, but because I just didn't want to keep playing it.

Metroid was sloppy in its execution of this whole idea, but it was the first attempt and understandable. Metroid 2 (which I only beat for the first time recently) also had problems with having direction.

 

Super Metroid locked the formula in damn well though. Every room is distinct, it's easier to recall areas that had something to them now that you have a new ability. Plus, unless you were exploring for every-single-item the game was pretty guided when it came to bombing your way through a wall or floor. Hell, they even give you the X-Ray Scope, which only has the purpose of letting you discover thing just by looking around.

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Huge Metroid fan here, how about we expand this out into a general Metroid love fest?

 

I've never liked how Metroid 2 is so off-handidly dismissed by fans of the series, i feel that it was a completely worthy successor to the original game and features a superb sense of atmosphere. It's also the game where the look and gameplay mechanics of the series really crystalized. It was also the first Metroid game i ever played, i bought it on a whim as a little kid because i thought the box art looked cool, and was just enthralled with how mature and atmospheric it seemed, i had never played anything else like it and actually found it really scary!

 

When people criticize it, it's usually because of it's more linear structure relative to Metroid and Super, and that's true, but i think the visually interesting locations and restrained, creepy ambient music still make it a very entertaining game. I have trouble going back to the original Metroid, but i can always dig back into Metroid 2.

 

Speaking of which, yeah, i've just never been able to get into the original Metroid, i've played it through to the end, but it just doesn't do anything for me. The bland, repetitive environments just leave me wandering aimlessly, confused and annoyed.

 

I probably won't say as much about Super Metroid because it doesn't really need to be defended and certainly not derided. It's one of the most elegant, sophisticated, inventive, and atmospheric games ever released. It's one of the standout achievements of the 16-bit era, and still the best game in this series.

As a kid, the eight year gap between Super and Prime was agony.

Prime sold me on the GameCube, and I think it's a pretty remarkable achievement for how effectively and completely it translated the mechanics and feel of Super Metroid into a 3D world. A beautiful, well-designed game, and in my opinion the next best in the series after Super. However, I take issue with the version of Prime that showed up in the Trilogy collection, it stripped out a lot of the subtle visual effects from the GC version and looks significantly worse as a result. Play the GC version.

Prime 2 usually gets a lot of flak for being extremely hard and its environments not flowing together in as logical a way, leading to you feeling like you're doing a lot of needless back-tracking through difficult encounters. Some of its boss fights are also just absolutely some of the most difficult in the entire series. I really enjoy a difficult game, but some of the bosses in Echoes are ridiculous. I do really like the Dark World stuff though, the threat of the toxic environment and trying to carve out safe spots to allow yourself a moment to sit still and evaluate your situation. (Unlike Prime, the only thing that really changes in Echoes for its Trilogy version is some difficulty rebalancing, so that might make it the version to play.)

Corruption, for whatever reason, didn't leave a very strong impact on me, I just don't remember it as well as other games in the series. I recall it being a very straight forward, fast moving game, with some good, inventive applications of the wii remote. More story focused and somewhat more linear, but neither to an overall detriment


I think Fusion and the later Other M are the weakest games in the series, with their woefully misguided narrative aspirations. Other M is at least also an interesting and unique take on the series from a gameplay standpoint, but Fusion is just a stripped down and extremely linear take on Super. (Admittedly, the chase sequences are pretty damn neat.)

Zero Mission is by far the more successful of the two GBA Metroids, but it's limited by trying to emulate the dull world layout of the original game. I think the huge stealth sequence towards the end was actually somewhat revelatory in terms of 2d game design, though i don't think it really feels like it belongs in that game.

Metroid Prime Hunters, i personally feel, is an underrated little thing. It's Metroid as a fast-paced FPS, and if you can accept that as not being a horrible affront to the series, it's actually got a pretty solidly built little campaign and some pretty fun and frantic MP. (With some pretty bad exploits that made the public match-making unplayable.)

