Topic: Metroid Prime 3: Discussion with Series Producer

[KDR_11k]

Or if I do know where I'm going it keeps bugging me to go there. "Yeah I know I'm supposed to go there. It takes time to walk over there you know!"

At least it doesn't go "Hey! Listen!" all the time.

[couchmonkey]

Samus out of the suit seems unecessary, I wouldn't mind seeing her take her helmet off now and then, for personal encounters, and having the suit off at the beginning/end of the game makes fine sense, but I don't really want to play as wimpy old non-suit Samus...it's just not right.

[trip1eX]

Dam I thought Metroid Prime was a near perfect game.  I haven't finished Echoes yet.  I think that's mainly because I didn't play Prime (or any 'Cube game) until last year.  And so the desire to finish what is a very similar not to mention lengthy sequel so close to finishing the first one just isn't there.

I'm kind of scared the developers are going to Americanize this title and make it like all the other first person shooters out there.  Please don't.

The turning speed?  It didn't need to be faster.  The challenge of the game was developed around the turning speed and other variables.  

I liked the grapple beam and knowing that eventually you'll find it and use it at certain locations.  This builds up anticipation and suspense for me and finally satisfaction after discovering the item and getting across that point.  

I hope they just don't give you random moves.  I don't want a thousand ways to kill the enemy.   Sure a couple ways is fine.  But I like this game and Zelda where you actually need to use your weapons or abilities in certain spots to progress in the game.  The game is more thought out that way and more fun.  This also helps distinguish it from every other game.  Where you're given 10 weapons to use whenever you want.  I think that's a bit lazy on the designers part.  I hope they resist butchering  this title.

IT also disturbs me they are going to go for more 3rd person views in the game.  That's a mistake imo.  Metroid Prime was kickass because of it's immersion factor.  Everything was basically in-game.  

I agree opening colored doors ain't as fun as getting abilities to reach higher ledges.  I don't agree Samus is greedy.  I'm not sure where that came from.  I always saw her as more 'Super Hero' than 'Bounty Hunter.'  

[trip1eX]

The back tracking is great.  Unfortunately for some it's a dirty word.  But honestly I love revisiting areas to get thru doors or points I couldn't get to before.  IT isn't boring at all.  At least in the way it's used in Metroid Prime.  Usually when you went back thru you could kill enemies easier than before which made you feel more powerful and made you feel like you progressed in the game.  Also when you went back you always were discovering something new about a room.    It never felt repetitive to me in the least.  And it was never tedious either.

The 3d map is phenomenal.  It really helped me move around and visualize the scope of the world.  

And the hint system, at least in the first one, was great.  Everytime I got stuck a hint seemed to pop up at the right time.  Not too soon and not too long.  The hint system kept the game moving for me.   It also helped because sometimes I'd go a week before picking up the game again and would forget where I was supposed to go.  And if you didn't like it you could turn it off.

I agree the key hunt at the end of Prime was a bit much.  Altho I did have clues to most of them, I had to resort to GAmeFaQs for a couple of them.   I wasn't going to wander around forever trying to find them.  

The boost ball guardian in Echoes was tough?  I have the boost ball and I don't remember him being that tough at all and I'm not that great at these kinds of games.    

[zakkiel]

I don't mind backtracking, but I think there should be a lot more changes in a room when you go through it again. More stuff having collapsed, opened, turned... just basically have your efforts elsewhere in the world affect areas more.

For morality, I can't take the Metroid stories seriously enough to give it much thought. Samus isn't a bounty hunter; she's a machine that kills bad guys, as MP2 clearly demonstrated. I spent a lot of that game hoping for a twist to redeem the nauseatingly simplistic "battered forces of good v. armies of evil" cliche. Oh well. I haven't finished it yet, maybe it's still waiting. And anyway, I don't play the games for the story.

[Smash_Brother]

I think it's hard to categorize Samus because we see so little of her humanity. I think there was a brief moment in MP2 when Samus seemed to feel bad for one of the marines which had been killed, but I don't recall anything else.

Frankly, I didn't see ANY motivation from MP2. I'd like to THINK that the Luminoth perhaps remind Samus of the Chozo and as such she felt obliged to help them but that's only conjecture. She's going through an AWFUL lot, putting herself in harm's way, for no real reason other than her own personal motivation.

Then again, I think Samus' motives are supposed to be shrouded in mystery because that mystery is part of her character.

[Bill Aurion]

I think the main purpose for the lack of character development is because of what I call "Zelda syndrome"...Basically, the designers want us to actually be the character...

[Smash_Brother]

I kinda figured that as well. The "cipher" issue rears its ugly head with Link, Samus and a few others in the Nintendo universe.

