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Discussion Simple question: what is the best Metroid game? Why?
- Thread starter Hero of Hyrule
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JR436
Probably looks better in a dress.
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Of the ones I've played and completed, it's the first Prime for me. Probably then followed by Dread.
Super is great, and is essentially the codifier for the genre, but I never really jived with the controls and how Samus feels in terms of movement. The NSO rewind function was a godsend in softening some of the frustrations I had with it.
Super is great, and is essentially the codifier for the genre, but I never really jived with the controls and how Samus feels in terms of movement. The NSO rewind function was a godsend in softening some of the frustrations I had with it.
TheSpearGuy
transcended to the gods
Federation Force is the only Metroid game I enjoyed
Metroid
Enemy of the Process Believe in Progress #BiP
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This question is always hard for me to answer, but I would say it's still Super. The music, exploration, boss fights, tone, items, all of it comes together so perfectly in a way that has not been matched by any one game. It's been outdone in certain regards for sure, Dread has easily the best gameplay in the series, Prime is close to Super as a 3D game which gives it a certain edge. I love Zero Mission's speed and raw energy. But all the other games lack enough in certain categories where Super Metroid just overtakes them. I would love to see it wholly bested, but that's a tall order. Dread and Prime were the closest to doing it.
That said, I voted for Prime 2 since it's my favorite Prime game. Saluting the brave few voting for Hunters, Other M, and Fed Force.
That said, I voted for Prime 2 since it's my favorite Prime game. Saluting the brave few voting for Hunters, Other M, and Fed Force.
Vookatos
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It's La-Mulana.
A non-joke answer is Super Metroid. I believe that Metroid, much like Zelda before, kinda peaked with innovation during SNES era, and unlike Zelda with BotW, is yet to break out of it.
I love Primes 1 and 2, and I've enjoyed Dread, but with each passing installment I'm growing tired of the series' similarities. I no longer feel much in terms of oppressive atmosphere when the games give me the same 5 power-ups over and over. Granted, Metroid has been in a much worse place than Zelda, but I'd love for it to take risks, kind of like those Prime 3 wanted to take. I'd like for Metroid to be on top of Metroidvania genre, and not outplayed by indie games that provide more memorable experiences by virtue of breaking conventions and feeling new.
A non-joke answer is Super Metroid. I believe that Metroid, much like Zelda before, kinda peaked with innovation during SNES era, and unlike Zelda with BotW, is yet to break out of it.
I love Primes 1 and 2, and I've enjoyed Dread, but with each passing installment I'm growing tired of the series' similarities. I no longer feel much in terms of oppressive atmosphere when the games give me the same 5 power-ups over and over. Granted, Metroid has been in a much worse place than Zelda, but I'd love for it to take risks, kind of like those Prime 3 wanted to take. I'd like for Metroid to be on top of Metroidvania genre, and not outplayed by indie games that provide more memorable experiences by virtue of breaking conventions and feeling new.
Mekanos
おっす！
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I don’t understand the difference between best and greatest
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I'm only really a fan of the 2D games, so it's Dread for me. Prime was missing the nimbleness Samus had in the 2D games and enemy encounters felt more and more drawn out as the game progressed, which felt conflicting with a game with so much backtracking, and inverse of my experience with the 2D games.
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Yeah, for the reasons you've outlined, I think Super will always be considered the best overall, by a fairly significant portion of the fanbase. It's like they took Metroid 1, and made it... uh, super.
In terms of music, Hip Tanaka's work on Metroid 1 is amazing though, so I almost wanna say the first game (and Zero Mission, with its renditions of his stuff) has my favorite OST. It even gave us iconic elements such as the main theme, item room theme, appearance fanfare, and upgrade jingle, all of which persist to this day. It's so hard to choose a favorite soundtrack, since there's so much good music across the series.(Nobody is voting for Hunters, by the way. Good!)
Dread and Corruption.
Both are perfect and a refinement of the games that came before.
I struggle to point negatives points about both games.
The only thing we need is a good multiplayer or a good 3rd person Metroid like the good old God of War games (fixed camera).
Both are perfect and a refinement of the games that came before.
I struggle to point negatives points about both games.
The only thing we need is a good multiplayer or a good 3rd person Metroid like the good old God of War games (fixed camera).
Best just refers to the quality of the game. It's a measurement of things like design, performance, controls, pacing, etc. A game's greatness takes into account it's impact, innovation, and quality relative to the time it was released.