I believe the last thing to mention is Metroid Prime Pinball which is, much like many of the other themed Pinball games Nintendo has put out, surprisingly good. It's also surprisingly difficult, even coming at it with a history of playing pinball machines, and that rumble cart it shipped with feels rather unpleasantly like a joy buzzer.

Is that everything? I think that's everything.

I guess there's also that minigame in Nintendo Land, and Samus' appearances in the Smash games.

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Sno's pretty much covered everything, but I'll weigh in here anyway.

 

I never really got into Metroid 2, but I think that's mostly because I played it on my Gameboy during a long car ride and I got sick, so I just have a bad feeling associated with it.  Even thinking about it now makes me a little queasy.

 

I completely agree with Sno about Fusion and Other M's terrible story bits.  Every time one of those games called Samus "Lady" I wanted to hit it.  Although when Other M was announced, I felt like this

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Zero Mission was a neat revisit to the original and it's the first Metroid game I purposely sequence broke during the first playthough.

 

The original Metroid holds a place of nostalgia for me, but it is fairly unremarkable when compared to the rest of the series.  But I will never forget Justin Bailey as long as I live.

 

It's a toss up for me between Super and Prime for my favorite.  They both have amazing atmosphere and are full of little touches that I love.  I think Prime might have a slight edge due to 2 specific things. One is the scan visor.  I'm not really the kind of person who usually goes after all the collectibles in a game, but I LOVED scanning things in Prime.  I'm a sucker for the "advanced civilization that no longer exists but left evidence all around" kind of thing and learning more about the Chozo was awesome.  The other thing is kind of strange.  I have a very clear memory of being amazed at seeing Samus' reflection in the visor.  It actually scared me at first because I thought another person was standing behind me and I was seeing their reflection in my TV.  That kind of detail really endeared that game to me.  That and seeing Samus' hand inside her weapon when using the X-Ray visor showing how the configuration of her fingers controls which beam she's using (although in Prime 3 you can see her pulling a sort of trigger).  Also, I love the music in the menu screen, as dumb as that sounds.

 

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I never thought that Team Ninja making a Metroid game sounded like a good idea. (The real surprise is that they're probably not at fault for the things most wrong with Other M.)

On Prime again, I remember playing a store demo of Metroid Prime for like five minutes before deciding that i needed to buy a Gamecube and a copy of Prime.

Went home, came back the next day with money, bought that stuff and took it home. Set everything up, and I just remember sitting for like a good fifteen minutes on that title screen just absolutely in awe of the fact that i was about to play a new Metroid game after i had given up hope of it ever happening. (It had been eight years since Super! It seemed like such a long time.)

Speaking of awesome music in Metroid games:

 

 

The original Metroid holds a place of nostalgia for me, but it is fairly unremarkable when compared to the rest of the series.

 

My feeling is that it's one of those games that was a big, important step forward for game design when game design was still in its infancy, but was so primordial that it doesn't really hold up at all.

I respect it, but i don't like playing it.

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I'm happy to make fun of the people on Miiverse because my secret shame is that I was like them when the game first came out. I remember renting it and being confused by the control scheme defaulting to X to shoot and A to jump (all the games I was used to used Y and B, respectively), then landing on Zebes and wandering around a bit, not knowing what I was meant to be doing and getting frustrated that I couldn't get anywhere. I don't know if I ever even found the morph ball before giving up on it. It wasn't until I was in college and Metroid Prime was announced that I gave Super Metroid another shot and found out that it's possibly the best game. I still have my SNES cartridge and also own it on Wii virtual console, but now I'm seriously considering spending $350 on a Wii U just so I can buy it again for $0.30. It's that good.

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If you already have it on Wii VC, the most expensive it will ever get on Wii U for you is $1.50. I give Nintendo a bit of credit for that, recognizing when you already bought something and charging a bit less than a soda if you want to run it on the gamepad and with suspend states rather than just through the Wii emulation (which doesn't cost you anything if you still want to play it that way). It's weird to be hoping that other companies emulate Nintendo when it comes to downloadable anything, but I hope my XBLA or PSN purchases may carry over in a similar way.

