I know that you have 100+ e-mails to go through. But you know that you made one infuriating flame-bait of a comment in your last post that is sure to prompt many more angry e-mails your way:
“(So does the Metroid game, btw. They cannot honestly think Metroid Manga is going to outsell Metroid Prime. It sounds like some developer in Japan has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.”
This is the sort of ignorant hateful garbage I’d expect to find in a flame war at GameFAQs not here. Not at Malstrom’s blog, the haven of sophistication and hangout for the anti-hardcore. I’ll be quick about this, so listen up as I dissect everything that is wrong about these statements:
“They cannot honestly think Metroid Manga is going to outsell Metroid Prime.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up just a bit there! Hatred for anime art styles and preference towards mature, realistic, Americanized depictions of Japanese properties? Shall we start calling Malstrom the Hardcore now or wait until you resume posting? I can’t fathom what would make you want to write such an ignorant statement. If Metroid: Other M has even a hint of anime/manga styling to it it is not nearly as drenched in that style as Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission or any other 2D Metroid game for that matter. Do your homework, fool! Your thinly-veiled attack on the style of this new Metroid game while trumping that of Prime only shows what an ignorant hypocrite you are.
You whine about how Mario has lost it’s way but complain when Samus finds hers! Look, I’ll give you this: the Metroid Prime series are very well made games, and certainly made Nintendo a lot of money. But not even the most ardent Metroid fan is complaining about this move back to 2D. There is a sense of acrobatic movement that could not be captured in the 3D first person shooter games, and the way everyone but you seems to see it is that a move back to 2D can only be a move in the right direction! EVERYONE loves Super Metroid, and if they were only making this game for themselves they wouldn’t be making it a direct sequel to Super Metroid (which it is!). You are way, way, WAY
off the mark here and this point I can only imagine you’re saying these things because you want your readers to hate you. I’ll go with that presumption instead of the alternative which is that you have
lost your mind.
“It sounds like some developer in Japan has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.)”
That “some developer” is named Yoshio Sakamoto and has been the director of the Metroid (re: non-Prime) series since the beginning. The man is a goddamned Nintendo legend and director of what is still the highest-selling Metroid game, Super Metroid. Maybe Metroid SHOULD be what he wants it to be. I sure don’t see anyone complaining about the bug in Miyamoto’s ass everytime the Mario series changes direction!
But really, what do you think Metroid should be? A first-person shooter? Do you really want to go there, Malstrom? Do you want to the guy who preaches the evils of the hardcore and of how Nintendo needs to return Mario and Zelda to their roots but Metroid is just fine as an Americanized first-person shooter?
Please respond to this, even if it is in private. As a devoted fan of your writings I have to know if you’ve become the world’s hugest douchebag overnight or I am simply just mistaken
It amazes me that a few lines I wrote could create such a response. As a matter of respect, I will respond to you in full.
As a disclaimer, we don’t know too much about Other M aside from the trailer and some interviews. As Reggie said, “You can do anything on video.” We haven’t seen any gameplay footage. Other M could be the best thing since sliced bread. There is a huge difference between a game in trailer form or unreleased form and once it is in the customers’ hands. The bottom line, as always, is how customers respond once the game is in their hands.
Let us go through what you said to me:
I know that you have 100+ e-mails to go through. But you know that you made one infuriating flame-bait of a comment in your last post that is sure to prompt many more angry e-mails your way:
“(So does the Metroid game, btw. They cannot honestly think Metroid Manga is going to outsell Metroid Prime. It sounds like some developer in Japan has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.”
This is the sort of ignorant hateful garbage I’d expect to find in a flame war at GameFAQs not here. Not at Malstrom’s blog, the haven of sophistication and hangout for the anti-hardcore. I’ll be quick about this, so listen up as I dissect everything that is wrong about these statements:
I don’t see how those comments are ‘hateful’ in any sort of way. They seem rather milk toast to me. If I really wanted to create an incendiary bomb with words, I would have made something better. Instead of ‘ignorant garbage’, I thought they were quite on the mark.
“They cannot honestly think Metroid Manga is going to outsell Metroid Prime.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up just a bit there! Hatred for anime art styles and preference towards mature, realistic, Americanized depictions of Japanese properties?
Nicknaming Other M as ‘Metroid Manga’ isn’t hatred of Manga. People were nicknaming Other M as ‘Metroid Gaiden’ almost immediately after the trailer due to the Team Ninja being involved. They don’t hate Ninja Gaiden, do they?
