Hello. I’ve just been reading your posts on Metroid: Other M. Excellent reading material, but there’s a couple of things that caught my eye in particular.
You mentioned that Metroid Zero Mission might have been created so that Sakamoto could re-define the game on his own terms (i.e. easier game, more focus on Samus Aran’s character, etc) and that Sakamoto was disdainful of
the Metroid Prime Trilogy, since had little involvement with it. Well, Sakamoto might have actually taken steps to diminish the Prime trilogy’s impact on the Metroid universe.
Let me explain. When Metroid Prime was originally released in North America, it was effectively stated that the final boss, Metroid Prime, came to Tallon IV in the meteorite that struck the planet. It looks very likely that Retro were originally planning to tie the Metroids’ origin to the sentient planet Phaaze (which appears at the end of Prime 3). This would not only have given the Metroids a much more epic and sinister origin, but it would have made the Prime trilogy an important part of the series, if not a direct continuation of the original Metroid games.
But when Sakamoto released Metroid Fusion (around the same time as Prime was released), he snuck in an extra plot detail in the instruction manual; the Chozo created the Metroids themselves to combat the X-Parasite. This point was never revealed in the game, was never an important part of Fusion’s plot, and so naturally, Retro had no idea of this development until Fusion’s release. And when they did discover it, they were forced to rewrite Prime’s plot for the international release (and all versions of Metroid Prime Trilogy) in order to avoid continuity issues with Fusion. The rewritten script no longer references Metroid Prime arriving in the meteorite, and I presume it’s now supposed to come from the Tallon IV Chozo.
So now the Metroid Prime Trilogy has a less important “sub-series” status within the Metroid series storyline, and it’s all thanks to Sakamoto. Co-incidence? Possibly…
This is interesting. If game journalism actually existed, this would be a fruitful field for a game journalist to perform a story. Sakamoto recently admitted in an interview that the purpose of Other M was to establish a story so others wouldn’t do something ‘differently’.
Sakamoto was in charge of aligning the lore during the original Metroid Prime to the previous Metroid games. This was his only real role in Metroid Prime. Retro would be unable to declare or hint at the origin of Metroids without Sakamoto’s approval. There is certainly a story here and a brave journalist should ask Sakamoto directly. It was his responsibility after all to keep all the lore of Metroid consistent.
Nintendo franchises have a relationship to mythology and is the true reason why the content endures. Metroid is very similar to Meteoroid which comes from Greek “meteōros” or “high in the air”. Even Samus Aran has mythological roots though I can find no equivalents of in Eastern mythology (more on this later).
There is a reason why I reject ‘Game God’ism and say there is a teleological view, a reason found in nature or human nature, why something is popular. Retro, of the West, appeared to understand that relationship better. This might be why they were linking Metroids to meteoroids, Samus Aran as a Boba Fett type of character. Just looking at Zelda, one will easily say that it is reminiscent of some Celtic Fantasy or something with the young man and his magical sword to save the world. When Nintendo stays true to that, success happens such as Ocarina of Time. When a ‘game god’ decides to abuse his position and dump his own ‘vision’ into the game, we end up with strange stuff like trains in Zelda. They clearly don’t fit in the game, but why? Unstated, we sense it is breaking the mythic base of the game.
Sakamoto probably really believes he is a ‘creative god’ which is the scary thing. I can’t see how anyone could think Sakamoto games have a good storyline.