Djinn
and Tonic
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?
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?