I am a franchise freak. I love seeing my favorite characters return to the screen, game after game. Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest…hell, Rachet & Clank! Seeing the mix of the familiar and the new still tends to excite me.
Unfortunately, a good series has to walk a very thin line. Fans have very strict expectations for a series, but also want new innovation and new challenges in every new installment. It must be difficult for the game designers to satisfy what fans want without allowing the series to stagnate.
The people over at Microscopic are wondering about the innovate/stagnate balance with Metroid. In “Where Now Samus? Metroid’s Next Revolution,” they ponder:
You’d think I’d know how to feel about Metroid Prime by now.As one of the few first person shooter heroines that’s more brains than bustline, Samus Aran is certainly to be applauded. And the triumphant transition of the Metroid franchise from 2D to 3D is still unsurpassed. Couple that with Metroid Prime 3’s tight armchair FPS controls and a world that’s full of beautiful, tactile touches that use the Wiimote just right and it’s paradise, no?
Well, kinda. And that’s where I always get stuck. Because in Metroid, you’re playing detective — exploring burned out space hulks and abandoned planets — a kind of future archeologist trying to piece together what happened after the fact. When Metroid is at its best, you feel the elation of an outer space Indiana Jones dusting off the Lost Ark (like in steampunk Skytown). When it doesn’t, you just feel lost — in a maze of beautifully different but functionally identical rooms, tracking and back tracking ad nauseam (find the energy cells, Indy!).
That’s when the ugly questions come out: Just how many times can Samus lose all her powers before she gives up getting them back again?And it’s in those moments that you have to worry; worry about whether all the rust coming off Metroid Prime 3 means that the series really doesn’t have another go-round in it — at least not a very interesting one.
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I wonder if Samus hasn’t become a prisoner of expectations. A perfect example is fan reaction to the biggest departure in MP3: the not-so-solitary G.F.S. Olympus segments. “That’s not Metroid!” they screamed, and they were right.
I remember feeling the same way about Tomb Raider. While I credit Tomb Raider with being the stepping stone game that introduced me to RPGs, the years were not kind to Lara Croft. I remember becoming more and more frustrated before finally laying Tomb Raider to rest a few years back. I have heard other reports of this with Final Fantasy - but since I missed the first eight games of the series, I think I have a while to go before the plots and settings start feeling old hat to me.
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