The Last Metroid | An Earnest Analysis
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ค. 2024
- In preparation for Metroid Dread, we take a close look at the beloved sci-fi exploration series' themes and overarching narrative. Follow along as we thoroughly dissect everything from tone and presentation to cohesion and revision. (This is not about Metroid Dread by the way).
00:00 Introduction
06:01 Chapter I: The Metroid Foundation
27:19 Chapter II: Metroid Fusion is the best, f--k you
56:22 Chapter III: Oh no, there is more Metroid stuff
01:18:13 Chapter IV: The Damage
PATREON: / transparens
TWITTER: / transparencyboo
#Metroid #Nintendo #Videoessay
Bonus Meme:
Some people might claim that we are reading too much into the first four games, and yeah, maybe that is true. But the sad truth is that if that's the case then we probably thought about this more than Nintendo did and the series is just going to narratively stagnate. Then again the arc about Samus, the Metroids and the Chozo is supposedly being wrapped up now, and that at least fills me with some hope. The series really deserves to continue off of Fusion and just go its own way now. Also, Master Chief should be in Metroid. Not in Super Smash Bros Ultimate though. That is just silly to me. The fact that anyone believes that Master Chief, or the Doom Guy for that matter, has any sort of chance to get into that game just baffles me. - เกม
NOTE: Super Metroid does have footstep sounds, contrary to what we said. We made a silly mistake, and it's honestly a bit funny because we asked ourselves if this was the case or not while writing it, went into our footage of the game and somehow did not notice it. So either we're getting really old and our ears aren't what they used to, or the sounds aren't as emphasized as they are in 1,2 and 4. It's probably a little bit of both, haha. Luckily for us though this mistake doesn't actually matter for our overall point, and the fact that it is actually in there only strengthens our point anyway. So we're content with accepting our goofy mistake, but before too many tell us about it we'd just like you to know that we have noted it a while ago already. Just wanted everyone to know it's actually in there, so disregard our one sentence about that. Thanks!
Metroid Fusion is the only game ever that caused me to throw my GBA in anger (it bounced of the bed into a wall but was luckily not damaged). The one section where there's a power outage and you have to traverse a long distance to reach an unfair boss (it had some kind of a pattern that was unavoidable and took 1/3 of your health when it happened). I was extremely frustrated by the (20th) time I finally beat the boss, only to find out the save points still did not work because of the power outage. Then the dark Samus appears and oneshots me because the escape sequence is just a memorization test and, being in the first time, I failed. I fucking screamed in anger.
As a major fan who has played and beaten every Metroid game starting with the original(sadly I was too young and didn’t beat it until after I beat Metroid 2 and super when it came out), I completely disagree with your thoughts on the significance of the use of lore in the series.
While I understand that the material was added in over time, for people who appreciate story and world building, the added lore makes the games feel more like a living breathing universe instead of isolated pockets of space where the consequences and the stakes have no effect beyond the games setting itself. With the lore, samus feels like an actual person instead of another generic, voiceless, stoic killing machine in space. She exists in a galaxy filled with life both wild and intelligent with civilizations and politics, and now suddenly her actions effect everything around her, increasing the stakes for the events in each game.
Your video is so well crafted, I loved every second of it minus that one criticism, but it was just my opinion on a very long running franchise that’s still being figured out by the creators themselves as we speak…hell I’m one of very few fans who actually enjoyed Metroid other M for its storytelling and inclusion to the lore, and have had countless debates online with people who I felt hated the game beyond objective reasoning soooooo….yeah to each their own I suppose, either way great video.
@@Darkwing709 Glad you're enjoying all that stuff, friend.
1. Acquire Metroids
2. Acquire Chorzo Powers
3. Pinball
4. Wait, really? Pinball??
5. Profit I guess
This person gets it!
Punching bad guys with a gun.
Pew Pew
funny ball lady
Sometimes you just gotta throw the whole planet away.
So glad you gave Fusion the love it deserves. It's a great game!
It really is! Deserves all the love it can get!
a thing about adam as "portrayed" in fusion, is that it always seemed to me that samus's time around adam, and even adam's death, happened a *long* time before the events of fusion, possibly before even the first game, by which point she's clearly already beyond working under direct orders
that other m goes and sticks (its idea of) the most relevant bits right between super and fusion kinda annoys me; it doesn't improve the pathos of fusion's encounter at all
i think it was better as "old history" exclusively
Oh yeah, totally. We should probably have mentioned that too. Now we don't know how much time passes between Other M and Fusion, but either way she talks about it like it happened during her time at the Federation. And I suppose this is kind of connected to the problem with the Chozo - it all just feels so recent.
I agree.
The latest I'd put Adam's death scene would be... on Ceres. After telling the Federation that the mission to SR388 was still a success even if Samus didn't kill every single Metroid, it was still a successful mission because she brought the only survivor of the species to the Federation, "The last metroid is in captivity! The galaxy is at peace".
Well we don’t actually know how long fusion and other m are from each other, except that fusion is after other m
You can almost tell that with the big focus on Past Samus and Being in Federation Marines... Other M might have started out as a Prequel to Metroid... Suddenly Samus having to take orders and being Submissive and losing a Foot in Height IE she drops from 6'2 to 5,1 so all the guys can tower over her and she seems so smol...
or you know Taking the Panic Attack idea from the Metroid Manga and putting it in the series would make alot more sense if its THE FIRST TIME Samus sees Ripley after seeing him Devour her mother alive. I guess someone suggested putting it after Super cause Easy nostalgia and well They really wanna play into Samus is navel gazing cause she's not over the loss of DA BABY
Absolutely fascinating. I never considered that Fusion is a game where you play as a Metroid being hunted by Samus. That's freaking brilliant.
And yeah, as much as I love the Prime trilogy and all the cool little lore tidbits and connecting elements, I've been feeling some lore fatigue. I hope Metroid 6 is just as off the cuff and buck-wild with its lore as the original Metroid. No returning factions, just a 100% new setting and saga with a new universe to explore.
I have lore fatigue too.
I actually really like it as vague little story bits that hint at a larger universe that you can wonder about. I have an issue with it when people start putting it on a pedestal and consider it the core of story telling instead of the side fluff.
It's also just counterproductive to expand on it so much and have everything tie back in together. There might technically be more things in the universe now, but they're also usually building ends to it, making the world feel very finite.
I think this is something that a lot of fantasy fans (I've seen it mostly in Star Wars, but that might just my time spend on it) just seem to refuse to learn and acting like some facts and explanations make for an engaging story.
i do like how fusion subtly(?) foreshadows the omega metroid with a series of ever-larger discarded cocoons as you climb out through sector 1 near the end
Hell yeah, that is indeed very neat!
It's in general really neat to traverse through that first area again like that!
im glad the whole franchise pretends other m doesn't exist and that i'm good at compartmentalizing and can still love fusion and be so excited for dread
Hell yeah! :D
@@AdamMitchellv I think we explained ourselves in the video.
Other M is absolute garbage, but Dread does straight up acknowledge it exists in its game timeline. That's about all it does though.
We still cant escape it...
@@AdamMitchellv "I don't get why people hate Other M" *surounded by countless essays explaining in detail why they hate Other M*
@@AdamMitchellv I mean, aside from all of the baby and Adam stuff, it's an awful prequel to Fusion. It undercuts Samus's entire relationship with the Federation and really makes you question why she continues to work with them at all. It makes the twist about the Federation less impactful and in general just undercuts Fusion's whole narrative.
And I just liked Fusion most, because it didn't feel like setting wise "Look, here we are back in this planet again!" XD
It is quite unique actually, yeah!
Babe wake up Transparency uploaded.
Hope you and babe enjoyed!
I started the games with Metroid Fusion, and it was so cool to learn of this narrative throughline perspective from the original games through it, and into the future. I only ever beat it and the Metroid Prime games, and I notice in retrospect how much more I was enthralled by the "graphics" and gameplay of the Prime games, but the dread (no pun intended) and oppression and powerlessness of Fusion.
Excellent video! Thank you!
I think a lot of people started with Fusion, after all it came out so long after Super Metroid that there would be a completely new generation of players that did not grow up with the other games. And Nintendo obviously knew this, and I think that is also part of why the game was a bit more streamlined.
Great video essay. Samus’s character arc in the original tetralogy of games is by far one of Nintendo’s crowning narrative achievements. It was definitely a series ahead of its time. Also, I love the illustrations. Kraid is so cute and I will forever think of Samus’s power ups being birthday gifts from her two gay dads because of you, lol!
Glad you liked it, and especially the drawings. Kiki made them with a lot of love for you all! :)
It's funny, given how much metroid drew from the Alien franchise, how those films fell into some of the same narrative traps as later metroid games from Promethius on, with lore that filled in strange and mysterious open questions with definitive answers that only succeeded in making the universe of the films smaller and less compelling by tying everything together.
Good point, we were actually thinking about Prometheus a bit when writing this too.
Spectacular essay. I started with Fusion, and it was my first metroidvania. It hooked me. The game does more directly guide the player than others in the series, but I think Fusion’s naysayers overstate how much it holds your hand. Plus, the developers made the most of its linear approach by telling a compelling story (which you eloquently analyze here) and presenting much more challenging combat. Enemies hit hard in Fusion, and can even respawn after killing them if you aren’t quick enough to pick up the X! It seems linearity lends itself to more organic, well-crafted difficulty spikes, and Fusion takes advantage of that. Fusion is not my favorite in the series (that’d be Zero Mission), but it is sorely overlooked. Happy to see the game receive the attention it deserves here!
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, 100% agree here. Metroid Fusion was also probably a lot of people's first one considering how long after Super Metroid it was. It was ripe for catching a new generation of players, and Nintendo probably were very aware of that. And yeah, good point with the difficulty of the game and how it ramps up.
