This game sounds fun to me, looking forward to it!

If you have to argue that the game belongs in the Metroid universe, then it doesn't.  You shouldn't have to do a hard sell.

I wouldn't care that much if Nintendo wanted to make some Metroid spinoff if they were giving us real Metroid as well but they're not.  The last time we got a proper handheld Metroid game was 12 YEARS AGO! And Nintendo was shocked that the fanbase shit all over this?  Last sort-of-proper Metroid game was almost six years ago.  Last one that wasn't shit was almost nine.  We will go over 10 years since Metroid Prime 3 without any new proper game in the series.  I sincerely doubt we'll see something in the next year and a half to prevent that from happening because surely they would have announced such a title by now.  We thought the break between Super Metroid and Fusion/Prime was long but that was only 8 years.  We've now beaten that gap.

I don't give a shit how this game turns out.  It could get perfect 10s across the board and I won't get it because fuck Nintendo for denying us proper Metroid.  I will not buy any Metroid product until they give us back what the fans actually want.  If they did the same thing for Zelda or Pokémon or Mario (not that I imagine they would with him) I would take the same stance.  I probably should take the same stance for Paper Mario too that matter, though I realize TTYD was the last game I bought in that series so I essentially already have.

Other companies would KILL to have a franchise with the prestige and credibility of Metroid but Nintendo completely fucks it all up.  Most companies would kill the franchise by annualizing it.  Nintendo is doing the exact opposite.

I feel sad for Next Level Games for making a neat-looking game that is shackled to a beloved series with a rabid fan base who feels neglected.


I feel sad for Tanabe trying to make a spin-off game (that he wants to make) to his spin-off series after Sakamoto made Metroid: Other M.


A proper Metroid game is a difficult and intricate game to make. Sadly, it is a type of game that inspires more passionate love than large sales numbers.

Whatever. I'll play it.

Is the only way to communicate using three different cheerleader poses?

I think some people get too caught up in franchises. A fun game is a fun game regardless of what form it comes in.

Kensuke Tanabe did a good job explaining the game, back when we first saw it there was no explanation what so ever leading to panic and confusion. As always Ian Sane will continue to Ian Sane.

Put it in a non-Nintendo context.  If Valve announced a new Half-Life tomorrow that didn't look like Half-Life or play like it this many years removed from the last Half-Life game would it make sense for fans to be upset?  This is the exact same thing.

But Federation Force does play like Metroid Prime.

I know what you mean, Ian! It's just like that time they made a sequel to Jak and Daxter, only it wasn't a colorful open world platformer, but instead it was a dark, gritty, dystopian GTA style game that didn't at all do well enough to receive multiple sequels and spin offs!

Because we all know with the upcoming NX that Nintendo is being incredible secretive about, they're going to make one exception and make Metroid of all games that game to reveal months before anything else on the NX is shown. ::)


Seriously, if you know the entire lineup Nintendo is going to announce for the NX at E3, just say all the games then since you clearly know.

The game looks fine, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I personally would prefer they did something else other then this, or rather that this was a console game and not handheld. Metroid Prime gameplay on my N3DS? That sounds more like another case of breaking buttons and circle pads  ::)

This game is not a reason why there isn't or hasn't been a mainline Metroid game on the Wii U or 3DS. If this game did not exist, there would be nothing in its place. Therefore, I'm fine with it.

Yeah, I still hate that art direction.

Is this a New 3DS exclusive? After the producer's comments, I assumed it was.

The art direction is very odd because the whole point of using an existing brand is that you're trying to attract fans of that IP.  Why would Nintendo ever assume that Metroid fans would want to see a chibi art style?  Metroid is one of the few Nintendo franchises that has never been cutesy.  It's graphic style has always had realistic proportions (well as realistic as one could get on the NES anyway).  If you're using an existing IP you want it to appeal to those fans.  If you're trying to attract a new audience why are you using an existing IP?

No it is not although it probably benefits from it in some ways.

It's in the "New 3DS recommended" camp with Hyrule Warriors Legends and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

My biggest concern is that this is going to be another triforce heroes. That game was a horrible single player experience.  I don't exactly have anyone to play with and playing with randos doesn't exactly appeal to me, but Metroid is my absolute favorite franchise, so there's no way I'm not going to own and play this game.