I am nicknaming it ‘Metroid Manga’ because I think that is a more accurate direction where this game is going. I am not attacking manga. I just don’t think infusing Metroid with manga is the correct approach to making Metroid more popular.
Shall we start calling Malstrom the Hardcore now or wait until you resume posting? I can’t fathom what would make you want to write such an ignorant statement. If Metroid: Other M has even a hint of anime/manga styling to it it is not nearly as drenched in that style as Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission or any other 2D Metroid game for that matter. Do your homework, fool! Your thinly-veiled attack on the style of this new Metroid game while trumping that of Prime only shows what an ignorant hypocrite you are.
From my information (and this information could, very well, be wrong), Metroid Prime is the best selling Metroid game of them all. Metroid was never that popular. It was very much loved by those who played it, but it was always a cult favorite. Mario Madness and Zelda Madness erupted on the NES, not Metroid madness. Super Metroid was instantly forgotten among most SNES players once Donkey Kong Country came out. Metroid was never a mass market series.
When Metroid Prime came out, an explosion of interest occurred in Metroid. How much of it was real and how much of it was that people thought Nintendo made a Gamecube answer to Halo, I don’t know. But it was enough for Nintendo to buy Retro, green light several sequels as well as a couple of spin-offs (Metroid Prime Hunters and Metroid Prime Pinball). I’ve never seen Metroid get so much attention before!
In terms of impact among the market, it is going to be difficult for a Metroid to outdo Metroid Prime. I’ve noticed that many franchises seem to have a huge ‘splash’ when they transition to 3d (Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy 7, Ninja Gaiden Black, etc). In other words, that ‘surprise’ of old franchise updated to modern technology can be done only once. Now, that ‘surprise’ is gone.
You whine about how Mario has lost it’s way but complain when Samus finds hers!
It is not my opinion that Mario lost his way; it is a fact that can be demonstrated. Look at the popular impact and sales of the Mario games in the late 80s and early 90s, i.e. “Mario Madness”. Now look at Mario today. By every indicator, Mario has become less popular and less relevant as entertainment phenomena. Sunshine was likely the ‘bottom’ of this. NSMB DS as well as Mario Kart DS seem to be a turning around.
With Zelda, its peak clearly appears to be Ocarina of Time. However, making Zelda games that mimic Ocarina of Time is no longer entertaining to the customer base. Miyamoto says they must do something different. My suggestion was to look at the original Zelda since it not only had a massive entertainment impact, it sold to untraditional gamers like older adults which is what the Wii is trying to do today.
With Metroid, the peak of that series appears to have been Metroid Prime in terms of sales and excitement of entertainment phenomena. This doesn’t mean all Metroid games should be like Metroid Prime. I am only referencing Metroid Prime because it was the peak of the series among the customers.
Video games cost millions of dollars and years to make. Games are not green lit without thinking (OK, maybe they are). There has to be a reason why a game is being made. I am exploring why Nintendo decided to green light Other M as there was already a Metroid game on the Wii.
Look, I’ll give you this: the Metroid Prime series are very well made games, and certainly made Nintendo a lot of money. But not even the most ardent Metroid fan is complaining about this move back to 2D. There is a sense of acrobatic movement that could not be captured in the 3D first person shooter games, and the way everyone but you seems to see it is that a move back to 2D can only be a move in the right direction!
Who said Other M was going to be a 2d game? In fact, the developers appear to be dodging the question of how much the game will be in 2d or 3d. For all we know, the game will go back and forth between both. Until we have some gameplay videos, we really don’t know. I wouldn’t get your hopes up about it being a traditional 2d Metroid though.
EVERYONE loves Super Metroid,
This is ‘Internet conventional wisdom’. Super Metroid has aged extremely well, probably better than any other game I can think of. Super Metroid is more popular today than it was in 1994! But in terms of entertainment impact, Super Metroid ended up as as sort of a dud. It was only on the sales charts for a couple of months in 1994 until it dropped off completely. That Christmas was when Donkey Kong Country came out, and consumer interest never returned to the Super Metroid after that.
Usually when a franchise game is extremely popular, Nintendo makes sequels and spin-offs. After Super Metroid, the Metroid franchise went dormant. To me, this is an indication that the game wasn’t lighting any fires on a large scale at the time.
and if they were only making this game for themselves they wouldn’t be making it a direct sequel to Super Metroid (which it is!)
