Press B 216: Is Metroid Prime actually bad?

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What happens when Jake writes the episode summary each week? He
drops COLD HARD TRUTHS! Like how Metroid Prime might actually be
bad. The rest of Press B likely disagrees, but lets find out this
week as we discuss and rank every Metroid game in the franchise.
Which ones stand the test of time? Watch and find out!


Press B To Cancel now on YouTube! For updates and more episodes
please visit our website www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on
Twitter @pressbtocancel


Special thanks to The Last Ancient on SoundCloud for our podcast
theme.


Transcript: Chard: All right, fellas, let's jump in that
intergalactic spaceship and let's go hunt some space pirates and
some floating jelly beans. I don't know what they are, but we're
going to talk about them today. Metroid catalog and the tier
ranking system today on.


Jake: They're damn delicious. That's what they are.


Chard: Wow. Hello and welcome, everybody, to another episode of
Press be to cancel. I am your host this evening, Chardmonk. With
me, as always, are three out of the four greatest people I know
on the planet Earth, zeebs and other numerically alphanumeric
planets that we're going to land on during this discussion. Sick
Jake, werewolf, and my boy guy prime. Guys, how are we all doing
today? Sick Jake, how are you doing today, sir?


Jake: Great. Glads Friday, as always. Really looking forward to
kind of running down these games. I love this franchise.


Chard: Excellent. Werewolf, how about you, sir?


Wulff: I'm doing pretty darn good. I just got a new prescription
for my glasses yesterday. I'll have those in a couple weeks. And
I just beat bloodstained, so.


Chard: Wow, everything's coming up. Milhouse. Yes, DP, how are
you, my friend?


GP: Doing great. Feeling wonderful. Glad to be here. I love
french fries.


Chard: French fries are delicious. Samesies treat samesies.


Jake: Fries are good.


Chard: Get. Fries are good. The local, the local canadian fries
are good.


Jake: Let me tell you guys about poutine. Have you guys ever had
poutine before? They have poutine down there.


Chard: Listen, this is a Christiane. This is a christian podcast.
Let's not talk.


GP: Yeah, we're not the seven minutes in, don't be bringing up, I
don't know.


Wulff: If we want to make that association right now.


Chard: As you, as Jake mentioned, we are going to be talking
about one of our favorite franchises. Wolf has got it subtly
placed in his background. I am also wearing it on, bearing it on
my chest right now. We're going to talk Metroid. And initially we
were going to kind of discuss a couple of our favorite games out
of the tier. We thought about a Mount Rushmore thing. We thought
about ranking brackets, but we just did a brackets not too long
ago. So what we're going to do is something mildly different but
still very popular amongst the children and the gen Zers these
days. We're going to, we're going to do a tier system. A tier
system of, I believe. Is it Jake, is it every game in the, in the
catalog?


Jake: I mean, if it's in the Wikipedia, then it's on my list.


Chard: Yes.


Jake: Just like what the kids like.


Chard: Fantastic. So Gen Z will definitely be following.


Jake: From Wikipedia and rank things.


Chard: We're gonna bring that Riz. No, Cap?


GP: Yeah, I need to. I need to change some of my things.


Jake: Like let him know it's gibbony Riz now, right? Isn't that
what it is? Yeah.


Chard: Wow. You want to see four old dudes talk? Totally out.


Wulff: Gibbity outhouse. Right?


GP: That's what it is. My dad. But I hate you, son.


Chard: Yeah. All right, well, I don't know. We're going to go in
particular order. I'm assuming we'll go by the year and we'll
just start with the first one and kind of travel away. So I guess
the process will be, we'll call out the ranking of what we think,
discuss the game. If we've played it, there's a good possibility
that it's on the list, but we haven't touched it. We've already
admitted to a few. And then are we just. You're going to just
pick. The four of us will have our letter numbers up here, Jake.
Is that what the plan is?


Jake: We can all agree, I think, on ABCD or s tier. I think. I
think we all agree on everything.


Chard: For the most part, or single grade.


Jake: For each title of this episode.


Chard: You just want us to argue about something. That's fine.


Wulff: I have a question. If we're ranking these, are we ranking
them against the franchise or are we ranking them as video games
in general?


GP: Because it gets.


Wulff: Dude. Yeah.


Jake: Well, okay.


Chard: I assume it was against the franchise.


GP: Just because on their own merits.


Chard: Really think so?


Wulff: Well, because they're like, they're all going to be A's
and B's at worst for the most part, if we do that. But if we're
ranking them against the rest of the franchise, I think there's
going to be a little more variation.


Jake: I think I agree with Wolf on that one. Yeah, I agree.


GP: I'm.


Jake: I mean, they're all great game. Well, most of them are
great games.


GP: So that throws all my stuff just right out.


Chard: Let me get my. Let me get my tear.


Jake: If you want, I can pull up some mystery envelopes. We can
just shake this really up, you know?


GP: Okay.


Jake: Let me tell you.


GP: What did this thing end up coming up with the voting machine?


Wulff: It came out 50 50, and that was with Jake voting in it as
well.


Chard: I also vote. I actually. I actually made it 50, so you're
welcome.


Jake: Did you? Yeah.


Chard: Yeah. Because after I.


Jake: Yes. Game. But that's. That's fine.


Chard: Don't believe you. All right, let's get through this list.
We got. We got to. Sure. We got at least ten minutes to get
through this list.


GP: Yeah, let's do this.


Chard: All right.


Jake: It's fine. It's fine.


Chard: All right. So, first off, obviously, is the. The
predecessor to all Metroidvanians. It is Metroid. It is Metroid.
Metroid one from 1986. Metroid hits this, the Nintendo, not the
super, the Nintendo entertainment System. And blowing us all away
with not only the fact that it was, it was a backtracking, you
know, puzzler game back then. We also found out the protagonist
was female, which was pretty unusual for the time. Usually, you
know, somebody in a full suit of armor to typically was a male.
Was a male protagonist, but at the end, took her helmet off, and
it was Samus. Samus was a chick, and we all flipped out about it.
I thought that was a cool. A cool thing, that they're back in 86.
So what are our rankings on Metroid? I'm going to give Metroid. I
want to give it an a or b, personally. It's obviously got its
issues, a lot of. A lot of problems with it, but with the
problems comes some really cool shit. I wouldn't call it polished
because it is an eight bit, you know, first time metropolitan
vanian and working through it. But, man, without it, you wouldn't
have any of the other cool stuff. You wouldn't have the
bloodstains. You wouldn't have Castlevania, Symphony of the
nights. You wouldn't have, like, all that really cool stuff, the
stuff we play now that we. We play fairly religiously. So I'm
leaning on an a or a b for. For Metroid, for myself, you know, I.


Jake: Don'T know what this one. I know you got to respect it for
being the first one in the franchise, but if I were to play this
game again, I have beaten it a couple times, but if I were to
play it again, there's a really great ROM hack that adds a map to
it, because without a map, this sucks, right. And without the
ability to save, just. Just the thought of that password screen
keeps me up in sweats at night like, it's. The passwords were the
worst with this when you were a kid, and the lack of a map was.
Was a slap in the face, especially when there's multiple areas,
like corridors that look identical, they look the same, colors,
tiles, everything. And without a map, it's very confusing. I
think this is a game that was implemented much better later on. I
respect it for what it is, but I would never play it again today
in 2024 without that hack, to give you a map, honestly, I think
it's more of a c or a d, to be honest with you. Maybe a
diphthere. I like.


Chard: Really? You're really good. Really kicking it in the shins
there.


Wulff: Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna meet you guys in the middle
there, and I'm gonna say it's a b or a c. And that's because, for
me, while, yes, it is dated, you have to think this game came out
in, what, 86? So for the technological limitations of the time,
you have to think of all the wild shit they did to make this game
fit on a cartridge. And it's a massive game. It's a huge map.


Chard: They.


Wulff: They really played some programming tricks on that little
NES cartridge to make it work, and they did a really good job.
And this was also the age of when, you know, you whipped out a
piece of graph paper and you mapped out the games a lot of the
time.


Chard: Right.


Wulff: So this was not something that was foreign at the time.
Back then, it was like, I got to make a map. I got to write down
the pat. You had a book of passwords, and you had a book of maps,
right?


GP: Yeah.


Wulff: It kind of fits for the time, but, yeah, it does show its
age. However, like, again, this was the first of the
Metroidvanias, really, in terms of what we think of them now.
Yeah, there were, like, one or two that came before, but this is
the one that really kicked off the popularity. And even back when
I was a kid and I sucked at this game, I wanted to play it so
much like, I play it pretty regularly and always terrible at it
and still went back for more, like. So that says something for
it.


GP: Right on. Yeah, I agree. Out of all you guys, most with
Wolfenhe, I'm going to rank this to be. I think it's very
analogous to the original NES Final Fantasy for what it was at
the time that it came out. It was wildly impressive graphically.
It did what it was supposed to do. They really used the extent of
the cartridge, you know, to what they knew about. Hold on a
second.


Jake: Yeah, but the original Final Fantasy was good, though.


GP: Okay.


Wulff: But I like that it's all fantasy, clunky and.


Chard: Yeah, very buggy.


GP: And it had things, you know, again, analogous to. Well, it
didn't have a map. Well, Final Fantasy, if you were aiming at a
bad guy that died, you know, between the time that you selected
to attack him and your turn, it was a missed turn. So they've re
released it and fixed those kind of things, and they've done that
with. With Metroid. You know, there's ports or various versions
that have the map, so I'm going to put it at b. I love the game.
I think what they accomplished was great. I think laying the
foundation for the graphics as well as the music was a very
impressive feat in and of itself.


Jake: Yes.


GP: So I lean much more into the b than a c, but conversely, it's
not an a. So I think b is right.


Jake: So it is technically impressive for a game, for sure. I
like, I love how even. It uses all the buttons on the damn
controller. Right? Like, even for missiles, you have to hit
select, I believe. Right. So it takes advantage of everything
they give you. I do like how the map is huge. The finding of the
missile tanks, the e tanks, all that hidden secrets. There's a
lot there. I mean, this is, this is the Metroid in Metrovania.
This is what defines the genre. So I definitely appreciate it. I
just. I. Look, we couldn't afford graph paper in Canada. Okay?


GP: That's why you have it. I grew up with d and D players. Like,
how to do this shit. I did not do it, but the people around me
did. I also want to say in the sacred timeline, this is where it
branched into. This is. Okay, if you're a completionist, there's
no way that you know that. Before Metroid comes out. Yeah, I
think that's where, like, that thing got awoken. And some of us
were like, no, I have to do all of it.


Chard: Yeah, well, shit, you didn't even know the stuff was out
there. Like, it took. It took somebody showing you. It's the
first example of, like, we all played Baldur's gate three
together and found that there were things that nobody else did.
Yeah, that was the first of it, of being like, did you find this
missile tank or this e. This e tank over here? Like, what? No, I
didn't know it was there. And then you have to backtrack and go
find it and. Yeah, and then just, like GP said, it just unlocks
that completionist in you to go and hunt that stuff down. So
this. This was the first, um. The first time of my life that I
spent way too much time of my life on something I shouldn't have.


GP: Well, and I'll talk more about this later, but also the
sequence breaking, which I didn't know about as a kid, but that's
a whole other sub genre that is just.


Chard: I mean, think about. Think about growing up and having so
many linear games in front of you. Final Fantasy being one of
them, you know, you. You have to do things in a certain order to
progress. This was one of the. This was one of the first groups
of games where there was you. You could go, I don't know how
true. Metroid, the first Metroid is obviously, in later
installations, there were different variations. We could almost.
We can almost claim that it got more like open world a little
bit. It's still very linear, don't get me wrong. But we can also
discuss that this was the first chance of, like, being able to
freely explore in other areas, at least in later installments,
that that allowed for that until, you know, Zelda came along and
did the same thing. So these are the kind of games.


GP: That did that, but you have the option to explore. Yeah.


Chard: Right?


Jake: Yeah, I do. Like how it's not a straight up platformer.
Like, there is more freedom of movement in how you tackle certain
areas that. That's fair. So I guess we're leaning towards b. I
guess I can't talk you guys.


