Why don't enough people like Metroid?

[Zynux]

Okay, this is a pretty hard question to answer, but I'll try. Here are my theories as follow as why Metroid doesn't sell well no matter what it doe. And no, it has nothing to do with quality of any of the games. And I am no means a professional, so take all of these with a grain of salt.


1) Momentum

Maybe the series does a lousy job keeping up it's momentum. Super is awesome and then the series vanishes from the face of the earth.

He has a point, and I think this definitely held back the series. They make Super Metroid and the franchise disappears for 8 years. That's a long time (granted, that doesn't explain why Metroid never sold well in the first place or why Japan seems to ignore it entirely because even Super Metroid had poor sales). Not only that, but by the time the next Metroid game out (Prime/Fusion) Nintendo has already shifted its marketing strategy (catering to casuals) and those who Played Super Metroid possibly moved on, while the new gamers were like "LOL what is dis MeTrOiD? Another rip off of The Halo!?" But I'll get more into the "momentum" later on.


2) Marketing

Metroid, as a whole, is the prime example of how NOT to advertise a franchise. Maybe Nintendo doesn't feel its worth the money, or whoever in charge of Marketing needs to be fired, but probably because it just simply isn't as popular as Mario or Zelda. Whatever it is, Metroid has never really tried very hard to put itself out there and that ultimately hurts the franchise.


3) Continuity (or lack thereof)

When some people play games, they like to have a basic idea of what's going on, who the Main character is, the main villain, etc etc. They want to know the backstory of the game their playing as for some reason (I personally have no problem at all jumping right into games. Hell, my first Metroid game was Prime 2 and I had no clue what the hell was going on. And imo that made the experience all the better, since I wasn't really expecting anything at all). However, for those that do care about Continuity, there is indeed a problem. With minimal cutscenes, little dialogue, no recapping, I can imagine how hard it would be for someone to get into any of these games. Granted, Super Metroid and Other M had recaps but still, the other parts of storytelling (or lack thereof) make it really hard for the average player to come in and just play.


4) Difficulty...?

Now, the only reason why I'm putting this here is because many claim that Metroid is a hard series, something that I never personally understood. IMO the only game that gave me a hard time was Super Metroid, only because that was my first 2D Metroid and I had no clue what I was doing. Prime 1 & 3 I thought were pathetically easy, Zero Mission was only challenging on Hard Mode, and Fusion was below average difficulty. I thought Prime 2 was the right balance for difficulty, so I'm surprised to this day that people thought it was uber difficult.

But then again I am the Alpha Male of video games, so this is no suprise.


5) It has no fucking clue what it is or what it wants to be aka Momentum ver. 2

Maybe the series does a lousy job keeping up it's momentum. Super is awesome and then the series vanishes from the face of the earth. Prime 1 brings it back from the dead and everyone loves it, then Prime 2 comes out and it's esoteric and weird and really hard. Fusion sets up a new status quo and then they follow it up with a remake and then the DS rolls around and they make a multiplayer shooter and a pinball game. Prime 3 is made to attract FPS gamers to the Wii, and then Other M pulls a 180 and it's a bizarre story-based 3d action game aimed at casual gamers made by Team Ninja.

This, right here. This franchise clearly has no idea what it really wants to be, who to cater too, what direction to take it, etc. Super Metroid establishing a hardcore niche on the franchise seems to backfire on the series bigtime. By time Prime comes comes out, Nintendo is clearly more concerned with the casual audience, which in turn alienates the hardcore players to the Xbox/PS2. Casuals never seem to get into Niche games, and they sure as hell won't be able to get into Metroid because as I said before its not an easy franchise to get into (well, it was easy for me but w/e).

It jumps from a billion genres for no good reason at inopportune times, and in the end each one seems to not even remotely resemble each other or reference each other. From a presentation standpoint, it can be looked at a "WTF IS GOING ON" scenario. Of course, As I keep posting in the other thread, there is ALOT similar in the games that I kind of detest from an "evolve-the-series standpoint, but I'm talking about from the perspective of the casual gamer who will most likely be looking into Nintendo products in comparison to other gamers. Again, the hardcore gamers who even remember Super Metroid may be interested, but the rest have probably moved on from Nintendo entirely. Do you honestly believe a mother will buy her son/daughter a Metroid game? Most likely not, since the Mother has absoultely no clue what the franchise is about, and apparently the developers don't either.

