Metroid

[Steven]

Every time someone mentions Metroid, there's a deluge of replies, which makes me happy because I love Metroid, so maybe it's time for a dedicated Metroid thread, especially because Prime doesn't really fit in R2RKMF.

This is the official Metroid thread, I guess.

[ryu]

What made Metroid games stand out for me was how easy it was to quickly replay them for better play times. The Metroid2 remake was pretty terrible in that regard because the game took too long to beat because of its huge map. Dread fixed that a little but introduced that god awful trial and error gameplay witht he EMMIs and don't get me started on how much time is wasted on loading screens and cut scenes. My second playthrough of Dread took me a little over 10 hours of ingame time that took a whole weekend in reality.

Super, Fusion and Zero Mission I can casually clear in an evening. I miss when the games were that approachable.

[XoPachi]

Samus is my favorite character in all of fiction. She's so cool.

[To Far Away Times]

Metroid is a cool guy and doesn't take shit from no one.

[Jeneki]

y cant metroid crawl?

[Sumez]

Alright, I'll respond to your metroid claims in this thread instead of the other

Dread, which basically removes exploration entirely

But it doesn't... you just have to ignore the game strongly trying to push you in certain directions. Once you do, and after you have the Morph Ball, you'll find it's almost as open as Zero Mission.

That just isn't true... Maybe the game is good at making you think so, dunno? It has received a lot of praise for the way it "subtly" pushes the player in a specific direction without ever telling exactly where to go. And even though I agree that aspect is really well executed, I think it also makes the game worse.
Regardless, if you ever DO try to step outside of that predetermined path, you will most likely either run into a dead-end rather quickly, or as it happened to me a few times where I really fought hard to deviate from the beaten path, you'll be sent on a massive linear detour around a series of areas you've already been to due to the game's "subtly nudging" often straight up preventing you from going backwards at all.
I pretty consistently tried going the way the game *wasn't* trying to make me go, in order to explore what there was to find, and not once did it allow me to ever explore anything on my own account, that I hadn't already been through. Often it's not even possible to go back to areas you have already been to until the point where the predetermined path decides that you do need to backtrack. One questions what is the purpose of seemingly structuring the game around a "metroidvania" formula, when the one thing that makes such games stand out isn't present at all?

Sure, it's possible to sequence break Dread, but those breaks all rely on some really obscure and often hard-to-execute shinespark tricks, so it's definitely not something that translates into "exploration" on a causal playthrough at all.

Not that Zero Mission is super open either though. On the surface it's modeled after Super Metroid, but it also funnels the player much harder, streamlining the one true way through the game, outside of the occasional possibility for sequence breaking.

Nothing compares to the original Metroid, though, which is why that game is really cool, as it just doesn't care what you want to do and will let you do it as long as it doesn't involve going to Tourian without killing Kraid and Ridley, and even then I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way to get in there without killing both of them.

It is, you can lure an enemy into the bridge room from the adjacent room and freeze it to jump into Tourian, preventing you from ever leaving again. If you don't have at least 10 missiles at that point you'll be soft locked. That's why speedrunners always kill Kraid before going there (gives you exactly enough missiles to kill Mother Brain), but Ridley gets skipped.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Super, Fusion and Zero Mission I can casually clear in an evening. I miss when the games were that approachable.

It's not that much longer than Super. If I play casually it's around 6 or 7 hours to Super's 4-ish, not a problem to me at least. Playing it for a fast time feels pretty comfy to me too, with the exception of the overly-long final boss fight (Dear Nintendo, please stop trying to turn Metroid into a shonen anime).

I'm 1000% with you on load times though, those things should have gone extinct a decade ago, especially in a side-scrolling game.

I pretty consistently tried going the way the game *wasn't* trying to make me go, in order to explore what there was to find, and not once did it allow me to ever explore anything on my own account, that I hadn't already been through.