I gotta side with Ian on this.  I think the initial fan reaction was justified.  It's been too damn long.  The series is about to go 2 handheld generations with no mainline release, and the Wii U will be starved for Metroid completely (not counting VC).  There's no reason to really think they're just saving it for the NX.  It's kind of like when Nintendo promoted Zelda's 25th anniversary but ignored Metroid's entirely: if they had something to talk about, they'd talk about it.

Tanabe said they've been working on this game since 2009, so it's not far-fetched that they would've been working on something else in the 9 years since Prime 3.  But there's been no sign of it anywhere.  And the 2D series might as well be dead.

If the game doesn't appeal to you don't, purchase it, but from a business standpoint, the message Nintendo gets when a Metroid game doesn't sell well isn't that they did the wrong Metroid, it's that the Metroid brand doesn't sell. Which has been true for a quite a while now, so you can kind of understand why they haven't been putting a lot of investment into the franchise. I'm personally going to have to see more of Federation Force before making a purchasing decision, but if it flops, which is likely, I fully expect another 9 years before we see another Metroid title. In the unlikely event it breaks records, you can expect a swath of Metroid titles to follow. Not saying that's a reason to buy a game you don't want. Just saying that's how entertainment companies run their businesses.

Metroid doesn't sell. That's the plain and simple truth. Combining Monster-hunter/MMO-style quests with a FPS, however, might increase the game's potential userbase, especially in Japan, where you see this sort of thing.

A few of Nintendo's recent experiments have been implementing this sort of mindset- Triforce Heroes, this game... the new Kirby game has a co-op RPG minigame mode, for goodness sake. It's no surprise, really, considering the massive success of the Monster Hunter brand.

The games in the series each sell over a million units.  Sure, it's not Nintendo's highest selling franchise, but how is putting out one spin-off in almost 10 years good?

For the sake of clarity, as of March 2015.
Metroid - 2.73 Million
Metroid 2 Return of Samus - 1.72 Million
Super Metroid - 1.42 Million
Metroid Fusion - 1.6 Million
Metroid Prime - 2.84 Million
Metroid Zero Mission - Less than 1 million
Metroid Prime 2 Echos - 1.1 Million
Metroid Prime Pinball - Less than 1 Million
Metroid Prime Hunters - 1.08 Million
Metroid Prime 3 Corruption - 1.41 Million
Metroid Prime Trilogy - Less than 1 Million
Metroid Other M - Less than 1 Million
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=963700

Because Metroid cost a lot to make for the sales it gets.  Nintendo only has limited resources and when they have a lot of franchises more popular then Metroid and several that are just as popular as Metroid but cheaper and easier to make, it's harder to justify constantly making new Metroid's like they were doing during the 2000's.  Between 2002 to 2010, we had 8 Metroid games, that's more then fucking Zelda had in that same timeframe.  Nintendo tried to make Metroid a huge series during the 2000's but it just never payed off.  Even the biggest success Prime 1 didn't reach the sales a game of it's magnitude should have and actually did more harm then good in trying to expand it.  Go to any message board back in 2003 and it was filled with non-Metroid fans complaining how boring Prime 1 was because they bought it because all the hype of it being Nintendo's Halo only to be disappointed it wasn't an action packed FPS, and hated the exploration focus.  It just proves the point that Metroid  isn't a very marketable series for mass audiences.

Seriously, the problem with Metroid is Nintendo spoiled the damn fanbase by making them think it's more important then it really is to them because of all the games they released in the 2000's.  Even now Metroid fans are still acting like spoiled asshats.  It hasn't even been 6 years since the last traditional Metroid was released, that's pretty average for a lot of Nintendo franchises that aren't Mario/Zelda or Pokemon.  Hell, fucking Donkey Kong who Metroid fans complain stole Retro away, had a 6 year gap between Jungle Beat and Returns, despite being a much more iconic and popular series then Metroid's ever been or ever will be.  Of course Jungle Beat was considered the black sheep at the time because it played nothing like older Donkey Kong titles and hardly acknowledged the Rare games, so if we're going to use the ridicules logic that it's been 9 years since the last real Metroid because just saying Other M causes you cry babies to shit your pants, then it was fucking 10 years between DK64 and Returns and then if DK64 doesn't count because some hated that as well then it's 14 years between DKC3 and Returns.