Personally, I prefer characters who have their own attitude as well as voice acting. That way, it's like I'm playing WITH that character instead of AS them. Good examples of this are Solid Snake, Fox McCloud and Alex Roivas.

[Ceric]

Which is fine.  But they already developed this part.  We have been straight up told that Samus is a bounty hunter.  We have been told she was raised by Chozo.  Her planet was devastated by Metriods.  I mean these are facts.  In the original game you could play with here out of the suit.  Ok.  In actuallity it makes no sense whatsoever for Samus to come out of here suit in any environment except her ship and social.  Neither of which we are going to see.  I mean I would personally like to see more of a tie in with the whole bounty hunter thing.  If she's a bounty hunter lets bounty hunt.  It can even be linear I don't mind.  Go to different planets where you don't eliminate every living thing.  I mean lets face it if Samus ever came to a planet I was on and I could leave I be gone.  Does Metriod need Metriods?  In all honesty.  This is getting quiet ridiculous.  Once you destroy all the one in the galaxy they can only be kept by government agency for so long.  In all actually Metriod with no Metriods would be fine.  Drop you off at the Space Pirates planet and we'll obliterate them.  Why not?

I just like them to develop the things that we've been told instead of always forgetting them.  But Nintendo is like that with a lot of there characters.  Link is a jobless bum.  Mario is a plumber that doesn't plumb.  Samus is a Bounty Hunter that doesn't get paid.  I mean the only ones who fit is the Starfox gang, you see there bill at the end, and F-Zero, Captian Falcon does drive a car.

[Requiem]

Triple X summarized my feelings for MP.

Metriod Prime is my favorite game of this generation.

The immersion is crazy. The way you scan an enemy and how x-ray scans and drawings would pop up all added to the immersion. Running through a water fall resulted in mist covering your visor and so on.

It was a well built game from top to bottom. My only complaint is the auto-aim system. While it worked beautifully, I felt like at some points it made the game easy and other parts harder. Now I feel with the REVmote, it can level the playing field so to speak. I can now blast three space pirates according to how well and how quick I aim rather than how fast I press lock-on and the fire button.

So, basically....I'm definitely looking forward to MP3  

[Sir_Stabbalot]

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Originally posted by: ruby_onix
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And on the subject of Samus's character development, I think there won't be any more character development without more sexualization of her. Samus is sexy. She's not ugly. Making her more human (and less of a player-controlled robot) will only make her more sexy. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Who says she needs to be sexualized to let us see a better picture of her? Female heros don't need to be Laura Croft or Bloodrayne ripoffs, you know. In my opinion, her personality should be like her lifestyle: Hardend, grim, silent and lonely (but not sad about being alone). There's not much human in her, remember, she was orphined after a Space Pirate raid destroyed the colony she and her family were living on, and brought up with the Chozo as a warrior, even infused with their enhanced blood. She fights for he livelyhood. She doesn't curl up in a fetal position when faced with fear, even if that fear takes the shape of a 20-stories tall war-robot hell-bent on killing her at all costs.

Samus is one of the few female heroes who isn't sexualized. As a Metroid fan, I don't want her to be another Bloodrayne.

[Bill Aurion]

Where did this whole "sexualization" discussion come from?  Oh right, Samus' new model...which...isn't sexualized at all...And it won't be for Prime 3, either...

[Plugabugz]

The map in both Primes shouldn't be used again - It's notoriously difficult to determine where you are when, for example, in the Phazon Mines on the lowest level and have to look through 2 levels above it and have to fiddle furiously.

I wasn't fond of the samus art at the end of MP2, she looked almost plastic and barbie like in comparison to the first art in the previous game. In Prime she looked like a woman for a brief moment you can see a little emotion on her face, and then in Echoes she's throwing her weave about the camera.

[Artimus]

I thought that the Metroid map was really well received? I liked it!

[Ian Sane]

"She doesn't curl up in a fetal position when faced with fear"

Morphball?

Samus doesn't really have a personality.  Nintendo wanted to make a sidescrolling game where the game is one big level and you explore and find items to allow you to access more areas.  Games can't just look like Pong so they needed a setting and picked space.  They needed some sort of main character so they used a dude in a space suit.  A game is more marketable if it has some sort of basic story so they came up with some generic stuff to fill a few pages in the manual.  The enemies were called Metroids and Space Pirates and the spaceman was called Samus Aran.  The bounty hunter background just makes things a little more interesting and probably no real thought was put into it.  Then they made it so that the ending of the game revealed that the spaceman was actually a woman.  It was probably thought of as a neat twist and there were no real plans yet for a sequel or anything like that.

So exploring Samus' bounty hunter backgrounds makes about as much sense as Mario laying pipe.  She just comes from an era where all that we needed for story was "you're a ninja and you kill bad guys to save someone or something".