That just isn't true... Maybe the game is good at making you think so, dunno? Like I said in the other thread, I did a major sequence break and didn't even realize it was a sequence break at the time. On one of my later playthroughs I tried to do the intended sequence and I managed to screw it up, because it's so unclear what the intended sequence is (this also happened to me when I tried to play Super Metroid in the intended sequence, lol).

those breaks all rely on some really obscure and often hard-to-execute shinespark tricks, so it's definitely not something that translates into "exploration" on a causal playthrough at all.

Heaven forbid a player displays skill while playing casually, or a developer designs their game on the assumption that players will become skilled at it. Walljumping in Super is hard too, so hard that there are real-life people who beg for the pathetic neutered walljump seen in Fusion and Zero Mission. But even though "shinesparks are hard" is not an argument worthy of response, I'll give one anyway:

The moment that I noticed the difference in how the Speed Boost and shinesparks work in Dread compared to past games, I immediately began experimenting and toying around with it and the immense potential it provides. This is no different from what happened when I figured out repeated bomb jumps in Metroid 2, or accidentally walljumped for the first time in Super Metroid. Discover new ability, explore new ability, world opens up, explore new world. That's why Super is a great game, and it's why Dread is a great game.

But hey, if your idea of "exploration" is shooting a random unmarked wall tile to skip Long Beam, then maybe Dread is just 2deep4u.

[Sumez]

That just isn't true... Maybe the game is good at making you think so, dunno? Like I said in the other thread, I did a major sequence break and didn't even realize it was a sequence break at the time. On one of my later playthroughs I tried to do the intended sequence and I managed to screw it up, because it's so unclear what the intended sequence is (this also happened to me when I tried to play Super Metroid in the intended sequence, lol).

This definitely isn't the Metroid Dread that I played lol. It heavily forces you into one specific path, and it doesn't "make you think so". Like I specifically stated, while playing the game blind, I did everything I could to break out of that path and go my own way, and it never let me do so.
Sounds like you discovered some of the hidden attributes of the shinespark (which definitely aren't as apparent as you make them out to be) and intentionally broke out of the sequence, being lucky enough to come upon one of the few places where it's even doable - that doesn't sound super "accidental" to me. It also sounds like you had a much better experience with the game for this reason, so it's really too bad it's not more apparent.

Meanwhile, I'm not even sure what the "intended sequence" is in Super Metroid because it's so easy to walk in any other direction, which is what sets those games so far apart. You can walljump and shinespark, and even uses glitches like mockball to really break open that game, but even when you're just trying to blindly figure out where to go, there's really no telling which way you'll end up.

Heaven forbid a player displays skill while playing casually, or a developer designs their game on the assumption that players will become skilled at it. Walljumping in Super is hard too, so hard that there are real-life people who beg for the pathetic neutered walljump seen in Fusion and Zero Mission. But even though "shinesparks are hard" is not an argument worthy of response (...)

You're completely misreading what I wrote, and you know it. :/
It's cool to have expert skills and the ability to go out of your way to sequence break a game. I just played through Tunic which does the same thing, and arguably a lot better too because anyone who played through the game once will suddenly have a ton of abilities to break the game in a lot of new ways. I'm glad Dread does it to some extent.

But it's completely besides the point. The ability to use hidden skills to break a game is an entirely different attribute from having and open ended design that lets the players freely explore the game. I didn't imagine explaining that would be particularly hard.

But hey, if your idea of "exploration" is shooting a random unmarked wall tile to skip Long Beam, then maybe Dread is just 2deep4u.

My idea of "exploration" is that I'm given my own choice of where to go in a game, and no matter where I go, I will get a fullfilling experience of discovering new places and experiences.
I don't think that's an uncommon idea of what exploration is, and you can't possibly argue that this is something Metroid Dread fascilitates. It's just not that designed that way, and intentionally so. - they go out of their way to prevent players "getting lost".

