Press B 216: Is Metroid Prime actually bad?

What happens when Jake writes the episode summary each week? He drops COLD HARD TRUTHS! Like how Metroid Prime might actually be bad. The rest of Press B likely disagrees, but lets find out this week as we discuss and rank every Metroid game in the franchise. Which ones stand the test of time? Watch and find out!

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Transcript: Chard: All right, fellas, let's jump in that intergalactic spaceship and let's go hunt some space pirates and some floating jelly beans. I don't know what they are, but we're going to talk about them today. Metroid catalog and the tier ranking system today on.

Jake: They're damn delicious. That's what they are.

Chard: Wow. Hello and welcome, everybody, to another episode of Press be to cancel. I am your host this evening, Chardmonk. With me, as always, are three out of the four greatest people I know on the planet Earth, zeebs and other numerically alphanumeric planets that we're going to land on during this discussion. Sick Jake, werewolf, and my boy guy prime. Guys, how are we all doing today? Sick Jake, how are you doing today, sir?

Jake: Great. Glads Friday, as always. Really looking forward to kind of running down these games. I love this franchise.

Chard: Excellent. Werewolf, how about you, sir?

Wulff: I'm doing pretty darn good. I just got a new prescription for my glasses yesterday. I'll have those in a couple weeks. And I just beat bloodstained, so.

Chard: Wow, everything's coming up. Milhouse. Yes, DP, how are you, my friend?

GP: Doing great. Feeling wonderful. Glad to be here. I love french fries.

Chard: French fries are delicious. Samesies treat samesies.

Jake: Fries are good.

Chard: Get. Fries are good. The local, the local canadian fries are good.

Jake: Let me tell you guys about poutine. Have you guys ever had poutine before? They have poutine down there.

Chard: Listen, this is a Christiane. This is a christian podcast. Let's not talk.

GP: Yeah, we're not the seven minutes in, don't be bringing up, I don't know.

Wulff: If we want to make that association right now.

Chard: As you, as Jake mentioned, we are going to be talking about one of our favorite franchises. Wolf has got it subtly placed in his background. I am also wearing it on, bearing it on my chest right now. We're going to talk Metroid. And initially we were going to kind of discuss a couple of our favorite games out of the tier. We thought about a Mount Rushmore thing. We thought about ranking brackets, but we just did a brackets not too long ago. So what we're going to do is something mildly different but still very popular amongst the children and the gen Zers these days. We're going to, we're going to do a tier system. A tier system of, I believe. Is it Jake, is it every game in the, in the catalog?

Jake: I mean, if it's in the Wikipedia, then it's on my list.

Chard: Yes.

Jake: Just like what the kids like.

Chard: Fantastic. So Gen Z will definitely be following.

Jake: From Wikipedia and rank things.

Chard: We're gonna bring that Riz. No, Cap?

GP: Yeah, I need to. I need to change some of my things.

Jake: Like let him know it's gibbony Riz now, right? Isn't that what it is? Yeah.

Chard: Wow. You want to see four old dudes talk? Totally out.

Wulff: Gibbity outhouse. Right?

GP: That's what it is. My dad. But I hate you, son.

Chard: Yeah. All right, well, I don't know. We're going to go in particular order. I'm assuming we'll go by the year and we'll just start with the first one and kind of travel away. So I guess the process will be, we'll call out the ranking of what we think, discuss the game. If we've played it, there's a good possibility that it's on the list, but we haven't touched it. We've already admitted to a few. And then are we just. You're going to just pick. The four of us will have our letter numbers up here, Jake. Is that what the plan is?

Jake: We can all agree, I think, on ABCD or s tier. I think. I think we all agree on everything.

Chard: For the most part, or single grade.

Jake: For each title of this episode.

Chard: You just want us to argue about something. That's fine.

Wulff: I have a question. If we're ranking these, are we ranking them against the franchise or are we ranking them as video games in general?

GP: Because it gets.

Wulff: Dude. Yeah.

Jake: Well, okay.

Chard: I assume it was against the franchise.

GP: Just because on their own merits.

Chard: Really think so?

Wulff: Well, because they're like, they're all going to be A's and B's at worst for the most part, if we do that. But if we're ranking them against the rest of the franchise, I think there's going to be a little more variation.

Jake: I think I agree with Wolf on that one. Yeah, I agree.

GP: I'm.

Jake: I mean, they're all great game. Well, most of them are great games.

GP: So that throws all my stuff just right out.

Chard: Let me get my. Let me get my tear.

Jake: If you want, I can pull up some mystery envelopes. We can just shake this really up, you know?

GP: Okay.

Jake: Let me tell you.

GP: What did this thing end up coming up with the voting machine?

Wulff: It came out 50 50, and that was with Jake voting in it as well.

Chard: I also vote. I actually. I actually made it 50, so you're welcome.

Jake: Did you? Yeah.

Chard: Yeah. Because after I.

Jake: Yes. Game. But that's. That's fine.

Chard: Don't believe you. All right, let's get through this list. We got. We got to. Sure. We got at least ten minutes to get through this list.

GP: Yeah, let's do this.

Chard: All right.

Jake: It's fine. It's fine.

Chard: All right. So, first off, obviously, is the. The predecessor to all Metroidvanians. It is Metroid. It is Metroid. Metroid one from 1986. Metroid hits this, the Nintendo, not the super, the Nintendo entertainment System. And blowing us all away with not only the fact that it was, it was a backtracking, you know, puzzler game back then. We also found out the protagonist was female, which was pretty unusual for the time. Usually, you know, somebody in a full suit of armor to typically was a male. Was a male protagonist, but at the end, took her helmet off, and it was Samus. Samus was a chick, and we all flipped out about it. I thought that was a cool. A cool thing, that they're back in 86. So what are our rankings on Metroid? I'm going to give Metroid. I want to give it an a or b, personally. It's obviously got its issues, a lot of. A lot of problems with it, but with the problems comes some really cool shit. I wouldn't call it polished because it is an eight bit, you know, first time metropolitan vanian and working through it. But, man, without it, you wouldn't have any of the other cool stuff. You wouldn't have the bloodstains. You wouldn't have Castlevania, Symphony of the nights. You wouldn't have, like, all that really cool stuff, the stuff we play now that we. We play fairly religiously. So I'm leaning on an a or a b for. For Metroid, for myself, you know, I.

Jake: Don'T know what this one. I know you got to respect it for being the first one in the franchise, but if I were to play this game again, I have beaten it a couple times, but if I were to play it again, there's a really great ROM hack that adds a map to it, because without a map, this sucks, right. And without the ability to save, just. Just the thought of that password screen keeps me up in sweats at night like, it's. The passwords were the worst with this when you were a kid, and the lack of a map was. Was a slap in the face, especially when there's multiple areas, like corridors that look identical, they look the same, colors, tiles, everything. And without a map, it's very confusing. I think this is a game that was implemented much better later on. I respect it for what it is, but I would never play it again today in 2024 without that hack, to give you a map, honestly, I think it's more of a c or a d, to be honest with you. Maybe a diphthere. I like.

Chard: Really? You're really good. Really kicking it in the shins there.

Wulff: Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna meet you guys in the middle there, and I'm gonna say it's a b or a c. And that's because, for me, while, yes, it is dated, you have to think this game came out in, what, 86? So for the technological limitations of the time, you have to think of all the wild shit they did to make this game fit on a cartridge. And it's a massive game. It's a huge map.

Chard: They.

Wulff: They really played some programming tricks on that little NES cartridge to make it work, and they did a really good job. And this was also the age of when, you know, you whipped out a piece of graph paper and you mapped out the games a lot of the time.

Chard: Right.

Wulff: So this was not something that was foreign at the time. Back then, it was like, I got to make a map. I got to write down the pat. You had a book of passwords, and you had a book of maps, right?

GP: Yeah.

Wulff: It kind of fits for the time, but, yeah, it does show its age. However, like, again, this was the first of the Metroidvanias, really, in terms of what we think of them now. Yeah, there were, like, one or two that came before, but this is the one that really kicked off the popularity. And even back when I was a kid and I sucked at this game, I wanted to play it so much like, I play it pretty regularly and always terrible at it and still went back for more, like. So that says something for it.

GP: Right on. Yeah, I agree. Out of all you guys, most with Wolfenhe, I'm going to rank this to be. I think it's very analogous to the original NES Final Fantasy for what it was at the time that it came out. It was wildly impressive graphically. It did what it was supposed to do. They really used the extent of the cartridge, you know, to what they knew about. Hold on a second.

Jake: Yeah, but the original Final Fantasy was good, though.

GP: Okay.

Wulff: But I like that it's all fantasy, clunky and.

Chard: Yeah, very buggy.

GP: And it had things, you know, again, analogous to. Well, it didn't have a map. Well, Final Fantasy, if you were aiming at a bad guy that died, you know, between the time that you selected to attack him and your turn, it was a missed turn. So they've re released it and fixed those kind of things, and they've done that with. With Metroid. You know, there's ports or various versions that have the map, so I'm going to put it at b. I love the game. I think what they accomplished was great. I think laying the foundation for the graphics as well as the music was a very impressive feat in and of itself.

Jake: Yes.

GP: So I lean much more into the b than a c, but conversely, it's not an a. So I think b is right.

Jake: So it is technically impressive for a game, for sure. I like, I love how even. It uses all the buttons on the damn controller. Right? Like, even for missiles, you have to hit select, I believe. Right. So it takes advantage of everything they give you. I do like how the map is huge. The finding of the missile tanks, the e tanks, all that hidden secrets. There's a lot there. I mean, this is, this is the Metroid in Metrovania. This is what defines the genre. So I definitely appreciate it. I just. I. Look, we couldn't afford graph paper in Canada. Okay?

GP: That's why you have it. I grew up with d and D players. Like, how to do this shit. I did not do it, but the people around me did. I also want to say in the sacred timeline, this is where it branched into. This is. Okay, if you're a completionist, there's no way that you know that. Before Metroid comes out. Yeah, I think that's where, like, that thing got awoken. And some of us were like, no, I have to do all of it.

Chard: Yeah, well, shit, you didn't even know the stuff was out there. Like, it took. It took somebody showing you. It's the first example of, like, we all played Baldur's gate three together and found that there were things that nobody else did. Yeah, that was the first of it, of being like, did you find this missile tank or this e. This e tank over here? Like, what? No, I didn't know it was there. And then you have to backtrack and go find it and. Yeah, and then just, like GP said, it just unlocks that completionist in you to go and hunt that stuff down. So this. This was the first, um. The first time of my life that I spent way too much time of my life on something I shouldn't have.

GP: Well, and I'll talk more about this later, but also the sequence breaking, which I didn't know about as a kid, but that's a whole other sub genre that is just.

Chard: I mean, think about. Think about growing up and having so many linear games in front of you. Final Fantasy being one of them, you know, you. You have to do things in a certain order to progress. This was one of the. This was one of the first groups of games where there was you. You could go, I don't know how true. Metroid, the first Metroid is obviously, in later installations, there were different variations. We could almost. We can almost claim that it got more like open world a little bit. It's still very linear, don't get me wrong. But we can also discuss that this was the first chance of, like, being able to freely explore in other areas, at least in later installments, that that allowed for that until, you know, Zelda came along and did the same thing. So these are the kind of games.

GP: That did that, but you have the option to explore. Yeah.

Chard: Right?

Jake: Yeah, I do. Like how it's not a straight up platformer. Like, there is more freedom of movement in how you tackle certain areas that. That's fair. So I guess we're leaning towards b. I guess I can't talk you guys.

Chard: Down to a c. No, no.

Jake: All right. Okay.

Wulff: I mean, I'd go b minus, but okay.