Plus if we want to tie this sales talk in with Federation Force, Luigi's Mansion sold better then Prime 1, and yet it took over 11 years for that game to get a sequel from the same team that is now doing Federation Force.  Seriously, Metroid isn't some special case that Nintendo is going out of it's way to shit on the fans with.  It had it's chance during the 2000's, which didn't work out so now it's being treated like any other Nintendo franchise that isn't the big guns like Mario, Zelda or Pokemon.  Just because we aren't getting a new Metroid every year doesn't mean it's a dead franchise.

Nintendo made a mistake in trying to market Metroid Prime as a Halo killer.  Of course I look at games like Hunters and Federation Force as attempts to turn Metroid Prime into the FPS they tried to promote it as.  Really what the Metroid Prime backlash shows is that there is (or at least was) demand for Nintendo to offer some sort of FPS franchise.  This especially made sense in the Cube era since the N64 had Goldeneye and Perfect Dark so there was a natural expectation that Nintendo would offer something similar in the gen to follow.  I wonder how a teenager would react today if you told them that the first console known for its first person shooters was a Nintendo one.

So there is demand for an FPS from Nintendo.  Nintendo tries to pass off Metroid Prime as such a game and it does not work because it is not the same type of game.  So then Nintendo starts trying ideas like Metroid Prime Hunters where they turn Metroid into a traditional FPS but that upsets Metroid fans.  Really the whole problem is Nintendo trying to pound a square peg in a round hole.

Nintendo should make the damn FPS for the people they were trying to market Metroid Prime to already as a different IP and then continue to make proper Metroid games for Metroid fans at whatever interval seems appropriate (once a gen is perfectly fine with me).  Since both audiences are Western I wonder if NCL has been trying to please them in one project to so that it diverts less talent from the "more important" Japanese focused projects.

Federation Force will fail because it will not please either of those two audiences.  It isn't a proper Metroid game so Metroid fans won't like it.  FPS fans won't like it either because it uses a cutesy art style and it's on a handheld.  Best case scenario is that Japan likes it, like they liked Splatoon and knowing NCL that's the real goal.  But then they could just make something new like Splatoon and not alienate FPS and Metroid fans.  Sorry, Nintendo, you have to actually make games that target these different audiences and not hope to kill several birds with one stone.

Metroid Prime is a 3D Metroid game with a targeting system for shooting.

It's made for Metroid fans.

2D Metroid isn't the only "proper" type of Metroid game, and its been made irrelevant by the numerous indie titles that do the exact same thing at a lower cost. There's really only been two good 2D Metroid games, Super and Zero Mission, in the entire 30 year span of the franchise. One might argue Metroid II or Fusion, and I might give you Metroid II even though the lack of map and variety hurts it, but Fusion is linear as hell.

RIP Metroid.
Maybe one day he will crawl.

I can't say Ian is wrong on this one, not at all. At the same time Mop It Up says if its a good game its good game, I think both opinions are right.


Considering the circumstances surrounding Metroid it's completely understandable why fans are upset. If it's good I might get it but nothing about the game play has me interested. Then you have the art style which really does not lend itself well to the Metroid world. When Zelda stylistically took a drastic turn from the previous game it was still very fitting.


I could care less about the Federation and if Metroid were to get another spin off I'd rather play a bad guy Ridley game flying around space and alien planets shooting people up with fire balls and slicing them away by claw and tail.

I expect this game to sell poorly but I'm not worried about the future of the franchise at all. If we waits we waits. Didn't even realize we waited longer than the time span from Super to Prime/Fusion. Maybe because back then 8 years was like half my life but it seemed like we'd never ever get a new Metroid. I doubt we'll be put into a Star Fox or F-Zero situation with Metroid mainly because being a 3rd or 1st person action game that has some freedom and exploration lends its self to new play styles much easier than the other two franchises. In fact I'm sure the real deal is being worked on somewhere.

I can see both sides. Personally, I don't like the direction the developers decided to go with Federation Force. My solution is pretty simple: I don't have to buy it, and I won't.

Same goes for Paper Mario: Color Splash (for now, anyway).

I think Federation Force looks really fun, and I'll definitely be getting it.

Color Splash needs more details.

I'd honestly just prefer that they call it something else.  Let the franchise be dead.  There's little to gain to from capitalizing on the name, if the belief is that the series doesn't sell.  The only thing you get out of using the franchise is lore.