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My idea of "exploration" is that I'm given my own choice of where to go in a game, and no matter where I go, I will get a fullfilling experience of discovering new places and experiences.

I agree with this definition. I also think it's tough to fully implement this in games where the powerups are directly tied to your mobility. Super Metroid does a good job of this I think, particularly when replaying the game as it's possible to learn about wall jumping, and discover on a subsequent playthrough that you have a lot more freedom than you might initially realize even before Hi Jump is available. I haven't played Dread yet, so I don't know how it compares to say the fairly linear Fusion.

I'm okay with "soft" barriers such as the Graveyard and Catacombs in Dark Souls having a gentle "you probably don't want to be here cuz these enemies are hard" nudge to the player to go elsewhere, but reward you heavily with some very powerful equipment early on (Gravelord Sword is crazy powerful) if you make progress into them (and there's ways of dealing with it right at the start as even without a Divine weapon to stop their respawning you can simply kick all the skellyboys into pits, murder the necromancers, etc).

[Sumez]

Dread is very much the sequel to Fusion

[Blinge]

I went into SMet thinking I was going to see a revelation from God

I didn't really enjoy it.

Am i done with Metroid forever?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

lrn 2 wall jump, scrub, that's how you climb to heaven and shoot god

[linko9]

Super Metroid is my favorite game, so I'm going to nerd out here. I make no apology for the massive image, nor for the wall of text!

There are some ways in which it is superficially excellent: the visuals and sound are among the best in any game, and are entirely unmatched in the rest of the series. The tiling work is amazing, making the natural areas like caves in Brinstar and Norfair and underwater areas in Maridia never look unnaturally repetitive. The parallax backgrounds are great but not busy, the heat distortion effect on the backgrounds is beautiful. The music fits perfectly with each area, creating exactly the lonely-but-on-a-mission atmosphere that the game calls for. And the unobtrusive storytelling is the icing on the cake; no text exposition past the short intro, but still gets the plot across clearly.

But what really sets Super Metroid apart from later Metroid games and especially other "metroidvania" games that it inspired is two things: movement and map design.

On a first playthrough, you're focused on exploration, and remembering areas where you couldn't progress and need to return to. Scratches the same itch as something like Riven, but with significantly less puzzling. Get that pen and paper ready to take notes; draw a map if you're into that. Yes the movement will seem "clunky" at first, but you'll naturally get better as you play, and the difficulty is pretty tame, so the game doesn't demand that you master the movement options just to clear the game. This is where the item collection aspect meshes so well with the rest of the game design. Exploration rewards players by increasing their survivability, so that they aren't punished too much as they continue to get used to the movement. I love the way the game naturally introduces roadblocks that force the player to understand the utility of various movement options. The most obvious examples are the "noob bridge" which makes you used the run button, and the two animal sections that make sure you know how to wall jump and shine spark. But I understand why players are still frustrated by movement on a first playthrough; you'll certainly be nowhere close to mastering movement by the end, while in most other (especially more recent) console-style games you are. However, I think the excellent map design and exploration (along with great visuals, audio) combine to make for a really enjoyable first playthrough.

But it's the later playthroughs that elevate the game from excellent to the greatest in all the land! Now the focus shifts away from exploration, since you start to internalize the map design, and totally towards movement. As highly cultured shmuppers, I hardly need to explain to you how games are at their most rewarding when you replay them in a run-based structure, actively focusing on improving your skills. Super Metroid encourages this explicitly by showing a clear time and item percentage, more or less telling you: speedrun this game! At first it might seem silly to treat this as a run-based game, since your first playthrough likely lasted 6-8 hours. But by even your 3rd or fourth playthrough you'll be able to comfortably beat it in under an hour (real time) if you seek out some basic routs, and close to 1:30 for 100% isn't too far off. I didn't personally attempt to speedrun the game for a long time, but I would replay the game a few times every year and just naturally get more and more comfortable with the game. If you just replay the game a couple of times, soon enough wall jumping will come naturally, and you'll be flying through areas that you awkwardly bonked your way through on the first playthrough. And there's absolutely no skill ceiling in this game; you will constantly get better, whether or not you actively seek out strategies from other players. But you should absolutely do that (again, seems obvious to arcade players), and the advanced movement techniques in this game are some of the most satisfying in any game. Machball and short charge are two of my favorites, and don't take all that much time to get down; though true to the nature of this game, there are multiple more difficult versions of each trick. It wasn't until I looked up these strategies and started speedrunning the game that SM went from a top 3 favorite to my favorite of all time hands down.

