Oh sure, yeah, hop into those reviews. I dare you. I double dare you. Go into those reviews and come back and tell me which of those games was treated better by reviewers.

Your recollection is faulty; Fusion was received better by most metrics.

I wasn't even talking reviews (though reading back I now notice the conversation turned there), I was talking general sentiment and response (mostly by series fans).  I don't agree either, personally I liked the tension and challenge in Fusion more, and didn't mind the more directed structure, which seemed more natural for a handheld game anyway.  I did think ZM had better shinesparking puzzles though, and it's a better game for sequence breaking if you're into that.

The only real complaints I remember about ZM were it's short length, the stealth bit and map indicators... which was bit less controversial than Fusion's segmentation, Adam's direction, map indicators and story focus.  Fusion was also seen as short iirc.

And frankly, you've yet to prove "Fusion was better received by most metrics"... all you've done is source meta scores (while mentioning the actual content of those reviews is conveniently inaccessible) and mention you think ZM sold a third what Fusion did.  My recollection might be faulty, but you've yet to prove that given all you seem able to bring to the table are empty unsourced scores and your own recollection.  Bravo.

Shouldn't have gone and done that, now I actually went and looked things up.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050225220534/www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~hokora/gbadb04j.html

You will take note that as of one year after launch (historically when legs on Metroid games finally crash and burn altogether), Zero Mission had sold 439k in the US and all of 39k flat in Japan (CTRL-F "439" and it's the first result). I don't have European numbers, of course, but this game has numbers below current numbers for Other M, which would place it optimistically at less than half of Fusion's sales worldwide.

Gamespot ranked Zero Mission .1 lower than Fusion, citing no particular improvements over the last game, noting that both were quite short.

IGN ranked Zero Mission .5 lower than Fusion, noting that while its presentation is nicer, it lacked Fusion's sense of challenge and its boss battles were jokes in comparison.

Computer and Video Games UK didn't actually review Fusion, but note that Zero Mission's "zero challenge" results in the game's brevity being much more apparent and egregious in comparison to the last title.

Originally Gamespy scored Zero Mission .8 lower than Fusion, noting that both of them were too short and Zero Mission's lack of difficulty or gameplay innovation did it more harm through repetition.

GameCritics didn't review Fusion, but gave Zero Mission a 7.5, noting that the entirety of its inferiority as compared to Fusion, both in terms of tone and in terms of pacing, comes down to an utterly monstrous lack of difficulty.

I can cite these bad boys. You would be hard-pressed to try to cite the general reactions of "Metroid fans".

Zero Mission was not received as well as Fusion, save by a narrow band which was not large enough to influence the game or its design on a larger scale (as I noted in a previous post).

I think we've wandered off point here. The original remark was that R&D1 took the perceived critiques of Fusion and attempted a return to form, indicating that would likely be the case again

Shouldn't have gone and done that, now I actually went and looked things up.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050225220534/www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~hokora/gbadb04j.html

You will take note that as of one year after launch (historically when legs on Metroid games finally crash and burn altogether), Zero Mission had sold 439k in the US and all of 39k flat in Japan (CTRL-F "439" and it's the first result). I don't have European numbers, of course, but this game has numbers below current numbers for Other M, which would place it optimistically at less than half of Fusion's sales worldwide.

Gamespot ranked Zero Mission .1 lower than Fusion, citing no particular improvements over the last game, noting that both were quite short.

IGN ranked Zero Mission .5 lower than Fusion, noting that while its presentation is nicer, it lacked Fusion's sense of challenge and its boss battles were jokes in comparison.

Computer and Video Games UK didn't actually review Fusion, but note that Zero Mission's "zero challenge" results in the game's brevity being much more apparent and egregious in comparison to the last title.

Originally Gamespy scored Zero Mission .8 lower than Fusion, noting that both of them were too short and Zero Mission's lack of difficulty or gameplay innovation did it more harm through repetition.

GameCritics didn't review Fusion, but gave Zero Mission a 7.5, noting that the entirety of its inferiority as compared to Fusion, both in terms of tone and in terms of pacing, comes down to an utterly monstrous lack of difficulty.

I can cite these bad boys. You would be hard-pressed to try to cite the general reactions of "Metroid fans".

Zero Mission was not received as well as Fusion, save by a narrow band which was not large enough to influence the game or its design on a larger scale (as I noted in a previous post).

Well not a Metroid game, but it looks like Ridley/Samus may at least be making an appearance in Dead or Alive Dimensions (I know this was rumored before, but don't recall seeing this video posted.

I shouldn't have made you actually go ahead and do what you'd claimed to have already?  I respectfully disagree.

I'm not in the mood to dig through Gamefaqs user reviews on or old GAF archives, so I guess I'll cede this "narrow band" battle to you.  Thanks for looking up partial sales though, I miss Shrine of Data (and NPD leaks in general).

My original point though, was that Sakamoto's team went some way towards "correcting" some of the perceived design "flaws" from Fusion in their next effort.  Zero Mission was less linear, less segmented, with less story intrusion... a lot of the complaints from Fusion seem similar to me to the general complaints with Other M , so I saw the potential for a similar response on his part (perhaps with another remake even?).  That's all.

That's only a reasonable assumption in the case where one can see that the reception of Zero Mission (sales in particular) is improved by these feature changes; it wasn't. If anything, the removal of difficulty is the only major change cited by reviewers, and whether or not those are noted in GFAQs or the GAFs doesn't change the fact that less story intrusion (because the game was no less linear) didn't improve sales at all. An "improvement" of Other M in the same vein is not a logical progression on its face simply because Zero Mission did so much worse than Fusion.

You might disagree, but I feel my own experience is "reasonable".  And frankly that's what I'm speaking to... after completing both I feel what people generally didn't like about Fusion was dialed down in Zero Mission (linearity, segmentation, story, etc).  I guess you can argue against the ultimate market impact of that with lowered scores, sales archives, or whatever, but that's really beside the point.  I just see a similar opportunity here, no more, no less.  Sakamoto's not blind, there's a track record, and after the savage treatment Other M got, I'd naturally expect a much more dialed back, more conservative approach from his team next time.  That sound reasonable?

OT, now I have to buy DOA Dimensions.  The Ridley battle was really the highlight of Other M imo.