Chard: I mean, sure.

GP: How about double b's?

Jake: Double B's. Okay.

Chard: All right.

Jake: I can live with a b. It's far. B minus. That's fine. I think. I mean, you can't. You can't not respect the damn game that made the franchise. I get it.

Chard: Right? Okay. Yeah. I'm going to be honest with you. This next one that came out, I'm a big fan of, but I don't think a lot of people are. And it makes me sad because I really enjoyed this installation of the game. I thought it was really cool. 1991, we had Metroid two return of Samus on the Game Boy, the black and white original game Boy. This game burned many a battery out in my game Boy. I played the everliving crap out of this, and eventually in my adult life, went out and got the badge for it where you actually had to beat it in under 2 hours. So that was pretty cool. I really enjoyed playing the game. Yeah, well, you know, streaming allows for all kinds of different abilities that it didn't allow in the past. You know, you have 30 minutes game times when you're younger, when you're 42, you could sit in front of your computer for two and a half hours and nobody says boo to you until, you know, it's one in the morning and you have to go to work. But that's different. I really like the aspect of this game. I know it's in black and white. It's its original Game Boy. You know, it is what it is. Or green and white, whichever, you know, whichever version you're playing it on. But I thought the. I really, really thought the mutations of the Metroids found on the. On the Metroid home planet was a really, really cool aspect. And I liked having to hunt those guys down. It really changed up the way things were done. It just seemed really cool. And I. And it felt like there was always an achievement to go out and find, regardless in the game, because you were just exploring new areas and finding out where the metroids were and. And taking them down as you went. So I. I would give this one, and this is me. I don't expect anybody to follow along with me on this one, but I am going to skew the medium a little bit. I'm giving this one an a because I had a lot of fun with this one. Yep. I had a ton of fun with this chart.

Jake: I.

Chard: It. Don't worry, the next one will definitely not be an a. It'll be much higher. But I really like this game. And again, I don't expect anybody to come along with me on this ride. And I'm sure everybody thinks that it's as 90 even think that. But the gameplay, the fun in it, it had a map, even the music was pretty good in certain areas when it wasn't just ambient beepings and bloopings. I love this game. This is one of my favorite Game Boy games that was released back. Back in the nineties. So come with me on this trip if you want to. I'm not going to convince anybody to join me because there is a different version of this later on in the list, but yeah.

GP: Yeah, I was going to say, didn't they redo this with the Super Nintendo equivalency or.

Jake: No, it was on three deciseconds. It was the same company that later did Metroid dread, and I played the three deciseconds one. We'll get to it. I have some words with that one, but.

Chard: You don't have to like it. I'm giving it.

Jake: I don't. So I'm gonna. Again, you know what? Much like the first game, this one is very technically impressive for the Game Boy. Like, they do a lot with the Game Boy. I'm always impressed with every great game Boy game and what they squeeze out of those cartridges. And I'll give you. The music is okay for the Game Boy. And the sprites look really good. Like, you have a full size work.

Chard: On the Game Boy. You gotta say is pretty. Damn. It's almost better than the Nintendo sprite work on there.

Jake: What? It. What? What threw me off of this game, and I didn't like it. I've eaten it once, and I'll never go through it again. I didn't like hunting the Metroids. I hated how it was a counter and you had to find them all. I just found that really tedious to the point, and I didn't like it. I felt a lot of them were very much the same. Right. There's different variations, mutations, but they're mostly the same. And I got. I got really bored of this one. I got really tired of it. So I. I don't know what to give it.

Wulff: So for my end, this is a game I didn't get to try till I was kind of older. Like, I tried it a little bit at a friend's house who. He absolutely loved it. I had a number of friends as a kid who loved this game. I have friends now who loved this game, and I am. I've never been a huge fan of the way it plays, and that's just because of the game Boy technical limitations. Like, it's. It's rough. I don't mind the counter, though. I do think it's weird that there's only, like, 50 metroids on SR 388. Like, they're kind of an apex species. How are there just a handful of them? Yeah, but, uh.

Chard: Can't kill everything. Yes. I don't know, but, uh.

Wulff: Yeah, like, I like the idea of where they went with it. It was cool that it was put on Game Boy for the second one. And did that one give you a map in the game?

Chard: I thought it did. I could have sworn that there was a map in that game, but it may not. It may be in a later installment, but I remember for some reason, looking at it. Yeah, I think there is one. Because when I played it for retro achievements, I was like, I got to figure out where the hell how to get up to here and this there that. I swear, not. Okay. I don't know. Oh, you know what I was doing? I was looking on a map online. Never mind. Disregard. But, I mean, I had a map, but it wasn't in the game, so never mind.

Wulff: I will say, mechanically, they improved on Metroid when they put it on Game Boy.

Jake: Yes.

Chard: That's.

Wulff: That's pretty damn awesome. So, while it's not a game that resonates with me, I do think it. It is deserving of a good grade.

Chard: I think it's crazy that they didn't release two on the Nintendo or something during that time. I I always thought it was weird that it just fell on the Game Boy and then they just kind of left it there. It was almost like it. It was almost, it almost went like over everybody's heads that, you know, the next one is obviously the third of the installment, but it was just like Samus or return of Samus on the game.

Wulff: I don't know if you remember, but.

Chard: Like, which one is that?

Wulff: Saturday morning cartoons and Disney afternoon were absolutely littered with commercials for this game when it was came, when it was released.

Jake: Really?

Chard: Remember?

Wulff: Hey, the marketing was huge.

Chard: Yep.

GP: I'll have to look. I'm sure if I saw the commercials, it would, it would awaken that inside me and I'd be like, oh, yeah.

Chard: I was doing the script power movie.

Wulff: Trailer voice and it had, I think it had 2d animated Samus running around shooting things. And.

Jake: I just remember captain n the cartoon in the late eighties and mother brain was in that stuck with me with the franchise. Yeah, there's a five year gap between Metroid and Metroid. That's. That is a pretty wide gap. But we're gonna see that later on too. Like, there is not a lot of love for this franchise in Nintendo. It's kind of strange. I think I'm gonna give this d for me. I think it.

Wulff: No, it had like, claymation in the commercial. That's what it was. They stop motion animation.

GP: Kind of like Final Fantasy. Three.

Chard: Three.

Wulff: Next.

Chard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

GP: Next. Yeah. Great. Good call. So I'm gonna abstain from having a strong opinion on this one. I never really played all the way through it, if I remember correctly, and I like to think that I do. I borrowed a copy from my friend Brian when I was probably like early teens. And anytime you kind of, like, mess with the aspect ratio of my games, I don't like it. Same thing with Game Boy, mega man games. They zoom in so much.

Chard: Yeah.

GP: I feel like. I don't feel safe moving. And so I know I've started this one on the game Boy, but I know I never really got further than maybe 20 minutes. And I'm sure I've seen people play it or some version of it, and I probably enjoyed watching, but I can't say I know enough to be like, well, here's. Here's where I come down. So I will go with, like, the standard middle of the road c and assume that that is acceptable. Otherwise, just take me out of that one. All, all in all.

Chard: But I don't think. I think.

GP: I'm sure there's worse. Metroid. Say again?

Chard: I said, I think my curve brings that up to a c, which I'm totally fine with.

Wulff: Sounds about right. Like I said, I'm. I don't think I can accurately rank this one because it just didn't resonate with me. But I did play the crap out of am two r. I beat that 100% of it. So the concept was strong. I just never played through the original.

GP: Am two r. That's what I keep thinking about. Yeah.

Chard: The fan game of Samus returns that they wanted.

GP: Yeah.

Chard: So. And then Nintendo finally did it in 2017. Took you long enough.

Jake: So Metroid, two for the Game Boy circumflex. That. That seems fair. I can. I can live with Z. Yeah.

Chard: All right. Okay, here's the one that's probably going to get gushed about the most out of this. And we're just going to.

Jake: We're.

Chard: Yeah, this is total. This is a hidden gem, as we like to call these kinds of games. Here in the Preston. We're going to talk about 1994 Super Metroid, arguably my favorite in the entire series. I can't say the same for everybody else, but you can't. You can't not rank this into a higher tier. This took everything from both the first two games and made it spanking amazing. This game was spectacular. Maps, tons of upgrades, places to visit, people to see. It brought back Gridley or Ridley and raid. Gridley, raid, whatever. There's a. There's a town.

GP: Clearly you know this story well, and.

Chard: When I. Yeah, when I drive through it, I would always say this, but no. Ridley and Crane and all those. And a bunch of new guys and the guy melting in the lava.

Wulff: Croco Meyer. That was. That was awesome when that happened.

Chard: Exactly.

Wulff: Threw me for a loop.

Jake: So many skeleton.

Chard: Yeah. And.

Wulff: Yeah, yeah.

Chard: It's your first jump scare, and you.

Wulff: Don'T actually have to fight him, but they jump scare you. They. Yeah, they completely throw it out of left field like you thought he was dead, and you start walking, and they give you that jump stare that you're like, oh, crap.

Chard: Yeah.

Wulff: And then you know you're in for something with this game.

Chard: It's from. From top to bottom. I've played this game religiously. I would love to get the badge for this one, but there are some things in there that are pretty difficult, like a. What is it, a three tank run or some b's? And I'm like, oh, I'm not that good. But you could save the animals at the end. The mother brain fight at the end is, is just reminiscent of the first one, and then. And then kicks it up to fucking eleven. When you get out there to fight the second half of that battle. Spoiler alert. Sorry, but this game is fucking.

GP: It's 30 years old, buddy.

Chard: Yeah, get over it.

Wulff: I mean, the way it pulls on you emotionally at the end of that game is wild. The amount of crazy. They really did a great job, and I know I'm stepping on you here. I'm sorry. They did a great job in this game of really making you feel like you're on an alien planet and things are unnerving. Like, this is what the original Metroid was going for, and Super Metroid nailed it because they got to do that with the music and the sound effects and the various, you know, the different sprite styles from area to area so that it really could convey a feeling and an emotion and make you uneasy as the player.

Chard: Right. The sequence breaking that you could do in this one and the wall jumping to get past some things that you couldn't normally do. This. This is s tier Metroid. In my personal opinion. This would be. This would be the one that everything has to beat, in my personal opinion. I freaking love this game, and I just love the changes that they did to it. I love the speed running, the speed booster shoes and all the stuff that you did with that. It just really, really, like you said, took what they started with. With the first two and just made it, made it really good. So super Metroid, to me, s tier, top tier, hard to beat. My favorite of the Metroid series. Can't. Can't get any better than that. Even the music, this, the squealing at the beginning of the title screen with the little Metroid and the. In the tube, that was my ringtone for like 800 years. It's also was my watch face until I changed to the fallout thing. But, I mean, I had that as.

Wulff: A text notification for a long time.

Chard: It's so good. It's so good. And the music is just fucking ba ba ba ba ba. It's just so fucking good. It's really, really.

GP: Was that Superman?

Chard: That's a little bit of the music.

Wulff: In super Metroid felt very cinematic.

Jake: It did, for sure, yes. Especially the ending. The ending battle with met with mother brain. That whole sequence, especially when you get powered up, the hyper beam, that whole sequence will always stick. In my brain is music. The scene, the giant Metroid baby like, filling the screen, it was so huge. That was really, really good.

Chard: And then the. And then the self destruct where you're running. I know they did that. They did that in the first one, but you literally felt panic when you were jumping from platform to platform to get out of there. You know, it's stressful. It's. It's great. There's so many emotions in this game that I just. I love it. I love it to death.

