I don't know if it's just my love of all things Metroid (though that can't be true because of the little I played of Hunters, I wasn't fond of it), but Fusion really surprised me considering how many people have warned against it or how unfaithful it is to the rest of the franchise.

I really, really fell in love with this game.

It's definitely more linear, but it's not so linear that you feel like there's nothing to explore. The game - like its predecessors - constantly teases you with stuff you'll either have to find later, or stuff that you can get by much later. And the amount of nooks and crannies and such you can find is pretty awesome - I love how interconnected the whole map is. For this to be one gigantic research station, they made the thing a beautiful, interconnected map.

I kept stumbling on connections to different places and being like "wtf...? that leads there?!"

Then there's the other part that people harped on: the cinematics. I came into the game fully prepared to be inundated with bad dialouge or really trite writing, or long-lasting paragraphs of unnecessary info. And yet, aside from the long intro... none of it ever came. IT was handled well I thought, and Samus - who's never been a deaf/mute in any other form of media she's presented in including the beloved Super Metroid - seemed to come out well in all her monologues/thoughts, the few pieces of dialogue she has, and... I dunno', it really fit.

The game has a certain mood to it that I like as well; where Super Metroid was more about this foreboding, building fear that crept up as you got deeper into the game, Fusion really gave this constant tension where you found yourself often wondering just what the **** the SA-X would do next to muck up your day.

And the SA-X was quite an intimidating thing. I know it's another "dark version of the main character" theme, but for some reason the SA-X really jived with me.

The music, I felt, was great, really fit the mood of the game for the most part, and a lot of it was catchy and is STILL on my mind right now. TRO and AQA's main themes, Vs. Nightmare, the redone version of Ridley's theme... all awesome I thought. Again, it wasn't Super Metroid but it felt great to listen to.

So, I dunno'. Maybe it was just me - after all, I'm one of the few that really, really loved (and still loves!) Metroid II: Return of Samus. But I'm already going through my second playthrough of Metroid Fusion, and still doing a 100% item search on my main file (saved right after you get the "Final Command).

So I'm interested i hearing form other Metroid fans... what did you think of it?



PS: I played on an emulator for now, though I plan to buy the cart from Amazon once I have a job again. Just so that people know I'm not wasting my limited funds right now. (^__^ )

- nin

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Heh heh, in their Super Metroid podcast episode, NintendoWorldReport did say that Nintendo (or anyone else) could probably never make a game like Super Metroid again, that thrusting players on this planet without any guidance would be seen as bad game design. And it's a good point.

But personally, that's what made it awesome. Okay, so I probably wouldn't have the same patience for it today that I had 15 years ago, but still. I'd rather be stumped for a few hours not knowing what to do, and being allowed to experience the satisfaction of figuring it out, than be told exactly what to do all the time like in Okami (damn Issun!).

I also think Super Metroid had more than enough clues most of the time to point you to a secret. An enemy coming out of the ground, an out-of-place block, etc. Good game design? Absolutely.

At any rate, games like that are a product of their time and aren't coming back. You can't release a point-and-click adventure game that doesn't have a built-in hint system anymore, things like that. I guess it's an advancement in game design, but IMO it does make beating a game a lot less satisfying.

Posted by

Pandareus

on: 09/17/09, 18:38

What you described about the glass bridge in Super Metroid, I felt much more in the original Metroid. When you bombed random places or glitched up walls through doors, it felt like you were stumbling into parts of the world that the designers never even wanted you to see. And it wouldn't just be one room. It would be a whole other section to explore.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/17/09, 19:37

Yeah. Game design has definitely evolved to make everything easily accessible to the player. I think it's to cater to people who aren't super hardcore.

I think a huge chunk of the market back then was indeed hardcore, and as games grew after the SNES, more and more non-hardcore gamers have been joining the fun. They don't have the time to sit through and find things on their own, they just wanna enjoy playing through a game and not getting stuck.

That's where game design has headed: making everything accessible and not frustrating for no good reason. The only frustration a game could bring up to a given player is a challenge that you need skill for, meaning that a player who isn't very skilled might get frustrated because they can't beat a boss. I think that's okay, that's not bad design. But having to find your own, vague way through a level to get this boss, without any hints, is unacceptable nowadays. And I agree with that.

However I don't like it when games point you EXACTLY where to go. I think something like what Dead Space does works well: it is entirely optional to click a button to see where to go next. Good for beginners, and pros just don't click the button and find their own way.


anand: I haven't played enough Metroid 1 to relate to what you're talking about unfortunately.

Posted by

Griptor

on: 09/17/09, 19:45

Is it good design, though ?