Other M is not going to be a direct sequel to Super Metroid. All we know is that the narrative takes place between Super Metroid and Fusion. This is a far cry from being a ‘direct sequel’. And if it was a direct sequel, the game should have been confirmed to be 2d by now. It hasn’t which tells me there are different plans for this game.
. You are way, way, WAY off the mark here and this point I can only imagine you’re saying these things because you want your readers to hate you. I’ll go with that presumption instead of the alternative which is that you have lost your mind.
Have you considered I am trying to look at this more from a business perspective than from the traditional fan perspective?
“It sounds like some developer in Japan has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.)”
That “some developer” is named Yoshio Sakamoto and has been the director of the Metroid (re: non-Prime) series since the beginning.
So you confirm I was accurate. Sakamoto is a Japanese developer who admits he has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.
The man is a goddamned Nintendo legend and director of what is still the highest-selling Metroid game, Super Metroid.
Super Metroid is not the highest-selling Metroid game. Not by far.
How much did it sell in Japan? 25,000 units? At least it had an interesting commercial:
Maybe Metroid SHOULD be what he wants it to be. I sure don’t see anyone complaining about the bug in Miyamoto’s ass everytime the Mario series changes direction!
Have you not been reading this site? I am one of the few people who actually have the balls to say that Miyamoto is wrong in his approach to certain games (especially his embrace to user generated content).
Sakamoto’s views on Metroid really don’t matter. You know whose views are more important than Sakamoto’s? Why, mine! As well as yours and other people. We are the customers and non-customers. It is our views that are going to determine whether Other M is a success or not, not Sakamoto’s.
Miyamoto’s views on what Mario or Zelda should be are also irrelevant. What matters are the customers’ views. If you ask Miyamoto this, I guarantee you that he will agree. The only reason why people are not ‘polled’ for what they want because it is ridiculous to ask: “What will surprise you?”
In entertainment success, one needs to analyze not only why a product fails but why a product succeeds. This is what Sakamoto recently said when talking to Kotaku:
Interviews about Mario and Zelda games with Nintendo developers typically focus on gameply, but story and character were what Sakamoto wanted to emphasize, noting how the game fits into the timeline between the Super Nintendo’s Super Metroid and the Game Boy Advance’s Metroid Fusion: “With Fusion, that game was very story-driven. In that game, I believe I was able to explain Samus as a character, as a person, not just somebody in armor. And I was not only explain Samus but the characters around her… with Super Metroid I showed, through her relationship with the baby Metroid, some of her maternal instincts. Between those two stories I feel I was able to explain Samus as a person. But because Metroid equals Samus, I’d like to develop her character further, as a soldier, as a human, also as a woman. That’s what they’re hoping to do with Other M.”
My honest reaction to reading this is: “Sakamoto does not understand why people like Metroid.” In his words, he says ‘Metroid equals Samus’ so, therefore, he assumes that exploring Samus’s character is expanding Metroid. He couldn’t be further from the truth. The original Metroid didn’t sell because people liked Samus. No one knew there was a girl in the armor of the original Metroid until they got the ‘special ending’ (which most people never saw). Samus wasn’t emphasized at all in Metroid II or Super Metroid or, of course, the Prime games. She was emphasized in Fusion and Fusion is one of the most disliked games of the series (the story, which was poor, framed a linear game).
Miyamoto made a mistake to think people played Mario games because they liked ‘Mario’. Actually, they just liked the games, and Mario happened to be in them. People were willingly playing platform games without Mario from Sonic to Donkey Kong Country.
I believe there is a type of “Creator’s Fog” that surrounds developers in how, and why, their games are played. The customer will be able to see the game more clearly than the developer. Unfortunately, the customer does not articulate why he is playing the game. So the best measurement is to judge the customers’ actions and ignore what they say.
I think Sakamoto is dead wrong to say people play Metroid because of story and because of Samus. Does anyone truly believe that people who played Super Metroid were thinking, “Oh wow! This game is awesome because Samus has maternal instincts!” I think ‘maternal instincts’ were the last things in the players’ minds.
Consider this interesting quip that Sakamoto says:
Retro, the Nintendo-owned, Texas-based team responsible for the well-reviewed 3D Metroid Prime games, two of which were out by then, was, curiously, not an option. “Retro has their own approach toward Metroid games,” Sakamoto said. “They had their own producer. Their approach to Metroid games has traditionally been the FPA — first person adventure — but my concept was kind of different than that and I was looking for a team that could bring my idea to life.”