GP: I I agree. This being s tier for the series. Further, if you take out Final Fantasy two, I would put this probably in the top three best games for the super Nintendo up there with Link to the past and Final Fantasy six. But it accomplished so much. Wolf, I could not agree with you more with what you said about this feels like the perfect version of what one was trying to accomplish. You know, like, oh, this is what we meant to say. We just didn't have the vocabulary for it at the time. And just the inclusion of the upgrades, everything they were able to do with the map. And, I mean, it's. You talk about it being cinematic. If you look at a movie franchise, the first one to come into my mind is rocky. Each rocky movie kind of has its own feeling and each world and each kind of sublevel of. Of the game. Super Metroid has its very own distinct taste and feeling and vibe and what they accomplish, not just with the color palette, but the mapping and the design and the soundscapes. Yeah, it's definitely s tier, so, yeah.

Wulff: They also really made it feel like a living, breathing alien planet with all the different types of creatures and biomes and everything.

GP: Stepping on a tongue or a tonsil or something like that. Or I. Right, okay. Yeah. It was very contrary in that way. Super safe. But, yeah, I'm with you.

Jake: Yeah, I like this. This is my favorite metroid, I think, especially from that era. Just in terms of, like, the variety of the state. Like the areas like you guys mentioned. Just atmospheric all around. Right. Just the. The weather effects right from the get go, ship lands, it's raining. Rain.

Chard: Yeah.

Jake: Right. There's foggy areas and then there's the heat areas where there's lava. And you have to have the right suit for it. Just atmospheric, right from the get go, right from the beginning, intro was atmospheric. We're in the ship, basically, and you have to escape the ship after the fight with Ridley, and you're running for your life. And then you're right at the very end of the game, you're running for your life again and you could totally lose in the last two minutes. I've done it before. I fucked it up trying to escape because I missed a jump. Just atmospheric all the way through. The only, the only negatives I have on this game is wall jumping. I felt Washington really hard for me to grasp as a kid. I still have issues with it even today. It doesn't feel as clean as it could be. It's been done better in the later Metroid games, but just the fact that it has wall jumping is pretty unique, I think, for its time on the SNES. And I'm with UGP. I struggle to pick my top three SNES games, but this is usually within that range. Right. Like, usually, you know, for sure, top five.

GP: An argument could be made for three, in my opinion.

Jake: Yeah.

Chard: Yeah, you're right.

Jake: And absolutely.

Wulff: Yeah.

Jake: For me to point out too is that. Sorry, real quick is it has the horror elements that we see in later games in the series. They start with here where there's the dark rooms and you have to use the light visor that, the scare, the jump scares with Krakamire, I just think there's a, there's a horror elements where I didn't expect later on the franchise, but going back to super Metroid, they're always there from the beginning.

Wulff: Yeah, yeah. Like this franchise was heavily inspired by the alien series of movies. And this is the one that really nailed that feeling. And I mean, I loved the alien. I was, I probably saw the first two alien movies way too young, but I saw them and I love, like, I was not ten yet when I saw them. I absolutely loved them. And when I got to play Super Metroid, I was like, oh, yeah, here we go. And there are two games on this list that qualify as s tier in my mind, and this is one of them.

Chard: Yeah, I agree.

Jake: Yeah.

GP: I mean, yes. Let's, let's address real quick some of the obvious connections to the alien franchise, which, by the way, I had a tougher time as a kid watching land before time than I did.

Wulff: Same.

GP: Alien or aliens?

Wulff: Oh, land before time was so awful, I didn't understand why all my friends loved it.

GP: No, it was terribly scary and sad.

Wulff: Give me alien or Godzilla land before time is so boring all the time.

Jake: Godzilla?

Wulff: Yeah.

GP: I mean, yeah. Ridley, Ripley, you know, the whole, the whole mother.

Jake: Okay.

GP: Which might not have been till three. I don't remember my alien franchise super well sometimes, but no, I mean, yeah. Strong female protagonists just kicking ass and saving the day, taking names. Yeah.

Chard: And alien blood. All right, all right. So I guess we're all in agreement that super Metroid definitely needs a super rating of superiority. And getting it that s tier where it belongs. So fantastic. The riz gets on arisen. I'm sorry. Connect our younger audiences. No cap. Let's go ahead and move on.

Jake: Give it a Metroid.

Chard: I don't know, you take all the seats. All right. So up next in the franchise, 2002 Metroid Fusion comes in hot. Which Game Boy was this? This was Game Boy Advance. Game Boy advance. Thank you. So this, I've played very little of Metroid Fusion. I have played it, but not enough of it to give it like a good rousing to me, this was one of the games that I kind of with. I'm with GP on the whole, I wouldn't say claustrophobic thing, but definitely the animation and like this, I guess the smoothness of the game because it's pretty smooth when you're playing. It just felt very awkward to me playing. It's. I know I. Fusion gets a lot of love. It's, it's not talked about as a bad game whatsoever. There's only one in this one in this series that we've, we'll talk about that gets kind of like a lot. But Fusion's pretty high up there on a lot of, a lot of Metroid fans lists. I can't give it, I'm going to abstain from giving it a decent rating or a rating of less or no. So I'm giving it a c just because I don't know enough about it to hate it or enough about it to love it. But it does look cool. But for me, it's very awkward to play on that system. I really need to play it on like the steam deck and just, and just sit down and play it. That way I can give it an opinion. I've seen speedrunners play it and it, and it seems pretty cool. I like the, the ricocheting rockets off of things that, that are metal when you're fighting like what is it, mecha, Ridley or whatever. Like some of that stuff's pretty cool in the animation. I just need more time with it to give it really a good vibe. Does anybody else have a more, a better opinion about it than I do? GP, what do you think it's okay.

GP: To kind of change the order and go second? Are you guys okay with that?

Jake: Yeah, go for it.

GP: Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to start off by saying this. I'm going to give it a b, which might be a little high, but the reason for it is you couldn't really do this today. I think this game came about it was released so in tandem, and it was so intimately related to Metroid prime. The overlap there was so intertwined that I think they created this because people liked having a mobile version of Metroid, but we didn't have the switch, we didn't have steam decks. This was, yeah. So that said, it accomplished what it wanted to and it did it very well. And then being able to, you know, if you've done x, Y and Z infusion, then in prime you can get this suit, or vice versa if you've done certain things, yada, yada, yada. So that was all very cool. That said, my favorite thing about Fusion is metroid prime, so I can't really justify putting it any higher than a b. And I feel like a b might be generous, but I think it's deserving of a b or a b if we're getting into the weeds with it. But it was a fun and exciting thing. I played it right after I got completely addicted to prime, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes. So I was riding high on the metroid wave at that time. So that's my answer and that's my reasoning. Courage.

Chard: This is the beginning of a cluster that we had of none that we have like, that we have never seen in Metroid during this time where we were just, we're just getting pummeled. It was like a smashing pumpkins album every other month. We were just getting hit with a new Metroid variation of some kind. Billy Corgan took up the reins of the Metroid franchise. We're just like. We're just gonna make all kinds of shit just like he does with his music. So that's your, there's your Billy Corgan reference for the week, guys. Thank you. Next. Whoever. Yeah, keep going. Sorry, I didn't mean.

Jake: You want to talk? You want me to go?

Wulff: I'll go. For me, I was super excited about Metroid fusion. This was the first Metroid game we got for eight years, and it looked a lot like super Metroid, which I already knew I loved. So I was like, I'm in. For me, the thing that threw this one a little bit was the way the story unfolded for the player because they really wanted to do exposition dumps every little while. And so it was like now all of a sudden Samus is talking to her ship's AI or something.

Jake: I don't remember the computer system of the station or some nonsense.

Wulff: It might have been that I thought it was her ship's AI, but I guess it might have been the computer system on the station. But you're on this like Zoo state. Zay zoo space station. I can say words.

Chard: Zoo station. There's a u two reference. Let's go.

Wulff: And you know, you're running around trying to kill the x virus, I think it was called. And this is basically the metroids only natural predator. Right. And so you're running around that they've apparently got a metroid on the ship or supposedly, or they were experimenting with it to try and do away with metroids. I don't remember exactly what it was, but both of these are species that are just supremely invasive. And so either way you take one off of their home planet and everybody else is fucked. This is the one. Yeah. You end up fighting like a scary version of Samus in this. This is the first time that you have to fight yourself. And it's scary and more powerful. Like it's, I want to mention the kind of things in, I'm jumping quite ahead here, but with Metroid dread, those robots that chase you around and you can't really stop them. There are points in Metroid fusion. Yeah, the, I think that's what they were. There are points in Metroid fusion where you have to deal with that dark samus or that ex samus, whatever it was called, sa x sachs. That's what it was. And you cannot let it interact with you or you're dead. Like you have to sneak around at points. So this was kind of the start of sneak around, a little bit of stealth in Metroid, and that was pretty cool to me. However, the way the story unfolded and some of the mechanics and boss fights were just frustrating more than anything. So I can't give this anything more than a b. I think it was good. It was a nice run back to Metroid, but it was a, it wasn't the strongest 2d metroid. So yeah, I think it's about even with the original Metroid on that front.

GP: That's fair.

Jake: Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you, wolf. I think my the biggest problem I have with this game, and I'll be fair, I have not beaten this game. I fell off it the few times I've tried to play it. I've tried three times to try and sit through this game. And the biggest barrier is that stupid AI computer of the station and how it talks so much. Like when I go back and play Super Metroid, it's like the perfect game. It's timeless. It still holds up. I don't need dialogue. I mean, it's the intro is good enough. From there, it doesn't matter. Just playing the game and being immersed in that world is the story enough for me. And that Nintendo does that a lot. Like we've seen with like Zelda's and stuff where they don't need a lot of that exposition, they don't need that story when the story is the game itself, but Metroid really tries to shove it down your throat. And as interesting as some of the Metroid lore can be, there's just, it just felt a little bit weird with this, with the X virus and the computer talking all the time. I also didn't like how I felt more stuck on a rail with this game, super Metroid. I mean, yes, you could. I mean, forget the sequence breaking. I know you can totally do that, but I still feel like more wide open spaces to explore, whereas Metroid Fusion felt a lot more smaller, which made sense because you're on a station, but it didn't feel like you as much freedom to go your own way in that one. So for me, not the greatest graphics are amazing. Totally showcases what the Game Boy advance can do. It definitely takes the SNES 16 bit style sprites and goes with it. The animations are much more detailed. I didn't care for the suit. You end up with that, that stupid CN blue and yellow. That's kind of weird. I get why they do it. She's now an alien now it's fine this. But the story was weird. Metroid stories always been strange, but it was a bit too weird for me. I I mean, I think I lean towards c, but I can live with a b for this one.

Chard: I think they pivot the story on, on fusion in a really weird way. It's like trying to introduce something new because it's like, oh, we know we've done this the last three years. It's kind of old. Let's try something different. But it just felt like it was way out there. Like just, just too far. Bridge too far, you know what I mean?

GP: They were also taking a big swing with prime, which is just coming out at that same time and changing that to an FPS game. I think they really said, well, the fans are going to want, I mean, something closer to a super metroid. So they came out with something that was a little more true to form for what we knew to kind of ease us in to the, the murky waters of first person shooter just in case it did not take off like it did.

Chard: All right, well, okay.

Wulff: I did came out on the same day.

Chard: Did they come out the same day. I didn't know.

Jake: Yeah, apparently, totally cross marketing for sure.

Chard: That's crazy. All right, well, without further ado, since we've already dropped to talk about it, and it came out the same exact day that Fusion did, let's go ahead and switch gears and, and switch our perspectives and jump over to Metroid prime, as we have given a Metroid Fusion a resounding b b ranking for that one. All right, so Metroid prime, let's talk a little bit about Metroid prime. I'll go ahead and start us off. Metroid prime was such a great, it's a great perspective break.

