I know I am going to get WF's wrath for saying this, but I'll say it anyway, cause it's true.

I am completely uninterested in Metroid: Other M. The more screens and videos I see of it, the more it sickens me. I couldn't stand the story and linearity of Fusion, and Other M seems to be taking that to the max while also leaving behind any semblance of a trace of Super Metroid roots (at least Fusion played like Super Metroid, and was good on that). I can't stand the emo storyline, the numerous cutscenes that seem to all be in the first ten minutes of playing. Hello? Can I just play a game? Can I explore a strange alien world on my own? Which was the best part of Metroid, Metroid 2, Super Metroid, and Metroid Prime? Metroid Prime successfully brought the series into 3D, and Sakamoto seems so frustrated that it wasn't him, and that people don't understand his "vision" of Metroid, that he's just going to kill the franchise.

Of course. Maybe it only kills it for me. It might be insanely popular, and I just will have the old games to play.

WHICH IS THE PROBLEM WITH ZELDA!

I just recently played through the original Zelda, and I am surprised at how much I still love playing it. whereas, I couldn't stand any handheld Zelda after Link's Awakening, and Twilight Princess bored me, more than anything (sold it immediately after I beat it). The Zelda series seems to be building on the parts that are NOT interesting. It leaves behind the fighting monsters, gaining items that make you stronger (not that just allow you to solve puzzles in ONE dungeon), and exploring mazes. The puzzles were rudimentary at best, in the early days, and now, that seems to be all Zelda is about anymore. Link isn't so much an adventurer swordsman, as he is a jack-of-all-trades-puzzle-solver. Skyward Sword looks like it's only further going down a path that I can no longer follow. Sorry Zelda.

And Mario, too. Galaxy 2 was fun, but not replayable after I got all 241 stars. Whereas NSMBW is much more likely to be picked up and played again. I wonder which direction Mario will go. While the Galaxy games were a step in the right direction after the misstep of Sunshine, I fear Nintendo's track record on not actually being able to recognize what makes their series fun to play will only infect Mario, too.

Do you really hate me this much Vorpal?

While I'm not that excited about Remember M, I'm glad that it's at least trying something different. I can understand that you're disappointed that it's not true to the series roots, but I personally think that Nintendo does that too much already with their games. Galaxy 2 and NSMBW were fun, but they weren't really original. I'm glad that the new Metroid isn't just gonna be another Prime series clone. They promised to keep the exploration a big part of the game, but they're also trying to step up the action. And when you think about it, that's exactly what Metroid was originally intended to be, an action-adventure.

As for the story, I doubt it'd go much further past what we've seen. These games never were about the storyline anyway. They'll probably just throw in some back story about Adam Malkovich just to setup the timeline to Fusion and then leave it at that. I enjoyed Fusion, too. It's a fun game that isn't too long and has something going on every minute. It's different from Super Metroid in that way, but I didn't really see anything wrong with it. I don't get that immersed in a hand held game anyway (unless it's Mother 3.)

All I can say about Zelda is that the games still feel the same, but they've just gotten longer. Twilight Princess was a more detailed version of Ocarina of Time, and Ocarina of Time was a more detailed version of A Link to the Past. I'm still unsure of Skyward Sword, because I don't really find the art style appealing at all. Not to mention if Miyamoto can't get it to work, I probably wouldn't have that easy of a time either.


...Oh yeah. Hey!

I think you missed a star.

But it's not that the games aren't fun anymore, it's that you're getting older. Your tastes are changing, and they aren't all going to be electronic. It's not something that Nintendo can really adapt to, because the games may be changing, but that's not why you're not excited about them.

I'm not interested in the last star of Galaxy 2. Which actually is better than the first Galaxy, because I gave up halfway through the Luigi stars.

But the thing is: my tastes HAVEN'T changed. If anything, they are the same. I just said the original Zelda was fun and engaging! If anything that says I haven't changed.

It may be that I'm getting older, true. The games are going down a path that does not interest me.

And Retro: I agree that Twilight Princess was a more detailed game graphically, but it was much more shallow in about every other way compared to Ocarina.

What did Ocarina have that Twilight Princess didn't, though? They literally incorporated every element aside from time travel, and then added more. Heck, they even used some of the old tracks. Whatever your reason for losing interest early in the game was, I can almost promise you the overall game was just as polished (if not more so) than OoT.

