@romulux I wasn't aware that I was commenting for your pleasure.

Well, it is generally seen as the definitive Metroid. This shouldn't be news to anyone. Every Metroid game is compared to Super Metroid. I don't think it's the best myself, but it is the game that put Metroid on the map, the game almost everyone remembers when they think of Metroid. Just read any review of any Metroid game, and you'll almost certainly see its mention.

Metroid Prime was a good series, but very much a different series. From what I've seen so far, I don't really see the connection between Other M and Super Metroid either, though. Sounds more and more like Fusion in 3D... though I liked Fusion, too. You really can't compare a game without item collection to Super Metroid. It's like comparing a game without jumping to Mario.

And this is how confident I am about Sakamoto driving the destiny of next Metroid, his curriculum as producer in the last 6 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_SPD
Seems to be the main Nintendo shovelware producer without any doubt: WarioWares, Rythms and Friend Collection.
And this is his best and most notorious Wii production:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUxCdVGxQ6Q

Feel free to call me cynic ...

Haha, I don't think it's a stretch to say anyone who thinks of WarioWare as "shovelware" is a cynic. They're popular games that consistently get good reviews (except for Snapped). Either that or you have confused the term "shovelware" with "any game that I don't personally like, which tends to be almost everything."

Adam, have you played the Wii version of the first Prime game?
When I played through Metroid Prime on the GC, I thought the controls were clunky and terrible, and I too gave up once it was time to search for the artifacts.
The game was 1000x better on the Wii imo.

The only problem I had with the controls was that the platforming was awful, but I don't even know if that can be said to be a control problem and more just a problem with first-person games in general, Mirror's Edge excepted, which is why I always thought first-person was an odd choice for Prime, considering platforming is an integral part of the game -- though certainly not the most important.

I have beaten the first two Prime games. I'm sure they're better on Wii, but I don't care to buy the same game twice. They aren't the kind of games that beg to be replayed anyway, too slow paced and long. Too little time and too many other games to play to waste another whole weekend or week on a game I've already played but with slightly worse controls.

sakamoto himself admits that 3D added a lot of depth to the games, which is why they're making other M 3D instead of straight 2D. this is a best of both worlds type of thing

i just don't see the point in alerting everyone to your apathy, then leaving. what does it really add to a thread?

Some weird people just like to share their opinions. It doesn't hurt. Comments may not always be individually interesting, but taken in context, such comments can be useful sort of as a poll of opinion: Are people hyped for this game or not?

i usually have a problem keeping it under 10 paragraphs, so maybe my judgment about length isn't the best

I was just basing me views on what I have seen so far, and someones impressions on the E3 demo.
I really can't judge it until I get my hands on it, but from what I have SEEN, it looks very awkward and clumsy.
And the Metroid is one of my favourite franchises, so it would really be heartbreaking if this ends up flopping.
Oh and btw, even though I like the 2D metroid a bit more, Retro did fantastic work. Prime 1 was basically the perfect transition from 2D to 3D. : ) (Super Metroid>Metroid Prime>Fusion>Prime3>Prime2)
And wut at Sakamoto being a shovelware producer. Have you played the WarioWare series or Rhythm Heaven?
I honestly do not think you know what shovelware is.

For a long time Bungie Buddies from Smooth Moves was actually my most played Wii game, haha. It's insane how something so simple and silly can be so fun. And it's weird to think that WarioWare and Metroid are his two main franchises, quite the polar opposites.

Prime 1 was good, but I don't know about the perfect transition. The collection quest and backtracking were a big boring chunk of the game, and I didn't like how the different beams became essentially glorified keys. I think 3D Metroid should ideally be third-person, though I don't necessarily assume Other M will be better because of this one aspect. Being able to see all around you was key to the exploration part, and the platforming in Prime was horrible.

if you're judging sakamoto as a game maker, just remember that he directed super metroid, which i think seals the deal as far as his skill for making these types of games is concerned even if he had done a bunch of shovelware afterward. i don't like every decision he made in the GBA metroids, but now that he's back on a console making a higher profile game i'm sure it'll turn out great.