Jake: It.

Chard: It was Metroid, but it was first person. You're, you're seeing the arm cannon. The things that they did with this game, and this was one of the first things I met Wolf doing was playing Metroid prime and what he did in this game, which I always forget about that.

Wulff: You're always the one to remind me.

Chard: What I did with that, because it's such a cool idea. When Wolf streamed back in the day, he had some really, really cool aspects that he did with his stream that went with, like, when he played Spider man. He was upside down. He dressed like Princess peach for. No, princess Daisy for Mario. Ghosts. Was it goals of ghosts that you were doing that?

Wulff: Oh, no, I would. I did it for doing Mario two as just like Princess Peach that day.

GP: He was a pioneer with heart rate monitors.

Wulff: I went on the ghouls and go, or, yeah, just ghouls and ghosts, or ghosts and goblins for any.

Chard: Give me the key. Give me the key, you piece of garbage. One of my all time favorite wolf lines.

GP: That was my ringtone for the longest time.

Chard: Anyways, as we steer back to the Metroid rails that we just went off of, Metroid prime was a great adjustment. It was a different perspective. You were seeing through Samus's eyes. You, you were, you were tackling the same kind of metroidvanian platforming, but with, through her eyes, as opposed to the side scroller that we've all grown and loved. I think what they did with it was great. They did very cool details, which is what wolf did. There was a, every time there was an explosion of light anywhere near you, like a missile blew up or something, you would see Samus's eyes reflected back in her helmet and her face, like, usually mostly her nose and her eyes, because, you know, the face mask was over that, and we'll stream this. He put his, his face over that, but it was the opaque, I guess, whatever the whatever transparency, there it is. You'd see me see him. It was a really cool thing that he did and I loved it. But I thought Metroid prime was freaking awesome. I loved that game. And it felt more anxiety ridden when things were attacking you face on as opposed to running from something sideways. Now you've got a metroid on your ass literally sucking. You see the inside of this thing sucking the life out of you. And it was a trip. This game, fate. It was just, it's, it's great from front to back. I love Metroid prime. I'd be willing to give it an s tier because they totally pivoted on this thing and took you away from your normal side scrolling, platforming and put you in literally in the driver's seat of the character and they still kept you doing the same exact stuff. You were just witnessing it firsthand as opposed to side to side. I thought that was a really cool change. Great change for the franchise. 100%. I'm going prime with an s tier ranking on this because prime is sick. I put down my off my soapbox for me.

Wulff: Like, this was, this was rad. Like, I was so excited to play through this. I'm. I've never been a huge first person shooter guy, so I was hesitant about that. But playing it like this took what happened with Super Metroid and dug it in even further because now you have to be spatially aware of everything around you. You have to manage light sources because the game has that you, you know, you're sneaking around trying not to get caught sometimes you're just, there's so much going on, you can't see everything. And that is an issue. And I mean, sometimes, and I don't mean that in a negative way. It's like, it's not an issue for the mechanics. It's just, it's an issue like, you have to deal with that constantly, right? So, like, trying to make you feel like that lone bounty hunter fighting for your life, they just, they dug it in even further here. And that was amazing to me.

Chard: Even the morph ball, like with the light coming out of the middle of the morph ball when you're rolling. I just. Just little aspects, little details like that. I was like, this is cool.

Wulff: Yeah, yeah. I absolutely love this game. This is probably my other s tier game on this list with you, with you.

GP: Interesting.

Chard: Jake is not amazed.

Jake: Gp let me go because I don't want in this one on a bad note. This game sucks.

Chard: Wow.

Jake: Sorry.

Chard: Wow.

Jake: First off, the one thing I'm gonna say there is positives, though. I have this game graphically, graphically. I cannot deny how amazing this game looks like. Just graphically. It's amazing. The visor effects, the lighting is awesome. It's definitely immersive. Is definitely immersive. I'm going to give it that. But it's immersive to the point where I don't like it is my take on it at this point. When Metroid prime came out, I had a chance to play two real. I had a chance to play, you know, quake three and all that kind of gameplay, first person shooters. So I, in my head, a first person shooter was a certain, played a certain way, right? Much more responsive movement of them, of the. Of the shots. Much more better view, field of view when you can see things. Faster paced action. This game, though, is not a fast paced game. It's. It's slower and methodical. It kind of reminds me of. I don't like halo, if that makes sense. Right. You are definitely. You feel like Samus and that you're a heavy, bulky armor and you move like that. I mean, there's other stuff to it too. But I didn't like how slow the gameplay felt. While the exploring was interesting and I liked shooting the bubble doors in a 3d environment was neat, but I felt there's too much of an emphasis on scanning everything. I really didn't like scanning in this game. It kind of just. It didn't feel as action. Yes. As the original games. Right. I really love the 2d platforming and the 2d gameplay, but when you translate to the first person view, it just. It just felt weird to me and I never could get dig with it. Music fantastic. Visually stunning. Like when you're wet, the water comes down the visor. Like you rarely see that. That was really awesome. But I just. I just bounced so hard off this game and I have tried several times to get back into it. I can't. So I'm not going to letter rank it. I think I would agree with you guys being s, even though I can't stand this one, but I know how many people love and adore this game and how groundbreaking it is for the franchise. I mean, hell, I'm even excited for retro prime four, even though I not. I know I'm not going to play it because I don't like the franchise. But yeah, it's. I just can't get into this one. It's just not a metroid for me, I guess.

GP: Shake you ignorance.

Chard: Keith.

Jake: Sorry, it's bad.

GP: So this came out my freshman year of college, and my roommate bought this game, James, and he got addicted to it. And then kid down the hallway, Joel, got addicted to it. And I'm watching them, and they're like, you've got to play this. And I'm like, no, I'm a freshman in college. I have things on my plate, and I don't have the bandwidth in my brain to do this. This is a giant game. And long story short, I had the bandwidth. If I just got rid of all my classes, found the bandwidth, I didn't sleep much unless I was in class. Anyway, I. This. This is a game that I got addicted to, and I loved it, and I, okay, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Just when I thought, okay, I've beaten it. I've completed everything 100%, gotten all the endings. I thought I was done. This is when I discovered sequence breaking, and then I just, it was like I restarted everything, and I got good at the striping and all these things. I'm sorry I'm blurry because I'm moving around so much, but I really fell hard for this game when it came out on the gamecube. That said, I lean toward a high a. If we're just looking at the initial release of it, every time they've released a new version, they've changed it so you can't do the sequence breaking, which pisses me off. To me, it's much cooler if the devs put it in there and they're like, yeah, they figure it out great. But if you get pissed off and you want to change the code because you don't like that, people are figuring out your flaws, I mean, eat a fat one. You know what I mean? Now, when they came out with the prime trilogy and incorporated the Wii controls, I was skeptical because I loved the original version so much, but the way it translated was so awesome and so well done and what it made me truly appreciate. Okay, if you go back to, like, the old fighters, you know, street fighter and mortal Kombat, you know, throwing the ice, you know, from sub zero or doing the Hadouken, you know, the down forward motions and low punch and the timing of all that and how you have to choreograph and get the muscle memory, I realized after, like, a week of playing Metroid prime on the Wii, that's exactly how your brain works, even on a macro scale with, you know, the nunchucks and shit like that. I was so impressed. In hindsight, once I figured out, like, oh, my God, I had to rewire some shit to get this done. But it played smooth and people speed run it and it really is something that you can just do to your level of comfort how much you want to be involved in. You can complete it. You can be a speedrunner. You can just play it casually. Either way, whatever you do, it is fucking great and it is fun. So if we're looking at just the original release on the GameCube, I would give it a. Or a high a. But if we're looking at it in, you know, with the Wii version included. Absolutely s tier up there for me with Super Metroid. So I'm gonna say s. Thank you for listening to all of that. I know that was a lot. That will be my longest spiel tonight.

Jake: Yeah.

Chard: Until we get to Metroid prime trilogy.

GP: I kind of buried the lead on that one. Stick around, everybody stick around.

Chard: We still got good stuff.

Jake: That's interesting though, GP, that you would, if you consider this game as a standalone, that it would be an a for you. But. But with the other versions of being an s. That is interesting because this has been re released a couple times now. That's interesting.

GP: Well, I'm starting conversations with cousins and friends about that with like all the different Final Fantasy versions. Like with the pixel remaster. Sorry, a four. You guys know how much I love Final Fantasy Four. But to play the pixel remaster, it's cool. But it's not the best version out there because I mean, even if you look at like the Game Boy advance versions with like the bonus dungeons, you know, aggregate. Yeah, four is still my favorite game of all time, but just standard four, like, yeah, maybe it's not top three for the Super Nintendo. Maybe it's a five or even a top ten, things like that. That's how I'm thinking.

Chard: GP and I are going to sit down one of these days and coffee, talk about our opinions about Final Fantasy and the pixel remasters. We've been trying to schedule a time to sit down and actually do it. So we're going to have some good stuff to really dive into because he and I have some very good opinions about how we feel about those guys. So. But we'll. Again, we'll veer into that lane because I'll go. I'm trying to stop myself from going off on a tangent because I fucking will. And it has nothing to do what we're talking about. Steer the car. All right, so s tier from Metroid Prime. I think that's. I think that's a resounding yes all around. Even if Jake, even for somebody who doesn't like it.

Jake: I can't deny you guys one last.

GP: Thing I do have to say about prime. Early on, one of my friends back in 2002 complained that they changed too many things. And I thought he meant the aspect ratio or the first person of it. He didn't like that they took out the flipping. I forget what it's called. Like the charge jump.

Chard: The screw.

GP: Well, the screw attack. Yeah. I'm like, can you imagine how vomit inducing that would be to see that first person? Also, I'm pissed off that the original version came out in 2002 because that from 1987 is 15 years after the original metroid came out, and that's 17 years ago from now or whatever the fuck. So we are now further along from, you know, prime's release. Right. Metroid came out closer to prime than we are today. So I hate that. Anyway, thank you.

Chard: I need a Metroid Prime VR mod with the screw attack.

GP: You shut the fuck up. Nobody will hear from me ever again. I think also if they. I mentioned Contra earlier, if they had done a first person shooter in the Contra world like they did for Metroidv prime, it's the same thing if they handled it that way. Just to be immersed in that world and look around and see all that shit and hear the music. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Chard: That'd be sick.

GP: Yeah.

Chard: I think you may sue. You may. You may try to shut us down, but we're giving you some gold fucking nuggets right here.

GP: Yes, do it.

Chard: Speaking of gold nuggets, we're going to move on to 2004, where we're looking down, looking down the barrel of two more metroids. Were they released on the same day? I wouldn't be surprised if they were. But we're looking at zero mission and Metroid prime. Two echoes. But we'll start with zero mission first and get our debate about that one. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, zero mission is a half. I wouldn't say half assed. Half ass is bad way to use it.

Jake: What?

Chard: No, no, don't you be.

Jake: Search this game, sir.

Chard: Hold on. I'm not besmirching. What I'm trying to understand was this. Nothing. Some sort of twisted. Not twisted. What's the best way to put it where it's not negative? Was this a remake of the first one?

Wulff: Yes.

Jake: Thank you.

Chard: That's what I was trying to say. It was like. But it's not. Totally like. It's not. It's. It's got its own story, but it's.

Wulff: A remake of the first one of the first.

Chard: Thank you. That's what I was trying to go for, the reimagining. All right. As you could tell, I don't play a lot of this game. So that's how we preface this. I give it a c. But if it's anything like a reimagined version of the first one, I need to sit my ass down and play it because I've heard good things about it.

GP: It has a map.