Ambrosia from the queens themselves~
We giveth to our childrenth.
This how I feel about Pokemon's lore. The first time I sat down and really digested the Sci-Fi/Horror atmosphere of Red and Blue was really exciting. You're not gonna get the same energy playing Fire Red/Leaf Green or Let's Go.
What's the sci fi horror atmosphere?
Elaborate how R/B is sci Fi horror
@@solthas Initially they weren't entirely set on Pokemon being fully E for Everyone and there's a lot of dark stuff that they wouldn't dream of referring to in later games. A "war" that ended recently is mentioned a few times, Pokemon Tower deals with the vengeful ghost of a mother that was murdered by Team Rocket, Blue's Raticate is implied to have died, Team Rocket are an actual criminal organisation operating a gambling parlour as a front which is a bit more real than any of the others, the designs (especially in the Green version) are more "mutant freak" than "cutesy marketable plushie", Mewtwo is a weapon of war, there's probably other stuff I'm forgetting.
Yeah honestly the whole Mewtwo plotline would fit perfectly in a Metroid game
@@bluegum6438 not too many people know/remember the 1st gen PokéMon definitely wasn't 100% geared towards kids under 10 and had pretty dark moments and context clues you mentioned. I always wish they expanded on some of that early lore involving the war and Team Rocket as an actual crime syndicate
Given all this, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts about Dread, how it was handled, and the direction it takes the franchise now that the game is out.
We might get to it at some point. We have a few other things planned at the moment. But we have a lot to say that's for sure, haha.
It is I, Samus Metroid.
Metroid Morphball.
@@Transparencyboo I am transgener
@@AdequateEmily ye me t
The animaion in this video is what studio ghibli WISH they can do.
Thanks, we do our best, haha
I never noticed the bit about the footsteps before, so 37:20 sent chills down my spine all over again with this new context
Metroid 1, 2, and 3 are about fucking around.
Metroid 4 and 5 are about finding out.
Basically, haha.
Okay I have now watched the whole video, and I’ve seen quite a few video essays on Metroid, and this is hands down the best one on TH-cam. Very insightful, agreed with virtually everything said, and was a pleasure to watch. Tusen takk
Glad you liked it! 🧡
Phenominal retrospective and analysis. I really really love your reading of the first four games and your perspective on how further iterations muddy the original themes. I got into Metroid originally through Smash Bros, and then Prime, so to me many of the extra additions and revisions to the overall lore were there from the beginning, so it's really interesting to look at the series in a different light.
We think a lot of people just assume it has been there since the beginning because of how it is presented in general nowadays. People talk about it like it is just there for you to absorb in the games, when that ain't really the case, haha. Kiki also started with Smash and then played Prime by the way :)
I see Transparency video I click immediately! :)
Thank for the Metroid 1 and 2 defense, played the first one recently with no map and I found the game far better than people give it credit for and the graphics and music only added to the isolation it bring. Metroid 2 I played years ago before the remake came out and was just as blown away from those reasons and instantly became a favorite of mine (and I did not grew with them nor was alive when they first released).
Thank you for the instant click, haha! Yeah, exactly! We really think that people should give them a chance because they truly are amazing, no caveats needed at all. They are just remarkable!
Finally a fellow nestroid and metroid 2 enjoyer
This is an incredible video - I've played every Metroid game multiple times, but you have seriously expanded and deepened my appreciation for these games (and also helped to articulate the ways in which it has lost track a little bit).
Hyped for the video
HYPE!
Very well-organized and spoken video. Plus its about my favorite video game series, and it was uploaded on my birthday :P
I am excited to see where Dread takes it!
Happy birthday! :)
My first Metroid game was Fusion. Its story holds up incredibly well even as a standalone, and it drew me into the series both from a lore and a gameplay perspective. My second was Metroid Prime. It was also similarly incredible. I found that it drew me in to much the same degree, and in much the same fashion. The Chozo may have been near in time and familiar to Samus, but the depths of their civilization, the age of it, and its history still felt like a grand and otherworldly mystery due to the way it was presented. My third was actually the original NES Metroid, played through the unlockable version in Prime. It was a fascinating delve into video game history and the series' past that I quite enjoyed. My fourth was Zero Mission. It was... a fun action game, and little more. The lore references felt... well, they felt to me to be merely seeking to get a reaction of "I understood that reference!" The expansion was still understated, but nothing interesting was done with it, no new mysteries hinted at. Where Prime's expansion of the lore raised as many new questions as it answered old ones, Zero Mission just clarified explicitly some things that were already implicitly implied, and the only really new thing to the games was the two bird dads. There was no expansion of the mystery, no room for further questioning, and no hints at anything deeper -- just a simple answer given. And for a series that leans so heavily on horror, mystery, and the unknown in its storytelling, that is profoundly disappointing.
I dropped off the series for a long time after that. More recently, I've gotten to play Super Metroid, and it is, as is often stated, a really fun action game. But compared to Fusion and Prime both, its story felt disappointingly simplistic to me, even as I enjoyed the mechanical complexity of the gameplay enormously. I also played more recent versions of AM2R, which is a fantastic game. It had the mechanical complexity of Super Metroid, the actually intriguing story of Prime, and the deeper you delved, the more it problemetized your own actions, similar to Fusion. So much of what has been said about the value of the original Metroid 2, and how it affects players, was recreated and felt by me in AM2R, even as it was radically altered by Samus Returns. This fangame, this passion project, seems to me to have done far better at taking all the best aspects of Metroid as a series than the official Nintendo products. Just another argument for open-source and public domain, and against the ownership of ideas.
Anyway, this video was fantastic also. Not that that's at all a surprise; your videos always are. I just wanted to say it again.
Can you believe Fusion and Prime 1 dropped the same day? Crazy
This video is so... criminally underrated. I can feel your passion for the series, and I love content like this!
Also, punching bad guys with a gun is genius
Thanks, we enjoyed that phrase too. Couldn't stop ourselves from saying it several times. Should be on a t-shirt.
Absolutely brilliant. You hit every note perfectly. I’ve always been bothered by people saying to skip the first two. Metroid II has always been my favourite.
Metroid II is so god damn good!
This video was incredible. I’ve seen damn near every Metroid video essay on the internet, and somehow the absolute best one evaded me for six months!
I agree with some of your points regarding the unnecessarily complex (and ironically, limiting) lore of the series, but the point about Fusion being a self-examination of the series entirely hinges on Fusion itself being conceived as such, being a planned, direct sequel to Super Metroid. The truth is, however, that this is absolutely not the case. In fact, Metroid Fusion was hastily thrown together as a backup plan in case Metroid Prime was a bomb, because Nintendo had no faith in Retro Studios pulling off an FPS Metroid game. Sakamoto only had a central concept for the game, that had you being chased around by an evil doppelganger, while you explored an abandoned spaceship in a fairly linear fashion. However, as for execution or story, he just came up with it during development purely as a justification for the gameplay elements. He didn't even want to make a sequel to Super Metroid, because he considered it both to be the end of the Metroid saga, but also a "tough act to follow". Despite this, because Nintendo needed a "Metroid IV", he used those concepts to give Metroid fans something they "have never seen before". Sure, this ended up being a self-examination of what had come before, but this was entirely just pure coincidence, same as the "act of mercy" at the end of Metroid 2.
I find it pretty fascinating when people analyze games to find subtext in them, but I think it's also necessary to acknowledge it might just be your own personal interpretation and not necessarily an objective fact that everyone should be made aware of. I mentioned the Metroid 2 thing because it was simply thrown in last second as a blatant sequel-hook to have a third game in the series, yet I've seen many people reading it as a morally-progressive story-telling device. Nothing wrong with having that interpretation at all, of course. I understand it's part of the fun of enjoyment of a medium since, in video game development, the actual explanation for certain elements is not as exciting as the subtext you read from it.
Of course it is our interpretation, it's not like we're pretending it to be anything else. We're making a reading out of what is presented to us in the game, it's not about what happened behind the scenes and no one is talking about anything objective here. It's all about analysing what is in front of you, finding meaning in a piece of art. If someone wants to make the video about what Sakamoto and Nintendo had in mind for the franchise when making Metroid Fusion, and how they had no faith in Metroid Prime, they can feel free to do so, but that is clearly not what we wanted to do here. The author doesn't have much power here at all so to speak, haha.
Such a well-made video, very glad I stumbled on this channel.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Commenting for the algorithm! I disagreed with a lot of second half, but this video is really smart and well-made, and I loved what you had to say about the overarching story of the original 4 games. I'm looking forward to Dread largely to see where the main series goes now that it's finally taking another step outside of the same planets/enemies/ideas from Super and doing something brand new (like Fusion!). I hope you end up enjoying it, thanks for the video!
Glad you enjoyed it despite not agreeing entirely, haha. That's great really, it's nice when things don't have to be boiled down to disagreements and we can just take onboard other people's ideas and perhaps think for a bit about our own perspectives. Thanks! We sure hope we'll enjoy Dread too, we want nothing more
Such an excellent, engaging analysis, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video and argument for poor maligned Fusion! I am not the biggest fan of Fusion, but that is mostly since otherM already existed when I got to fusion (grew up with Metroid 2 and Super, but entirely skipped the GBA, so I only learned of these games many years afterwards). It's definitely not a bad game, and letting otherM color it is unfair, really.
And yeah, the newer games... while I liked the gameplay of the Metroid 2 remake, the ending really fell flat. The ridley appearance, the whole different tone of the ending (what with you fighting your way out, rather than the quiet, enemy-less ascend of the gameboy game) just isn't quite the same.