I think Dread is a better game than Super, but it should be--it came out 27 years later after the industry and technology had progressed significantly, and after Super and a thousand other Metroidvanias laid the foundations of the genre.
But Dread isn't doing anything particularly novel or game changing. It's just an excellent Metroidvania. But it can only be as good as it is because Super basically established the formula.
The experience of playing Dread in 2021 was, "wow this game is an excellent Metroidvania." If I played both Dread and Super right now I would enjoy Dread way more for a variety of reasons. That makes it better.
The experience of playing Super in 1994 was, "this is blowing my fucking mind." Super changed the entire industry while Dread probably won't have much influence. That makes it greater.
All imo of course.
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There is no difference. People just like to make appeals to authority/acclaim/innovation, which is never good. I love the Metroid games but every Metroid game has a critical flaw that another one doesn't, I don't think any of them are perfect, so it just stifles discussion when people appeal to the acclaim/innovation of one game over another.
Just asking out of curiosity, but is this based off your own observations or analysis/discussion by the community? Because I think the Echoes fandom sometimes downplays Prime 1 too much to make a point about where Prime 2 has improved, which can sort of make people who haven't played them in a way impressionable. I was playing Prime 2 for the first time and mostly agreeing with a lot of the arguments I saw for Echoes being better early on, but it kind of became obvious the longer I played that it's worse in most ways and a lot of what's said about it is sort of exaggerated IMO. Just asking for your opinion ofc cause i'm curious.
There's obviously a difference between discussing a game's quality and a game's acclaim/innovation. Discussing the latter is neither bad nor good, it's just a different discussion than the former. You can disagree with the terms used to refer to each discussion, of course, as there's no official definition of what constitutes the "best" or "greatest" game. If you think both those terms interchangeably refer to a game's quality, that's a valid interpretation.
It wasn't clear to me what the criteria of the OP was, and since I personally consider "best" and "greatest" (and "favorite") to all be different things, I gave answers for all three.
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You might as well redo the poll with just Super, Prime, and Dread as they're the only 3 that have any chance of winning. Prime is probably the overall best game, but I just find Super so replayable and it's physics so perfect to allow various routing choices when you fully know it.
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Not really, I just posted based off of my personal preference. I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to the discourse of Prime vs Prime 2, other than seeing many people bouncing off of Prime 2 because of Dark Aether. (Which I personally love)
OP
OP
Hero of Hyrule
Frieren the Slayer
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I appreciated the detailed responses!
Personally, I would say the "best" is Metroid Prime, the "greatest" is Super, my favorite is actually Echoes (with very high highs, and sharp lows), so I totally get the delineation you would make.
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The Best Metroid game is the one you like best and resonates better with you.
Disregard what anyone else says.
Disregard what anyone else says.
Prime is my second favorite after Echoes and I have it barely behind Super in terms of greatness, but choosing between Prime and Dread for the best was hard. Ultimately I think Dread just has fewer flaws. The backtracking in Prime was a little excessive, the Chozo artifact hunt hurt the pacing, and the controls of the original have aged poorly. I might actually give it to Prime if we're counting the Remaster though.
Yamanoi
I paid $70 for this tag
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Super Mario 64
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It will be interesting to do this poll after Prime 4 comes out
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And then again after Metroid 6 in 2025.It will be interesting to do this poll after Prime 4 comes out
D
Deleted member 4028
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1 interesting thing to me about this poll is seeing Dread so high, actually I think it was #1 for a while. Didn't know it was that many peoples' favorite Metroid game
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I mean tbh it’s probably many people’s only Metroid game
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Expectations for that game were the highest possible, to the point it was almost impossible to deliver, but it somehow did. What a comeback for the series.
OP
OP
Hero of Hyrule
Frieren the Slayer
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Federation Force beating Hunters is not something I expected to see
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Not to pick a fight, but this sounds like me in the PS1 days rationalizing praise for Final Fantasy VII.
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Gotta give it to Super. It's just everything I love about the franchise and the genre in a great package. Yes, it's a bit clunky nowadays. Yes, it can get a tad obstuse. Yes, this is also fueled by nostalgia. But it's just really damn good imho.
Prime 1 and Dread are close contenders but the former's backtracking can get grating and the last third is pretty annoying. And I honestly just hate how Dread follows the worrying trend of turning every Metroidvania into Dark Souls with its bosses that have you bash your head against a granite wall for 20 tries before you finally get through somehow. (Yes, I'm a Goofy Goober, I thought Dread was too hard at times.)
