Metroid Prime director on making the game, Nintendo’s influence, leaving Retro

nintendoeverything.com/metroid-prime-director-on-making-the-game-nintendos-influence-leaving-retro/

>Metroid Prime was ultimately a game from both the east and west. Retro made the title, but it did so with plenty of help and ideas from staff in Japan. Had it gone differently, Pacini feels it “wouldn’t have been the same game.” Retro was open to Nintendo’s ideas and gave them “due diligence”. Had Retro worked on it entirely alone with Nintendo putting its name on the box at the end, “it would not have been anywhere as good.” Pacini feels that Metroid Prime’s success was “because it had that collaboration”.

Does Retro get too much credit for the Prime series?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=kMAZprkx3E4
eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-31-metroid-prime-federation-force-is-a-sales-disaster-in-japan
youtube.com/watch?v=olYCsHuqjOo
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Lol

Shigeru "Table-Flipper" Miyamoto was a different man,

>Does Retro get too much credit for the Prime series?

Perhaps Nintendo gets too much credit for the Metroid series. See the last several releases

>nintendo are the ones that pushed for the scan visor to be so heavily used
what a fucking surprise, since when does nintendo care about story and world building

>Does Retro get too much credit for the Prime series?
Judging by their awful work in Armature studios, yes, I'd say so. The batman metroidvania game was shitty and the ports they made were disastrous.

Let's see how ReCore ends up.

At the end of the day nintendo just gave ideas and retro made them good, i mean just look at next level games and that federation trash.
Imagine if you had the "ideas" from nintendo to make a federation force, but instead the studio was bungie, treyarch or dice, it would have been a more generic FPS

Are you saying scan visor was a bad thing?

No. They did well with DKC too, so they are doing something right.

Were they involved with Federation Force at all?

Armature only has 2 people from Retro. And they've mostly just done ports and shovelware, with Batman on the 3DS being a surprisingly good metroidvania. Looking forward to ReCore as well.

One of the guys at Retro once said that preparing for Miyamoto's arrival was like preparing for Darth Vader.

Also, I feel like the game is very much on the higher end of nintendo's offerings along with the likes of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, but you can still see the Western weaknesses in it. If it was a Nintendo pure game, then there would have been more optional content. And I don't mean the Fusion suit. I'm talking optional rooms. I can count the number of those in Metroid Prime that aren't related to a power-up on one hand. The lack of side content is the game's greatest strength and a tell tale sign it was made by a Western dev because they basically said "No other FPS game has side content. We don't need it either!" Nintendo would never say that. Neo-nintendo, ehhh... *glances sideways skeptically.*

Batman on 3DS was a piece of shit.

If it really only has only two ex-Retro devs, then wow, it's disrespectful for them to be using "MADE BY THE DEVS WHO MADE METROID PRIME" in advertisement.

ReCore's looking good. The animations look a bit stiff, and the girl talks too much, but I can get used to that.

This was before Iwata started battling illness and Miyamoto got the lobotomy

So you think the game needed more useless empty rooms?

Considering every Metroid game that's been produce since without them has been garbage, I'd say it's the other way around.

No it wasn't.
Well it's the director and a prominent concept artist. They can say that much.
Agreed, voiced protags are cancer that kills immersion.

All of the 2D Metroid maps are functionally identical to what you just stated was a problem in Prime. 99% of the power ups are on the way to your next objective and even the ones that aren't just have their own room, not an entire pathway all to themselves.

Still find it hard to imagine the same studio that made the Mario Strikers series made Fed Force.

>3D Metroid

>*glances sideways skeptically.*
fag

Thread theme

youtube.com/watch?v=kMAZprkx3E4

*this was before Iwata was president

FTFY

>action asterisks

>Superfags existing

Miyamoto didn't get a lobotomy. Everyone else at Nintendo did. A man can only capture lightning in a bottle so many times before he gets tired and just wants some peace.

That would have been a start, but why do you automatically assume that optional content just means empty rooms?

They could've put in, if not more Beams (which I grant would be confusing and doesn't seam with Samus' hand signs probably signifying something if you made it mappable), or an optional suit, then just lore to scan that's out of the way. SOMETHING!

