How would you rank Metroid games compared to each other?

2013-01-14 08:23:33 pm

red chamber dream

yeah i never got the whole "metroid games are nonlinear" take. even if they were, why would that be a good thing? the vast majority of all games are linear because linear games are great. you can't have a decent plot, story, or any sort of real progression without linearity. just like every other medium.

Prime Hunter

2013-01-14 08:23:36 pm

I think we can at least agree that Super Missiles are awesome in almost all of their incarnations, though. That's a case where their low ammo count is necessary just for balance purposes because of how powerful they can be.

tomatobob

2013-01-14 08:23:54 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

I think the real advantage missiles had in Super was that charging the beam was slow as fuck. Or at least felt it (much like everything in Super).

But yeah in later games getting missiles is so underwhelming, the Primes managed this a bit with the beam combos, but most of the combos were awful sooooo. And then lol Corruption. And of course other M making missiles a pain in the ass to use.

arkarian

2013-01-14 08:26:49 pm

red chamber dream

yeah prime 1 was the only prime game that did missiles well. in all the others they don't really feel worth it since the beams are so overpowered, the beam combos are useless, and there's not much reason to use missiles in the environment.

nintendo always seems to have that problem though - putting shit into a game just because previous games in the series had it. zelda suffers from this too.

tomatobob

2013-01-14 08:27:29 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

The best super missiles were in Fusion because they just stacked on your old ones like beams do. I mean once you get supers you don't really bother with regular ones anyway. Thanks to boss invincibility frames spamming missiles can't out damage a stronger charge beam.

Idkbutlike2

2013-01-14 08:28:18 pm

Fusion did have the most balanced use of both beams and missiles. I'll give it that much.

tomatobob

Edit history:

tomatobob: 2013-01-14 08:30:16 pm

2013-01-14 08:28:38 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Prime also had the best regular missiles cause of the absurd rate at which you could fire them and lack of invincibility.

Quote from Idkbutlike2:

Fusion did have the most balanced use of both beams and missiles. I'll give it that much.

Eh, not really, missiles are better than your charge beam for like five minutes total. Would be neat to have a system like Fusion but with the freeze effect given back to the beams and missiles just getting stupid powerful with later upgrades.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-01-14 08:33:46 pm

2013-01-14 08:31:10 pm

Which again is part of the reason they work so well in Prime 1. The only problem I have with the way Fusion did it is that they used the same ammo so you'd have a ton of them. Prime 1 balanced that by having Supers use the missile ammo but require a full expansion's worth to fire. Gives you a bigger reason to collect the expansions in my book.

It's both funny and frightening that we can measure our feelings about the series based on how the missiles were implemented. Says a lot about item progression, doesn't it?

arkarian

2013-01-14 08:31:19 pm

red chamber dream

one thing i liked about corruption was the fusion-style missile upgrade stacking ... too bad they were largely useless

tomatobob

2013-01-14 08:36:37 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Ice missiles, Hyper mode ruin everything. Always.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Which again is part of the reason they work so well in Prime 1. The only problem I have with the way Fusion did it is that they used the same ammo so you'd have a ton of them. Prime 1 balanced that by having Supers use the missile ammo but require a full expansion's worth to fire. Gives you a bigger reason to collect the expansions in my book.

Item inflation was a problem with Fusion in general, tons of e-tanks, missiles, and power bombs. Energy was balanced by the amount of damage enemies did to you but missiles and power bombs were just worthless by the end.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-01-14 08:40:31 pm

2013-01-14 08:39:30 pm

Quote from tomatobob:

Item inflation was a problem with Fusion in general...

Definitely agree on that. Sure, they have plenty of expansions to find if you want to, but what's the point when you can reasonably survive with maybe 1/4 of them? Although is that more because we've gotten skilled at the games over the years or because of way the series works in general?

tomatobob

2013-01-14 08:53:57 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Well if I can beat Fusion with less than a quarter of the pickups literally anybody can.

rekameohs

2013-01-14 10:11:32 pm

Anywhere, everywhere

What? You think that 74 power bombs in Fusion is excessive? No way!

kirbymastah

2013-01-15 12:59:28 pm

Fusion 100% is much easier to speedrun than any% because you get so many power bombs that are totally necessary.

Turtle

2013-01-15 02:04:16 pm

I like turtles.

The only thing in Fusion you need more than maybe two expansions for is E-Tanks. And that's mostly for people like me who are bad at anything with the SA-X.

kirbymastah

2013-01-15 07:55:12 pm

Having 30-40 missiles is ideal for an any% fusion run... honestly missile usage in fusion is helpful, at least until you pass 80ish. It's not as useless as missiles in super metroid.

And no missiles are as useless as missiles in MP3 rofl

Aegis Runestone

2013-01-16 06:38:10 pm

Game Lover

Quote from rekameohs:

What? You think that 74 power bombs in Fusion is excessive? No way!

LOL. XD No, it's not excessive at all. :P

UchihaSasuke

2013-01-17 04:20:24 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

missiles never had a chance in mp3

the only way they'd be useful there is if there was a hyper super missile but that would be pretty lulz.

