Metroid’s core element of ‘increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers’ is not very compatible with the ‘freedom to go anywhere from the beginning’ of open worlds
Oh okay so they just dont understand anything about what they were trying to do then. Because BotW has plenty of places you can’t get to from the beginning, either because it’s too high, or the rain makes you slip while climbing.
They could probably have reskinned the game as something other than Metroid and it would have been fine. The gameplay itself isn’t great, but it’s not bad. As a Metroid game it was mediocre at best.
They should just stop making Metroid games entirely until they have someone who actually understands the principles.
This is absolutely correct. Nintendo has never understood why people loved Metroid and Super Metroid. I had a little bit of hope for MP4 because Retro understood it when they made MP1, but once they revealed the gameplay trailer for MP4 I knew it wasn’t going to satisfy the fans.
I don’t think it’s so much Nintendo in this case as Retro Studios.
Nintendo EPD co-developed “Metroid Dread” with MercurySteam and they fucking nailed it. Retro Studios developed the original Prime trilogy, so in theory they should have been able to figure out Prime 4. Maybe there is backroom drama, but Nintendo gave the original developer of the three original games the go ahead for a forth in the series and they ultimately delivered what they did.
Sometimes studios just change too much.
I thought the same thing. I would honestly argue that metroidvanias were open worlds before we had that term. There are some that are more linear than others, but many of them are very exploration heavy and don’t have a single order you must do things in.
Gamers are fine with well-made open worlds. This one would have been shit even 8 years ago.
“…Divorced from changing of times”
Because you fit Metroid in an open-world shaped hole instead of trying to make a good game that was divorced from cashing in on the latest trends.
Even Metroid Dread was trend-chasing.
We heard BoTW players say: Open world is soo much beter for exploration than a Hyrule field world hub.
Metroid is all about exploration. So we thought… why not a hub world? 🧠
To be honest I think BOTW has had a negative effect on Nintendos approach to game design. While BOTW had its highlights, TOTK doubling down on a very large empty world without real dungeons got boring fast.
