The future of the series?

As you no doubt saw over the weekend, Shigeru Miyamoto recently conducted an interview with Gamekult.com, during which he shared some views on Wii U and Nintendo's most iconic characters. Some additional translated comments now provide Miyamoto's views on the Metroid franchise, and he's suggested that Wii U launch title Nintendo Land could provide gamers with useful hints on the future direction of the series.

You know, the kind of ideas I have on Metroid are already reflected in the mini-game that is devoted to the series in Nintendo Land, Metroid Blast.

That doesn't make it so, of course, as the Metroid franchise has been in the hands of Retro Studios and Team Ninja in recent years, with other Nintendo figures apart from Miyamoto providing most first-party management. That said, documentaries for Metroid Prime Trilogy showed that Nintendo's most senior development figure played a major role in directing the early concepts for that series, such as prompting Retro Studios to include swappable scanning visors.

Would Nintendo Land's gameplay provide a good foundation for a solid Metroid experience? Quite possibly, and you can read our thoughts on Metroid Blast in our Nintendo Land hands on impressions. While the controls were fairly tricky in the context of this release, the third-person action and aiming on the ground was intuitive and fun, while the GamePad was put to good use when flying Samus' ship. The challenging flying controls didn't seem suitable in a competitive multiplayer environment, but as a tactical part of a Metroid title to, for example, bomb space pirate outposts, it could potentially work very well.

Of course, there's not long to wait before millions of gamers can try Metroid Blast for themselves, so its merits as a foundation for a future Metroid title will no doubt come under full scrutiny.

[source gamekult.com, via officialnintendomagazine.co.uk]