It is really that last part of the Metroid 2 remake that just makes it fall apart for me. It is a fine game on it's own, but not having that silent contemplation of what just happened, just coming up to the surface and that starry sky with the infant Metroid to accompany you, loses a lot of what that game did. And I suppose this is often the problem with fan service - people love a trope/character/scenario and don't necessarily care if it fits or actually works thematically. It's probably why people want Pyramid Head back in more Silent Hill games too even though it really diminishes a lot of what Silent Hill 2 did. A shame, truly.
Just watched this, probably my favorite video essay on Metroid now. 🖤 Wonderful. So many things resonated sooooo much with how I feel about this game
Thank you 🧡 that really means a lot to hear right now.
I haven't even watched past the first 10ish minutes but your Metroid 2 take lines up 100% with mine.
In my playthroughs, the head canon I always had was that Samus wasn't raised literally by the Chozo, but by the technology they left behind. Like some of their A.I. found her and raised her, but she never met a living one as they had been dead long since, growing up inside these massive temple complexes they had, but all alone save the A.I.. It helped explain her stoic silence, her comfort with solitude, and her want for actual companionship and kinship w/the baby Metroid, because it wasn't about motherhood, it was about seeing herself in this orphan and not wanting it to be alone. So she saved it and took it to people who might be able to help that she trusted, and then watches it all go awry.
That's always been my reading of games 1-3 at least.
It doesn't make any sense in canon for her to have been raised by a race that has by all rights been absent from the galaxy for hundreds or thousands of years, did they send her off to college and then all went for a celebratory roadtrip and accidentally drove into a star or something? Is Samus 5236 years old? That part has always felt a bit silly to me. A race that powerful can't vanish over the course of like 20 years, that's nonsense.
I think that's a lot more interesting at the very least. Neat little headcanon, friend.
@@bluegum6438 It was said that they had a lot of problems reproducing. That seems to be what led to them becoming all but extinct
@@bluegum6438 The Chozo used to be a huge empire, but they renounced war/conflict and secluded themselves more as the millenia went on. They also have low reproduction rates, so those two factors just means that most remnants of the Chozo are small communities. Samus was taken in by them, but it was natural that she would return to humanity. So while she became a soldier for the Federation, the Chozo on the world she grew up on were the only ones she knew. When the space pirates slaughtered the Chozo on Zebes, that is basically one of their biggest populations eradicated in one go. As Dread points out, another clan totally did survive and moved to ZDR (and slaughtered anyone from the other remaining clan except one) so it can be reasonably guessed that Chozo had a lot of in-fighting as well.
I think the issue many people have with the timeline and how "recent" the Chozo are is that they think all the stuff you find in ruins on other planets is recent too. It isn't. The Chozo went through many changes, just like humanity did. Almost everything you find of them is old abandoned stuff that they themselves have most likely forgotten about by now.
@@yoursonisold8743 thanks, that all makes a lot of sense
Just discovered you channel due to the Tunic video (amazing btw) and now I'm listening this one about my absolute favorite franchise, I love your commentary and sense of humor.
Edit: Your chapter names are top-notch. I always laugh.
Hope you enjoy it!
@@Transparencyboo I really did, the chozo as anti-vaxxers was comedy gold and something that really didn't think about so much, they really went the hard way to resolve the X menace.
@@PanthalassaRo glad you liked it, we were laughing quite a bit too about that segment. We were thinking of making a Metroid Dread video, but I don't know. Feels fine to leave it here too honestly.
Wonderful video, Thanks! I especially liked how you managed to frame Fusion's story as reflective of Samus her inner turmoil regarding her past actions, and the SA-X as the explicit manifestation of those actions and of her past self. And that in the end, she made her peace with her past self. I've always failed to truly _get_ Fusion, storywise, and I feel that only now I finally do.
It was also delightful to note that that throughline was thematically consistent with (my interpretation of) Other M's. I don't want to belabour the how-and-why of my interpretation of its story here, (I did a video on it, arguing that most of its story's failings, including some mentioned in this video, came from localization issues, for anyone that cares,) but I think Other M was at its core about "powerhouse Samus" also having a past self that she had to make peace with, namely herself before she "grew up".
I'd like to read this as Other M building and iterating on Fusion, rather than just being derivative, but suspect some would contend that notion. I guess if Dread can be read as building on both, that would serve as a good argument for it, but it'll be a while before people have not just played it, but were able to let it sink in. Either way, I'll keep it in mind when playing it myself.
Thanks again for the video and the insight it gave.
I think it is nice if you can make a reading out of Other M that feels satisfying to you, that's the neat thing with interpreting media - there isn't necessarily one truth about what a work is about, and what it means. Glad we could help with that in general :)
This video is about Metroid,
but really it's about any and every multigenerational genre franchise,
the various Stars War and Trek and Gate and Battle,
the Doctor Who and Super whoever,
they all have to contend with the same questions and problems,
and none of them ever comes out totally Milhouse.
Chapter V: Metroid Prime is the best, bless you! [I have no clue what the best Metroid game is lol, but Prime and Super are my favorites]
Hehe, well, we might ruffle some feathers with this.
@@Transparencyboo Nah, this is an amazing argument for Fusion, you sold me on going back and playing it again!
Amen, Prime is up there with the best. And I think it (at least as a standalone) doesn't hurt the story of the 2D games very much
"Dives head-first into the indulgent anus of revisionism" is my new favorite Transparency turn of phrase
I didn't even remember that, but now I am laughing! Haha!
Soooooo……..this video is…uhhh..pretty bold?
I think you did a great Job of explaining how Metroid 1 & 2 still have value despite being old and antiquated through time. They still have a lot of stuff going for them even through the limitations of the consoles they were on. And of course, the analysis on Fusion was superb. Even though i think the reading of the story is a bit strange? I mean i never saw the entire series as a metaphor for going against the government. (I don’t mean just Fusion, it obviously is there, but 1,2 and Super, not really.) but everything else was pretty dang neat to listen through.
But….like the other half of the video is where you start loosing me. You bring up all the other Metroid media, and how they started to develop a lore for the series. And it gets framed as “bad”.
Look…i get that there’s value in stuff being unexplained, but just because Samus is now tied to the Chozo doesn’t get rid of most of the core themes of the series. You’re still alone fighting to survive in an area that wants you dead. Personally can for me, the Metroid universe getting expanded was a great thing. I’m a more recent Metroid fan, just getting into the series (Dread drew me in), and i already knew big important plot points in the series. But learning about the entire timeline made the series more cohesive and just drew me in more. It gives more weight to the federation’s decision for sending Samus on SR388 to kill all the Metroids. It’s because in the Prime series, they all haven’t been exterminated at that point, and have routinely been used for evil, like the Space pirates experimenting on them, or the creation of Metroid Prime in the tail end of Prime 1 (and Dark Samus for the rest of the series.) It’s not just Metroid 1 anymore.
And the ending for Samus returns where you fight Ridley, while yes the quiet and thoughtful ending of you sparing *The baby* and ending your mission does get lost, it does help make the mission of Super Metroid more important. Ridley still has some of his armor he had in Prime (connecting both series) and in the fight, *the baby* helps you fight him off, giving Samus and the player a greater connection to it. There’s more impact too it’s sacrifice in the endgame, and for it being the reason Samus is alive in Fusion (and i guess Samus’s attachment to it in Other M?). There’s more ripples that makes events in later games have more meaning if that makes sense. Some of the mysteries can get lost, but i think the lore is far from “horses&$t”.
And even with all the added lore, does any of this really “ruins” Fusion’s own story? The mirror image of Samus via the SA-X, and the Federation being corrupt (well…sorta, the Japanese version of Fusion explains that there’s a corrupt faction within the Federation, so it’s not completely bad, and it explains why Samus still works with them in Dread. (I just learned about this, ain’t game translation fun?))
All of that is kept in tact. “Samus has two gay space bird dads” ok, cool, how does THAT muddy up Fusion’s narrative? I can sorta understand a bit with Other M, but even with that game’s existence, Fusion’s story still stands strong even on its own.
I know the video is trying to paint a picture of the original games having a subtle narrative of Samus being a cold blooded killer for the Federation but breaking out of that shell in Fusion, but…to be blunt, i don’t think that’s what Sakamoto or the devs were trying to convey at all really. Again, Samus still works with the federation in Dread, (darn you English translations!) so if the whole point of the original games was about that….then why is Samus even taking a mission from them?
I mean, i guess you can say it’s “that pesky bloated lore again, screwin’ everything up as usual!”, but to me, i just feel like that this wasn’t really the point of all the games at all. It just sounds like an interpretation that most people haven’t thought of.
Now look….this was a bit harsh I know, but i’m not going to be a fanboy that whines and cries because “ViDeO EsSaIeSt SaId BaD tiNg AbOuT FaVoRiTe GaEm!” I’m better than that.
TL;DR, i respectfully disagree with most of this video. I dunno…maybe i’m missing something, but guess this just wasn’t for me.
Regardless of what i said, it’s clear that this channel has good videos, editing, all the stuff though. Keep up the good work.
We don't necessarily concern ourselves with what the creators intended when we make readings of media, partly because we can't entirely know that most of the time and secondly it doesn't really matter much when it's about our personal interpretation of it all. We mainly examine what we have in front of us, visuals, narrative beats and so on, and take that to form an understanding (we're mainly working with the official translation, and we think that is fair). It's just regular old art analysis really. We find this to be important when looking at Fusion for example - it's not really an out there claim to present the Federation as the bad guys in this scenario, in fact it's a quite common interpretation of what happens in the game. One that we think is very logical too considering how they are veiled in shadows and based on their actions. A lot of people have stated this before, and it's not really that surprising we think, haha. And yes, we of course see how this becomes a problem when viewing Dread as a sequel, but we did not make this video when the game was out and to be honest we think you can still view 1-4 as an isolated story anyways. The question you ask is very interesting though - 'then why is Samus even taking a mission from them?' Yes, truly, why did she? It's probably the biggest question mark of the entire series right now if you ask us. It's a bit disappointing to see that the game doesn't even attempt to adress it at all, because even if you don't agree with us I think it's a fair question to ask.