When you play Halo, you know its Halo. When you play Mario, it has that charm that you know its Mario. With Dead Space, you know what you're getting, A Sci-fi Horror. With Resident Evil, you know for the most part what you're getting (yeah, #4 & #5 [and now number 6!] really did change the franchise, but even then its new direction knows where it's going: more Action). Metroid...? Yeah, not so much. It can't decide whether to cater to the casual crowd or the more hardcore crowd; its just drifting in limbo here. It can't decide if it wants a coherent story or not, alot of Metroids don't seem to reference or continue from each other further driving them apart. If they do continue from each other, the games in general are very bad at letting you know it if you were an average gamer with no real knowledge of the Metroid series. It can't decide if the series wants to have a darker/serious tone or a lighter one, more exploring or more action, 2D or 3D, etc. I feel like it shouldn't be this hard, hell Mario and his games can be whatever the fuck they want at any time of day of the year and there are still very few if any problems for the franchise as a whole, yet Metroid seems to have a lot of trouble doing the same.

So yeah, who the fuck knows, but this is just one of the many possible theories as to why Metroid doesn't get the recognition like other Nintendo titles.

[madnessImport]

(IMO) Its how the company advertises the game, the style of the game and the way the story is put out to the player.

Zelda and Final Fantasy are fantasy based games with good looking male Japanese characters and with all the hype Advertisements they pump out the fans are just screaming take my money. (There's also the fact that fangirls can pump out Yaoi for both the tittles, They cant do that with Samus being a girl)

Metroid's visual appeal were pretty low compared to other Sci-Fi shooters it deserved more than what it got.

I was just thinking about this kinda topic earlier, Metroid's FPS style in Prime was a turn off for many people but I liked it, Other M's Exploration style was a turn off for many fans but I dealt with it to finish the game. If Metroid were to stick to a COMPLETE Original Story in a new game it would seem like a rip off of a few other games too a fresh eye new to Metroid since a few well known games in its Genre are similar in back story.

There's also the fact that Metroid didn't have a N64 tittle, Most of my friends look to the 64 when they recite there childhood, some of them being female and constantly talking about how awesome Zelda Is. Ocarina of time was Fun but I wouldn't go back to play it more than 2 times. Majora's Mask on the other hand interested me to the fullest and I've finished it to count 19 times along side Prime 2. I wonder why MM is in shadow of OOT it was a bit more fun to actually utilize time to your advantage and with all those masks it was just awesome.

I feel like Yoshio Sakamoto and Nintendo are doing It all wrong when it comes to Metroid, maybe if they were to use some story from those manga's that are "widely accepted as a back story" they could rake in fans from all around. I always wondered why Samus aimlessly wandered around in prime looking as if she got hit with nostalgia cannon every time she sees a Chozo artifact and when I took a gander at the older games and manga I knew why, I always wondered why Samus and riddley fought and why Samus took that thing on instead of escaping, The manga is a JUICY way to explain that. If it weren't for riddley there could possibly be no Samus too.

There's been a rare few people in my past that I know of that had valid reasons as to why they didn't like Metroid others just say something stupid like X game is better and more people are playing X game it took many years to convince my friend that Metroid is a good game and he stopped down talking It, he only did because to him for a while the Wii was a Joke and because the Wii was a joke all other Nintendo consoles by default must have been just as bad meaning there games must be bad (One big vicious cycle)

I'm getting tired of hoping for the best for Metroid or Wishing the creators would so something to make it hyped and awesome not just for me but for everyone because as much as I love Zelda too I'm getting tired of the drug out "Save the fully capable princess" And vanquish the demon king story, its why I have yet to finish Skyward sword Or even return to Mario.

There's also those pesky motion controls, Most Nintendo games would be godly without the annoyance and chance of carpel tunnel syndrome..

[Zynux]

(IMO) Its how the company advertises the game, the style of the game and the way the story is put out to the player.