I'm not too psyched about the current state of the Metroid series or the "metroidvania" genre. There are a ton of fun ones out there, but it's sort of a junk-food buffet. Very enjoyable for one or two playthroughs, but not much depth after that. Most modern "metroidvania enjoyers" seem focused on cranking through as many games as possible, and have no patience whatsoever for demanding game design (of course there are exceptions, but that's the general direction of both the supply and demand). I do enjoy a good DS Castlevania as much as the next guy, but ever since SM, the things that made the game so great are viewed as obstacles to be removed and "streamlined" in the games that it has inspired. Put all the items on the map so that getting 100% on a first playthrough is trivial. Avoid any advanced movement options. More story, more text! More rpg mechanics damn you, more! The Metroid games themselves are thankfully among the best of the genre. A few of them match the map design of SM, but none of them even attempt to match the movement. It's sad to me that the pinnacle of the genre was the game that did the most to inspire it. Still there are some games in the genre that stand out and deserve mention:

Hollow Knight
Environmental Station Alpha
Astalon: Tears of the Earth

I think are my three favorite. This is a pretty random thought, but if there's anyone that I suspect could make a game to recapture the greatness of SM, I bet it's System Erasure. Both of their games show that they understand what makes the best games out there great, and that they can successfully emulate and expand on those things. I hope they're Super Metroid fans!

[Sumez]

Really surprised to see Astalon dropped in that context. Maybe I should give it a chance?
I played the demo, and got massive Donkey Kong 64 PTSD. Just tons of lock-and-key skill "puzzles" tied to one of your three characters, forcing you to backtrack to the dedicated place you can switch between them in order to get past. Did not enjoy it at all.

I really liked the dev's previous title, Castle in the Darkness (also a metroidvania, with a decent dash of precision platformer), so it was a bit of a letdown for me.

[linko9]

Yeah, the reasons I like Astalon are very different from the reasons I like Super Metroid. I really enjoyed the puzzles, boss fights, secrets, and difficulty level. Good map design as well, though in a very different way from SM. More similar to La-Mulana in that regard; which I wish I could include in my list, but honestly it's too hard and I couldn't beat it.

I liked Castle in the Darkness a lot too, though from what I remember (it was a while ago) it was pretty basic, and not much of a looker.

[Sumez]

Comparable to La-Mulana you say??? Now I'm even more intrigued.

La-Mulana is, in concept, everything I absolutely love in an exploration-heavy platformer. I just think they took the concept too far and made it too obscure for no good reason. I can't imagine getting through more than half the game without just following a guide.

[Sumez]

I do enjoy a good DS Castlevania as much as the next guy, but ever since SM, the things that made the game so great are viewed as obstacles to be removed and "streamlined" in the games that it has inspired. Put all the items on the map so that getting 100% on a first playthrough is trivial. Avoid any advanced movement options. More story, more text! More rpg mechanics damn you, more!

This has been a repeated point of contention for me. I understand why no one *dares* to make another game like Super Metroid (or the original Metroid) again - because looking at it superficially, a lot of what it does might come off as "dodgy" or even bad design, with players likely to just get stuck or frustrated. I definitely don't see a company like Nintendo, who always go out of their way to streamline their design, making another Super Metroid any time ever again. But the core game experience absolutely hinges on obscuring stuff from the player.

