Metroid is a franchise I feel like I matured out of, from a hobby I feel like I matured out of, which I still can't deny. I am so excited for Prime 4 and I wanted to detail my ~25 years of familiarity with our knight in shining armor.
TLDR: Metroid is very important to me and I am excited for Prime 4. I am happy it looks to be very good, but I would play it even if it looked very bad,.
imprinting on samus aran, my new mom,
tldr: Super Metroid was one of my earlier memories and it had an outsized impact on me.
I was a little baby when I saw Samus Aran's blurry orange-yellow monolithic self electron-blasted, fuzzy orange dots behind that CRT.
CRTs were cool, because the screen projected just under the glass. If you touched your finger to the screen, the game world would be a bit behind it. The pixels weren't sharply defined, but instead blurry and jittery, which added a sense of physicality to it. When I was very young, I believed all the elements of the game simply had to be critters existing somewhere in the cartridge.
I had access to a save just past the introduction.
Super Metroid was this fantastical, imposing game. I was too young to understand anything - even shooting her beam to get through that first door on Crateria was a huge accomplishment - but I understood that was just the surface of an obtuse, vast puzzle underneath. I understood that it was something beyond my comprehension.
Later on, Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were two games I was able to play and beat, on account of the Prima Strategy Guide. It was amazing to me that I had become able to play and beat through these games. These were grand, vast adventures to me.
I quickly professed myself The Biggest Metroid Fan.
I consumed Metroid2002 (a site showing all the out-of-bounds "secret worlds" you could clip into) and Planet Zebeth (a Metroid spritecomic) and the Metroid Galaxy Guide (a now defunct but fantastical wiki with custom-made fan renders; truly an art project, which has been revamped a few times, losing some things in the process). That, and the litany of Metroid fan games, like Metroid Genesis.
I eventually gained enough drawing skills to draw the shapes that composed Samus - very impressive for me.
I would come up with all these different suits and beams (I was very elated when my beam, the Nova Beam, came up in Prime 3) and I would wear arm cannons made from pringle cans. When I got glasses, I was elated to have this Able To See visor, and I fucked them up immediately by drawing a Metroid Prime style interface over the lenses.
my uncle who worked at nintendo
tldr: I accidentally "my uncle works at Nintendo"'d and got it 100% right with the Wii virtual console.
Over the summer (I believe of 2003?), my dad presented me with a disk from his brother with ZSNES on it. I didn't understand it, but he told me it was a beta test from Nintendo, lying to his goody-two-shoes child about the nature of the piracy. This was, apparently, part of something new Nintendo was working on.
At this time, I was theorycrafting with people on the internet about the nature of the Gamecube 2. I was telling people the GameCube was 128 bit and the GameCube 2 would be 256 bit, (extrapolating from the NES/SNES/N64). There was an online flash game where you could doodle a controller and drop buttons onto it, which I took very seriously..
I immediately made the connection that this ZSNES disk was a beta for the GameCube 2. But computer time was a hot commodity and a shared resource, so I did not spend those precious minutes trying to figure out Super Metroid. It was too obtuse for me yet.
But I did have a tale to bring to school. My uncle, who works at Nintendo, said the GameCube 2 will play games from every previous Nintendo console!
The funny thing is (1) I believed I was telling the truth, and (2) this was entirely right. The Wii would have the "virtual console" as a novel new feature.
Prime 2 and the autumn of Metroid
tldr: We didn't know how good we had it when we were getting Metroid games in the 00s. Did you know Prime was anticipated to suck ass?
As Metroid Prime 2 was announced and approached, a friend brought the latest Game Informer to the school library. At this time, I was in the third grade but reading "highschool level" books, and it was at this point I felt a bit of distance between the depth of the narrative in Metroid and the depth of other books I was reading.
But I still pored over that bad boy. I was the Metroid Expert and the "Smart Kid", and so people asked for my knowledge (baseless child's speculation).
"Ah," I said, confidently, looking at the Dark Beam in the magazine. "That's the Wave Beam."
These were the golden years for Metroid. I didn't appreciate it at the time, because I was a kid.
It turns out Metroid fans were anticipating the worse with Prime and Fusion. Super Metroid was the bombastic conclusion to a trilogy, which grew up along the Alien franchise. Just like Alien 3 two years prior, Super Metroid was the perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy.
