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Discussion What hurt Federation Force most?

What hurt Federation Force most?

  • The art style

    Votes: 23 24.0%

  • Samus not being the main character

    Votes: 7 7.3%

  • Being on 3DS

    Votes: 3 3.1%

  • Multiplayer focus

    Votes: 18 18.8%

  • The release timing

    Votes: 45 46.9%
  • Total voters
    96
Mer.Saloon

Mer.Saloon

Chain Chomp
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The Metroid sales discussion got me thinking back to Federation Force. And I always had a question about the reception of that game.

Personal anecdotes here, but I always kinda figured most people's problem with the game was just how ugly the game looked. The fact the main characters looked like bobble heads and all the environments looked really ugly looking for the 3DS. The monsters looked stupid, and the soldier suits looked stupid without any of the charm of a Wind Waker style and cel shading.



Then I remember at the time Tanabe mentioning a lot of people questioning why wasn't Samus in the game and all that sort of thing and I was always confused why that question seemed to take more precedent over the art style.

In Metroid Prime 2, we included multiplayer, but here we wanted to focus on the co-op aspect. But then, if we have four "Samuses", that would be odd. And that's where the Galactic Federation came in. Controlling the game, and in terms of how it feels, it feels like a Metroid Prime game.
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I certainly did miss her presence, but Idk i still think people would have been put off by the art style if say Samus was as bobble headed as the Fed Troopers. Regardless of being the mc or not.

But it felt like Tanabe always brushed aside the topic of the art style in interviews outside of one moment where I think he mentioned the low resolution of the 3ds.

I mean, I do think Samus needed a bit of a comeback after Other M kinda... disgraced the character. But not enough to sink Federation Force like it did. I mean, there was also the heavy multiplayer focus, but that didn't seem to hurt Smash 3DS, or Mario Kart. Like it was just such an utter disaster.

But I am curious what other people's takes were as to what hurt the game most? I really do wanna see other people's perspectives on that time.
 
To me, it just seemed like the wrong type of game at the wrong time. It was still post-Metroid Other M which a majority of us weren't really feeling.

I'm sure if Metroid had one or two new mainline games that were really good, I'm sure a side thing like this wouldn't be as bad.
 
Shipping spin-offs in the middle of a huge lull period for a franchise is never a good thing, especially when that spin off is not what the audience wanted.
 
It releasing without any other mainline game in sight. If this was advertised as a supplemental spin-off to an actual Metroid sequel, it might have done better.
 
It was the first thing Metroid in 7 years since Other M. I still say it wouldn't have gotten that much vitriol if they had announced Samus Returns first. Or maybe even the Prime Trilogy for Wii U.
 
was Samus Returns in development at time? If it was they probably should have revealed it was being worked on. If they couldn't show something maybe a logo tease?
 
I voted for release timing but also there’s a 6th option; the name. It wasn’t just Federation Force. It was Metroid Prime: Federation Force. That’s different than just being a Metroid game.

Realistically, it’s probably a healthy mix of all of the reasons it was likely the worst received game Nintendo has ever made. To the point where Reggie even had to tell everyone to chill. But chilling couldn’t help it. There needed to be another bone thrown to that audience.
 
oomoepoo said:
It was the first thing Metroid in 7 years since Other M. I still say it wouldn't have gotten that much vitriol if they had announced Samus Returns first. Or maybe even the Prime Trilogy for Wii U.
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Idk. I think if the game at least looked something like Hunters it would have done at least a little better. And not have so much vitriol.

Like the response made it seem like the game killed people's parent.

There's apathy, but people seemed anything but apathetic to FF. There were those cheering its failure.
 
Lugia667 said:
was Samus Returns in development at time? If it was they probably should have revealed it was being worked on. If they couldn't show something maybe a logo tease?
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Most likely, SR came out like a year after Federation Force, so they probably started around 2015.

Mer.Saloon said:
Idk. I think if the game at least looked something like Hunters it would have done at least a little better. And not have so much vitriol.

Like the response made it seem like the game killed people's parent.

There's apathy, but people seemed anything but apathetic to FF. There were those cheering its failure.
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I mean, it looking like it did... probably didn't help the game? But I really don't think that was the major sticking point.
 