Sorry that we're not answering everything here, but we find this to be the most important. The point is that we're not claiming to have the 'right' reading of the games and the overarching narrative. It's just a 'reading'. And that's probably quite alright.
@@Transparencyboo There’s a very simple reason why she even took a mission from them in Dread, but like…i’m not gonna pry on. There’s not really much reason to keep it going where we both have wildly different viewpoints of the story and might not see eye to eye on this. You said it yourself, it’s your interpretation, so why should i try to tear it down? (even though i’m not really trying to, but i digress.)
Again, i respectfully disagree with this video, and it probably just isn’t for me.
Hello! I came here after a recommendation from Brendon Bigley of the Into the Aether podcast, and I am very glad to have found this amazing analysis. It has really helped crystalize for me what I find attractive about Metroids 1 and 2, while never shying away from the fact that a lot of the design and narrative decisions of those games were based around what was easiest to do with the limitations of the consoles and of their creative circumstances. You've also made me wish I had a much cleaner Metroid Fusion experience when I first played it, rather than one that came with knowledge of Other M in tow. Finally, this video is also extremely funny. I would love to have your thoughts on Dread, if you have any. I have always thought that Dread kind of recognizes how ridiculous its lore really is, and allows Samus to really show her frustration about being tied up in it once more. But again, I would love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you! We've been thinking about making a video about Metroid Dread because of how much we have to say about it, haha.
Thank you for the video! Already subscribed.
Really good points, the sense of isolation in the original is simply not the same for me with zero mission.
Zero Mission brings a much more lively and energetic vibe, which is nice. It looks like a comic book a bit, but there is certainly something missing that the original had. Luckily they both exist :)
late to the party, but glad i found this channel! well articulated take and looking forward to more videos :)
Wow. I've seen a lot of reviews of the individual games, and they often have an all encompasing view on the series. I've seen the videos talk abotu the timeline and the repetition and the remakes. But this one stands out above them all for the sheer depth of it all. You looked at the entire franchise and saw more positive points than I think most people knew there were. You made my favourite series sound even more impressive! And then made more points against it than I'd heard before. I thought I was a Metroid expert before watching this, but it really made me feel like a casual fan at best. I knew so many of these things, but I never thought about them. This has really changed my perspective.
But one thing remains. I wish the Metroid 1 and 2 remakes had been handled differently. The loss of powers from game to game has only ever made sense in Fusion. So I wish they'd made the remake for 1 and 2 a single game. To have you get the powerups that were in the first game as you play through it, and then go into the story of the second and keep your powerups and get new ones. Not that this explains the loss of powers in Super, but it would have been a better reason to play the remakes. Rather than the remakes now being retconned with the new lore, but then creating NEW timeline problems with the powerups being present so early, but not existing later on. Depressingly it feels like the solution to fix this self-made problem, would be to... Remake the games. Again...
The reason they cant make a Metroid movie as they have admitted, is that Samus' backstory makes no sense and is not well thought out. Other M feels like it was written as a prequel to the first game, and then forced to be after Super by sudden executive meddling. It wants to be a story about a younger Samus, but it also wants to be Fusion, the end of her story. It was doomed from the start. And even if remade, would still be a mess. It's not worth saving.
The ideal situation, would be an insane one. A remake of Metroid that uses ALL the 2D games up to Fusion. The reckless Samus fighting on Zebes, getting her abilities, then to SR388, more powers, then the metroid is taken by Ridley and Super Metroid is told as basically a boss rush of finishing off every enemy she's had to face so far until she's finally won, with powers galore, and then the X attacks. Metroid Fusion could then begin with a more impressive sense of loss of power. The feeling of regret and helplessness. Back to square one in body, but finally mature in mind. Her past self being her new enemy should be escalated as the threat. The themes and messages deserve to be amplified. And her true independance from the galactic federation at the end of the series as well as her new view on things would still slide comfortably into the events of Dread.
Of course such an idea is unrealistic, unless it's a fan project. A single engine made as solidly as can be done, that encompasses all 4 games, would take so long. But not really given how much of the game is revisited. Something we do in each individual game as part of teh genre, of coming back once you're more capable. But also something Samus does naratively. I think it would sound less like lazy writing if it was to be done ingame and explained as just an extension of the game genre. Super already does this in a sense with 2 ridley fights. It would just be that concept over a longer period of time. Having powers remain from game to game until Fusion would also be so great. To make things make sense first of all, of course. But so that when the power do finally go, it matters, it means something, it's not just expected, it's scary. There is a genuine way to make this quadrology become an enhanced experience. To make a game more appealing to newcomers with a good starting point. To avoid the difficulty of Metroid, and avoid the confusion of the games becoming less refined when playing the remakes.
Truly the one thing I DON'T want is for them to start doing remakes of Super and Fusion individually because they now need to be updated to match with the 1 and 2 remakes. Because this still does not resolve key issues between the games. They're still going to feel disjointed. This issue is something that I can only see being fixed via a full series in a single game reboot. Though it does then create a timeline issue with the prime games... But for the sake of gameplay I think that's okay. The prime games already have too much chaos going on in them. The 2D games deserve more faithful remakes. Zero Mission and Metroid are both missing the mark on being the best way to start the series.
Sorry to go on with such an absurd idea. But your video really makes it clear. The fans get Metroid better than the creators do. The fans have already shown they can make a good Metroid game on their own. So I trust the fans to one day create the ultimate Metroid game. Up until Dread that is. Dread did feel like they fell into some repetition mistakes again, but mostly felt like a step in the right direction. I trust them to continue the series. I just don't trust them to remake any of it. Though it would be really nice for them to stop, and remake Samus' backstory. To give a damn in bothering to flesh that out and stop just adding to it patch by patch into such an ugly mess. Because until Samus story is actually written with competence, all remakes are doomed to fail in exploring the lore. But maybe we'll have to leave that to the fans too. A Metroid fanfic good enough to replace the official story. It can't be too hard.
During the first half of this video where it goes into why the older games still matter and how they present a different perspective of events in accordance to just what was the gaming zeitgeist of the time, and thus why things like the twist end of 2 and the entire context of Fusion hits so hard I was aggressively nodding my head and smiling, because it was great to see more people who understand and appreciate the classic games right to exist and value on their own merits.
However, the second half where you tore apart into the expanded lore, while not totally incorrect by any means and certainly illustrated some good criticisms (such as how it makes the world feel smaller), I feel was a tad unfair and uninformed. Not because I like Metroid lore (though full disclosure, I do) and don't like seeing it trashed (addendum to disclosure: I don't think its without problems), but because you honestly just got some stuff incorrect, either factually or contextually. Some of this is because of what's readily available to us as western gamers vs what's available in Japan, but most of that stuff is also easily researchable and found online, too. To get specific...
Yes, the first two games are the most narratively and thematically removed from the direction the series went in. Sakamoto did work on NEStroid, but mostly as a last-minute cavalry rescue who brought in his R+D team in to save the game from sinking at the 11th hour and didn't have much story input. He had no influence or input on Metroid 2 either, and this is why they are so removed, because ever since Super Sakamoto has been reshaping the context of what the Metroid narrative is. The "new lore" that you're so critical of post-Fusion isn't really a post-Fusion thing, it's been there since Super. It's not new, its old, and has been more a part of the series identity than it hasn't. Again, that's not to say the original 2 games don't have value being what they are on their own merits, again I greatly agree with your first half of the video explaining just the contrary, but acting like the "Original Four" were a perfect progression of both mechanical and thematic ideas that New Lore TM ruins is just.... incorrect and uninformed. This one is a nitpick, but the Federation's first response wasn't even to eradicate all the Metroids in 2 - they sent a science team in there first to try and study them. It's only after they got murked hard by the Metroids they decided to send in Samus to blow them all up. There was clearly an effort made to try and understand them before making the heavy choice of "these things are too dangerous to be kept around".
To start with, yes, the SNES comic was written by Benimaru Itoh, but he wasn't just some guy. Itoh has had close relations with a lot of key Nintendo creators for a long time, and while the Super Metroid comic takes some significant liberties with the story of the game its basing itself on, the ideas it presented weren't just asspulls from Itoh's arguably quite wacky imagination. The fact that these things get referenced in other spinoff games at all I feel is more affirmation of their "always intended" status. A lot of Nintendo games have a lot of lore and development stuff kept behind the scenes that inform things in the games without being explicitly in them (Star Fox is perhaps Nintendo's most infamous example of this but that isn't here or there). So things like Samus intended to have been read as a good person, a galactic hero and savior, and yes, a more black and white morality, have been integral to the series since 1994. It's not a new thing, it was jsut perhaps harder to see when looking at JUST the games in a vacuum to that point.
Nextly, this read only works when you ignore Prime. Calling them the "Original Four" overlooks two key facts: Prime went into development BEFORE Fusion, and Fusion came out the SAME DAY as Prime. They were a simultaneous release. And while Sakamoto had a less direct, more supervisory role on Prime, they are both bona fide Metroid games. Prime wasn't a weird spin off that was awkwardly fitting itself into the story after the fact, and Prime codified a lot of the stuff that was first introduced in supplementary Super material regarding the Chozo, Samus being Power Armor Space Bird Jesus, etc. Retro Studios didn't pull that stuff out of nowhere - and in fact, Retro Studios didn't do it most at all, as lore fell moreso to Sakamoto's supervision and Tanabe as the writer; Retro were largely focused on the mechanics.
