Reasons why I don't like Hunters

[Maetch]

It's not that Hunters was a bad game to me. It's just that it could have been SO much better. As it stands, it's just... meh.

I'd like to see the idea revived for the Wii. Having played MP3, using the Wiimote for a Hunters multiplayer match would rock. Other ideas include:

*A more developed story for 1-player
*A few more hunters (maybe include the MP3 gang). Make sure they all have a role in the story, though. In Hunters, I can literally go through the whole game without encountering any hunters beyond the initial fights.
*Fix some especially broken moments (time limits, death pistons, pits)

I just think Hunters had promise, but needs a major overhaul to reach it.

[Emperor Ing]

Guardians suck.

[AMetroidGuy]

I’ll just quote what I said in the latest locked thread. In fact, since it was locked because of being a duplicate topic, not for content, I’ll quote what everyone said:

So I've recently beaten Metroid Prime Hunters. It seems like a lot of you really hate MPH, but I really liked it! The repetitivie boss and guardian battles were annoying, but overall I don't see reason to complain.(Besides the instance death pistons ) What really stunned me was both the control scheme and the non-linearity.(sp?) I've heard complaints that the game was too linear. How can you say that when all of the other Prime games have a set order for the items, and Hunters doesn't? I may be mistaken, but I think that I skipped a level in Hunters accidentally and went back to it later. You can rearrange the order of the octoliths. I think that that's non-linear. It might not have been the best Prime game, but it wasn't terrible. The weapons were cool, and the hunters were pretty interesting. I hope that further Metroid games include mention of the homeplanets and species of the hunters, as well as feature Sylux and Weavel.

On the other hand, it was kind of repetative. I was shocked that there were no armor upgrades.(Wouldn't Alimbic designed suits be awesome?) The Cretaphids and Slenches did get kind of annoying after a while. They had to be the most dull bosses I have ever fought. The escape sequences didn't bother me because I love escape sequences, but I can see how some would find them annoying. And then there's instant-death pistons. WHY!?!?!? Also, the title 'Metroid Prime' was kind of wierd. It had nothing to do with Phazon! The way Gorea came in a phazon-less phazon meteorite is even more disturbing. I'm convinced the Gorea has something to do with Phazon, but they make no mention of it whatsoever in the game.

We have how many topics like this now? Anyway, for the most part, you do have to visit the planets in order or run up against colored doors and force fields that you can’t get past. There is some free will on the re-visits, but, those are re-visits. As in “So which world that I’ve already cleared and boss that I’ve already defeated should I take on again first?”

And, the lack of any upgrades to Samus’s armor or movement systems is very unMetroid-y( there aren’t even any cool visor upgrades like in the real Prime series). There are no “upgrades” beyond finding new weapons and more ammo. Meaning it’s basically every other generic FPS out there, with some dodgy platforming and bad morph-ball “puzzles” thrown in.

So that’s why it’s disliked. It does do some amazing things with the DS, but it doesn’t use them to make a good enough game. As a game, it ranges from poor to decent, depending on who you ask, but as a Metroid title, it’s an utter failure.

Instant death pistons = fail.

Anyways, I liked Hunters, as well. Yeah, the Cretaphids and Slenches got boring after a while, although I honestly have to say that Slench 3 is a pretty fun boss (although I fought him last).

And that's the other thing about Hunters; you're really not required to beat the Octolith guardians in order. I know I fought Slench 4 before Slench 3 and such. It really doesn't affect anything, but it's just cool. Plus, I like that any other Hunter can steal your Octoliths if they beat you in battle; problem is that really none of them offer a decent challenge. In the entire time I've had Hunters, I've only lost one Octolith to Weavel, and that's it.

So, all in all, it was a good game. It's nothing compared to the main Prime series, of course, or any other Metroid game at all, but it was a rather enjoyable installment.

And that's the other thing about Hunters; you're really not required to beat the Octolith guardians in order. I know I fought Slench 4 before Slench 3 and such. It really doesn't affect anything, but it's just cool. Plus, I like that any other Hunter can steal your Octoliths if they beat you in battle; problem is that really none of them offer a decent challenge. In the entire time I've had Hunters, I've only lost one Octolith to Weavel, and that's it.

I lost an octolith to Weavel too; he pushed me through a wall somehow and I had to kill myself!