"Does Metroid need Metroids?"

I think as long as the game involves Samus exploring an alien planet then there is no need for Metroids.  Super Metroid doesn't even have any Metroids at all until the last part of the game.  The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has no Zelda but it still works, even if the name no longer makes sense.  I wouldn't mind no Metroids.  Right now the Prime storyline takes place between Metroid and Metroid II which as they make more games is going to get pretty silly.  How much stuff occured between those two events?  Plus it's getting kind of stupid for the pirates to keep resurrecting Ridley.  It's assumed that the main sequels will continue with the 2D games and Metroid Prime will remain a spin-off so really the only time period that has a lot of wiggle room for Retro is pre-Metroid.  That means no space pirates and no Metroids.  I wouldn't care and I doubt the game would sell worse considering the brand name really isn't that strong with the mainstream anyway.  If they feel the need to have a Metroid they could have an "unidentified" creature as a boss that is clearly a Metroid though is not referred to as such in the scans.

Storylinewise it's getting silly for Samus to lose all her stuff again and again as well.  A major challenge would be to start a Metroid game with everything and then have entirely new stuff as the upgrades.  They could even make it so that the bad guys designed their base with Samus in mind so her abilities aren't very useful but for some dumb reason they built their base on old Chozo ruins.

[trip1eX]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
I kinda figured that as well. The "cipher" issue rears its ugly head with Link, Samus and a few others in the Nintendo universe.

Personally, I prefer characters who have their own attitude as well as voice acting. That way, it's like I'm playing WITH that character instead of AS them. Good examples of this are Solid Snake, Fox McCloud and Alex Roivas.

Oh man I'm the opposite.  I think Nintendo is spot on with LInk, Samus and Mario.....  It's totally more immersive when I'm the hero instead of me playing some guy who's talking for me and doing things for me.  Most of the time those characters are way too corny for me to handle.  

PLus those types of games are usually heavy on the cutscenes where all you're doing is sitting there and watching them.  Those games turn me off.  

[Bill Aurion]

Seriously...I especially hate it with FPSers, because you're in the eyes of the character, yet in cutscenes you are no longer part of it...It really takes away from the experience for me...

[Hostile Creation]

"I think there was a brief moment in MP2 when Samus seemed to feel bad for one of the marines which had been killed, but I don't recall anything else."

You've obviously never played Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion.  We see some emotion at the end of MP1, presumably for the Chozo temple.  We see some for the marines in MP2.  We see little, of course, because she's always in the suit, and she is hardened and ruthless.  But it's there, it's just this thing that some of us like to call subtlety.

In regards to sexualization, I think the point Ruby was trying to make was that a female form, especially an attractive one (which Samus is), has some amount of inherent sexuality, and it's something that you're going to see occasionally, at least when she takes off the suit.  It's not overly sexualized, like Lara Croft and Bloodrayne, but its existence can't be denied.

"I wasn't fond of the samus art at the end of MP2, she looked almost plastic and barbie like in comparison to the first art in the previous game. In Prime she looked like a woman for a brief moment you can see a little emotion on her face, and then in Echoes she's throwing her weave about the camera."

Agreed on this point, though not on the map one.  I love the map system.  

[wandering]

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Storylinewise it's getting silly for Samus to lose all her stuff again and again as well. A major challenge would be to start a Metroid game with everything and then have entirely new stuff as the upgrades. They could even make it so that the bad guys designed their base with Samus in mind so her abilities aren't very useful but for some dumb reason they built their base on old Chozo ruins.

I agree with this completley. One of the reasons Majora's Mask is my all-time favorite video game sequal is that they took what was there from the first game and ran off in a different direction, instead of just trying to re-create the first game.

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Seriously...I especially hate it with FPSers, because you're in the eyes of the character, yet in cutscenes you are no longer part of it...It really takes away from the experience for me...

You mean, like the ones in Prime?

[Ian Sane]

"Seriously...I especially hate it with FPSers, because you're in the eyes of the character, yet in cutscenes you are no longer part of it...It really takes away from the experience for me..."

I find this too, even for a games Metroid and Zelda.  It seems that too often these days the natural instinct of a developer is to take any part of the game where the player can't control anything and make it like a movie with the most dramatic camera angles and such.  I think that takes away from the game.  In Super Metroid when Kraid rises up and shows how huge he is you can't move but the games still looks exactly the same.  So it feels more like I'm experiencing it instead of watching it.  I think it would be much cooler to walk into the "arena" and have the boss just pop out of their hiding spot without any pause or introduction.  In fact if I happen to be looking the wrong way I don't see him pop up, I just start getting hit from behind.  I think that would be much more scary than some dramatic cutscene to introduce the boss.

