So Long, My Wii — Now Playing: ?

ccesarano wrote:

I've heard people complain that 12 hour games are short. I say screw that. A game shouldn't overstay its welcome.

This is why I thought Overlord: Dark Legend was the best in the franchise. It was done in 8 hours, and actually kinda felt like it ended a bit too early story-wise.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I've heard people complain that 12 hour games are short. I say screw that. A game shouldn't overstay its welcome.

This is why I thought Overlord: Dark Legend was the best in the franchise. It was done in 8 hours, and actually kinda felt like it ended a bit too early story-wise.

I never felt that Overlord 1 or 2 were too long, despite being over 20 hours each, but then I think those games are the bees knees. Along with Pikmin style games in general. Pikmin 3 is the only thing I am unreservedly excited for on Wii U).

I am however firmly in the "Longer is not better" camp. Long games are fine if they feel legimately long, rather than padded, but give me an amazing short game over a padded out long game any day. That's actually one reason that, despite loving RPGs, I wish RPGs mechanics weren't so prolific (in "real / full" RPGs and in "Whatever + RPGs"). Too often, the pacing is off, and I'm not allowed to continue because I need to go grind.

At the risk of bringing the wrath of Stele, one of the things that Other M did really well was to give you a well-paced run through the storyline and then an epilogue where you went back to collect the rest of the items (with tougher enemies, new areas, and an epic bonus boss battle). There wasn't that weird disconnect where you're in a race against time to stop something major from happening but just need to grab a few more doodads first, and there wasn't a lot of extraneous story content.

Of course, part of the way the designers accomplished this was to close areas behind you in order to keep driving you forward. This pissed off a lot of Metroid fans who felt like the world had been closed off arbitrarily. Just one of many ways that game pissed off fans.

Oh, you mean like Final Fantasy XIII?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

At the risk of bringing the wrath of Stele, one of the things that Other M did really well was to give you a well-paced run through the storyline and then an epilogue where you went back to collect the rest of the items (with tougher enemies, new areas, and an epic bonus boss battle). There wasn't that weird disconnect where you're in a race against time to stop something major from happening but just need to grab a few more doodads first, and there wasn't a lot of extraneous story content.

Of course, part of the way the designers accomplished this was to close areas behind you in order to keep driving you forward. This pissed off a lot of Metroid fans who felt like the world had been closed off arbitrarily. Just one of many ways that game pissed off fans. :)

That reminds me, I really need to get to Other M. Being a big Metroid fan is probably why I didn't get it right away: I was worried that Team Ninja was going to screw up the game. I still have reservations about the story, but I guess I can look past them if the mechanics are still there.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Of course, part of the way the designers accomplished this was to close areas behind you in order to keep driving you forward. This pissed off a lot of Metroid fans who felt like the world had been closed off arbitrarily. Just one of many ways that game pissed off fans. :)

So just like Metroid Fusion (which didn't actually close stuff off, but had an immense pressure that you were racing against time)?

Garden Ninja wrote:

That reminds me, I really need to get to Other M. Being a big Metroid fan is probably why I didn't get it right away: I was worried that Team Ninja was going to screw up the game. I still have reservations about the story, but I guess I can look past them if the mechanics are still there.

I still have Other M in shrinkwrap, but that's mostly because I wanted to get through Prime 2 and 3 before hitting that. Really need to play it at this point since people here talk about it positively enough, and it's not like Nintendo is really itching to make a new Metroid game any time soon

shoptroll wrote:

So just like Metroid Fusion (which didn't actually close stuff off, but had an immense pressure that you were racing against time)?

If I recall correctly, Fusion actually does close stuff off behind you, but it's excused a bit better by the storyline. Other M just suddenly throws up doors that can't be opened; Fusion uses things like power outages and destroyed equipment to justify things becoming inaccessible.

shoptroll wrote:

I still have Other M in shrinkwrap, but that's mostly because I wanted to get through Prime 2 and 3 before hitting that.

I've been thinking about booting Other M back up for a bit after I finish Prime 2. The thing about it is that it's a very different experience. The Prime games (especially the first and third) feel like an attempt to recreate Super Metroid in a 3D space, while Other M is more focusing on expanding the ideas laid out in Fusion. There's some overlap there, certainly, but the design goals and execution are different.