I think it was a combination of all of the above but the biggest issue was definitely the time period in which it was announced. It had been five years since the last Metroid game, and to say that particular game was divisive would be a huge understatement. Metroid fans desperately wanted a return to form for the series, but instead they got something that was anything but a traditional Metroid game.

Another contributing factor to its vitriol is how Nintendo did a very bad job of explaining its decision and that traditional Metroid games were still on the way. To Metroid fans, this seemed like the final nail in the series' coffin. Had it released at a time when the series was healthy, it could have been received better, but since Nintendo didn't bother communicating that the Metroid series would return to form soon, this seemed like it was it.

I also think this is why AM2R is praised as much as it is by fans. Yes, it is an extremely impressive and good fan game, but I don't think it would be hailed as being better than most official Metroid games had it not come to us at a time when it seemed like Nintendo was done supporting traditional Metroid games. It was like an oasis in a vast desert which leads me to think Metroid fans deified it more than necessary. Just my opinion though.
 
The timing, of course. But also the multiplayer thing. It will always bother me it's borderline impossible to fully complete the game on single player, unlike in example triforce heroes, which was hard but possible. And that coming from a single player franchise was a pain.
 
In a theoretical world where Samus Returns and Federation Force had their releases swapped, I think people would have been more receptive to it.
 
Like others have said, it was the wrong game at the wrong time. It was announced in 2015 when...

  • The Metroid brand was at an all-time low.
  • The last new Metroid game at that point was Other M back in 2010. That game was not well received.
  • E3 2015 overall was a downer for Nintendo. That was when Nintendo basically said that the Wii-U was on borrowed time.
  • People were thirsting for a new traditional 2D Metroid or Prime 4, not this spinoff.
  • Fire Emblem: Fates had just launched in Japan and the list of upcoming 3DS games was not super appealing. The system needed a big game to look forward to.
It wasn't just one factor. It was a combination of a lot of things. I'd say the biggest one was that the franchise was missing a traditional game for so long.
 
I gotta go with art style. Metroid is a series with a lot of prestige and respect but relatively poor sales. The Metroid Prime games were always graphical showcases for their systems (including Hunters), and I think a lot of the series prestige comes from the visuals and art direction of those games.

So things like the multiplayer focus and the release timing definitely matter, but even people who don't play Metroid games saw Federation Force and saw something that didn't look right for a Metroid game. Because of that Federation Force was hated and mocked by people who aren't even in the Metroid fanbase, letting the ridicule reach beyond the normal scope of a game that just disappointed fans.

I don't know if it would have been received much better if Samus Returns came out first since Triforce Heroes still got a lot of hate despite following one of the best 2D Zeldas.
 
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Sadly, I think that even if Nintendo released a remake of Federation Force with an improved art style on Switch, it would be immediately rejected just because the pain of that first reveal never left. The name Federation Force is completely tainted because of that, and no matter how good the game actually is, I don't think it will ever not be considered a horrible game just because of its association. It might be one of Nintendo's biggest reveal blunders for any game ever.
 
If Nintendo had announced that a remake of Metroid 2 was coming at the same Direct, then I think the hatred for Federation Force would have been dimmed.

Not gone completely, but dimmed.

Edit: that would have also allowed people to realize why Nintendo took down AM2R, even if they still would have been pissed about that.
 
Definitely the timing. If Federation Force had hit during the 2000s era "you're getting a Prime or GBA game basically every year or two" days, or maybe even now when Prime Remastered is a thing, Prime 4 is known to be in development and Dread just came out a few years ago, I think it would have been better received because it'd get to be just a Metroid game and not be seen as the Metroid game.

I think Metroid fans are willing to try something different from the series; people liked Hunters and even were OK with Prime Pinball being a thing. But that "something different" needs to not be the only sign of life for the series in 6 years (and the only thing of substance since something as poorly received as Other M, at that).
 
Beyond everything that was already said, it also just wasn't that great.
I bought the game because I didn't care much about it being a spin off. I never considered Metroid a dead franchise or dormant or whatever, so I was fully willing to enjoy the game.

