Metroid general

[Prophetic Spirit]

I like that game and its one memorable tune.

That game is more atmospheric than music.

 

[MerelyAPlateOfSpaghetti]

any single frame-imperfect mistake means instant death; start over, faggot, ha ha LOL LMAO

Reminds me of the first time I played Super Metroid: Impossible. Not only did I abuse savestates just to try to see any portion of the game, it's intentionally designed to abuse the most frame perfect of speedrun tech. What really turns it into "Nope, fuck this, not worth it" is that crumble block maze just before Grapple Beam. I'm fine trying a precise wall jump a hundred times until I get it, but I ain't fuckin with no crumble blocks, ya dig?

Does anyone here like Metroid 2 (the original Game Boy version, not the 3DS remake)? I feel that it is a pretty underrated title.

Metroid 2 is infinitely more playable than Metroid (NES). Without backgrounds NES Metroid just has you go into a tower room with blue blocks, then a tunnel with blue blocks, then a tower room with gold blocks, then a tunnel with blue blocks...finding your way around is incredibly difficult because everything looks the same.

Metroid 2 has backgrounds to help you know where you are at a glance. It's not like it's as easy to find your way around as Super Metroid, but it's way easier than the original Metroid in that regard. I enjoyed playing Metroid 2 but have never beat it for some reason. It might just be at the razors edge of being completely playable but has a few niggles that push it into "Not as worth playing as something else."

I like that game and its one memorable tune.

I do wish it had some more melody in most of the songs, but I agree with @Prophetic Spirit that the atmosphere they create with the many "ambient beeps and boops" fits the game well. Metroid NES doesn't seem to lean into the "alone on an alien planet" vibe as much, many of the songs are heroic, while Metroid 2 captures that atmosphere a bit better.

 

[Mary the Goldsmith]

I've been meaning to go back to AM2R myself.

I rarely play fangames or hacks since they are mostly shitty fanfiction or "you need top level speed runner skills in order to progress" like the above comments said.
But AM2R is one of the few fangames I genuinly enjoyed, love the easter eggs like the secret boss battle with the Genesis. For me AM2R is the true remake of Metroid 2, and the 3DS one is the "fan-made remake/reimagining".

 

[Grub]

I rarely play fangames or hacks since they are mostly shitty fanfiction or "you need top level speed runner skills in order to progress" like the above comments said.
But AM2R is one of the few fangames I genuinly enjoyed, love the easter eggs like the secret boss battle with the Genesis. For me AM2R is the true remake of Metroid 2, and the 3DS one is the "fan-made remake/reimagining".

I personally think AM2R is better than most of the actual 2d Metroid games. I enjoyed it more than Dread, Zero Mission and Fusion anyway. I never played the official remake of 2. My buddy had it. I watched him play it a bit. It looked kinda shitty.

 

[DickMain]

Reminds me of the first time I played Super Metroid: Impossible. Not only did I abuse savestates just to try to see any portion of the game, it's intentionally designed to abuse the most frame perfect of speedrun tech. What really turns it into "Nope, fuck this, not worth it" is that crumble block maze just before Grapple Beam. I'm fine trying a precise wall jump a hundred times until I get it, but I ain't fuckin with no crumble blocks, ya dig?

Yeah but at least SMI is presented straight up as a game intended specifically for speedrunners and players who learned tricks and tech. SMXF says it's for 'veteran' players; okay, so I'll have to do some tight walljumps (which don't work like Fusion (not that it matters since they don't work like Super anyway)), maybe know some oddities about bosses, but really it just translated to "you die in 1 to 2 hits and there's kaizo shit everywhere". It wants to be taken seriously where Impossible knows what it is. SMXF's bullshit isn't even limited to its harder difficulties; in fact those only add more things like crystal flash abuse and death runs which would be fine if the other shit stayed out of Hard and below.

I rarely play fangames or hacks since they are mostly shitty fanfiction or "you need top level speed runner skills in order to progress" like the above comments said.
But AM2R is one of the few fangames I genuinly enjoyed, love the easter eggs like the secret boss battle with the Genesis. For me AM2R is the true remake of Metroid 2, and the 3DS one is the "fan-made remake/reimagining".