You mean Federation Force? The GOTY so far?

That release?

Yes, considering they botched Donkey Kong as hard as you fucking can.

If you're really him, comment on this
eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-31-metroid-prime-federation-force-is-a-sales-disaster-in-japan

You took the time to type out a longer post than normal to express your thoughts, so I'm not going to sperg out on you, but you should really not type out actions like that here, or people will likely shitpost all over you.

That said, I can see where you're coming from, but all Metroid games tend to be mapped that way. Perhaps it'd be nice to have some unlockables for different times or percentages or items hidden about that don't actually affect game play such as custom suit colors or something.

...

Who in their right might would say the scan visor was a good thing?

Why did Prime need a scan visor when Super didn't? It's typical 00s Nintendo handholdy bullshit.

I liked Return, I haven't played Tropical Freeze yet.

*mind

How was it handholdy? It just served as a way to explore the lore of the series.

It allows for a non-intrusive narrative for people who want more story, but is completely optional for those who don't.

>totally optional except for turning on elevators
>expands on lore in a neat way that fits in perfectly with the overall feel of Metroid

I'll never understand autistic purists who mindlessly hate on neat features for no reason.

To appeal to casuals, obviously.

Why did they use the control stick for Super Mario 64? What was wrong with the d-pad? Typical gimmicky bullshit.

Retard.

Completely optional except for a handful of intractable switches. Lets you pore over copious lore details without it beating you over the head "in game"

...

(You)

You could complete Metroid Prime at 22%, so 78% of the game is technically optional.

Without the glitches? I never did try a low % or speed run on Prime.

Yes

I can imagine this game being much worse without Nintendo's input. Like Samus dismembering original Zerg donut steel on a motorcycle with a energy chainsaw.

Retro gets too much credit period, they're hacks.

Fusion is better than Prime

Probably the same people who thought Super Metroid needed a map.

One of my fondest memories as a kid was having my girlfriend draw maps for me as I navigated the planet in the original.

Super Metroid was the reason we broke up!

>Agreed, voiced protags are cancer that kills immersion.
It's not even that. If she talked during cutscenes and such, it's fine, but she constantly moans and yells out stupid things during combat. I hope that can be turned off.

>haloid shit

no thanks, and now we have AM2R a game better than nintendo has made in the last ten years.

super metroid is borderline crap, and is disgustingly overrated
prime is a masterpiece
prime 2 and 3 are near masterpieces
metroid and metroid II are just bad games with superior remakes
FF and MOM are jokes
hunters is mediocre
fusion is great

if you disagree with any of this, your taste is sh*t

Alright, I get what you're saying. I agree with that.

But Super didn't even have that much optional stuff. It was just the X-ray visor.

>super metroid is borderline crap, and is disgustingly overrated
>prime is a masterpiece
>prime 2 and 3 are near masterpieces

>primefags

keep proving you're nothing but cancer to the board please.

Not on this or any other planet.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or actually took that post seriously.

>super metroid kiddies
neck yourselves, your autism is unwelcome everywhere

I don't care. I've on Sup Forums since 2006, so I know exactly how the common Sup Forumsirgins behaves.

What rustles my jimmies and grinds my gears is that the few optional places Prime did have were the best in the game.

That one snowy trench that basically is just a very elaborate short-cut back to the frost guy's boss room with ramps to roll and test the game's morphball physics, the space pirate laboratory that's only there for an immersive scene with the Metroids breaking free, and HOLY COWS DAT HOLO-ASTRAL OBSERVATORY THAT PROBABLY HAS NOT BEEN BEATEN YET.