But the level design and action gameplay was painfully boring. It didn't get great reviews, so on top of everything that had been said, it was never going to sell well. If at least it got rave reviews, if it was a secret classic, it could have had a following and sell some more copies, but it really wasn't too hot.
 
I mean, what hurt it as a game was being on the 3ds. It was a genre and game concept that the 3ds just couldn't handle.

It couldn't handle the necessary visuals for a crisp shooting experience because of low resolution. Everything was ugly and chibi as a result, and everything moved slowly too, probably as a result as well. It couldn't perform at a high FPS due to limited 3ds horsepower, so it felt sluggish. And the 3ds had a shite online system, and this game needed to be played co-op to be remotely entertaining. I mean... put all of that together and it was a total, total failure of concept. NLG actually worked miracles making such a shit idea as polished as it ended up being, but a polished turd is still shit, and Fed Force was absolutely, 100% shit.

The timing accounted for a large amount of the backlash, but the timing only mattered because the game was clearly shit from the moment it was first displayed. If the game had actually been good - or just a good concept - why would the timing even matter? No one says no to a good game.

So yeah, it's the fact that it was on 3ds for me.

The final boss of that game is really its crowning glory. Unbelievably bad. The whole game... it's just so, so bad.
 
A mix of everything you mentioned, really. I feel like release timing and art style were the biggest sticking points.

At the time of the game's reveal, it had been five years since Other M, a game which the fanbase... wasn't fond of, to put it lightly. Meaning the last installment fans widely enjoyed was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in 2007, which was eight years prior. Fans didn't trust Sakamoto with shit after Other M, so there was hope for a Metroid Prime 4 to "redeem" the franchise. The "another ****ing Donkey Kong" thread is right there, so no need elaborate how wild this urge for a brand new Prime installment was. So it being almost a decade since a good Metroid game, the last thing fans wanted was a spin-off game. It could have possibly been mitigated by revealing Samus Returns early, assuming development started as marketing was being prepared for E3 2015, but I dunno.

As for art style, I'll admit I never fully got the reasoning:
After completing the development of Luigi’s Mansion 2, we started working on this project with development company Next Level Games. At that time we had many discussions about how to make a multiplayer gameplay experience great on a handheld system: things like map loading time, the number of enemies we could display at a time, etcetera. There were many technical hurdles to face. But, most of all, the biggest issue was that objects you need to shoot will be so tiny on the small screen of the handheld system. That is why we decided to change things up and use this more rounded art style for the characters.

If you make the characters more rounded, enemies also become more compact, and you can display larger groups of them. Also, we compressed the surrounding terrain vertically, based on the characters’ proportions. So the amount of information we could display on screen really increased. This resulted in a different aesthetic but we wanted to prioritize providing the very best gameplay experience. After that, we tested out a version of this art style and we confirmed that it definitely offers the best handheld experience in the Metroid Prime world. That’s when we gave the go ahead to proceed in this direction. - Kensuke Tanabe, Metroid Prime: Federation Force - Mission Briefing (timestamp 11:10)
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Did they get feedback about Metroid Prime Hunters that suggested sticking with the established art style hurt playability, because otherwise, I don't really get it. Hell, the DS has less screen real estate than the 3DS.
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Definitely the timing. If Federation Force had hit during the 2000s era "you're getting a Prime or GBA game basically every year or two" days, or maybe even now when Prime Remastered is a thing, Prime 4 is known to be in development and Dread just came out a few years ago, I think it would have been better received because it'd get to be just a Metroid game and not be seen as the Metroid game.

I think Metroid fans are willing to try something different from the series; people liked Hunters and even were OK with Prime Pinball being a thing. But that "something different" needs to not be the only sign of life for the series in 6 years (and the only thing of substance since something as poorly received as Other M, at that).
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Heck, back in the late 2000s/early 2010s, I distinctly remember people saying a Prime spin-off focusing on the Federation would be a cool way of expanding the universe. I don't think every Metroid fan was opposed to the idea of Federation Force, but its timing couldn't have possibly been worse.
 
OctoSplattack said:
A mix of everything you mentioned, really. I feel like release timing and art style were the biggest sticking points.