Prime 1 and Dread are close contenders but the former's backtracking can get grating and the last third is pretty annoying. And I honestly just hate how Dread follows the worrying trend of turning every Metroidvania into Dark Souls with its bosses that have you bash your head against a granite wall for 20 tries before you finally get through somehow. (Yes, I'm a Goofy Goober, I thought Dread was too hard at times.)
Yamanoi
I paid $70 for this tag
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Super Mario 64
Thanks. Did you like the DS remake?
Just a few days to go for Zero Mission.
DittoM
Bob-omb
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It’s most likely Dread, but I haven’t played Fusion in years & I remember loving that game. I also never finished Zero Mission. So maybe when those come to NSO I’ll see if my opinion changes.
But for now Dread is just so good. Feels great just to boot that game up and blast through it. Especially since on my second playthrough I was able to sequence break. I never found it interesting to do that in Super, but I really liked getting stuff early in Dread. Probably due to the superior controls. And the boss fights in this game ruin boss fights in any other Metroid game, they’re fantastic here.
But for now Dread is just so good. Feels great just to boot that game up and blast through it. Especially since on my second playthrough I was able to sequence break. I never found it interesting to do that in Super, but I really liked getting stuff early in Dread. Probably due to the superior controls. And the boss fights in this game ruin boss fights in any other Metroid game, they’re fantastic here.
DittoM
Bob-omb
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Is it really that interesting? I haven’t beaten every Metroid game, but while all of their great, almost all of them have something holding them back from being 100% perfect. Other than the music being only okay, I’m really struggling to think about any glaring flaws Dread has.
Maybe it’s just that I’m not super invested in the Metroid fanbase. It wasn’t until after I beat Fusion around 8 years ago and loved it did I realize that there’s a very sizable chunk of the fanbase that hates that game and finds it too linear.
D
Deleted member 4028
Guest
I just think it's interesting because I usually see Super and Prime 1 being the ones people mention as "the best." I'm not super invested in the Metroid fanbase either, just was genuinely surprised to see Dread at #1 for a bit, I knew it was pretty well liked but I didn't realize it was to that extent.
DittoM
Bob-omb
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I mean it was a game of the year nominee that year. People really liked it. Personally I like Dread way more than both of those games.
Thanks. Did you like the DS remake?
Just a few days to go for Zero Mission.
Kind of? I did not like the D-Pad controls or the new graphics the same way, but it was pretty interesting seeing the castle altered and expanded and having new characters to play as. There were some cool touch screen minigames included, particularly cool was the one where you drew trampolines for Mario to jump on. I’ve beaten Mario 64 100% countless times, I’ve only played 64 DS once and that’s enough.
I actually get similar feelings from both Super Mario 64 and Super Metroid. Just like the way there is so much room to express yourself with how you navigate those worlds and sort of plan your way through. With both of those games, I’m always learning something new about them as I play through which is impressive since I’ve rolled credits countless times on both. I usually play them every other year or so at least and they both reinvigorate my love for games every time I play them.
Super Metroid is super cool and I should replay it soon lol.
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Meta-commentary: For years and years it has always been Super and Prime 1, then everyone else. If you polled a large enough sample size, it was those two games at the top every single time. Dread seems to be creeping up closer to that level. Some of it may be recency bias, but I think when people look back ten years from now, Metroid Dread will be often considered a top 3 all timer for the franchise.
As for me, I still put Super above the rest. Everything about that game was well executed. It was fun just traveling the map aimlessly.
Super>Zero Mission>Prime 1>Dread>Fusion>Samus Returns>Prime 2>Prime 3>Metroid
Never played the others
As for me, I still put Super above the rest. Everything about that game was well executed. It was fun just traveling the map aimlessly.
Super>Zero Mission>Prime 1>Dread>Fusion>Samus Returns>Prime 2>Prime 3>Metroid
Never played the others
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Dread rating so high also has to do with it being many new fan's first and in some cases only Metroid game. It's a great game obviously, and I think we're going to see the same thing with Prime 4 being in contention for the best game in the series.
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I was going to say this, it reminds me of a quote, from Stan Lee I think, I believe he answered a question of which comic book character would win in a fight between another character and I believe he answered that the winner was that it's always going to be the character you like the most.The Best Metroid game is the one you like best and resonates better with you.
Disregard what anyone else says.
AxkilAvenger
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I will never be able to choose between Prime & Super. NEVER