Chard: Down to a c. No, no.


Jake: All right. Okay.


Wulff: I mean, I'd go b minus, but okay.


Chard: I mean, sure.


GP: How about double b's?


Jake: Double B's. Okay.


Chard: All right.


Jake: I can live with a b. It's far. B minus. That's fine. I
think. I mean, you can't. You can't not respect the damn game
that made the franchise. I get it.


Chard: Right? Okay. Yeah. I'm going to be honest with you. This
next one that came out, I'm a big fan of, but I don't think a lot
of people are. And it makes me sad because I really enjoyed this
installation of the game. I thought it was really cool. 1991, we
had Metroid two return of Samus on the Game Boy, the black and
white original game Boy. This game burned many a battery out in
my game Boy. I played the everliving crap out of this, and
eventually in my adult life, went out and got the badge for it
where you actually had to beat it in under 2 hours. So that was
pretty cool. I really enjoyed playing the game. Yeah, well, you
know, streaming allows for all kinds of different abilities that
it didn't allow in the past. You know, you have 30 minutes game
times when you're younger, when you're 42, you could sit in front
of your computer for two and a half hours and nobody says boo to
you until, you know, it's one in the morning and you have to go
to work. But that's different. I really like the aspect of this
game. I know it's in black and white. It's its original Game Boy.
You know, it is what it is. Or green and white, whichever, you
know, whichever version you're playing it on. But I thought the.
I really, really thought the mutations of the Metroids found on
the. On the Metroid home planet was a really, really cool aspect.
And I liked having to hunt those guys down. It really changed up
the way things were done. It just seemed really cool. And I. And
it felt like there was always an achievement to go out and find,
regardless in the game, because you were just exploring new areas
and finding out where the metroids were and. And taking them down
as you went. So I. I would give this one, and this is me. I don't
expect anybody to follow along with me on this one, but I am
going to skew the medium a little bit. I'm giving this one an a
because I had a lot of fun with this one. Yep. I had a ton of fun
with this chart.


Jake: I.


Chard: It. Don't worry, the next one will definitely not be an a.
It'll be much higher. But I really like this game. And again, I
don't expect anybody to come along with me on this ride. And I'm
sure everybody thinks that it's as 90 even think that. But the
gameplay, the fun in it, it had a map, even the music was pretty
good in certain areas when it wasn't just ambient beepings and
bloopings. I love this game. This is one of my favorite Game Boy
games that was released back. Back in the nineties. So come with
me on this trip if you want to. I'm not going to convince anybody
to join me because there is a different version of this later on
in the list, but yeah.


GP: Yeah, I was going to say, didn't they redo this with the
Super Nintendo equivalency or.


Jake: No, it was on three deciseconds. It was the same company
that later did Metroid dread, and I played the three deciseconds
one. We'll get to it. I have some words with that one, but.


Chard: You don't have to like it. I'm giving it.


Jake: I don't. So I'm gonna. Again, you know what? Much like the
first game, this one is very technically impressive for the Game
Boy. Like, they do a lot with the Game Boy. I'm always impressed
with every great game Boy game and what they squeeze out of those
cartridges. And I'll give you. The music is okay for the Game
Boy. And the sprites look really good. Like, you have a full size
work.


Chard: On the Game Boy. You gotta say is pretty. Damn. It's
almost better than the Nintendo sprite work on there.


Jake: What? It. What? What threw me off of this game, and I
didn't like it. I've eaten it once, and I'll never go through it
again. I didn't like hunting the Metroids. I hated how it was a
counter and you had to find them all. I just found that really
tedious to the point, and I didn't like it. I felt a lot of them
were very much the same. Right. There's different variations,
mutations, but they're mostly the same. And I got. I got really
bored of this one. I got really tired of it. So I. I don't know
what to give it.


Wulff: So for my end, this is a game I didn't get to try till I
was kind of older. Like, I tried it a little bit at a friend's
house who. He absolutely loved it. I had a number of friends as a
kid who loved this game. I have friends now who loved this game,
and I am. I've never been a huge fan of the way it plays, and
that's just because of the game Boy technical limitations. Like,
it's. It's rough. I don't mind the counter, though. I do think
it's weird that there's only, like, 50 metroids on SR 388. Like,
they're kind of an apex species. How are there just a handful of
them? Yeah, but, uh.


Chard: Can't kill everything. Yes. I don't know, but, uh.


Wulff: Yeah, like, I like the idea of where they went with it. It
was cool that it was put on Game Boy for the second one. And did
that one give you a map in the game?


Chard: I thought it did. I could have sworn that there was a map
in that game, but it may not. It may be in a later installment,
but I remember for some reason, looking at it. Yeah, I think
there is one. Because when I played it for retro achievements, I
was like, I got to figure out where the hell how to get up to
here and this there that. I swear, not. Okay. I don't know. Oh,
you know what I was doing? I was looking on a map online. Never
mind. Disregard. But, I mean, I had a map, but it wasn't in the
game, so never mind.


Wulff: I will say, mechanically, they improved on Metroid when
they put it on Game Boy.


Jake: Yes.


Chard: That's.


Wulff: That's pretty damn awesome. So, while it's not a game that
resonates with me, I do think it. It is deserving of a good
grade.


Chard: I think it's crazy that they didn't release two on the
Nintendo or something during that time. I I always thought it was
weird that it just fell on the Game Boy and then they just kind
of left it there. It was almost like it. It was almost, it almost
went like over everybody's heads that, you know, the next one is
obviously the third of the installment, but it was just like
Samus or return of Samus on the game.


Wulff: I don't know if you remember, but.


Chard: Like, which one is that?


Wulff: Saturday morning cartoons and Disney afternoon were
absolutely littered with commercials for this game when it was
came, when it was released.


Jake: Really?


Chard: Remember?


Wulff: Hey, the marketing was huge.


Chard: Yep.


GP: I'll have to look. I'm sure if I saw the commercials, it
would, it would awaken that inside me and I'd be like, oh, yeah.


Chard: I was doing the script power movie.


Wulff: Trailer voice and it had, I think it had 2d animated Samus
running around shooting things. And.


Jake: I just remember captain n the cartoon in the late eighties
and mother brain was in that stuck with me with the franchise.
Yeah, there's a five year gap between Metroid and Metroid.
That's. That is a pretty wide gap. But we're gonna see that later
on too. Like, there is not a lot of love for this franchise in
Nintendo. It's kind of strange. I think I'm gonna give this d for
me. I think it.


Wulff: No, it had like, claymation in the commercial. That's what
it was. They stop motion animation.


GP: Kind of like Final Fantasy. Three.


Chard: Three.


Wulff: Next.


Chard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.


GP: Next. Yeah. Great. Good call. So I'm gonna abstain from
having a strong opinion on this one. I never really played all
the way through it, if I remember correctly, and I like to think
that I do. I borrowed a copy from my friend Brian when I was
probably like early teens. And anytime you kind of, like, mess
with the aspect ratio of my games, I don't like it. Same thing
with Game Boy, mega man games. They zoom in so much.


Chard: Yeah.


GP: I feel like. I don't feel safe moving. And so I know I've
started this one on the game Boy, but I know I never really got
further than maybe 20 minutes. And I'm sure I've seen people play
it or some version of it, and I probably enjoyed watching, but I
can't say I know enough to be like, well, here's. Here's where I
come down. So I will go with, like, the standard middle of the
road c and assume that that is acceptable. Otherwise, just take
me out of that one. All, all in all.


Chard: But I don't think. I think.


GP: I'm sure there's worse. Metroid. Say again?


Chard: I said, I think my curve brings that up to a c, which I'm
totally fine with.


Wulff: Sounds about right. Like I said, I'm. I don't think I can
accurately rank this one because it just didn't resonate with me.
But I did play the crap out of am two r. I beat that 100% of it.
So the concept was strong. I just never played through the
original.


GP: Am two r. That's what I keep thinking about. Yeah.


Chard: The fan game of Samus returns that they wanted.


GP: Yeah.


Chard: So. And then Nintendo finally did it in 2017. Took you
long enough.


Jake: So Metroid, two for the Game Boy circumflex. That. That
seems fair. I can. I can live with Z. Yeah.


Chard: All right. Okay, here's the one that's probably going to
get gushed about the most out of this. And we're just going to.


Jake: We're.


Chard: Yeah, this is total. This is a hidden gem, as we like to
call these kinds of games. Here in the Preston. We're going to
talk about 1994 Super Metroid, arguably my favorite in the entire
series. I can't say the same for everybody else, but you can't.
You can't not rank this into a higher tier. This took everything
from both the first two games and made it spanking amazing. This
game was spectacular. Maps, tons of upgrades, places to visit,
people to see. It brought back Gridley or Ridley and raid.
Gridley, raid, whatever. There's a. There's a town.


GP: Clearly you know this story well, and.


Chard: When I. Yeah, when I drive through it, I would always say
this, but no. Ridley and Crane and all those. And a bunch of new
guys and the guy melting in the lava.


Wulff: Croco Meyer. That was. That was awesome when that
happened.


Chard: Exactly.


Wulff: Threw me for a loop.


Jake: So many skeleton.


Chard: Yeah. And.


Wulff: Yeah, yeah.


Chard: It's your first jump scare, and you.


Wulff: Don'T actually have to fight him, but they jump scare you.
They. Yeah, they completely throw it out of left field like you
thought he was dead, and you start walking, and they give you
that jump stare that you're like, oh, crap.


Chard: Yeah.


Wulff: And then you know you're in for something with this game.


Chard: It's from. From top to bottom. I've played this game
religiously. I would love to get the badge for this one, but
there are some things in there that are pretty difficult, like a.
What is it, a three tank run or some b's? And I'm like, oh, I'm
not that good. But you could save the animals at the end. The
mother brain fight at the end is, is just reminiscent of the
first one, and then. And then kicks it up to fucking eleven. When
you get out there to fight the second half of that battle.
Spoiler alert. Sorry, but this game is fucking.


GP: It's 30 years old, buddy.


Chard: Yeah, get over it.


Wulff: I mean, the way it pulls on you emotionally at the end of
that game is wild. The amount of crazy. They really did a great
job, and I know I'm stepping on you here. I'm sorry. They did a
great job in this game of really making you feel like you're on
an alien planet and things are unnerving. Like, this is what the
original Metroid was going for, and Super Metroid nailed it
because they got to do that with the music and the sound effects
and the various, you know, the different sprite styles from area
to area so that it really could convey a feeling and an emotion
and make you uneasy as the player.


Chard: Right. The sequence breaking that you could do in this one
and the wall jumping to get past some things that you couldn't
normally do. This. This is s tier Metroid. In my personal
opinion. This would be. This would be the one that everything has
to beat, in my personal opinion. I freaking love this game, and I
just love the changes that they did to it. I love the speed
running, the speed booster shoes and all the stuff that you did
with that. It just really, really, like you said, took what they
started with. With the first two and just made it, made it really
good. So super Metroid, to me, s tier, top tier, hard to beat. My
favorite of the Metroid series. Can't. Can't get any better than
that. Even the music, this, the squealing at the beginning of the
title screen with the little Metroid and the. In the tube, that
was my ringtone for like 800 years. It's also was my watch face
until I changed to the fallout thing. But, I mean, I had that as.


Wulff: A text notification for a long time.


Chard: It's so good. It's so good. And the music is just fucking
ba ba ba ba ba. It's just so fucking good. It's really, really.


GP: Was that Superman?


Chard: That's a little bit of the music.


Wulff: In super Metroid felt very cinematic.


Jake: It did, for sure, yes. Especially the ending. The ending
battle with met with mother brain. That whole sequence,
especially when you get powered up, the hyper beam, that whole
sequence will always stick. In my brain is music. The scene, the
giant Metroid baby like, filling the screen, it was so huge. That
was really, really good.


Chard: And then the. And then the self destruct where you're
running. I know they did that. They did that in the first one,
but you literally felt panic when you were jumping from platform
to platform to get out of there. You know, it's stressful. It's.
It's great. There's so many emotions in this game that I just. I
love it. I love it to death.