At the time of the game's reveal, it had been five years since Other M, a game which the fanbase... wasn't fond of, to put it lightly. Meaning the last installment fans widely enjoyed was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in 2007, which was eight years prior. Fans didn't trust Sakamoto with shit after Other M, so there was hope for a Metroid Prime 4 to "redeem" the franchise. The "another ****ing Donkey Kong" thread is right there, so no need elaborate how wild this urge for a brand new Prime installment was. So it being almost a decade since a good Metroid game, the last thing fans wanted was a spin-off game. It could have possibly been mitigated by revealing Samus Returns early, assuming development started as marketing was being prepared for E3 2015, but I dunno.

As for art style, I'll admit I never fully got the reasoning:

Did they get feedback about Metroid Prime Hunters that suggested sticking with the established art style hurt playability, because otherwise, I don't really get it. Hell, the DS has less screen real estate than the 3DS.
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The quote always blows my mind. In retrospect, knowing that the game ended up becoming one of the top 3 or 5 software / PR disasters in Nintendo's history, it reads like the captain of the Titanic saying "there were lots of hurdles to navigating an iceburg field at night, but having carefully considered them all we decided that's exactly what we'd do".

They literally SAW the reasons the game could not work well on the hardware they had to hand, and in their hubris went for it anyway. Just crazy.
 
Heron said:
I mean, what hurt it as a game was being on the 3ds. It was a genre and game concept that the 3ds just couldn't handle.

It couldn't handle the necessary visuals for a crisp shooting experience because of low resolution. Everything was ugly and chibi as a result, and everything moved slowly too, probably as a result as well. It couldn't perform at a high FPS due to limited 3ds horsepower, so it felt sluggish. And the 3ds had a shite online system, and this game needed to be played co-op to be remotely entertaining. I mean... put all of that together and it was a total, total failure of concept. NLG actually worked miracles making such a shit idea as polished as it ended up being, but a polished turd is still shit, and Fed Force was absolutely, 100% shit.

The timing accounted for a large amount of the backlash, but the timing only mattered because the game was clearly shit from the moment it was first displayed. If the game had actually been good - or just a good concept - why would the timing even matter? No one says no to a good game.

So yeah, it's the fact that it was on 3ds for me.

The final boss of that game is really its crowning glory. Unbelievably bad. The whole game... it's just so, so bad.
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I largely agree with you, but in regards to 4P multiplayer on 3DS, millions of players were pouring dozens or even hundreds of hours into Monster Hunter 4 and Generations, massive, online-focused co-op multiplayer action games with intense combat. Capcom seemed to get a lot out of the 3DS despite its specs.
 
All of the above

It was the wrong game at the wrong time on the wrong system with the wrong focus on the wrong character/s.
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Definitely the timing. If Federation Force had hit during the 2000s era "you're getting a Prime or GBA game basically every year or two" days, or maybe even now when Prime Remastered is a thing, Prime 4 is known to be in development and Dread just came out a few years ago, I think it would have been better received because it'd get to be just a Metroid game and not be seen as the Metroid game.

I think Metroid fans are willing to try something different from the series; people liked Hunters and even were OK with Prime Pinball being a thing. But that "something different" needs to not be the only sign of life for the series in 6 years (and the only thing of substance since something as poorly received as Other M, at that).
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This is true, but a Federation Force made during that time would have the traditional Metroid Prime art style (like pinball and hunters) and would likely be panned if it had the one it ended up with.
 
PixelKnight said:
I largely agree with you, but in regards to 4P multiplayer on 3DS, millions of players were pouring dozens or even hundreds of hours into Monster Hunter 4 and Generations, massive, online-focused co-op multiplayer action games with intense combat. Capcom seemed to get a lot out of the 3DS despite its specs.
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I think its because Monster Hunter's gameplay focuses on very few creatures to fight. But these creatures are gigantic and multifaceted battles rather than standard trash mobs.

Federation force tries to play like a regular Metroid game with standard size trash mobs coming in waves.
 