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I wasn't thrilled at the news about Team Ninja working on a Metroid game either. It made me nervous immediately from top to bottom because of the design aesthetic those guys are into, and certainly lived up to their name. Samus' tits were bigger, and her jumpsuit went from having normal boot style heels to becoming like stripper platform high-heels. It was pathetic and sad. And given how the creator wanted to "correct" the perception people had of Samus, it's clear they intended for her to be a piece of ass in addition to the loss of her independence and strengths as a character.

 

A couple years ago someone wrote about Other M, not as a video game review, but analyzing the themes and tones of the game going beyond the obvious.

http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html

 

The short of it is that Other M romanticizes abusive relationships. It's really gross but makes perfect sense.

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The thing is, Team Ninja isn't responsible for Samus' design. They handled the gameplay, but series creator Yoshio Sakamoto was responsible for the terrible story and character design issues. The high heels always bugged the heck out of me, too, though. Check out this concept art from Zero Mission:

 

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...And now compare with the concept art from Other M.

 

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Ignoring the design getting slightly less skeezy overall (but being arguably much worse within the actual game), the heels went from "don't be an idiot and give her high heels" to "giant wedge soles" with no explanation. The Other M concept art in general is hilarious. Highlights include an apparent drastic change in personality for a flavourless character who has four lines of dialogue and is killed almost immediately, "I feel he should have a trait... SCAR ABOVE HIS LEFT EYE, an elaborate drawing of a machine that serves absolutely no practical purpose on a space station beyond being a boss battle, and casual racism (note: Samus is 6'3" and weighs 198 pounds).

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you already have it on Wii VC, the most expensive it will ever get on Wii U for you is $1.50. I give Nintendo a bit of credit for that, recognizing when you already bought something and charging a bit less than a soda if you want to run it on the gamepad and with suspend states rather than just through the Wii emulation (which doesn't cost you anything if you still want to play it that way). It's weird to be hoping that other companies emulate Nintendo when it comes to downloadable anything, but I hope my XBLA or PSN purchases may carry over in a similar way.

 

Don't forget button remapping!

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I've always hated the argument that Samus' suit is what gave her the notable height. The suit doesn't have a full foot of platform-shoes going on, nor does the helmet add a foot between the top of her head and outside of her helmet. The stupid guy in charge of Metroid has fallen back on this, as have people who feel the need to take his side.

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I always thought that her height was because of the Chozo infusing their DNA into her.

 

MM_Ch2_Page05.jpg

 

As for Other M, I wasn't excited because Team Bouncy Boobs Ninja was working on it, but more because I wanted a bit more action in a Metroid game.  Don't get me wrong, I love exploration and traversal in a Metroid game as much as anybody, but in combat I always felt like how I imagined Samus to fight didn't match up with my ability to control the game.  The early previews of Other M seemed to be closer to that.  She's more agile and acrobatic which comes more from her than the suit, especially considering the incredibly stupid way that game limits her.

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That was probably the one cool thing about Other M; Samus was dispatching enemies by grabbing them and blasting them with her arm-canon point-blank, or throwing them, slamming them, etc. That's something that's been missing in terms of her physical prowess and ability.

 

But what we lost from the series wasn't worth it.

 

Anyway, Super Metroid.

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I maintain that many of the things wrong with Other M can be seen gestating in Fusion.


I mean, the combat in Other M is fantastic, it's great. Some really solid 3d platforming too. The first-person thing is handled poorly, but you can see what they were trying to do, trying to bridge all the different takes on Metroid.

Then you have the things that simply do not work. You have the unskippable, insulting narrative and the incredible linearity, and those were all there in Fusion too. As such, I don't think there's really any case to make for Other M being Team Ninja's fault.

 

A couple years ago someone wrote about Other M, not as a video game review, but analyzing the themes and tones of the game going beyond the obvious.

http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html

 

The short of it is that Other M romanticizes abusive relationships. It's really gross but makes perfect sense.

 

Also, i enjoyed reading this, hah.

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Other M including a "movie mode" that just plays the cutscenes with a few clips of gameplay in between is the icing on the cake.