GP: I I agree. This being s tier for the series. Further, if you
take out Final Fantasy two, I would put this probably in the top
three best games for the super Nintendo up there with Link to the
past and Final Fantasy six. But it accomplished so much. Wolf, I
could not agree with you more with what you said about this feels
like the perfect version of what one was trying to accomplish.
You know, like, oh, this is what we meant to say. We just didn't
have the vocabulary for it at the time. And just the inclusion of
the upgrades, everything they were able to do with the map. And,
I mean, it's. You talk about it being cinematic. If you look at a
movie franchise, the first one to come into my mind is rocky.
Each rocky movie kind of has its own feeling and each world and
each kind of sublevel of. Of the game. Super Metroid has its very
own distinct taste and feeling and vibe and what they accomplish,
not just with the color palette, but the mapping and the design
and the soundscapes. Yeah, it's definitely s tier, so, yeah.


Wulff: They also really made it feel like a living, breathing
alien planet with all the different types of creatures and biomes
and everything.


GP: Stepping on a tongue or a tonsil or something like that. Or
I. Right, okay. Yeah. It was very contrary in that way. Super
safe. But, yeah, I'm with you.


Jake: Yeah, I like this. This is my favorite metroid, I think,
especially from that era. Just in terms of, like, the variety of
the state. Like the areas like you guys mentioned. Just
atmospheric all around. Right. Just the. The weather effects
right from the get go, ship lands, it's raining. Rain.


Chard: Yeah.


Jake: Right. There's foggy areas and then there's the heat areas
where there's lava. And you have to have the right suit for it.
Just atmospheric, right from the get go, right from the
beginning, intro was atmospheric. We're in the ship, basically,
and you have to escape the ship after the fight with Ridley, and
you're running for your life. And then you're right at the very
end of the game, you're running for your life again and you could
totally lose in the last two minutes. I've done it before. I
fucked it up trying to escape because I missed a jump. Just
atmospheric all the way through. The only, the only negatives I
have on this game is wall jumping. I felt Washington really hard
for me to grasp as a kid. I still have issues with it even today.
It doesn't feel as clean as it could be. It's been done better in
the later Metroid games, but just the fact that it has wall
jumping is pretty unique, I think, for its time on the SNES. And
I'm with UGP. I struggle to pick my top three SNES games, but
this is usually within that range. Right. Like, usually, you
know, for sure, top five.


GP: An argument could be made for three, in my opinion.


Jake: Yeah.


Chard: Yeah, you're right.


Jake: And absolutely.


Wulff: Yeah.


Jake: For me to point out too is that. Sorry, real quick is it
has the horror elements that we see in later games in the series.
They start with here where there's the dark rooms and you have to
use the light visor that, the scare, the jump scares with
Krakamire, I just think there's a, there's a horror elements
where I didn't expect later on the franchise, but going back to
super Metroid, they're always there from the beginning.


Wulff: Yeah, yeah. Like this franchise was heavily inspired by
the alien series of movies. And this is the one that really
nailed that feeling. And I mean, I loved the alien. I was, I
probably saw the first two alien movies way too young, but I saw
them and I love, like, I was not ten yet when I saw them. I
absolutely loved them. And when I got to play Super Metroid, I
was like, oh, yeah, here we go. And there are two games on this
list that qualify as s tier in my mind, and this is one of them.


Chard: Yeah, I agree.


Jake: Yeah.


GP: I mean, yes. Let's, let's address real quick some of the
obvious connections to the alien franchise, which, by the way, I
had a tougher time as a kid watching land before time than I did.


Wulff: Same.


GP: Alien or aliens?


Wulff: Oh, land before time was so awful, I didn't understand why
all my friends loved it.


GP: No, it was terribly scary and sad.


Wulff: Give me alien or Godzilla land before time is so boring
all the time.


Jake: Godzilla?


Wulff: Yeah.


GP: I mean, yeah. Ridley, Ripley, you know, the whole, the whole
mother.


Jake: Okay.


GP: Which might not have been till three. I don't remember my
alien franchise super well sometimes, but no, I mean, yeah.
Strong female protagonists just kicking ass and saving the day,
taking names. Yeah.


Chard: And alien blood. All right, all right. So I guess we're
all in agreement that super Metroid definitely needs a super
rating of superiority. And getting it that s tier where it
belongs. So fantastic. The riz gets on arisen. I'm sorry. Connect
our younger audiences. No cap. Let's go ahead and move on.


Jake: Give it a Metroid.


Chard: I don't know, you take all the seats. All right. So up
next in the franchise, 2002 Metroid Fusion comes in hot. Which
Game Boy was this? This was Game Boy Advance. Game Boy advance.
Thank you. So this, I've played very little of Metroid Fusion. I
have played it, but not enough of it to give it like a good
rousing to me, this was one of the games that I kind of with. I'm
with GP on the whole, I wouldn't say claustrophobic thing, but
definitely the animation and like this, I guess the smoothness of
the game because it's pretty smooth when you're playing. It just
felt very awkward to me playing. It's. I know I. Fusion gets a
lot of love. It's, it's not talked about as a bad game
whatsoever. There's only one in this one in this series that
we've, we'll talk about that gets kind of like a lot. But
Fusion's pretty high up there on a lot of, a lot of Metroid fans
lists. I can't give it, I'm going to abstain from giving it a
decent rating or a rating of less or no. So I'm giving it a c
just because I don't know enough about it to hate it or enough
about it to love it. But it does look cool. But for me, it's very
awkward to play on that system. I really need to play it on like
the steam deck and just, and just sit down and play it. That way
I can give it an opinion. I've seen speedrunners play it and it,
and it seems pretty cool. I like the, the ricocheting rockets off
of things that, that are metal when you're fighting like what is
it, mecha, Ridley or whatever. Like some of that stuff's pretty
cool in the animation. I just need more time with it to give it
really a good vibe. Does anybody else have a more, a better
opinion about it than I do? GP, what do you think it's okay.


GP: To kind of change the order and go second? Are you guys okay
with that?


Jake: Yeah, go for it.


GP: Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to start off by saying this.
I'm going to give it a b, which might be a little high, but the
reason for it is you couldn't really do this today. I think this
game came about it was released so in tandem, and it was so
intimately related to Metroid prime. The overlap there was so
intertwined that I think they created this because people liked
having a mobile version of Metroid, but we didn't have the
switch, we didn't have steam decks. This was, yeah. So that said,
it accomplished what it wanted to and it did it very well. And
then being able to, you know, if you've done x, Y and Z infusion,
then in prime you can get this suit, or vice versa if you've done
certain things, yada, yada, yada. So that was all very cool. That
said, my favorite thing about Fusion is metroid prime, so I can't
really justify putting it any higher than a b. And I feel like a
b might be generous, but I think it's deserving of a b or a b if
we're getting into the weeds with it. But it was a fun and
exciting thing. I played it right after I got completely addicted
to prime, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes. So I was
riding high on the metroid wave at that time. So that's my answer
and that's my reasoning. Courage.


Chard: This is the beginning of a cluster that we had of none
that we have like, that we have never seen in Metroid during this
time where we were just, we're just getting pummeled. It was like
a smashing pumpkins album every other month. We were just getting
hit with a new Metroid variation of some kind. Billy Corgan took
up the reins of the Metroid franchise. We're just like. We're
just gonna make all kinds of shit just like he does with his
music. So that's your, there's your Billy Corgan reference for
the week, guys. Thank you. Next. Whoever. Yeah, keep going.
Sorry, I didn't mean.


Jake: You want to talk? You want me to go?


Wulff: I'll go. For me, I was super excited about Metroid fusion.
This was the first Metroid game we got for eight years, and it
looked a lot like super Metroid, which I already knew I loved. So
I was like, I'm in. For me, the thing that threw this one a
little bit was the way the story unfolded for the player because
they really wanted to do exposition dumps every little while. And
so it was like now all of a sudden Samus is talking to her ship's
AI or something.


Jake: I don't remember the computer system of the station or some
nonsense.


Wulff: It might have been that I thought it was her ship's AI,
but I guess it might have been the computer system on the
station. But you're on this like Zoo state. Zay zoo space
station. I can say words.


Chard: Zoo station. There's a u two reference. Let's go.


Wulff: And you know, you're running around trying to kill the x
virus, I think it was called. And this is basically the metroids
only natural predator. Right. And so you're running around that
they've apparently got a metroid on the ship or supposedly, or
they were experimenting with it to try and do away with metroids.
I don't remember exactly what it was, but both of these are
species that are just supremely invasive. And so either way you
take one off of their home planet and everybody else is fucked.
This is the one. Yeah. You end up fighting like a scary version
of Samus in this. This is the first time that you have to fight
yourself. And it's scary and more powerful. Like it's, I want to
mention the kind of things in, I'm jumping quite ahead here, but
with Metroid dread, those robots that chase you around and you
can't really stop them. There are points in Metroid fusion. Yeah,
the, I think that's what they were. There are points in Metroid
fusion where you have to deal with that dark samus or that ex
samus, whatever it was called, sa x sachs. That's what it was.
And you cannot let it interact with you or you're dead. Like you
have to sneak around at points. So this was kind of the start of
sneak around, a little bit of stealth in Metroid, and that was
pretty cool to me. However, the way the story unfolded and some
of the mechanics and boss fights were just frustrating more than
anything. So I can't give this anything more than a b. I think it
was good. It was a nice run back to Metroid, but it was a, it
wasn't the strongest 2d metroid. So yeah, I think it's about even
with the original Metroid on that front.


GP: That's fair.


Jake: Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you, wolf. I think my the biggest
problem I have with this game, and I'll be fair, I have not
beaten this game. I fell off it the few times I've tried to play
it. I've tried three times to try and sit through this game. And
the biggest barrier is that stupid AI computer of the station and
how it talks so much. Like when I go back and play Super Metroid,
it's like the perfect game. It's timeless. It still holds up. I
don't need dialogue. I mean, it's the intro is good enough. From
there, it doesn't matter. Just playing the game and being
immersed in that world is the story enough for me. And that
Nintendo does that a lot. Like we've seen with like Zelda's and
stuff where they don't need a lot of that exposition, they don't
need that story when the story is the game itself, but Metroid
really tries to shove it down your throat. And as interesting as
some of the Metroid lore can be, there's just, it just felt a
little bit weird with this, with the X virus and the computer
talking all the time. I also didn't like how I felt more stuck on
a rail with this game, super Metroid. I mean, yes, you could. I
mean, forget the sequence breaking. I know you can totally do
that, but I still feel like more wide open spaces to explore,
whereas Metroid Fusion felt a lot more smaller, which made sense
because you're on a station, but it didn't feel like you as much
freedom to go your own way in that one. So for me, not the
greatest graphics are amazing. Totally showcases what the Game
Boy advance can do. It definitely takes the SNES 16 bit style
sprites and goes with it. The animations are much more detailed.
I didn't care for the suit. You end up with that, that stupid CN
blue and yellow. That's kind of weird. I get why they do it.
She's now an alien now it's fine this. But the story was weird.
Metroid stories always been strange, but it was a bit too weird
for me. I I mean, I think I lean towards c, but I can live with a
b for this one.


Chard: I think they pivot the story on, on fusion in a really
weird way. It's like trying to introduce something new because
it's like, oh, we know we've done this the last three years. It's
kind of old. Let's try something different. But it just felt like
it was way out there. Like just, just too far. Bridge too far,
you know what I mean?


GP: They were also taking a big swing with prime, which is just
coming out at that same time and changing that to an FPS game. I
think they really said, well, the fans are going to want, I mean,
something closer to a super metroid. So they came out with
something that was a little more true to form for what we knew to
kind of ease us in to the, the murky waters of first person
shooter just in case it did not take off like it did.


Chard: All right, well, okay.


Wulff: I did came out on the same day.


Chard: Did they come out the same day. I didn't know.


Jake: Yeah, apparently, totally cross marketing for sure.


Chard: That's crazy. All right, well, without further ado, since
we've already dropped to talk about it, and it came out the same
exact day that Fusion did, let's go ahead and switch gears and,
and switch our perspectives and jump over to Metroid prime, as we
have given a Metroid Fusion a resounding b b ranking for that
one. All right, so Metroid prime, let's talk a little bit about
Metroid prime. I'll go ahead and start us off. Metroid prime was
such a great, it's a great perspective break.