Yeah, sorry, but as AMG pointed out, we have had WAY to many bitch-fest/complimentary topics on MPH. I hated it, other people hated it.... wah. If you want to bitch, that's fine, just bitch in one of the other topics.

Like this one.

The thing that I really liked about Hunters is its [blah blah]

Yes, Neonic, formerly IUNIVERSE, we all know you love Hunters and would marry it if you could. Pretty sure those “connections” are mostly coincidence, Retro allegedly said they don’t like Hunters... btw, did you see the new thread where people are listing their name changes so everyone can keep track of who they are? I think all the major posters who’ve changed have posted there except for you and Darth Naner/Lord Darth Naner/MeinsOmniLordNanerCareg/[something else slightly shorter]/ReNaNeR.

Guardians suck.

THIS.

[ZXVanX]

I liked Metroid Prime Hunters but then... as a portable game... to play rarely...... I think its the metroid I play less, It din't feel like Metroid, not enought items, everything was focused on the Multiplayer, Can we even go to count it as a Metroid *Fighting* Game ?

[Techno Space Zombie]

I've only played the demo of Hunters that came with my DS, I didn't buy it because it really didn't seem like a Metroid game. It seemed like an FPS.

It had great graphics for a handheld; just not good gameplay.

[AMetroidGuy]

Funny, I remember the demo being good compared to the final game that followed.

[AMetroidGuy]

Funny, I remember the demo being good compared to the final game that followed.

So how many Metroids have you raped? I mean, since it appears that the only thing that makes a Metroid game good for you is the Metroids.

Name reversion? Is this a new fad? Anyway, it had nothing to do with the Metroids, Hunters just sucks.

[The Illusion]

I think that one of the things people didn't really like about Hunters (besides it's control scheme which was, although understandably poor to some people, probably the best scheme that could've been used) was that nothing happened in that game.
AT ALL. What few (high quality) cutscenes you get are normally about samus ENTERING A ROOM. Oh, and what's the big change that results in the game actually affecting the metroid plot?
NOTHING.


Although I think the multiplayer was actually not only enjoyable, but a step in the right direction since Echoes.

[Silver Skree]

Do you have a review on Super Metroid? If so, I would like to see it.

http://mdb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/?g=sm&p=reviews

[Jesse D]

Because it's not Metroid.

I'm saying what I said to IE to you.

It involved puzzles, exploration and the collecting of upgrades just like every other Metroid game. The game had moments of isolation and has a first person outlook just like the other Primes (excluding Pinball). So how exactly is it not Metroid?

Then by that reasoning, games like Zelda or Metal Gear or even Castlevania must also be Metroid games?

Many games use that structure. Metroid is set apart by its own unique approach to that structure. It has its own personality and signature implementations that Hunters simply does not utilize or capture.

Look at the following picture and ask yourself whether this looks comfortable:

It looks like you're holding the NDS with one hand, if I'm not mistaken. No wonder it would feel uncomfortable.

Nope. Both hands, as best as I could while still being able to use the stylus.

In a game such as Super Metroid, you have very tight control over Samus, even in ball form. You can elegantly maneuver tight passages and propel yourself to great heights using the bomb alone.

But not in Hunters.

Bullshit. One bomb in Super Metroid makes the Morph Ball go no higher than in Hunters, if not less.

You misunderstand. By "great heights" I'm talking about the precision by which one could perform sequential bomb jumps. The morph ball sequences in Hunters were some of the more frustrating and clumsy tasks I've had to do in a game like this. I kept falling and slipping over and over again. Particularly when having to do single bomb jumps.

You'll fall a lot

If you're not use to the controls at all. Excuse Hunters for not being so easy to where you may have to use two bomb jumps to obtain something, instead of Super Metroid's simplistic bomb jumping areas where one bomb gets you anywhere.

Then I guess I'm not used to the controls at all. I consider myself to be a pretty capable gamer, so when I can't perfect trivial tasks by the time I've beaten the game then that should say something about the implementation.

However.
Imagine entering a room with very little health. It's a large, arena-style room full of those hard-to-kill guardians, or perhaps another hunter. BAM! One hit, you're dead. That's okay, the checkpoint system will bring you back. And, it does. With low health. Right in the same exact room. So you try to exit the room. BAM! You can't even survive long enough for the door to open up so you can leave.

You make Hyper Mode in Corruption look like a cake walk compared to Hunters with some of your complaints. Anyways, how in the hell would someone have that low of an energy amount? I can only see letting enemies hit you as a reason. The chances of the above ever happening is very slim to near non-existant.

