Moot_Geeza wrote:

I'll see the credits if it kills me though.

Success!

OP and title updated.

Dark Soldier wrote:

Guys: http://kotaku.com/nintendo-is-planning-a-future-for-both-2d-and-3d-metroi-1590142491

Promising, I'm sure we'll see at least one Metroid game by E3 next year at the latest. I got a feeling it might pop up on a direct before then.

Have VC Rondo of Blood too - haven't got into it yet. I think it felt a bit like SOTN at the start and maybe that put me off. It is damn tough too (no bad thing). Must get back into that one. There are different characters too? Think picked the  girl as she seemed to be more powerful (faster too).

A good, honest answer on the previous page, thought I had you when I posed the question.

Exhumed was a very good 3D Metroid type game. Prime arrived at the wrong time for me, but the 5hrs I played were stunning.

To be honest Castlevania II was my first CV game and I much preferred it to Metroid back then myself. Like I said earlier I didn't click with the original Metroid as a kid.

Funnily enough CVII is my least favourite game in that series.

davyK wrote:

Has anyone got Prime Trilogy with the Wii controls retro fitted to 1&2? The collector in me always regrets passing on that one as it was a limited release.

Yus.  I have a sealed copy, that somehow I have managed to avoid ripping the cellophane off.

Yes, yes we do...

I quite liked Castlevania 64, it had atmosphere.  Also liked Shadowman.

OH MY GAWD IT BEEN YEARS

retroking1981 wrote:

Yes, yes we do...

 

OKAY!

Escape wrote:

Left hand on arm embrace, yes/no... Nah.

Oh...thanks for the opportunity...


INT:  a sparse, white, utilitarian, space age bedroom. Samus Arran is curled up on her bunk as the room begins to illuminate itself. The persistent, comforting hum of her ship's engines chime through the walls. Soft red lighting blinks on and is accompanied by the sound of a gentle alarm. We see only a tuft of blond hair erupting from the covers to indicate the presence of a person. 

CUT: CLOSE UP/ BED: the alarm is accompanied now by a more insistent noise, the cry of Samus' cat. Samus pulls back the covers to face her feline tormentor, who stares insistently at her. The cat's collar indicates that it is called "Ridley". Frustrated, yet obviously in love with animal, she pulls out her hand from beneath the covers and makes a gun with her thumb and index finger and utters the only noise she will ever make in the game. 

Samus (making a laser beam noise)
Pteww.

Ridley meows indignantly and jumps from the bed, Samus follows suit. As she rises the bed folds itself into the wall. 

CUT:CLOSE UP/SAMUS' FEET. As her feet touch the floor of her room, small panels organically fold outward from the floor to form shoes around her feet. 

Information begins to slowly scroll around the room a solid light holo-panel appears in front of Samus, she checks the information before punching in some of her own and dismissing the panel with a wave of her hand. 

Ridley is insistently mewling at the door, Samus stretches a little and walks through the door.

EXT: A verdant and lush forest. Ridley immediate rushes of into the undergrowth as Samus  tiredly starts her stretches/warm up and begins her morning run. As we follow her through the forest, we notice some graphical "glitches" that become progressively worse. We realise that the forest is actually a holographic projection and Samus has been running on a treadmill. She cancels the simulation to reveal bleach white, sterile room with Ridley sitting in her litter box in the corner. 

INT GALLY: in yet another oppressively sterile room, with perhaps a few feminine touches here and there, Samus fixes breakfast. From two almost identical chutes, one labeled 'Ridley's' and the other 'Samus', two almost identical bowls of cereal like food appear (there is evidence on the chutes of numerous revisions).Samus stares at the food thoughtfully before giving Ridley her breakfast. Both Samus and Ridley sit on the floor occasionally eyeing each other's food with suspicion. Samus makes the wall of the galley transparent and the pair watch the swirling cosmos like two children watching a Saturday morning cartoon. The wall snaps back to its normal state with the words "Incoming alert" flashing in red across the entire wall; Samus has received a distress signal. 

Story 
A distress signal is received by the Galactic Federation from a previously unmapped and unknown solar system which is discovered, upon arrival, to have be tightly quarantined by the long extinct Chozo. Samus Aran is tasked with investigating the source of the distress signal as Aran's ship and armour (the only surviving remnant of the Chozo's advanced technology) is capable of accessing the quarantine's 'locks'. Samus must navigate her ship around the perils of the system to uncover the source of the distress beacon as she uncovers an ever deepening mystery about this once mighty race's dizzying ascent, swift decline and ultimate destruction. 