Chard: It has a map. So Jake must love it. He's going to s tier this one because it has a map on it.

Wulff: Jake, do you mind if I try to convert chard here?

Jake: Yeah, go for it. Then I'll talk.

Chard: There's not much conversion. It's kind of like if I were religious and I was, like, sitting in a church and you were like, hey, you want to believe in God? I'm like, well, I'm here. I'm listening. Like, there's not much to convert.

Jake: Sit your ass down and eat this wafer and drink this wine, because we'll break down. Why? This game is fucking fantastic.

Chard: Let's go.

Jake: Please do.

Wulff: Now Metroid zero mission. Okay, so I'm converting him.

GP: Age of Empire, also with you.

Wulff: Yeah. Okay, so they did not come out the same day for these two. It was February and November of 2004. Metroid Zero mission. Now this was a great follow up to what super Metroid did and what Fusion tried to do. Yeah, they got, they brought back the original Metroid, but they did it like Super Metroid. And, yeah, this game also had dialogue, but it wasn't super dialogue heavy like Metroid, Fusion, Washington. And honestly, a lot of it was sort of Samus's interior monologue, just thinking about what's going on. So it's just, it was giving thoughts to the character as she's experiencing what she's experiencing. Seeing as Metroid was very thin on plot originally, they tried to work some in and they did an amazing job. And they even added, like, a huge section of the game that explained some things that were in super Metroid that didn't really make the most sense, like the ghost ship. You find out why the ghost ship is there in Metroid zero mission. Okay, that's really cool. You play through a chunk of this game without the suit because your suit is destroyed and taken from.

Chard: Let me interrupt real quick. Does this. So it's a reimagining of the first one, but it takes place after super Metroid.

Wulff: No, it was just released ten years after Super Metroid.

Chard: Okay. It's if you story does the lore match up with super Metroid and some.

Wulff: Yes, I think canonically.

Chard: Cursor.

Wulff: Yes, canonically, this is the official story of Metroid.

Chard: Gotcha.

Wulff: So if you go back and play this, you're getting the full plot of what happened Metroid before Metroid two before Super Metroid. This leads up to all that. Cool. And so you get to see why Ridley and Samus have sort of this rivalry that they have where there's like true hatred for each other rather than you're in my way, I'm gonna kill you. Like, they actually have animosity toward each other that you kind of see throughout the franchise. This explains it. And then this also gives you that same sort of horror feeling that super Metroid gave you because you, like I said, you have your suit taken away now. You're very weak. You don't have your powerful charge shot. I don't think you have much of anything. Like you have like a stun gun or something.

Jake: Pea shooter, but you have a zapper and that's it.

Chard: It's a lot of sneaking, I think. I've seen some people speedrun this.

Wulff: Not a lot, not a lot. But there is a chunk and you know, you're doing it through the enemy ship. So like you've got all that. So it's a, it's the full original game with a mini map where the areas actually look different from each other. And they added new mechanics and new story and new areas. And like this game really did well. Like, I played through this game like twice in a row when it came out.

Chard: Well, now I know what to play after the podcast done.

Jake: Yeah, I'm telling you, this is, this is the, if I want to play the beginning of a franchise, this is the one I recommend people to play is zero mission. I think you can skip the original NES one unless you're a real fan of the NES. And I do love the NES. If you're new to the franchise, you have to start with zero emission instead. Otherwise I think you're going to bounce off it. If you start with the NES one, the controls are better than Super Metroid, right? Like, I like Super Metroid a lot, but it's, it's a bit clunky with the, the angle shooting and the wall jumping. All of those issues I had in Super Metroid are gone in zero mission. I really like how, yes, there is a map, but I like how much like, Super Metroid is more wide open in how you tackle where you're going to places. But what was neat from Fusion was where it would kind of tell you where to go next on a map, but you felt confined to a path, a rail. But in zero mission, yes, you get the Chozo statue. It tells you where the map to go, but it doesn't give you the map for you. You have to kind of still explore your way there. So you have a general, like a compass direction, where to go, but it doesn't hold you by the hand as much. So you kind of get the best of both worlds. You get the exploration, you get the way you tackle things on your own. You're exploring, but you're not being held by a computer's hand the entire way.

GP: So that, that did that exact same thing, which is very, very cool. And that reminded me quite a bit of how they handled that. So.

Jake: Yeah, yeah. Just like a compass direction, and I really appreciate that. I think this is a great way to get into the franchise. Sprite work is awesome. It's fantastic. Zero suit samus at the end is fantastically as well. The bosses are memorable. They definitely took a lot of. A lot of. A lot of stuff I loved in Super Metroid, but then bringing that flavor of the original back was really well done. It's just such a great game. Music is banger front again. There's enough plot, like you said, wolf, there's a little bit of dialogue, but I couldn't tell you what it is. All I remember is the gameplay and the atmosphere. Much like Super Metroid has the atmosphere telling the story, I feel like I still have that with zero mission. This is one of my favorite games in the Game Boy Advance. I think this is one that I could keep the cart plugged into the game Boy the entire time and be happy. Like if I was on a desert island. This is the Metroid I would probably take. I like it that much. Just everything, graphics, music, gameplay is so solid and tight. I love it. Everything about Metroid I love is in zero mission. I think for me, this would be an s tier game.

GP: Okay, I'm gonna throw it a on this one. If you have nostalgia for Metroid, yes, always go back and play the NES, but similar to what Jake and I think to an extent, Wolf saying, but don't let me misquote you if I'm misremembering. If you're just now kind of coming into the Metroid universe, you know, with dread or any of that kind of thing, and you want to go back and see kind of what the earlier stages were like, this would be the version you'd want to play. I think if you didn't grow up or have. Have a lot of experience with the Nesdez, that version is not going to be for you. But this one has zero emission. Very much will be and give you a good idea of where it all started. So, yeah, I don't have a ton to say. I would put an a on it as well, especially if we gave the original Metroid a b. I think that's fair and accurate, and I'll stick with that.

Chard: Okay, I'm converted. I'm going to fire this thing up on the old steam deck and I. And give it a little bit of run. I know Jake has talked about this a lot in previous discussions that we've had about any kind of super Nintendo game or Game Boy game or anything that we've had in the past. He talks very, very highly about zero emission, and I didn't realize it was a retelling or a similar version of the first one. Had I known that, I might have actually jumped in to this game a lot sooner, because I always hear mixed messages between fusion and other MH and.

Jake: Yeah.

Chard: And zero mission, and I get them all mixed up, like, which ones we should, which ones you should spend the time on, which one you should, blah, blah, blah. And now that I understand that zero mission is aces, I will be making. Making my way around to that franchise for sure.

Wulff: It's. It's Metroid one with, you know, super metroid sensibilities, but ten years of experience on top of that. So nice, right?

GP: Yeah, there's a lot going on.

Chard: It's a shame they put these, like I say, it's a shame because it's handheld, but it feels like these games could be. It's so much better to play them on a bigger scale. Right. Like, now that we get to play it with emulation, we can use our big screen tvs and our computers and stuff, so you can really get that big feel, because that's what I liked about super metroid was it was so big and it was big on your tv at the same time. The rest of the metroids that were released that weren't prime were always. The 2d side scrolls, were always on the DS or the three deciseconds or something.

Jake: Yeah.

Chard: Where you didn't get. Or the advance, like it's on the handheld, so it's not as. It doesn't. It's so silly. It's my thing. It doesn't feel as epic because it's in your hands, not in your living room.

Wulff: No, I I. I completely understand. That. That was an issue I had with the Castlevania franchise for a while. Like, all the 2d entries were on handheld, and I was like, come on, I want to play these on a big screen, not a three inch.

Chard: Exactly. These are epic games, and you're making me play them.

GP: Game boy.

Chard: Game boy.

Jake: Nowadays with modern. I mean, you can take your steam deck and plug it into your tv, or you can. You can put it. You can play these now on a big screen, and they totally hold up. Like the. The Game Boy advances. Sprite work is just as good as a snes. Right. Hands down is better in a lot of ways.

Wulff: Well, I think it's funny. Yes. I just complained about having to play all the castle, like, a bunch of castlevanias on a handheld, and then I played through almost the entirety of bloodstained on my steam deck. So, I mean. But the screen is way bigger than a GBA.

GP: Yeah. The screens are much different than they used to be.

Chard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I digress.

Jake: Because we are s or a, then.

Chard: I do.

Jake: You guys, I would not be opposed.

Wulff: I would not be opposed to this getting an s, but let's put it on there.

GP: I like it.

Chard: You guys have nothing but positive things to say about it. I'm with it. I'll give it an s tier. Okay.

GP: Yeah. My only conviction is that it's not a b. Yeah. A is fine. S is fine.

Wulff: Yeah.

Chard: Yeah.

Jake: Okay. All right. S tier.

Chard: All right. Next up, a few months later release or a few months earlier release. I think it's later. The sequel to Metroid Prime. Metroid prime. Two echoes, which I.

Wulff: Solid C. Solid C echo.

GP: We don't have to. We don't have to dwell on the sea too much.

Chard: We're just gonna rush this one. This introduced to the prime series, if I'm not mistaken. This was the last of the prime series that I played. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I don't think I finished it.

GP: Oh, you gotta play corruption, but it's.

Chard: More of the same, right? It's more of the same with the.

Jake: Two colors of beams.

Wulff: Yeah.

Chard: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's. That sounds revolution.

Wulff: The one with, like, you're on the light and dark versions of the planet. Stuff.

GP: Like that version. Yeah, all that stuff.

Wulff: Yeah. Dark aether and light aether. And it was. It was a weird one. It had some cool ideas, but it was kind of stale compared to the original. Like, it. A lot of mechanics overstayed their welcome in this one.

GP: Yeah.

Chard: I'm willing to give it. I didn't finish it. I'm willing to give it a b, b minus, because, I mean, it's. It's prime. It's more the same kind of stuff. I like the light and dark aspect of the game. I think that's a cool, you know, shift in things, but I like weird shit like that, so that's. I'm cool with giving that guy a b. Yeah.

Jake: The little I played of this one chart, I didn't care for the light and dark mechanics very much. And I'm. I think I kind of also felt a little bit stale. But I'm not really into these games either, so I'll lean on what you guys are saying, but I would be fine with a c or b, I think.

Chard: Maybe more c. Yeah, whatever GP kind of puts the nail on. I'll probably go with that.

Wulff: Yeah.

GP: Well, again, I side with Wolf on this one. Um, and the reason for the sea is actually kind of unique. I don't know a lot about the development history of primes two and three. So at one point, it feels like maybe they wrote these in tandem and said, we have to break this into two separate games.

Chard: It did feel like that, yeah.

GP: But then, pardon me, also thinks, okay, were they going for kind of like the Empire strikes back sort of thing? Because two is definitely not, though. I'm sorry, I'm in my feelings about it. Two is not near as good as one, and I'm going to give it a c. An argument might be made for a b, but I think it has to be a c because of the virtues of prime three, which really, I think not undid some of the wrongs from the second one, but they took note of what the shortcomings were and said, okay, well, story wise, we can clean this up quite a bit and make this a more enjoyable experience than two. So two and three I put together, because one is not great, the other is pretty solid. So I think. And this will go into the next one with prime three, I'm going to give that a b, but for that reason, this one has to get a.

Chard: C. I'm fine with that. I'm absolutely fine with that. All right, here we go. Metroid prime. Now, this is a big. This is a classic. I know everybody on this podcast is definitely at least played, if not badge, hidden gem on retro achievements. Metroid prime pinball. I see. I have nothing. I have nothing.

GP: Too much plot. It is very plot heavy.

Chard: There's a lot of dialogue. A lot of dialogue and a lot of.