I WANT MORE OF THOSE THINGS. This is why I like Prime 3 the best. I feel like it did what Prime failed at in exploring its world and the Phazon, while taking the "hunted" feel of Prime 2, and meshing them both in a game that feels connected. Yeah, it was more linear than the gray label Prime or the Player's Choice for that matter, and probably not as epic, but it polished everything that was previously unpolished (especially by MP2).

nice fake blog

Rare's DKC is shit tho, so it's only sensible that Retro make sequels that are just as great

Super Metroid had
>wave beam
>the ostriches and a secret ending
>places you can only reach by tilt power-jumping
>bomb-hopping (I'm sure there's somewhere exclusive for it, since it's even in the title demo)
>sunken ship I think had a few optional spots.
>the room after Ridley

Exactly. Grunts and yells and such are fine (unless it's a 2D platformer, then it's just obnoxious. Use sound effects instead) but in a 3D adventure game I don't want to play as a person saying words that I wouldn't say.

They alright. I don't exactly like the new way the levels play out with all those one way areas that keep you from backtracking, timed barrel cannons and exploding scenery but the heart is there.

If Retro was left alone, based on current evidence, the game would have been a disaster.

Miyamoto forced them to keep Morph Ball in, since they couldn't figure it out, and he refused to let them create the game unless they could do that. He also changed it from their third-person over the shoulder gameplay to first person, and he gave them the hints on how to create the visor system, which led to unique things like logs.

From the way they were discussing the early portions of designing the game, the original end result was shaping up to be a bland shooter as opposed to the more unique title we received.

A good example of how wrong it could have gone would be Retro's failed pitch for a Megaman X reboot, where it has serviceable gameplay mechanics, but none of the charm that the IP they're modernizing was known for

youtube.com/watch?v=olYCsHuqjOo

Yes, the recent "Game of the Yolks" was so amazing, that the online died within a week of launch. Truly amazing.

>I'm sure there's somewhere exclusive for it
There is not. You can 100% the game without it. I can't bomb jump in Super and I have 100% the game.

>places you can only reach by tilt power-jumping
Do you mean diagonal shinespark? If so, then you don't need that to 100% the game either.

That actually looks preatty neat, I'd totally play it if it didn't have Megaman in it's name.

The optional content and bits where you had to backtrack for the artifact shit were the only good parts of prime, anyway

Nah i used to hate retro because of the abortion they did after the original 3rd person prime demo but then moto stated it was all his fault prime became babys first fps with badly shoehorned metroid mechanics. It was all the rage turning iconic series into fps cash grabs back then ie oddworld. You have to laugh at their mega man fps which probably had the worst art design ever and reused assets out the ass. If it wasnt for tropic freeze they would be complete shit. As far as east and west merging it doesnt matter. Prime isnt cannon because of it

You realize that, for a start, there are 3 unique beam upgrades (Wavebuster, Ice Spreader, Flamethrower) that you can miss?

oddworld was shit tho

Point taken, that looks pretty bad.

> scanning system good
> 3rd person bad

Those are some horrible opinions

>online died
>can find 10 matches at minimum in 10 seconds

Yeah ok, kid :)

Im glad im not a millennial goeing up with shit

It is canon, sorry to burst your bubble grandpa

Im glad im not a millennial who grew up with shitty games

>You'd better give us credit, Pacini. Or we're going to issue a special "DMCA" on you and your family's lives

With the way Inafune is, I wouldn't be surprised if it was his idea to make it gritty.

Not him, but scanning any enemy and bosses will tell you how to defeat them and you can scan obstacles and be told what you need to do to get by

I'm glad I'm not some kid who grew up liking shit because he had no other options

Not that hard to imagine, given that Federation Force has a fucking obsession with shooting balls around, turning Samus into a giant spider ball for the final boss, and the whole Blast Ball mode.

They love balls more than space pirates.

All involved get all the credit they deserve, Retro developed most of the final ideas themselves using the restrictions, suggestions, and vague direction of Nintendo's elite. The visor scanning gameplay came from Miyamoto saying "What if Samus had a bug's head?" to the staff.

Armature is NOT Retro. More than 2 people make up a studio. Read Prime's credits, see how many individuals worked on it.

>halo generation kiddie

you have to be 18 to post here.

I have a hard time believing federation force was conceived as a metroidgame

Optional hints aren't hand holding at all. Forced hints and telling the player exactly where to go could be considered that.

