A Title Card vs Six Teraflops: How Metroid Stole Microsoft’s Thunder

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The smallest tease from Nintendo was enough for Twitter to lose its shit.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/a-title-card-vs-six-teraflops-how-metroid-stole-microsofts-thunder
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Comparing something we all knew was coming and had very little in terms of expectations for vs the announcement from left field of a sequel to a beloved series who’s fans have been waiting just about 10 years and all but given up hope for is really an unfair comparison.

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“It’s like comparing XBoxes to Metroids” is my new “apples to oranges.”

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Like, Nintendo announced nothing other then a thing exists and is being made, the fact that that’s had a bigger impact says more about the people getting excited then anything else. That’s not to say being excited about a new metroid is bad per say but neither announcement was all that exciting if you weren’t already sold on the thing to begin with.

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I don’t know what E3 did to Mike Diver but I’m sure as hell gonna need a lore check on that

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I think he writing things out of gut reaction and not having some time to think about it. He does have a point on how simple the Metroid reveal is compare the Microsoft’s lengthy talk on specs.

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I don’t get the point of this article in general. It really is an apples and oranges comparison like @Gary_of_Nivea mentioned. It isn’t exactly shocking that a new Metroid announcement, which is a sequel to a beloved franchise, overshadowed talk about the specs and price, not even a console reveal, for an incremental upgrade to the Xbox One. Isn’t it obvious that would happen with Nintendo’s fanbase?

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After years of people saying that they want to actually see the real games, see what’s coming soon not some “target render” or bullshots of something that’s not even far enough along to have solidified as a design yet…

everyone seems to be getting the most hyped about logos for games with no idea of who is even working on them, CGI trailers for games without any gameplay.

It definitely feels like, after a few years of everything getting closer to real (even if EA love their “game engine footage”, aka “not real-time actual game capture from a system running a current build of the game at a playable framerate”) that people are swinging in the opposite direction with their enthusiasm. I’m not convinced I’m onboard with a push away from actual games and completed vertical slices being demonstrated or captured and replayed for the conferences. I’m sure Blur are happy for the money but I’d rather see games revealed.

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I’d agree with this sentiment if the Metroid Prime game was coming out this holiday (even if Metroid games, from what I can recall, have not sold especially well, so this categorization of Metroid as a system seller is odd?).

But we’re talking about a title card for a game that won’t be released for another two or three years. Two/three years from now, we’ll be dealing with the gentle head-nod excitement that comes from seeing lengthy gameplay demos for games that are close to their release date. The hype for Metroid will calm down. In the meantime, the Xbox One X will be on shelves this holiday and will at the very least have an opportunity to start making money. So, as others have said, this is a bizarre, misguided, anecdotal comparison.

I don’t want to take away from people who are excited for a sequel to Metroid Prime. I’m sure it’ll be great! And I’m glad that watching E3 stuff excites you like that. But I dunno. While Microsoft has work to do to convince people that a One X is worth buying, because I agree that there is still a case to be made there, at least they’ll have a chance to truly do so this holiday, unlike Metroid Prime, a game so early in its cycle that it has nothing to lose.

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the last metroid was gameplay garbage and was actively offensive to women (and anyone who isn’t a complete knob.) while although this is from a new team and based on one of the more popular series entries, we should probably wait to see a bit more information before writing hyperbolic high fives about a series that has really had more misses than hits.

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Also real talk, it ain’t like there’s a shortage of Metroidvania games and Prey is a pretty damn good take on on Sci-Fi first person exploration games so this new one better look friggen good if they want me to care about Nintendo’s Alien knock off again

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Excuse me? Anyone who isn’t a complete knob?

I guess I must be for having the audacity to like Other M.

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Saying Metroid has had more misses than hits seems a bit of a stretch. The Other M is generally considered bad, and Federation Force wasn’t received very well. Past that you could probably include Metroid Prime Pinball (A good pinball game all things considered, but probably not a great Metroid game) and Metroid Prime Hunters if playing a game like that on DS wasn’t you’re thing. That’s 4 games out of 12. At best you could say that as of late it hasn’t been doing well.

Edit: I accidentally included the 2 newly announced games in the count as well as Metroid Prime trilogy which was more of an anthology re-release than a new game.

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ok, i’ll walk that back- it may be enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, but the way it treats samus by infantilezing her and saddling her with daddy issues does a disservice to a her position as a female heroine in a series that had previously treated her quite a bit better. i wasn’t very fond of the gameplay, but i can see how someone else might have enjoyed it enough to move past the story. i could not.

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My biggest issue with the story was that it was poorly written and told far more than it showed. That it depicted Samus with human emotion and weaknesses and not as Emotionless Killbot Person #35689 was something I’d wanted out of Metroid for years.

Infantilizing? No, I don’t see it as that at all.

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i think you’re being a bit generous- several of 12 listed metroid games are spiritual remakes and/or updated re-releases of the prior ones and (as you note) there are some that are branded metroid that don’t feature any metroid like gameplay (and since it spawned a genre, it seems fair to say that.) I’ll grant that mileage may vary, but looking through the list on wikipedia (i know, i know,) it seems like only a few of these really count as true hits

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Prime 2 and 3 were decently received but the general consensus is that they paled in comparison to the original Prime, and the long tail on Fusion and Zero Mission has been that they weren’t great but people were starved for Metroid games.

Really the only ones that are unequivocal successes have been Metroid, Super Metroid, and Metroid Prime.

Which are like, three of my favorite games in history, to be sure, but I think this may be what @mullets4ever is getting at.

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thank you @Weeplord- you put into words what i flippantly had tossed out there.

and maybe i’m just looking through rose colored glasses- those 3 games are so good and defined their own genre. maybe its not fair to look at lesser titles in the series and compare them directly- maybe a perfectly serviceable metroid game ends up looking lesser because of the excellence of the top few and not because its not good in its own right

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