Zelda and Final Fantasy are fantasy based games with good looking male Japanese characters and with all the hype Advertisements they pump out the fans are just screaming take my money. (There's also the fact that fangirls can pump out Yaoi for both the tittles, They cant do that with Samus being a girl)

Um, what? First of all, how does fanfiction help contribute to the advertisement/popularity of a game franchise? No, more importantly, how does the fact that fanboys can't easily produce yaoi for Metroid is an indication that the franchise doesn't have the recognition that it deserves? Not to mention the fact that that would actually be pretty detrimental to Metroid because the target audience has always been male (same for pretty much most games out there). Therefore, the metroid fanbase would much rather NOT have Yaoi (I'm so mad that I typed that word twice in any of my posts) but instead artwork of Samus since she's a girl (obviously) and that most people who buy Metroid are males.

Metroid's visual appeal were pretty low compared to other Sci-Fi shooters it deserved more than what it got.

I completely and utterly disagree but w/e I don't feel like really getting into this one.

I was just thinking about this kinda topic earlier, Metroid's FPS style in Prime was a turn off for many people but I liked it, Other M's Exploration style was a turn off for many fans but I dealt with it to finish the game. If Metroid were to stick to a COMPLETE Original Story in a new game it would seem like a rip off of a few other games too a fresh eye new to Metroid since a few well known games in its Genre are similar in back story.

Well, it depends who you talk to. In the beginning yes Metroid Fans were a bit put off from Prime's FPS gameplay because it was so different. For other gamers, some people couldn't get into Prime because there wasn't enough shooting/explosions/cinematics/ etc. but it wasn't the fact that it was a FPS itself. In fact, making the game an FPS is imo how the game got much more recognition (especially in the West since we are obsessed with FPSs for some reason)

There's also the fact that Metroid didn't have a N64 tittle,

This I agree with, the fact that it never was released for the N64 definitely proved detrimental to the popularity of the series.

Most of my friends look to the 64 when they recite there childhood, some of them being female and constantly talking about how awesome Zelda Is. Ocarina of time was Fun but I wouldn't go back to play it more than 2 times. Majora's Mask on the other hand interested me to the fullest and I've finished it to count 19 times along side Prime 2. I wonder why MM is in shadow of OOT it was a bit more fun to actually utilize time to your advantage and with all those masks it was just awesome.

Annnnd you lost me. Trying to figure out how this is relevant in the least.

I feel like Yoshio Sakamoto and Nintendo are doing It all wrong when it comes to Metroid, maybe if they were to use some story from those manga's that are "widely accepted as a back story" they could rake in fans from all around. I always wondered why Samus aimlessly wandered around in prime looking as if she got hit with nostalgia cannon every time she sees a Chozo artifact and when I took a gander at the older games and manga I knew why, I always wondered why Samus and riddley fought and why Samus took that thing on instead of escaping, The manga is a JUICY way to explain that. If it weren't for riddley there could possibly be no Samus too.

Be careful what you wish for, while I believe the Manga portrayed Samus and the Metroid universe much better than Other M did many people still found the Manga to be pretty lame. Though I will say that the Metroid franchise in general could have done Samus' backstory much better than they've been doing so far.

I'm getting tired of hoping for the best for Metroid or Wishing the creators would so something to make it hyped and awesome not just for me but for everyone because as much as I love Zelda too I'm getting tired of the drug out "Save the fully capable princess" And vanquish the demon king story, its why I have yet to finish Skyward sword Or even return to Mario.

Admittingly, Other M was pretty hype (from what I saw anyway). Prime 3 corruption I thought was pretty hype as well, or atleast for me.

There's also those pesky motion controls, Most Nintendo games would be godly without the annoyance and chance of carpel tunnel syndrome..

I could go on a rant on motion controls in general, but despite that I'm still trying to find how that's relevant to the topic on hand. Especially since Prime 3 is one of the few Wii games for me that had likable, functional controls (except for the grapple beam).

[madnessImport]

The Yaoi/Fanfiction and Advertisement sentences weren't suppose to be connected I was just saying its the way they advertise (For really short amounts of time) and what the fans can do with the content they've been given later on.