It's very well-made, even down to the OST (Hydro Station my goat).

 

[Grub]

SMXF says it's for 'veteran' players; okay, so I'll have to do some tight walljumps (which don't work like Fusion (not that it matters since they don't work like Super anyway)), maybe know some oddities about bosses, but really it just translated to "you die in 1 to 2 hits and there's kaizo shit everywhere

I shamelessly abused the hell out of save states for X-Fusion. I didn't find it felt like a Kaizo hack, more like a shitty nes game where you're expected to die for no reason just so you can figure out the death gimmick behind the door. I tried just playing it with the built in save system but after the first couple cheap insta deaths with no warning behind the door I noped right the fuck outta that and started save stating before every door.

It wasn't too bad after that. I think the worst thing it really had were the rooms full of the ice parasite things you're supposed to navigate through before you get whatever powerup it is that makes them heal you instead of instakill you. The first time I got to those rooms I thought I was going the wrong way. I figured there's no way I was expected to get through that shit but no, that was the way and it mostly just took a bit of RNG luck and a shitload of save stating to get through those rooms.

Overall though I tend to find Super Metroid hacks outside of a few that are known for bullshit feature a lot less kaizo type shit than hacks of other games. There's a lot of high quality Super Metroid hacks that are on par with or only slightly harder than the vanilla game. Unlike some shit like Super Mario World where every other hack is some retarded kaizo shit.

 

[Susie Legion Simp]

So I finally finished Metroid Prime 4 after playing it casually since Launch. I've been a Metroid fan for a long time (since the original Prime came out maybe?) and I had been looking forward to it for a long time, but after getting a couple hours into the Game I sort lost interest so it took me this long to get through. The Game was okay, but seemed like a pointless, underwhelming side Game to me, and not a mainline title in the series that pushes the narrative forward.

I've read every post in this thread since the Game launched to see if anybody else mentioned this, but the most bizarre thing in the Game to me is the Mines Boss, and the Guardian that is shown for the Mines. What I'm talking about is in Fury Green near "Base Camp" there is a room that shows you the main bosses (I assume for if you miss scanning them.) all the other Bosses are the same as what you fight, with a little extra lore about their relationship with the Lamorn. However what is shown for the Mine Boss is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT creature from the Omega Griever you fight. It's just so bizarre to me, I don't know if there was meant to be a different boss that was switched out to make a reference to the original Prime, or if the Omega Griever is meant to have eaten the creature shown. It just seems like a big (maybe) oversight to me. I'm going to do some research to try and figure it out... checking the Wiki it doesn't have anything definitive, other than it might be another reference as the Omega Pirate in MP1 was originally going to be a fight with Kraid. So it may be a gag based on that.

 

[Soggy Floppa]

However what is shown for the Mine Boss is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT creature from the Omega Griever you fight. It's just so bizarre to me, I don't know if there was meant to be a different boss that was switched out to make a reference to the original Prime, or if the Omega Griever is meant to have eaten the creature shown. It just seems like a big (maybe) oversight to me. I'm going to do some research to try and figure it out... checking the Wiki it doesn't have anything definitive, other than it might be another reference as the Omega Pirate in MP1 was originally going to be a fight with Kraid. So it may be a gag based on that.

The original boss was already dead when you get in the room, the griever killed it.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

I personally think AM2R is better than most of the actual 2d Metroid games.

That is an objectively correct statement, but I mean AM2R had the benefit of existing after everything else. Like yeah it had better be the best fucking 2D Metroid game when it's had the entire series before it, so that a Metroid hyperautist like DoctorM64 can see what's good and what's bad and learn the right lessons.

That's what makes thinking about MP4 so frustrating to me (I say 'thinking about' because I'm not gonna play that shit):
They had fucking decades of internet autists talking about the Metroid Primes at length, and what everyone likes and dislikes about them. So even if they didn't want to put proper creativity in, they at least had this entire blueprint laid out by years and years of tards lecturing into the void telling them how to make a Metroid Prime game that would be 'acceptable'.

