@romulux: Yeah, they could've made it a bit more obvious, I suppose, but I think it worked well. Samus "reverting" to her childhood form does imply that she suffered something traumatic at Ridley's hands when she was young, but you can't please everybody...

@Adam: It's actually not too hard to get every pick-up, you just have to carefully survey your surroundings and you'll get them all (and if all else fails, there are guides out there already)...

not that i know of, although maybe they confirmed that he at least had a hand in killing her parents. anyway, g4 saw her turn into a little girl and interpreted it as samus being as frightened and helpless as a child at the sight of ridley for no reason other than the "damsel in distress" thing (having to get saved by a forgettable black man with a plasma beam? classic sexism). maybe that scene was the start of their whole argument... whatever. with all the stupid observations they made, they probably would have gotten it wrong no matter what sakamoto did.

i just really expected to see that scene told somewhere in the game after the commercial touched on it, so to me it seems like a missed opportunity to get a taste of samus' past with ridley at that moment.

I like how Ridley's corpse vanishes from the bottle ship after the Federation shows up, it ties in directly to Fusion, where you find him encased in ice inside the BSL station. I'm curious to see how Ridley (the real Ridley) will be brought back in any future Metroid game that takes place after Fusion, especialy since in Fusion it wasn't really him that you fought, but an X parasite that had infested his remains...

One thing that I'd love to see done is a depiction of Ridley that's more akin to the one from the 2002 manga, where he's an intelligent (though still savage) being who is capable of speech, not the mindless monster that we've come to know and love. Also, it'd be cool if Kraid made a comeback, but apparently he's just not popular enough (too bad Retro didn't have enough time to put him into Metroid Prime, I would've loved to have seen how the fight was going to work)...

Oh please, let's not even speculate. The guy needs a vacation from both life and death. I don't think he remembers the difference between the two at this point.

Let's imagine Nintendo bringing back Kraid instead. I mean, seriously, he's gigantic. He would be such an amazing boss in a future Other M-style game, if any need to be brought back.

Edit: Wha wha wha what? Kraid, not popular? I thought everyone loved the big oaf. I've never heard of anyone saying anything about Kraid except for how awesome he was in Super Metroid. Not a challenging boss by any means, but the scale of that fight was very surprising in those days.

I meant not popular in comparison to Ridley or other bosses that have showed up in more than one game (like Phantoon and Nightmare in Other M, and, of course, Mother Brain, but that goes without saying). He's only been in two games (three if you count Zero Mission), and after that we never see him again (except for that render of him from Metroid Prime). Obviously he was resurrected as well after Metroid, so I don't see why he couldn't have another revival, especially since he also holds a leadership role in the Space Pirate forces. So, yeah, give us more Kraid, Nintendo! It remains to be seen whether or not Fusion finally spells the end of Ridley (though I seriously doubt it)...

Phantoon wasn't a recurring boss before this game though, ignoring Zero Mission if he was in it, and neither was Nightmare (where is Nightmare from, anyway? I didn't recognize it). So he's more popular than those guys, given his additional appearance in Metroid 1. I've always been under the impression Kraid was a fan favorite, too.

Personally, I'm not a fan of reusing the same villains, but if they had to, I very much hope it'd be Kraid. Metroid is going to have to find some new villains if they want to move beyond Fusion, anyway. Ridley and Mother Brain must be gone for good now. Metroids probably are, and the similar X are gone. Hmm... I suppose they could go further into prequel territory.

Nightmare came from Fusion.

Well, guess I'm done for the night, decided to follow the yellow flashy thingy and ended up against Phantoon and died. xD
I'll deal with him later, lol.

Yeah, but I meant that of all the bosses that could have featured in Other M (Super Metroid's sequel), it strikes me as odd that Kraid wasn't the one picked, especially since he's more recognizable and popular, in my opinion, than Phantoon. The reason that I don't really count his appearance in Zero Mission is because his role falls strictly into the remake territory, nothing changed about him, his fight or his lair (other than updating the graphics to meet current standards and modeling him in his true form from Super Metroid). Also, Nightmare is the boss from Metroid Fusion that you have to defeat in order to obtain the Gravity Suit (he looks exactly like he does in Other M, too)...

I know what you mean about reusing villains, but it's just the way Nintendo does things (Bowser and Ganon, anyone?). I'd much rather have a sequel to Fusion than to keep delving into prequel territory, especially since we've had a lot of prequels after Fusion's release (the Prime trilogy, Hunters and now Other M). I want to know what happens after Samus departs from the BSL with Adam as her on-board computer, and after playing Other M, I'm curious (hopeful) to see whether Anthony Higgs will show up again to ask if we remember him...

Also, now we know the identity of the guy hugging up on Samus in that picture on Adam's desk: his younger brother Ian...