Jake: It.


Chard: It was Metroid, but it was first person. You're, you're
seeing the arm cannon. The things that they did with this game,
and this was one of the first things I met Wolf doing was playing
Metroid prime and what he did in this game, which I always forget
about that.


Wulff: You're always the one to remind me.


Chard: What I did with that, because it's such a cool idea. When
Wolf streamed back in the day, he had some really, really cool
aspects that he did with his stream that went with, like, when he
played Spider man. He was upside down. He dressed like Princess
peach for. No, princess Daisy for Mario. Ghosts. Was it goals of
ghosts that you were doing that?


Wulff: Oh, no, I would. I did it for doing Mario two as just like
Princess Peach that day.


GP: He was a pioneer with heart rate monitors.


Wulff: I went on the ghouls and go, or, yeah, just ghouls and
ghosts, or ghosts and goblins for any.


Chard: Give me the key. Give me the key, you piece of garbage.
One of my all time favorite wolf lines.


GP: That was my ringtone for the longest time.


Chard: Anyways, as we steer back to the Metroid rails that we
just went off of, Metroid prime was a great adjustment. It was a
different perspective. You were seeing through Samus's eyes. You,
you were, you were tackling the same kind of metroidvanian
platforming, but with, through her eyes, as opposed to the side
scroller that we've all grown and loved. I think what they did
with it was great. They did very cool details, which is what wolf
did. There was a, every time there was an explosion of light
anywhere near you, like a missile blew up or something, you would
see Samus's eyes reflected back in her helmet and her face, like,
usually mostly her nose and her eyes, because, you know, the face
mask was over that, and we'll stream this. He put his, his face
over that, but it was the opaque, I guess, whatever the whatever
transparency, there it is. You'd see me see him. It was a really
cool thing that he did and I loved it. But I thought Metroid
prime was freaking awesome. I loved that game. And it felt more
anxiety ridden when things were attacking you face on as opposed
to running from something sideways. Now you've got a metroid on
your ass literally sucking. You see the inside of this thing
sucking the life out of you. And it was a trip. This game, fate.
It was just, it's, it's great from front to back. I love Metroid
prime. I'd be willing to give it an s tier because they totally
pivoted on this thing and took you away from your normal side
scrolling, platforming and put you in literally in the driver's
seat of the character and they still kept you doing the same
exact stuff. You were just witnessing it firsthand as opposed to
side to side. I thought that was a really cool change. Great
change for the franchise. 100%. I'm going prime with an s tier
ranking on this because prime is sick. I put down my off my
soapbox for me.


Wulff: Like, this was, this was rad. Like, I was so excited to
play through this. I'm. I've never been a huge first person
shooter guy, so I was hesitant about that. But playing it like
this took what happened with Super Metroid and dug it in even
further because now you have to be spatially aware of everything
around you. You have to manage light sources because the game has
that you, you know, you're sneaking around trying not to get
caught sometimes you're just, there's so much going on, you can't
see everything. And that is an issue. And I mean, sometimes, and
I don't mean that in a negative way. It's like, it's not an issue
for the mechanics. It's just, it's an issue like, you have to
deal with that constantly, right? So, like, trying to make you
feel like that lone bounty hunter fighting for your life, they
just, they dug it in even further here. And that was amazing to
me.


Chard: Even the morph ball, like with the light coming out of the
middle of the morph ball when you're rolling. I just. Just little
aspects, little details like that. I was like, this is cool.


Wulff: Yeah, yeah. I absolutely love this game. This is probably
my other s tier game on this list with you, with you.


GP: Interesting.


Chard: Jake is not amazed.


Jake: Gp let me go because I don't want in this one on a bad
note. This game sucks.


Chard: Wow.


Jake: Sorry.


Chard: Wow.


Jake: First off, the one thing I'm gonna say there is positives,
though. I have this game graphically, graphically. I cannot deny
how amazing this game looks like. Just graphically. It's amazing.
The visor effects, the lighting is awesome. It's definitely
immersive. Is definitely immersive. I'm going to give it that.
But it's immersive to the point where I don't like it is my take
on it at this point. When Metroid prime came out, I had a chance
to play two real. I had a chance to play, you know, quake three
and all that kind of gameplay, first person shooters. So I, in my
head, a first person shooter was a certain, played a certain way,
right? Much more responsive movement of them, of the. Of the
shots. Much more better view, field of view when you can see
things. Faster paced action. This game, though, is not a fast
paced game. It's. It's slower and methodical. It kind of reminds
me of. I don't like halo, if that makes sense. Right. You are
definitely. You feel like Samus and that you're a heavy, bulky
armor and you move like that. I mean, there's other stuff to it
too. But I didn't like how slow the gameplay felt. While the
exploring was interesting and I liked shooting the bubble doors
in a 3d environment was neat, but I felt there's too much of an
emphasis on scanning everything. I really didn't like scanning in
this game. It kind of just. It didn't feel as action. Yes. As the
original games. Right. I really love the 2d platforming and the
2d gameplay, but when you translate to the first person view, it
just. It just felt weird to me and I never could get dig with it.
Music fantastic. Visually stunning. Like when you're wet, the
water comes down the visor. Like you rarely see that. That was
really awesome. But I just. I just bounced so hard off this game
and I have tried several times to get back into it. I can't. So
I'm not going to letter rank it. I think I would agree with you
guys being s, even though I can't stand this one, but I know how
many people love and adore this game and how groundbreaking it is
for the franchise. I mean, hell, I'm even excited for retro prime
four, even though I not. I know I'm not going to play it because
I don't like the franchise. But yeah, it's. I just can't get into
this one. It's just not a metroid for me, I guess.


GP: Shake you ignorance.


Chard: Keith.


Jake: Sorry, it's bad.


GP: So this came out my freshman year of college, and my roommate
bought this game, James, and he got addicted to it. And then kid
down the hallway, Joel, got addicted to it. And I'm watching
them, and they're like, you've got to play this. And I'm like,
no, I'm a freshman in college. I have things on my plate, and I
don't have the bandwidth in my brain to do this. This is a giant
game. And long story short, I had the bandwidth. If I just got
rid of all my classes, found the bandwidth, I didn't sleep much
unless I was in class. Anyway, I. This. This is a game that I got
addicted to, and I loved it, and I, okay, sorry, I'm getting
ahead of myself. Just when I thought, okay, I've beaten it. I've
completed everything 100%, gotten all the endings. I thought I
was done. This is when I discovered sequence breaking, and then I
just, it was like I restarted everything, and I got good at the
striping and all these things. I'm sorry I'm blurry because I'm
moving around so much, but I really fell hard for this game when
it came out on the gamecube. That said, I lean toward a high a.
If we're just looking at the initial release of it, every time
they've released a new version, they've changed it so you can't
do the sequence breaking, which pisses me off. To me, it's much
cooler if the devs put it in there and they're like, yeah, they
figure it out great. But if you get pissed off and you want to
change the code because you don't like that, people are figuring
out your flaws, I mean, eat a fat one. You know what I mean? Now,
when they came out with the prime trilogy and incorporated the
Wii controls, I was skeptical because I loved the original
version so much, but the way it translated was so awesome and so
well done and what it made me truly appreciate. Okay, if you go
back to, like, the old fighters, you know, street fighter and
mortal Kombat, you know, throwing the ice, you know, from sub
zero or doing the Hadouken, you know, the down forward motions
and low punch and the timing of all that and how you have to
choreograph and get the muscle memory, I realized after, like, a
week of playing Metroid prime on the Wii, that's exactly how your
brain works, even on a macro scale with, you know, the nunchucks
and shit like that. I was so impressed. In hindsight, once I
figured out, like, oh, my God, I had to rewire some shit to get
this done. But it played smooth and people speed run it and it
really is something that you can just do to your level of comfort
how much you want to be involved in. You can complete it. You can
be a speedrunner. You can just play it casually. Either way,
whatever you do, it is fucking great and it is fun. So if we're
looking at just the original release on the GameCube, I would
give it a. Or a high a. But if we're looking at it in, you know,
with the Wii version included. Absolutely s tier up there for me
with Super Metroid. So I'm gonna say s. Thank you for listening
to all of that. I know that was a lot. That will be my longest
spiel tonight.


Jake: Yeah.


Chard: Until we get to Metroid prime trilogy.


GP: I kind of buried the lead on that one. Stick around,
everybody stick around.


Chard: We still got good stuff.


Jake: That's interesting though, GP, that you would, if you
consider this game as a standalone, that it would be an a for
you. But. But with the other versions of being an s. That is
interesting because this has been re released a couple times now.
That's interesting.


GP: Well, I'm starting conversations with cousins and friends
about that with like all the different Final Fantasy versions.
Like with the pixel remaster. Sorry, a four. You guys know how
much I love Final Fantasy Four. But to play the pixel remaster,
it's cool. But it's not the best version out there because I
mean, even if you look at like the Game Boy advance versions with
like the bonus dungeons, you know, aggregate. Yeah, four is still
my favorite game of all time, but just standard four, like, yeah,
maybe it's not top three for the Super Nintendo. Maybe it's a
five or even a top ten, things like that. That's how I'm
thinking.


Chard: GP and I are going to sit down one of these days and
coffee, talk about our opinions about Final Fantasy and the pixel
remasters. We've been trying to schedule a time to sit down and
actually do it. So we're going to have some good stuff to really
dive into because he and I have some very good opinions about how
we feel about those guys. So. But we'll. Again, we'll veer into
that lane because I'll go. I'm trying to stop myself from going
off on a tangent because I fucking will. And it has nothing to do
what we're talking about. Steer the car. All right, so s tier
from Metroid Prime. I think that's. I think that's a resounding
yes all around. Even if Jake, even for somebody who doesn't like
it.


Jake: I can't deny you guys one last.


GP: Thing I do have to say about prime. Early on, one of my
friends back in 2002 complained that they changed too many
things. And I thought he meant the aspect ratio or the first
person of it. He didn't like that they took out the flipping. I
forget what it's called. Like the charge jump.


Chard: The screw.


GP: Well, the screw attack. Yeah. I'm like, can you imagine how
vomit inducing that would be to see that first person? Also, I'm
pissed off that the original version came out in 2002 because
that from 1987 is 15 years after the original metroid came out,
and that's 17 years ago from now or whatever the fuck. So we are
now further along from, you know, prime's release. Right. Metroid
came out closer to prime than we are today. So I hate that.
Anyway, thank you.


Chard: I need a Metroid Prime VR mod with the screw attack.


GP: You shut the fuck up. Nobody will hear from me ever again. I
think also if they. I mentioned Contra earlier, if they had done
a first person shooter in the Contra world like they did for
Metroidv prime, it's the same thing if they handled it that way.
Just to be immersed in that world and look around and see all
that shit and hear the music. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.


Chard: That'd be sick.


GP: Yeah.


Chard: I think you may sue. You may. You may try to shut us down,
but we're giving you some gold fucking nuggets right here.


GP: Yes, do it.


Chard: Speaking of gold nuggets, we're going to move on to 2004,
where we're looking down, looking down the barrel of two more
metroids. Were they released on the same day? I wouldn't be
surprised if they were. But we're looking at zero mission and
Metroid prime. Two echoes. But we'll start with zero mission
first and get our debate about that one. Now, correct me if I'm
wrong, zero mission is a half. I wouldn't say half assed. Half
ass is bad way to use it.


Jake: What?


Chard: No, no, don't you be.


Jake: Search this game, sir.


Chard: Hold on. I'm not besmirching. What I'm trying to
understand was this. Nothing. Some sort of twisted. Not twisted.
What's the best way to put it where it's not negative? Was this a
remake of the first one?


Wulff: Yes.


Jake: Thank you.


Chard: That's what I was trying to say. It was like. But it's
not. Totally like. It's not. It's. It's got its own story, but
it's.


Wulff: A remake of the first one of the first.


Chard: Thank you. That's what I was trying to go for, the
reimagining. All right. As you could tell, I don't play a lot of
this game. So that's how we preface this. I give it a c. But if
it's anything like a reimagined version of the first one, I need
to sit my ass down and play it because I've heard good things
about it.


