Ranking the Metroid series

Metroid has always been close to my heart. In my "100 greatest games of all time," it was the only series to be represented three times on the list. Choosing between Metroid games is like choosing between my children. So let's do it.

11. Metroid: Other M - Nintendo / Team Ninja / D-Rockets - Wii, 2010

The only Metroid game I actively dislike. It's an admirable risk to try to add dialogue and a wider cast to a series about isolation and solitude. But Nintendo gave the task to Team Ninja, best known for... boob physics. They turned one of gaming's only major strong, independent, non-objectified female protagonists into a woman who longs for nothing more than a man to tell her what to do.

10. Metroid Prime Hunters - Nintendo Software Technology - DS, 2006

Nintendo's attempt to make first-person shooters work on its handheld DS. It's admirable, but it's not the most comfortable control set-up for players. When it comes to gameplay, Hunters has more in common with Halo than with Metroid. None of the series' trademark exploration elements are there, and instead of a lonely, moody atmosphere, Hunters focuses on linear levels and multiplayer deathmatches. Some good remixes of classic Metroid Prime music, though.

Rebooting Samus: The relationship between East and West in game design, through Metroid Prime

Metroid is Nintendo’s black sheep. While the series has seen just as much critical acclaim as the Japanese gaming giant’s other flagship franchises, Metroid has never been the commercial juggernaut Mario and Zelda are year after year. So when faced with the technological leap from two dimensions to three-dimensional graphics, why did Nintendo for the first time in their history hand over one of its own series to a Western developer? Metroid Prime is the culmination of the company’s marriage of East and West in game design. The unlikely bedfellows of Nintendo and U.S. developer Retro Studios managed to create one of the most successful video games of all time, both critically and commercially.

Gunpei Yokoi with his Game Boy

The series has had Western roots from the beginning. It was conceived by misunderstood designer Gunpei Yokoi—most famous as creator of Game Boy and for ruining his career later with the infamous Virtual Boy. Yokoi took heavy influence from Ridley Scott’s 1979 science-fiction horror opus Alien and the art of Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger. Even before Prime, Metroid was Nintendo’s only franchise directed at an older demographic with a more serious tone, and their only series with better sales numbers in the West than domestically in Japan.

When Metroid was finally handed to a Western developer for the jump to 3D, it wasn’t what you’d call a “smooth transition.” Austin, Texas-based Retro Studios was inexperienced and in shambles with an absent CEO when Nintendo came knocking. And their final product was a first-person game—perhaps the visual perspective most emblematic of Western design. How was this game not a total flop? And how did it consolidate the vast differences between Eastern and Western approaches to video games?

What Metroid Prime says about Samus, and how it defines East-West relations in game design

Proposal for a 25-page research paper I plan on writing:

Metroid was already Nintendo’s black sheep. While the series has seen just as much critical acclaim as the Japanese gaming giant’s other flagship franchises, Metroid has never been the commercial colossus Mario and Zelda are year after year.

So when faced with the jump from 2D to 3D technology, why did Nintendo for the first time hand over one of its own series to a U.S. developer? 2002’s Metroid Prime is the culmination of Nintendo’s marriage of East and West.

The series was Western from the beginning; its biggest influence was Ridley Scott’s Alien. It’s Nintendo’s only franchise directed at an older demographic with a more serious tone, and their only franchise that sold better in North America than it did in Japan.

And unlike Mario and Zelda, Metroid wasn’t created by Video Game Jesus Shigeru Miyamoto. Samus was conceived by Gunpei Yokoi, most famous for creating the Game Boy and for ruining his career with the infamous Virtual Boy.

It wasn’t just handed over to a Western developer. Metroid was handed to Retro Studios, an inexperienced U.S. developer in shambles with an absent CEO. And they made a first-person game—perhaps the perspective most emblematic of Western design. Through all this, how did they create one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time?

I’m splitting this paper into three sections: the context of Metroid Prime from Nintendo’s perspective, the development of the game from Retro Studios’ perspective, and an analysis of the game itself, looking at how it represents the marriage of East and West in game design.

Thoughts on Metroid's 25th birthday

Twenty-five years ago this past Saturday, the first Metroid title was released on the Famicom in Japan. Plenty has been written on how the game revolutionized non-linear gameplay, how it broke gender barriers, how its dark, melancholic mood redefined atmosphere in games, and how Team Ninja bastardized the franchise with Other M. You can find all those articles on other websites.

The story of Metroid is really the story of its creator, Gunpei Yokoi. He's by far the most tragic figure in the Nintendo game design pantheon--if Shigeru Miyamoto is gaming's Thomas Edison, Yokoi is Nikola Tesla.

Yokoi's life parallels the story of the Metroid franchise. Both are integral figures at Nintendo, still the most important game company in the world. Both had moments of sheer greatness followed by moments of neglect and disaster. Both are black sheep in the Nintendo family whose legacy is too often forgotten today.

Along with Metroid, Yokoi is the creator of some of Nintendo's most important works. Among them: the Game & Watch, Kid Icarus, the Game Boy, Dr. Mario, and Fire Emblem. While many of these were popular and influential, nothing reached the stardom Miyamoto's creations.

And there were the failures. In 1985, Yokoi created R.O.B., the Robotic Operating Buddy! It's a cult classic today, but when it was released, it flopped. The plastic robot add-on for the NES only got support from two games, and it was shortly discontinued.

He was also the father of Nintendo's first foray into 3D gaming, the infamous Virtual Boy. Released in 1995, it was such a failure that it led to Yokoi's departure from Nintendo in 1996, after three decades of service.

A year later, he was hit by a car and killed. And today, unless you're a huge gaming enthusiast, you have no idea who Gunpei Yokoi is.

(Side note: I wonder what Yokoi would think of the 3DS. It's the spiritual successor to the Game Boy and Virtual Boy combined!)

What about Metroid? It's often grouped in Nintendo's "holy trinity" with Mario and The Legend of Zelda. But is it really up there? Metroid has never enjoyed the commercial success of its Miyamoto-created brethren.

To me, it's personal. As a kid, Metroid was the first series that made me realize video games could be something deeper as an art form. It's the most important game franchise to me. If it weren't for Metroid, I'd be another 14-year-old boy on Xbox Live chugging Mountain Dew and calling people homophobic slurs in Halo.

So even if Nintendo refuses to acknowledge your existence in 2011: happy birthday, Metroid. And thank you, Gunpei Yokoi. I'll pour one out for ya.