Thirdly, the read of "The Federation is just as bad as the pirates and Samus breaks free of being a government lapdog" only works when taking the text of Fusion at surface level. To start with, Super itself says that Metroids had peaceful applications, from the Federation itself. The Feds also again, tried to study Metroids before making the choice to destroy them in the pre-lore of Metroid 2. I think even the NES Metroid manual states that Metroids were being studied on a ship before pirates attacked said ship and stole them all. There's a through line here that YES, the Federation are in fact, well intentioned. Their flaw in Fusion isn't that they're Actually Evil Because Of Course the Government Is and wants to use Metroids for weapons, their flaw is they're kind of fucking naive and foolish. Samus gets pissed at them not about the lab, but because they think they can capture the X and study its applications for advancing civilization, and she's pissed at THAT because if it goes wrong (and their track record of trying to handle Metroids shows it can and will go wrong), the X will basically get a free pass off the station by impersonating Federation persons of importance and with the knowledge gained therein have free buffet passes to the entire galaxy. This is all in the text of Fusion.
Fourthly, Fusion does carry an infamous translation oversight, where it makes a very specific distinction between the Federation as a civic government and the Federation's military, and I'm going off memory here, but that distinction mentions that the military went through reforms as a result of rogue elements at work within it (the actual "Evil Government Stuff"). Other M was intended to extrapolate on that, but I won't deny that Other M was a fucking mess of a game, even when you have a better translation smoothing out a lot of its problems. But regardless, the idea is quite clear in that Other M exposed a corrupt element within the Federation army, and the Federation parliament struck down on them for it, leading to the reorganized situation we have in Fusion. The Federation of Metroid is not one of an evil over-reaching government trying to control all it can, its meant to be a more Trek-esque idealistic one that works for the common good. What we see of the Federation in Prime 2 and Prime 3 also reinforces this.
Then there's just other little niggles. The Metroid Manga wasn't just some esoteric lore dump, it was designed to market Zero Mission (in quite literally ends with a rapid-fire summation of the events of Zero Misson and goes "TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT PLAY THE GAME"), and while its story is certainly janky as hell, it again is not introducing anything that wasn't already there in some capacity already. I bring all this up not to be a nitpicky turbonerd going AKSHULLALEEEEE (though I am sure it does seem that way), but because I really like your content, and while I don't always agree with your critical opinions on things, I generally respect and understand where you are coming from and how you got to it - but with regards to criticizing Metroid's overblown lore and sanctifying the "Original Four" games, that critical read doesn't really work unless you ignore very large details I just mentioned. The lore might be slightly stupid, and it might smudge up the excellent thematic core of Fusion, but it's always been there, in some capacity or another. It isn't new, and the only real case of Sakamoto really rewriting a game to fit the "New Story" is Samus Returns, as he had no hand in that game's original predecessor - but even that was more to establish what was to come in Dread, not change what had come before (though the Guest Appearance Boss Fight Ridley was perhaps a bit silly, I'll fully admit lol).
I have been looking at this comment for a while, and I don't think I can respond in any meaningful way right now, sorry. I am just exhausted and sad. I don't think our point was really that it was 'new' or anything like that, but if we couldn't get that across to the audience then we have simply failed in whatever we were doing.
Glad you liked the first part though, I like that one too I think.
@@Transparencyboo I didn't intend to distress or sadden you, like I said there are things worth criticizing in Metroid's some what derpy melodramatic lore, and again, I really enjoy your content too.
@@CappnRob It's okay, don't worry about it. I was distressed before basically, and things are just kind of boiling over at the moment. Glad you enjoy the videos, really do.
The Other M, Skyward Sword, New Super Mario Bros. period of Nintendo franchising was a dark time for misguided lore hacking and copy-paste nostalgia baiting, for a publisher that otherwise has this nice folktale-like irreverence for canon, and a tendency to playfully reinvent worldbuilding and game design with each iteration.
I couldnt agree more
@@chinesemassproduction 100% agreement, nice! I do think Zelda and Mario escaped their lore and nostalgia holes well enough with 3d World and Wild Breath. Hoping the same happens for Metroid some day.
Great video! It's fun to watch a series with a tight plot turn into a borderline-parody of itself with its expanded universe!! I also came to Metroid late, and played Zero Mission, AM2R, Super, and Fusion in that order (yeah, Fusion is the best; there's so many incredible moments, though my favorite would probably be when you go to the room Nightmare's been zooming around in and all the glass is shattered). I personally had a blast, and this selection of games (especially given how AM2R is basically Metroid 2: Super Metroid) gives a very unified gameplay experience, making the transition between games borderline frictionless. With that being said, it's clear how the release order allows the gameplay to develop alongside the story (especially in the case of Metroid 2, which looks to be an entirely different experience in its GB original), allowing the beats of Fusion to hit that harder. Also, to be honest, the epilogue of Zero Mission was so tacked on that I legit forgot about the Chozo thing until just now, and the game would be much stronger without it. I'm definitely going to go back and play the original 1/2. Also, your analysis of how SA-X represents the uncritical Samus of 1/2, and the fact that you pointed out that Samus is the last Metroid, are such cool ideas that it makes me pumped to play the original 4 games again just so I can experience Fusion again with those in the back of my mind.
A side effect of me playing the games only recently is that I literally know nothing about Prime/Other M/Samus Returns, and wow, Other M looks bad! I refuse to look up anything else about it. Also, it looks like Samus Returns adds a boss fight at the end with Ridley when you find the baby, which (not to be rude) is just really bad. The ending of the original (and AM2R) is quiet and sweet and melancholy and does not need an action beat.
Wonderfull video. I really loved Fusion when i made my way trhough the mainline Metroid games and i didnt even got that much though over the symbolic contrapoint that Sa-x is to Samus understanding how her past actions werent just heroic. Now i love the game ever more, thanks for opening my eyes once again with your great content, keep it up!
Really enjoyed this. Almost 2 hours was intimidating, but you really kept my interests. I am planning on replaying Fusion this weekend (I'm one of those people who didn't like Fusion), and now I have a new perspective to look at the game through. THANKS!
Thank you too for watching, friend!
The more I watched this video, the more I felt the presence of a voice, first quaint, then impossibly loud: "THIS IS JUST STAR WARS ALL OVER AGAIN!! WHY IS COOL SCI FI CURSED"
Rey Palpatine and all that jazz.
Spoiler: Metroid Dread ends with
- "I'm Samus"
- "Samus who"?
- "Samus Skywalker"
@@Mariooo57 Basically this.
Thank you for the thoughtful and entertaining essay! Metroid Fusion was the first game in the series I played because I got it through the 3DS ambassador program. It also is the only game in the series I found compelling enough to play the entire way through, though I would like to play some of the other titles when I have more free time.
All of the scenes with the SA-X were chilling to me. I was not sure why when I played it, but all of those scenes left quite an impression on my younger self. Now I have a better understanding why.
wow, what a great vid. as a metroid fan this puts into words exactly how I feel about the series. there is so much squandered potential
Oh wait! They did the cool thing again where I feel heavily invested in the narrative integrity of a series I’ve only played one entry of! Curses, Kiki and Alicia! For your passion shook the very walls of the room I watched this video within and now Metroid is everything to me!!!! Seriously, bang-up job with this one. Everything really stuck and the ending Animal Crossing tune was just perfect. Thank you for this one as always.
The animal crossing tune was very much decided while recording that part, haha.
I know I'm like 7 months late, but this is such a good essay, and it encapsulates why I've felt so distant from the franchise after Fusion, even if I *enjoyed* playing the Prime games. This essay having released 4 days prior to Dread is rough only in the sense that it added an interesting capstone to the problems.
I was very invested in Dread's narrative for a reason I couldn't put together until now, and it's because it's Fusion 2 in more senses than just chronological. If Fusion was a soft reboot necessitating a fresh start that was stalled out by all the additional, superfluous ~lore~, then Dread is the soft reboot that has to reckon with that extra narrative baggage. Whether or not it works is a matter of taste, but for me it did because it makes a concerted effort to course correct while drawing out different emotional threads than either the original or the additions had.
It was a story of closure and catharsis, and it actually answers shockingly little of the remaining mysteries of the franchise, and instead ends with shutting the narrative book on the Chozo in the way it began, as an old, strange people who were undone by their own hand, and rather than embracing that history, Samus ends it herself. The core of the original 4 games remains true, that Samus's journey was of learning not to be a tool used by the powers that be, and instead tackles the dangling thread of the Chozo as the final authoritative faction to be "trusted" after all the retcons with the same eye Fusion tackled the Federation. All that tampering to make her the Most Special Girl With the Strongest Suit made her no different than any of the multitude of engineered weapons in the universe, and she has to reckon with that and the fact that she has free will to do better than any of her "intended" purposes.
The damage hasn't been undone, as you said it will always have happened, but Dread managed to bring things back to a point resembling the fresh slate Fusion presented, IMO. We can only hope that they resist the temptation to keep jumping back in time with more backwards-addition...
God damn it Prime 4 is still coming please don't let it fuck this up more.
SA-X is sus
Samsus
Once again, excellent work :)
I think this speaks to a bit of a failing in media literacy from a lot of people who play and even make video games. There seems to be a need to understand these works as alternate universes where things simply happen, and which can be solved like a math equation, instead of pieces of art made in the real world that communicate real ideas. I especially liked the line late in the video that Fusion may be "too self-critical to be sustainable" because it pops up in other analyses of games as well. The fifth generation of Pokemon comes to mind for me, a set of games that asked moral questions about the systems of its world, then basically flat-out refused to answer them and dropped that line of thinking in succeeding entries. Like these are triple-A games that in this capitalist world are only allowed to exist if they can generate a profit. Challenging the core of your money-making machine isn't great business sense, and so I think these series find themselves pulling their punches despite transparent passion from the developers to do otherwise.
