Summer Games Challenge 2018 - begin when ready!

[Key-Glyph]

I don't know what puff-puff is. Do I want to know? What's the controversy?

So, oh my gosh, guys. Metroid Fusion is so good. So good that I keep pausing it to exclaim to the heavens as much as anyone within earshot, "Oh my god, this game is SO GOOD!"

First, thoughts on the Metroid series in general (under spoilers, just in case). Also, sorry that everything I write winds up being so long-winded:

I've been playing through one Metroid per summer since I started participating in the Summer Games Challenge, and it's been fascinating to experience each installment back-to-back while building in the time to marinate on these journeys before starting the next. It really helps me to appreciate what they were trying to do with each subsequent release.

The first game was all about abstract open exploration with little hand-holding; you could get your ass kicked in a corridor and not be entirely sure what that meant. Was it was a cue to come back later, a hint to find some hidden passage, or a prompt to push through while hollering a battle cry (yes, I have done this)? "Bosses," such as they were, were wars of attrition. The game was lonely, but you felt like a badass. It was only a matter of time before you blew those pirates to hell.

The second game was technically more linear, but it was also huge; I would have been hopelessly lost if I hadn't painstakingly mapped the whole thing, which kept an emphasis on exploratory thinking ("Where haven't I gone yet? Ohhh, I see, I never went that way back there..."). But it simultaneously developed the idea of punctuating areas with bossfights as story beats while also starting a new trend: ramping up the anxiety with environmental foreshadowing. If you've played Return of Samus you know what it's like to come across a metroid molt in an otherwise benign room and think, "Oh SHIT; there's one in the area somewhere," and not know how many rooms you'd have to go through before it lunged at you with a jarring synth sting (danaNAAA!). And, of course, they started in with the emotional toll that would continue on through the series. The game is designed to make you feel like a monster, and you are. Your part in the tale is lonely and terrible. And you change, and decide to repent.

The third game is the fan favorite for a reason. Super Metroid is gorgeous to look at, and platforming feels so smooth and intuitive you can't help but notice it (having extra buttons on a controller really made it all click). The cue-based anxiety dropped a little bit, but they worked on a new method of environmental storytelling: returning to areas you'd seen in previous games. When it dawned on me in the first few minutes of gameplay that I was entering Zebes through the old escape shaft, I was overcome with delight. The game was self-referencing, and the effect made you more introspective -- which underscored the whole emotional thrust of the game, which was not to save the world, but to save the helpless baby you'd already wronged several times over but who still can't help but love you. Boss fights are now fully conceptual, each with a "trick." The ending will make you cry. And, of course, there's an in-game map, taking a lot of tedium off your shoulders and freeing you up to just barrel through and enjoy.

So this brings us to Metroid Fusion, which I think has basically taken all parts of the games before and crafted an experience almost custom-tailored to my likes.

The platforming: so good. I spend a lot of time deliberately fudging jumps just so I can grab ledges, dangle dramatically, and vault back up on them. It's an absolute joy.

The boss fights: awesome. I like bosses with the aforementioned "trick" to them, and so far I have not been disappointed.

The anxiety: fantastic. Not only do they mimick Return's Molted Metroid Effect™ with the blown-out walls ("She's HERE..."), but they go full Resident Evil on you, making you hide in a corner while the SA-X patrols above you and wanders off-screen. If you try to run, she's gonna come after you; you just have to sit tight while her footsteps fade away. It's so freaking cool. The game is permeated with loneliness again, but now you're being hunted. This is new. This is what your targets have felt like, and now you get to feel it, too.

The exploration: still satisfying. Sure, it's "more linear," but you still have to uncover hidden rooms and passages, so you do get that hit of dopamine. Yes, I would probably have liked a tad more more open-endedness, but I'm also going to acknowledge the amount of time this saves me by preventing my barking up an unclimbable tree for an hour in my uncertainty.