Well as stated above you don't HAVE to enter Maridia that way, you can still enter on the other side, which is probably the intended way of entrance. So it is kind of cool that you can actually do something like that (keeping in mind that Super Metroid was LONG before fully destructible environments existed) but it's not really forced on you. I don't think? I forget if you have to do it eventually.

Still though, I go back and forth on this in adventure games... how much hand holding should there be? Metroid Prime has the scanning to get around having to think outside the box like this, but then again, the scanning pretty much always points you directly at what you need... not much exploration there. I still think they implemented it very well, but there was never that one totally thinking outside the box thing that made me think wow, that's awesome!

Does anyone remember the later temple in Link to the Past where when you try to walk in one of those laser eye things shoots you? I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to get in and then finally did a sword charge, which lets you walk backwards, and he doesn't shoot if you are walking backwards. To this day I still have no idea if that is what you are SUPPOSED to do to get past him, as it seemed like a really obscure thing. But I also remember thinking Nintendo was freaking brilliant for making me think outside of the box like that. Hmm.

Back in the days I always wanted to play Out of This World as it seemed to have all kinds of outside of the box thinking, but I have no idea if the actual game would live up to the game in my mind. Maybe it would just be frustrating as hell and require lots of trips to Gamefaqs.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/17/09, 20:56

Part of the challenge of older games was tied into the length and arcade roots. Many games were expensive and fairly short, so people felt cheated if they blew through the game in one day. Ratcheting up the challenge was one way of dealing with that.

In today's (well, yesterday's) 12-hour epics, how many people would ever make it to the end if they had to beat their head against the wall at every opportunity? Developers have finally started to realize how much of their work has gone to waste all of these years. There are always easy band-aids like adjusting enemy health and damage at different difficulty levels, but wouldn't the game still be tuned to and built around one of them? GoldenEye and Perfect Dark had a cool approach to difficulty levels. So does Halo, with the change in AI.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/18/09, 02:07

Change in AI? I think Left 4 Dead was supposed to do something like that, but I'm not sure I like the concept. I don't want games getting easier when I suck, I want them to force me to stop sucking. Maybe I'm the exception though, everyone seems psyched about the idea of games tailoring their difficulty to your own level. And Halo's regenerating shield and respawning friends pretty much destroy most of the challenge anyhow, in co-op. Maybe on Legendary or whatever it'd be tough.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/18/09, 05:23

I think there has to be a blend of both.

I definitely don't mind a game dropping you off and saying "here. Figure it out." Hell, that's how I play most games - I just pop it in and start it! I think what becomes bad design is when you drop me off in a place without guidance, but then make things so obscure and incredibly hard to figure out that I lose that enjoyment. It's a delicate balance that few games get right. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime did it well. Metroid 2 and Fusion I will agree hold your hand a bit too much (Metroid 2 with the lava levels forcing you to clear an area first, and Fusion by sealing doors).

None of those were really bad game design though, IMO - they fit in with the flow of the game. So with like Metroid 2, they naturally want to have you see how much more powerful these creatures get as you descend further and further into the planet, and control your pace (because on your first time through you never really know "when" the water level will drop). And in Fusion, they did it to add suspense to everything, and IMO it worked - I honestly was scared of the freakin' SA-X.

I remember peeking into every there room like "dammit, I know it's here somewhere..."

There is a lot of handholding in this gen's games though. The challenge often lies in the extra stuff you can do after the main game, or in turning off certain help options (which is fine)... but then there are very few games where I feel penalized for dying or even getting to a "game over" screen. Save files have been both a blessing and a curse, because what used to drive you to finish before now is eradicated by the idea of "well, I can save like, right here..."

But then, that is game-dependant too, because if I couldn't save anywhere at any time in Pokemon, I'd probably have to kill everyone at Game Freak someday. It works in that genre.

I dunno', I'm kinda rambling as I tend to start doing when I post, but I think what I'm generally saying is that designers get too caught up in making a game accessible by adding options and hints, rather than making it a natural progression via level/world design. But then, it's a very hard thing to do without alienating one side or the other.

I mean, here I am talking about all of this when I still haven't beaten Metroid Prime 1 (still can't be the last boss dammit, second form kills me)...

Posted by

roknin

on: 09/19/09, 11:20

I love Metroid NES (it might be my favorite game of all time), but I just couldn't get into Return of Samus (which I tried recently), possibly due to the limitations of the Game Boy. The perspective is so weird (Samus takes up a third of the screen), and the lack of color made navigation super confusing for me. I had fun with it for a while, but then I got lost for a couple of hours, whereupon I was like "Fuck this game".

I should try again, though, I guess. I think that's the game that REALLY needed a remake, if only for color and clarity and a perspective shift.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/19/09, 18:01

Nah, Metroid didn't hold my hand either. It was much more non-linear than Metroid II. (Shouldn't there be a better word than 'non-linear'? Circular? Discontinuous?)

