thanks for watching, i hope you enjoyed it! i’d like to apologise for the editing. my gameplay footage and premiere were causing a lot of trouble, making the editing process very tedious and frustrating, which led to a less detailed edit overall. hopefully it’s not too noticeable :) follow me on twitter!: twitter.com/Nafan__
29:50 I agree with you This is why, to me, the best Metroid ending is Metroid Prime 1's best ending. She faces the exploded entrance, removes her helmet, surveys the ruin, closed her eyes and breathes a sigh of relief before returning to her ship. It's humanizing without degrading her as a trophy.
I think the devs understand that more nowadays, thankfully. After the backlash of her sexualization in other m and zero suit samus in smash 4, they wised up a bit and started making the ending and completion rewards fanservicey in a less gratuitous way or outright giving us lore. I do think it's kinda lame that samus never at least takes off her helmet or anything in the ending of dread.
Great analysis! Your take on the Kraid fight changed my view of it a bit. Remembering that this is Samus’ first mission makes getting hit by Kraid seem purposeful. Of course it can be done without taking any damage. It’s just that up to that point it felt like Kraid was impossible to do damageless. His stature can no doubt be domineering to Samus, yet she pushes on. And it’s through you, the player, making her stop for a moment that you and her begin to collect yourselves. It doesn’t show weakness necessarily, but it shows someone who’s learning how to overcome these mighty foes.
hey just as a recommendation, i think you should remove the border of your thumbnail in videos, and make it more like Joseph Anderson's thumbnails where it's just a simple screenshot of the game or something. Also maybe some clickbaity titles like ('Metroid Zero Mission: a failure of game design") or something. I feel stuff like that gets caught up in the algorithim faster, maybe im wrong
The genius of zero mission is that there is not a single sequence break in the game. People think there is and pat themselves on the head but when you analyse the maps and individual rooms you realise the devs purposefully created each opportunity. They also carefully designed every area to prevent soft locking in case a player skipped an item intentionally or otherwise. They created the secret green shaft in Norfair so you can tackle Ridley first. They interconnected different areas with power bomb doors for convenience when going for 100% completion. It is just an exquisitely designed game, and the best in the series in that regard. And the fact you can play the game with so many different goals (easy, normal, hard, going for speed, going for 100%, going for 15% or less) gives it a replay value that is only bettered by the OG original
Interesting how your statement on full item completion segues into Mecha Ridley being a pushover of a boss, since he does actually get more difficult if you possess 100% of the items in the game, doubling his attack power and tripling his health. Regular Ridley's fight still sucks, he's not this easy in any other game besides this (and Metroid 1, so this is something they should not have emulated from that game). Something else that ties into the completion is the fact that many items on Zebes only become available after you obtain the fully powered suit, which really just has you running around the planet one final time when there is already this sense of finality and I feel like it really messes with the pacing at the end. As much as I love the epilogue and the inclusion of Plama Beam, Space Jump, Gravity Suit and Power Bombs, I think some of it all seems like it was just tacked on at the end of it all, which one wouldn't really notice when not going for every item in the game. When you mentioned the lack of backstory in the game, I did realise that this is something I did wish the games covered a bit more (without concretely realising it). Sure, you get coverage of the Metroids, how they were created and oppose the X, etc. but during all of this, Samus herself takes a backseat. Seeing her actually speak Chozo in Dread is what makes that scene so special to me, since it teases her upbringing with the Chozo just in the slightest bit. Something I found a bit peculiar with the video is that you took quite long to even mention how this is a remake of the first game. Sure, everybody knows thas at this point, but you scarcely contrasted the two games. I especially noticed that when you talked about that one instance with the fake lava, which is a remnant of the original game and no mention of the archaic origins of this design choice was made. It doesn't really take anything away from this great video, it's just something that I noticed.
29:38 - I can't speak for everyone, but I personally did not consider this. That is, Samus in a leotard wearing a leotard was not the 'prize'. It was knowing that the character you were playing was a female, that was the true prize. Samus didn't give me funny feeling, I honestly thought she was cooler when her identity was revealed. I still remember Metroid fans were did not obsess over fanservice, much less see it as the main draw. Not to say it is now, but there is a lot more material out there that just was not prominent in the past. The main draw was exploring cool planets while playing as a super cool bounty hunter. What I believe caused the paradigm shift where Samus became hyper sexualized by the internet was not even a Metroid game: It was Smash Brothers. As soon as Brawl came out and revealed ZZS, the flood of unfortunate material began to flow, to the point where Samus seems to be largely regarded as a sex doll by people unfamiliar with the main games. There is a good reason why the Zero Suit specifically features so much in fanart, and it's not because all those artists really liked Zero Mission.
