Metroid: Samus returns shown at E3

Damn... so they were developing a Metroid 2 remake of their own. I wonder if they realized this had potential after lurking around on AM2R or if they were completely oblivious of the parallel development until they found out?

Anyway, it looks gorgeous. Looks like i need to get a 3ds after all....

There was also a tease/actual confirmation of MP4 being in development for the switch.

Nintendo after years of ignoring fans' requests and cease-and-desisting any tribute or sign of appreciation to them: "wow, wonder why that didn't work. Let's finally make a metroid game worth playing!"

Except they're still doing both of those things. I'm putting off trying to do a disassembly of Super Metroid because I'd be afraid to share it. Well, and also because that's a huge project, but that makes it worse.

I'll probably avoid getting a Switch just because while it would suck to see Nintendo fail, that attitude has to go.

I watched the gameplay and... it's clearly using music and sound effects from Metroid Prime. I'd say... it's a Metroid Prime in 2D. Even Samus looks the same. The "missile acquired" fanfare is exactly the same of Prime.

Perhaps the way forward for others in nicklausw's situation is to provide a ROM and RAM map with just the variable names, the comments, and other things needed to reconstruct a disassembly (such as code/data splits and MX bit settings). The more you explain about the workings of the engine in your own words, the more clearly your ROM and RAM map would be seen as a "comment" pursuant to 17 USC 107. Then anyone possessing an authentic Game Pak could dump it with a Retrode or similar device (pursuant to 17 USC 117 and Sega v. Accolade) and reconstruct the disassembly from your ROM and RAM map.

Nintendo is no stranger to asset recycling in its enhanced remakes. Its Super Mario All-Stars remake of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 (J) borrowed a lot of sound effects from Super Mario World, and its Mario sprites are Super Mario Bros. 3 sprites with more shading added.

I don't know what to think. We don't have the details, but even considering it's a business and not a person, historically their handling in this matter has been arrogant, best case, and tasteless, worst case.

That said, nintendo seems to have a short-sighted reaction to when a game sells poorly. Based on their actions, they seem to judge the viability of the franchise on sales figures, rather than doing an analysis of what went right and wrong when a particular instalment in that franchise met the audience. They seem to focus on the wrong questions. It should (among other things) be "Did we approach the expectations of the target audience of buyers?", not just "What's the current popularity of this brand or concept?"

Consider the case if M:SR or MP4 sell poorly because enough burnt fans hypothetically manage to affect the popularity, reviews, and ultimately sales figures of these games based on their recent history (Other M, the cease and desist against AM2R scandal , Federation Force). In such a case, would that be the end of Metroid (for another decade)? I wouldn't want that. Fans didn't want that, which i think was part of why AM2R managed to get a bit of a cult following long prior to the short-lived release (not counting its own merits).

I'm not one to think individual consumption choices have much of an impact (i view them more as useful rituals to keep in touch with one's own moral standards), but on a pattern level, there might be some merit or potential, and i really want nintendo to succeed in reinvigorating this franchise.

I also agree that the attitude has to go, needless to say. Corporate culture can vary a lot and still be successful. They don't need to grope for the low-hanging fruit on the policy tree.

After watching the gameplay...

1. It seems a major improvement over the original Metroid 2, much like Metroid Zero Mission.
2. The map seems to have changed a bit. New elements were added, and others were preserved (like the Energy Ball for refills).
3. I have no doubt this game has a new area OR a new event after beating the Queen Metroid.
4. I wonder why Nintendo is using most of the Metroid Prime's music (fanfares) and sound effects. I could risk to say an improved version of the MP gfx engine.
5. Unfortunately, this isn't a 2D game like "Another Metroid 2 Remake" is... but... an idea... much like... Metroid Other M.

Yeah, they definitely passed on a few mechanics from other m, in slightly new forms. There seems to be a timing balance to the melee moves though? if you get it right, you get to crit, stun or deflect, if you fail the timing, enemy gains advantage over you. Or in the case of lesser metroids, they just smash in to you. If that's how it works, it's an improvement. It did not look as precise and snappy as traditional 2d metroids, but that's another thing to be measured when we can see how the control scheme feels.