Yeah, but that's kind of it.

How long did it take till I got a sword and actually started having adventures? Over twice as long.

Ocarina had an over-reliance on puzzles that came to define certain temples. Twilight Princess took that further.

Zelda has been in a steady decline of "get an item to solve puzzles for one dungeon, and kill one boss, and then barely use it anymore." Twilight Princess is much more like that than Ocarina.

In terms of defining where I go, and a sense that I am in control of Link's actions, I have less control over that in Twilight Princess than in Ocarina. It's a defined path along which I must travel. (compared to the first Zelda where I have a lot more freedom to go do things in different orders)

In terms of pointless text Twilight Princess has more. Although, Ocarina had too much, too.

I will give Twilight Princess props on some things. The Overworld was much bigger, felt vast, and on the whole was better than Ocarina. The addition of horse-back fighting was great. The music was good. There were some awesome places to visit that I felt were under-utilized, and I felt like there should have been more (but in a good way). And I made it to the end of the game (which is more than I can say for Wind Waker (I tried so hard to like that game... I really did)).

But then in terms of magic, the desire for me to want to visit every nook and cranny, finding every last heart piece, and replaying it over and over... Twilight isn't anywhere close to Ocarina.

Retro (Studios) did a fantastic job with the Prime series, no doubt. However, the Prime series--largely because of its first person perspective--put you in command of a hulking suit. You say you didn't like Fusion, but it revisited the agile, acrobatic Samus we had in Super Metroid; a Samus that the Prime series had left behind. For some people, what made Super Metroid fun was the ability to traverse the map with hilarious ease, something definitely not present in the Prime games. I'm excited to see that Nintendo is revisiting that aspect of Samus in 3D.

The story in Fusion was terrible, the story in Zero Mission was terrible, and I'm sure the story in Other M will be horrendous. But, as a wee lad, I was taught to live by the mantra that gameplay is king.


I would've said the opposite. The MotionPlus control guarantees that you'll be focusing on how you fight monsters. You can't slash that guy vertically, you've gotta hit him horizontally--that sort of stuff.


This is a problem with the Zelda formula, something we see as early as Link to the Past (though I do love the game, don't get me wrong). Aonuma promises the structure of Skyward Sword won't be so regular, but from the details he's given us so far, I don't think we have any reason to believe that.

From what I can tell, Skyward Sword is more likely to solve the problem of Zelda's boring combat. Think about Majora's Mask. Link possesses four major forms throughout the entire game, but a lot of the time, you aren't required to use one over the others. You never even get a transformation mask for the final dungeon; if you want to go through as Deku Link, that's cool. If you want to go through as Zora Link, that's cool too.

Most of the time, you're using Zora Link not to solve a puzzle, but because you want to hit an enemy with a boomerang. Sometimes you're Deku Link because you want to do that twirly attack. Sometimes you're Goron Link because you want to roll around... and so on. The four forms in Majora's Mask have uses beyond "puzzle" solving (though you'd be hard-pressed to find a real puzzle in a Zelda game, there's no better word for it). Sometimes, you just want to be normal Link to be normal Link. They all play differently, and they come with their own advantages which are irrelevant of whatever "puzzles" they can solve.

That is the potential of Skyward Sword. What if you used items just because you wanted to use them? The more tactile you make the items in Zelda, the more use you're going to get out of them.

That said, I'm not sure I entirely agree with your complaint. The boomerang and hookshot stun enemies and the bow and arrow can kill them from afar--those are three items I get regular use out of. On the other hand, no one ever uses the hammer again, I guess, and the boots definitely have only one designated purpose.


I really miss this in both my Metroid and my Zelda. The pre-determined sequence breaks in Zero Mission feel terrible, telling the player, "You can break the sequence if and when we tell you to." Super Metroid, on the other hand, had a Samus you could get good with, and a planet you could traverse easier and easier. When you get early Wave Beam, it's not because the designers specifically said you could, it's because you're good at wall jumping. Unfortunately, I think this is gone forever from Metroid and Zelda.

On the other hand, it seems to be a mainstay of 3D Mario. Sunshine was very deterministic in what shines you did--you HAVE to do them in THIS order, and you HAVE to get the first seven shines in EVERY stage. On the other hand, Super Mario 64 lets you just mess around. In the Galaxy games, you still have to do the stars in order, but at least you can choose which galaxies you feel like doing.