Yeah, by the end of Overlord 1, I had wandered around being lost and trying to do things I thought took too long for 30 hours + 7 for the expansion. I think 2 started to wear on me with the mouse randomly losing button responsiveness. I would get the minions stuck in sweeping mode or something. It's a shame because I remember the controls feeling better than the first. But I still felt like each section was a bit longer than it needed to be for whatever reason.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The Prime games (especially the first and third) feel like an attempt to recreate Super Metroid in a 3D space

Can't vouch for Corruption, but I definitely thought the same about Prime when I played it.

Metroid Fusion reaches a point of no return after you get the power bomb, which confuses the Hell out of me since the power bomb is necessary to open a bunch of stuff up. It's not very long so I thought about going through it again after beating it recently (whoo GBA Ambassador and all that stuff), but I just don't like Fusion enough to do it so soon (especially since I hated it after I first played it in high school).

Other M is actually really fun, but a lot of purists were hoping for more Super Metroid I think. I don't disagree with them, but I think we gained a lot of awesomeness out of Other M because of its attempts to be just different enough. It is certainly worth a play through, especially since by now everyone is aware of what to expect (terrible story that basically claims the Prime series wasn't canonical with all these little details (like claiming Space Pirates are Zebesians when you visit the very different Space Pirate homeworld in Prime 3, and then claiming they are pretty mindless without a Motherbrain when the entire Prime series has proven differently), waiting for upgrades to unlock instead of discovering them, etc.).

I think with the Prime series and the resulting Other M, you can see Nintendo (maybe) pushing Retro to have a more story-oriented game franchise, with Other M fully realizing that. That's my guess based on what co-creator wrote with Other M and his complete dismissal of Prime, but I cannot do more than put words in someone's mouth.

I think Nintendo is trying to figure out what to do with Metroid now, especially on the Wii-U, but I do hope to see a Team Ninja developed game in the style of Other M on the 3DS.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Being a big Metroid fan...

Yeeeeeeees?

Garden Ninja wrote:

I really need to get to Other M.

No.

Sorry, I'm not going to get all trollish on that game again in this thread. I'll let Stele do that for me

I'm guessing they'll just shove Prime into it's own canon as a "What If" scenario and continue on their merry way. From what I've played of Prime series so far, it could easily exist as a divergent tale stemming from the same origin story. The whole Phazon arc in Prime seemed like an alternate take on the evolutionary changes in Metroids that were touched on in Metroid II (and called back in Fusion).

shoptroll wrote:

I'm guessing they'll just shove Prime into it's own canon as a "What If" scenario and continue on their merry way. From what I've played of Prime series so far, it could easily exist as a divergent tale stemming from the same origin story. The whole Phazon arc in Prime seemed like an alternate take on the evolutionary changes in Metroids that were touched on in Metroid II (and called back in Fusion).

Split timeline ala Zelda Hyrule Historia?

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Split timeline ala Zelda Hyrule Historia?

I hope not nearly that convoluted. I'm thinking more the way they've handled the various Mario platforming franchises, or to a lesser degree comic book style re-imaginings of characters + events. Basically, a shared origin story, but separate canons, unless Other M makes some reference back to the events of Prime series (which was supposed to take place between Metroid and Metroid II I think). Not sure where Other M falls in the timeline.

Trying to think if there's any better/similar examples to what I'm thinking....

EDIT: Would probably help if I was actually current on the franchise instead of behind by 3 games

mrtomaytohead wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

I'm guessing they'll just shove Prime into it's own canon as a "What If" scenario and continue on their merry way. From what I've played of Prime series so far, it could easily exist as a divergent tale stemming from the same origin story. The whole Phazon arc in Prime seemed like an alternate take on the evolutionary changes in Metroids that were touched on in Metroid II (and called back in Fusion).

Split timeline ala Zelda Hyrule Historia?

Hrm. On one hand, that WOULD get rid of my one big gripe about the Metroid Prime series, which is that I can buy into Prime 1 taking place between Metroid and Metroid II. But the events of all three and then FINALLY Samus is like "Okay, maybe wiping these things out would be a good idea"? Egh, just seemed like way too much squeezed in between two games when it was suggested that after seeing the initial potential threat Samus was like "Right, these f*ckers gotta go".

I could buy into Samus waiting until seeing the Metroid Prime transformed by Phazon. Can't see waiting until the end of Corruption and then being all "Well, now that I got a free minute, guess I'll go commit genocide".

But truth told, split timelines just....God, they piss me off. I really liked it better when I could easily say "the Zelda games aren't related, they're all just alternate versions of the same story". I liked that better than a confusing muddled timeline.

