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The Very Hungry Metroid (Ravenous)

RT-55J

RT-55J

space hero for hire
(He/Him + RT/artee)
As prophesied by the government of Brazil, a new 2D Metroid game is imminent (January 28, 2027):

PtDkanK.png


Wait, sorry, gimme a sec...

...okay, here it is:


It's taken a while, but it looks like us freaks in the audience are finally getting the game where Samus's metroidification is mechanically prominent that we've been wanting since Fusion came out.

The developer for this is still (technically) unconfirmed, but by all appearances this is MercurySteam iterating on Dread by leaning into their core competencies and stupidities,* with high-octane action gameplay and elaborately choreographed cutscenes/QTEs of Samus doing action-hero nonsense like dishing out a Kamen Rider kick on a literal Space Ninja (yes, that's what they're actually called (I demand royalties)).

Is this trailer wholly indicative of the game's direction, or will the game also have a more contemplative and exploratory side? That is probably the case, but we'll have to wait to see if it meaningfully improves upon Dread in those aspects.

*I say this somewhat endearingly.
 
I didn't dislike Dread, but my biggest criticism is that its exploration was not particularly satisfying. Even though there was a sizeable map, I always felt like I was limited to one particular path at any given time. If Ravenous can improve on that, it'll be worthwhile in my book.
 
Looks like Nintendo has finally gotten over its Other M-induced fear of giving Samus more than a line or two of dialogue.
 
MercurySteam's interpretation of the series is so far away from what I would ever want from it that I can only shake my head when presented with them leaning ever more towards their prime inclinations. The trajectory across now three games seems to be that their driving force is "hype moments and aura" more than anything else; whereas Prime as a series existed in a culture of Halo envy, for a showing like this that's choreographed to metal guitar riffs and ultraviolence kills, it feels like chasing after the 2016 Doom reboot and its progeny in sensibility and intent.
 
I'm a bit divided on this. Gonna do a bit of a Homer here
+ On one hand it's Metroid 6, and if its controls are as buttery smooth as they were in Dread, man...
- ...but it looks like it'll be even more focused on combat, and way too difficult bosses yet again, or perhaps even more 😔
+ and it's cool to have the ability to heal eating enemies...
- ..but it looks like it'll be an excuse to remove normal health pickups? Only "aether" recovery yellow dots seem to appear in the trailer. So you may have to kill enemies with special finishers every time if you want to heal? Hope not.

RT-55J said:
The developer for this is still (technically) unconfirmed, but by all appearances this is MercurySteam iterating on Dread by leaning into their core competencies and stupidities,* with high-octane action gameplay and elaborately choreographed cutscenes/QTEs of Samus doing action-hero nonsense like dishing out a Kamen Rider kick on a literal Space Ninja (yes, that's what they're actually called (I demand royalties)).
Click to expand...
Then there's the fact that MercurySteam is no stranger to treating its workers to awful conditions and then mass firing. There was already a scandal when Dread came out as they did not credit employees that had left, and reports of crunch and poor conditions... then they had a mass firing just 2 months ago.

lincolnic said:
I didn't dislike Dread, but my biggest criticism is that its exploration was not particularly satisfying. Even though there was a sizeable map, I always felt like I was limited to one particular path at any given time. If Ravenous can improve on that, it'll be worthwhile in my book.
Click to expand...
Same, but it'll probably follow the Fusion and Dread school of full linearity with little allowed exploration/backtracking segments, as a treat, until right before the final boss.

SpoonyBard said:
Looks like Nintendo has finally gotten over its Other M-induced fear of giving Samus more than a line or two of dialogue.
Click to expand...
That's good, yeah! Then again it may be only for the trailer? Hope not.

I don't particularly enjoy the badass action aesthetics it's been tending towards either....
So, who am I fooling, I'll probably eventually buy it... but with no urgency whatsoever.
 
Honestly, the Dread reveal and trailers showed a game that was much more Xtreme and Badical than the one we actually ended up playing. The attitude is there, but you've also got classic Metroid atmosphere like exploring a strange abandoned alien city while rain peppers against the windows in the background.