But given just the insane amount of games coming out nowadays fitting into the "metroidvania" moniker, it's a little frustrating that almost no one ever tried to genuinely replicate what made Super Metroid so special, and even fewer succeeded. There should be a niche there, ripe for the taking.

Unfortunately, being a hobbyist game dev myself, I understand the reason for the majority of the modern retro games games being made going the "metroidvania" route - it's a genre where you can improve on the game simply through working harder, employing more people, adding more content. That sort of design would do nothing to improve a tighter, shorter more arcade/action game like a Contra or Ninja Gaiden - those games hinge on a more excellent core design with sufficient depth to the action, which IMO is harder to succesfully recreate just by looking at what other games did. Those are things that can improve a metroidvania game as well, but they don't hinge as hard on them.

[Austin]

Regardless, if you ever DO try to step outside of that predetermined path, you will most likely either run into a dead-end rather quickly, or as it happened to me a few times where I really fought hard to deviate from the beaten path, you'll be sent on a massive linear detour around a series of areas you've already been to due to the game's "subtly nudging" often straight up preventing you from going backwards at all.
I pretty consistently tried going the way the game *wasn't* trying to make me go, in order to explore what there was to find, and not once did it allow me to ever explore anything on my own account, that I hadn't already been through. Often it's not even possible to go back to areas you have already been to until the point where the predetermined path decides that you do need to backtrack. One questions what is the purpose of seemingly structuring the game around a "metroidvania" formula, when the one thing that makes such games stand out isn't present at all?

I am playing the game for the first time and am about four hours in. Can confirm the above, 100%. There have been countless moments where I'm looking at the map and attempting to route a way back somewhere, then when I attempt to follow said route, I quickly find myself arbitrarily blocked off from getting to where I want to be. Like, even the first fast travel/transporter unlock does this. I went through the transporter for the first time, explored the area I ended up in, then decided, "OK, let's go back, there's more I want to explore", only to find the entire area below the transporter has now crumbled, blocking the path to the below hallway.

It's pretty irritating on a first play as I just feel a lot of my time is being wasted and the "exploration" aspect doesn't seem as fun as other entries in the series. I'm just really glad the game looks and plays great, otherwise with this game design I'd probably have jumped ship already.

[Volteccer_Jack]

I went into SMet thinking I was going to see a revelation from God

I didn't really enjoy it.

Am i done with Metroid forever?

Basically yeah, you are done. Super Metroid is the purest expression of what the series is meant to be. Metroid 2, Fusion, and Prime 2 offer somewhat different experiences, so you might like them a bit better.

There have been countless moments where I'm looking at the map and attempting to route a way back somewhere, then when I attempt to follow said route, I quickly find myself arbitrarily blocked off from getting to where I want to be. Like, even the first fast travel/transporter unlock does this. I went through the transporter for the first time, explored the area I ended up in, then decided, "OK, let's go back, there's more I want to explore", only to find the entire area below the transporter has now crumbled, blocking the path to the below hallway

Super Metroid does the same thing, using one-way passages to block off backtracking and lock you onto the intended route. Without sequence breaks, Super Metroid is just a linear set of dead-end hallways until you obtain Power Bombs. Dread actually uses the same progression structure that Super does, and it's the only other game in the series to do so. Dread is admittedly a bit worse at disguising the guardrails, but it has strengths of its own in other areas.

the hidden attributes of the shinespark (which definitely aren't as apparent as you make them out to be)

They're not "hidden" at all. They're literally the same abilities you already had, sliding, jumping, walljumping, morph ball. I don't know how they can possibly be more apparent than "the stuff you were already doing". If you didn't explore those abilities in combination with Speed Booster, that's your fault, not the game's fault. You didn't bother to explore the game, and now you're here complaining that the game has no exploration.

that doesn't sound super "accidental" to me.

The sequence break in question was only a single straight-line shinespark, nothing fancy, which is why I didn't realize it was a sequence break. But I'm sure that won't stop you from calling anyone who disagrees with you on this topic a liar.

