| RolStoppable said: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4708859 You're doing yourself no favor by arguing absolutes. That's not why people pick up Metroid, no, because sex has never been leveraged to sell Metroid outside of Japan (and Other M) but it is why many people try over and over to cut down their times. This was much truer in the NES and SNES eras than it is now, but it definitely happened. You're doing yourself no favor by arguing absolutes. There it is, you said that people played it quickly to see Samus with her clothes off. Your love for Metroid Prime is rooted in it being the first Metroid game you played and the first one you beat. That's where your attachment is coming from. That's also where the love for Super Metroid is coming from, because for many players it is the first Metroid game that they could beat (it was much easier than the original Metroid). Of course, both are among the greatest games of all time, this plays a significant part too. What makes Samus a great character is that she is controlled by the player and not the other way around. She was great in Metroid Prime, yes. But she was also great in Metroid, Return of Samus, Super, Echoes and Corruption. For the most part in Zero Mission too. You wrote a huge essay of an original post to declare Samus "not great" in games other than Metroid Prime, because there are ending sequences showing her without her armor. That's just too funny. Negligible and tiny parts of ROMs that many people may never see suddenly make a character "not great". And then you call my posts horrible. You didn't just make a mountain out of a molehill. You made the Himalaya out of a grain of sand. |
Ahp! You got me. I did indeed say that some people play quickly to see Samus take her clothes off. It was true, in the early 90s; I knew a few of them myself. Still, I said I didn't say it, when in fact I did. So I suppose you get a ... point?
And do not try that ridiculous "it's your favorite because it was your first" garbage with me, you insult me and belittle yourself in doing so; I have shown over and over on this site that nostalgia has little or nothing to do with the games that I like and when I approahc new games it is almost always with a fresh perspective and willingness to see what makes them work. The specific points of greatness that I pointed out about Metroid Prime are primarily unique to Metroid Prime (though of course goign after the baby Metroid becomes intensely personal, too). When I call Metroid Prime superior to Super MEtroid, it isn't necessarily as a game, it is in reference to the treatment of the character of Samus, which is measurably different.
Samus never really ceases to be the player in Metroid Prime, nor is she ever leveraged as a reward; the game treats her with more respect, and treats the player with more respect in the bargain.
You acknowledged that the post was not good.
There is nothing wrong with a serious attempt to look at the way a character is treated in the context of the reward systems in her own games and the larger framework of the archetype of the faceless hero in video games. It is no more "tiny parts of ROMs that many people may never see" than words in a book are "flecks of ink that most people will never look at." It is a concrete state of being in the games, and if you think it's not worth actually taking the time to look at these things then don't participate; there are people who are willing to, and I could be devoting energy to them, instead.
