Metroid: Nintendo's Red-Headed Stepchild

Much like how Germans love David Hasselhoff, Americans love Metroid. For over 20 years, Nintendo has been entertaining us with such games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, and Metroid. One of these 4 long running series, however, is not like the other. It becomes most apparent when you realize the time gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion was from 1994 to 2002, an 8 year wait. Despite Super Metroid being a critical and financial success, Nintendo did not make a Metroid game for either the Game Boy Color or the N64. The reason given by Nintendo for not making a 4th Metroid game was that they wanted Metroid to make the leap to 3D (reason for no Game Boy game), but they could not come up with how to do such a task without making the game play exactly like Ocarina of Time but with a gun instead of a sword. While Samus made an appearance in Super Smash Bros., it looked as if gamers would have to wait for the next generation of consoles to get their 3D Metroid game.

Things started to look up when it was announced that Nintendo was not only going to produce Metroid IV for the Game Boy Advance, but they had given the rights to a Metroid game for the Gamecube to Retro Studios, a company formed by the leftovers of Iguana, the studio that developed the Turok games for the N64. The idea of an FPS Metroid game worried some, but others felt it was the only thing that made sense for a 3D Metroid. What was universally agreed was good, however, was that an American studio would be in charge of a game that Americans would be interested more in than the Japanese. In 2002, Metroid Fusion for the GBA and Metroid Prime for the Gamecube were released. While Fusion received mixed reviews for being extremely linear rather than being more open-ended than the previous games and Prime had some negative fan reaction for being a first person game rather than 3rd person, both games were welcomed whole-heartedly.

After the success of both games, Nintendo did the unexpected and had 2 more Metroid games produced within the same console generation: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid: Zero Mission, a remake/re-version of the original Metroid. While Metroid Prime 2 did not do as well financially or critically as the first game, it was still a success. Zero Mission was extremely successful and gave the Metroid series one of its most important visual aspects: a consistent canon appearance for Samus as well as her Zero Suit, a consistent outfit for Samus to wear underneath the Power Suit. One of the first games announced for the Wii was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Nintendo even planned a DS Metroid Prime game that featured multiplayer.

As I said in my Other M review, Samus is wearing MORE clothing these days. Sexual, but not vulgar.

So why is it that with the recent release of Metroid: Other M, I still consider Metroid to be Nintendo's red-headed stepchild? Well, Nintendo doesn't seem to want to handle the series themselves since they gave Team Ninja the rights to produce a Metroid game. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the last Metroid game Nintendo made themselves was Zero Mission. Nintendo seems genuinely uninterested in continuing the Metroid story and finally revealing what happened after the cliffhanger ending of Metroid Fusion 8 years ago. It was nice to see the gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion closed a bit, but I still want to know Samus' fate after Fusion! Is she a fugitive of the Galactic Federation now? Are there possibly more Metroid experiments being carried on? If anything, Other M raises even new questions for Fusion's ending.

I just want a sequel to Metroid Fusion, Nintendo, is that so hard to do?