PixelKnight said:
I largely agree with you, but in regards to 4P multiplayer on 3DS, millions of players were pouring dozens or even hundreds of hours into Monster Hunter 4 and Generations, massive, online-focused co-op multiplayer action games with intense combat. Capcom seemed to get a lot out of the 3DS despite its specs.
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I'm going to be honest, I always thought the success of the 3ds MonHun games was local co-op, but I'm totally ignorant about it (I was a World-baby).

Assuming it's true, that would explain why they thought they could make that work, or that there might be a market for it. Perfectly fair.

I would argue, though, that the co-op shooter market is still a different thing than MonHun. We were already getting into the era of quality F2P co-op / online shooters at that point. It was proper red-ocean stuff. Nintendo thinking they could compete with a 3ds title... the mind boggles.
 
Is today the "let's remember the worst moments of Nintendo fans day"?
 
I largely lean towards the artstyle. Which was a symptom of it being on the 3DS, so I largely lump the two together.

There's a part of me that always will wonder if maybe things might have been at least SLIGHTLY better for Fed Force if the Wii U version that was planned ended up being the chosen version that continued development. At the very least, you might have had a game with passable graphics with a decent artstyle and actually decent online MP. People were hating on the game the moment they saw the super-deformed (SD) artstyle in a Metroid game, and that just made it easier for all of its other faults to be accentuated.
 
TreIII said:
I largely lean towards the artstyle. Which was a symptom of it being on the 3DS, so I largely lump the two together.

There's a part of me that always will wonder if maybe things might have been at least SLIGHTLY better for Fed Force if the Wii U version that was planned ended up being the chosen version that continued development. At the very least, you might have had a game with passable graphics with a decent artstyle and actually decent online MP. People were hating on the game the moment they saw the super-deformed (SD) artstyle in a Metroid game, and that just made it easier for all of its other faults to be accentuated.
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I don't blame them for not making a Wii U version. This was probably the time when the Wii U was internally being dropped but the Switch was still a ways away.

But if that was the case, Tanabe should have just held back on the concept for a better system.

Isn't this the exact same reason Sakamoto didn't make Dread on the DS?
 
Others nailed it. Wrong game at the wrong time. The game was actually pretty fun and a legitimately good co-op game. In a post-Samus Returns, Dread, and MP4 world (whenever that comes to be), I think the reception would be completely different. Nothing that sets the world on fire, but people would be willing to accept it for what it is, your average spin-off, and be more open to it.
 
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Beyond the internet backlash focus, this and Codename Steam were the worst selling high-ish budget Nintendo games like... ever made, lol.

So the distaste for the game definitely went beyond internet forum users.
 
Heron said:
I'm going to be honest, I always thought the success of the 3ds MonHun games was local co-op, but I'm totally ignorant about it (I was a World-baby).

Assuming it's true, that would explain why they thought they could make that work, or that there might be a market for it. Perfectly fair.

I would argue, though, that the co-op shooter market is still a different thing than MonHun. We were already getting into the era of quality F2P co-op / online shooters at that point. It was proper red-ocean stuff. Nintendo thinking they could compete with a 3ds title... the mind boggles.
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Maybe that’s just my read on it as a European player that seemed to always be randomly buddied up online with JP players :) I think there was an obvious focus on local co-op on the PSP, and it still remains a part of the game, but after Tri on the Wii, it moved more towards online play especially for players outside Japan. After all, being able to play with your friends without needing to physically be next to them is cool. Not that I wouldn’t have loved it if I could have convinced my pals to come over with 3DSs for a local MonHun party. They were largely all shooter fans though.

Yeah, agree on the co-op online shooters thing, sure, the market was already hotly contested elsewhere.
 
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Artstyle and timing.

Hunters on DS had a better aesthetic and that was a decade earlier on weaker hardware. A childish chibi artstyle is not a good fit for a grittier franchise.

And yeah, like everyone else is saying the timing was awful. Nobody wants spinoffs when the mainline series is dead.

The game itself isn't awful and conceptually it's not a bad idea. Just not the right time.
 