@Bell: You died? How'd you manage that? I mean, I could understand it if you were fighting him in Super Metroid (where his fireballs are a pain to dodge), but with the sense move in Other M you shouldn't be hit by any of them. The only things that give you trouble in the Phantoon fight this time around are when he sends out his detached hands, when he swings his tentacles at you or when he fires those beams that form red and black circles on the ground that explode if you're in the middle of them. It's really only two, though, since the hands are easily dispatched by screw attacking them...

I can't remember, that sense move thing didn't work at times and I got pummeled by those spheres, I didn't have that many tanks either...so...yeah, lol.

Does anyone have a pic of Nightmare on Other M? Was gonna put it up along with the Fusion one so everyone could see the two together, lol. Couldn't find a single pic though...

being the fusion guy that you are i thought you'd be all over that. and thanks for authorizing me to use my varia suit after i'd been wallowing through lava for 20 minutes, a**hole.

Haha, no problem.

I played through Fusion only once, I think, right when it came out. I was so excited for it, moreso than Prime. But since then I only have the vague memory of it being good. Even that screenshot from above doesn't refresh my memory.

I never should have sold my Cube and Player. I badly want to replay the GBA games now but no way am I playing on a tiny GBA screen even if I had one. Oh well. I'll find other m(eans) to play them soon enough.

metroid fusion had a great ending. I can't possibly think of where they could go next.
it really should be the last in the timeline.

Unless they make big changes to the formula, I don't see the power-up collection thing being explained away easily after Fusion, either. Their excuses are already stretched thin and are only borderline believable. I would think they'd have to either focus on prequels or allow you to play as other characters in addition to Samus, whether Anthony or even better, some of the characters from Hunters.

Big edity edit: Yay, I beat it! Phantoon was awesome, but it was kind of awkward how low-key the before and after was. He's just sprung on you as if he were nothing special, and then the game quickly forgets about him. He was also disappointingly easy to beat on my first try without taking much damage, but they didn't make hard mode for nothing, I'm sure. Time to collect 100%.

The self-destruct sequence was nice. I'm glad they let us play in the zero suit, even if there was no logical reason for it (or can Samus not hold a helmet with one hand? Perhaps she has carpal tunnel in her left hand?). I do wish they'd made it so the stun gun would be more useful or even tossed in a hiding place or two to make it more like Zero Mission.

I wonder if there's anything to do during the escape, like saving the creatures in Super Metroid. Seemed very straightforward with a lot more time than necessary. But exciting nonetheless!

Also, anyone tried out theater mode or plan to? I liked the story, but I don't think I'd want to sit through it as a "movie."

i started a hard mode game and... there are no pickups... anywhere. gulp.

i also loved that zero suit moment, even if it makes no sense. it's like just at the point that you're forgetting that everything has to explode at the end of a metroid game, everything explodes. i wonder if you can do lethal strikes in the zero suit...

@Adam: I've tried the theater mode (I had to catch the two "ending" cut scenes that my DVR interrupted) and it was quite nice. I also went back to view some of my favorite cut scenes as well, like when Samus and Anthony reminisce about what happened with Ian (Samus looks good in that cut scene) and the Ridley cut scene as well. I am thinking of going through it all as a movie sometime, perhaps later on today...

Anyone else like the gallery? It had some great art, in my opinion (I particularly liked the anime-like Samus they depicted)...

@romulux: I doubt it, especially since you couldn't perform the sense move while in the Zero Suit (not to mention the Paralyzer only does what its name implies). Besides, with only one energy tank on-hand, I didn't want to take any chances. I really enjoyed sliding under the closing grates, though...

Also, no pick-ups as in they're just not in the game anymore, or are they just not marked on the map?

...Wish the notes were in English so I can see what some of the enemies were called, but yeah...love the grouchy Samus in that one where that guy was patting her head. xD

Yeah, I know what you mean, Bell. My favorite would have to be Samus in her military uniform (the expression on her face is just too damn cute)...

metroidfan, no pickups at all. i rolled through all the vents i could and they're all empty. the enemies also do much more damage, so this hard mode is no joke. echoes has been usurped as the most difficult metroid several times over.

AND THE SPEEDRUNNING BEGINS


these people are crazy.

...Wait...you mean not a single pickup in Hard Mode? o.0
WTF?! T_T

Metroid_Fan points at Echoes: Ha! Ha! Your position has been usurped!

That sounds like a real b', especially considering that I still haven't been able to beat my Hard play-through on Echoes (still can't get past the damn Emperor Ing). I'm definitely up for the challenge though... eventually...

Also, I'm impressed that people have already started to find sequence breaks. I actually tried the one shown in that first video during my play-through, though I only managed to bomb myself off the tunnel, but nowhere near the ledge where the energy tank is...