The frustrating part of stuff like this is that you really don't know how voting with your wallet will be interpreted.  The last thing we want is for Nintendo to interpret poor sales as some outright rejection of Metroid as a franchise.  Can they determine the difference between "we don't like Metroid" and "we don't like Metroid IN THIS CONTEXT"?  And I'm going to guess that a company that is in touch with their customers enough to interpret that correctly doesn't create the situation where the fans are rejecting something that is theoretically supposed to interest them in the first place.  The whole mess gets created by being a bumbling fuddy-duddy so how do you go from being really out-of-touch to a savvy company that knows exactly how to interpret sales data overnight?

Unfortunately, it matters far less to any company why a product sold poorly than the fact that it sold poorly (not sure I'm explaining that well). In this instance, Nintendo is not making games out of the goodness of its heart. It's making games to take our money. That's not just Nintendo; that's every company in every industry.

Whether Federation Force sells poorly because it's a hack Metroid game or because Metroid generally sells poorly comparatively to Nintendo's real big sellers like Mario and Zelda is immaterial to Nintendo. Metroid isn't a system seller, and Nintendo has tried a few times to make it one. Gretchen, stop trying to make Metroid happen. It's not going to happen. Metroid performs modestly. The best selling game in the series is the original Metroid Prime, and that didn't even break three million. The reality, unfortunately, is that sub-three million units is not good enough to justify millions in development and a couple of Nintendo's best teams in Retro Studios and what is now what, Nintendo Entertainment Planning and Development (it's complicated what happened to Research and Development 1 with all the mergers and reassignments).

I understand why Nintendo would change Metroid in this way. Its trying to figure out a way to elevate the series. The problem is that Nintendo is asking the wrong questions and complicating a really simple truth. Outside of the series' own relatively small yet dedicated fanbase, it just doesn't resonate with most people. This is coming from someone who is on record several times that Metroid is his favorite series. While Nintendo keeps asking itself what it can change about the series to make it more palatable (e.g. add voice acting, make it more action-y, make Samus less mysterious, change the art style etc.), it ignores the fact that changing Metroid makes it not Metroid. As much as I enjoy 3D Metroid, I honestly think the best solution is to go backward. Give it to a small team with a small budget and make a straight 2D sequel that speaks directly to fans because it knows exactly what it is. That game isn't a system seller; it's a game that turns a profit zeroing in on a very specific audience.

Nintendo doesn't want to spend a Zelda-like budget for not Zelda-like sales. That doesn't mean Nintendo will never try again or Retro Studios will never go back to Metroid. It just isn't priority for them. The counterargument I always hear is that Nintendo is destroying goodwill. These are the same people who complained day after day then still bought a Wii U (eventually). You're part of the fucking problem then. That's why I make a concerted effort not to continually whine about things I don't like. Metroid Prime: Federation Force is not my cup of tea so I move on. If I wanted to vote with my wallet, I'd stop buying all Nintendo things. There's no use lying to myself; I'm not going to do that. However, I can save myself $40, and just accept the fact that Metroid Prime: Federation Force neither speaks to me as a Metroid fan nor a consumer of video game things. Still, I sincerely hope others find it enjoyable even if I can't and/or don't.

Nintendo released 6 mainline Metroid games, plus a couple spinoffs, in less than 9 years, from Prime and Fusion in 2002 to Other M in 2010. That's just too many for a franchise with the commercial reception Metroid has. I have no doubt that we'll see more traditional Metroid games, I wouldn't be that surprised if we saw a teaser for one on NX at E3 or somewhere else this year, but I can't really blame Nintendo for taking something of a breather in regard to them after that stretch.

See this is the lesson Nintendo needs to learn.  The 3DS is even the right platform since the budget expectations aren't so high.  But they're probably not going to.  And it makes me think of something else for the future - if the NX is a console/handheld combo of some sort, whether it be a shared OS or a hybrid system or whatever, does that destroy the financial benefit of handheld games having lower budgets?  If it's one game for both platforms it essentially has to meet the standards of a console game.  eShop I guess would be the direction to go.  Hell numerous indies have shamelessly ripped off Metroid and made a buck as download-only titles.  So why not Nintendo?

I think Nintendo now realizes that the series is always going to be most popular in the west, where handhelds aren't as popular. If and when they do make a new traditional Metroid game I expect it to be a console game.

I still wouldn't be surprised if Retro is working on Prime 4 for the NX right now.  The reason we got Tropical Freeze is because Returns sold over 6 million copies, more then all 3 Prime games combined.  It's not hard to see why Nintendo thought a sequel to Donkey Kong was a smarter decision.