As for the story... I think I see where this is going. I could do with Samus' musings on this Adam guy who's suddenly a big important retconned character in her history, and in my headcanon the first time he called her "Lady" she decked him so hard it knocked him out. But I love how much storytelling is happening through enemy behavior and environmental cues. I do wish they would write Samus more consistently based on her experiences, though. What the heck does she mean, she's "never liked" taking orders? She was ordered to commit genocide, and she did it. In my mind, it's after Return that she's grown as a person and is done being an automaton pawn for these unethical, amoral bastards. And yet here she is, waxing nostalgic for her former CO and still doing what HQ wants without for a second considering that they're unethical, amoral bastards, who are probably, you know, looking for the next angle on wrecking the shit of a sentient organism and/or the entire galaxy because they're either lazy or it's in their best interest? Not to mention there's another you wandering around this veritable spaceborne Raccoon City and HQ doesn't just nuke the place? Does nothing about this seem fishy to you, Samus?! Nope. Instead she's giving computers sentimental nicknames. Because sure.

I mean, I can definitely see her still taking the job. I just wish she'd be more bitter about the chain of command and the Galactic Counsel in general. She has all the reasons to be suspicious, question their motives, protest, plot murders, etcetera.

But yeah. I love it. I'm interested to see where the official story takes me, because I'm not sure what stance the writing will take on all the relevant issues. But what a blast. The replayability is strong in this one.

[Xeogred]

Glad you're liking it Key! It's personally my least favorite 2D Metroid by a large margin... that said it's still amazing compared to other games outside the series to me. I can get into more details later but you're already seeing how it's a bit more gated and linear than the others, along with being heavier on the story, and it has more mechanical environments than organic. Not bad... but I like the flavor of the other games more.

It'll be cool to see what you think of Zero Mission and I assume you'll give AM2R a shot someday... that one plays a lot like Fusion/Zero Mission control wise. I've beaten it twice now and I can't really say that for other fan made games, I still can't believe how good and authentic it is! I think I like Metroid 2, AM2R, and Samus Returns 3DS all equally for their own strengths.

[MrPopo]

I don't know what puff-puff is. Do I want to know? What's the controversy?

The scene is generally that the male protagonists sits in a chair and is blindfolded. Then the female proprieter steps behind him, and gives him a puff puff. Marshmellow hell, if you will.

[CFFJR]

I'm glad you're enjoying Fusion, Key. It's my favorite Metroid.

On another note, given what you've said about Samus here (give it time), I suspect that if you ever get around to playing Other M you'll be quite upset. I like that game overall, but Samus's behavior can be really hard to swallow.

[Key-Glyph]

Metroid Fusion update: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I just... look. I still enjoyed playing the game. It was beautiful. It was heavy on the creepiness. Key loves herself a good bossfight. But what in the heck happened with this script!

It had so much going for it. So much. And it wasted almost every narrative opportunity it had. I can't suspend my disbelief enough to accept anything but the basic premise. Nothing makes sense! Did I not get a true ending or something?

In any event, this was not a game about Samus. This was a game written by someone who had a crush on Samus who wanted the computer to be their self-insert character. You know I'm not wrong. It focused entirely on the mystery and arc of this totally shoved-in entity at the expense of the protagonist -- who has some really interesting stuff going on, by the way, but I guess it's not important as the implications of a relationship to a certain """"""friend"""""" from her past. I literally could not care less! And so much digital ink is spilled on this, assuming I'm invested! Oh, the contrivancy!

And to add insult to injury, let's not only have Samus make decisions she never, ever would (or at least not for the reasons the game gave) and double down on making her into one of the biggest war criminals of all time, but let's also spend several text screens trying to explain that's it's really really justified -- and that Samus herself thinks it's justified too, mostly because she remembers something sentimental her """"""friend"""""" once said.

They gave her zero agency. None. I cannot overstate how much this story is using Samus as a prop while trying to convince me it's some deep and meaningful meditation on her inner soul. It is hard for me to believe that anyone who wrote the dialog knew anything about the character.

Here's the plot I would have written instead:

As our Samus is going about cleaning up the Federation's latest funkup (without the computer nonesense), she slowly realizes she's an X clone and that the SA-X tracking her is the "real" Samus. Moreover, she realizes she's a test subject of the Federation's creation (just like the other experiments on the station), and that the Federation has been carefully stringing her along through all these drills and pitting her against other hapless specimens to see just how powerful and indistinguishable from the original she can grow to be. She knows it in her gut: they have their sights set on manufacturing super soldiers, and they care nothing about the casualties, present or future.