Prime Hunter

2013-01-17 04:33:19 pm

Well there are normal Hyper Missiles, but even those don't get used that often compared to the normal Hyper Beam shots because of how overpowered they are.

kirbymastah

2013-01-18 01:54:48 am

hyper missiles do have their use, but in general you never need more than 20-25 at a time, let alone 250.

Aegis Runestone

2013-01-18 12:15:17 pm

Game Lover

I actually like Hyper Missiles, I found that in some situations, they are stronger than the Hyper Beam.

Also, a little off-topic, but I found an easy, but not cheap (I.E. Nova Beam + X-Ray Visor) way to kill Metroid Hatchers. Use Hyper Ball to get rid of their tentacles, it works REALLY well. And then, of course, blast open their mouths and rip out a tentacle. :)

kirbymastah

2013-01-18 04:33:35 pm

That is interesting. I should try that on the metroid hatcher... though honestly even in a 100% speedrun, you already have nova beam + x-ray by the time you fight metroid hatchers.

Hyper Missiles are definitely useful. They're great as finishers, help for 2-rounding aurora unit, and basically OHKO most space pirates in pirate homeworld. While for overall DPS, hyper beam outclasses it, hyper misiles have their use. Now, Hyper Grapple on the other hand...

Da Dood

2013-01-21 05:52:09 pm

Dood Trigger™

My current rank:

Prime
Super

Echoes
Corruption

Zero Mission
Fusion

Other M
Metroid 1
Return of Samus

Prime and Super are brilliant.

Echoes gets better and better, ever since I learned the SB tricks. That game normally is IMO super tedious during the whole first half. ILS and early PB practically solved that for me. Without SBs, I have more fun with Corruption.

ZM and Fusion are very solid, up there with Echoes and Corruption. I just tend to play the Prime games more often so they're higher.

I like Other M. I played the entire thing finding flaws everywhere, but at the same time I was having fun and wanted to keep playing. All the complaints about this game are definitely understandable. As for the original Metroid, it's good, but I'm kinda bad at it.

To be fair on RoS, I only played it on an emulator with not the best visual/control setup. Never finished the game.

UchihaSasuke

2013-02-06 02:36:44 am

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

Quote from kirbymastah:

That is interesting. I should try that on the metroid hatcher... though honestly even in a 100% speedrun, you already have nova beam + x-ray by the time you fight metroid hatchers.

Hyper Missiles are definitely useful. They're great as finishers, help for 2-rounding aurora unit, and basically OHKO most space pirates in pirate homeworld. While for overall DPS, hyper beam outclasses it, hyper misiles have their use. Now, Hyper Grapple on the other hand...

heeey, Hyper Grapple helps by reducing corruption levels in phaaze

(though that's useful only if you're really bad like me)

cardinaldirection

2014-07-17 03:24:56 pm

I figure this is the most appropriate thread for me to make my first post in, seeing as how one's answer to this question best introduces them to this particular community:

1. Super Metroid - for the atmosphere, the physics permitting precision game play, and for encapsulating and refining so many elements of game design into what is in my opinion the most perfect video game ever made.

2. Zero Mission - for the level design, especially the shine sparks, and the stealth section.

BIG GAP

3. Prime - for the amazing translation to 3D, and the user experience and world designs.

BIG GAP

4. Fusion - because it's a 2D Metroid, and it had been far too long since we'd gotten a new one, and because it's more fun than the rest...

BIG GAP

5. Return of Samus - for the excellently eery mood that gets heavier the deeper you descend, and for being the first to let me play Metroid anywhere I went.

6. Metroid - for introducing so many aspects of one of the greatest game franchises ever.

Have not beaten:
Prime 2, 3, Hunters, or Pinball
Other M

I've been playing these games for decades, but only recently have I begun to master the art of the speed run. At the moment I'm working on a 100% Zero Mission, and as soon as I have a time and/or a route worth sharing I'll do so.
Nice to meet everybody, thanks for the great forums aiwebs_004

Oh and I disagree with you completely regarding linearity arkarian, but I'm not sure this is the time or place to resurrect that conversation.

I figure this is the most appropriate thread for me to make my first post in, seeing as how one's answer to this question best introduces them to this particular community:

1. Super Metroid - for the atmosphere, the physics permitting precision game play, and for encapsulating and refining so many elements of game design into what is in my opinion the most perfect video game ever made.

2. Zero Mission - for the level design, especially the shine sparks, and the stealth section.

BIG GAP

3. Prime - for the amazing translation to 3D, and the user experience and world designs.

BIG GAP

4. Fusion - because it's a 2D Metroid, and it had been far too long since we'd gotten a new one, and because it's more fun than the rest...

BIG GAP

5. Return of Samus - for the excellently eery mood that gets heavier the deeper you descend, and for being the first to let me play Metroid anywhere I went.

6. Metroid - for introducing so many aspects of one of the greatest game franchises ever.

Have not beaten:
Prime 2, 3, Hunters, or Pinball
Other M

I've been playing these games for decades, but only recently have I begun to master the art of the speed run.  At the moment I'm working on a 100% Zero Mission, and as soon as I have a time and/or a route worth sharing I'll do so.
Nice to meet everybody, thanks for the great forums [aiwebs_004]

Oh and I disagree with you completely regarding linearity arkarian, but I'm not sure this is the time or place to resurrect that conversation.