Samus in Ninja Gaiden

[Shadow Hog]

I dunno, as a sidegame, a Metroid rail-shooter could've been pretty friggin' awesome. I'd just put it on the same pedestal as Metroid Prime Pinball, another well-made but ultimately forgettable title.

[gr4yJ4Y]

There is no backtracking in the game. The game is basically an action/platformer just like Ninja Gaiden.

Did I miss something? I thought this was a Metroidvania. I haven't read anything anywhere else that's said otherwise. Although I haven't been reading all the coverage of this. If it's true it lowers my anticipation of it quite a bit.


On another issue to de-rail the topic, I was talking with some friends last night about the rumored Retro Studios fist-person Zelda. They hadn't heard the rumors and were upset about the possibility of it. And I kept telling them it would be just like Metroid, so it wouldn't be a problem. They kept saying how Metroid has always been a shooter at heart, so its transition into first-person should had been obvious, while if the same were to happen with Zelda it would be disastrous. I kept saying that Metroid really wasn't about the shooting before and it still isn't, so it wouldn't be much different than Zelda. They couldn't see it my way though. I'd really like to see a Retro-developed first-person Zelda.

[Crisis]

A first-person Zelda title? What a bizarre concept, but one that's appealingly close to my vision of the future of first-person action games. It would be nice for Retro Studios to surprise me after after 2 unexciting, if fairly solid, Metroid titles in a row.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I would think that Retro would work on a safer IP, like Kid Icarus or maybe StarTropics. I would doubt a new IP, not that I don't think they have some interesting ideas.

But Nintendo trusted Zelda with Capcom, so what the hell do I know.

[Shadow Hog]

You should have just said it'd play like Elder Scrolls. That might have alleviated their concern quite a bit.

Or maybe it'd have exaggerated it, depending on how much they liked or hated Oblivion.

[Zeta]

I'd kill for a version of Zelda with the more open and dynamic world of the Elder Scrolls but with the plot focus and gadgets of Zelda.

[gr4yJ4Y]

You should have just said it'd play like Elder Scrolls. That might have alleviated their concern quite a bit.

Actually they were saying it'd play like Elder Scrolls, so Nintendo shouldn't bother. I think of Oblivion and Zelda as being miles apart from each other. I was arguing that it'd play a lot different than Oblivion. I really wouldn't compare those two.

[Shadow Hog]

I would. It'd be a first-person swordfighting game. The first thing I'd imagine would come to anyone's mind is Elder Scrolls (or the Demoman's Eyelander from TF2, although that introduces the "bringing a sword to a gunfight" issue).

Granted, I'd imagine combat might turn out to play a little more stylized than that. For some reason, Oblivion's swordplay (while miles better than what little I tried of Daggerfall's swordplay) never really clicked with me in the same way Zelda's did. It might have something to do with that (admittedly unrealistically) large "bounce" enemies take whenever they get hit, and the rather simplistic HP system the game goes by (red Octorok takes one hit, blue takes two; easy!). It might also be because I never really played Oblivion all that much for it to sink in, I dunno. Also, I'd imagine a lot of the stats Elder Scrolls is centered around would be streamlined to Zelda's usual "if you want a better sword, complete this sidequest and get the better sword" and "you get three hearts, and only get more by completing dungeons or random sidequests" mechanic, no "leveling up" or anything.

Also, "it'd play like Elder Scrolls so they shouldn't bother" is a shitty argument. Not because of any logical fallacy with the first half, more that there's a pretty big disconnect between the given statement and its conclusion. If everybody said "it'd play like [GAME X] so [COMPANY Y] shouldn't bother", we'd never have gotten any innovative products that took somebody else's idea and improved on it, ever so slightly, to become its own thing. Of course, it'd help if game companies these days aped off of games that WEREN'T Modern Warfare, Halo or Grand Theft Auto, since using the same source material too long does eventually get stale, but I don't think too many games try for Oblivion's general gameplay.

[P.P.A.]

At least regarding sword fighting, a first person Zelda sounds like a bad idea. The battles in the 3D Zelda games have been pretty dynamic, allowing flips, sidesteps, jumps, etc., and Wind Waker and Twilight Princess have further introduced new moves involving a lot of movement and agility. None of this could be recreated in an FPS, where all you could do was cycle and strafe around the enemy while slashing or hitting them in a few basic ways. And jump around a bit, but I doubt this would work as well as it does in third person.

[Blount]

Spiffy gameplay trailer acquired.

[James McGeachie]

I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it again, awesome as hell trailer. Nails the feel I'd want from a 3d third-person Metroid. It's great that it looks like they've successfully implimented the true speed booster, space jump and screw attack.

I'm not going to claim the Art direction is up to Prime's level, it isn't. It's never going to be. I can't claim to know if the control system truly works well yet either...but for now I don't give a shit, I just want to get a hold of the game and play the fuck out of it.

[Rob-Bert]

The controls look pretty smooth to me. That and the graphics kind of remind me of a game that would've been released during the PS1 era, since it uses the D-pad for movement and all.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Looks like Shamus auto-aims in 3rd-person mode. Aww the game wants to play itself.

LOL@ the boss being whipped around by the tail.

[gr4yJ4Y]

It still looks a little too action-y for a Metroid, but it looks good and varied. I'm pumped!

[Neo]

This plays exactly how I figured it would: like Die Hard Arcade, the game is in 3D, but the camera fixed in a certain angle, and while you can move away and towards the screen, most of the action takes place along a single direction. Seems like a fairly good attempt at combining the 2D and 3D gameplay styles.

