True but Super is a larger adventure than Metroid 1, it’s more intentionally paced, and a slew of new optional upgrades were added like the beam types, x-ray visor, reserve tanks, etc. Prime stumbles here and I’m guessing it’s because they struggled with implementing movement mechanics like speed booster, shinespark and wall jump in 3D. What does SR bring to the table that they had to add yet another gate?
2 Likes
Also prime’s doors mark boundries to hide loading times, and only open when the next area loads into memory, so the frequent beam changing is probably trying to slow you down to reduce the occasional door opening pause.
7 Likes
bad game designers
I will note that once upon a time near the end of my time with Prime 2 I tried to jot down all the various lock and keys in the game (mostly door based) and the number climbed so high that it legit surprised me. It’s one of several reasons why it is bad.
4 Likes
prime 2 is like a steak that’s utterly burnt and impenetrable on the outside but has a few trace veins of juicy perfection on the inside. as such, i “like” it but i can’t exactly say that i “recommend” it.
when i go to look up a video of a good part i remember, i feel my neck instinctively crane in a bit as the sensation of hours of grinding away at key hunting, stop-start progression through monochromatic areas, and incessant loading screens returns to me. it may be part of why i value the lightness and airiness of prime 3 so highly.
it deserves a crown for achieving the most “alien” look and feel, if nothing else
4 Likes
One interesting thing about Prime 1 vs 2 is that while both games have their randomizers, the rando community seems to prefer the second game (as far as I can tell). The main criticism of Prime 1, from a rando-racer perspective, is that it’s too open (especially with speed tech), so once you get a couple items anything could be anywhere. Also, the world is layout is rather sprawling unwieldly, with Magmoor Cavern caverns being a rather obnoxious-to-navigate spine of the world (contrast that with SM’s red brinstar, which connects nearly all major areas, but is compact and easy to navigate). Meanwhile, Prime 2’s variety of gates and hub-like structure bring out more of the qualities rando players seem to like in terms of pacing of routing decisions and such. (The caveat here I haven’t really watched/played these randomizers — I’ve mostly just heard a couple of people talking about them when playing other games, so this might not represent popular opinion on the subject.)
Zero Mission is also weird with its randomizer. Apparently any% races aren’t very common, since once you stumble across a power bomb tank you can just run straight to the end of the game (though I think you also need plasma to kill the final two pirates). I have seen a 100% race (which is apparently preferred?), but that was honestly pretty stressful to watch (so easy for racers to lose track and miss stuff).
I played like 3 seeds of Fusion rando over the weekend, and personally I really like it, though the fact that the vanilla game is designed around you visiting each sector twice does make some of the routing kinda annoying. Regardless, it’s pretty interesting and fun to think about structurally (not as good as Super is tho), so I expect it to have a longer shelf life as a niche eSport than ZM rando.
Honestly, with how good the Fusion randomizer is, it makes me wonder if an Other M randomizer would be any good. Maybe? Honestly I have no idea. No idea what kinds of locks the game uses besides plot doors/events. Also, the areas look less structurally interesting than Fusion by a long shot. Would be interesting to see at least.
4 Likes
Those bloody two pirates at the end of ZM kill any low% run I try. I hate how much easier the actual final boss is compared to them.
1 Like
Thinking about the time when Nintendo demoed Samus Returns for a Treehouse thingy, and showed off one of the AM2R ending screens as a piece of viewer submitted fanart:
(skip to 4:30)
4 Likes
new Y-Faster just dropped (Y-Faster 2 Furious)
(that disclaimer is a lie)
like it’s immediate predecessor, Y-Faster 2 Fast, you can do each area in any order you want, and they are all pitch-perfect parodies of other hacks
absolutely hilarious, impossible to recommend, 5/5 stars
20 Likes
i wish ixould undertand the context of the jokes but it lools great
6 Likes
cursed thought: Samus Returns feels like it was a dry-run for Metroid Dread — toying with some new ideas, but also (more crucially) testing if they could have a workable/successful relationship with an external developer. Extrapolating from this, I’m at least 30% convinced that if Other M had been successful (big if), that we would have seen an Other M style Dread as a 2013 Wii U title courtesy of Team Ninja.
Played a few seeds of Zero Mission rando this week and, uh, not the biggest fan of it as it stands. I like being able to use the unknown items as soon as you get them and being able to use PBs early, but something about the structure of the world rankles me (spoiler: it’s Chozodia) and the options available seem insufficient to deal with it.
