Oh, look at me the blasphemy king!
First, let me establish my exact relationship with the Metroid franchise. I actually don't know when exactly the first Metroid came out. I had limited experience with NES - my parents got one when I moved back from Germany but I was preoccupied with A) hating New Jersey and B) gettting the hell out! I never had a SNES - although I did have a Genesis late in the day. Truthfully though, I had a 2600 and I'm not real familiar with another console until the PlayStation.
Anyway, my first Metroid game was Metroid Fusion for GBA. Which I bought (oddly enough) while in New Jersey visiting my family. And played the shit out of it while flying back to good old California. I really liked it. A lot. I belive Jeff Gregg will testify to my drunken phone call saying how cool it was during a layover. So Josh slightly misrepresents my stance here. Not on purpose mind you, but I figured I'd eluicidate.
Metroid Fusion downright LURES you into what Josh calls the "minimalist route". At no time is there some sort of "OK, just explore a bit" mission briefing. You always have some very specific goal - usually with some sort of fake urgency behind it. Right up to the point where I stopped playing - you have to run away from the big bad fake Samus suit. I was mystified - I just could NOT beat it. I talked about it at some with length with Chuji. His conclusion was that I should have about 12 health tanks at that point in the game. I have 6 in my save. :-( I literally cannot get past that point. Wait it's worse - where my save is I can't go get more tanks. I'm locked into this encounter I can't win. I will literally have to restart the game to progess. That's bad game design. I don't want to hear the justifications, the explanations about how great classic Metroid was. I'm giving all you designer weenies the hand right now, go ahead and talk to it. It SUCKS. The designers of Metroid Fusion should be kicked out of the industry for it. It's the angriest I've been at a video game in the last few years.
I was so angry that it ruined Metroid Prime for me - I hate the whole FRANCHISE now. I didn't buy Zero Mission because I now equate Metroid with a tease, followed by suckage.
I have an entire second rant about the random "blow up every wall" game design, and why it should have died in the 16-bit era, but I'll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say that if you're going to haul out THAT tired chestnut, make it optional - not required to finish your game.
First, let me establish my exact relationship with the Metroid franchise. I actually don't know when exactly the first Metroid came out. I had limited experience with NES - my parents got one when I moved back from Germany but I was preoccupied with A) hating New Jersey and B) gettting the hell out! I never had a SNES - although I did have a Genesis late in the day. Truthfully though, I had a 2600 and I'm not real familiar with another console until the PlayStation.
Anyway, my first Metroid game was Metroid Fusion for GBA. Which I bought (oddly enough) while in New Jersey visiting my family. And played the shit out of it while flying back to good old California. I really liked it. A lot. I belive Jeff Gregg will testify to my drunken phone call saying how cool it was during a layover. So Josh slightly misrepresents my stance here. Not on purpose mind you, but I figured I'd eluicidate.
Metroid Fusion downright LURES you into what Josh calls the "minimalist route". At no time is there some sort of "OK, just explore a bit" mission briefing. You always have some very specific goal - usually with some sort of fake urgency behind it. Right up to the point where I stopped playing - you have to run away from the big bad fake Samus suit. I was mystified - I just could NOT beat it. I talked about it at some with length with Chuji. His conclusion was that I should have about 12 health tanks at that point in the game. I have 6 in my save. :-( I literally cannot get past that point. Wait it's worse - where my save is I can't go get more tanks. I'm locked into this encounter I can't win. I will literally have to restart the game to progess. That's bad game design. I don't want to hear the justifications, the explanations about how great classic Metroid was. I'm giving all you designer weenies the hand right now, go ahead and talk to it. It SUCKS. The designers of Metroid Fusion should be kicked out of the industry for it. It's the angriest I've been at a video game in the last few years.
I was so angry that it ruined Metroid Prime for me - I hate the whole FRANCHISE now. I didn't buy Zero Mission because I now equate Metroid with a tease, followed by suckage.
I have an entire second rant about the random "blow up every wall" game design, and why it should have died in the 16-bit era, but I'll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say that if you're going to haul out THAT tired chestnut, make it optional - not required to finish your game.