I like the decisions made for the GBA games for the most part because they're GBA games. If those same games had been released on SNES, I'd have been confused, but the way the games are divided into little areas to be explored one at a time works perfectly for a handheld game since handheld games tend to be played for much shorter periods of time and more sporadically. A lot of people are expecting Super Metroid 3D, but I'm thinking it'll be much closer to Fusion, and that's fine by me.

The inclusion of Hard Mode in Zero Mission was a very welcome addition, something Super Metroid badly needs in retrospect. Last time I played Super Metroid I started to get bored from how easy it was, dying only twice, and both times because I forgot where I was going and didn't hit up a restore point first, not because it was particularly challenging. Of course, it's easy partly because I know where everything is and can make sure to have a lot of health and a bazillion missiles for each boss. But that's where difficulty levels come in, makes playing the game challenging again.

Which is similar to say that Mr. X created a 2D Black&Whlte chess in the stone age, so he is the optimal expert to create the definitive 3D 2010 chess. BTW, little innovation was present in Metroid as it was directly based on 1985 Game Arts Thexder or Chexder, initially released for NEC PC-8801 and one year later for MSX1 and NES (for the small corridors it was transforming into a spaceship instead of a ball).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmFqAMQMcBk

That makes no sense. Team Ninja is there to help him with the 3D, and they have a proven record. Chess in the stone age would actually be damn impressive, and chess does not change from 2D to 3D in anything except appearance. He also made Fusion and Zero Mission, which are no older than Prime 1 & 2, so it's not like his last Metroid game was made in the "stone age."

And Thexder looks horrible. Terrible graphics and color. Awkward game play, not half as smooth as Metroid. And Metroid is not defined by turning into a ball. You have a very bizarre concept of Metroid if you think so. It was not "directly based" on anything, and finding some random Youtube video with one marginal similarity is evidence of nothing. There are passages in Super Mario Brothers that you can only pass through when a small man. I guess it is basically a Metroid / Thexder prequel.

Metroid is defined by the need to discover secret passages and collecting power-ups to progress, neither of which appear to be in any evidence in this video.

Edit: Just looked up more videos of Thexder. Apparently it's also level-based, which further separates it from Metroid, as if there were much of a connection to begin with. If anything, I'd say Dark Void Zero was probably directly inspired by this, not Metroid. Thexder Neo looks pretty good, actually. Might have to try that, but the original looks B Plus-esque.

I played and finished Chexder in 1986 for MSX1 and later for MSX2, is not that I just looked randomly for similar videos on YouTube. It was an outstanding game for its time and probably the first that explored the kind of gameplay that later resulted into Metroid and similars.

You can't say it's directly based on it because it involves shrinking to fit into spaces. That is not what defines Metroid. I'll take your word for it that it's better than it looks, but good or not, that doesn't mean Metroid is some insignificant derivative. Metroid did so much more than the Maru Mari. It was a neat power-up, sure, but it was far from the only thing the game brought to the table, as I've already gone over: a non-level-based open world, hidden passages, and power-up collection to enable all of this. You can't write off the Metroid team's talent and innovation because of one slightly similar idea (turning into a ball does not function exactly the same).

Similarily, Chexder was full of secret areas and areas quite hard to reach or to exit from once you are in, it was not just an on-rails game at all. The "big" difference is that once you decide to exit one level, you cannot go back to it, and the levels were quite extense zones full of mazes, open areas, small corridors, etc.

Lots of games have secret areas. Again, by your definition, Mario could be considered the direct inspiration for Thexder. But in Metroid they aren't simply hard to reach; they're impossible to reach without the right power-ups.

There is a reason there is an entire genre attributed more than half to Metroid, the Metroidvania (as ridiculous a name as that is). You can't separate the individual parts: the power-up collecting, exploration, and open world all tie in together. Without one of those integral parts, the rest don't stand out, but it is a formula that critics and gamers consistently praise, and developers often try to imitate.

Thexder was not the first game to feature mazes, open areas, or small corridors. I'm hardly going to pat Game Arts on the back for that. But Metroid was the first game of its kind. No other game before it had an entire world open to back tracking where you had to find obscure secret paths to collect power-ups in order to open up previously inaccessible areas.

Really, it's closer to Zelda in spirit, bringing that concept to the platforming world, with more emphasis on atmosphere and a kind of seamless minimalism.