Ahh, the producer! Sakamoto confirms that the producer tends to drive much of the direction of the game. Who was the producer of the early Metroid games? It was the amazingly talented Gunpei Yokoi. As far as I can tell, Sakamoto didn’t even have any part in Metroid II (which was one of the few Metroids that was not a remake of Metroid 1). Sakamoto’s Fusion and Zero Mission were not well received by the public (although it was well received on Metacritic as if that matters). With Fusion, Metroid fans complained about the ‘weird suit’ Samus was in and the linear nature of the game. With Zero Mission, well, the GBA release of 8-Metroid outsold Zero Mission (which included 8-bit Metroid as an unlockable!). This might explain why we have not seen any 2d Metroid lately.
Interesting note is the NES Metroid commercial featured below. Note how they ‘sell’ it? Samus, of course, isn’t even mentioned. The NES Metroid commercial is very interesting! Note how it shows the player actually playing the game instead of just game footage. Also, note that he is using the NES Advantage.
Back then, using the Advantage meant you were ‘elite’. Experienced gamers, back then, were joystick gamers. Using the Advantage in the commercial was not just advertising the joystick, it was saying that this game was ‘elite’. Fascinating are these old commercials!
But really, what do you think Metroid should be? A first-person shooter? Do you really want to go there, Malstrom?
We have a Metroid on the Wii and on the DS. It is time to give Metroid a break and let other series have their opportunity (or allow a new series to come out). I love Metroid, but I don’t want a bazillion Metroids coming out. I think it is good for series to have a rest from time to time.
Do you want to the guy who preaches the evils of the hardcore and of how Nintendo needs to return Mario and Zelda to their roots but Metroid is just fine as an Americanized first-person shooter?
Retro might be located in Texas, but it is run as a Japanese company. Prime was more of an adventure game than a first person shooter.
Hardcore games are lacking on the gameplay and tend to emphasize style and narrative. This is exactly how Other M is being presented… as a hardcore game. Other M is not a return of Metroid to its roots. It is taking it away from its roots. It is cramming a narrative and story into a Metroid game. I question whether this is what Metroid needs.
I’m still amazed that this game got green lit. There is already a Metroid Wii game. This game is already being presented as ‘hardcore’. And I seriously doubt Nintendo thinks this game will be a massive best seller (exceeding the original Metroid Prime for example). Customers aren’t demanding a Metroid Manga game. So why is this game being made?
The only conclusion I have, and the interviews confirm it, is vanity. Sakamoto wants to make this game in his image. Instead of wasting valuable Nintendo resources for this trip to developer vanity, it was a good move to utilize Team Ninja. I suppose the old warhorses that were making games of the NES era tend to have ‘their turn’ at some project that is entirely their own vision.
If anyone has any other theories, please feel free to make them. I am just guessing as to why Nintendo does what it does.
Please respond to this, even if it is in private. As a devoted fan of your writings I have to know if you’ve become the world’s hugest douchebag overnight or I am simply just mistaken
If I told you what you wanted to hear, or if I attempted to appease you or be dishonest to you, that would be a douchebag. Life is filled with many people like that especially politicians. I’m not trying to build a web empire, to gain hits, or make people like me. My goal is purely educational (for my education).
I don’t make comments about Metroid Manga to make anyone angry. I make comments because I think there are red flags signaling that this game is going the wrong direction. The game is very early. If it comes out and is the best thing ever, then I’m wrong. But from what I’ve seen so far and heard is the direction of this game (style and narrative), I do not think it will be successful.
Metroid M is not a spiritual sequel to Super Metroid. It is a spiritual sequel (or pre-quel) to Fusion. The game will be linear so Sakamoto can quench his cinema envy. We will get information about ‘Adam’ and the relationship between ‘Adam’ and Samus.
Metroid fans won’t give a damn about these stupid relationships. A soap opera is the last thing Metroid needs. Yet, that is where it appears Other M is headed.
Sakamoto just keeps yapping about his ‘vision’ and how amazing this ‘vision’ is and how it will not just transform Metroid, it will create a new video game genre! What I don’t hear Sakamoto mention are customers or fulfilling any customer expectations. It is like those don’t matter.
Fusion is one of the less popular games among Metroid fans. I don’t think anyone, including new users, will respond well to a spiritual prequel. I don’t think anyone really wants a Metroid Manga.
…although it did make a slick trailer.
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