I just want color (for differentiation) and a smaller sprite.

I'm not really a Super Metroid purist. The first game is probably my favorite, like I said, and I loved Fusion, which was an action-heavy departure. Metroid II just felt kind of lacking in the playability department for me.

Plus, I think there's something about that 'there's only one way to proceed, but we're going to make you wander around until you find it' type of gameplay that bugs me. That vague linearity. Like in Halo. I guess you could say that all the Metroid games are like that, but Return of Samus has a different feel.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/19/09, 21:53

Actually, I always used to play those kinds of games (Pool of Radiance, Zork, Bard's Tale, Dungeon Master, Zelda, Metroid, etc.) without maps.

And it isn't like I was stuck for months in Return of Samus. I just picked it up used a couple of years ago, played a few hours, got lost, put it down for a few months, then came back and no idea where the hell I was supposed to go. I've been meaning to start a new file and give it another go. I just haven't yet. It's possible that I won't get stuck next time. But I don't have much patience for getting lost in linear games nowadays.

Anyway, I don't think COLOR and a bigger playfield is too much to ask.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/20/09, 02:37

How old are you folks?

Posted by

Griptor

on: 09/20/09, 03:55

93.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/20/09, 04:57

Haha.

Was just curious. I'm 24. I don't really know many of the titles you just talked about.

Posted by

Griptor

on: 09/20/09, 05:52

Yeah I tried playing through the original Metroid on the Zero Mission cartridge but once I got lost once I just didn't have the patience to figure out where I was supposed to be.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/20/09, 08:04

I'm older than my teeth and younger than my hair?

Ok, ok. 33. I think.

Those were mostly computer games.

Posted by

Anand

on: 09/20/09, 17:26

Well, the term "hand holding" is a bit incorrect. I like the map of Super Metroid over the no map of Metroid. If Metroid had a map and I at least knew where I had been and where I hadn't, I don't think I would have minded so much not being pointed where to go next. And if Super Metroid didn't have a map, I'm not sure I'd be too happy with it, even if it did point me in the right direction. I don't think a map is the same as hand holding.

Hmm, still though, I've played through Super Metroid like 5 times and I honestly don't remember it actually pointing you in the right direction very often, or giving you much "help" on where to go next? I remember it like... get new upgrade, check map to see if you can remember where you saw stuff that might relate to that upgrade. For the colored doors it is easy since they appear on the map, but for other things not so much. I remember getting really lost at one point after getting the speed boots because I forgot what room it was that had the speed things on the floor. And I was VERY lost trying to get into Maridia the first time, before I realized you can get into it from the total opposite side of where I was trying to get into it.

Plus the map you download is only really about half the map of the area, the rest you do have to explore to create the map. Metroid Prime did this as well, but Prime 2 and 3 did NOT (you downloaded the entire map for an area,) which turned me off a bit.

In conclusion, I prefer having a half of a map over having no map or a full map. And I'd *probably* prefer having no map over having a full map as long as the game created a map for you every time you went into a new room, you know, like a map of where you have been. The original Metroid didn't do this, at all.

PS. I'm 30 and therefore experiencing my first mid-life crisis, for whomever asked.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/20/09, 23:30

Is de Blob really a maze though? Usually there is only one opening to the next area, and each area is small enough that you never really get lost.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/22/09, 05:32

Hmm, but any game would turn into that if you create a time limit. I still think "maze" is an incorrect term, you might start freaking out because you forget where something is and are running out of time, but the areas aren't even close to maze-like. The only thing that makes them all that difficult to navigate effectively is the time limit.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/22/09, 20:31

Well... I don't think Other M is copying it though it is probably a bit too early to tell. Seems like a breath of fresh air.

Maybe.

Posted by

Zero

on: 09/23/09, 06:12

I missed some replies, good reads all around.

I agree with you on RoS now that I think about it, Simba. It didn't really point to you where to go at all, and now that I think about it I probably worded that wrong. I guess it was the linear progression that I was getting at rather than it seeming to point to where to go. Because yeah, it definitely didn't hold your hand at all, and I do recall getting lost trying to find a specific Metroid here or there. Hell, the Spring Ball wasn't even necessary to finish the game.

That said, I agree with Zero in that Super doesn't feel like it holds your hand at all either. The map seems like a natural progression, and like Fusion, there's things on the maps that aren't revealed as well. Fusion is even better at this though, as there's like, entire sections of the game that aren't visible.

I'm on my third (fourth?) playthrough of Fusion now. I really am loving this game. And honestly I need to stop playing through it, lol!

Posted by

roknin

on: 09/23/09, 09:38