Hyper Mode in Corruption was much more forgiving than this.
How would someone have such a low amount of energy, you ask? Perhaps by being hit by enemies or falling in lava due to a clumsy control scheme.
Whatever you think the chances may be of that happening, it still happened to me during my first play-through.

Considering that opportunities to save the game are spaced so far apart

I hope you're joking with that statement.

Turn on any post-NES Metroid game and see how distantly-spaced the save rooms are. You have plenty of opportunities to save the game every few minutes.
Hunters is a handheld game. It would be reasonable to assume that somebody playing a handheld game might be traveling or otherwise in a situation where they could only play a little bit here, a little bit there. Only being able to save every half hour doesn't really make sense here. Sure, you can close the lid, but what if your batteries are low? What if you want to swap games?

quickly and easily recharge your health.

Portal--->Your Ship





Any easier and it would also be called "the easiest" single-player Metroid game ever.

Are there dozens of portals scattered throughout the game I've missed? Unless I'm mistaken, there are only two or maybe three sets of portals per planet. I've had to make a lot of unnecessary time-wasting treks back to my ship to just for that purpose.

Oh yeah, and remember how killing a boss would leave enough health and missile drops to completely recharge yourself? Yeah, no. Not here.

The same is the case for Super Metroid.

Typically you're able to completely (or mostly) refill your health from the multitude of pickups left by a defeated boss in Super Metroid. Hunters gave very few, so you could still be dangerously low on health and thus murdered before escaping without a single opportunity to refill.

So what the hell was the point of the escape sequence?

To try and kill you to prevent you from getting the Octolith, since the Alimbics clearly didn't want anyone to be collecting what's their's. Hell, if you read the scans that involved the Guardians, you would've known that they served in the absence of the Alimbic Order of Elders. Since the Guardians attack you and since the Order is the decision-maker of the Alimbic people, the Alimbics wanted anyone who tryed to get their artifacts to be killed (Guardian Enemy Scan).

Again, you miss my point. Typically you'd be running from some impending threat such as an explosion, but there's no such thing here. I don't doubt that some security system would try to kill you for taking an Octolith. But how? When the clock reaches zero, you simply die. And whatever the threat is, it's instantaneous and then gone since you can just land back down on the planet again. It's like the whole idea was tacked onto Hunters as an afterthought. (Filler.)

no real story

Whoa, I guess there is no "real story" at all in the Metroid Series with that claim. I'm not going to go in-depth on this at all, since you had personal biased in most of the review. I'm interested in your take on Super Metroid's story now....so I can confirm what I said about your review of the game.

There is no bias here.

In Super Metroid:
After having eradicated the space pirates and the Metroid threat on the planet Zebes, as well as the entire Metroid population on SR-388. She spares the life of one hatchling which she could have (and should have) killed as well, as it was her mission afterall. Instead, she spares it out of an act of compassion. Points for fleshing out the character. She delivers the hatchling to a research institute with hopes that it could be used for good instead of as a weapon. More points for establishing her character. Hatchling is stolen, Samus must <i>return</i> to Zebes, make grim discoveries that she had not completely eliminated her foes on Zebes, explore the disfigured remains of a familiar place, fight some resurrected foes of her past, have her life compromised but ultimately saved by the very creature whose life she spared when it was born. In a fit of rage, she eliminates the grand foe and escapes by the skin of her teeth (while saving others who had helped her on her adventure) as the planet she had twice adventured on (and indeed grown up) explodes.

In Hunters:
A mysterious sentient race called the Alimbics (sounds like a play on "olympics", possibly alluding to the competitive gameplay in Hunters) disappears but leaves ruins, relics and clues to an "ultimate power". A bunch of bounty hunters find out about this and all want to get their hands on this power. Samus is also sent to investigate it. Along the way she must fend of these other hunters and ultimately discover and destroy this ultimate power.

The whole idea of the Alimbics and the ghostly clues they leave behind is just recycled from the Chozo and Luminoth of the Prime series. No originality.

well, there is absolutely zero interaction with them beyond mindlessly fighting.

The cutscenes at the very beginning of the game, the Delano 7 flying over the Alimbic Gardens, the landing of an unidenified vessel at Celestial Archives, chasing down Kanden, chasing after Spire, seeing them having new weapons in the Gorea 1 cutscene, seeing Trace and Noxus battling at Sic Transit......All of what I just mentioned automatically shows that your statement is inaccurate.

