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3 days agoI came of age during the PS3 era and the Indie Game Revolution, where people were debating on whether video games could be art, so I personally can’t help but prefer when games have storytelling and ludonarrative and lore.
But for many people, Super Metroid’s lack of a plot will be a draw and not a drawback, and that’s cool. I’d actually really love a new nonlinear Metroid game in the vein of Super someday, and perhaps this time it wouldn’t take place on the planet Zebes.
I have AM2R archived on my computer. I’m very excited to try it!
Which, in one sense, is definitely cool. I get the impression that Super Metroid is a game with tons of replay value that encourages playing it in a different way each time.
In another way, to make this happen, I didn’t think it was very fun for first-time players. Bomb jumping is kind of an awkward mechanic and harder to pull off than in Zero Mission, and finding upgrades seemed to rely more on pulling off complex techniques with perfect timing. I don’t remember ever being required to wall jump in Zero Mission or 2. There’s so many beginner’s traps too, with the one-way doors and the noob bridge. In Zero Mission, I felt like upgrades were more clearly telegraphed to the player, so you could get more of them without using a guide. In Super, it’s a lot of bombing random walls and stuff, and the X-Ray Scope feels really limited.
If I got stuck, it would be difficult to consult guides, because many writers seemed to put sequence breaks into the walkthrough as opposed to a “natural” playthrough.
While it might be true that Dread has a lot of “hand-holding” (I don’t know because I haven’t played it yet), part of me wonders if that criticism comes from experienced players who want a harder challenge than Super that lean even farther into advanced-level techniques. I guess I’ll find out when I play it.