The aim was back to manual, right?

Not too sure if i like the new scan. It seems to undermine the feature of providing things to figure out, which has been a central part of the experience and a very important off-screen interaction. Now it's more "cast spell to reveal secrets".

I don't mind recycling assets (especially sfx), as it can help with consistency. Why not reuse a perfectly functioning laser shot sound or a recognizable fanfare? On a budget level, you get to spend it where it matters more.

I liked that they made the zeta feel more like an alien. Somewhere between a lizard and a xenomorph.

This looks like complete crap. Though I guess that assertment is partly based on the knowledge that these guys also created the abomination known as Castlevania Mirror of Fate, and this game looks very much based on the same ideals. Who the hell figured Metroid needed cinematic finishing moves?

I think there's a difference, but don't know to which extent it'll have effect. While konami seemingly have adopted an almost lessez faire, don't care treatment of their franchises, nintendo seems much more involved in the details of direction. Many of the things other m got negative reception for can be traced back to decisions made at nintendo. For better or worse, their relation with dev houses isn't as flat-organized.

Absolutely true, and my hopes for this game are based on the fact that Nintendo's supervision is usually genuinely solid.

The gameplay shown in the demo looks kinda solid, too. But there are a few warnings here and there, that reminds me way too much of some of the atrocities they commited in the name of Konami.

Regarding the reused sounds, is the game complete yet? I'd bet they threw them in as placeholders and might redo them if there's time before release.

I'm not a big fan of any 3D Metroid (I enjoyed Other M the most) and I don't think 3D graphics works very well in 2D platformers like this. In New Super Mario Bros it feels like you loose some precision for the collision detection. On the other hand it seems to work well in the Smash Bros series.

Metroid 2 was a really great game with a very cool ending though, and I hope this remake will be as good as Zero Mission was.

I strongly recommend AM2R.

+1.

if you like zero mission, am2r is much like that but with years of polish only a passionate and skilled hobbyist can provide by spending free time, and based on m2.

It is C&D:ed so you'll need to search for a second hand source.

This new Metroid will never be like AM2R, which is much superior.
I wonder... A game style like AM2R... must be "replaced" by a 2.5D style, as found in Metroid Samus Return? Is a 2D game (using pixels/buffered graphics) not worth than 2.5D (polygonal graphics)?

They will be different for sure. They're only the same on a thematical level, so i find it is a bit comparing pears and apples and wouldn't say one is superior (unless the 2.5d turns out a stinker).

For one thing, smooth animation is that much less manual labour with 3d models (or 2d vector graphics) because of automation. Set a couple of key frames and plot curve and travel over n time and done (if it looks right). That means you can focus on other/more tasks.

Plus there are more developers that specialize in 3D than 2D nowdays I think.


Yeah I gotta play that one someday. I managed to snatch it, somehow, after it had been taken down.

I know what you mean, and I definitely agree with you, but I think it bears mentioning that New SMB actually uses prerendered sprites rather than 3D models. It helps the problem a little. Of course games like the PS1/PC version of Lost Vikings 2 (compared to the SNES one) proves that horrible prerendered graphics can definitely obscure hitboxes and visible background collisions, too.

There's no actual limit towards how tight 3d or 2d vector animation and physics can get, but it often seems to me that 3d animators are generally more sloppy with these things and tend to over-smooth their work. Alltogether i suspect timing is an aspect that's not as present as it was in frame by frame hand animation (and its raster counterpart), both at courses and in what comes "naturally" in digital animation studios. Sloppy keyframing is definitely a major culprit.

Heh didn't know New SMB used sprites. Googling tells me that Mario Maker and all New SMB games before the Wii U ones uses prerendered sprites.

Besides sloppy keyframing it might also be that I'm simply not used to the new look and hit-boxes. I've played the old 2D Mario games for hours and hours as a kid so I'd never miss a platform because I missjudged the hit-box in those games, while on the other hand I only played each New Super Mario Bros title about once (and not even all of them). They are just not as fun as the old 2D games was and I can't put the finger on why it is like that.

Smash Bros to the 64 and Gamecube I've played to death and back.