The system's swollen sun is on the verge of going supernova and time is against Aran if she is to get to the bottom of this mystery before the entire system is destroyed. The system is incredibly hostile and seemingly barren; evidence of great battles scar its planets' surfaces', deadly asteroid fields and increasingly violent solar flares are a constant threat.

As the game progresses, we move further towards the dying sun and the system's ancient inner planets, we trace backwards the development of this culture's technology. We learn of a complex, proud and mighty race of people, undone by their own genius, ambition and hubris: a tragedy told backwards by subtle clues and ancient artefact. Disturbing evidence that the revered, traditionally saint-like and omnibenevolent Chozo may have committed mass genocide, cooly and systematically annihilating the species, before sealing off their system to hide their crime.

By exploiting the ambiguity of the time frame/universe the Metroid series has traditionally been set in, it allows for the possibility that this system is actually our own i.e. human/our own solar system, but set thousands or even perhaps millions, of  years in the future (the other humans from the Galactic Federation, vaguely and sparsely referring to themselves as coming 'The Colonies'). At the climax of the story it transpires that the human race, whilst capable of incredible scientific marvels, were incapable of creating peace and at some point, perfected the ultimate bio weapon: The Metroid. The Chozo, rather than being the mass murders the player has been misdirected into believing they were, are revealed to have been reluctant exterminators who had to intervene to salvage and preserve what was left of the human race and, more importantly, stop the Metroids from spreading beyond the human's solar system.

As Samus reaches what was once earth, she discovers the source of the distress beacon: a horribly twisted hybrid of human and Metroid: alien yet disturbingly familiar appearance these creatures evoke dread and pity in equal measure. They're savage and primal yet incongruously intelligent enough to recognise they're own imminent destruction at the hands of the swollen sun and possessing the ability to cobble together a distress beacon that penetrates the Chozo's advanced barrier. 

Whilst hiding our own solar system from the player would be incredibly difficult, enough subtle misdirection (I.e. the 'species' developed super advanced technologies that allowed them to terraform dead worlds, create planets by coalescing asteroids and reposition moons) would lead an incredibly effective and shocking 'Planet of the Apes', style twist. 

The Metroid series thrives on an atmosphere of oppressive isolation and sustained tension/peril. The game's enemies and even it's mechanics should reflect and reinforce these two essential tenants, for example; for the player to even save their game, they must find a suitably quiet and out-of-the-way 'nook' in an asteroid or hide in a gas giant's atmosphere to do so.
Samus' ship is the one safe heaven in the game, it should be small, functional cosy with the gentle persistent and comforting thrum of engines, soft lighting and perhaps the interior even revealing a few feminine modifications inside. A bed, an armoury, a research lab, an engine room, a gally/ rec-room, the cockpit and Samus' omly companion: Ridley, her beloved cat. The experience of entering the ship should be one of relief and comfort against the torrent of attack and hostility that the rest of the system constantly throws at the player. To reinforce this 'womb like' atmosphere, the gravity in the ship with be slightly  lower than the Earth's, as a subtle allusion to the womb's protective amniotic fluid. This sense of safety will be violated in the third act when one of the Metroid/ human hybrids destroys her ship but not before it's interest it peaked by the cat, a prime candidate for advanced experimentation.

Ario Barzan's is better.

One question: who the hell is the guy?

hylian_elf wrote:

One question: who the hell is the guy?

Oh, just a guy I've kept an eye on for a few years. He writes well about his favourite series, mostly Metroid and Castlevania.

I don't like the term either, mostly because the -Vania bit is a distraction. SotN didn't really add anything to the format that I appreciate.

Brooks wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

One question: who the hell is the guy?

Oh, just a guy I've kept an eye on for a few years. He writes well about his favourite series, mostly Metroid and Castlevania.

I don't like the term either, mostly because the -Vania bit is a distraction. SotN didn't really add anything to the format that I appreciate.

It's a term to be used solely with castlevania games to distinguish between sotn type games and regular linear castlevania.

mistercrayon wrote:

Brooks wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

One question: who the hell is the guy?

Oh, just a guy I've kept an eye on for a few years. He writes well about his favourite series, mostly Metroid and Castlevania. I don't like the term either, mostly because the -Vania bit is a distraction. SotN didn't really add anything to the format that I appreciate.

It's a term to be used solely with castlevania games to distinguish between sotn type games and regular linear castlevania.

That would make sense, but it gets used generally to refer to games that are structured like Metroid and SotN. For example Shadow Complex is considered metroidvania, but it's really styled like Metroid.