GP: It has a map.


Chard: It has a map. So Jake must love it. He's going to s tier
this one because it has a map on it.


Wulff: Jake, do you mind if I try to convert chard here?


Jake: Yeah, go for it. Then I'll talk.


Chard: There's not much conversion. It's kind of like if I were
religious and I was, like, sitting in a church and you were like,
hey, you want to believe in God? I'm like, well, I'm here. I'm
listening. Like, there's not much to convert.


Jake: Sit your ass down and eat this wafer and drink this wine,
because we'll break down. Why? This game is fucking fantastic.


Chard: Let's go.


Jake: Please do.


Wulff: Now Metroid zero mission. Okay, so I'm converting him.


GP: Age of Empire, also with you.


Wulff: Yeah. Okay, so they did not come out the same day for
these two. It was February and November of 2004. Metroid Zero
mission. Now this was a great follow up to what super Metroid did
and what Fusion tried to do. Yeah, they got, they brought back
the original Metroid, but they did it like Super Metroid. And,
yeah, this game also had dialogue, but it wasn't super dialogue
heavy like Metroid, Fusion, Washington. And honestly, a lot of it
was sort of Samus's interior monologue, just thinking about
what's going on. So it's just, it was giving thoughts to the
character as she's experiencing what she's experiencing. Seeing
as Metroid was very thin on plot originally, they tried to work
some in and they did an amazing job. And they even added, like, a
huge section of the game that explained some things that were in
super Metroid that didn't really make the most sense, like the
ghost ship. You find out why the ghost ship is there in Metroid
zero mission. Okay, that's really cool. You play through a chunk
of this game without the suit because your suit is destroyed and
taken from.


Chard: Let me interrupt real quick. Does this. So it's a
reimagining of the first one, but it takes place after super
Metroid.


Wulff: No, it was just released ten years after Super Metroid.


Chard: Okay. It's if you story does the lore match up with super
Metroid and some.


Wulff: Yes, I think canonically.


Chard: Cursor.


Wulff: Yes, canonically, this is the official story of Metroid.


Chard: Gotcha.


Wulff: So if you go back and play this, you're getting the full
plot of what happened Metroid before Metroid two before Super
Metroid. This leads up to all that. Cool. And so you get to see
why Ridley and Samus have sort of this rivalry that they have
where there's like true hatred for each other rather than you're
in my way, I'm gonna kill you. Like, they actually have animosity
toward each other that you kind of see throughout the franchise.
This explains it. And then this also gives you that same sort of
horror feeling that super Metroid gave you because you, like I
said, you have your suit taken away now. You're very weak. You
don't have your powerful charge shot. I don't think you have much
of anything. Like you have like a stun gun or something.


Jake: Pea shooter, but you have a zapper and that's it.


Chard: It's a lot of sneaking, I think. I've seen some people
speedrun this.


Wulff: Not a lot, not a lot. But there is a chunk and you know,
you're doing it through the enemy ship. So like you've got all
that. So it's a, it's the full original game with a mini map
where the areas actually look different from each other. And they
added new mechanics and new story and new areas. And like this
game really did well. Like, I played through this game like twice
in a row when it came out.


Chard: Well, now I know what to play after the podcast done.


Jake: Yeah, I'm telling you, this is, this is the, if I want to
play the beginning of a franchise, this is the one I recommend
people to play is zero mission. I think you can skip the original
NES one unless you're a real fan of the NES. And I do love the
NES. If you're new to the franchise, you have to start with zero
emission instead. Otherwise I think you're going to bounce off
it. If you start with the NES one, the controls are better than
Super Metroid, right? Like, I like Super Metroid a lot, but it's,
it's a bit clunky with the, the angle shooting and the wall
jumping. All of those issues I had in Super Metroid are gone in
zero mission. I really like how, yes, there is a map, but I like
how much like, Super Metroid is more wide open in how you tackle
where you're going to places. But what was neat from Fusion was
where it would kind of tell you where to go next on a map, but
you felt confined to a path, a rail. But in zero mission, yes,
you get the Chozo statue. It tells you where the map to go, but
it doesn't give you the map for you. You have to kind of still
explore your way there. So you have a general, like a compass
direction, where to go, but it doesn't hold you by the hand as
much. So you kind of get the best of both worlds. You get the
exploration, you get the way you tackle things on your own.
You're exploring, but you're not being held by a computer's hand
the entire way.


GP: So that, that did that exact same thing, which is very, very
cool. And that reminded me quite a bit of how they handled that.
So.


Jake: Yeah, yeah. Just like a compass direction, and I really
appreciate that. I think this is a great way to get into the
franchise. Sprite work is awesome. It's fantastic. Zero suit
samus at the end is fantastically as well. The bosses are
memorable. They definitely took a lot of. A lot of. A lot of
stuff I loved in Super Metroid, but then bringing that flavor of
the original back was really well done. It's just such a great
game. Music is banger front again. There's enough plot, like you
said, wolf, there's a little bit of dialogue, but I couldn't tell
you what it is. All I remember is the gameplay and the
atmosphere. Much like Super Metroid has the atmosphere telling
the story, I feel like I still have that with zero mission. This
is one of my favorite games in the Game Boy Advance. I think this
is one that I could keep the cart plugged into the game Boy the
entire time and be happy. Like if I was on a desert island. This
is the Metroid I would probably take. I like it that much. Just
everything, graphics, music, gameplay is so solid and tight. I
love it. Everything about Metroid I love is in zero mission. I
think for me, this would be an s tier game.


GP: Okay, I'm gonna throw it a on this one. If you have nostalgia
for Metroid, yes, always go back and play the NES, but similar to
what Jake and I think to an extent, Wolf saying, but don't let me
misquote you if I'm misremembering. If you're just now kind of
coming into the Metroid universe, you know, with dread or any of
that kind of thing, and you want to go back and see kind of what
the earlier stages were like, this would be the version you'd
want to play. I think if you didn't grow up or have. Have a lot
of experience with the Nesdez, that version is not going to be
for you. But this one has zero emission. Very much will be and
give you a good idea of where it all started. So, yeah, I don't
have a ton to say. I would put an a on it as well, especially if
we gave the original Metroid a b. I think that's fair and
accurate, and I'll stick with that.


Chard: Okay, I'm converted. I'm going to fire this thing up on
the old steam deck and I. And give it a little bit of run. I know
Jake has talked about this a lot in previous discussions that
we've had about any kind of super Nintendo game or Game Boy game
or anything that we've had in the past. He talks very, very
highly about zero emission, and I didn't realize it was a
retelling or a similar version of the first one. Had I known
that, I might have actually jumped in to this game a lot sooner,
because I always hear mixed messages between fusion and other MH
and.


Jake: Yeah.


Chard: And zero mission, and I get them all mixed up, like, which
ones we should, which ones you should spend the time on, which
one you should, blah, blah, blah. And now that I understand that
zero mission is aces, I will be making. Making my way around to
that franchise for sure.


Wulff: It's. It's Metroid one with, you know, super metroid
sensibilities, but ten years of experience on top of that. So
nice, right?


GP: Yeah, there's a lot going on.


Chard: It's a shame they put these, like I say, it's a shame
because it's handheld, but it feels like these games could be.
It's so much better to play them on a bigger scale. Right. Like,
now that we get to play it with emulation, we can use our big
screen tvs and our computers and stuff, so you can really get
that big feel, because that's what I liked about super metroid
was it was so big and it was big on your tv at the same time. The
rest of the metroids that were released that weren't prime were
always. The 2d side scrolls, were always on the DS or the three
deciseconds or something.


Jake: Yeah.


Chard: Where you didn't get. Or the advance, like it's on the
handheld, so it's not as. It doesn't. It's so silly. It's my
thing. It doesn't feel as epic because it's in your hands, not in
your living room.


Wulff: No, I I. I completely understand. That. That was an issue
I had with the Castlevania franchise for a while. Like, all the
2d entries were on handheld, and I was like, come on, I want to
play these on a big screen, not a three inch.


Chard: Exactly. These are epic games, and you're making me play
them.


GP: Game boy.


Chard: Game boy.


Jake: Nowadays with modern. I mean, you can take your steam deck
and plug it into your tv, or you can. You can put it. You can
play these now on a big screen, and they totally hold up. Like
the. The Game Boy advances. Sprite work is just as good as a
snes. Right. Hands down is better in a lot of ways.


Wulff: Well, I think it's funny. Yes. I just complained about
having to play all the castle, like, a bunch of castlevanias on a
handheld, and then I played through almost the entirety of
bloodstained on my steam deck. So, I mean. But the screen is way
bigger than a GBA.


GP: Yeah. The screens are much different than they used to be.


Chard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I digress.


Jake: Because we are s or a, then.


Chard: I do.


Jake: You guys, I would not be opposed.


Wulff: I would not be opposed to this getting an s, but let's put
it on there.


GP: I like it.


Chard: You guys have nothing but positive things to say about it.
I'm with it. I'll give it an s tier. Okay.


GP: Yeah. My only conviction is that it's not a b. Yeah. A is
fine. S is fine.


Wulff: Yeah.


Chard: Yeah.


Jake: Okay. All right. S tier.


Chard: All right. Next up, a few months later release or a few
months earlier release. I think it's later. The sequel to Metroid
Prime. Metroid prime. Two echoes, which I.


Wulff: Solid C. Solid C echo.


GP: We don't have to. We don't have to dwell on the sea too much.


Chard: We're just gonna rush this one. This introduced to the
prime series, if I'm not mistaken. This was the last of the prime
series that I played. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I don't
think I finished it.


GP: Oh, you gotta play corruption, but it's.


Chard: More of the same, right? It's more of the same with the.


Jake: Two colors of beams.


Wulff: Yeah.


Chard: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's. That sounds revolution.


Wulff: The one with, like, you're on the light and dark versions
of the planet. Stuff.


GP: Like that version. Yeah, all that stuff.


Wulff: Yeah. Dark aether and light aether. And it was. It was a
weird one. It had some cool ideas, but it was kind of stale
compared to the original. Like, it. A lot of mechanics overstayed
their welcome in this one.


GP: Yeah.


Chard: I'm willing to give it. I didn't finish it. I'm willing to
give it a b, b minus, because, I mean, it's. It's prime. It's
more the same kind of stuff. I like the light and dark aspect of
the game. I think that's a cool, you know, shift in things, but I
like weird shit like that, so that's. I'm cool with giving that
guy a b. Yeah.


Jake: The little I played of this one chart, I didn't care for
the light and dark mechanics very much. And I'm. I think I kind
of also felt a little bit stale. But I'm not really into these
games either, so I'll lean on what you guys are saying, but I
would be fine with a c or b, I think.


Chard: Maybe more c. Yeah, whatever GP kind of puts the nail on.
I'll probably go with that.


Wulff: Yeah.


GP: Well, again, I side with Wolf on this one. Um, and the reason
for the sea is actually kind of unique. I don't know a lot about
the development history of primes two and three. So at one point,
it feels like maybe they wrote these in tandem and said, we have
to break this into two separate games.


Chard: It did feel like that, yeah.


GP: But then, pardon me, also thinks, okay, were they going for
kind of like the Empire strikes back sort of thing? Because two
is definitely not, though. I'm sorry, I'm in my feelings about
it. Two is not near as good as one, and I'm going to give it a c.
An argument might be made for a b, but I think it has to be a c
because of the virtues of prime three, which really, I think not
undid some of the wrongs from the second one, but they took note
of what the shortcomings were and said, okay, well, story wise,
we can clean this up quite a bit and make this a more enjoyable
experience than two. So two and three I put together, because one
is not great, the other is pretty solid. So I think. And this
will go into the next one with prime three, I'm going to give
that a b, but for that reason, this one has to get a.


Chard: C. I'm fine with that. I'm absolutely fine with that. All
right, here we go. Metroid prime. Now, this is a big. This is a
classic. I know everybody on this podcast is definitely at least
played, if not badge, hidden gem on retro achievements. Metroid
prime pinball. I see. I have nothing. I have nothing.