Controversially, the completed trilogy was re-opened for two dually controversial releases:
- "Metroid Prime" promised to follow the gimmicky trend of 3D games, mixing first-person and third-person action. It was being developed by some shitty American studio with the generic name "Retro Studios", which had 0 launched games and 4 failed games. All signs were pointing to Metroid Prime being shit. Discussed previously.
- "Metroid Fusion" served as a sequel to Super Metroid. This was thought of as a sin of "sequelitis", but the main contention was Metroid Prime, obviously.
This didn't end up being the case. Metroid Prime successfully followed Super Metroid's beats to a tee (copying environments, music, and structure) and joined its hollowed place among The Best Games Of All Time, while Metroid Fusion was received with moderate positive reception.
Prime and Fusion released contemporaneously. Prime added complexity and depth to the lore of Metroid by grounding its cartoon-anime aesthetic with the scan visor, while Fusion expanded the worldbuilding by introducing Adam, the X-parasites, and bringing the Galactic Federation out from the manga and into
As Prime 2 released, we also got an epic remake of the first Metroid, Metroid: Zero Mission, eking out some details of Samus' backstory into the main games.
The Winter of Metroid...
tldr: In the peak of my Metroid Mania, I dedicated my life to Other M, which ended up being the last game in a string of releases.
When Metroid Other M was announced, I played every Metroid game in anticipation and read every Metroid manga.
I finally conquered not just Super Metroid, but Metroid 1 and 2. I went back through Fusion, Zero Mission, Prime 1 and 2. This was around the time I started using Linux, and to good effect, since I used so many emulators.
Around this time, I had also taken up GameMaker so I could make my own Metroid games, and I was eagerly anticipating the releases of fan games like AM2R and Prime 2D. (These would eventually release years later, and immediately get DMCA'd).
We were also highly anticipating Metroid Dread. It was the only of myriad leaked Nintendo DS games not to get released. Prime 3 had an infamous scan saying Dread was nearly complete.
On the eve of Metroid Other M's release, for which I saved my scant few dollars, I learned that I had my first day of highschool the next day.
I was heartbroken. My parents didn't give me any volition over the paperwork of my own life, (which was fair, since I was 14), but they dropped the ball like this several times. They found that out the night before my first day. I was entirely unprepared.
This ended up working well for me. It started a habit of vociferously consuming any and all highschool homework tasks the moment I got them, getting as much work done I could before I arrived home, to maximize the time I could spend with the hot new Metroid game.
... and the Spring of Metroidvanias
tldr: Other M sucked so bad that it killed the franchise for a decade, while Metroidvanias flourished. Play Cave Story, Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, Environmental Station Alpha, Steamworld Dig 1 and 2, The Messenger, and Tunic.
Metroid Other M was so poorly received that it killed the franchise for a long while.
We got Metroid Prime Trilogy, a port of the first three games to the Wii, which was nice. We got Metroid Prime: Federation Force, the only Metroid game I never beat, which put a nail into the series.
I grew a lot as a person, but I was always looped in to Metroid news.
Metroid Prime is a unique game. There are three games like Metroid Prime: Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, and Metroid Prime 3. (Outer Wilds is a "brainvania" which can be compared favorably to "What if you made a Metroid Prime game out of just the scan visor?" But it's not "like Prime")
But Metroidvanias flourished. We got Cave Story, Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, Environmental Station Alpha, Steamworld Dig 1 and 2, The Messenger, and Tunic.
Contemporaneously, non-Metroidvania indie games pushed the bar forward for making games flavored like the old ones, but in the highest quality. Shovel Knight is a great example of a game with platforming and gamefeel so good, with mainstream appeal, which influenced every indie game afterwards. We don't get Hollow Knight without Shovel Knight, I think.
Halo 4
tldr: Halo 4 got Retro devs for the environments. Then, Halo devs went on to make environments for Prime 4. Wow!
Halo existed in my social periphery as a party game for boys. I was never enthralled with the lore, but I did play CE and Halo 2 with friends, and then Halo 3 became a mainstay of my household when the Xbox dropped in price. My parents were abysmal with money and we were teetering on the edge of homelessness, but hey, that meant I got to play Halo.
I learned that Retro Studios devs had left to work on Halo 4, and then I became a huge Halo fan.