It's not one factor alone but a combination of art style, gameplay and release timing. If Prime 4 or Dread were already known to be in development, it wouldn't have gotten this level of backlash. If gameplay was traditional Metroid, fans probably would've been begrudgingly alright with it. If the art style was different... well, people would still be pissed, but a little less so
 
It's primarily timing. Hunters has a worse single-player campaign but no one cared because of the arena multiplayer being wildly ambitious for a DS game and we were in Metroid's golden age at the time, with Prime 2 and Zero Mission having just released and kicking all sorts of ass.
 
Bit of everything, honestly. If it had been announced alongside Samus Returns, and it hadn't come immediately after the Other M break in the franchise, reception wouldn't have been that miserable, but it would still have been a "weird little spinoff" in the series. The art style was just the cherry on top of the shit cake, but I don't think it would have been that bad by itself. After all, Nintendoland also featured a very cartoonish take on Metroid and people weren't as angry about it.

The weirdest part is that Federation Force actually supports the Samus Returns Metroid Amiibo out of the box, with no patches. (It unlocks a unique special mech). Which means they either intended to release a Metroid Amiibo alongside the game, or both Federation Force and Samus Returns were originally planned to release closer in time.

I personally remember having a fair bit of fun with it. I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, but it's a better game than Other M. At least more... respectful with the franchise, most of the time.

Luneth said:
It will always bother me it's borderline impossible to fully complete the game on single player, unlike in example triforce heroes, which was hard but possible. And that coming from a single player franchise was a pain.
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I'm not entirely sure I actually agree with this. The game was absolutely beatable in single player using the specific mod the game gave you for soloing missions. Harder difficulty levels were in fact significantly more challenging solo, but they were still doable with a lot of practice.

Thing is, playing solo was also a lot less enjoyable, so I don't blame anyone for not wanting to approach the higher difficulties solo with the added frustration.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
I don't blame them for not making a Wii U version. This was probably the time when the Wii U was internally being dropped but the Switch was still a ways away.

But if that was the case, Tanabe should have just held back on the concept for a better system.

Isn't this the exact same reason Sakamoto didn't make Dread on the DS?
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If we go by the account on the Metroid wiki, as well as the DYKG series, Tanabe had apparently started this concept back in 2009 (on the DSi), while Next Level were also working on a multiplayer Metroid spinoff of their own before, and even sometime after Luigi's Mansion 2. That was Project Valkyrie. The two ideas basically merged together after Next Level and Tanabe worked together for LM2, and the rest is basically history.

Tanabe seemed to really believe in this idea, and even more so the focus on the Federation soldiers. So it's sad that it didn't work out, but maybe when both sides of the Metroid brand are healthy again, he can perhaps relish in the idea of trying more oddball things like this again.

...with hopefully more interesting characters, and not entirely sidelining Samus, next time.
 
The game would have been panned even if had it released shorty after Dread or Prime 4. It was a bad game whose design was diametrically opposed to the spirit of the franchise. The timing isn't what doomed this game, it was just salt in the wound.
 
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Joe said:
Heck, back in the late 2000s/early 2010s, I distinctly remember people saying a Prime spin-off focusing on the Federation would be a cool way of expanding the universe. I don't think every Metroid fan was opposed to the idea of Federation Force, but its timing couldn't have possibly been worse.
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I still am in the camp that a Federation spin-off would be cool. But not a giant mech suit, or the plot being about a silly 'embiggen' ray that makes everything to scale with the mech. You need to be a soldier in the harsh galaxy of the Metroid series.

Look at the opening of Prime 2. Imagine something like that, but instead of being Samus and showing up after all of the horrible things happen, you're right in the middle of it as your squad gets picked off one by one.

I don't think this will ever be a thing, but I'd love to see it attempted.
 
TreIII said:
If we go by the account on the Metroid wiki, as well as the DYKG series, Tanabe had apparently started this concept back in 2009 (on the DSi), while Next Level were also working on a multiplayer Metroid spinoff of their own before, and even sometime after Luigi's Mansion 2. That was Project Valkyrie. The two ideas basically merged together after Next Level and Tanabe worked together for LM2, and the rest is basically history.

Tanabe seemed to really believe in this idea, and even more so the focus on the Federation soldiers. So it's sad that it didn't work out, but maybe when both sides of the Metroid brand are healthy again, he can perhaps relish in the idea of trying more oddball things like this again.

