In a modern context, I’d say the interface-focus of Objects in Space is flavorful; it’s a departure from expectations and frames the game around surprising presentation. Part of the aesthetic flavor then is retro-themed, a computer-specific memory context.
Duskers seems like a similar case:
Maybe Adam Saltsman’s Capsule is the extreme edge of this? It’s graphical but intentionally abstract from the world it represents:
And, hey, they care enough that they even tried to get you off the ship and onto space stations! Elite casts it outside its core and irrelevant to the base astronomical geography core.
I played Objects in Space at PAX one year on this big honkin custom console/controller with all kinds of satisfying clicky pushy buttons and blinkenlights, that was literally the only thing I can remember about that whole trip to the convention. That’s probably the reason I’d buy it, to build a fancy controller for it and never finish
It starts out fine, but the reaction based combat system becomes a real chore about halfway through the game. If the entire game wasn’t built on backtracking, it probably would have been fine.
It also goes without saying the story and vibe are completely off as a remake of Metroid II. Much more like a bland Super Metroid riff than an actual remake.
Still I 100% cleared it. The first half had me going ‘this is pretty good!’ and the tedium took a while to set in.
As much as I suspect I am The Super Metroid Apologist, I do feel like using it as the start and end of the conversation happens too often when it comes to action adventure games.
Like an Untitled Story and Knytt, Blaster Master and from the look of things, Hollow Knight do some stuff different but are still big games about figuring out and exploring worlds.
Metroid II is a really interesting game because it takes a lot of the ideas of Metroid, reconfigured and recontextualises the ideas, and goes some different places.
And I say this as a person who would adore a new game with a similar structure to Super Metroid but refined even further.
And plus in this case it’s a remake of Metroid II. I’d love to see a super tense, freaky, dark journey remixed with some new ideas. But Returns feels pretty homogenous and like a thousand other games like it lacking in more than one new idea.
For me it boils down to Samus Aran, in a place like this, doing these same things. It’s tired.
Maybe EU isn’t the best term; what I’m talking about is extending the reasons, the settings, the cultures, the environments. The tech, the moves. That’s why I like a lot of the later Prime stuff that at least feels different in 3D.
Return to less narrative even, that’s probably ideal.
Ah, I think we’re not actually disagreeing. When I hear extended universe I think of the steady accretion of Canon through comics, narrative delivered in games. The work of Other M, the plaque that eventually chokes something dry.
But an argument for loose tales spinning out without regard for the past, the freedom to build, while holding onto a few carefully chosen and interpreted icons – yes. And furthermore it’s how I believe all iconic pop culture should be handled. It’s why I instinctively recoil at the attempts to sort and order Zelda games that literal-minded fans insist on (and Nintendo has been canny enough to largely ignore).
I replayed Metroid Prime recently and was impressed by how well it’s held up. I still feel like it’s be a fun VR game. Lowkey hoping that nintendo will release a switch port alongside the LABO VR thing.
hoping against my better judgement that 4 is actually good
Same, and my thoughts here also hoping it doesn’t actually deal much with the titular Metroid Prime or Phazon directly - both are literally done!
@BustedAstromech Yeah I think the term came naturally to me because, the setting is directly known as part of a universal scale and I’d like to see the foundation extended beyond those primary icons, even as they need to keep a good hold on 'em.
Ok this is too far down the line of transcendence but imagine Samus post-Fusion starting to reach Chozo levels of interdimensional being, suddenly you have a 3rd person exploration of “newly” alien and hostile environments, mechanics, concepts. Even a step in this direction would be interesting, faithful, and in spirit.
I’d love to see Metroid dip into '70s psychedelic sci-fi. Or any game, really.
Nintendo seems a weird company to pull it off but they’ve surprised us before, and with how influential prog rock was among Japanese game devs? It’s a great fit.
A lot of the mid 80’s Metroid 1 art already happens to lean back in this vein just a bit! And there’s a lot of definition with the powersuit so far as a bio-mechanical thing. If they could find a balance with the sleeker, smoother Samus (again looking more organic now with the Fusion suit) and get confident with a grittier pulpier scenario than usual, that sounds real raw and new -> old school.
Oh shi- RETRO Studios (someone’s here listening right???)
i actually read a really good fanfic the other week that dealt with Samus as like, a genetic splice of so many different species that ‘human’ is just a distant memory
also she’s girlfriends with Alucard
and they fuck
part 2 contains the meat of what i’m talking about but the whole thing’s worth a read imo. check the tags though
“I’m not separate from any of it. I never want to separate myself from it, either. The Chozo, the Metroids, the X - everything I’ve ever loved, everything I’ve ever killed, it’s all a part of me. I carry it with me. I feel everything. There’s nothing else I could do in the face of what I’ve done.”
Alucard reached up to scratch the back of her neck, just under her close-cropped plumage. Samus took a deep breath and leaned back into it.
“I’m not human. I missed my chance on it. Every step I take and every being they splice me with takes me further from it and I don’t care. I like it this way. But I still love them, you know?”
"I fucking know."
“That’s why I did it. So I could love them, and keep loving them. There was no other way.”
EDIT: ok also this excerpt from part 3 is a really good character insight/reflection on the consistent body horror themes in the series
The bounty hunter cocked a bittersweet smile. “I’m already tainted, dove. I’ve been through that and every time I’ve come out the other side. I’m still here.”
“What, with the X?”
“It’s the X, it’s Phazon, it’s every shadowy painful impulse of my psyche dredged up and manifested by the next mutagen that gets through my suit.”
“Yeah?”
Samus kissed the top of her head softly, stroking her hair. “I’ve done things I can’t reconcile with being a good person,” she said. “I’ve killed living planets. I’m the one they send in when they’re contemplating a sin so massive they can’t even name it because the alternative is annihilation. Because what’s one more for me, right? I can’t reconcile it. But I can keep moving, and keep trying to be the person my family believed I could be.”
“Your family…”
“Whatever you’ve done in the name of stopping your father, I guarantee you I have done worse in the name of protecting everyone in the Federation. You literally haven’t had the industrial capacity or scale of opportunity to do what I’ve done.”
I dunno if I can ever force myself to finish Samus Returns (made it to the last boss and bounced). The counter thing is fun at first, but it very quickly becomes The Main Mechanic and, occasionally, The Only Mechanic for beating enemies.
So if you like waiting for enemies to do their one attack so you can counter and actually do damage to them, well, I guess it’s OK.
i just can’t get past the audacity of remaking metroid 2 as a colorful 3ds-AAA melee-counterattacking thing, i don’t think i could ever play through it
Trying to find the name of a japan only ps1 mech game it was third person and you could boost around and it had a training stage where you had to like go thru red gates or something