Originally this was intended to be only one post, but wall of text critted for 25k hp, so I broke it up for your – and my – sanity: part 1 • part 2 • part 3
So, there’s a new Metroid game coming up. When I’ve heard about it, I might have squeeled like a four-year old that just found a pony under the Christmas tree. Maybe. Well, at least until I got some of the details regarding this game.
The beauty that is Metroid
For those not in the know, Metroid is a Nintendo-only franchise starring your classical armed-to-the-teeth silent protagonist fighting against a whole zoo of evil-invading-aliens while traipsing through pretty and eerie landscapes, solving puzzles in order to pick up stuff that makes your character stronger and allows you to solve even more puzzles. There’s even a story (in the later games more than the first ones), but so far it rarely got into the way of “pew-pew-aliens!”
(If you own a Wii, you should pick up the Metroid Prime Collection. It’s really worth it. )
Some highlights of the series:
- life-sucking floating space jellyfish1
- Quality: depending on the installment you’ll have either a real good game or a grandiose masterpiece
- a space dragon
- its pretty, creepy, eerie, lonely and moody settings full of interesting puzzles
- floating space jellyfish!
- and what’s maybe the first never-been-kidnapped-and-actually-USEFUL-in-story woman in a video game ever, with her first game being published in 1986 on the old NES.
Anyway, since then Samus Aran has blown up two planets2, multiple space stations and a few space ships, nearly completly wiped out the titular life-sucking space jellyfish and countless of heavy armoured enemies. She is stated to be a legend of nearly mythical proportions in her universe.
Lots of boom, lots of pew-pew, lots of puzzles, lots of fun. Good games.
And now, they’re planning to show us the emotional side of Samus Aran.
Erh, what?
…
ABORT, ABORT!
Lets all ignore the fact that developing of a female character in a video game generally3 means turning her a blubbering, useless crybaby 4 or into a lunatic and psycho5 - I’m NOT playing the damn game to dvelve into the humanity of my main-character. I want to go pew-pew and solve puzzles!
Pew pew. Shooting Aliens. Solve puzzles. See fantastic land scapes. Trudge through the ruins of long (and not so long) lost civilisations. Complicated bosses that make me memorize the patterns of how exactly I have to kill them. (I’m goooood at that) That’s what I play Metroid for!
Can you point what’s not on the list? Yeah. Humanity and Emotions.
I’m HAPPY with her being the lonely, silent protagonist!
I know, I know. Time marches on, they’ve gotta try new stuff, and fans always will whine. Yadda-yadda-yadda. QQ more. Facts of life.
And I might’ve just lied to you about the not-looking-for-emotions part. A little bit. I’ll tell you why in the next part.
Footnotes:
- It’s named after them! ↩
- Well, three, depending on how you count ↩
- Metroid has a T rating, so we can safely ignore two of the most common ways to “flesh out” a female character: rape and/or pregnancy. ↩
- Bonus points if that’s caused by a “love” interest. Jaina Proudmore, I’m looking at YOU ↩
- Sylvanas Windrunner, Amy Rose, pre-reset Lara Croft ↩