This. Although I would be gutted to be playing ‘the last great 2d Metroid’, regardless of how good it is.

The first thought I had on the isolation aspect of Samus Aran, was that in Metroid 2 she’s so alone, her only friend to make is a baby metroid. Or in other games, the Chozo statues are a link to some long-lost vital force, a definite alien-other, and yet beneficial. (Although didn’t Chozos give her the suit or something? Have to dig out some manuals…)

Nintendo continues to make and publish very high-quality 2D platformer games. Retro’s Donkey Kong Country Returns is an absolutely fantastic action-platformer, with attendent difficulty and interesting level design. If they could just please, get their shit together and make the last great 2D Metroid adventure-platformer… we can be done here.

Absolutely true. This is generally true of all 2D enterprises, however. The advantage has definitively shifted to smaller developers who are creating things like Axiom Verge, Guacamelee, and the forthcoming Bloodstained: Ritual of the Knight. Developers of these titles are producing the quality adventure-exploration-platforming games for which gamers yearn and, in 3D sphere exploration titles like No Man’s Sky, are eroding the influence once exerted by the Metroid Prime series.

My suspicion is that Nintendo has been avoiding the series not because it is too difficult come up with a new idea for the series, but because the series is their highest profile hardcore series in the roster.

I don’t believe this to be the case at all. As Nintendo has demonstrated with several of their recent 2D Mario titles, they have no problem releasing games with proper difficulty. I suspect that the reality is far more prosaic: they simply don’t have the talent to make a proper Metroid game. Additionally, they have been hurt by farming the franchise out, so they are suspicious of whether anyone else can do the series justice.

That is why they are producing a mobile mini-game-style multiplayer Metroid party game. The similarities between Federation Force and the Metroid minigame in Wii Party U should not be lost on fans of the series. As Nintendo leans upon this pillar of development (insofar as shitty party minigames can be called a pillar of development), they become less and less capable of reliably producing anything else. More and more Nintendo games are inclining towards iPhone-style cheap-and-cheerful crap, rather than actual games. Expect this ‘crap creep’ to continue as Nintendo shifts more resources towards that style of development, and away from the larger-scale development necessary to produce a Mario Galaxy or proper Metroid experience.

Are you a Metroid fan? Did Prime show you a good time, or are you a 2D purist?
There are fewer more devoted Metroid fans than I am–and I found Prime a very fulfilling and brilliant experience. Its sequels, however, were decidedly un-Metroid-like, as they continued to try and shove more and more NPCs into the Metroid universe.

A very important part of the Metroid series of Samus’ isolation. It is the necessity of her self-reliance which adds a vital dimensions to the player’s understanding of the game world. As soon as there are other characters for her to talk to, that sense of isolation is destroyed, and the vastness and smallness of Samus, confronted with obstacles, is greatly diminished. It is for this reason that a game like Super Metroid, although quite small in point of fact, feels much, much larger than, say, Metroid Prime 3. In Super Metroid, Samus is alone on a huge and unknown alien world, groping in the dark, with no-one upon whom she may rely. This makes the experience much more potent. But in MP3 there are Captains and Federation boobies, there are humanoid nemeses, there are transmissions–it is an experience constantly punctuated by the reminder that help is just over the hill. And, although (gameplay-wise) that help will never come, the constant inclusion of these story prompts absolutely undermines the sense of absolute isolation and smallness which is so central to the experience.

In short: Nintendo seems to have forgotten exactly how to make a Metroid game and, of late, has erred on the side of putting in everything. The reality is quite the opposite. To make a Metroid game, one must take out that which is unnecessary. A real Metroid experience is founded in simplicity: the player-as-Samus, and her exploration of/navigation through/struggle with the enviornment. No other characters are necessary; no complex story; no lengthy confessionals. Simplicity will save the Metroid series, if the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink expansionism doesn’t kill it first.

And I’d rather have a 2D Metroid game any day. Metroid Prime was a brilliant experience, but it is by no means the ‘definitive’ Metroid experience and it is unlikely that lightning will strike twice, especially considering where the 3D Metroid storylines have gone (which is to say wrong).