In Zero Mission, they didn't force linearity for the sake of their story. Hell, you can kill Ridley first, then go after Kraid and get the cutscene of Ridley on his ship doing his Batman-eye-narrowing thing. Even though he's dead.
I actually don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that cutscene's not there when you kill Ridley first. I won't pretend like I'm certain though. I mean it shows him landing when you first enter Ridley's Lair, I think that's the flag to not show the cutscene in Kraid's Lair.
But what if the SP were able to clone other stuff than Metroids... couldn't they just have cloned Ridley few thousand times and have them all fly in a row to kill Samus? Then even whe you go to Kraid, it'd just be another Ridley coming to Zebes, which you never see? Not that that is true, but whatever.
also, what if the Ridleys instead started to battle each other to prove who's stronger? my impression is that Ridley goes for the most dangerous enemy he can find and it happens that Samus is the strongest being in the Metroid series that he finds first so he's always after her. having several Ridleys would make them go against each other until 1 of them remains and then that one would look for the strongest being around (and then finds Samus and gets himself killed once again)
You know, for someone who complains about Nintendo releasing rehashed game after rehashed game, I would have expected that he'd at least give them credit for trying something entirely new with one of its celebrated franchises.
You know, for someone who complains about Nintendo releasing rehashed game after rehashed game, I would have expected that he'd at least give them credit for trying something entirely new with one of its celebrated franchises.
that only applies if the changes make a better game. when the changes are bad, people prefer the "same old same old" and use stuff like "if it aint break, don't fix it".
i would take a good game that reuses a lot of stuff from a previous game over a worse game that is all-new.
I don't know how different Other M really is. Adding a shit ton of cutscenes isn't so much doing something different as it is being terrible. Lots of Metroids have cutscenes.
Problem with metroid is it basically defined a genre. The game by itself isn't that bad but it really doesn't fit into the genre created by metroid well. In that sense, it's *shudder* "not a metroid game."
Most of the Metroid games don't fit into the Metroid genre. The only ones that do are Metroid, Super Metroid, and Zero Mission, and maybe Hunters. Those being action/adventure games with free exploration and nonlinearity. There's more Castlevania games that fit the genre than Metroid. I'm not counting Prime 1 because the designers don't WANT you to have nonlinearity, as Retro locked down more and more breaks with every subsequent version.
*sigh* Sequence breaks are not necessary for the core Metroid experience.
When you get an item, let's say that opens up 3 paths. Ultimately, only path B will allow you to progress, but you can still go down A and C a ways and find out for yourself they are ultimately dead ends.
The joy of finding path B by yourself is what makes Metroid Metroid.
Okay, true. That would add Metroid 2 to the bunch. But still, all recent Metroid games TELL you where to go. All three Primes, Fusion, Other M, even Zero Mission. At least in the Primes you can turn it off, but still.
Well, finding random pick-up 47 in Other M is satisfying even though they tell you where it is. You just have to figure out how to get to it. It's like hide and seek.
mp1 atleast lacked those doors that stop you cold and relied on item-based obstacles to limit the player until new abilities were found. even if it was linear at the most basic level, it was well hidden and gave you the illusion of being open ended before SBs appeared. the rest of the games don't do that and instead guide you and lock the possible alternate paths with dumb shit like big doors or locked doors.
I think the greatest satisfaction I ever had was when I got early Plasma in MP1 the first time. Oh god, busting that baby out against Thardus. It was better than sex. Unfortunately I was too young to truly appreciate Super Metroid when it came out.