EDIT:

unless Other M makes some reference back to the events of Prime series (which was supposed to take place between Metroid and Metroid II I think). Not sure where Other M falls in the timeline.

Metroid Other M is before Fusion I believe, as Samus still has her outfit. Truth told, though, Other M could just as easily be a remake of Fusion since it essentially hits all the same basic story beats.

It doesn't call out the Prime series at all, but as stated earlier, there are issues of continuity. Samus claims that the "Zebesians" (I don't remember if she even refers to them as Space Pirates) are mindless creatures without the Mother Brain, which contradicts everything about them established in Prime. There is even a log in Prime where the Space Pirates are discussing the loss of their beloved Mother Brain and are planning vengeance.

It's basically like the co-creator whose name I always forget just waved whatever Retro did with the Space Pirates in Prime away and did his own thing. It just stinks of disrespect in my mind, especially seeing as the Prime series actually developed the Pirates as a race. An oddly large one for being space pirates, but a race nonetheless.

I've also always been of the idea that Zebes was once a Chozo planet that the Space Pirates occupied the old ruins of, but there may have been some comic released in Japan that was established as official canon that goes against that notion.

Now that I think about it, Metroid may need a reboot.

If the Space Pirates were mindless without Mother Brain, how would they have rebuilt her for Super Metroid? O-o

EDIT: Blizzard had to handwave their way out of a similar issue in Starcraft. So ummm, authorial hand wave, I guess?

ccesarano wrote:

Now that I think about it, Metroid may need a reboot.

How about a storyline based on Prometheus?

I'd rather not.

I wish it weren't such a trend these days to go with reboots, but I feel like Metroid, or even Zelda, could really use one for the sake of cleaning up the continuity. But I feel like if such a thing were to be done it would be like Mark Millar's Ultimate X-men, which was God awful.

I think the problem here isn't with the story but with worrying about the continuity of video games made across the span of a quarter century.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I think the problem here isn't with the story but with worrying about the continuity of video games made across the span of a quarter century.

This, so much. Didn't konami try to straighten out the castlevania continuity in a fit of craziness?

As I said about Zelda, though, I was completely fine with that one being separate stories that had nothing to do with each other. Now the split timelines makes it as confusing as trying to figure out the backstory to Spider-man.

Metroid sort of shot itself in the foot, or at least based on Nintendo's insistence to keep the Metroid in every game simply because it's in the series title (with the exception of Hunters). Samus literally wiped them to extinction save for one, and that lone Metroid was used to try and create inferior clones (they were call Metoids, I believe?). Three games in and you've lost the title creature. So Nintendo keeps trying to bring the Metroid creature back, which is going to just clog up continuity with all this stuff Samus did between Metroid 1 and 2 or keep bringing them back by cloning DNA.

Either Metroid needs a reboot or Nintendo needs to be willing to make a game without the actual Metroid.

I have never thought about the story of Metroid once.

SixteenBlue wrote:

I have never thought about the story of Metroid once.

Well it's certainly no Wipeout backstory... /idlethumbs

ccesarano wrote:

Either Metroid needs a reboot or Nintendo needs to be willing to make a game without the actual Metroid.

I making a Metroid sans Metroids game is what they need to go for frankly. I play Metroid for the style of gameplay. I like stories in games, so it's cool that they are trying but if they need to bend this far over backwards to get there, maybe that should be a hint. I want a metroidvania from Nintendo but it doesn't necessarily have to be a Metroid.

I do enjoy the fiction, even if they have mangled it at this point, so maybe come at it with a character other than Samus. Explore an earlier spot in history, say as a Chozo warrior during the time they created the Metroids to battle the X (and how it all went horribly wrong). Or explore a different spot of that universe. Certainly Samus isn't the Space Pirates' only enemy.

This particular fiction isn't even critical. Come up with something new. The last dozen Castlevania have been doing a similar style of gameplay with its own fiction, and Shadow Complex was a pretty sweet take on the Super Metroid formula.

My Bluetooth dongle finally showed up in the mail today, so I'll be able to play some Skyward Sword on my PC tonight! I'm excited to get back to the game, finally, although I'm a little apprehensive about getting frustrated. I suppose I can just quicksave now.