GP: Too much plot. It is very plot heavy.


Chard: There's a lot of dialogue. A lot of dialogue and a lot of.


GP: Lot of bing bong booing, you know, just.


Wulff: Can I make a couple quick points?


Chard: Go ahead.


Wulff: I played the demo of this at best Buy, and it was fine.
But yeah, I'm not a huge pinball player. However, it's kind of
hard to go wrong with a pinball game. So I'm sure the game is
decent. I want to say it's probably like a b.


Chard: Okay.


Jake: Yeah.


Chard: What's it on?


Jake: It's pinball system.


Chard: Was it on? Yes. So.


Jake: And it took advantage of both the screens. And so that was
a novelty. It was the full playing field. It's a pinball game and
it's not. It's actually a good pinball game. And it just happens
to coincidentally be Metroid themed, which. It's cute. It makes
sense because the big power up in the Metroid series, you turn to
lebal. Why wouldn't you have a pinball game about Metroid? What I
find with a lot of pinball, pinball games on handhelds is they
usually shaft you with like one or two stages, and it feels like
a ripoff. This doesn't have that problem. I think there's five
environments in this game, and solid graphics. Music is decent.
It's a solid physics.


Chard: No sonic, you know, it's up there.


Jake: Well, so few games are. Yeah, yeah. Like, honestly, like, I
mean, is this, is this s tier? No, of course not. Is it a good
Metroid game? No, because it's a pinball game. But I think it's
worth a be in terms of, like, it's not a bad game. It's. It's a.
It's just a good game, right. Just a pinball one. It's less
Metroid, more pinball. So I eat myself.


GP: I like the part of the game where you launch the ball and
then try to not let it go down to the bottom part of the screen
using the flippers.


Chard: That's a solid strategy.


GP: Yeah, I mean, I really. It's a broken game. If you look into
game Shark. I fucking whatever grade letter is the most. I don't
give a shit. That's what I'm voting. I have nothing bad to say
about it. I don't want it to come off that way. I'm not huge into
video game pinball, but only because I like actual pinball so
much. I like the theming of Metroid, so that's a positive.
Pinball is very unoffensive in any setting. So I. Yeah, I have no
strong opinions on this one. So there we go.


Chard: All right. I give it v. Fine.


Jake: B.


Chard: You've swayed me to a b who's.


Wulff: Your friend who likes to play. Bing bong, bing bong, bing
bong, bong booie.


Chard: Okay. 2006 Metroid prime. Hunters. See, I played this.
Yeah, I've gotten.


Wulff: Also, I played the demo of this at the store, too. Oh,
this is like, as far as Metroid electronic, and it was best buy.
Yes.


Jake: Not. It's not Federation force. This is hunters. You didn't
like hunters?


Wulff: Oh, hunters. Which one? That was. Okay. Federation forces.
F. This is probably a diphthere. This one was still not good
either.


Jake: Yeah. Sound like me. Yeah.


GP: Give it.


Jake: Hunters is mostly. There is a multiplayer mode in it, but
it's a single player game, and it's first person view, much like
Metroid prime, but it's on the fucking ds, which technically,
that is a marvel. Whenever I see 3d on the DS, I'm always amazed.
I know it's better than an advanced, but still, I've not played
it, but what I've seen of it, it looked okay. I don't know if I'd
want to play a first person shooting game on the Nintendo DS,
though, personally, especially when it's like, one screen is
gameplay. One screen. I think it was hud, if I remember.


Chard: Stylus.


Jake: Yeah, and the stylus. I hate the stylist anyway.


GP: Just very cyclops view.


Jake: I'd agree. I'd agree with the D. But it's important to play
this, though, because Metroid prime four pulls characters from
hunters. They're going deep with lore on four.


Chard: So I'll be long playing that one.


Jake: Yeah.


GP: Gave me a list of Metroid video game titles and said, which
one of these was not an actual game? I would have been like,
yeah, I don't remember. Hunters. We'll go with that one.


Chard: That's like. It's like Mega Man. Maverick Hunters is what
that reminds me of.


GP: No, Maverick Hunters was good, though.


Chard: Was it?


Jake: Yeah, I liked it.


Chard: I didn't care for that one.


GP: The PSP?


Chard: Was it the PSP? Yeah, putting the cape. I thought it was
on, like, Game Boy color or some shit.


Jake: Ds. No. Maverick Hunters. Yeah, it may be PSP. Yeah.


Wulff: Yeah, Maverick. Yeah. Maverick Hunter X or something. That
was PSP.


Chard: Yeah.


Jake: That's a whole other episode. We can rank.


Chard: I will correct. I will sit corrected. All right. Bring
more that ring.


GP: D. D tier. Give it the D. Give me the ping pong. Or not ping
pong. Give me the pinball.


Chard: I take pinball over hunters. Noted.


GP: Yeah.


Chard: All right, GP, you probably have the most to talk about
this, because I have already claimed to have not been able to
play this one, because I don't know why. I know it came out on
the Wii. I had a Wii. I think I bought it. But during that time,
there was a lot of tumultuous life going on and the turmoil did
not allow me to get a good run at Metroid prime three, which
makes me sad. So please tell we're not talking about Federation
force. I love it. It's already ranked. We still got like five
games in between under there. But we already ranked and they're
fine. Metroid prime three, corruption. Go.


GP: Yeah, I kind of already said a lot of what I wanted to say
about it. I mean, by virtue of two, I'm going to give this one a
b. I think it was a correction of the ship after two. And I liked
it. I didn't love it, but it was still fun. And the controls, I
still enjoyed the. The dark samus thing kind of from, you know,
we talked about earlier was back and they did it, I thought, in a
fun way. And yeah, I don't think I would have liked it if I
didn't have the player's guide. That is. One thing I will say is
typically, I don't like to play through a game for the first time
with, with the player's guide. I usually wait to beat it and then
go back and do the player's guide, but I wasn't captivated enough
or something. I knew I wanted to finish it, but I used the
player's guide and never really felt good about it. But there we
are. To me, it's a b. It's fun. It's not great, but it's better
than two was.


Wulff: See, I would say this was an a. This is the first one that
brought in the Wii remote controls. It did them great. This one,
like you said, righted the ship from echoes and again brought in
the dark samus stuff in a fun way. It took you to multiple
planets, so you get to see all these different alien planets and
places and the story behind it if you do all the scanning,
because that's where the lore is, much like items in Elden ring.
There's a lot of plot buried in there that gives you insights as
to where mother brain originally came from. And it kind of goes
deep into how this world functions. So why is there a mother
brain? Well, it's an AI. It's a biological AI that mankind has
created to, you know, man, all sorts of different things. And so
that's how mother brain came to be. Like, it explores a lot of
that, explains a lot of that. And I thought the game was really
well done. So for me, it's an a. Yeah.


GP: I'm not going to hate on an a. Shit. Maybe I just need to go
back and play it again. It's been however long, what, 1415 years
probably since I. Well, no, whenever. Whenever it came out on the
trilogy version for the Wii is when I first played it. But yeah,
yeah, if you guys both agree on an a, I'm fine with it. So for.


Jake: For me on this one, I think the. The move to a Wii was a
good one. The graphics look really good for the. For what it is.
I think for me in the Wii, I love that system. But a lot of the
games graphically were not that impressive. Metroid prime three
was one of those games that was actually pretty impressive for
the system. I. As much as I don't care for the. The Wii's
controller setup, it worked for prime three in a way I didn't
expect. It was a bit of a novelty, but it still worked. And I
thought that was pretty solid. I think I would lean toward an a
on this one as well. I think this was a solid entry for the
franchise. I think the five year gap between this and two and the
first one. Sorry. They definitely learned things. And the music
was good graphics. Yeah. Graphically impressive enough that I
think is an a for me personally.


Chard: Sold.


GP: Okay.


Chard: Absolutely sold. I. Okay, so how do we rank this next one?


Wulff: I was just thinking about and doing some math in my head.
Basically the easiest way to think is it's if you average a three
out, they kind of fall into an a. But then you give Metroid prime
one and two the Wii remote controls and it definitely edges them
into the a. So there you go.


Chard: Okay, that's fair. So next was the release, the release
two years later of the Metroid prime trilogy on Wii. So all three
of them came off of the GameCube and were deposited sweetly
crestley onto the Wii remote. And we got to use the novelty of
the Wii remote. I unfortunately only played the GameCube styles
and I think I might have briefly touched on because I do remember
using the Wii remote on three, but it wasn't enough for any kind
of memory to be formed from that. So I'm fine with giving prime
trilogy whatever system it's on. I don't care. The gameplay of it
is great. I like the first two. I'm sure I would have loved the
third one. Totally fine with giving that an a.


Jake: I think when we look at like. Like the idea of having
compilations especially for that. That genre like that era, like
the Super All Stars was such a fantastic compilation. And then
you have Metroid prime trilogy. It's hard to argue against a game
that is three solid games in one package for one price. It's just
weird that it's two years after corruption. Isn't that kind of
weird that you, if you bought corruption two years later you can
get all three and one?


Wulff: It's because of the change in controls. The Wii remote
controls were so. To the GameCube controller, okay? And I know
it's, it like it's, you know, it's. People think of it as
gimmicky, the waggle controls, all that. And it's not something
you can really do these days unless you have a Wii or Wii U. But
at the time it was solid controls. Like, yeah, I don't think I
can ever play it another way and think, oh yeah, this is better
than the Wii wrote Wii remote controls, which you.


GP: Do have the option, if I'm not mistaken, of using the
GameCube controller on the. I don't know about corruption, but on
the, on the trilogy, am I wrong with that?


Wulff: I don't know. I downloaded the trilogy on the Wii U and I
played it there all with the Wii remote. I didn't even bother
trying anything else, so I can't say.


GP: But no, what Wolf said I 100% agree with is had they just re
released the trilogy two years later without any sort of changes
other than it's a compilation, it would have been very weird. But
to go, they saw how well they did the controls with corruption on
the Wii. They said, oh man, can you imagine if we put this with,
with the first one? And then of course they're going to throw the
second one in and put the price tag on it. And here we are. So I
think it was justified.


Chard: Cool. All right. All right. So we'll give the trilogy on
the Wii a nice little a. And now we are looking down the barrel
of another. Mh.


Wulff: Yeah, other m. Has any of you played this all the way
through again?


Chard: I'm the first boss done enough to know it exists.


Wulff: What did you think of it in terms of just. Yeah, what did
you think of it? Let's hear.


Jake: For me. So I felt it was also very front loaded with the
story. I did not like that at all. It felt more like fusion in
that regard. I was glad to see a 2d Metroid, but with 3d
graphics, which was. Was fantastic. The 2d parts were okay, but I
didn't like when you had to switch to the Wii remote to point the
screen to fight bosses. That was really rough to me, very clunky.
But again, I only played it the first part of the game, so I did
not like the control, the back and forth between first person and
the 2d gameplay at all.


Wulff: Okay. So I want to throw out there. I've read a number of
reviews and what people think of this on like, Reddit and stuff,
and essentially, it seems to come to mechanically, the game is
really good. Story wise, it's garbage.


Jake: Right?


Wulff: And so for me, that seems like it would put it in a sea.


GP: So you know how, like, with Star wars, especially the
original trilogy, there's a lapse in time between a new Hope and
empire and then Return of the Jedi. So the things that we see are
really awesome. But if you were to go back and look at, like, the
day to day lives of everybody, that would not be a great set of
movies. Like, the interim. That's kind of how this is to me. It's
like Samus's downtime, or, you know, when she's not out there
just kicking ass.


Chard: Samus.


GP: Samus takes on the bureaucracy. I don't know.


Wulff: Well, no, the problem with this one is what I've read is
that Samus is portrayed in a way that makes her seem very not
confident, very weak emotionally and confidence. Like, she's
just. It's not the character that we know Samus to be. And so
that was the better on her own.


GP: Like, I think you could make that, you know, she's meant for
the stars. She's meant to be the loneliness.


Wulff: But this also takes place after so many of the Metroid
games. And then in this, she's, like, scared of things that she
should not be quite so scared of. Like, she's on edge a lot and
nervous, I guess. And she's just written in a way that makes her
feel like you're the. You're controlling the damsel. Listen,
instead of the hero, Earth.