Dread does the Fusion thing at first where it focuses you a little too tightly and I chaffed against that, but it does open up sooner than you think and it hits all the right parts of my brain that Super does. I also grew to appreciate the boss fights. It takes a lot of cues from Fusion there as well, but is actually fair about it.
 
I'm looking forward to this. Dread wasn't my favorite but it's still in the upper half of the series I think. I preferred it to the Prime series. I don't particularly like the 'badass Samus' stuff Mercury Stream does after bosses, but I did like the way it handled Samus in the story cutscenes.

I don't care for the "shapely leggings with a leotard cut" look of the new power suit design much though.
 
I patently do not like the "combat" of Mercury Steam Metroid games, but I thought Dread had a good balance. You never stopped having to counter in goddamned Metroid: Samus Returns, but I did feel you got to appropriate levels of "I'm an invincible space bounty hunter" in Dread toward the end. Metroid Prime Origins reminded me recently that I do not give a goddamned molecule of care about Metroid combat when Samus is just naturally a human tank, but I did like the balance found in Dread. I hope that continues.

Having replayed Dread last year, I am cautiously optimistic. I liked that one on replay more than I did at release.

(And I absolutely am not going to base any "this is what the game is going to be" opinions on the trailer. Of course the cinematic guys are going to feature the cinematic sections in the trailer. That's what a trailer is.)

Regulus said:
I don't care for the "shapely leggings with a leotard cut" look of the new power suit design much though.
Click to expand...

This, however, I absolutely hate. Samus is Donald Ducking it, and that feels weird.

NOT AT ALL EDITED TO ADD: One thing that always sticks in my mind with game design is that bit when you are in the "metroid room" of Metroid Fusion. You have to use the space jump to escape on a counter, and, since you "are" a metroid, the space jellyfish do not bother you. But, if you bump into one, it interrupts your space jump, and you will likely fall and lose some vertical progress. And, like, it feels bad. I hate it... But in the good way that I acknowledge the metroids as an obstacle. And that doesn't require countering or even losing health, but you can feel the "loss condition" of messing up in there. I dunno, just thinking about that and how I would be okay with an invincible Samus that just has to deal with "hassles" while exploring a planet. She doesn't need to fight space ninja.
 
Metroid Dread feels so good to move around in, and the trailer showed that the Flash Shift is also in Metroid Ravenous, so I'm going to play it. Simple as.
 
Dread felt like a good enough return to 2D form that I really enjoyed it and it's up there with my favorites. But I'm an odd duck, Zero Mission is actually my favorite in the series as opposed to Super, and I speed ran that game at least a few dozen times perfecting my runs. A lot of offshoot paths in Dread did end up feeling very linear, but there was still a lot of margin where I could 100% the game and still make good time. I think Samus just felt more agile than ever. I need to boot up the game soon and make sure I'm right on this.

All that said, I'm looking forward to giving Ravenous: The Hungry, Hungry Samus a shot and keep an open mind about it.
 
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This looks like Dread 2, which is to say: it looks OK.

I don't think this is quite how anyone here would've directed the series, but mostly I'm just happy the series lives on and in a form that is semi-recognizable. Would that the same could be said for Final Fantasy and Castlevania.
 
It does seem from the trailer like more of what they did on Dread, stylistically and combat-wise—no surprise. The real question for me is how they've addressed the map and exploration thereof: interconnectedness, secrets, tools gating progress naturally, linearity, sequence breaking. i.e. that metroidvanianess I felt was lacking from Dread. I hope they reel it in and remember what made Metroid so great (and they needn't even dial back the combat to do that!).
 
I will say, GETTING RUN THROUGH is a much more acceptable reason for starting point depowering than some previous reasons
 
By this point it'd make verisimilitudinous sense (if not narratively exciting) if there were some recurring cause

A sort of molting process, perhaps, with Chozo x Metroid weirdness..
 
Kalista said:
By this point it'd make verisimilitudinous sense (if not narratively exciting) if there were some recurring cause

A sort of molting process, perhaps, with Chozo x Metroid weirdness..
Click to expand...
Samus Aran as a galactic Phoenix?
 