GP: Lot of bing bong booing, you know, just.

Wulff: Can I make a couple quick points?

Chard: Go ahead.

Wulff: I played the demo of this at best Buy, and it was fine. But yeah, I'm not a huge pinball player. However, it's kind of hard to go wrong with a pinball game. So I'm sure the game is decent. I want to say it's probably like a b.

Chard: Okay.

Jake: Yeah.

Chard: What's it on?

Jake: It's pinball system.

Chard: Was it on? Yes. So.

Jake: And it took advantage of both the screens. And so that was a novelty. It was the full playing field. It's a pinball game and it's not. It's actually a good pinball game. And it just happens to coincidentally be Metroid themed, which. It's cute. It makes sense because the big power up in the Metroid series, you turn to lebal. Why wouldn't you have a pinball game about Metroid? What I find with a lot of pinball, pinball games on handhelds is they usually shaft you with like one or two stages, and it feels like a ripoff. This doesn't have that problem. I think there's five environments in this game, and solid graphics. Music is decent. It's a solid physics.

Chard: No sonic, you know, it's up there.

Jake: Well, so few games are. Yeah, yeah. Like, honestly, like, I mean, is this, is this s tier? No, of course not. Is it a good Metroid game? No, because it's a pinball game. But I think it's worth a be in terms of, like, it's not a bad game. It's. It's a. It's just a good game, right. Just a pinball one. It's less Metroid, more pinball. So I eat myself.

GP: I like the part of the game where you launch the ball and then try to not let it go down to the bottom part of the screen using the flippers.

Chard: That's a solid strategy.

GP: Yeah, I mean, I really. It's a broken game. If you look into game Shark. I fucking whatever grade letter is the most. I don't give a shit. That's what I'm voting. I have nothing bad to say about it. I don't want it to come off that way. I'm not huge into video game pinball, but only because I like actual pinball so much. I like the theming of Metroid, so that's a positive. Pinball is very unoffensive in any setting. So I. Yeah, I have no strong opinions on this one. So there we go.

Chard: All right. I give it v. Fine.

Jake: B.

Chard: You've swayed me to a b who's.

Wulff: Your friend who likes to play. Bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, bong booie.

Chard: Okay. 2006 Metroid prime. Hunters. See, I played this. Yeah, I've gotten.

Wulff: Also, I played the demo of this at the store, too. Oh, this is like, as far as Metroid electronic, and it was best buy. Yes.

Jake: Not. It's not Federation force. This is hunters. You didn't like hunters?

Wulff: Oh, hunters. Which one? That was. Okay. Federation forces. F. This is probably a diphthere. This one was still not good either.

Jake: Yeah. Sound like me. Yeah.

GP: Give it.

Jake: Hunters is mostly. There is a multiplayer mode in it, but it's a single player game, and it's first person view, much like Metroid prime, but it's on the fucking ds, which technically, that is a marvel. Whenever I see 3d on the DS, I'm always amazed. I know it's better than an advanced, but still, I've not played it, but what I've seen of it, it looked okay. I don't know if I'd want to play a first person shooting game on the Nintendo DS, though, personally, especially when it's like, one screen is gameplay. One screen. I think it was hud, if I remember.

Chard: Stylus.

Jake: Yeah, and the stylus. I hate the stylist anyway.

GP: Just very cyclops view.

Jake: I'd agree. I'd agree with the D. But it's important to play this, though, because Metroid prime four pulls characters from hunters. They're going deep with lore on four.

Chard: So I'll be long playing that one.

Jake: Yeah.

GP: Gave me a list of Metroid video game titles and said, which one of these was not an actual game? I would have been like, yeah, I don't remember. Hunters. We'll go with that one.

Chard: That's like. It's like Mega Man. Maverick Hunters is what that reminds me of.

GP: No, Maverick Hunters was good, though.

Chard: Was it?

Jake: Yeah, I liked it.

Chard: I didn't care for that one.

GP: The PSP?

Chard: Was it the PSP? Yeah, putting the cape. I thought it was on, like, Game Boy color or some shit.

Jake: Ds. No. Maverick Hunters. Yeah, it may be PSP. Yeah.

Wulff: Yeah, Maverick. Yeah. Maverick Hunter X or something. That was PSP.

Chard: Yeah.

Jake: That's a whole other episode. We can rank.

Chard: I will correct. I will sit corrected. All right. Bring more that ring.

GP: D. D tier. Give it the D. Give me the ping pong. Or not ping pong. Give me the pinball.

Chard: I take pinball over hunters. Noted.

GP: Yeah.

Chard: All right, GP, you probably have the most to talk about this, because I have already claimed to have not been able to play this one, because I don't know why. I know it came out on the Wii. I had a Wii. I think I bought it. But during that time, there was a lot of tumultuous life going on and the turmoil did not allow me to get a good run at Metroid prime three, which makes me sad. So please tell we're not talking about Federation force. I love it. It's already ranked. We still got like five games in between under there. But we already ranked and they're fine. Metroid prime three, corruption. Go.

GP: Yeah, I kind of already said a lot of what I wanted to say about it. I mean, by virtue of two, I'm going to give this one a b. I think it was a correction of the ship after two. And I liked it. I didn't love it, but it was still fun. And the controls, I still enjoyed the. The dark samus thing kind of from, you know, we talked about earlier was back and they did it, I thought, in a fun way. And yeah, I don't think I would have liked it if I didn't have the player's guide. That is. One thing I will say is typically, I don't like to play through a game for the first time with, with the player's guide. I usually wait to beat it and then go back and do the player's guide, but I wasn't captivated enough or something. I knew I wanted to finish it, but I used the player's guide and never really felt good about it. But there we are. To me, it's a b. It's fun. It's not great, but it's better than two was.

Wulff: See, I would say this was an a. This is the first one that brought in the Wii remote controls. It did them great. This one, like you said, righted the ship from echoes and again brought in the dark samus stuff in a fun way. It took you to multiple planets, so you get to see all these different alien planets and places and the story behind it if you do all the scanning, because that's where the lore is, much like items in Elden ring. There's a lot of plot buried in there that gives you insights as to where mother brain originally came from. And it kind of goes deep into how this world functions. So why is there a mother brain? Well, it's an AI. It's a biological AI that mankind has created to, you know, man, all sorts of different things. And so that's how mother brain came to be. Like, it explores a lot of that, explains a lot of that. And I thought the game was really well done. So for me, it's an a. Yeah.

GP: I'm not going to hate on an a. Shit. Maybe I just need to go back and play it again. It's been however long, what, 1415 years probably since I. Well, no, whenever. Whenever it came out on the trilogy version for the Wii is when I first played it. But yeah, yeah, if you guys both agree on an a, I'm fine with it. So for.

Jake: For me on this one, I think the. The move to a Wii was a good one. The graphics look really good for the. For what it is. I think for me in the Wii, I love that system. But a lot of the games graphically were not that impressive. Metroid prime three was one of those games that was actually pretty impressive for the system. I. As much as I don't care for the. The Wii's controller setup, it worked for prime three in a way I didn't expect. It was a bit of a novelty, but it still worked. And I thought that was pretty solid. I think I would lean toward an a on this one as well. I think this was a solid entry for the franchise. I think the five year gap between this and two and the first one. Sorry. They definitely learned things. And the music was good graphics. Yeah. Graphically impressive enough that I think is an a for me personally.

Chard: Sold.

GP: Okay.

Chard: Absolutely sold. I. Okay, so how do we rank this next one?

Wulff: I was just thinking about and doing some math in my head. Basically the easiest way to think is it's if you average a three out, they kind of fall into an a. But then you give Metroid prime one and two the Wii remote controls and it definitely edges them into the a. So there you go.

Chard: Okay, that's fair. So next was the release, the release two years later of the Metroid prime trilogy on Wii. So all three of them came off of the GameCube and were deposited sweetly crestley onto the Wii remote. And we got to use the novelty of the Wii remote. I unfortunately only played the GameCube styles and I think I might have briefly touched on because I do remember using the Wii remote on three, but it wasn't enough for any kind of memory to be formed from that. So I'm fine with giving prime trilogy whatever system it's on. I don't care. The gameplay of it is great. I like the first two. I'm sure I would have loved the third one. Totally fine with giving that an a.

Jake: I think when we look at like. Like the idea of having compilations especially for that. That genre like that era, like the Super All Stars was such a fantastic compilation. And then you have Metroid prime trilogy. It's hard to argue against a game that is three solid games in one package for one price. It's just weird that it's two years after corruption. Isn't that kind of weird that you, if you bought corruption two years later you can get all three and one?

Wulff: It's because of the change in controls. The Wii remote controls were so. To the GameCube controller, okay? And I know it's, it like it's, you know, it's. People think of it as gimmicky, the waggle controls, all that. And it's not something you can really do these days unless you have a Wii or Wii U. But at the time it was solid controls. Like, yeah, I don't think I can ever play it another way and think, oh yeah, this is better than the Wii wrote Wii remote controls, which you.

GP: Do have the option, if I'm not mistaken, of using the GameCube controller on the. I don't know about corruption, but on the, on the trilogy, am I wrong with that?

Wulff: I don't know. I downloaded the trilogy on the Wii U and I played it there all with the Wii remote. I didn't even bother trying anything else, so I can't say.

GP: But no, what Wolf said I 100% agree with is had they just re released the trilogy two years later without any sort of changes other than it's a compilation, it would have been very weird. But to go, they saw how well they did the controls with corruption on the Wii. They said, oh man, can you imagine if we put this with, with the first one? And then of course they're going to throw the second one in and put the price tag on it. And here we are. So I think it was justified.

Chard: Cool. All right. All right. So we'll give the trilogy on the Wii a nice little a. And now we are looking down the barrel of another. Mh.

Wulff: Yeah, other m. Has any of you played this all the way through again?

Chard: I'm the first boss done enough to know it exists.

Wulff: What did you think of it in terms of just. Yeah, what did you think of it? Let's hear.

Jake: For me. So I felt it was also very front loaded with the story. I did not like that at all. It felt more like fusion in that regard. I was glad to see a 2d Metroid, but with 3d graphics, which was. Was fantastic. The 2d parts were okay, but I didn't like when you had to switch to the Wii remote to point the screen to fight bosses. That was really rough to me, very clunky. But again, I only played it the first part of the game, so I did not like the control, the back and forth between first person and the 2d gameplay at all.

Wulff: Okay. So I want to throw out there. I've read a number of reviews and what people think of this on like, Reddit and stuff, and essentially, it seems to come to mechanically, the game is really good. Story wise, it's garbage.

Jake: Right?

Wulff: And so for me, that seems like it would put it in a sea.

GP: So you know how, like, with Star wars, especially the original trilogy, there's a lapse in time between a new Hope and empire and then Return of the Jedi. So the things that we see are really awesome. But if you were to go back and look at, like, the day to day lives of everybody, that would not be a great set of movies. Like, the interim. That's kind of how this is to me. It's like Samus's downtime, or, you know, when she's not out there just kicking ass.

Chard: Samus.

GP: Samus takes on the bureaucracy. I don't know.

Wulff: Well, no, the problem with this one is what I've read is that Samus is portrayed in a way that makes her seem very not confident, very weak emotionally and confidence. Like, she's just. It's not the character that we know Samus to be. And so that was the better on her own.

GP: Like, I think you could make that, you know, she's meant for the stars. She's meant to be the loneliness.

Wulff: But this also takes place after so many of the Metroid games. And then in this, she's, like, scared of things that she should not be quite so scared of. Like, she's on edge a lot and nervous, I guess. And she's just written in a way that makes her feel like you're the. You're controlling the damsel. Listen, instead of the hero, Earth.