The Yaoi thing was a bit of a rant though, I have many female friends who tell me stupid crap like games with female protagonists aren't as awesome BECAUSE they cant make Yaoi or they're not into women so the game isn't worth their time...I have other friends who play certain games JUST to imagine weird shit about the main male character.

I admit they did one Hell of a Job on Prime coming straight from 2D but looking at the models/Textures for Prime 3 outside of the game could have been better, but consoles do have limits. I'm not downing Retro's skills theirs just some things I would have upped the resolution on.

Me talking about Majoras mask was going off topic again sorry lol.

From my POV its how you encounter Metroid in the beginning up until the last/Current game as to how one would take the manga in (If they didn't read it first), I found the manga on OneManga about 5 years ago a bit after finishing prime 3, I read only one chapter (When Gray Bird was faking sides) and I didn't understand ANYTHING! Didn't like it at all, tried to avoid it, thought it was making Samus look immature and weak. I later returned to Read the manga after growing up and playing the old Games and it was quite enjoyable to see some Origin, emotion and better action its a reasonably logical back story for me.

Prime 3 was hype for me too but that was 5 years ago, other M...Not so much, I thought it would follow the manga but besides characters, The Powerups and speed of the Suit not so much.

Motion controls are relevant to the topic on hand because ALL of my close friends were turned off completely knowing they had to use the WiiMote, to this day my best friend tries to use the controls as a reason to make fun of Prime, Other M's controls were great and Prime 3 made perfect use of the Controls but that carpel tunnel crept up on me just as i was finishing the game, I have some good ideas for a great control system that involves looking in an enemy's general direction + Holding a button, Kinda like how GTA does it.

[Dark Samus Aran]

I think they dont like it because maybe the whole thing of Samus being a woman. and because there all apparently "based on the same crap" but they need to like it. its actioned packed. with amazing bosses... better than bowser or ganondorf... BY FAR!

[Infinity's End]

Motion controls are relevant to the topic on hand because ALL of my close friends were turned off completely knowing they had to use the WiiMote, to this day my best friend tries to use the controls as a reason to make fun of Prime, Other M's controls were great and Prime 3 made perfect use of the Controls but that carpel tunnel crept up on me just as i was finishing the game, I have some good ideas for a great control system that involves looking in an enemy's general direction + Holding a button, Kinda like how GTA does it.

Wrist discomfort/pain ≠ CTS. Do your research. Only a very misinformed, uneducated (possibly young) person would tell you that.

That said, I will admit, playing MP3 for a long period of time (2-3 hours or more) I did receive some wrist discomfort. I felt it was my body's telling me to take a break, and thus I did. MP3's control scheme is beyond brilliant and afaik, hasn't been matched by any FPS on the system. The only games that I think come close are the Conduit games.

[sockmonkey]

I'm thinking part of it is that with regard to world-building, the details are both sparse and inconsistent.

If it's just one or the other you can get away with it.

A rich universe having a few incosistencies isn't a deal-breaker since you have plenty of good stuff to fall back on to provide a feel for the setting.

A small amount of details are also ok as long as they're consistent since they at least provide a solid base for your imagination to take off from.

When it's a handfull of contradictory fragments people feel lost because they have no idea what the setting is supposed to be.

[LesserChozo]

Please elaborate with examples.

[sockmonkey]

The Metroid cannon is self-contrdictory at times in that the primes didn't mesh well with the 2-D ones so fans don't know what they should consider authoritative which makes it hard to see the Metroid-verse as real.
It probably didn't help that the plot of fusion was basically the same as that of MOM and that MZM was too similar to SM. The first three 2-D games were consistent and told a simple, but cogerent story.
Had Prime taken place after SM in the timeline then it could have worked.
Doing a single prequal like MZM would have been ok had they not tried to shoehorn all the Prime stuff in the middle of the 2-D series. Then we get Fusion, then we go backwards again to MOM.

[Death Recon]

Games always jump around in time. CoD has two storylines in different time periods that have nothing to do with each other. The first three are WWII, the fourth is in modern times, the fifth is in WWII, the sixth is modern, the seventh is during Vietnam, the eight is, again, modern, and the ninth is going to be in the future. Your argument is invalid.