Inaccurate? I don't see what you're arguing here... but thanks for supplementing my point. (See underlined text.)

Do you have a review on Super Metroid? If so, I would like to see it.

Why? So you can break it apart line per line and raise the same pointless discussion that was dead a decade ago?
Seriously dude, get a hobby.

You like Hunters. We know. That horse was dead a year ago.
Nobody's chastising you for liking the game. We simply don't like it, and incessant arguments aren't going to change that. End of story. Can we move on, now?

[Silver Skree]

If IUNIVERSE started disliking hunters, we'd be torn between calling him fixed or broken.
...

So what is he now?
I have no fucking clue.

[CapCom]

the old-model DS too heavy and bulky to hold with one hand for extended periods


That's why you're suppose to use both hands to hold the NDS.

The only thing I have to say to this is 'then why ask the player to use the stylus as the default controls?' Holding the stylus means you can't hold the system with the stylus hand AND use the stylus. Unless you have three hands or buy some shitty adapter from Pelican. That's what the context was.

But we get it. You like the game. You think it deserves more. We don't. Did you really need to spend all that time writing that and picking apart every single point of a year-old argument into little tiny details?

http://nefariouslabs.r30.net/Dead%20Horse.jpg

[Infinity's End]

The first time I played through Hunters, I loved it. A while after I beat it and thought about it, I realized that, as a Metroid game, it sucks ass. If you think of it as just a DS game and not a Metroid game, it's decent. Think of it as a Samus adventure, and it makes one want to throw up.

One of my biggest complaints out of everything was the boss battles. There are only two different bosses. Two.

In a Metroid game.

Some kid in Africa who's never heard of a video game could hear those sentences and understand what is wrong with it. And how does the developer compensate for the lack of originality? By making you fight those two bosses four times. Woo.

My biggest problem of all is how repetitive it is. Here's the sequence of events:

1) Go to planet.
2) Find three keys.
3) Take keys and find boss.
4) Fight and kill boss.
5) Take Octolith and get to back to ship in a certain amount of time.
6) Repeat eight times, then fight final boss.

Congratulations! You beat the worst single-player Metroid game ever!

I think it's kinda cute how IUniverse has this life goal to convince everyone here that MPH is amazing...



What I don't think you realize, is no one cares but YOU.

Physical uncomfortable-ness aside, if there wasn't something actually wrong with the game, the no one would have complained about it. Don't you think?

[blueberryjam]

I agree with Zaranell, as a ds game, it's only got a few minor issues such as non originality with bosses. The whole level sequence is kinda samey I agree, but as a ds game, most players would probably like a straight forwards sequence to follow, then all they need to think about is finding three artifacts and a door. But as a metroid prime game, being teleported through 'inaccessible chambers' seems pretty lame. Metroid originally being an adventure game, being teleported to the boss does seem pretty half assed.

Overall, I like the game to pass the time (but maybe that's just because I wasn't treated to the original metroid games until my orders from amazon arrive and I can fish my gba out of my sock drawer and prime hunters was the first I played) but after playing prime, which was a step back from adventure gaming ( a small skip like step I'll agree) that was tons more adventurous, and although it isn't much like the original 2D side scrollers, I will love any part of the series, and welcome hunters to my slowly growing collection, I admit I might pull a face as it arrives to the nursery, but I'll still nurture it, and hope it grows up to be excellent (unlikely).

[AMetroidGuy]

The game was just flat-out, *NOT METROID.*

It involved puzzles, exploration and the collecting of upgrades just like every other Metroid game. The game had moments of isolation and has a first person outlook just like the other Primes (excluding Pinball). So how exactly is it not Metroid?

The collecting of upgrades was not “just like every other Metroid game” - all the so-called upgrades are weapons( except for energy tanks). And they are all used in very obvious ways( red laser on red force field? NEVER WOULDA GUESSED). To be like other Metroid games, there would have to be upgrades to the way Samus moves, and such items would require you think outside the box, recall places you passed without much consideration earlier, and go back to try out new abilities to find new hidden passages.

The mechanics are frustrating and the controls are broken.

The one thing I agree about is holding the DS. I have never had a cramping or tiring problem with stylus-heavy games including Hunters, regardless of whether I was on a DS Lite or a Phat. Everyone who complains either has weak hands or is, to quote the popular meme, “doing it wrong”.