At first our Samus is horrified and wonders if she should allow her own extermination, but when she reflects upon her profound regret regarding her role in the metroids' extinction, she not only believes that she, as an X, has a right to live as a sentient creature just as the metroids did, but knows that the "real" Samus (who is identical in thought and memory) would believe this too. Any Samus would want to end these perpetual genocides. It's their greatest wish.

The two would meet, and battle. Evenly matched, our duplicate Samus would shout out her plea for life. And in this experimental double the "real" Samus would be overwhelmed to recognize the presence of her precious hatchling, the one she most wanted to save but could not, wrapped up in it all.

For a moment, she weeps. But how quickly this turns to iron-clad determination and a thirst for justice.

The two would work together to sabotage the Federation's facility. They would fake the death of the experimental Samus, who would descend to SR388 in secret with the new batch of metroid babies, restoring the natural balance of the planet and dedicating her life to defending her brood. "Real" Samus would finally have a semblance of peace in knowing she had at last done what was right, while accepting the weight of knowledge that the life she would have wanted -- the one with the metroids -- is not for her to live. Instead, she would dedicate her life to routing out the corruption of the Federation and exposing (and/or exploding) any and all of their amoral machinations at the expense of other living creatures.

EDIT:

I'm glad you're enjoying Fusion, Key. It's my favorite Metroid.

Again, I want to state that it's such a smooth, atmospheric, cool game. The playing of it was super fun. My heart actually raced once or twice. It's just that script! Maybe you have a perspective on it that will change my mind? Maybe I missed something?

[MrPopo]

I would think by Fusion that Samus is just resigned to mass murder. First she wipes out a species, then she sees a planet blown up, so blowing up a second planet is old hat at that point.

[Key-Glyph]

I would think by Fusion that Samus is just resigned to mass murder. First she wipes out a species, then she sees a planet blown up, so blowing up a second planet is old hat at that point.

I could totally see this angle. This too would have worked incredibly well -- and they could have taken that path in so many ways! We could have had

Experimental Samus refusing the order to destroy the X and SR388 and the computer responding with, "Well, doesn't matter... Original Samus has no such qualms and now I've given HER the marching orders," driving home the loss of Original Samus' humanity and the enlightened state of Experimental Samus.

Or we could have had

Original Samus have a breaking point at the end, deciding that she can't live with the guilt of this latest extraordinary massacre (despite its necessity) on top of everything else, throwing herself at the Omega Metroid to purposely end her tortured existence while simultaneously allowing the last X (Experimental Samus) to go off and survive free like her hatchling should have.

There were just so many possibilities! But the whole tone of the game contradicts the idea that she's dead inside, in my opinion. There's even a dramatic close-up of her horror at the computer's ultimate suggestion, which went so much further than what she'd thought of herself.

Also, I've decided that my ultimate headcanon is this (which I'm sure is not a new idea):

The Federation has lied all along about the supposed abduction of the first captive metroid by space pirates. Before the events of the first game, it was the Federation breeding metroid for their own purposes, not pirates. They either 1) managed to let a whole metroid breedling colony of their own making get stolen from a station, 2) were actually the ones who originally infested Zebes before pirates commandeered their project planet, or 3) were paying pirates to carry out their project as a rogue cell so that the Federation could deny culpability if needed. In any of these scenarios, they would make the destruction of all evidence of their malevolent involvement their top priority when things go south... and so they bring in Samus, whom they keep ordering to utterly eradicate and annihilate, using her as their personal biomechanical papertrail shredder under the guise of "for the galaxy's own good."

[Xeogred]

@Key: You might want to be very afraid of Other M... which tries far, far, too hard to explore Samus' character in comparison to Fusion and the rest. In all the wrong ways. To me Fusion's story is just uninteresting, but Other M is appalling (solid gameplay but yeah).

I think you'll enjoy Retro's take on the lore and everything with the Prime trilogy. They nailed the tone and storytelling in those and it feels like a better extension of how the first three games were.

Your first road bump in the series haha... like I said though Fusion is my least favorite easily. I'm sure you'll enjoy Zero Mission and AM2R.

[MrPopo]

The Varia suit thing notwithstanding, I find Other M's enjoyment comes down to whether or not you've read the manga stories that give her origin and how much you like that characterization.

[marurun]

I think Metroid just works best with minimal storytelling, though in my head I have this hybrid fiction where Samus is really the pawn of Durandal.