It wasn't. It was originally just a first-person sci-fi game unrelated to Metroid, and then they came in and said "hey that looks a lot like prime"
you can assume the rest, nintendo basically Star Fox Adventures'd them

Which is totally fair, since the Metroid series never really had super-puzzling boss fights. There are exactly 2 boss strategies in Super Metroid:

1) Shoot missiles until it dies
2) Shoot missiles at then open mouth until it dies

Not that Prime's bosses are vastly more complex, but it's not as though the scans ruin some big secret here.

Aight so, credit where it's due, I kinda liked the Pokedex aspect of the scan visor. And the boss weak spot stuff (sometimes). And the Chozo lore is basically the precursor to, and slightly more logical form of Dark Souls' item descriptions. So, yay.

But it wasn't optional. Let's say only 15% of rooms only actually need the scan visor to progress or find a hidden goody. If you're designing the rooms you'll know the scan visor isn't that necessary that often.

But if you're the player you have NO FUCKING IDEA when it's necessary. So every time you enter a new room you'll flick on the scan visor so see if there's anything you need to check out. And because you don't what anything says until you've read it, you'll end up scanning a lot of totally useless crap.

Where the handholdy crap comes in is there it starts performing a role that was never necessary in Super. You'll enter a room, there's a secret passage in the room covered by something bombable. In Super you'd just try bombing the wall if it looks suspicious. In Prime you'll flick on the visor for the OTHER reason (looking for lore, switches, whatever (you're not a noob)) and you'll be flooded with a series of Post-It Notes For Fucking Morons like "This BRIMSTONE section of wall is CRACKED and would probably BREAK if someone BOMBED IT FOR SOME REASON".

In other words, it very often spoiled the surprise of finding something that, in Super, wouldve been content to just let you find it (or not).

>Tanabe straight up says it was conceived as a Metroid game
>NLG had shown interest in making a Metroid game since before they started working on Luigi's Mansion
>Game is set in the Metroid universe with many familiar Metroid elements
>Controls and many abilities are based heavily around Metroid Prime
>From the moment people laid eyes on it, they instantly identified it as Metroid despite no one telling them it was

Every single sign points to it having always been a Metroid title.

>Metroid Prime is now a terrible game according to Neo-Nintendo fans

What a horrible time we live in, where the brain dead Nintendo fans must shit on the classics to defend the disgusting bloated corpse of Neo Nintendo.

It's people like you that make me wish some Muslim would just bomb the main Nintendo office in Japan so we can wipe the slate clean or get a fresh start.

I bet you also believe all the people who say "Other M is fantastic and Samus was a realistic woman in it and people just don't like that it disagrees with their headcanon"

Guy bitching about the scan visor here.

It's not TERRIBLE, there's still a lot of stuff in Prime that's incredible.

But, in retrospect, the game is a lot more dull than it could've been due to the inflexibility of the items and level design; it doesn't live up to Super in that regard (or even Fusion or Zero Mission).

user, you aren't saying that all the games you liked as a kid are just as likeable to the adult you, are you?

>But if you're the player you have NO FUCKING IDEA when it's necessary

Mandatory scannables come up as red, optional scannables come up as orange.

>Waaaah, I can't believe people have different opinions on video games

Yeah but sometimes orange scannables are interesting!

But they're mixed in with a ton of scannables (most, in fact ("this is an elevator. stand in the hologram to activate it)) that really shouldn't even be there at all! That's my problem with it.

They get the credit they deserve but Miyamoto's contributions can't be denied. He whipped them into shape and it paid off greatly.

>Metroid Prime was ultimately a game from both the east and west

Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot but I said exactly this a few weeks ago

People called me crazy.

The same thing goes for Recore. It's a game made 60% in japan and 40% in the west

Yeah, Miyamoto's always able to whip people in to shape.

Just look at Skyward Sword and Sticker Star.

Skyward Sword is good tho

Which has nothing to do with his contributions to Prime's development 14 years ago.

>only neo nintendo fans hate prime

a lot of people don't care for it or the direction it took things in, Sup Forums is just a very contained and very loud butthurt vocal minority.

When I wasn't backing tracking I liked it too. Too bad backtracking was a good portion of the game.