[Sumez]

calling anyone who disagrees with you on this topic a liar.

Super Metroid does the same thing, using one-way passages to block off backtracking and lock you onto the intended route. Without sequence breaks, Super Metroid is just a linear set of dead-end hallways until you obtain Power Bombs. Dread actually uses the same progression structure that Super does

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Super Metroid does the same thing, using one-way passages to block off backtracking and lock you onto the intended route.

Does it? I don't remember it doing this, at least not to any significant extent. There's a couple one-way doors that force you to do a minor detour within a single area but don't make you go far out of your way. And then Maridia can't be explored properly until you get the Gravity Suit, the Wrecked Ship requires the Grappling Hook to get to short of some Shinespark shenanigans, but otherwise the only one-way passage that blocks major backtracking and makes you "stuck" in a given area I can think of is the one on the bridge at the last green area in Brinstar, where you have to run to get across it then end up in an orange area with a long vertical shaft. You essentially can't get back to the western/main part of Brinstar or your ship until you get the Ice Beam which allows you to go back up the shaft. The Ice Beam is found early in Norfair if you know where to look though, and you can sequence break and get the Spazer before even stepping foot into Norfair with some wall jumps. Once you get the Ice Beam, you're back to effectively having few barriers to freely explore wherever you please.

The Brinstar passage is a pretty inoffensive example I think, compared to what I've heard of Dread doing.

[Sumez]

You really should play Dread and just form your own opinion on it

I really do genuinely feel like Volteccer is completely misrepresenting Dread in the way he's describing it, moreso than it being just a difference in taste. But I also probably don't think there's more to be said in that matter, as I don't think pursuing the antagonistic tone in that debate would serve any purpose. His perception is an entirely different game from what I played, and I guess that's how it is, even if I can't understand it.

You're definitely right about Super Metroid, Roo, but I'd love to see you compare it to Dread based on your own observations rather than what you've heard!
Dread isn't without qualities, I just don't think they're in the "exploration" department.

[Blinge]

SM: I just remember being stuck in a constant loop... somewhere.. not being able to return because of a one-way system.
And wandering without progress for ages.

Also that boss that floats above you beat the crap out of me and it felt awful. It might have been ridley. The arena was rather vertical
This was years ago now so my memory is rather sketchy.

but there are times when I've shat on a game, only to read this forum and give it another shot and appreciate it more.
CV drac XX comes to mind.

So for someone like me, what should I have in mind if returning to SM?

[linko9]

If you find the exploration frustrating, just find a map online with all items/doors marked. Or a walkthrough if really necessary, though it shouldn't be. If you collect enough energy tanks before ridley, he won't be a problem.

[Sumez]

I'm not sure the best way to learn to enjoy Super Metroid is to bypass its core design element (exploration/routing)

EDIT: You know what, maybe think of it like King's Field 2(jp). It's kinda odd, but Super Metroid and KF2 really gave me a lot of the same vibes in terms of how the game is overall structured and the freedom of exploration they offer without being just an open plain.

[Blinge]

If you collect enough energy tanks before ridley, he won't be a problem.

I'm not sure it was Ridley, I just remember the boss arena being vertical like a silo

Yeah that's the thing! I think i was annoyed at having to just trade damage.. dunno what I expected.
In my head i wanted a skill based encounter like Megaman, perhaps.
So walked out of that fight like "i won, eventually.. but did I really?"

ultimately this is silly because it's been too long since I played it.
I should probably just play the damn game again.
and then re-play it immediately to try and sequence break and get the experience youze are talking about

[Steven]

Skill in Metroid is essentially the same as it is in Sonic. Being better = faster completion time and with more items, or in doing some crazy sequence breaks, which ideally would also directly result in faster completion times. Combat is secondary, and in most cases outside of boss fights, a waste of time; it's better to avoid everything than to fight unless you really have to.