Fuck 'great' or 'good', but at least acceptable and would probably sell well. It didn't need to be this shit that I look at and go "why is this even a Metroid game, this looks like Ubisoft shit"

---

edit RE: talking about Metroid romhacks
In my experience last year playing a couple handfuls and looking into a few more, the vast majority are either abandoned or they're sweaty bullshit. Your best bet is to look into Super Metroid and Zero Mission romhacks, for the sweet and simple reason that they're the most popular games, so they get the most hacks, so there's a better chance you'll find one you like.

If you exclude the huge number of hacks that are literally - or are little more than - difficulty tweaks to a given game, what's left over generally falls into two categories: "I made a new map", or "big overhaul gimmick/graphics showcase". Kinda like what DOOM modding has become.

If a Metroid Romhack starts showing up on popular romsites with good fake box art made up for it, it's probably one of the top-tier hacks. I've seen a few sites doing this, but BSNES is the only one I can remember off the top of my head.

 

[Grub]

That's what makes thinking about MP4 so frustrating to me (I say 'thinking about' because I'm not gonna play that shit):
They had fucking decades of internet autists talking about the Metroid Primes at length, and what everyone likes and dislikes about them. So even if they didn't want to put proper creativity in, they at least had this entire blueprint laid out by years and years of tards lecturing into the void telling them how to make a Metroid Prime game that would be 'acceptable'.

The thing about MP 4 is, if you look at interviews and stuff with the Retro devs about the Metroid Prime games, the only reason why Prime 1 was as good as it was is because Retro intentionally tried to make the game as close to a 3D Super Metroid as possible because they were worried about pissing Nintendo off. With every game that came after they got more and more leeway to put their own spin on things and these ideas they shoved into Prime 4 went as far back as Prime 3.

They just didn't think the Wii was powerful enough to do an open world game. They always wanted to turn Metroid Prime into what MP4 was and would have made Prime 3 like that if they'd been able to. Even what they eventually put out as Prime 3 was pretty shitty and barely felt like an actual Metroid game. They didn't really give a shit what people actually wanted Prime 4 to be. They'd already made up their minds about what they wanted it to be even before they started on it.

I feel kind of the same way about Metroid Dread. By the time it came out games like Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight and a ton of other great metroidvania games had been out for years. Hollow Knight was basically everything I'd ever wanted in a real sequel to Super Metroid, it's the first game I'd played since playing Super Metroid that made me feel like a kid again playing Super Metroid for the first time. Dread was just basically like they doubled down on pretty much everything I disliked about Fusion.

I don't know what it is about the Metroid series but Nintendo really seems to want to strip away a lot of what made the first three games so special compared to other Nintendo properties of the era. Even as far back as when Zero Mission and Fusion came out they seemed really against the idea of just leaving you as a solitary bounty hunter exploring a strange and deadly place.

 

[DickMain]

The thing about MP 4 is, if you look at interviews and stuff with the Retro devs about the Metroid Prime games, the only reason why Prime 1 was as good as it was is because Retro intentionally tried to make the game as close to a 3D Super Metroid as possible because they were worried about pissing Nintendo off. With every game that came after they got more and more leeway to put their own spin on things and these ideas they shoved into Prime 4 went as far back as Prime 3.

What's funny about this to me is that I'm 99% certain the original head honcho of Retro at the time of Prime 1's release hated the game and considered it his greatest failure. I think I remember him being interviewed and having said that. If true then the writing had been on the wall for ages.

 

[Susie Legion Simp]

The original boss was already dead when you get in the room, the griever killed it.

Yeah I assumed that maybe its body was somewhere, but I didn't see it anywhere.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

~snip~

Interesting to hear they were basically fomenting the cancer in mp3 and didn't get to properly implement it. I'm a 2D metroid guy, and when I tried playing the Prime trilogy I got bored and dropped off near the end of 2 so I never got to see what annoyed everyone in 3.

Also  really interesting to me what you said about Dread, Vania, Hollow Knight etc. because for me the Metroid and the Vania are basically two different genres and Hollow Knight was a SotN successor and I had felt mostly starved of Metroid-likes from Axiom 1 until Dread (ARNF was good too).
That shit's funny.