I wonder how much you would enjoy Wonderboy 3: The Dragon's Trap (Sega Master System, it's on Virtual Console ).

This deserves a more thorough response but I have to get back to learning how Zack Efron turns back into Matthew Perry hating my life, but:



What about the Minish Cap? The Oracle games didn't do it for me, Phantom Hourglass kept me interested more because of the DS features, and I'm actively opposed to finished Spirit Tracks, but I felt that the Minish Cap was one of the best Zelda games.

You can also get it as Dragon's Curse on the Turbografx

I agree that Prime was slower than Super Metroid, but it felt so much more like Super Metroid in terms of exploration and this feeling of isolation. Prime was missing things, sure. And I'm not trying to say Other M is going into territory that is completely unfounded. I'm just not so sure what made Metroid great was killing a bunch of enemies as it was the exploration, and then the fact that different weapons affected not only the environment, but other enemies... That's not to say that Other M won't be fun, or won't be a good Metroid game. I'm just not sure it's for me.

I agree that many of the weapons do increase the ability of Link to kill enemies and get farther because he's stronger, like the boomerang, bombs, bow, hookshot, etc.

However, the whirlwind boomerang, or the double hookshot... these were more gimmicks...

But, I also agree with you Golem about Majora's Mask. I loved Majora's Mask, because I felt a lot more free in that game, and the forms allowed different abilities, and the Zora and Goron Links especially were awesome in their own ways.

You may be right about Skyward Sword. It may be improving in a good direction from Twilight Princess. I guess, my feeling is, let's make it less about story (there needs to be about a 99.9% reduction in the text in Zelda games) and make it more about visiting cool places, gaining cool abilities, and gaining abilities just by being able to play better. You're right that that aspect of both Metroid and Zelda are diminishing.

I just recently played through Red Dead Redemption, and while I got better guns and stuff, what really made the game easier was me getting more skilled at playing the game. And it not feeling like a chore to be able to become a good player, but feeling like I was making progress for myself. This happened on my latest play through on the original Zelda, too. I couldn't believe how awful I was with the sword at the beginning, and how difficult the boomerang guys were and especially the dark nuts. But not only did my swords get better and I got more health, but my skill with moving around and using the sword got better. That was me, not the game arbitrarily impairing me until I get to a certain point and then, okay now you can do this.

I guess my big thing is: What makes games fun? What keeps them engaging? And if I find older games more engaging than newer games, what are the newer games missing, and it can't ALL be "you're an old man, Vorpal."

Yeah, I enjoyed Metroid Prime, but Prime 2 and 3 just didn't hold me. I rented 2 and got tired of it quick (darn Dark PHazon nonsense), and 3... well, I got to Sky City, which was neat, but I got confused and stymied in my exploration, and laid down the game. It's still sitting there, but now if I went back I'd have even less idea what to do next.

The new Wiimote mechanics for handling the sword have the potential, note, just the potential, to introduce dramatically new innovations to the game (sorta like the Wii enabled for the creation of the revolutionary Super Mario Galaxy). Granted, I agree the art style looks odd... neither cute cartoon nor cinematics, but I don't care about look anyway. Yes, Twilight Princess was just a bit too narrative-driven, and I haven't had the urge to go back and replay it yet (OoT and MM are two of the very rare games I've gone back and replayed.)

Uh, Vorps? If you want a good, satisfying handheld game, i'm telling you: Look no further than my banner down here.

I beat this game and, instead of returning it to GameFly for the next one on my list? I'm DOING IT AGAIN.

I'm not only replaying it, I'm replaying it IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEATING IT. This NEVER HAPPENS. This game is GOOD. I'm TELLING YOU. But I warn you: It is hard. But it is satisfying hard.

By the way, the game Ditto is referring to is Henry Hatsworth and the Retro Game Challenge. It's about an old Japanese guy challenging an old British guy to relive the glory days of gaming.

I've got many games right now, but Retro Challenge is on my short list.

Also, I didn't mention Minish Cap.

I only had a brief time with it, borrowed it, and the introduction just seemed to go on, and I couldn't get started. This isn't just a problem with Zelda games, but with a lot of modern games. Just throw me into the game and let me figure it out. My impression of Minish Cap was based on the first part, and it didn't interest me enough to pick it up again, but if it is excellent, maybe I will give it a try again some time later.

Put Henry Hatsworth above Retro Game Challenge on your list