[Esrever]

Just... just use the nunchuk! You could aim with the pointer in the 3rd person sections! There is no need for this!

[Crazy Penguin]

I want to talk about the original Metroid. Why does your health always go back to 30 when you die, no matter how many energy tanks you have? Why is it so fiddly and time consuming to kill enough enemies to fill up your energy meter? What is the point of having extra energy tanks if this is going to happen? What is the point of having a big map with multiple routes and hidden power-ups and areas only accessible with said power-ups if it takes dying 53 times before you realise you've gone in the wrong direction?

I know it's old and all, but sweet sassy molassy, the original Zelda didn't have this problem.

[Shadow Hog]

I dunno, IIRC every time you loaded up your save, you would only start with 3 hearts filled. That is, it was just as bad about it as Metroid was.

Well, I suppose Zelda's world was a little more difficult to get truly lost in, but still.

[Rob-Bert]

Most games of that era had that problem. It was almost like they were trying to increase the difficulty as much as they could.

All this and yet Howard Phillips refused to allow NCL to released SMBTLL in the USA for being "too difficult". 9_9

[G.Silver]

I wish I knew the answer! But I can speculate wildly on the nature of gamer and developer culture in the mid-to-late 80s!

But here's my thinking, it was given those problems specifically because Zelda doesn't have them. I don't know what to tell you about the 30hp, but one of the major characteristics of these older games is that you didn't always know what to do, if the games themselves didn't create a gamer culture, they certainly neccesitated it. (Zelda, Metroid, and Punch Out are probably the best examples I can think of here on the NES.) People had to share what they knew, and make their own maps. The game Tower of Druaga is surely the pinnacle of that design style, where picking up the wrong item can kill you, and that's in an arcade game! And people played it! Almost every Japanese arcade has a pile of notebooks for people to scribble notes and other things in, and I don't know for sure what the purpose of them is or how long they've been there, but Druaga had to be influencial there, as people played the game and used the user-made strategies contained in the notebooks to get further into the tower. I think Demons Souls is operating on the same principle. A

All I can really tell you is that as a kid in 1988 or whenever, I restarted Metroid over and over and tackled the various power ups I wanted in different orders several times, all with my trusty Nintendo Player's Handbook in hand--it had a map, and descriptions of all the power ups, and the general advice that you should fight Kraid before Riddley. It wasn't until probably 3 or 4 years later that I actually seriously attempted to beat the game. I think Metroid is a lot like that Wiley Stage boss in Megaman 2--it's not fair, and it was designed knowing that you'd do your best at it when you had some resources outside the game to help you.

People were beating games, and somehow developers had to stop them!

[G.Silver]

All this and yet Howard Phillips refused to allow NCL to released SMBTLL in the USA for being "too difficult". 9_9

I am pretty sure the difficulty had less to do with their decision to not release it than the timing of the game (The NES having only just launched in the US). When you consider that by the time our "2" was released, Japan had 3 in the same month, it's obvious that they weren't in a hurry to do anything. By the time they would have thought to release a sequel for the US, Japan's Mario 2 was probably looking pretty dated compared to other games that may have been released faster.

[Crazy Penguin]

I dunno, IIRC every time you loaded up your save, you would only start with 3 hearts filled. That is, it was just as bad about it as Metroid was.

Incorrect! In Zelda you could just go out a kill a few relatively harmless Octoroks and Moblins to quickly regain your hearts, and there were the potions. From then on you could easily find your way to whatever dungeon, or have enough health to explore the overworld properly.

In Metroid filling up your energy is CONSIDERABLY more difficult/time consuming/futile.

I really dig the whole no map aspect and general non-linearity. Someone needs to bring back that kind of game where you're thrown into a daunting environment and left to figure it out for yourself. But it really doesn't help the exploration angle when you're getting killed every ten seconds because of an ill-conceived health system.

The Adventure of Link was a genuinely challenging side scroller with no dungeon maps and it didn't have any of that bullshit. There the branching paths were more frequent and shorter, and utlilised a key system so you didn't have to keep playing the same long stretch over and over again. I kind of suck at both NES Zeldas, and haven't completed the second one or the hard mode of the first one, but I at least have the awareness that it's due to my own failings rather than an inane gameplay mechanic.

I really want to like Metroid 1, it just doesn't want to like me.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Whatever the reason, I'm glad we got Doki Doki Mario 'cause it's a far greater game than "Mario for Super Players" ever was. And its additions to later installments have been unanimously positive, Birdo notwithstanding.

Imagine, a Mario without Bob-ombs.

I really dig the whole no map aspect and general non-linearity. Someone needs to bring back that kind of game where you're thrown into a daunting environment and left to figure it out for yourself. But it really doesn't help the exploration angle when you're getting killed every ten seconds because of an ill-conceived health system.

I wouldn't get my hopes up over a big-budget game to doing this. In the meantime may I suggest Knytt Strories and its community-made worlds?

[G.Silver]

Oh, one possible solution on the matter of having only 30 hit points--it doesn't help exploring on your own, but if you know where there's an "easy" Energy Tank expansion, that will fill up all your energy, if I remember right. The one right near the start of the game is a good one for that, though you can only do it once!

[Team Mecha]

I dunno, IIRC every time you loaded up your save, you would only start with 3 hearts filled. That is, it was just as bad about it as Metroid was.

Incorrect! In Zelda you could just go out a kill a few relatively harmless Octoroks and Moblins to quickly regain your hearts,

Sure in the overworld. But those hearts are nearly nonexistent in the dungeons. I died dozens of times in Level 5 before seeing a single one. It actually would've better if I hadn't collected any heart containers so I could use the sword beam.