Chard: Earth prices have inflated.


GP: Conversation there.


Chard: Well, yeah, Earth's prices have inflated, and she's
worried about the price of tomatoes. I, you know, it is what it
is. You just gotta learn to live with it. Samus goes to the
supermarket. You know, it's. It's kind of, hey, they brought back
the.


GP: The corkscrew kick or whatever, if I'm not mistaken, today.
But, yeah, I didn't care for it. I didn't make it very far. Kind
of in a similar way of, like I was saying with Game Boy, you
know, if you mess with my aspect ratios too much, it's the same
reason I didn't play Mega man seven or eight. It moved
differently. It didn't feel right. Took me out of it. So I don't
think I bought it. I think I was gifted this game. And yeah, I
started it and didn't get very far. Bought it for really only
ever bad things.


Wulff: Never touched it. I've been to, but just never did.


GP: I say it's probably a d. I don't want to say it's an f. I
don't know if there's any f tier Metroid, but if there is, you
wait.


Jake: Yeah, I'm fine with the c, honestly. Like, if the gameplay
is solid throughout wolf, then I think C is fine. It just sucks
that they really shafted the character. Samus Rand is one of the
few badass characters in gaming that I like a lot of, but I think
a c is to ruin. That is weird to me, especially with Samus. So.
Yeah, but I'm fine if gameplay is good.


Chard: So C, great, go with that.


GP: Okay.


Wulff: Yeah, I think seeing as we have limited experience with
it, I think C is fair based on what I've read online. So.


Chard: Brilliant, right? Who wants to. Who wants to briefly dump
all over Metroid Prime Federation forces so we can move?


Wulff: I mean, it's got two f's in the title.


GP: Three I never played. I didn't know this one existed.


Jake: Yeah, so this is the one where.


Wulff: There'S no Metroids and no Samus and no single player.


Jake: It's mostly.


Wulff: It's a multiplayer only multiplayer. And it's on three
deciseconds. Right?


Jake: Like, yeah, it's.


Wulff: They were like, let's make a Metroid game with none of the
things people think of when they think of Metroid. That'll be a
success.


Jake: So this happens six years after M came out. Six year gap
between the franchise and you come back with the multiplayer game
where you don't play a Sam and it's on the three ds. Like, come
on, is this the spider.


GP: Woman or whatever that was version where, like, if we don't
pump a game out, we're gonna lose the rights. Where Samus. Oh,
this is during her smash brothers stint. So she's not available.


Chard: She's unavailable to get busy.


Jake: Remember, if I remember right, this was released more of as
like an experience, like a demo of what the three ds could do
because it was a first person game. It had the 3d. Because the
three deciseconds had the. That 3d effect. Right. I. And this is
kind of a showcase for that at stores, but yeah, gameplay, I've
played a little bit of it. I did not like it. I didn't like. The
character designs are very blocky and super deformed for some
reason. The fact that you're not Samus, from what I remember,
wasn't great. Yeah. I think this is the f in.


GP: Our list, thanks to that new ninja Turtle movie that's told
through the eyes of the Foot clan.


Chard: Right? The one guy.


Wulff: It's not even the eyes of the foot clan. It's like the
eyes of Fred from New Jersey.


GP: Oh, yeah, no, I know. Fred from Jersey owes me dollar 20.
Forget about it.


Jake: F for this one.


Chard: Yeah, yeah.


Wulff: I think it's a Metroid game. Goes. It's not much of a
Metroid game.


GP: And Fred from Jersey, if you're watching, I'm sorry.


Wulff: I. Yeah, we're not picking on you. We're just saying,
like, that would not be a good ninja Turtles movie.


Chard: Fred from Jersey is our new mascot.


GP: Oh, hold on. Fred from Jersey, you're on. Yeah, press b. What
do you got?


Chard: All right, what Fred's got is the, the next, the next drip
in our where of Metroid. I'm trying here. I'm trying to, I'm
trying to speak to the gen Xers here, okay? Oh, jazz ears. I'm
Gen X. Metroid returns. So Metroid Samus returns. This was the
reinvented reimagined. After the season, desists for the AMSR two
kept finally getting thrown out there. Nintendo said, you know
what? Let's just fucking do it. Let's just finally do it. And
they made their own remaster. I've played it. It's, it's a lot of
fun. It's it's, it's okay. It's, it's not, you know, it's just
more of the same amitroid two with added color and a little bit
more effect to it. I still prefer, still prefer. I, you know, I
like the grabbing on the ledges, but I'm with you. GP on the
aspect ratio thing. It just, it just messes with my ad. Things
are too quick, it's too smooth. It's played on a small surface. I
don't know. I actually like the AMSR to remake better when I,
when I messed around with that. I know. Don't cancel us, but I'm
sorry. It just, it was a really good.


Wulff: Another metroid two remake. Am two are.


Chard: Am two are. Thank you ever another Metroid second remake.


Jake: That.


Chard: That's what I was, you know, am SR or am arsm. Whatever.
Acronyms are fun. Anyways, this is it. I liked it. It's fine. It
was cool when I realized what it was. I still like the Game Boy
version. Just. It's a nostalgic thing for me. It's just, you
know, reliving the past. So I give it a c. C or a b?


Jake: Yeah.


GP: Have you ever been pressured into doing something that you
didn't want to do? But, I mean, was not a horrible thing? Like,
for example, you're babysitting your nephew and he's like, uncle
GP, because that's what he called me. Will you take me for ice
cream? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to take you for ice cream.
Your mom's going to be back in ten minutes and then he just will
not relent. And so you're going to get ice cream and you're
licking the ice cream. You're like, I'm glad I have this ice
cream, but I didn't really want to do this. That's this
experience. It should have been called Metroid. Now, will you all
shut up, please? It was a half hearted to placate the fans.


Chard: Definitely felt I have it, but.


Jake: All right, no, go ahead.


GP: I'm sorry.


Wulff: I've not played this, so I can't say one way or the other,
so I will remove myself from this one.


Jake: Okay, so here's the thing with this one. So it was for the
three deciseconds. This was made by mercury Stream. Mercury
stream, I think the name of the studio was. And they're the guys
who did dread afterwards. Five years later, Mercury.


Wulff: Didn't they do Castlevania lords of Shadow?


Jake: I think so, yeah. So they did returns. So what is good
about it? The graphics? Pretty good, pretty solid. It looks great
on the three deciseconds. I really like the combat. Like, the
controls are really good. They added like a counter move, which
you do see in dread. And we'll talk about it in a minute. So
there's a counter move and. But they force you to use that
counter move in pretty much every boss encounter. And that felt
very frustrating and clunky because you couldn't tackle the boss
in your own way. You had to constantly use the counter. So I
appreciate trying to make the gameplay a little bit different
with Samus returns, but it just didn't work. And then add in the
same issues I had with the original Game Boy one, which was your
goal is to take on metroids. And there's a lot of similarity in
the different metroids you're hunting, and there's that finite
amount of them. So, I mean, I. It's interesting. I'm glad they
did it, but it's not, and it's no better than the original
Gameboy one. In my eyes, the clunky combat with the same
repetitive hunting and metroids didn't work for me, so I think
it's a c for me. Okay.


GP: I mean, I'm glad I got my ice cream. Yeah, yeah.


Chard: Metroid. Metroid. Play cleat.


GP: Yeah. Nice.


Wulff: I wanted a metroid. I just wish it weren't like, just.


GP: Not under these circles.


Wulff: I didn't want Nepalitan. Metroid.


Chard: Jesus.


GP: A little eye contact.


Jake: Left the strawberry in the package. You asshole. I don't
want strawberry. Metroids.


Chard: Right. Angry makeup, nighttime stuff. Okay? I'm trying to
make it PC as best as I can. Okay, fine, I'll do it. 2021, the
release.


GP: No, not if you don't want to.


Chard: Yeah. Well, no, and if you. Yeah. 2021, the final.
Finally. Finally. A release. A new release. A new Metroid. That
wasn't a placation. That was not a redone, something from the
past. It was his own thing. It was his own beast. Metroid dread
was released for the switch. And I actually own that. I actually
got that for Christmas, and I actually played it, and it was a
lot of fun. I did play it. I. And I, and I beat it to. I even got
to the last guy, and after about 400 million times, I finally
beat that guy. Who's pain?


GP: Not watching the podcast. You can tell us. Did you really
play it?


Chard: I really did play it.


Jake: I haven't. Can you play it five times for us on loop? Just,
just beat it down for us like GP?


Chard: I'm not GP. I'm not that good. But I did play. I love
Metroid dread. This was a great callback to what I remember and
what I was wanting now. I liked prime. I love prime. I thought 3d
stuff. I mean, the first person stuff's great, but you always
have a longing, right? For what it was originally, what you were
playing with originally, the, the Emmy shit. Oh, that stuff was
super stressful and super frustrating at times, but when you
finally like. I don't know, I think the worst part about the Emmy
stuff was when you got the power up to it to take out the Emmy.
Finally, after you beat the boss and you absorb whatever power
you were gonna get, and you were, like, trying to line up the
damn line on, on the switch with the stupid control, and then you
didn't have enough time because it was timed as it's crawling at
you real slow, and you just see the laser sight missing its head?
Because you're like, I can't get the goddamn thing to like. And
then you die hundreds of times. Did I die? To Emmy? But I liked
it. I. I'm not a big espionage sneaker game guy. I don't. I'm
trying to play Metal Gear solid for GV so I can appreciate it to
the way he does instead of just shitting it on all the time. I'm
actually playing through one and three so that I can give it a
more honest opinion other than I just impatient and can't do it.
So it felt. It felt good in dread. And then there was enough
action. And I liked the way that the stage estate changed when
you changed something. Like there was a. The lava stage would get
frozen over and then there was all totally frosted over. So I had
to figure out how to get through all the old stuff. There was a
little bit of backtracking that I was kind of like, I'm going to
hit my head against the. Against the fucking wall. Because all
this was open and now none of it's open. And I got to figure out
a way around that. And it did. It seemed like they were just
trying to take what they had and stretch a little bit more out of
you, but I, you know, I'm giving it a good b plus and a a minus
kind of game. I I was glad that it came back the way that it did.
It felt good on the. On the switch and when you played on the big
screen tv or on your monitor or something, it looked fantastic.
Was a lot of cool, cool aspects to the game. So I think Metroid
dread was a great callback and we need more of that. I would like
some more Metroid dread esque type games because that was a lot
of fun.


GP: Are you upset that the next thing is going to be prime four?
Would you rather them do, like, a dread?


Chard: Nope. Nope. I like the interchange. Like, I'd be fine with
a first person and then a side scrolling, first person, side
scroller. Just kind of jump back and forth like, like, give me my
old stuff. But I still like, I still like prime. I think prime is
pretty cool.


Wulff: Yeah, Chard really nailed it with what he said. Like, this
is. I loved Metroid dread. I thought it was really, like, a good
next attempt at Metroid that we had seen. Just kind of sit there
for a while untouched, particularly a 2d entry. And like you
said, it stressed me the hell out. Like, I could only play this
game for so long before I had to be like, that's enough of this
for today. You know, a lot of games. I'll be like, I could just
play it, play it, play it. This one was like, all right, I did
that. Let's come back later or tomorrow and do some more like
this.


Chard: And you're just freaking the fuck out. Like, you're
sitting there playing it, and you're trying to get past Emmy. I'm
sorry. I don't mean to interrupt everybody. And then, like, my
parents were visiting because I got it for Christmas, and they
were at the house at the time, and I'm, like, trying to sneak
past this thing, and then the alarms go off, and somebody goes,
hey, chardonnay. Because my parents call me that. I go, what?
What? Oh, sorry. What?


GP: I'm back on earth.


Chard: You know, it really does. It really does lock you in very,
like, you're very locked into the game while you're playing it.
And then, like you said, once you get out or you beat the Emmy or
whatever, it's like, okay, I need. I need, like, 30 minutes,
dude.


Wulff: I. Yeah, you need some breathing time before you can
continue playing.


Chard: Yeah, yeah.


