Hard vote, but I had to vote Metroid.

Zelda and Metroid I think are Nintendo's big franchises for the hardcore, and I think only Metroid Prime 3 and Skyward Sword take advantage of Wii's Wii-mote for gameplay.

I voted for Metroid because Metroid has consistantly been a phenominal franchise, and I can always expect every entry to be excellent. Only Other M was a "good" game and not great, but that wasn't developed by 1st party studios. Plus Metroid is a lot more challenging, and a lot more mysterious.

Zelda can make better games, I would have to say Ocarina of Time probably edges Metroid Prime in quality, but the quality isn't consistant, and the plot hasn't really expanded since Ocarina of Time. Wind Waker was a good game, but nothing great in my opinion, and Twilight Princess was a bit of a mess. Excellent Gamecube game, but somewhat disappointing of a Wii game since it barely takes advantage of Wii's controller. Plus handheld Zelda's haven't really been that spectacular since Oracle of Ages/Seasons. meanwhile Metroid Fusion and Prime Hunters were just phenominal.

This was a hard choice, but Retro Studios is just a damn good studio, and everything they make is gold.

It really astounds me to hear people say that zelda skyward sword was mediocre. At the bare minimum, it was a great game. Yes, it wasn't perfect but it was definetly far from "mediocre". The first 5 hours were boring, but considering the game has a 40hour length, 5 hours of boredom isn't a lot compared to 35 hours of awesomness. It definetly had by far the best story and cinematic experience in the franchise. Anyways, to me, anyone who calls SS a mediocre game obviously didn't play the game (at least the first half of the game) or absolutely hate motion controls (which worked 99% perfectly in SS). There was a lot of time put in developpement for this game, and calling it mediocre is absurd.

Metroid easily. Metroid has one screw up in the entire franchise, and every other game is excellent. Metroid Prime 2 is tied for my favorite game of all time. Prime and Super aren't too far behind it either.

WW is the game tied for first, but really besides that, Zelda has been lame lately.

TP was pretty slow, and honestly bored me.
SS was terrible, really a bad game
ST and PH were both not good.

Metroid is superior. It's much harder, has a bigger focus on exploration, and still feels like it's aimed towards gamers.

<3

remove zelda from it and then tell me how great it is.

It is only great because it is zelda. Look at the mechanics.....it's like, really bad gameplay dood.

What the hell? I played through the game 2 times and let me tell you it is great. I loved the puzzles and dungeon designs. I loved the characters and the story. I loved the gameplay. Have you ever even played the game from start to end? Because I really doubt it.

The last two Metroid games hardly focused on exploration at all. MP3 and M:OM were both extremely linear. True for Zelda as well, but in that aspect, neither franchise has a right to talk about "exploration".

M:OM was extremely easy as well, and MP3 was just kind of "meh" difficulty. Again, I wouldn't say either franchise has a right to talk about this area. Only the first Metroid was harder than the first Zelda outside of the second quest (only because Metroid was even more vague and confusing), but after that the difficultly hasn't been all that drastically different in most cases. Majora's Mask was about as hard as echoes, Ocarina of Time and MP1 were about the same, Metroid 2 is probably easier than Zelda 2..LttP is probably a little harder than Super Metroid. It's either pretty even or one edges above the other a bit depending on which games we're comparing. Plus, Spirit Tracks was definitely a lot harder than Metroid Fusion, sorry to say.

Zelda if it came right down to it, but I refuse to choose since I love both. Super Metroid and the masterpiece that is Metroid Prime are two of the best games ever made.

Metroid Prime 2 is harder than any Zelda game I've played. Play it.

Other M doesn't exist.

Besides the last 2 games, exploration has been the focus.

I can name four Metroid games I love, and one of which is my favorite game (Prime!). But I think Zelda has a more substantial streak of quality experiences and I can name five Zelda games I love.

Bear in mind that I'm not comparing the gameplay or superficial aspects of either franchise, because that is an necessarily complex way for me to decide which one I prefer.

So I say Zelda. If it were solely between my favorite Zelda games and my favorite Metroid games, however, Metroid would win handily. On an unrelated note, Xenoblade versus the best Zelda games is something I suddenly want to ponder.