I ended up doing the exact same thing with Halo as I did for Metroid. I spent a summer beating every Halo game, I read every Halo book. (Some were great, like Greg Bear's Forerunner saga). I drew Master Chief in the margins of my precalculus notes.
The "take a deep dive on a subject" pattern persisted until 2020 or so. I ended up doing the same thing with Goethe's Faust when I was 17, but then in college, I would spend my summer and winter breaks working and getting a headstart on my upcoming classes.
While Halo 4 was controversial, much like Other M, I am of the opinion that Halo 4 was the very best Halo, by far.
A hallmark of Halo 4 was its use of mocap. This was famously used in Avatar, and was still a developing technology when used in Halo 4. Metroid Prime 4, by all appearances, seems to use mocap as well (and it looks like to good effect!)
But the relevance here is that Halo devs then went on to return to Retro. Just as we said "Halo 4 looks like Metroid Prime", now we're saying "Metroid Prime 4 looks like Halo 5". There has always been a lot of fanbase overlap, lots of "Who Would Win" (Samus, obviously). A cool Halo 4 inspired design of Samus's Prime 3 suit.
METROID DREAD
tldr: Metroid started to thaw, with AM2R in 2016, Samus Returns in 2017, and then the triumphant launch of Metroid Dread in 2021.
The Winter of Metroid is thawed. The summer is hot. Get your varia suits on.
Games stuck in development hell reach some kind of godlike status for their anticipation.
Sometimes the highly anticipated games suck, like Duke Nukem Forever.
Other times, the highly anticipated games simply fail to meet the unmatchable hype, and are merely mediocre, like Cyberpunk 2076.
Some are still stuck in anticipation. (Half Life 3, wherefore art thou? Shadow of the Eternals, what happened? Oh... Geeze. Okay.)
In 2016, we saw the release of Another Metroid 2 Remake, a highly anticipated (and very good) Metroid fangame. Fans are currently working on the 2.0 release. Fingers crossed we see it by August 6th 2026, the 40th anniversary of Metroid.
AM2R might not be an official game, but it scratched a Metroid itch that had gone unscratched for twelve years. That's when the dam broke.
In 2017, we saw Samus Returns, Nintendo's very own Metroid 2 remake, and Metroid Prime 4 was announced. (In January 2019, they announced they were scrapping and totally restarting development.)
And Metroid Dread? After sixteen years of anticipation, Metroid Dread was announced and then released in 2021. This was triumphant, since Dread managed to live up to its incredible hype, as discussed previously.
Prime Remastered was released in 2023 after years of rumors and leaks, and Prime 4 is soon to release, rumored to be the start of a new trilogy.
Estrogen and Metroid Prime 4
tldr: Girls can't play videogames, didn't you hear?
I was on estrogen off and on for a year, and now I can't enjoy videogames.
Halo Infinite is the best Halo multiplayer, but every minute on it feels like a waste of time slipping through my hands. Heroes of the Storm makes me feel like a loser to play. Something in my brain changed forever.
I can only play special games which are important for the artform. Donkey Kong Bananza, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4, or eventually Outer Wilds again.
But every Metroid game will be special to me. Metroid: Other Pinball will be a day-1 purchase. I'm married to this franchise. It's built in to me.
Metroid Prime 5
tldr: I bet Prime 5 is going to be insane. That's because it's a prime number.
Metroid games are notorious for maximizing their hardware, using black magic hacks to accomplish things.
Metroid NES did it. Super Metroid was the largest game on the SNES at the time of release. Prime 1 was packed with technological wizardry. Prime 3 was notoriously difficult for the Dolphin team. Other M, for all its flaws, was one of the prettiest Wii games. Prime Hunters had some of the best graphics on the Nintendo DS.
However, Metroid Prime Remastered and Metroid Prime 4, developed for the Switch, ar no longer able to claim the mantle of tech wizardry. Doom, TotK, and others have already claimed the mantle of "What? How?"
It's a pretty game, but on the Switch 2, the graphics will just read as mediocre. That's okay, though.
But if this pattern holds true, Metroid Prime 5 will be a graphics powerhouse that will give us a look at what the very maximum we can expect from the Switch 2 will be.
The Taxonomy of Metroid Games
tldr: Did you know? There are only two types of Metroid games. And maybe a third.