Wulff: But, yeah, this, like, dread is a spot on title for this
game because it's. You're constantly, like, whenever you go
through an area where an Emmy is, you're like, oh, no. Yep, this
again. And it's not like you don't want to play it. It's just
like, oh, how am I gonna die? And how many times here, right?


Chard: It is like the resident evil series of Metroidvania.


Wulff: But I. I would give dread an a. I thought it was a really
good 2d Metroid game.


Jake: Yeah. When I bought this, I loved. I loved dread, too. I
thought it was really great. Runs gray in the switch. The Emmy
stuff is interesting. When I first played dread, I almost felt it
was out of place. But then going back to the earlier games, you
do recognize that there are horror elements in those games not
quite like Dredd has. Dredd is very stressful, but where it fails
a bit is that there's maybe just one or two too many encounters
with Emmy. I think it was once or twice to be fine, but it just
felt like you're doing the same thing, but a different maze
layout, but it was the same mechanics. You're escaping, getting
the power up, and then you take her out. It was a bit too much. I
tell you, though, what I really love, though, it's Metroidvania
for a newer generation who may not have the patience for the
older metroids, where you could get lost very easily and
confusing where to go. So there's generally no confusion where
you go into red for the most part because it does change the map
to such a degree where you still have to explore a chunk of the
map in backtracking. But by locking out certain areas with
environmental effects, you know, you don't need to explore that
section. It kind of sells. It tells you no explore over in these
two sections or three sections. I felt that was a bit more
accessible to maybe people who are newer to the genre, although I
did, I laughed when I saw people complaining how to find certain
areas. You have to shoot blocks to make them disappear, which is
the trope in Metroid, right. You're new to the game. If you knew
the franchise and you play this for the first game in Metroid,
that is kind of jarring and it's kind of, kind of a pain, but I
thought it was a good callback as well. This is definitely a love
letter to the original games. I love how when you start it up, it
even says in the opening it's Metroid dread. It's Metroid five.
Right? Like it's. It's. You got the first game, second Super
Metroid fusion, and then this one. It's the fifth game, even
though it's 515 years later. It's like that. It's like that
Beverly Hills cop movie that just came out. It's a sequel to a 30
year old movie. That's what it's like.


GP: I haven't watched it yet.


Chard: I've heard really?


Jake: I heard it's really good. Yeah, I hope so. Dread. Dread is
really fantastic, from music to graphics to everything. It's not
s tier. I'm with you, Wolf. I think it's a solid a. It's weird to
have when this game comes out in 2021, people were kind of
questioning, is it enough value in the game that you're playing
for the $60 price tag? I think there is, but there's definitely
not much in the way of replay value, which is something we're
kind of used to having in modern games. This is less of a modern
game and it feels like a retro game, and I'm fine with that $60
price tag, but I can see why I, other people would be upset with
Dread being $60. So I know. I think it's a solid a, though. I
think it's definitely one to play. Give me more of this. I want
more of Dread. I hope we get Dread two or Metroid six from
Mercury Stream. Give it back to them because they did a great job
with this one, I want to see it, but I want to see it in less
than ten years. I don't want a 15 year gap. And I don't know if
we're going to see it again because it did not sell nearly as
well, I think, that other games have in the franchise.


Wulff: Yeah, this one also got dialogue too. And you actually
hear Samus's voice, but she only speaks in that alien language.
She does not speak English. She speaks in Chozo or something.


Chard: Right, right.


Wulff: That was interesting.


Chard: Space. Chocobo.


Jake: Spaceshocobo. Yeah.


GP: This. Yeah. This game came out, and I remember wanting so
badly to play it that I avoided it like the plague, you know, to
avoid spoilers and all that kind of stuff. And I have not played
it yet, and I still avoid it because I'm really looking forward
to it being my game of the year, probably this year or next year,
whenever I do finally get around to it. So again, I kind of have
to abstain. But from what I know about it, it's the counter
opposite of other end wherever. I have no experience with it,
really. But I've heard so many great things about it. I'm really
excited to get to it whenever that does happen, so.


Chard: Well, good. I was going to say that there's a pretty good
twist in it, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody or you, so
we'll keep it to that. But I like the story in it. I think it's
got some great, great attributes. It feels like a Metroid five.
It definitely brings back all the things that we liked about it.
Reminds me of a newer version of Super Metroid, which is what we
wanted. It's what I wanted to. And today's youth isn't used to
seeing Metroid on the side. They're used to seeing it, you know,
front first, front, front and center. You know, they're. They're
used to the primes, not what the four of us grew up playing. So,
you know, it's a different aspect for it. I definitely give it an
a. I think. I think dread is a great callback to what us retro
players grew up playing and where the Metroidvanians came into
and, yeah, I think it's a great ending or maybe beginning of the
next set of Metroid six, maybe. I don't know if they, they keep
doing the mega Man X's and the mega man's, that would be pretty
sweet. So that's that. That works for me. Okay.


GP: Okay.


Chard: We've got one more on this list. I would love to burn
through it. Because I'm burning through this chair right now, if
you hadn't noticed.


Jake: Yeah, real quick on this one.


Chard: This last one was just released this, this last year,
which is basically just Metroid prime remastered, which was sent
out on the switch so you could replay it on there. I have not
played the remastered, so I don't have anything to say about it.
If it's anything like their fucking original, that I'm just going
to give it the same grade that I gave it when I first played it.
I'm going to give it kind of an s tier with better graphics, I
guess. I don't know, it. Does anybody have any. Is there anything
outside of it looking prettier that that makes Metroid prime
remastered?


GP: They took out the sequence breaking stuff. Like I said,
they're. They still haven't re put it in. No, the real. The one
reason I even bought it for the switch is because they changed
it. Give me the original formula. Let me sequence break it on my
handheld.


Chard: Let's drop it down to a be, then an a or a b.


Wulff: Yeah, I would say this is an a. I would. I would be okay
with that. I haven't played it like, I was like, again, no waggle
controls. I'm not really sold on it anymore, but unless the
switch does allow that with the joy cons, I'm not sure.


Jake: I can't recall they did that. I know they definitely put a
lot of work into standard modern controls for Metroid prime in
this. And I've heard nothing but good things about the, the
modern control scheme for this. This is definitely from
understand. I think this is an a. I think I agree with you, GP.
Like an a. Sorry about the sequence breaking, but it does. They
definitely put a lot of work into making it look better. I can
definitely see how this is a stepping stone to bring in Metroid
prime four in the future, hopefully near future. And if you like
the original, I think you're going to love this one. Especially
when it's like, what, 20 years, 21 years since it for the first
one came out, right? I mean, it's bringing to a whole new
audience, so that's exactly good.


Wulff: Okay, quick, I'd like to correct myself. Apparently it
does have the waggle controls. However, it sounds like the gyro
is not quite as accurate as the infrared from the Wii U remote or
from the Wii remote.


Jake: So. Yeah.


Chard: Okay.


GP: The chucks.


Chard: All right.


GP: Okay, cool.


Chard: Well, here is our list, everybody. You can get on discord
and tell us how terribly wrong we are, or tell us how. How you
couldn't agree more with all of our choices. I think this is a
pretty solid list of all the Metroid games here, so.


Jake: I think so.


Chard: I don't think too many people will argue with this one, to
be honest.


GP: Yeah.


Chard: Unless somebody out there. Federation forces the greatest
Metroid game I've ever played. What are you guys talking about?
Please come and tell us that on the discord. Blow us up. Give us,
give.


Jake: Not friends to play multiplayer. What's wrong with you
people? I can see it. Yeah.


Wulff: To be fair, I looked it up and some people think it's a
decent spinoff, but I don't know, it never appealed to me. And
what I tried at the demo, I was not into it at all.


GP: Fair at best point.


Jake: I definitely say everybody should try out hunters with
before Metroid prime. If you're interested in prime four coming
out, go play hunters. That it'll be lore relevant. If you care
about the Metroid lore.


Chard: We love our lore. We love our lore here. Press be to
cancel.


GP: God save me, I do.


Chard: All right, great list, guys. Great episode. Good stuff.
Let's go ahead and do the sign offs and the send offs from
everybody, guys. Jake, do you have anything that you would like
to announce or anything you're doing? And then coming up, just.


Jake: Just that I'm making amazing progress in Elden ring. I
should have picked taken that as my sisyphean game at the start
of the damn year. I'm actually having a real blast with it. I
just finished who I'm in crumbling something. Azula or whatever.


Chard: Crumbling from Azula.


Jake: I'm there and I'm at the boss, the Malacath, the beast,
clergy guy. I'm fighting him now. He's tough, but tough in a fun
way.


Chard: So the mandehead for fucking rainy.


Jake: Yeah, but it's I. That game. I tell you, I almost want to
do another episode on a chart because there's. I have thoughts
now that I've played such a big.


Chard: Let's do it. Let's revisit. Let's revisit. We can have a
once I. Once I finally be rude on you and I can. We can revisit.
We record that.


GP: Okay.


Chard: Werewolf. You're not sweltering in this heat much like I
am. Holy crap. Well, that's because you're downstairs.


Wulff: Well, it's getting. Yes, I am downstairs. And the sun
doesn't get to hit this room very long. All the heat here right
now is coming from all these damn light. That's what I'm
suffering from.


Chard: Like a southern a southern prosecutor losing his case
right now.


Wulff: I do declare.


Chard: What do you got coming up, Wolf?


Wulff: I did like I said, I just finished bloodstained. Oh, my
gosh. I can't remember. Ritual of the night for the first time. I
finally played through it, and then I played through with one of
the alternate characters. Absolutely loved it. Had a blast. And I
picked up the DLC for it this morning and beat two bosses in it
already. And it is very much like Simon's quest. It's awesome.
I'm loving it.


Chard: Nice.


Jake: Great. Good.


Chard: I've not played the DLC for that. I haven't played that
one in a while. I just beat that game.


Wulff: Well, the DLC just came out like two weeks ago. It just
kind of out of nowhere, too. Okay.


Chard: Love a shadow. Love a good shadow drop.


Jake: Perfect.


Chard: GP, sir. What do you got? You got anything going on?


GP: No, like I said last time, I'm working on really one big
project. So I haven't had a ton of time for games. But I will say
this episode has got me in the mood to play through a couple of
Metal Gear games and of course, the random prime series.


Chard: So not random, but random.


GP: I do have. Yeah, and I want some ice cream. Damn it. So
probably gonna go get me some.


Chard: For those of you, for those of you who are listening and
not watching, we showed off several of our metal, Metal Gear
solid games during my small guy trying to. Trying to relate with
GP with his espionage game.


GP: It's like ribs. I don't think about ribs all that often for
food. And sometimes somebody says like, hey, you want ribs? I'm
like, fuck yeah, that often. But when I do, I'm like, yeah, I
want those ribs.


Chard: All right. And of course, sinister is out this evening,
but let's go ahead and give him a shout out with DJ Spinistar.
Please go and give our DJ buddy a follow and a like and a love if
you haven't already, and go listen to him drop some fat beats on
Mondays and Tuesdays. He's a. Well, yeah, it's always Mondays,
sometimes on Tuesdays. But he's been hitting those. Those bricks
pretty good. Also, he hangs out with solar caic on Saturdays as
well. So when you're done listening to us Saturday morning, go
over there and check that out too. And you could find me hating
my life with promised Consort radon, trying to figure out whether
I'm going to quit elden ring altogether or just do this until I
retire because I don't know what else to do. I've never ran into
a boss. As hard as I have since ever, I can't think of a single
fromsoft game that has put me in this position since I did what
all in the family sympathy of the night retro achievement that
took me 10 hours to get. That's no joke. That was a ten hour
stream before I popped that achievement. So I'm just trying to
treat it like another Ra game. But beyond that, you catch me over
at twitch, www. Touch dot tv, forward slash Chardonnay. You know
me, you know where I'm at. Just listen to the cursing. It's easy
to find. That's all I've got. I don't think there's anything else
that's coming up. Gentlemen, this has been a fantastic episode. I
love our list. I love you guys, and I love Metroid. So until next
time, this is press b to cancel. The best metroids have been
recognized.


GP: The galaxy is at peace.


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