[Smash_Brother]

I prefer games with a solid story to back up the action. It's usually hard for me to want to see an end boss die for any other reason than simply beating the game, but when Pious had women pushed into the pillar of flesh, that f*cker needed killin'.

Ganondorf is probably the only Nintendo villain I can take seriously because he acts and talks the part of what he intends to do. Bowser is just a "bully" villain and Metroid games lack a true nemesis for Samus aside from Ridley which never had any explanation that I can recall from MP1.

In MGS, the villains are organized and that makes them more intimidating because I've learned that the only thing people will truly fear is something which they know is smarter and better prepared than they are, especially in movies and gaming.

Remember, the hero will only ever be as impressive as the villains he/she faces.

[Ian Sane]

"It's usually hard for me to want to see an end boss die for any other reason than simply beating the game"

Gee, my incentive usually is "this thing is going to kill me unless I kill it first."  Typically my hatred for a game villian is based on how difficult it is to beat him.  I hate him more if I've died on him a few times.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Hostile Creation
You've obviously never played Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion.  We see some emotion at the end of MP1, presumably for the Chozo temple.  We see some for the marines in MP2.  We see little, of course, because she's always in the suit, and she is hardened and ruthless.  But it's there, it's just this thing that some of us like to call subtlety.

No, I never played the originals, nor do I think that doing so should be a prerequisite for enjoying the Prime games.

As for subtlety and ciphers, I think it's the cowardly way out of handling a character. Rather than risking developing a character and presenting to the audience a personality they might not like, they choose to instead chicken out completely and leave the character as blank as an unused canvas. The minor emotions these characters demonstrate is only apparent because they're "safe" in regards to not being able to read terribly much into them: no one will be "mad" at Samus for a twinge of sadness, nor will they scowl at Link for saluting a giant skeleton warrior in dismissal.

I don't like ciphers. I never have and I never will. My favorite games have always been those with characters who aren't uncharacteristically silent for fear of alienating the audience. Games with ciphers don't risk their sales with characters which lack "universal appeal" but as a result, my connection to those games never transcends the realm of "entertainment medium" into something more engaging.

Games where a character actually has an opinion, personality and a voice do risk alienating some of the audience, but in exchange for that risk, that is a game which people who relate to the character will carry with them for far longer than a game with a cipher-protagonist.

After all of my friends had completed Eternal Darkness, we actually discussed the imagery, the implications of what the ancients were, some of the loose ends in the plot, the characters and their depth, and whether or not there was a colossal secret ending which none of us had found. Same with MGS, same with Phoenix Wright.

You just can't do that with a great deal of games because, when the lead character has no implied personality, there's nothing to relate to.

Clinging to an empty shell and saying, "Well, maybe there's really something inside it after all!" is the epitome of sadness.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Gee, my incentive usually is "this thing is going to kill me unless I kill it first."  Typically my hatred for a game villian is based on how difficult it is to beat him.  I hate him more if I've died on him a few times.

That's fair, but I don't recall many last bosses from recent memory which take many tries (Pious didn't, either).

Makes me miss the days of Konami games like Rocket Knight Adventures which boasted great and difficult bosses which had no regrets about being hard as all hell.

[Ian Sane]

"No, I never played the originals, nor do I think that doing so should be a prerequisite for enjoying the Prime games."

You shouldn't have to play the originals to enjoy the Prime games but I think if you haven't played the original games you can't complain about Samus' personality.  I know that sounds kind of immature but I think it's important that the Metroid games take into account the desires of Metroid fans first and foremost.  Most Metroid fans would be really turned off to have Samus develop a really distinct personality just as Zelda fans would be turned off by Link talking.  So Nintendo shouldn't do it.  That's why I've been very hostile towards Metroid Prime Hunters because to me they're making a Metroid game for people who aren't Metroid fans.  If someone doesn't get Metroid then tough sh!t.  So at the same time if you don't like Samus as a character and you're not even familiar with the original games, tough.

Though the real issue here is that there are two big differing points of view in regards to game design.  Some people care only about the gaming experience while others want to hear a good story.  If you're in the story group then Samus is going to be pretty boring but if you're in the gameplay group you can't stand games where you watch everything and have no real choice over your own actions.  My general attitude is if I want to see a movie I'll pay a couple bucks at the theatre instead of paying $50 and being made to work for my movie, which is usually laughably poor in the first place.  Gaming is probably the worst choice of medium for telling a story since user interaction affects the author's control.  So I say since gaming provides the option for user interaction it should make the most of it and focus on providing an experience for the player.  There should be some setting and plot in the background to spice up the experience but it should feel like it's your experience.