Yahtzee's thoughts and admissions about him being unable to truly call himself a "fan" of Silent Hill these days and thinking about what Sonic's fans have put up with.. I gotta say it made me think about how I've see the Metroid series the last few years, and to a lesser degree, MegaMan and Castlevania. Well, and Sonic, too, but it's less than I think the 3-D fails and more than I think the continuity and character development fell a bit short after Sonic Adventure 2. Heroes' gameplay wasn't very enjoyable and Shadow the Hedgehog retconned a buncha shit. Then the series just collapsed afterwards. The DS RPG and The Black Knight weren't that bad, though.
In regards to my original point, about Yahtzee's feelings for Silent Hill as a series reflecting my own about Metroid.. I feel like the series has been taking steps in the wrong direction with each of the new games since.. well, since Prime. I'll be the first to admit I LIKED Prime, and I don't think that it in of itself is a bad game. I do, however, think it started the series down some bizarre roads.
What made Metroid (and when I say that, I largely mean Super Metroid and possibly Metroid 2) fun was the way you were all alone on a hostile and alien world where you had to explore to survive and be pretty decent at wall-jumps if you wanted to sequence break. It was also the first game in the series (and hell, one of the first in general) to feature gameplay which was both fast-paced and have lots of action without difficulty factors that'd break pacing or bring the game to a halt. Speed-Running became popular largely due to the way Metroid played.
With Metroid Prime, I didn't feel the same isolation or atmosphere, nor did I think the gameplay was the kind I'd want to play over and over, unlikes Super Metroid and quite a few other games out there (like Symphony of the Night or Mega Man X). It also started the trend of having more focus on 3-D titles with an emphasis on FPS gameplay, which isn't my favourite genre.
Then you had MZM which took Super Metroid and dialed the speed-factor up to 11, so you started going by so fast you hardly had time to stop and enjoy the areas. The artwork became a bit cartoonier, almost anime-ish, and it introduced the horribly designed Zero Suit which tossed aside Samus' character as a strong female game character (rare in the early days of gaming) and turned her into just another eye-candy; she now takes the suit off quite frequently which wouldn't be a problem if she actually wore normal clothes.
And then Corruption, where everybody BUT Samus spoke showing how silly the idea of a silent protagonist is when they can't express themselves, she didn't even have body-language or facial expressions except when she threw up in that one scene. Only for her to NEVER SHUT UP in Other M, which also drove her character right into a grave developmentally speaking. I can't even play Fusion without seeing shades of Other M anymore, and I used to love the game.
I really think Nintendo needs to retire Metroid and try some of these ideas in a new series, or give it to somebody who knows what the fuck their doing. And that brings me back to what Yahtzee was saying about how hard it is to stay a fan of a series when it continually disappoints or takes a step forward only to fall backwards again.
In regards to my original point, about Yahtzee's feelings for Silent Hill as a series reflecting my own about Metroid.. I feel like the series has been taking steps in the wrong direction with each of the new games since.. well, since Prime. I'll be the first to admit I LIKED Prime, and I don't think that it in of itself is a bad game. I do, however, think it started the series down some bizarre roads.
What made Metroid (and when I say that, I largely mean Super Metroid and possibly Metroid 2) fun was the way you were all alone on a hostile and alien world where you had to explore to survive and be pretty decent at wall-jumps if you wanted to sequence break. It was also the first game in the series (and hell, one of the first in general) to feature gameplay which was both fast-paced and have lots of action without difficulty factors that'd break pacing or bring the game to a halt. Speed-Running became popular largely due to the way Metroid played.
With Metroid Prime, I didn't feel the same isolation or atmosphere, nor did I think the gameplay was the kind I'd want to play over and over, unlikes Super Metroid and quite a few other games out there (like Symphony of the Night or Mega Man X). It also started the trend of having more focus on 3-D titles with an emphasis on FPS gameplay, which isn't my favourite genre.
Then you had MZM which took Super Metroid and dialed the speed-factor up to 11, so you started going by so fast you hardly had time to stop and enjoy the areas. The artwork became a bit cartoonier, almost anime-ish, and it introduced the horribly designed Zero Suit which tossed aside Samus' character as a strong female game character (rare in the early days of gaming) and turned her into just another eye-candy; she now takes the suit off quite frequently which wouldn't be a problem if she actually wore normal clothes.
And then Corruption, where everybody BUT Samus spoke showing how silly the idea of a silent protagonist is when they can't express themselves, she didn't even have body-language or facial expressions except when she threw up in that one scene. Only for her to NEVER SHUT UP in Other M, which also drove her character right into a grave developmentally speaking. I can't even play Fusion without seeing shades of Other M anymore, and I used to love the game.
I really think Nintendo needs to retire Metroid and try some of these ideas in a new series, or give it to somebody who knows what the fuck their doing. And that brings me back to what Yahtzee was saying about how hard it is to stay a fan of a series when it continually disappoints or takes a step forward only to fall backwards again.