Well worn take, but I really like how hollow knight handled its lore, with both relatively well defined points that directly tie the protagonist to a larger story (all the pale king/hallownest stuff) and other unrelated and largely unknowable aspects that make the world feel larger & older because they have no real answer (the traces of the void kingdom). Best of both worlds.
Hollow Knight has a splendid world with a lot of nice mysteries, agreed! :)
Until hearing your reading of the series with the original context of the games in mind, I never considered how my later introduction to the series through the retcons of the lore in Other M and Prime had colored how I viewed the series. I really wanna replay the originals with this new reading in mind, making one of my favorite game series even better :)
After several attempts of falling asleep due to sleep deprivation I have finally managed to overcome that soothing narrative voice. Yes, I have finally finished watching this video--it's quite good!
I hope you get some sleep now
I think Dread really synthesizes the issues with the tacked on lore. It really brings it full circle
I mean, where do I even begin, haha.
Absolutely fantastic!!
Thanks, friend
As much as the scan visor can undermine the subtlety of metroid's settings, I think I still really like instances of it in prime 1 and 2. Scanning monitors on the frigate and slowly learning what exactly has been happening on the ship is a pretty cool experience to me, though I'm generally someone who enjoys deep diving into lore. Really excellent video, now to play dread lol.
We think the scan visor is fine, if perhaps a bit overwhelming in how much there is from time to time. Kiki did 100% Metroid Prime back in the day, so it can't be all that bad, haha. The idea of the hidden stories and logs hanging around is neat for sure, we had a laugh about the fact that one of the dead Federation troopers in Prime 2 mentions Santa Claus and that the Metroid wikis have failed to mention that Santa exists in the Metroid universe. This is important information!
Your resident AM2R fan here to remind everyone that it exists and is awesome. It much better preserves the original experience of Metroid 2 than Samus Returns, it’s mechanically in line with ZM/Fusion, and is just pound-for-pound a better video game than SR IMHO (And it’s free!).
The remake progression presented in the video is also significantly less jarring if you replace with AM2R:
ZM -> AM2R -> super -> fusion -> Dread
"Isn't that what the people in the lore business love so much?"
No.
That's a complete misunderstanding of what drives them. The lore hounds want narrative puzzles to solve. They want to search for the hidden pieces, and then put them together to discover a truth that is at least somewhat clear and uncontradictory. The old Metroid games don't have that, they can't have that, because there was there was no truth to be found when they were made. The fate of the bird people, or Samus' past, are not revealed even in part in any hidden room in the games, or even some limited-edition, Japan-only strategy guide for Super.
Simply imagining what the answers could be is not solving a puzzle. It's creating fanfic. And that's not what they want.
The thing with the narrative puzzles are kind of what we are talking about though. And I don't know, I don't entirely agree with the assessment that Metroid can't have that in the early stages of the series.
Mystery was my crack as a kid. I found them so fun and made me feel just litlle bit wiser when it let just you think.
It can be a lot of fun, and we personally find it a lot more enjoyable most of the time. Often the vague nature of things also gives a lot of room for readings and interpretation too - which is totally our jam, haha.
I saw it, you saved the lil animals in the footage of M3, I respect that.
We're not monsters!
A very enjoyable video that makes a lot of very good points and observations! I first played Fusion when I was just a kid, and Super and Return of Samus when I was even younger- so I'd never thought quite so deeply about it before. While there's obviously a lot there, some of those deeper meta-elements went over my head and had just been cemented as how things were. Talking about Samus realizing just how directly her own thoughtless actions nearly cost her her life, really recontextualized that moment and really hit hard.
...That said I just, cannot endorse starting with the original Metroid. I was just a bit too late for the original NES (I thought Return of Samus was a sequel to Super when I was younger since I never sat on the intro screen long enough to see 'Metroid 3' pop up) and I've tried to go back and play it; really, I've tried. But it's so grindy, clunky, and punishingly difficult, I've never managed to have any fun with it. Maybe give it a try to see if it's for you- some people do enjoy those kinds of games, of course- but if it's not, go ahead and continue on to Return of Samus.
I really do wish the Galactic Federation and Space Pirates would be examined with a more nuanced perspective, though. Like, something I've always wondered about a LOT, is something in Metroid Prime Hunters. Weavel, the cybernetic Space Pirate nearly killed by Samus, who's become a bounty hunter. Which just, raises SO many interesting questions for me that are never addressed. What's Weavel's relationship to the Space Pirates? Did he disagree with the actions they were taking? Is he a criminal or a renegade for abandoning them? If he's not doing piracy, is he even a Space Pirate? If he's actually a relatively decent dude, how would Samus feel about how she thoughtlessly decimated him? How many other Space Pirates are like him, and would happily ditch if they got the chance? Prime 3 mentions that the Pirates have an entire slave caste and that they're used as front-line cannon fodder in suicidal attacks, in boarding vessels that don't have a high success rate of even getting them to their target alive in the first place. How many of them are only there because they're afraid the punishment for not doing this is even worse?
Of course, in the game he's from he's just one of several threats to take down, with no real character or exploration- and I doubt that they're very interested in bringing him back for another game, or going with any other interpretation besides 'The Space Pirates are bad because they're the Space Pirates'.
Another amazing video. Although I don’t know if I’ll ever find the time, this video’s convinced me to at least aim to play the original 2 Metroid games, even if I might not be able to get through them, one thing I agree was definitely a huge reason to prefer the original experiences is that Metroid 2 ending. Playing Seamus Returns didn’t feel even close to this relaxing, surprising show of mercy, but just more of the game but with the metroid, then a battle with Ridley in a green storm, not the atmosphere I was really expecting knowing the original story.
Just found this channel, instant subscribe! I love the fact that recently Fusion and Metroid 2 are having almost a critical reevaluation instead of being disregarding them as black sheep. I love Super Metroid but Fusion, even as a child, I considered my favorite and I am glad that those themes that some of us might have perceived at the time were so well put together and explained in detail here.
As a Metroid fan since renting Super, and getting it for my sixth birthday (although it was no secret it was a way of my mom giving herself a present too, as we both absolutely adored the game) setting me on a childhood mission to yard sales and such to find the first 2 metroid games, and loving NES metroid with all of its jank when I finally found a copy at age 11, going through the series' ups and downs, doughts, early internet forum culture, secret world exploration, feeling like the only person that was actually looking forward to Prime Pinball while the popular consensus on announce could give Federation Force a run for its money despite not having that game's ill timing and instead coming at a time when the series was in a golden age, and finally getting to play Dread after over a decade of leaks, teases, and silent cancelation only to emerge from nowhere and seeing it through despite the nerve damage I have in my arms making the experience physically painful and limiting the length of my sessions, but still loving it, like the polar opposite of what happened with Duke Nukem Forever's similarly troubled development and eventual release after every gave up on seeing it, Dread actually felt worth the wait.
Now, though, largely due to said nerve damage, most of my enjoyment of Metroid comes from watching video essays and deep dive retrospectives. Seeing how newcomers view the series with their fresh eyes, now that Metroidvania experiences are no longer limited to rare Metroid releases and usinf Castlevania as a Metroid nicotine patch, but a massive genre especially in the indie space that has diverse offerings that seem born out of a collective frustration of having few games to scratch that itch for so long, and have brought many new innovations to the formula. It's also interesting to see how people view the series just from starting with a different game. I love getting to vicariously experience these games for the first time again through others, or gain new appreciation from the stories of series veterans. Shared frustrations and triumphs, divergences in experiences, interpretations, and opinions. I eat this stuff up, and I'm glad that so many people are making video essays and retrospectives and blind let's plays of these games so I can continue to enjoy them even though it physically pains me to replay them firsthand. I can still enjoy this series. I haven't watched through your video yet, but I felt it important to thank you in advance for making it, even if your opinions diverge from my own. I have strong feelings about the series, but so do others and that's valid, and I think the metroid fandom is still being very slow to adopt this attitude although it is slowly happening in places.
Also, just a funny bit of trivia, I was in a rush to get ready for work yesterday and wore my The Geek Critique Metroid Fusion reference "You wouldn't download a missile" shirt instead of my uniform shirt
It's was a super fun watch and a really cool retrospective look at the series! I agree with a ton of stuff here, and it was super cool to see someone gush about Fusion (which is definitely my favorite 2D Metroid) when it usually gets so much flack.
However, I definitely disagree with the sentiment that the additional lore in the rest of the games is "horseshit" haha We're all entitled to our own opinions of course, so no hard feelings. But I personally think learning more about the series did not take away from its value. I guess I can see how we didn't need to know the origins of Samus's strength, but the unraveling of a deep-seated rivalry with Ridley is something that I think really drives the hype around those encounters. I guess it makes the universe "smaller" so to speak, but it also connects Samus more to it and endears me more to it as a player. I won't lie, it's weird that the Prime games were shoehorned into a totally satisfying narrative arc, but I personally think they did a great job of having a self-contained story while also showing how much of a threat Metroids are and why Samus went to just drastically measures to eradicate them (even if she regrets it later). So yeah, I hear ya that some mysteries are better left unanswered, but there was just a lot of anti-Prime sentiment here which didn't land for me. Plus, even with the lore we got about the Chozo in the Prime games, they are still plenty mysterious and super interesting, in my opinion.