Just as Prime was spiritually a 3D adaptation of Super Metroid, Other M was spiritually a 3D adaptation of Fusion. In fact, most Metroid games can be understood as a "Type 1" game (featuring classic Samus abilities and Zebesian environments with a heroic adventure structure) or a "Type 2" game (featuring zany abilities, SR388 environments, and a horror adventure).
Super Metroid returns to Zebes, while Metroid Fusion returns to the environments of SR388 and brings along more Metroid evolutions along. Metroid evolutions would be a key feature of Type 2 Metroid games, featuring in Metroid II, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Other M, and Metroid Prime 2.
Metroid Prime 2 would add the Ing, a parasite like the Flood or the X-Parasites, which take over a host and turn it into a void-infused horrorterror. While ostensibly deep in the aesthetics of horror, Metroid Prime 2 goes deep into fantasy, with a contention between the forces of light and dark, magic crystals which provide sanctuary, temples, deserts, and bogs. Prime 2 features "Aether" Metroid evolutions heavily and fits the Type 2 mostly for its environments, and its one-off abilities never seen again (dark and light suits and beams, the gravity feature, etc.)
Metroid Dread continues the "type 2" tradition with horror elements, unique suit designs, and atypical enemies. It's giving SR388, it's giving Fusion, etc. Maybe Metroid 6 will feel more traditional. Maybe Samus will kill Ridley again.
| What | Type 1 | Type 2 |
|---|---|---|
| The Original | Metroid NES | Metroid 2: The Return of Samus |
| The Sequel | Super Metroid | Metroid Fusion |
| The Remake (of the Original) | Metroid: Zero Mission | Metroid: Samus Returns |
| The Spiritual 3D Remake of The Sequel | Metroid Prime | Metroid: Other M |
| The Other 3D Adventure | Metroid Prime 3: Corruption | Metroid Prime 2: Echoes |
| Metroid Dread | ||
| Ones with Sylux in them | Metroid Prime: Hunters? | Metroid Prime 4: Beyond? |
The "Hunters" type is difficult to add, and I'd say those (and Prime 3) scarcely fit into the taxonomy. Crucially, I have also not played Prime 4: Beyond, and I forgot about Federation Force when I wrote this.
There are a few games I won't categorize:
- Metroid Prime Pinball, which is odd enough that I'm comfortable saying we can lump it into Type 1,
- The Metroid Prime interactive promotional flash game, which was more like a point-and-click adventure, (of which I understand there were also releases for Echoes and Corruption),
- The Metroid Prime 2 interactive promotional flash game, which was more like a large 3D database of stars and locations in the Metroid universe,
- The Metroid Prime Pinball interactive promotional flash game, which was a really poor excuse for an online pinball game, I think. It might have just been an animation.
Type H Metroid games
tldr: It is unclear how to categorize Hunters or Prime 4. I think they might make for a "Hunters-type" game.
But what about Metroid Prime Hunters? Metroid Prime 4?
Metroid Prime 4 is curious. I'm excited, but the world seems wildly uninspired compared to the rest of the series. Five distinct locations, totally separated by a desert, with generic names.
Curiously, these map pretty well to the locations in Prime 1.
The environmental mapping is obvious:
| Prime 1 | Prime 4 |
|---|---|
| Tallon Overworld | Fury Green |
| Chozo Ruins | Sol Valley |
| Phendrana Drifts | Ice Belt |
| - | Volt Forge |
| Magmoor Caverns | Flare Pool |
| Phazon Mines | Old Mines |
| Chrono Tower | Impact Crater |
(The Sol Valley has the most visual overlap with Chozo Ruins, but it takes the role of Magmoor Caverns, as being the large area interconnecting the rest.)
The beams also seem to have an obvious mapping, with electric, ice, and fire beams present in Prime 4. But interestingly, they seem much more like the beams in Metroid Prime: Hunters beams, for having simple elemental affiliations and a shared beam ammo.
So, like Hunters, Prime 4 will have elemental beams with a shared set of ammo.
Like Hunters and Corruption, Prime 4 will be based around a set of disconnected locations.
Like Hunters, (and Other M, and Corruption), Prime 4 will have a cast of characters in the mix.
I'll have to play before I form an opinion. I'm not married to this taxonomy.