That and there are a lot more arbitrarily angled platforms, which ruins the practice of judging jumps through a subconscious sense of the metatile grid.

Absolutely. This is actually one of the charms of classic 8bit and 16bit video games, and one of the major reasons I decided to pursue NES development. ("I want to make a game that follows these classic virtues, so why not work in an environment that will naturally lead me towards the same design choices?"). Even if you don't look into it in details, you will probably subconsciously pick up on the classic 16x16 metatile collisions that a majority of NES titles use, and it makes it easier to react to this stuff. Many western developed platformers would often try to break this mold and at least try to APPEAR like their gaphics weren't bound by specific tiles, and the result was often much more obscure collision detection. Popular examples would be stuff like Earthworm Jim, Lion King, Maui Mallard, etc.

Lion king unleashed a hidden depository of ragequits and thrown controllers. Not from me, of course

For not mentioning Donkey Kong Country with its rounded platforms and various very differently shaped player characters (especially when riding animals). Which also brings us back to sprites and backgrounds made of prerendered 3D.

Yoshi Island on the other hand was good at balancing precise collision with pretty and rounded metatiles. It was the game that took people back to earth again after having been blinded by DKC's prerendered graphics. Going against the current 3D trend and still being able to make a much better and more beautiful game was just brilliant.

I certainly agree with Sumez, the precise collision detection of these old games is one of their charms and I really want to recreate this feeling in my own projects.

It may have been something someone made up, but I remember at the time the magazines were talking about Nintendo having held back Yoshi's Island due to Donkey Kong Country, which some may remember was a crazy hyped up game at the time due to the "3D" graphics. Apparently Nintendo were afraid that going with such a distinctly 2D look would seem like a backwards move. In fact I don't even remember hearing anything about the game until shortly before its release, it was a bit of a surprise hit.

Or of course, maybe they just delayed it because they didn't want the games to compete, who can tell.

Either way, Yoshi's Island is by far one of the best looking SNES games of all time, I doubt many would disagree. It also has a ton of rounded platforms btw.

Yes from what I understand the game was drawn more like Super Mario World at first, and was rejected because it didn't stand out as much as the prerendered graphics of DKC which set a new standard. But in order to make the game stand out more they decided to use this crayon art-style instead of prerendered 3D. And yeah the result is just so much better.

I remember some magazines blinded by the freshness of DKC unfairly gave it a perfect score, but later realized that it was really just an inferior SMBW clone (although a very good one) with funky graphics.

Yoshi Island is indeed still one of the best looking games of all time. It has rounded platforms and Yoshi with baby Mario is a weirdly shaped character, but this seldom poses a problem with the collision detection unlike say Donkey Kong riding on Winky the frog.

Since you're from Sweden I'm guessing we probably read the same magazine I recognize the issue with them awarding it a rare, unanimous 100% score, and later taking it back in the "review scores for every single SNES game" feature.

I wouldn't call DKC a SMBW clone though, the games are very different.

Heh yeah it's a Swedish magazine. I'm surprised so many non-Swedish Scandinavians read it. Was it translated to Danish or did you read it in Swedish?
But I think everyone was blinded by the appeal of Donkey Kong Country, and other magazines may also have given it unfair scores at the time.

It's not a SMW clone? The whole concept is very similar to Mario games (stomping on enemies, bananas instead of coins, powerups comes in barrels instead of blocks), and especially SMW (the world map is pretty much ripped from SMB3 and SMW) so I'd call it a clone. I don't mean a clone in a bad way though.

It was translated to Danish. It wasn't even entirely upfront about that either. Though when they converted from "Nintendo Magasinet" to "Power Player" (I think called "Super Play" or something in Sweden?) they were also more upfront about the names of the editors which was a bit of a giveaway, and some times some sections went accidentally untranslated. They did add a Danish mailbox section and competitions and some other stuff in the Danish version.
In 1995 it just randomly vanished (right when N64 was on its way, too) with no explanation whatsoever, and I had no idea what was going on. From that point on up until I eventually got an internet connection I had very few ways to get updated about console game news.