I will say though however that the Other M portion of the video really landed for me. As a huge Fusion fan, I couldn't believe how much of Other M is just... Worse Fusion. Most Other M hate videos don't really hit on how Other M is pretty much just a horribly, horribly botched retelling of Fusion (I feel like the tactless reuse of Nightmare is very emblematic of that). I found the Adam story beat of Fusion to be cool and interesting, especially with how Samus is very willing to turn on the Federation and make her own moves. And then Other M comes along and just ruins everything haha
Anything, this was a great video. I love long-form video essays like this, it was really enjoyable engaging here. Metroid is great, and even if you aren't totally sold on the overarching timeline/lore stuff, I hope you can give the Primes another try some day. ✌️
It's all good, we knew several people would disagree with us on this one. And that's perfectly fine. We think our ideas and whatever other people think of the lore can live along side each other. It's all about perspective and perhaps learning something from each other. Glad you're not hostile about it, haha. So common that people go on the defense when they probably don't need to.
Was there really a lot of anti-Prime sentiment in this video though? I am sorry, this is not meant to be combative or anything, haha. It's just that to us we just mentioned it in passing with a few bits that we think are silly and kind of screws around with the overarching narrative of the originals. Like we barely talk about Metroid Prime here because it's not that relevant and they're honestly fine little games on their own. I don't think we ever deride them as bad, in fact I think we explicitly state that 'these games are fine in their own right' - meaning the games outside of the original four. I think people just sort of push the idea that we dislike Prime on us because of a few small sentences that don't really have that intention, if that makes sense? Just to clarify, we don't really dislike Metroid Prime, haha.
Nah, there's probably not as much anti-Prime sentiment as a I perceived. I definitely could have just been projecting haha But here's how I saw it--
Two big issues you had with the added lore was the fleshing out of the Chozo and the constant reuse of Metroids. Prime does both of those things, and it explores them extensively in all three games. Plus, there was the jab about "another doppelganger" in Dark Samus, and the roast on scanning to find lore was what put me over the edge haha
Maybe in regard to Metroids and Chozo, you were pointing less at Prime and more at the Manga and such. I just kinda connected the dots in my head, which was probably on me.
Anyway, I'm for sure not here to argue or anything; like I said, I loved the video essay. Metroid is a great series, and I think the fact that we can have conversations like this is proof of that! And regardless, we can both agree that Fusion is peak Metroid, so I'm sure our tastes arent too different at the end of the day. 😌✌️
@@nova338 Amen
Really enjoyed a lot of the points you brought up, but I'd like to make a counterargument with the Chozo. I think this essay takes it too much as a given that the Chozo as mysterious and unknown is intrinsically superior storytelling to the Chozo being known and familiar. Isn't one of this essay's core arguments that the first 4 Metroid games were constantly recontextualizing the ones that came before, and that a willingness to aggressively reframe the past can be a good thing? Are there no other ways to create mystery, dread, and tantalizing unknowns than the Chozo? I think you're on the money that the overall trend has been to fill in the setting and tie everything back to Samus to the point the entire universe feels shrunken, but Samus being an adoptive child of a Chozo settlement isn't inherently bad to me, and I think actually adds something to the series that wasn't there before: Samus's relationship to the suit.
In Zero Mission, the game that introduced the idea, the way you get the suit back after losing it was genuinely striking to me, both when I played it as a kid, and when I revisited it as an adult. After fighting through the Space Pirate Mothership on her own, crawling through the Chozo ruins, there's that weird boss fight with a living mural holding a mirror, where at the end you get the image of Samus's reflection in the mirror changing to show her in her power suit, which causes her to regain the suit in real life. Then, after finishing the rest of the game with the suit, blowing up the mothership, credits roll, etc, there's that one final shot of the mural again, and the zoom in on the little child's drawing Samus had once scratched into it of her and The Bird Dads; music swells, the end.
I haven't actually read the manga, so I can only comment on how the games themselves present things, but to me it made this really striking image of the power suit not being a tool Samus uses, but an extension of her that she can't truly lose, a representation of her childhood, her family, her inheritance, her identity. Getting the suit back isn't finding a spare in a closet somewhere, it's Samus looking in a mirror, the mirror shows her wearing the suit, and then she gets the suit. It's a little hand-wavey and a little bullshit if you try to put a hard science explanation for what exactly happened, but the imagery of it, thematically and emotionally, I just found it so affecting.
And I think all that is very important for Samus as a character because my worry with Dread, from that trailer of the Chozo armor dude choking Samus, and the focus on Samus's visor cracking and her human face underneath, is that they're gonna frame it as the power suit being the unstoppable badass doomguy entity, with Samus underneath being defined as vulnerable, helpless, femininity equated with fragility. But Samus's suit as a fundamental representation of everything important to her, an extension of her self and her most precious memories, something that is as much a part of her as her reflection in a mirror, could work as a really cool way of defying that idea.
On the subject of the Chozo as known and familiar undermining the tone of the exploration, I think just as much as an unfamiliar and unknown alien planet can be haunting and hostile, something that was once familiar and beloved (your childhood home) being violated and rendered unfamiliar on your return can be just as haunting and hostile, maybe even more so with some proper writing/framing. It's different, definitely, but different doesn't necessarily mean bad. Sure, Chozo statues from a long gone civilization you can't even imagine is pretty creepy, but isn't it also pretty unsettling to get power ups from statues that're just lifeless reminders of a family you've lost? Especially given the charge beam X parasite from Fusion was able to replicate one, which means they were biological in some way, which, eugh, heebie jeebies.
We're not really saying it is intrinsically better story telling, it is simply that we personally don't find it very compelling at all - and like we said to the point where it makes everything a whole lot smaller than it needs to be. And the point is not either that there can't be other mystery, dread etc other than the Chozo. This is simply one aspect of what we find diminishes the universe a bit. But here we are basically just repeating ourselves, lol. We do like that you have a different way of viewing it all though, very interesting. Luckily I think both these ideas can live side by side as readings of basically the same thing without there really being much countering of each other.
May the algorithm not screw you over
Not screwattack us over you mean ;)
1:05:10
I don't want to say that they 'shoehorned' it in there. They were attempting to give a proper answer to who Samus really was, and, paying attention to the games alone, it was a pretty good and mysterious way to introduce the concept.
And talking about it more, I wish that the games *alone* told this story. (Also OTHER M NEVER HAPPENED OTHER M NEVER HAPPENED OTHER M NEVER HAPPENED OTHER M NEVER HAPPENED)
BUT I personally pay attention to the first four games as 'main lore'(now including dread) and then use the 'prime' games and the few others as 'lore expansions'. They're fun adventures that sometimes don't make sense, but expand upon the lore of the universe. Like how Prime explains the chozo in-depth and explains phazon, as well as finally shows the space pirates' beliefs, or how prime 3 shows the 'Corruption'(all jokes intended) that phazon has on beings, mirroring fusion slightly with that.
I personally enjoy the way that the lore and lore expansion games expand the world. They reveal some unnecessary things, yes, however, the revelations do not 'close-off' the universe as you say. In fact, they leave the player asking more questions. The 'why, where, when, who', etc of the situations. It's why people still love this series; the mystery has been explained, but there is still much more that can be answered. It's why we love Metroid even now. Oh, and by the way, Samus is never really portrayed as a 'good person'. Her sins are still many, her actions are clearly wrong many times, and the consequences of her actions keeps showing every game.
TL;DR: The storytelling was amazing, and with the expansions of other games, it doesn't close off the universe that much. It still does, yes, but I believe that bashing on the 'inbetween' games and remakes is not treating it as fairly as it should be treated. I'd say return to your own formula, and re-experience the games with a new light: an optimistic one. Try and understand why fans still love the prime series and all of the expansions on the lore, and think of how the universe is expanded instead of diminished. I'd say it'd help you better understand the fanbase's insistent praise of Metroid's lore even now.
We have gotten a few of these, and we really do appreciate the enthusiasm in these comments, but we find it a bit odd that we have to clarify that we are not bashing on the remakes or the side games at all, and I'd say we've thought about them more than we probably should have. We even state several times that these games are good in their own right, we even played all of them before making this video. Metroid Zero Mission is Kiki's favorite one for crying out loud. Feel free to enjoy the lore, we understand why people do, but it really doesn't matter much to us personally. We're just sharing our own perspective and why we don't like that stuff in connection to the early games and especially Fusion. It's a narrative analysis of those games, and mainly Fusion, so we're not necessarily saying the others are bad but that we find that some aspects don't vibe very well with what came before and, once again, Fusion in particular - it is however just a small part of the entire video and we wouldn't even say it's the most important aspects of it, so it's a bit funny that is what people hone in on instead of the glowing talk about the original four games. But what are you gonna do right, haha, it's all good. Then again, we think we explain our understanding and perspective pretty well, and how all that finally ends up in what would become Other M. And yeah the fact that, as you say, this isn't told through the games mainly, we would consider to absolutely be shoehorning it in after the fact. Even the idea that the lore makes the players ask more questions doesn't necessarily mean that those questions, nor answers are satisfying or even good (i.e Other M). We don't think Dread proved us wrong in this position either, rather the opposite. So once again, enjoy it - by all means - we think these two ideas can live in harmony with each other with no real issue anyway.
Watching this video did clear up some confusions I had about the lore. I never really reflected much on the story or cared much about it outside of Fusion before playing Dread. I read the manga a long time ago, but I can’t remember much about it. I agree regarding what you said about the Chozo best being left a mystery too. Samus being Raven Beak’s daughter was a very forced twist. I started with Super Metroid, then Zero Mission, Fusion, Prime 1,2 and 3, then AM2R, before just playing Dread. I started some of the first one, but couldn’t get into it.
Great video.
My favorite tidbit to show how crufty and crusty metroid-lore is these days is how Samus has 5 dads by this point. Just the most ridiculously hodge-podge worldbuilding by these fellows.
With Raven Beak added the the mix we can't do much more than laugh about it. We really enjoyed the fact that good ol' RB was always hanging out in the background of that one manga panel where Samus is in a tube, getting all chozoed up. We just didn't see him. It's hilarious.