Garden Ninja wrote:

I do enjoy the fiction, even if they have mangled it at this point, so maybe come at it with a character other than Samus. Explore an earlier spot in history, say as a Chozo warrior during the time they created the Metroids to battle the X (and how it all went horribly wrong). Or explore a different spot of that universe. Certainly Samus isn't the Space Pirates' only enemy.

Hell, playing as another character in the universe could also allow for new equipment and upgrades that could break from the norm of the typical Metroid universe. People love and complain about how Samus constantly loses her powers and such. How about a character that manages to snag a prototype suit attempting to replicate Samus Aran's abilities without actually being capable of all the same things? Maybe they couldn't perfect morph ball technology (I know, Metroid without a morph ball? That's more heathenistic than Metroid without a Metroid!), but they were able to replicate the Spider Ball magnetics and thus allow more exploration walking on certain surfaces defying gravity. Or perhaps you cannot sustain the screw attack but it can now launch you a great distance, and by ping-ponging across different surfaces you can sustain the energy burst.

I'm just brainstorming here, but it seems like the Metroid universe is ripe to be expanded beyond the Metroids and Samus Aran. This is certainly what Retro was trying to do in Echoes and Corruption (and whoever was in charge of Hunters). Why not build an actual universe instead of focusing on select characters? I mean, let's face it, in the stable of memorable Nintendo characters Samus is up there, but she is no Mario. It may be time to let the poor woman retire.

Ooh! Ooh! Fusion! Samus gets her DNA mingled with Metroid DNA! Imagine what her child (like maybe a daughter) could be like!

Here, let's see what kind of games we can do with this concept.

- Play as Samus Aran's daughter using a combination of her mother's old equipment and her new innate abilities (?) to be a bad ass.

- Play as an older Samus Aran trying to rescue her daughter from a captor (Space Pirates? Galactic Federation?) that would try to weaponize her child.

- Play as an even older Samus Aran forced to hunt down her own daughter that has chosen to use her powers for evil.

- Play as Samus Aran's daughter, sent by her mother or having snuck her way to an old Chozo Ruin, the "rite of passage" to earn the armor, so to speak, that Samus herself went through (and we never explored because that's a much more interesting history than enlisting in the Galactic Federation even though you already have better training and equipment than any of those soldiers because CHOZO muddah-fuggah)

The idea of playing an older, retired or retiring Samus Aran somehow excites me much more than playing an old version of any other iconic character like Ezio or Snake.

ccesarano wrote:

Ooh! Ooh! Fusion! Samus gets her DNA mingled with Metroid DNA! Imagine what her child (like maybe a daughter) could be like!

Yes! A stupid giddy grin is creeping across my face. So many possibilities! Is there a father? (I guess "Metroid DNA" is hand waving enough to allow some form of asexual reproduction?)

Metroid Prime 2 actually comes close to being a Metroid game without Metroids. They're in there, yes, but they're only barely connected to the plot. I'm not even sure why there are space pirates in the game at all except as a hook to get Samus onto Aether (which they could have accomplished just fine with the whole bounty hunter angle).

The Metroids are just another variety of enemy, and they aren't even all that tough or scary. If the game wants to really intimidate you, it makes you fight a big-ass Ing mech or a group of Ing warriors. I'm totally content with that and with the Metroids being side characters in their own franchise.

One of the games in my to-play list, Disney's Guilty Party is currently $9.99 with fulfillment by Amazon (you might have to click through to other offers to see it). I still haven't had an opportunity to play it myself, but it's been recommended to me by a number of people whose taste I trust. In the spirit of using this thread to promote good Wii gaming, I encourage you all to give it a look.

Would this link be more helpful? The top listing is $9.99 and has Amazon Prime attached, which means I'm getting myself a new Wii game today you filthy, filthy enabler you.

I remember seeing this game being played at E3, and it was certainly of great interest. So nabbing the cheap price. I might move onto it after Dishonored as a way to cleanse the palette before Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

EDIT: It seems GWJ automatically changes the link. So to help folks out that may be interested, look beneath the price where it says "Want it delivered by XX date?", and you'll see tiny tiny font noting people have it cheaper new or used.

ccesarano wrote:

It seems GWJ automatically changes the link. So to help folks out that may be interested, look beneath the price where it says "Want it delivered by XX date?", and you'll see tiny tiny font noting people have it cheaper new or used.

Yeah, that's the problem I was running into. Let me know what you think of the game. I can't afford it right now, so I'm hoping the deal lasts until I can. Always happy to enable folks on Wii games!