These are all platform game tropes though. You could say those elements were all ripped from Super Mario Bros. 1, but almost 10 years later, that's kinda like calling Halo a Doom clone.
The way the game plays is very different from the Mario games, and much closer to what you'd see in most other western platformers at the time and previously. Almost every game had a map, and the one in DKC is very simple with none of the unique interactive elements that are characteristic for SMB3 or SMW.
I guess it doesn't make sense to discuss semantics, though.

Super Power? It was published in Finland (in Finnish), at least. I don't know if it was a straight-up translation, probably a combination of translated articles and some original content.

The swedish edition had a thin retail version and an expanded subscriber version (which most had), iirc. I'm not actually sure if i've ever seen one in retail, maybe it was only a marketing trick to say subscribers got extra pages? Anyway, the 'expanded' version had a few extra pages in the middle in gloss paper and consisted mostly of guides and in-depth sneak peaks which i suspect were directly taken from the american counterpart). The "standard edition" pages mostly consisted of editorials, "box mario", "pro's corner" and "tips & trix", all based on local content, news (from usa/japan), and comics (same). I think reviews could be found in both parts. Will have to check in the few copies i have left.

I think the editorial office closed early 95 or late 94.

I see, that's interesting. I remember I've seen other Scandinavians sending mail to the (Swedish) mailbox but I didn't know it was translated to other languages.

Nintendo Magasinet was basically Sweden's Nintendo Power although I think it was independent from Bergsala. Power Player was an extra magazine included inside Nintendo Magasinet only for subscribers. It was stappled inside the magazine so yeah basically extra pages for subscribers rather than a separate magazine. It contained most of the reviews I think (which also often doubled as game guides and level maps).
Nintendo Magasinet had Voyager's Mario, Zelda and Captain N comics but later issues had Japanese comics like Shotaro Ishinomori's Zelda comic and Japanese SMW comics.

Super Power was a different magazine started by some of the people that had worked on Nintendo Magasinet in it's later life. Nintendo Magasinet was eventually discontinued and Super Power became the big Nintendo magazine in Sweden. It was a bigger magazine with no comics and more articles and reviews, and also had a section about anime and manga (which was considered extremely obscure in Sweden back then). Later they included non-Nintendo consoles as well (around 1995 it seems) and eventually even PC games (2001 apparently). The name was also changed to Super Play at some point in time.

Also at some point late in Super Play's life, the old crew quit and started another magazine (called LEVEL) while Super Play was taken over by other people that mostly focused on western PC games. It became totally unrecognisable and not very interesting anymore, I stopped subscribing. Super Play is now discontinued, but LEVEL still exists, though I don't subscribe.

They probably had to work with what NoE gave them, and their reviews were always suspiciously positive (the office being in the same company as the general agent really explains it), but the text seemed to be written in office and they had a picture capturing unit of some sort for taking screenshots. They did their layout in-house manually and sent it to a repro house in taiwan. Just before Nintendomagasinet was canceled, they had started using Quark Express.

Pokum, everything you are describing about Nintendo Magasinet (which was called exactly the same here) and Super Power is familiar to me. I think what we got was pretty close to a 1:1 copy.
The anime/manga section ("Manga Mania" or something like that?) was also the big introduction to the concept to me. I mean, I knew of it beforehand of course, but that section and several offhand comments in other articles (particularly in games based on anime of course), was what originally made me really aware of what was going on with Japanese animation, even if I was never a big fan of it myself.

My favourite section was Tobias's RPG corner or whatever he called it. That really opened up the world of those games for me, since we rarely got any of the sorts in Europe. I was in love with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantay 6 years before even getting the chance to play either of them.

I still have all the magazines that came out here.

Oh, so that was his real name. He was called "Topi" in the Finnish magazine.

Yeah Tobias Bjarneby, he was one of the founders of Super Power and the editor-in-chief. He probably played a big part on popularizing Japanese RPGs in Scandinavia, while Martin Johansson (the guy behind the Manga Mania section), together with Simon Lundström (famous Manga translator in Sweden and also an indirect acquaintance to me), probably had a hand in popularizing Japanese comics and animation here.

Tobias and Martin are both working on LEVEL I think.

Now, thrill is coming on the way!
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