With Metroid Dread arriving to much acclaim in October, and by Nintendo's own description bringing an end to the original saga of the series, plenty of eager fans have been poring over the lore and detail of the franchise. A recent video by "Critical Kate" Willært (above) gives a fascinating and detailed look at the potential influences and sources of inspiration for Metroid, in particular the earlier entries in the series.
Some are familiar references, such as the oft-repeated influence of Alien, but Willært dives far deeper and looks at media of varying kinds. There are fascinating potential ties between early work from the Stamper brothers (who founded Rareware) and design ideas in the original Metroid. We're shown potential visual ideas that influenced other games, that in turn may have provided a basis for Nintendo's ideas.
Then there's the idea of Samus and her reveal as a woman, and the various designs of her character and outfits. Influences go far beyond video games of course, and the video shows a web of ideas crossing over between movies, comics and animations.
There are a lot of connections we'd never seen before, and it's fascinating how a breadth of ideas and influences can then merge together when the original Metroid was designed and conceived. Of course, it's common for projects to be inspired by others, it's very much a natural part of the process. Seeing those influences spelled out is utterly fascinating.
Definitely a video to watch in a cozy seat with a nice beverage.
[source youtube.com]
Comments (14)
This is great!
I 100% appreciate a Metroid facts video that isn't the same recycled information fans already know. It shows passion for the source material, and it is beautiful!
I miss the boob suit
Yeah, plenty of things I had not connected before. Entertaining, too.
Sometimes it is hard to draw the line between influence and inspiration. In the early days of video games, there was plenty of directly taking from movies and shows because it felt like just a completely different realm to work in (Revenge of Shinobi had Spider-man and Godzilla for a silly example). But video games and movies and shows are really in the same space now.
Anyway, I feel like playing through those games... had fun going through influences of Herzog Zwei and RTS games in a similar way.
Lots of games and anime I now must watch. Never considered Barbarella to be an inspiration for Samus, but there is something there.
Wow, that was a great video! Looks like I'll have to watch some old movies! Space Cobra looks awesome, I had never heard of it before.
I looking forward to watching the video but I haven't (had time to) play Dread yet. So may have to wait until after that for fear of spoilers.
I just hope the video is based on factual research and not just one person making interpretations and presenting them as research, ya know? I could make a case that Mario and Luigi are inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, but that wouldn't make it true or accurate. Know what I mean?
I couldn't do it. The voice of the narrator is way too dead-pan for me.
@Chocobo_Shepherd I don't recall any Metroid Dread spoilers, the video's focused much more on Metroid and Super Metroid (with a brief mention of Fusion), it doesn't go into Dread at all really.
I would certainly argue the video is factual research, the connections made are solid.
@ThomasBW84 Oh good. I saw the video started with "spoiler warning" so I immediately clicked away
And that's great to hear. As long as it's really insights direct from the people involved, then that's awesome! Maybe I'll check it out tonight after work!
@Chocobo_Shepherd I haven't had a chance to watch this video yet, but this woman's past few videos (and articles) are intense exercises of deep dives into actual library archives. She unearths some pretty interesting tidbits that go beyond a person using a web search engine to find someone else's blog.
@Nitwit13 Awesome. This sounds amazing then ^_^
@BloodNinja Yeah, the narration could be better, but if you are able to push through, the video is really informative and it gave me a ton of new stuff to check out from the 80s
Mind: Blown . I never knew these inspirational sources existed, but this is fascinating
@Pillowpants Yeah I couldn’t LOL I’ll be fine not knowing whatever it’s talking about.
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