I don't feel the need to buy less than stellar games just so more Metroid games get made. I don't let myself be black-mailed like that. If Nintendo doesn't want to put AAA effort in my favorite franchise then I'll just skip it and play substitutes like Hollow Knight and Steamworld Dig 2. Their loss, not mine. 

A game on weaker hardware isn't supposed to look a lot better, but here we are... 

Here are some screens from Hollow Knight and Steamworld Dig 2: 

If I knew what I knew before playing, I wouldn't have bought this game either. I don't think that Metroid's future looks bright after this, though compared to Other M, it's future looks like a gift from god. Then again, now I'm comparing SR to OM, so...

What Metroid would ideally do is take a page from Sonic and give their 2D games to fans like DoctorM64 who clearly have a better finger on what makes a good metroid game.

Since Nintendo's egos are too big to make that happen though, I genuinely see myself being done with 2D metroid. Metroid 5 is the last chance, but I have 0 faith in that. Verdict is still out on Prime 4, but at least I have hope there.

Ghost Song looks good though. Started as a Metroid fan game and is now an original project that looks legit amazing and potentially better than even Super.

So great artstyle = Great game
Meh artstyle = Meh game

Strange logic

Welp, I was looking forward to jumping back into this discussion after work, but it appears to have largely descended into insults and hyperbole, so I think I'll try and start up a new discussion.

One thing I actually found myself liking a lot in Samus Returns was the complexity of some of the later Metroid evolutions and boss fights; reminded me a lot of Prime Trilogy bosses. I'd love to see that return if this game sells well enough to guarantee 2D Metroid a future. The Queen Metroid fight in this game was really spectacular in my opinion; implementing a number of different features from the game that required a lot of thinking on your feet. I'd like to see more complex boss fights appear in future entries; I've always felt that bosses are one area that the Prime trilogy (and in particular Corruption) have handled better than the 2D games.

Trust me when i say that I haven't even scratched the surface lol.

I mean, I'm a musician. What SR goes for is almost nothing like prime in most instances. ZM's soundtrack and even AM2R's is. SR's is like, idk, generic orchestration. I don't think limited hardware is an excuse for the Gameboy. I just think M2 was going for a more abstract sound, but what SR does is not that. It's overcompensating with a cacophony of clashing sound fonts to sound cinematic. It really sounds like an incohesive mess in a way that no metroid, even M2, has ever sounded. But the reason why is definitely the sound fonts. This is a common issue with soundtracks like this. They focus so much on the new soundfonts that they forget to focus on fundementals. This is why 8/16-bit music is so often good. Composers don't have enough sound fonts to bullshit.

Not everything is bad though. Just much of it. I have to play again to be sure of the world design. Nothing wrong with the art style though. I really hope this Samus replaces the one currently in Smash for the next one. Only good thing to come out of this game in regards to future games. Give me those big sholders again!

I really don't like the electric sheild. It makes you almost 100% invulnerable since you gain so much aeion after killing any enemy. I don't like the idea of adding puzzles to metroid at all, though. Metroid has until now been a very naturalistic world, meaning that some care has been made to make most of the world feel like it has formed naturally, but SR has a very systematic world, meaning that much of the world isn't trying to hide the mechanics it's trying to trigger. Puzzles are the most obvious example of this. There are very few examples of puzzles in games where they don't stick out. When people complain that a game is too "game-y," this is usually what they mean. It's too systematic. SR has this issue in a series which previously excelled in the opposite.

Maybe a game with 2.5D sidescroller, but sometimes goes into 3D for certain Prime-Esque things (such as scanning something, aiming to shoot at something in the Z-Axis), also an emphasis on story telling, maybe explaining the events leading up to a previous game. I also would like to see Samus talk and have a cool signature pose like a "thumbs-down" or something.

For realzies tho I hope we get an M-Rated Metroid, not for language, but for just unabashedly showing the brutality implied in Super Metroid, with the dead scientists and death of The Baby. 3D, of course, I like 2d Metroid but I feel like the series is best expressed in 3D, to give that feeling isolation and ability to lose your whereabouts in an unfamiliar territory.

At this point you just sound upset that I'm countering your arguments. You started out strong, but now you're literally just being dissenting with to be dissenting. No substance what so ever.

Then don't do it? Seriously your replies are terrible. Some of them on the other pages were equally rude but I didn't feel like pointing them out since this is you and spem discussing. But if you're going to be like that just don't enter a discussion.

I've gone back and forth with this, but I'm not sure how much Metroid would benefit from more explicit violence. Worse is that I'd be afraid that having an M-Rating would compell them to add uneeded violence, rather than only add it where it would be effective.

In theory though, I'm not against it. Look up Ghost Song. I think it does a great job of being an M-Rated Metroid-like game.