Well now Tropical Freeze only sold 1 million, around what Prime 2 and 3 did so Donkey Kong isn't exactly that much bigger then Metroid at the moment.  Nintendo has more reason to have Retro make Metroid again since it'd help give more variety to the lineup and since it's been almost a decade since the last main Prime game, they can advertise the glorious return of this series again for better sales, similar to DK Returns benefited from being the return of the 2D DK Country series which hadn't had a game in over a decade.

Plus when was the last time Nintendo released a spinoff of a franchise when no new main installment in development?  Oh yeah they never have.  If Metroid was dead and Nintendo doesn't care for the series, why use the Metroid name in a game that doesn't even star it's main character?  They could have easily made it a new IP then, which in this games case might have helped it sell better, but the point still stands, they wouldn't be trying to sell a spinoff if there wasn't plans of a new main installment in said series.

I think there's a good chance Retro's working on a Metroid game, but I don't think it's going to be Prime 4. I think they'll want to make a different kind of game.

Star Fox Adventures.

It gets tricky depending on what you call a main installment. Mario is technically a spin-off of Donkey Kong; Yoshi and Wario are spin-offs of Mario. For simplicity's sake, let's count each character as its own franchise. So just about every non-port Donkey Kong game between Donkey Kong 64 and Returns.* Most WarioWare games released between Wario World and Wario Land: Shake It and after the latter. Possibly Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (it uses the 3D World engine so Captain Toad hasn't made the same transition as Yoshi or Wario) though I suppose Nintendo is always technically working on Mario, but the point remains that both 2D and 3D series has been dormant for over two years now.

I get your point, but now that I think about it, this happens a lot more than I would have thought. I don't know if there's any real reason to believe that a new mainline Metroid is in the works, particularly if Kensuke Tenabe has spent the last six years trying to crack Federation Force though he admitted last year that he doesn't know what Retro Studios is working on. It could be Metroid. After Splatoon's surprise success, it could be completely new.

*unless you really want to count Jungle Beat as a main installment which I don't

The development of Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault probably didn't overlap, but they probably weren't that far off. Roughly two and a half years apart. Also, I think it's fair to say that WarioWare is its own franchise at this point. But you're right, it's not completely unheard of.

Still, I can definitely see it as being a franchise that they thought about bringing to Wii U, but after seeing it flop bumped it back to NX. I don't know why, as I have nothing real to back it up, but I'm pretty confident there's going to be a new traditional Metroid game within the next year or two.

I think if Nintendo was (even interested in) working on a 2D Metroid, it would've been on the DS or 3DS. Or even the Wii U by now.  It's been thirteen and a half years since Metroid Fusion.

I just can't wrap my head around why they would now be interested in the franchise.  Unless the NX is some revolutionary piece of hardware that can make an amazing Metroid game, I don't get it.

There was a 14 year gap between Mario Land 2 and New Super Mario Bros DS.  Hell, when NSMB DS came out Nintendo even ignored Land 2 and said NSMB DS was the first new 2D Mario in 15 years when advertising it.  This is 2D Mario were talking about and Nintendo waited that long between the newest installments, so you really think it's impossible we'll never get a new 2D Metroid again?

Nintendo has shown over and over again time doesn't mean shit to them.  It can be over a decade before a game gets a sequel but it still happens.  The studio making Federation Force made a sequel to Luigi's Mansion, and it was over 11 years between both Luigi's Mansion games, with the original Luigi's Mansion selling better then any Metroid game ever did.  Nintendo operate at their own pace and if they feel like they want to make a new 2D Metroid again then they'll make one.

In the time before NSMB, we got the GBA remakes, so there was still some interest in at least putting out 2D Mario games.  It was 14 years without a new game, but not a complete 14 year drought.  I don't think it's impossible, but it's highly improbable.  My expectations have just hit zero.

Maybe? But in the meantime, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Well Other M was originally suppose to be a 2.5D game with 2D gameplay until Team Ninja convinced Sakamoto to make it 3D.  There's also Metroid Dread which was going to be 2D game for the DS but got canceled so it's not like Nintendo hasn't thought of making a 2D Metroid since Zero Mission.  It's just things haven't exactly gone right when they've tried, but it's just a matter of time before a team or individual at Nintendo pitches the idea again and this time things go right.