Mike321 said:
Like I said, in prime 3 she works with the federation the whole game, you can interact and talk to them. Fleet Admiral Castor Dane is the one that gives the orders to samus and the other hunters. In the escort mission Dane gives Samus the order to protect those troops, not to mention during the whole mission other federation troops are fighting against the space pirates. And what about the final assault to phaaze? Sure Samus went to the planet alone but the federation ships opened her the path. So yeah that Samus quote completely disregards the events of prime 3 and in consequence the events of prime 2 and prime 1. You know what the funny part is? without that quote we wouldn't be having this conversation, but nintendo went over themselves thinking Other m was going to take the franchise to another direction. |
Honestly, I'd argue that was the last thing Nintendo wanted. I think the quote was put in there with no intention to retcon Prime 2 or 3; honestly it didn't even strike me as troublesome until someone on the internet made a big post about it.
In the end, the only thing I can really say is what I said before; there's a difference between a full blown joint mission and being contracted to do something. Prime 3 is a perfect example of this, honestly. Samus isn't given a superior officer and a checklist of orders she needs to follow at the beginning of the game; instead, she comes into a room with several other bounty hunters, and they are contracted to go find out what's been going on with the Aurora Units. The difference is the level of independence, if you're given an end goal, but allowed to go about achieving that end goal how you see fit, that's being contracted. Jointly working with someone means consistently following their orders and doing things exactly how they say.
I'll grant that the bit on the Pirate Homeworld with guarding the troopers falls more in line with the joint mission aspect (Samus and the Federation working directly with each other), but it's over so quickly I'd say it barely counts as a real mission. Babysitting some Federation troopers for 5 minutes only qualifies as a full joint mission if meeting with someone for 5 minutes to discuss possible romantic interests qualifies as a date night.
As for Phaaze, same deal. Samus isn't working directly with the Federation. The Federation clears a path, and then she does her own thing. If the Federation had, say, gotten her to take part in the actual spaceship fight, receiving direct orders from some captain or something, then that would qualify. But it's not a joint mission unless she's directly working with the Federation itself.
To throw another obscure metaphor out there, think of it this way. Imagine that there's a country suffering from disease that needs medical assistance, but any attempt at sending doctors in is stopped by local insurgents. So, in order to get first aid into that country, a foreign nation gets its military to clear out the insurgency, and then contracts something like MSF to go in and provide assistance. MSF isn't working directly with the army or the nation it's contracted by; there's no direct cooperation between the army and the doctors. That's the sort of situation here; unless Samus is directly aiding the Federation in their current task (i.e. shooting down Space Pirates), then it's not a joint mission.
