What is Metroid Doing Right?

[Djinn]

While Zelda was Nintendo's adventure for fantasy fans, Metroid was for the Scifi fans. And over the years the two series have been compared to each other. Both series involve placing the player into a large expansive world where they discover new items that help them unlock more areas for exploration and fighting enemies. While they have both been very successful series with many sequels on several different consoles, the Metroid series seems to be able to accomplish what Zelda still cannot in a few major areas.

First of all Metroid has maintained a solid continuity between all the games throughout the series. Nintendo has gone through great lengths to make sure that the story for each game matches up with the story of all those that came before in a solid timeline. Meanwhile the timeline and placement of the games has always been a huge subject of debate among Zelda fans and continues to cause confusion whenever it is brought up. Obviously not all Link's can be the same individual as Samus is in Metroid since the Zelda series covers multiple characters over centuries of elapsed time between games. So connecting the games can be more of a challenge, but in a few cases there is not enough evidence to make a clear decision where they are placed in the timeline.

Other playable hero characters with their own unique weapons and abilities like the bounty hunters in Metroid Prime: Hunters have been added, as well as a vs. multiplayer function. Zelda still lacks any multiplayer outside of the Four Swords series, and even then it is only cooperative. There are still no characters in Zelda that could rival Link in the same way the other bounty hunters do with Samus.

Also Metroid has added voice acting with cinematic cutscenes. Although cutscenes have been in a few Zelda titles, they normally use the same in game graphics and the characters have remained silent. Any sounds in a Zelda game are normally yells, screams, or simple noises. Even Midna's speech was an incomprehensible noise given text to translate for the player.

So why is it that the Metroid series is capable of moving forward with so many more innovations while Zelda still behind? Is it because Metroid is one of Nintendo's second tier titles so it might be a little safer to experiment with? Or the setting itself allows for greater changes in gameplay without too many problems from the fans? Or is Zelda holding onto a traditional style a little more strongly than most other Nintendo games?

 

[Celeboy]

Personally, I like both series. But Zelda a bit more... The metroid series is great because nowadays, FPS are pretty much THE BIG THING and the exploration side of it kind of gives it the edge. The Zelda series should have Vs play. Not like co-op story mode, but the aggresive, full-on, rooty-tooty-aim-n-shooty kind. Something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPQFqB78u8s Although NOTHING like it.

 

[blackice_cc]

Metroid is an awesome series for sure. I love the focus on adventure and exploration, and the areas for you to roam are almost always cool. In terms of feel, it's pretty much the opposite of Zelda: the Metroid worlds are darker, more desolate places than Hyrule ever has been. You're almost always alone in Metroid (even in the newest one, where there's a whole squad of troopers with you, you spend most of your time away from them), whereas Hyrule has towns full of other people to talk with. Metroid is futuristic and technological, Zelda is medieval and magical. Both of the are good, but I always liked Zelda a bit more.

You're right, Metroid has been changing a lot more than Zelda as of late. I do think it's a good thing that Nintendo is willing to experiment with one of their main franchises. However, I don't like the direction the last Metroid game went in at all. It was easier, I hated the portrayal of Samus (which was a huge part of the game), and the exploration felt almost non-existent.

In my opinion, yes, Metroid is a better series to mess around and try new things with. First of all, it kind of needed some changes: as awesome as the Prime games were, they do feel somewhat repetitious. Without some changes, Metroid would go downhill of its own accord. I just hope the next game makes the right changes, unlike Other M.
Secondly, Zelda has been good so far. They've made enough changes from game to game to stop it from getting repetitive, but haven't changes it so much as to ruin its identity. Zelda is also a more popular series than Metroid (as far as I know), and there are usually several years between releases of Zelda games: imagine if Nintendo made some drastic changes, and completely alienated lots of fans, who would then have to wait a really long time for another one to come, hoping that it would be better. Like what happened with WW: it was a great game, and I'm very glad it was made, but lots of people were disappointed with it. I'd be surprised if Nintendo took and big risks like that again with the series.

As for multiplayer, I've always liked the Zelda series for keeping a single player focus (aside from FS/FSA - I don't consider them part of the Zelda canon), and it would take away a lot of the classic Zelda feel if you could suddenly play as someone other than Link. Besides, I don't see Metroid going very strongly in a multiplayer direction: sure, MP2 had a tacked on multiplayer mode, but it wasn't a big focus, and wasn't really very fun. Metroid Prime: Hunters (the only Metroid I've never played) has online multiplayer (right?), sure, but from what I've heard, that game was sort of a black sheep in the series, much like FSA: not really part of the Metroid canon.

I actually really hope Zelda doesn't ever have voice acting. Maybe it's because I read a lot of books, but I enjoy imagining each character's voice myself, and 99% of the time I've been disappointed by voice acting, especially if it's in a series I'm familiar with. Cut-scenes are fine: Zelda already has used them to some extent (like in TP), and they work pretty well for story telling if you ask me. I wouldn't mind if Nintendo used them to give us more of Hyrule's history in SS.

All in all, I think Zelda simply is trying to stay truer to it's classic feel and design. They don't want to stray too far from the path. Personally, I think that's a good thing. The series is still great right where it's at.

 

[Zorato]

This is such a great thread. Metroid as you said has been advancing more and more as time went along. It even went through an FPS stage, and what surprises me the most is that the FPS prime games were all excellent games. I BARELY played prime three. But i DID get past the firsst part, and it waas very fun and very exciting. The other bounty hunters were very cool. They felt like actual characters. now lets go to metroid other M. I bought the game the day it came out. I came home and played it A LOT. It was one of the most fun games I have have ever played. The combat was excellent. The story was pretty good. The atmosphere made it feel like even when you had an entire team with you. In the Zelda series I can only say that two games to me had GREAT combat. Those would be Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker. Also, one thing that metroid has that Zelda has NEVER had was the constantly using of all your abilities. Most of the items you got in Zelda, you use not all that often. This was not a problem in okami. Just Zelda... Overall both series are great, but I still prefer Zelda, even though Other M was SO MUCH FUN TO PLAY!!

 

[Dr3W21]

Metroid was the perfect blend of many genres, so it could barely fall under just one. It was basically a sci-fi-first-person-puzzling-platforming-action/adventure-semi-horror-shooter. Or a "SFFPPPAASHS" (or "SFPASHS") .

In either case, Metroid was Nintendo's excuse to just be... well... completely different.​

A good comparison is Half-Life 2. It was soo much different than other FPS'... even PC FPS'. It was a perfectly blended on-edge-puzzling-action/adventure-PC FPS. Like Metroid, it doesn't fit in a specified genre.

I don't know. Metroid is freaking awesome.​