 

[Grub]

Also  really interesting to me what you said about Dread, Vania, Hollow Knight etc. because for me the Metroid and the Vania are basically two different genres and Hollow Knight was a SotN successor and I had felt mostly starved of Metroid-likes from Axiom 1 until Dread (ARNF was good too).
That shit's funny.

Hollow Knight's not really anything like SotN other than using close combat vs a gun. It has no stat system and is entirely item progression based. Hollow Knight is basically Super Metroid with a sword that controls like Mega Man X. I would say games of that time like Salt and Sanctuary, Death's Gambit, Timespinners and Bloodstained were closer to Castlevania games.

 

[Soggy Floppa]

Yeah I assumed that maybe its body was somewhere, but I didn't see it anywhere.

The flower pattern was on the ground already that appears when the bosses die, but the artifact doohickey was gone.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Hollow Knight's not really anything like SotN

I have weird autistic qualifiers for these things that no one agrees with, but one big one is 'everything has to have both a combat and traversal purpose' to qualify as Metroid-like. And to maybe show my hand a bit, in my mind Metroid is the 'default' bucket and everything else gets put in the 'sotn' bucket. Hollow Knight got put in the sotn bucket simply cuz I didn't see  enough of Metroid in it (idk, HK has gear upgrading and a currency and NPCs to talk to and some other stuff that moves it too far away from Metroid for me).

I guess I can see how S&S and Death's Gambit can come across as sotn-likes, but honestly I never actually made that connection because I was just thinking of them as 2D soulsbornes, like GRIME.

 

[Soggy Floppa]

I have weird autistic qualifiers for these things that no one agrees with, but one big one is 'everything has to have both a combat and traversal purpose' to qualify as Metroid-like. And to maybe show my hand a bit, in my mind Metroid is the 'default' bucket and everything else gets put in the 'sotn' bucket. Hollow Knight got put in the sotn bucket simply cuz I didn't see  enough of Metroid in it.

To me Metroid means levels designed around vertical shafts instead of horizontal corridors like SOTN, and along with the platforming stuff it needs to have ranged combat, not melee. The vast majority of indie Metroidvanias have horizontal corridors and melee combat. Axiom Verge 1 has the vertical design and ranged combat and it plays a lot more like a Metroid game to me. I take issue with Dread because of it relying upon a lot of horizontal corridors and the addition of the melee counter, and the locked sequence breaks with items not unlocking until later, which makes it not really feel like my idea of Metroid, and it makes sense since the devs did Castlevania before. Hollow knight has the vertical shafts and platforming, but it is too stingy on actual item upgrades and has melee combat and souls-like respawn mechanics, so I agree, it goes in the SOTN bucket. Silksong is even more long corridors.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

To me Metroid means levels designed around vertical shafts instead of horizontal corridors like SOTN

have ranged combat, not melee

Dread [...] relying upon a lot of horizontal corridors and the addition of the melee counter, and the locked sequence breaks

I have never heard that one before, that is fucking fascinating. And now that you've said it, I can 1000% see it. Peak videogame autism. I'm really curious to know what you think about Super Metroid Ascent if you've played it, both because of its multiple-points-of-no-return progression and because the areas themselves almost give me Apogee Platformer vibes of being big rounded-square rooms with lots of snakey paths that go horizontal AND vertical

and it makes sense since the devs did Castlevania before

Wait what the fuck, I had no idea about this. You mean that Spanish/Brazilian/whatever studio that did Dread?

 

[Soggy Floppa]

Wait what the fuck, I had no idea about this. You mean that Spanish/Brazilian/whatever studio that did Dread?

Yeah, Mercury Steam did the Lords of Shadow trilogy

I'm really curious to know what you think about Super Metroid Ascent if you've played it, both because of its multiple-points-of-no-return progression and because the areas themselves almost give me Apogee Platformer vibes of being big rounded-square rooms with lots of snakey paths that go horizontal AND vertical

I believe I downloaded it a couple years back when I was big into Super ROM hacks but I don't think I've actually played it yet.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Mercury Steam did the Lords of Shadow trilogy

Nigga I thought you were gonna hit me with 'they made the DS Vania games' or something, not the God Of War ones

I should check those out some day to see how they are as brawlers, but I just got Space Marine 2 last week so I've got that itch scratched for the near future