...with hopefully more interesting characters, and not entirely sidelining Samus, next time.
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I really didn't mind that Samus was sidelined. The little she was in it was more insulting than if she had been relegated to a cameo.

The characters should have definitely not just been faceless goons though. Like, I don't get why we control faceless nobodies (bobbleheads aside).
 
As a Metroid fan who didn't play it, I attribute most of the backlash to the timing.

Nevertheless, I don't think a multiplayer-focused Metroid game without Samus would draw me even we were in the middle of a bountiful moment for the franchise and Federation Force emerged like a nice side-dish. So the nature of the game as a whole didn't help either, because I wouldn't have bought it anyway.
 
2nd longest gap in releases for the series + following up the least we'll received game to date + the future of the main series in question + all of the above poll options. Personally I enjoyed it more than Hunters but that's not saying much.

It's kinda crazy that there are as many Metroid Prime spinoffs as there are in the main series.
 
The real problem with Fed Force is it's a generic co-op shooter that while functional, was basic and didn't bare much resemblance to the Prime games. I wouldn't say it's bad, as there's nothing terrible from a design like with Other M, at least from my admittedly limited experience. But then Other M still has some solid boss fights, the end game's genuinely fun since the game's no longer hand holding you and forcing the story down your throat. And hell, for as dumb as the story is it's pretty memorable because of it, and can be fun to laugh at. Other M's a bad game with some good highs and bad b-movie charm, and Fed Force is a consistently ok game that never kicks into high gear.
 
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I'd say timing was what hurt it the most - I didn't loathe it (though I also didn't buy and play it), but I certainly was just flabbergasted by the decision to follow the divisive Other M up with a game that was for lack of better phrasing, not a traditional Metroid (Prime) game.
 
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To this day, the only Metroid games I haven't beaten are Hunters and Federation Force. How playable is Federation Force for single-player? If it's doable and not a complete slog I might attempt to actually beat it one day.
 
Joe said:
To this day, the only Metroid games I haven't beaten are Hunters and Federation Force. How playable is Federation Force for single-player? If it's doable and not a complete slog I might attempt to actually beat it one day.
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I was able to get through it ok, some parts were tough but not insurmountable. The bigger problem is its just not terribly fun because it was designed for multiplayer.
 
Federation Force is a pretty okay game announced and released at the worst possible time. That's about it, really. I wish I could have played it with friends because it's designed for multiplayer, but I was the only one in my friend group who got it at the time. RIP.
 
Tangerine_Cookie said:
Bit of everything, honestly. If it had been announced alongside Samus Returns, and it hadn't come immediately after the Other M break in the franchise, reception wouldn't have been that miserable, but it would still have been a "weird little spinoff" in the series. The art style was just the cherry on top of the shit cake, but I don't think it would have been that bad by itself. After all, Nintendoland also featured a very cartoonish take on Metroid and people weren't as angry about it.

The weirdest part is that Federation Force actually supports the Samus Returns Metroid Amiibo out of the box, with no patches. (It unlocks a unique special mech). Which means they either intended to release a Metroid Amiibo alongside the game, or both Federation Force and Samus Returns were originally planned to release closer in time.

I personally remember having a fair bit of fun with it. I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, but it's a better game than Other M. At least more... respectful with the franchise, most of the time.



I'm not entirely sure I actually agree with this. The game was absolutely beatable in single player using the specific mod the game gave you for soloing missions. Harder difficulty levels were in fact significantly more challenging solo, but they were still doable with a lot of practice.

Thing is, playing solo was also a lot less enjoyable, so I don't blame anyone for not wanting to approach the higher difficulties solo with the added frustration.
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I did use the lone wolf mod yes, but there was one mission which asked me to be in different places at the same time. I searched on the internet and it was indeed a critical point playing solo. I have skill playing games and I was unable to achieve that, so in the end it didn't have sense to have such a frustrating time playing a game in which the single player was clearly an afterthought. The game don't adjust to the number of players, which it should have done as the franchise is firstly a single player one.
 
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