Chard: Earth prices have inflated.

GP: Conversation there.

Chard: Well, yeah, Earth's prices have inflated, and she's worried about the price of tomatoes. I, you know, it is what it is. You just gotta learn to live with it. Samus goes to the supermarket. You know, it's. It's kind of, hey, they brought back the.

GP: The corkscrew kick or whatever, if I'm not mistaken, today. But, yeah, I didn't care for it. I didn't make it very far. Kind of in a similar way of, like I was saying with Game Boy, you know, if you mess with my aspect ratios too much, it's the same reason I didn't play Mega man seven or eight. It moved differently. It didn't feel right. Took me out of it. So I don't think I bought it. I think I was gifted this game. And yeah, I started it and didn't get very far. Bought it for really only ever bad things.

Wulff: Never touched it. I've been to, but just never did.

GP: I say it's probably a d. I don't want to say it's an f. I don't know if there's any f tier Metroid, but if there is, you wait.

Jake: Yeah, I'm fine with the c, honestly. Like, if the gameplay is solid throughout wolf, then I think C is fine. It just sucks that they really shafted the character. Samus Rand is one of the few badass characters in gaming that I like a lot of, but I think a c is to ruin. That is weird to me, especially with Samus. So. Yeah, but I'm fine if gameplay is good.

Chard: So C, great, go with that.

GP: Okay.

Wulff: Yeah, I think seeing as we have limited experience with it, I think C is fair based on what I've read online. So.

Chard: Brilliant, right? Who wants to. Who wants to briefly dump all over Metroid Prime Federation forces so we can move?

Wulff: I mean, it's got two f's in the title.

GP: Three I never played. I didn't know this one existed.

Jake: Yeah, so this is the one where.

Wulff: There'S no Metroids and no Samus and no single player.

Jake: It's mostly.

Wulff: It's a multiplayer only multiplayer. And it's on three deciseconds. Right?

Jake: Like, yeah, it's.

Wulff: They were like, let's make a Metroid game with none of the things people think of when they think of Metroid. That'll be a success.

Jake: So this happens six years after M came out. Six year gap between the franchise and you come back with the multiplayer game where you don't play a Sam and it's on the three ds. Like, come on, is this the spider.

GP: Woman or whatever that was version where, like, if we don't pump a game out, we're gonna lose the rights. Where Samus. Oh, this is during her smash brothers stint. So she's not available.

Chard: She's unavailable to get busy.

Jake: Remember, if I remember right, this was released more of as like an experience, like a demo of what the three ds could do because it was a first person game. It had the 3d. Because the three deciseconds had the. That 3d effect. Right. I. And this is kind of a showcase for that at stores, but yeah, gameplay, I've played a little bit of it. I did not like it. I didn't like. The character designs are very blocky and super deformed for some reason. The fact that you're not Samus, from what I remember, wasn't great. Yeah. I think this is the f in.

GP: Our list, thanks to that new ninja Turtle movie that's told through the eyes of the Foot clan.

Chard: Right? The one guy.

Wulff: It's not even the eyes of the foot clan. It's like the eyes of Fred from New Jersey.

GP: Oh, yeah, no, I know. Fred from Jersey owes me dollar 20. Forget about it.

Jake: F for this one.

Chard: Yeah, yeah.

Wulff: I think it's a Metroid game. Goes. It's not much of a Metroid game.

GP: And Fred from Jersey, if you're watching, I'm sorry.

Wulff: I. Yeah, we're not picking on you. We're just saying, like, that would not be a good ninja Turtles movie.

Chard: Fred from Jersey is our new mascot.

GP: Oh, hold on. Fred from Jersey, you're on. Yeah, press b. What do you got?

Chard: All right, what Fred's got is the, the next, the next drip in our where of Metroid. I'm trying here. I'm trying to, I'm trying to speak to the gen Xers here, okay? Oh, jazz ears. I'm Gen X. Metroid returns. So Metroid Samus returns. This was the reinvented reimagined. After the season, desists for the AMSR two kept finally getting thrown out there. Nintendo said, you know what? Let's just fucking do it. Let's just finally do it. And they made their own remaster. I've played it. It's, it's a lot of fun. It's it's, it's okay. It's, it's not, you know, it's just more of the same amitroid two with added color and a little bit more effect to it. I still prefer, still prefer. I, you know, I like the grabbing on the ledges, but I'm with you. GP on the aspect ratio thing. It just, it just messes with my ad. Things are too quick, it's too smooth. It's played on a small surface. I don't know. I actually like the AMSR to remake better when I, when I messed around with that. I know. Don't cancel us, but I'm sorry. It just, it was a really good.

Wulff: Another metroid two remake. Am two are.

Chard: Am two are. Thank you ever another Metroid second remake.

Jake: That.

Chard: That's what I was, you know, am SR or am arsm. Whatever. Acronyms are fun. Anyways, this is it. I liked it. It's fine. It was cool when I realized what it was. I still like the Game Boy version. Just. It's a nostalgic thing for me. It's just, you know, reliving the past. So I give it a c. C or a b?

Jake: Yeah.

GP: Have you ever been pressured into doing something that you didn't want to do? But, I mean, was not a horrible thing? Like, for example, you're babysitting your nephew and he's like, uncle GP, because that's what he called me. Will you take me for ice cream? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to take you for ice cream. Your mom's going to be back in ten minutes and then he just will not relent. And so you're going to get ice cream and you're licking the ice cream. You're like, I'm glad I have this ice cream, but I didn't really want to do this. That's this experience. It should have been called Metroid. Now, will you all shut up, please? It was a half hearted to placate the fans.

Chard: Definitely felt I have it, but.

Jake: All right, no, go ahead.

GP: I'm sorry.

Wulff: I've not played this, so I can't say one way or the other, so I will remove myself from this one.

Jake: Okay, so here's the thing with this one. So it was for the three deciseconds. This was made by mercury Stream. Mercury stream, I think the name of the studio was. And they're the guys who did dread afterwards. Five years later, Mercury.

Wulff: Didn't they do Castlevania lords of Shadow?

Jake: I think so, yeah. So they did returns. So what is good about it? The graphics? Pretty good, pretty solid. It looks great on the three deciseconds. I really like the combat. Like, the controls are really good. They added like a counter move, which you do see in dread. And we'll talk about it in a minute. So there's a counter move and. But they force you to use that counter move in pretty much every boss encounter. And that felt very frustrating and clunky because you couldn't tackle the boss in your own way. You had to constantly use the counter. So I appreciate trying to make the gameplay a little bit different with Samus returns, but it just didn't work. And then add in the same issues I had with the original Game Boy one, which was your goal is to take on metroids. And there's a lot of similarity in the different metroids you're hunting, and there's that finite amount of them. So, I mean, I. It's interesting. I'm glad they did it, but it's not, and it's no better than the original Gameboy one. In my eyes, the clunky combat with the same repetitive hunting and metroids didn't work for me, so I think it's a c for me. Okay.

GP: I mean, I'm glad I got my ice cream. Yeah, yeah.

Chard: Metroid. Metroid. Play cleat.

GP: Yeah. Nice.

Wulff: I wanted a metroid. I just wish it weren't like, just.

GP: Not under these circles.

Wulff: I didn't want Nepalitan. Metroid.

Chard: Jesus.

GP: A little eye contact.

Jake: Left the strawberry in the package. You asshole. I don't want strawberry. Metroids.

Chard: Right. Angry makeup, nighttime stuff. Okay? I'm trying to make it PC as best as I can. Okay, fine, I'll do it. 2021, the release.

GP: No, not if you don't want to.

Chard: Yeah. Well, no, and if you. Yeah. 2021, the final. Finally. Finally. A release. A new release. A new Metroid. That wasn't a placation. That was not a redone, something from the past. It was his own thing. It was his own beast. Metroid dread was released for the switch. And I actually own that. I actually got that for Christmas, and I actually played it, and it was a lot of fun. I did play it. I. And I, and I beat it to. I even got to the last guy, and after about 400 million times, I finally beat that guy. Who's pain?

GP: Not watching the podcast. You can tell us. Did you really play it?

Chard: I really did play it.

Jake: I haven't. Can you play it five times for us on loop? Just, just beat it down for us like GP?

Chard: I'm not GP. I'm not that good. But I did play. I love Metroid dread. This was a great callback to what I remember and what I was wanting now. I liked prime. I love prime. I thought 3d stuff. I mean, the first person stuff's great, but you always have a longing, right? For what it was originally, what you were playing with originally, the, the Emmy shit. Oh, that stuff was super stressful and super frustrating at times, but when you finally like. I don't know, I think the worst part about the Emmy stuff was when you got the power up to it to take out the Emmy. Finally, after you beat the boss and you absorb whatever power you were gonna get, and you were, like, trying to line up the damn line on, on the switch with the stupid control, and then you didn't have enough time because it was timed as it's crawling at you real slow, and you just see the laser sight missing its head? Because you're like, I can't get the goddamn thing to like. And then you die hundreds of times. Did I die? To Emmy? But I liked it. I. I'm not a big espionage sneaker game guy. I don't. I'm trying to play Metal Gear solid for GV so I can appreciate it to the way he does instead of just shitting it on all the time. I'm actually playing through one and three so that I can give it a more honest opinion other than I just impatient and can't do it. So it felt. It felt good in dread. And then there was enough action. And I liked the way that the stage estate changed when you changed something. Like there was a. The lava stage would get frozen over and then there was all totally frosted over. So I had to figure out how to get through all the old stuff. There was a little bit of backtracking that I was kind of like, I'm going to hit my head against the. Against the fucking wall. Because all this was open and now none of it's open. And I got to figure out a way around that. And it did. It seemed like they were just trying to take what they had and stretch a little bit more out of you, but I, you know, I'm giving it a good b plus and a a minus kind of game. I I was glad that it came back the way that it did. It felt good on the. On the switch and when you played on the big screen tv or on your monitor or something, it looked fantastic. Was a lot of cool, cool aspects to the game. So I think Metroid dread was a great callback and we need more of that. I would like some more Metroid dread esque type games because that was a lot of fun.

GP: Are you upset that the next thing is going to be prime four? Would you rather them do, like, a dread?

Chard: Nope. Nope. I like the interchange. Like, I'd be fine with a first person and then a side scrolling, first person, side scroller. Just kind of jump back and forth like, like, give me my old stuff. But I still like, I still like prime. I think prime is pretty cool.

Wulff: Yeah, Chard really nailed it with what he said. Like, this is. I loved Metroid dread. I thought it was really, like, a good next attempt at Metroid that we had seen. Just kind of sit there for a while untouched, particularly a 2d entry. And like you said, it stressed me the hell out. Like, I could only play this game for so long before I had to be like, that's enough of this for today. You know, a lot of games. I'll be like, I could just play it, play it, play it. This one was like, all right, I did that. Let's come back later or tomorrow and do some more like this.

Chard: And you're just freaking the fuck out. Like, you're sitting there playing it, and you're trying to get past Emmy. I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt everybody. And then, like, my parents were visiting because I got it for Christmas, and they were at the house at the time, and I'm, like, trying to sneak past this thing, and then the alarms go off, and somebody goes, hey, chardonnay. Because my parents call me that. I go, what? What? Oh, sorry. What?

GP: I'm back on earth.

Chard: You know, it really does. It really does lock you in very, like, you're very locked into the game while you're playing it. And then, like you said, once you get out or you beat the Emmy or whatever, it's like, okay, I need. I need, like, 30 minutes, dude.

Wulff: I. Yeah, you need some breathing time before you can continue playing.

Chard: Yeah, yeah.