I just think it's funny that if Metroid is channeling the general vibe of Alien, then we've arrived at Alien Resurrection here, in more ways than one, and for better and for worse.

I'll be picking it up because of course I will but I'm not excited for it. There is no hype. I did not particularly care for Dread and this appears to be Moar Dread. My favorite aspect of Metroid is the exploration, where I can just luxuriate in the environments and puzzles, criss-crossing across maps when I find a new ability (in a classic Legend of Zelda kind of way), and enjoying the overall vibe, the strangeness of these caverns and crevices and weird shit. With Dread, exploration took a fairly boilerplate backseat - unless you're David Jaffe, I guess el oh el - and they replaced it with Action Game whatevers. Wasn't terrible, also wasn't what I want from Metroid. And I said unto Nintendo, "Hey guys, can you just not?" And NIntendo said unto me, "4-So, Dread is the top selling game in the franchise, so you can go fuck yourself." And you know what? That's fair.

Of course, it's just a trailer, by definition made to generate hype, so maybe it'll be something different in practice. Hoping for a least one of those mini-Directs before January to give us a bit more of a look.

I do wonder why it is Switch 2 only. Appears to be the kind of thing that would run on a Switch Original but maybe I missed some details in the trailer.
 
SpoonyBard said:
Samus: I'm literally burning to death I need to activate Varia.

Adam: lol no
Click to expand...
IIRC, that was a product of the English localization, and was kind of inverted in the Japanese version, wasn't it?

Not in any way that was better, but just to put that out there...

Anyway, I don't know. Looks neat, but this one isn't clicking with me. At least, not yet.
 
Kalista said:
By this point it'd make verisimilitudinous sense (if not narratively exciting) if there were some recurring cause
Click to expand...

A lot of Samus's adventures end with her powersuit "overclocking", usually with the hyper beam appearing. I am confident in assuming that a gameplay-relevant number of powers deactivate about seven seconds after she gets back to the ship. The only game that really avoided that entirely was Metroid Fusion, as more or less the point of that adventure was Samus trying to make herself whole again. She needed bad bird dad to knock her down a peg after that.
 
4-So said:
I do wonder why it is Switch 2 only. Appears to be the kind of thing that would run on a Switch Original but maybe I missed some details in the trailer.
Click to expand...
They're trying to move people onto the new system, which is sorely lacking in exclusive titles.
 
LBD_Nytetrayn said:
IIRC, that was a product of the English localization, and was kind of inverted in the Japanese version, wasn't it?

Not in any way that was better, but just to put that out there...

Anyway, I don't know. Looks neat, but this one isn't clicking with me. At least, not yet.
Click to expand...
IIRC, in the original dialogue of Other M, Samus is implied to be passive-aggressively refusing to activate the Varia until Adam expressly orders her to like a teenager quietly rebelling against her helicopter parent. That tone didn't make it into the translation.
 
While that might be marginally better writing, I strongly believe that that one video essay where people are getting these ideas about Other M's translation was greatly exaggerating its claims.
 
Anyhow, speaking of voice acting, I've heard speculation that Samus's voice in the trailer was done by Erin Yvette, who voiced Samus in Prime 4 (yes, really), which is interesting because that would mark the first time that mainline Metroid and the Prime series shared any VA. It's odd to see the two series coordinate like that.
 
I discussed some of this thread with a friend, and she was shocked and offended that people consider Dread linear, ha
What? Linear???
There are sequence break animations
The devs put in full on cinematics assuming you will sequence break
Click to expand...
I'd better go play it myself and figure out where I sit in the spectrum of opinion 😸 (I wonder if it's a difference between a casual and an enthusiast playthrough...)
 
The big problem with Dread is that while it's map is intricate and convoluted and multilayered, it's signposting and railroading is heavyhanded enough that if you are able to read it you can basically play through 90% of the game on autopilot without ever gaining a proper understanding of the map. In formal terms it's much closer to Super than Fusion in terms of its unfolded structure, but it doesn't feel like that unless you put in some concerted effort to peel away at it. (Fusion, while being much more linear, is much more willing to omit obvious signposting and railroading during its individual scenarios.)
 
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