 

It's too bad all of that crap's in it, because I really did love the combat. There are very few games that have ever really taught me to improve myself towards mastery of its own systems the way that game has. The (completely wordless!) fight with Phantoon after the credits that's nothing but ducking and weaving while trying to get shots in is particularly fantastic. I'd be pretty pleased if they made a similar game that cleaned up the messy bits like the uninspired environments and crummy first-person aiming and took Yoshio Sakamoto away from the writing portion.

 

Oh, also, I don't know if anyone's tried it, but the Metroid Blast minigame in Nintendo Land is incredible. I know it got written off by some people under the pretense of "just because Samus' spaceship is in it doesn't make it Metroid," but that's giving it way too little credit. It's cute and silly, yet very reverential toward the source material. There's a ton of really awesome Metroid stuff that wasn't in any of the demos they showed at press events, like Kraid showing up as a boss battle. The weekend after the Wii U came out I had a friend over and we ended up playing it for like five hours straight tag-teaming between who was on foot and who was in the spaceship.

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I did get the impression that Team Ninja did the best job they could; this was just after Itagaki left and they wanted to try and put their own stamp on things. I figured there was a chance Samus wouldn't be quite so sexualised because that's what everyone expected from Team Ninja. A friend of mine put forward the entirely convincing theory that I'm just going to quote here:

 

But given this is the first game Nintendo's really said story was a focus for, it makes complete sense. I want to paint for you a probable scenario. Now this is just my own experience working with a number of companies localizing games into English... but I think it's highly probable and it might help you stomach what we did get a bit better. If not feel free to ignore me.


Sakamoto: *sends translated text to Treehouse to check it over*
Treehouse: *sends back expertly edited and localized text, as they do*

Sakamoto: "What is this? Why did you change the story?"

Treehouse: "We localized it so it sounds better to English audiences."

Sakamoto: "Metroid: Other M is primarily a story-based title. We worked very hard balancing the story elements in this title to communicate Samus Aran's character. We don't understand why you thought to change this story."

Treehouse: "We didn't. It's the same story. It's just different text that sounds more natural."

Sakamoto: "For example this line you wrote 'It struck a chord.' However this is not what Samus has stated in the story. She has said 'It pierced me through to the heart.' We don't see a reason the original line is incorrect."

Treehouse: "Well it sounds weird in English. "Struck a chord" means the same thing, but sounds a little tougher. Samus is a strong character, and "pierced me through to the heart" sounds like a teenage girl in a love story. We wanted it to sound like Samus."

Sakamoto: "In this game I created the image of what Samus has always been like in previous games. So players can know what she is thinking throughout her adventures. Samus is like a samurai - she is quiet but poetic. These monologues show her poetic side. It must be quite beautiful. Please use the original line."

Treehouse: "We only localized it like all the other titles that Nintendo releases. We've established a certain style for Samus in the Prime games, etc. We're feel the changes we made do keep the feel of Samus and the Metroid universe. If we used direct translations it would sound stilted."

Sakamoto: "This is a primarily story-based game. This is not like the other games you have worked on - story is a primary concern. We cannot risk changes that will hurt the overall story. Please do not suggest any changes unless absolutely necessary. Please understand the emphasis on story, which is new for this title."

And it follows that Sakamoto also sat in to direct the English voice acting, which is why we ended up with the performances we did (Samus DOES change tone when she's actually speaking to people rather than monologuing... she tried.)

 

And then it happened anyway! But then the Smash Bros. series is pretty gross about Samus as well.

 

Anyway, Super Metroid! It's great. It was certainly formative for me; I played a lot of adventure games as a kid, but the games I found really interesting were the ones that used the rules of the game to conduct a conversation with the player, and Super Metroid was one of the first of those I played.

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Yeah Sakamoto wanted to "correct" people's perceptions of Samus. We were wrong to think of her as strong, independent, capable, and kick-ass. We were supposed to view her as a crybaby hiding behind men the whole time!

 

Asshole. I hate to get belligerent but I wish that guy would fuck off already.

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