Metroid: Samus Returns is FANTASTIC so What's Next for 2D Metroid?

[Frogger]

mZuzek said:

spemanig said:

Free aim is actually one of the devolutions. It's worse than what came before. Most obvious is that you can't move while free aiming, meaning you're vulnerable to any melee enemy attack whenever you do it, which in this this game is literally every enemy. Free aiming replaces the ability to point up or down while moving or remaining stationary. Aiming in such a way is now locked to the direction you run, which is extremely unweildly.

The free aim issue is actually made worse tho by its association with the enemy design. In order to make the counter useful, nearly every enemy has a charge attack, and will attack Samus on sight. Since you can't move while free aiming to get out of the way, and since regular aiming sucks now, and since countering will one-hit-kill every enemy that isnt a boss when executed correctly, there is no reason to even use the free aiming in these situations.

Free aiming is therefor only useful when the player is far enough that the enemy cant spot them. So just for pot shots. Except because of the way levels are designed, many times Samus has to get close because, until she gets the plasma beam, she has to make sure there is a clear shot between her and the enemy while still being far enough away that she doesnt trigger a melee attack. Since this is a Metroid game, irregular level design is common place, meaning theres often a wall or something in the way until she gets a plasma beam. Once she has a plasma beam though, the benefits of fine aim in situations where Samus is in no danger because she is both far way and obstructed by the level design are nill.

But then that's what the counter is for, right? Sure, only countering has also had a detrimental effect on the game. Now enemies feel game-y instead of like wildlife solely to make the counter useful. Even from a purely gameplay perspective tho, having every enemy charge at you makes enemies feel like annoying pests. Like youre constantly swatting away mosquitoes. All for what amounts to one-hit-kill QTEs. A QTE for nearly every enemy in the game as their first attack upon seeing the player. Every enemy reacts the exact same way, and Samus must react in the exact same way everytime in order to dispatch them in the most effecient way possible without even the option to ignore it because the other way is that inferior to just walking up and countering, to the point where i think it is nearly impossible to beat the game without using it constantly because you'd lose too much health to get through the game. (I'm sure you actually could, but it would be a slow and miserable time)

There is no way to balance the melee counter, either the entire game has to be restructured to keep it useful to the detriment of literally everything else ala SR, or not in which case the melee counter would be functionally useless.

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I'm not going to get into everything i dont like about this game as again i'd rather write about it in a more formal capacity, but hopefully this proves that my perspective is more than just "hurr durr not my metroid." I don't like Aeion either, but i dont really care about how easy it makes the game. Well, i mean i do, but you really don't need to use it, although its really easy to hit the button by accident. Still, options like these shouldn't exist in games like this, as their utility are always far superior to anything else in the game. But at least here, the game actually functions in an enjoyable capacity without using the worst ones. I'll say that I hate the Scan Pulse, dislike the sheild, and am so-so on the slomo (still kinda dislike tho) and machine gun whatever. I don't like how the machine gun opens some doors, but that a problem with level design, not the ability itself.

I also want to clarify that I wasn't looking to SR to evolve the franchise at all. When i mentioned evolution, i was talking about an ideal. In the ideal situation, every new game, remake or otherwise, would be a linear evolution of what came before. I'd be fine with a parellel tho, something i literally mentioned six words later from what youre responding to. A parellel meaning that the game remains consistent relatively speaking with the best in the series. Zero Mission is the perfect example of this. Super is better, but ZM is for all intents and purposes an acceptable lateral/parellel move. Again, from what I've seen, AM2R seems to be the same. SR didn't need to reinvent the wheel, but as it is now it only managed to flatten it.

Wow.

You have a capacity for being negative about stuff that goes way beyond what I imagined was possible. In the end, your post kinda feels like a "hurr durr not my metroid", just exponentially developed in loads of words.

I understand why you wouldn't like the counter, since it is a dramatic change to combat, but since combat was actually so irrelevant in previous Metroid games I don't really see that big of an issue. I do think it was poorly used in most boss fights, because then it just triggers long-ass "interactive" cutscenes that instantly wipe out like 50% of the boss's health, but for the most part it's something I just got used to. In previous games, I'd see enemies and ignore them, in Samus Returns I see enemies and quickly shave them off with the counter. I liked how it made enemies more aggressive though, it made it feel like there was a bit more of a real obstacle to the exploration and it made the world seem more dangerous.

But yeah, the fact you somehow dislike free aim is beyond baffling. I understand the complaint about not being able to move while aiming, but that is such an extremely shallow complaint. When did you actually aim and shoot diagonally while moving in any previous Metroid game, like, ever? Once, twice? It was never much of an useful feature, if you're moving you're usually shooting forward, except in very specific cases. Also, don't get me started on how cumbersome it was to aim diagonally down in Fusion and ZM, a problem free aim fixes completely. Previous Metroid games weren't designed in a way that your 8-direction shots could hit every enemy, they were designed in a way that had loads of enemies that were awkward to hit because of their positioning, and now with free aiming those enemies are no longer a pain in the ass because the controls allow you a lot more freedom.

Whats funny is that boss fights are the one area where i don't mind the counter because I actually don't need to use it, and bossed don't exclusively spam counterable moves.

Enemies in metroid games are mostly wildlife. They arent meant to be obstacles. They are set dressing. Bosses and enemies like the space pirates are. Even so, enemies die in one hit with the counter, which is just an easy to execute QTE. In what way does that make the world feel dangerous? Enemies in SR are mindless annoyances that all react in the exact same way.

Moved and aimed diagonally all the time in Super. And even if it was rarely, it absolutely eclipses the amount of times that being rooted to the ground was more useful, which is a resounding never. And aiming diagonally down absolutely was cumbersome in those games. The solution isnt then to make a worse, infinitely less useful aiming option. It's to go back to what worked before. I'd infinitely rather not be able to aim comfortably in one direction, the least useful direction, while still having perfect mobility with an attack that is actually useful in literally every scanario than SR's implementation.

Previous metroids required you to move to hit an enemy at the very most. Thats it. Heaven forbid a metroid game forces the player to be mobile. There's nothing awkward about that. The idea that free aiming as it's implemented now offers more freedom is an objectively false one, for reasons I've already argued. SR trades literally every other freedom the previous way offered for the "freedom" of not having to take one step forward to hit an enemy. Absolutely not worth it.