@@Transparencyboo Please look forward to Metroid 6, which will reveal that the shady GF guy from Fusion was actually Rodney Aran''s best friend back on K2L, and was like another father figure to Samus. (He now plays pinball on weekends, between bouts of planning galactic genocide at Exelion Star Corporation.)
@@RT55J Sounds about right honestly.
@@TransparencybooJust like how the X were totally in the background of the first three games all along, we promise ;)
Like I won't deny Raven Beak is very silly, but no more so than some elements of Fusion, tbh
@@ColdGoldLazarus I don't think the X parasite reveal is remotely the same as Raven Beak coming out of absolutely nowhere. The X were a logical consequence of another species becoming extinct because of the actions of both the Federation and our main character. It has thematic and narrative weight that leads into the corruption of the Federation itself. Raven Beak is not that. Not even close.
Love metroid! great vid
Alright, I'm coming back to this having re-watched the video again as well as looked at your Reviewer Brain video, as what you responded to my comment on about failing to get your point across stuck with me.
To start with, no, I don't think you failed to get your point across. I failed to articulate more precisely what my own criticisms of your essay were, and to that, I apologize. However, I do wish to clarify and reiterate what my criticisms were, as I feel you are owed that much, and I've had much time to reorganize them.
The first quick and dirty is thus: I stand by what I said regarding the Federation and The Lore TM - I know you weren't trying to say "new lore ruined the thematic core of Fusion", but your specific read of Fusion as it related to the other games before it really only works when you ignore things intentionally. The Federation being read as just as corrupt as the pirates, and wanting to use Metroids to covet power like the pirates before them (with Samus being part metroid herself making this a nice allegory for the Federation using Samus as their trump card).... just does not work, even in the context of just the original games. Metroid 2 mentioned that the Federation sent teams to study SR-388 and the Metroids before sending in Samus to blow them all up. Super explicitly states they wanted to use Metroids for peaceful applications, and Fusion has Samus explicitly state that her frustration with the Federation isn't that they are corrupt, but that they are being foolish for wanting to capture and study something that can impersonate their forms and intelligence and are driven only by a compulsory drive to consume everything they come across. The X, unlike the Metroids, are soulless, that is to say.
Nextly, the dismissal of Prime as a disruption to the intertextual reading of Fusion in relation to its predecessors. I understand this critique, and why it is made. And yes, the Prime games do disrupt this sort of read, and make the read weaker for it, but Prime wasn't like Other M, a newcomer that disrupted what was previously established, and because of that, I feel this just means your read of Fusion in context of its fellow 2D games weaker. It is an interesting read, and one I appreciate even if I do not agree with, but it feels dishonest of you to disparage Prime as disrupting the read, because as I said in my other comment: Prime came FIRST. Fusion's existence owes itself to Prime, and these games released on the same day. If Prime doesn't fit in with your read of Fusion's intertextual relationship with the other 2D games, well, maybe that read was flawed to begin with - which I certainly think it was, as again, it also must ignore text provided within three other Metroid games to really stand at all.
I apologize if this wears your patience thin or anything, but I had been backburner musing on this video and our comment chain for the better part of the two weeks and some change that have passed since I made my first comment and you responded to it, and I desperately wanted to clarify my position and my feelings on your work. I feel you deserve that much, at least, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. Good content deserves honest criticism. Cheers!
knowing very little about metroid outside of fusion and other m (controversy has a way of getting information around), there's a bunch of stuff here i didn't suspect about the series. like it has some pretty neat monster designs.
Great video! I binged all of the 2d Metroids recently and I can’t stop watching videos about fusion
Glad you enjoyed it! Hope you find more rad content!
I think the interesting little wrinkle in a post Metroid Samus Returns/Return of Samus/AM2R world is Samus’ relationship with the Federation. Before the end of the Metroid extermination, Samus acted as an independent extension of the Federation. She would do their jobs her way. Whether she did them for the pay or for the good of others is kind of ambiguous, but she did it anyway. But at the end of Metroid 2, she not only fails her objective, but outright defies it. She was told to kill them all, even being given a tracker for them. She decided that to take the decision into her own hands. In future games, it ends up working out for both Samus who is saved by the Metroid twice, but also the Federation who decides to use the DNA to make weapons, but in the moment, that would have been enough to remove her from the Federation to begin with. Afterwards, Samus takes on Ridley and the space pirates of her own volition. Then, on a Federation appointed mission, she defies them again. So you might wonder, why are they working together again the Dread.
I believe it’s because they inherently understand the ramifications of not working together. Samus still gets the job done better than anyone and it’s better to remove the corruption in the Federation than have Samus come after the Federation. She could destroy the entire thing if she wanted to. But Samus also recognizes that not all of the Federation is corrupt and the parts that aren’t are a major asset. They inform her of places where only she can help. She wouldn’t have know about the X on Talon-4 if she wasn’t in communication with the Federation. They both recognize that the other is an asset on their side, but the worst threat they could ever face if the other ever swapped sides.
Thank you *so* much for actually breaking down why Metroid II is so great
So many youtubers copy paste their reasons why they think this game is bad and it kills me because I know Metroid II is pure kino.
You have no idea how refreshing it is to hear someone else say the words that I've always felt about this game.
It's our pleasure. We saw a need for Metroid II to get its redemption, and we simply jumped at the chance! Thank you
@I am Petitgguy lol, we're mutuals, so...
@I am Petitgguy 100% have heard. Very much enjoy his content as well, but thank you nonetheless.
It's funny how Metroid was so inspired by Alien when the later entries of both series ended up having very similar problems with their narrative... Wonderful video. You're videos are always so ridiculously good.
Aw, thanks. You're ridiculously good.
Well, I wonder what you think of dread considering how attached to the chozo canon it is. And how much it ignores the ending of fusion.
Heh, oh boy do we have a lot to say, believe us! Not sure in what form those ideas will come out, either here on the main channel or just on our extra channel.
"Punch bad guys with a gun."
Ya. That's worth a sub. 👍
Haha, glad you liked it!
For some reason I completely missed out on Metroid in my youth, I always had Nintendo consoles but I was never given a Metroid game or asked for them. My first experience was Metroid prime 3 which was fun but I rented it and only played a few hours and kinda forgot about it. Then for some reason about 6 or so years ago I bought all available Metroid games on my 3ds and Wii U and decided to binge them all in release order. That journey ended with Fusion and the only one I haven't played is zero mission which I hope to one day.I totally agree that playing in release order is the best way to experience it, Super and Fusion had so much more impact. Having had no nostalgia for the franchise I completely fell in love with it and perhaps one day I'll do something similar again and play all the games in a marathon.
Although our opinions differentiate when it comes down to the lore and if it caused damage to the franchise. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing someone else's opinion on the franchise.
Guess I know what I'm doing when I'm done with Kingdom hearts. Metroid 1 all the way to Fusion and then Aliens Infestation to see how the Alien franchise measures up when it copies a game that copied from it first...
Or maybe I'll just play something completely different who knows. In any case, very cool video. Loved the illustrated summaries.
Thanks, Kiki did a lot of work on the crayon drawings
ooh good luck!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Dread now that it's out, and how it builds on established trends in the evolution of the series, for better & worse.
It will probably be an extra video on the the other channel. Depending on how big it becomes, haha.
@@Transparencyboo Other... ? hold up, I gotta go check something out. :p
@@Malisteen There's a link to it on the channel page, haha. There's not much, just a few short essays and a meme.
Dread was meh! lol I can't play it for more than 20m at a time, the music is DREAD-ful... (it really is lol)
The atmosphere in dread is definitely lacking - partially the music's fault, partly the generic zone concepts & the way they bleed into each other, partly the way 'Adam' deflates any feeling of isolation. I had a lot of fun playing through it myself, but atmosphere is what I'm looking for in Metroid games & yeah, it was a bit thin in dread.
I recommend Zero Mission as the first game to play in the series not just because it's a remake of the first game, but because I think it captures the essence of a Metroid game as well as any in the series, and it's a tad easier and more modern than Super, so basically it's a bit more accessible. I don't really think of story much when deciding what Metroid game someone should play first. I want them to play a high quality game that captures the essence of the series and hopefully gets them into the series.
I think most people generally just gravitate towards what is the most available and current when it comes to where to start. Like we said - we don't think people need a guide for where to start necessarily. A lot of people grew up with the originals, then Fusion, Zero Mission and Prime came out in response to a new generation. Metroid Dread will probably be a lot of people's first one too, and that is completely fine.
new transparency? time to drop everything.
I resonate with the title of Chapter 2 on a spiritual level
We are glad to be able to provide that transcendental feeling!
Personally, I think it is cool that Samus has relation with the Chozo, the ancient race. I like that while the places you visit are very mysterious, you have some form to connection to it, creating a grey area of known and unknown. I agree that Metroid handle Samus's poorly especially in Zero Mission.
I don't know, we probably just don't feel that connection at all. To us it mostly comes off as cheap and a bit convenient. But that's just our opinion, it's all fine.
I kinda hoped you would mention Federation Force, and finally give me a hint about what this game is supposed to be, but I guess I'll never know (maybe it's for the best)
It's just a multiplayer mission based game where you do challenges and shoot things in kind of similiar ways like the Prime games. If you somehow manage to get 4 friends to join you there might actually be some fun times to be had there. It's just a little side game, hehe.
@@Transparencyboo thanks that's so nice of you to answer so thoroughly 😭
@@TwelveOThirteen No problem at all. It's our pleasure. Alicia actually reviewed it back when it came out and quite enjoyed it for what it was. Despite it sort of being the wrong Metroid game at the wrong time, haha.