[sockmonkey]

Games always jump around in time. CoD has two storylines in different time periods that have nothing to do with each other. The first three are WWII, the fourth is in modern times, the fifth is in WWII, the sixth is modern, the seventh is during Vietnam, the eight is, again, modern, and the ninth is going to be in the future. Your argument is invalid.

Your analogy is bad. CoD being based on our world and mostly our time period means everyone is already familliar enough with how things are supposed to work and when things happened.
Furthermore, Metroid is trying to follow a specific person along her timeline so the stories HAVE to all tie together. In CoD the stories don't need to tie together if all the protagonists are different. It's like saying the parts of a novel don't have to fit together since a collection of short stories don't have to.

[Death Recon]

My point is that people don't have a problem with confusing stories whose plotlines don't match up at all. I get bothered by the fact that the games can't stay focused on one character at a time or that it's full of a million plotholes. Either the majority of people who play them don't notice or never even played the campaign.

[8diagrams]

Quality is not a problem. Opinions aside (I actually liked Other M and Hunters) all Metroid games are of high quality. As far as the West is concernced, it's not part of the "hardcore" market (ex: COD, Halo, Gears of War, God of War, etc.) As for Japan, I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the drastic difference in atmosphere, on a whole, from Metroid and other Nintendo franchises?
Perhaps Nintendo's "kiddie" image turned away some who looked at how "dark" Metroid could be and didn't give enough time to really find out. It saddens me, though, that some gamers won't give the series a try simply because it doesn't hold their hands enough. IMO, it's an absolutely incredible franchise.

You got it. Metroid is a title for hardcore gamers that is owned by a company that has historically looked into marketing exclusively into a family/kid/casual market. Metroid is a scifi title featuring aliens, violence...basically the exact opposite. Metroid has been very low in their list of priorities and they simply do not push the title with that much effort unfortunately. Hardcore gamers that would go nuts for games like this simply are not exposed to the game because a lot of them do not consider a nintendo console an option. I bet if you take the prime series back in time in PS or Xbox the thing would have a large following.

Now metroid is a great franchise that deserves far more exposure. With current tech the casual gamer is fading from the scene exclusively into mobile/tablets, Nintendo is slightly starting to shift towards presenting titles for the hardcore crowd to balance out the lineup and not exclude hardcore gamers which is the way to go. Naturally a Metroid title would compliment titles liek zombiU etc. A online multiplayer community also would gather people pretty fast and would be a nice way to use the nintendo network.

[Thunderchin]

The Metroid Fan's version of this sentence:
Metroid: we dare to be different from everything else on the market by combining a good (if non-continuous) storyline with exciting action sequences and actual gameplay instead of stupid-ass cinematics. We also make the player find his own way around, which as we recall was part of the challenge (which is itself the whole fucking point) of a video game. We also aren't one of the goddamn cash cow franchises that has to pump out a hastily-done shitty game every year.

The average gamer's version of this sentence:
Metroid: we apparently suck because we don't have naked women, one-liners, explosions, more explosions, even more and bigger explosions, fast-paced gameplay focused more on combat and action, and we don't do away with the challenge of finding your own goddamn way around.

Now, I know a lot of "average gamers" around here. That is almost exactly what they all say about Metroid. But the ones I do manage to finally play it all become fans. Too bad that's only 10%...the rest are all in the CoDfap zone...that's what gaming has become nowadays, it's devolved from reasonable expectation and challenge and story that you could lose entire weekends to, to a social experience and fighting your friends and making it into a movie...Metroid, I think, has been left behind in the evolutionary cycle of gaming. Therefore the gamers don't go for it, therefore Nintendo doesn't consider it worth their time, vicious cycle ensues.

[Doc Scratch]

I don't know. They tried to reverse the trend with Other M. They had a huge advertising campaign, the help of a popular studio, and the inclusion of terrible quick-time events and long, unskippable "cinematic" cutscenes that gamers like for God-knows-what reason.

And yet it still didn't sell very well.