Wulff: But, yeah, this, like, dread is a spot on title for this game because it's. You're constantly, like, whenever you go through an area where an Emmy is, you're like, oh, no. Yep, this again. And it's not like you don't want to play it. It's just like, oh, how am I gonna die? And how many times here, right?

Chard: It is like the resident evil series of Metroidvania.

Wulff: But I. I would give dread an a. I thought it was a really good 2d Metroid game.

Jake: Yeah. When I bought this, I loved. I loved dread, too. I thought it was really great. Runs gray in the switch. The Emmy stuff is interesting. When I first played dread, I almost felt it was out of place. But then going back to the earlier games, you do recognize that there are horror elements in those games not quite like Dredd has. Dredd is very stressful, but where it fails a bit is that there's maybe just one or two too many encounters with Emmy. I think it was once or twice to be fine, but it just felt like you're doing the same thing, but a different maze layout, but it was the same mechanics. You're escaping, getting the power up, and then you take her out. It was a bit too much. I tell you, though, what I really love, though, it's Metroidvania for a newer generation who may not have the patience for the older metroids, where you could get lost very easily and confusing where to go. So there's generally no confusion where you go into red for the most part because it does change the map to such a degree where you still have to explore a chunk of the map in backtracking. But by locking out certain areas with environmental effects, you know, you don't need to explore that section. It kind of sells. It tells you no explore over in these two sections or three sections. I felt that was a bit more accessible to maybe people who are newer to the genre, although I did, I laughed when I saw people complaining how to find certain areas. You have to shoot blocks to make them disappear, which is the trope in Metroid, right. You're new to the game. If you knew the franchise and you play this for the first game in Metroid, that is kind of jarring and it's kind of, kind of a pain, but I thought it was a good callback as well. This is definitely a love letter to the original games. I love how when you start it up, it even says in the opening it's Metroid dread. It's Metroid five. Right? Like it's. It's. You got the first game, second Super Metroid fusion, and then this one. It's the fifth game, even though it's 515 years later. It's like that. It's like that Beverly Hills cop movie that just came out. It's a sequel to a 30 year old movie. That's what it's like.

GP: I haven't watched it yet.

Chard: I've heard really?

Jake: I heard it's really good. Yeah, I hope so. Dread. Dread is really fantastic, from music to graphics to everything. It's not s tier. I'm with you, Wolf. I think it's a solid a. It's weird to have when this game comes out in 2021, people were kind of questioning, is it enough value in the game that you're playing for the $60 price tag? I think there is, but there's definitely not much in the way of replay value, which is something we're kind of used to having in modern games. This is less of a modern game and it feels like a retro game, and I'm fine with that $60 price tag, but I can see why I, other people would be upset with Dread being $60. So I know. I think it's a solid a, though. I think it's definitely one to play. Give me more of this. I want more of Dread. I hope we get Dread two or Metroid six from Mercury Stream. Give it back to them because they did a great job with this one, I want to see it, but I want to see it in less than ten years. I don't want a 15 year gap. And I don't know if we're going to see it again because it did not sell nearly as well, I think, that other games have in the franchise.

Wulff: Yeah, this one also got dialogue too. And you actually hear Samus's voice, but she only speaks in that alien language. She does not speak English. She speaks in Chozo or something.

Chard: Right, right.

Wulff: That was interesting.

Chard: Space. Chocobo.

Jake: Spaceshocobo. Yeah.

GP: This. Yeah. This game came out, and I remember wanting so badly to play it that I avoided it like the plague, you know, to avoid spoilers and all that kind of stuff. And I have not played it yet, and I still avoid it because I'm really looking forward to it being my game of the year, probably this year or next year, whenever I do finally get around to it. So again, I kind of have to abstain. But from what I know about it, it's the counter opposite of other end wherever. I have no experience with it, really. But I've heard so many great things about it. I'm really excited to get to it whenever that does happen, so.

Chard: Well, good. I was going to say that there's a pretty good twist in it, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody or you, so we'll keep it to that. But I like the story in it. I think it's got some great, great attributes. It feels like a Metroid five. It definitely brings back all the things that we liked about it. Reminds me of a newer version of Super Metroid, which is what we wanted. It's what I wanted to. And today's youth isn't used to seeing Metroid on the side. They're used to seeing it, you know, front first, front, front and center. You know, they're. They're used to the primes, not what the four of us grew up playing. So, you know, it's a different aspect for it. I definitely give it an a. I think. I think dread is a great callback to what us retro players grew up playing and where the Metroidvanians came into and, yeah, I think it's a great ending or maybe beginning of the next set of Metroid six, maybe. I don't know if they, they keep doing the mega Man X's and the mega man's, that would be pretty sweet. So that's that. That works for me. Okay.

GP: Okay.

Chard: We've got one more on this list. I would love to burn through it. Because I'm burning through this chair right now, if you hadn't noticed.

Jake: Yeah, real quick on this one.

Chard: This last one was just released this, this last year, which is basically just Metroid prime remastered, which was sent out on the switch so you could replay it on there. I have not played the remastered, so I don't have anything to say about it. If it's anything like their fucking original, that I'm just going to give it the same grade that I gave it when I first played it. I'm going to give it kind of an s tier with better graphics, I guess. I don't know, it. Does anybody have any. Is there anything outside of it looking prettier that that makes Metroid prime remastered?

GP: They took out the sequence breaking stuff. Like I said, they're. They still haven't re put it in. No, the real. The one reason I even bought it for the switch is because they changed it. Give me the original formula. Let me sequence break it on my handheld.

Chard: Let's drop it down to a be, then an a or a b.

Wulff: Yeah, I would say this is an a. I would. I would be okay with that. I haven't played it like, I was like, again, no waggle controls. I'm not really sold on it anymore, but unless the switch does allow that with the joy cons, I'm not sure.

Jake: I can't recall they did that. I know they definitely put a lot of work into standard modern controls for Metroid prime in this. And I've heard nothing but good things about the, the modern control scheme for this. This is definitely from understand. I think this is an a. I think I agree with you, GP. Like an a. Sorry about the sequence breaking, but it does. They definitely put a lot of work into making it look better. I can definitely see how this is a stepping stone to bring in Metroid prime four in the future, hopefully near future. And if you like the original, I think you're going to love this one. Especially when it's like, what, 20 years, 21 years since it for the first one came out, right? I mean, it's bringing to a whole new audience, so that's exactly good.

Wulff: Okay, quick, I'd like to correct myself. Apparently it does have the waggle controls. However, it sounds like the gyro is not quite as accurate as the infrared from the Wii U remote or from the Wii remote.

Jake: So. Yeah.

Chard: Okay.

GP: The chucks.

Chard: All right.

GP: Okay, cool.

Chard: Well, here is our list, everybody. You can get on discord and tell us how terribly wrong we are, or tell us how. How you couldn't agree more with all of our choices. I think this is a pretty solid list of all the Metroid games here, so.

Jake: I think so.

Chard: I don't think too many people will argue with this one, to be honest.

GP: Yeah.

Chard: Unless somebody out there. Federation forces the greatest Metroid game I've ever played. What are you guys talking about? Please come and tell us that on the discord. Blow us up. Give us, give.

Jake: Not friends to play multiplayer. What's wrong with you people? I can see it. Yeah.

Wulff: To be fair, I looked it up and some people think it's a decent spinoff, but I don't know, it never appealed to me. And what I tried at the demo, I was not into it at all.

GP: Fair at best point.

Jake: I definitely say everybody should try out hunters with before Metroid prime. If you're interested in prime four coming out, go play hunters. That it'll be lore relevant. If you care about the Metroid lore.

Chard: We love our lore. We love our lore here. Press be to cancel.

GP: God save me, I do.

Chard: All right, great list, guys. Great episode. Good stuff. Let's go ahead and do the sign offs and the send offs from everybody, guys. Jake, do you have anything that you would like to announce or anything you're doing? And then coming up, just.

Jake: Just that I'm making amazing progress in Elden ring. I should have picked taken that as my sisyphean game at the start of the damn year. I'm actually having a real blast with it. I just finished who I'm in crumbling something. Azula or whatever.

Chard: Crumbling from Azula.

Jake: I'm there and I'm at the boss, the Malacath, the beast, clergy guy. I'm fighting him now. He's tough, but tough in a fun way.

Chard: So the mandehead for fucking rainy.

Jake: Yeah, but it's I. That game. I tell you, I almost want to do another episode on a chart because there's. I have thoughts now that I've played such a big.

Chard: Let's do it. Let's revisit. Let's revisit. We can have a once I. Once I finally be rude on you and I can. We can revisit. We record that.

GP: Okay.

Chard: Werewolf. You're not sweltering in this heat much like I am. Holy crap. Well, that's because you're downstairs.

Wulff: Well, it's getting. Yes, I am downstairs. And the sun doesn't get to hit this room very long. All the heat here right now is coming from all these damn light. That's what I'm suffering from.

Chard: Like a southern a southern prosecutor losing his case right now.

Wulff: I do declare.

Chard: What do you got coming up, Wolf?

Wulff: I did like I said, I just finished bloodstained. Oh, my gosh. I can't remember. Ritual of the night for the first time. I finally played through it, and then I played through with one of the alternate characters. Absolutely loved it. Had a blast. And I picked up the DLC for it this morning and beat two bosses in it already. And it is very much like Simon's quest. It's awesome. I'm loving it.

Chard: Nice.

Jake: Great. Good.

Chard: I've not played the DLC for that. I haven't played that one in a while. I just beat that game.

Wulff: Well, the DLC just came out like two weeks ago. It just kind of out of nowhere, too. Okay.

Chard: Love a shadow. Love a good shadow drop.

Jake: Perfect.

Chard: GP, sir. What do you got? You got anything going on?

GP: No, like I said last time, I'm working on really one big project. So I haven't had a ton of time for games. But I will say this episode has got me in the mood to play through a couple of Metal Gear games and of course, the random prime series.

Chard: So not random, but random.

GP: I do have. Yeah, and I want some ice cream. Damn it. So probably gonna go get me some.

Chard: For those of you, for those of you who are listening and not watching, we showed off several of our metal, Metal Gear solid games during my small guy trying to. Trying to relate with GP with his espionage game.

GP: It's like ribs. I don't think about ribs all that often for food. And sometimes somebody says like, hey, you want ribs? I'm like, fuck yeah, that often. But when I do, I'm like, yeah, I want those ribs.

Chard: All right. And of course, sinister is out this evening, but let's go ahead and give him a shout out with DJ Spinistar. Please go and give our DJ buddy a follow and a like and a love if you haven't already, and go listen to him drop some fat beats on Mondays and Tuesdays. He's a. Well, yeah, it's always Mondays, sometimes on Tuesdays. But he's been hitting those. Those bricks pretty good. Also, he hangs out with solar caic on Saturdays as well. So when you're done listening to us Saturday morning, go over there and check that out too. And you could find me hating my life with promised Consort radon, trying to figure out whether I'm going to quit elden ring altogether or just do this until I retire because I don't know what else to do. I've never ran into a boss. As hard as I have since ever, I can't think of a single fromsoft game that has put me in this position since I did what all in the family sympathy of the night retro achievement that took me 10 hours to get. That's no joke. That was a ten hour stream before I popped that achievement. So I'm just trying to treat it like another Ra game. But beyond that, you catch me over at twitch, www. Touch dot tv, forward slash Chardonnay. You know me, you know where I'm at. Just listen to the cursing. It's easy to find. That's all I've got. I don't think there's anything else that's coming up. Gentlemen, this has been a fantastic episode. I love our list. I love you guys, and I love Metroid. So until next time, this is press b to cancel. The best metroids have been recognized.

GP: The galaxy is at peace.

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