My first seed was just a full rando with default settings. It did not go well. Apparently the Power Grip was in Ridley’s Lair, and to be perfectly honest Zero Mission controls like garbage without the grip. To make the matter worse, I couldn’t actually figure out how to actually get into Ridley’s area, since I (personally) needed grip to take the backdoor and the wave beam to take the front door. I eventually gave up and looked at the spoiler log for information. It turned out that the Wave Beam was pretty deep in Chozodia, and the Plasma Beam (which is required to beat the final two pirates in the escape (this can be toggled off)) was in the one location in Ridley that required the wave beam anyway.
Pretty happy I quit that seed!
For my second seed I decided to uncheck the “Infinite Bomb Jump” box to force the power grip to spawn early (it did). I also checked the “No PBs before Chozodia” box, so I wouldn’t have to risk ping-ponging between that area for progression — the joke was on me though, because I couldn’t find plasma beam even after clearing out Chozodia. Turns out I had forgotten it in Kraid (lmao).
After that I tried a couple seeds with a “major/minor” item split. Unfortunately, unlike the other Metroid randomizers I’m familiar with, the energy tanks can’t be grouped with the major items, which, uh, makes the mode really boring. There aren’t very many major items, and their locations are relatively well clustered, so it’s really easy to mop them all up without second thought. And without slight tension having to worry if their an energy tank or not, or if one of them if way off in Chozodia, it’s like there’s nothing to the mode. I tried one seed with no early PBs and another with early PBs and I cleared them both in under an hour without any real friction or worry (counterpoint: that’s ZM for ya). Maybe this’d be more interesting in a race setting, but I’m still not sure of that.
In conclusion, while there may be something to be said about how suitable or not the original game was for randomization, randomizer design is game design.
At the very least, the palette randomizer can produce some interesting hue shifts:
11 Likes
been thinking about metroid dread and was finally able to put my tohughts into the right words on discord
samus returns is like, made by people who don’t understand metroid as a whole, REALLY don’t understand metroid 2, and who think they’re probably cool as fuck making their games that are so bland and flavorless
[12:45 AM]
and there is no joy in the core, because they dont care about metroid 2, and there is no joy ina nything because the game team just sucks at all aspects of their job, and there is no joy to be found in playing the game because they’re bad at making it
[12:45 AM]
its ugly, sounds bad, and plays bad
[12:45 AM]
they fuck up the plot so royally
[12:45 AM]
just utterly fails at everyhting that makes a game a game
[12:45 AM]
i understand if you wanna play to sate some curiosity
[12:46 AM]
but i just think it’s worth it to never think about it
[12:46 AM]
personally
[12:46 AM]
sorry, im very passionate about how much this game sucks
[12:47 AM]
one of my absolute favorite things is in the hands of hacks who dont deserve to be anywhere near it, and im upset
[12:48 AM]
theyre even creating the next piece of the story that ive been looking forward to for years, and tht makes me very sad
[12:48 AM]
i have to give up on something i loved until theyre disgusting hands are awayy from it
little intense at the end, but honestly, i hope metroid dread bombs and kills the franchise so mercurysteam goes away
4 Likes
the shifts in the middle row are very pleasing to the eye and i love the green samus very much
I am fascinated by your passion, thank you!
I wonder how many are excited just for “Dread,” however unearned, like it’s Shenmue 3, The Last Guardian, etc.
I have almost no interest in something titled “Metroid Prime 4” because it implies continuing what was clearly ended in 3, but Metroid 5 with a new funky suit and movement evokes Fusion in my mind.
I completely believe MercurySteam are mediocre based on the Lords of Shadow 3DS game I… rented from GameFly?
2 Likes
I mean, if they can go from Lords of Shadow to this, I’m betting they are going to be around for a long time, ugh.
I feel like Mercury Steam are pretty decent at art direction but nothing else? Also funny that they have gotten to work on both Metroid and Vania but not really clicked with either.
1 Like
The thing is they definitely learned from the problems of Returns in the gameplay vids I watched, and I almost, almost, liked Returns.
And like, other M already exists. Nintendo has already made a Metroid game that had a direction for Samus as a character that pissed me off to a degree I had never thought possible.
There isn’t anywhere to go but up really, and if this isn’t great I still have the Metroid games I love, they won’t be harmed by this existing, but I’m curious to see what happens.
3 Likes
all the existence of Dread does is make me wanna play fusion again and maybe hack the more disgusting parts of the dialogue out of it
samus is dead long live samus
go play vitality y’all
1 Like