I'd agree with you if it stopped at the leotard. The fact that faster times result in her getting more and more undressed is what makes me feel like it positions her as a prize or object. But that's something the developers did, when it comes to fans i'm sure you're right, for many, many players, especially girls growing up, i'm sure they found it cool they were playing as a woman, and didn't think of her under a sexualised lens. And i think your second point is pretty spot on, the cg cutscenes and playable zero suit samus from Brawl definitely provided the internet the means (or excuse) to sexualise her more and more, until we're where we are now. Thanks for your comment!
thanks for watching, i hope you enjoyed it! i’d like to apologise for the editing. my gameplay footage and premiere were causing a lot of trouble, making the editing process very tedious and frustrating, which led to a less detailed edit overall. hopefully it’s not too noticeable :)
follow me on twitter!: twitter.com/Nafan__
Such a great game I just finished replaying it and looked up an analysis to watch. Great video man Metroid is one of my favorite game series
29:50 I agree with you
This is why, to me, the best Metroid ending is Metroid Prime 1's best ending. She faces the exploded entrance, removes her helmet, surveys the ruin, closed her eyes and breathes a sigh of relief before returning to her ship. It's humanizing without degrading her as a trophy.
I think the devs understand that more nowadays, thankfully. After the backlash of her sexualization in other m and zero suit samus in smash 4, they wised up a bit and started making the ending and completion rewards fanservicey in a less gratuitous way or outright giving us lore. I do think it's kinda lame that samus never at least takes off her helmet or anything in the ending of dread.
Great analysis! Your take on the Kraid fight changed my view of it a bit. Remembering that this is Samus’ first mission makes getting hit by Kraid seem purposeful. Of course it can be done without taking any damage. It’s just that up to that point it felt like Kraid was impossible to do damageless. His stature can no doubt be domineering to Samus, yet she pushes on. And it’s through you, the player, making her stop for a moment that you and her begin to collect yourselves. It doesn’t show weakness necessarily, but it shows someone who’s learning how to overcome these mighty foes.
It's an hour long, my god. Guess no sleep today😏
I guess you have to analyse every other Metroid game now ;)
hey just as a recommendation, i think you should remove the border of your thumbnail in videos, and make it more like Joseph Anderson's thumbnails where it's just a simple screenshot of the game or something. Also maybe some clickbaity titles like ('Metroid Zero Mission: a failure of game design") or something. I feel stuff like that gets caught up in the algorithim faster, maybe im wrong
My favorite Metroid game! Can't wait to watch it!
The genius of zero mission is that there is not a single sequence break in the game. People think there is and pat themselves on the head but when you analyse the maps and individual rooms you realise the devs purposefully created each opportunity. They also carefully designed every area to prevent soft locking in case a player skipped an item intentionally or otherwise. They created the secret green shaft in Norfair so you can tackle Ridley first. They interconnected different areas with power bomb doors for convenience when going for 100% completion. It is just an exquisitely designed game, and the best in the series in that regard. And the fact you can play the game with so many different goals (easy, normal, hard, going for speed, going for 100%, going for 15% or less) gives it a replay value that is only bettered by the OG original
Interesting how your statement on full item completion segues into Mecha Ridley being a pushover of a boss, since he does actually get more difficult if you possess 100% of the items in the game, doubling his attack power and tripling his health. Regular Ridley's fight still sucks, he's not this easy in any other game besides this (and Metroid 1, so this is something they should not have emulated from that game).
Something else that ties into the completion is the fact that many items on Zebes only become available after you obtain the fully powered suit, which really just has you running around the planet one final time when there is already this sense of finality and I feel like it really messes with the pacing at the end. As much as I love the epilogue and the inclusion of Plama Beam, Space Jump, Gravity Suit and Power Bombs, I think some of it all seems like it was just tacked on at the end of it all, which one wouldn't really notice when not going for every item in the game.
When you mentioned the lack of backstory in the game, I did realise that this is something I did wish the games covered a bit more (without concretely realising it). Sure, you get coverage of the Metroids, how they were created and oppose the X, etc. but during all of this, Samus herself takes a backseat. Seeing her actually speak Chozo in Dread is what makes that scene so special to me, since it teases her upbringing with the Chozo just in the slightest bit.
Something I found a bit peculiar with the video is that you took quite long to even mention how this is a remake of the first game. Sure, everybody knows thas at this point, but you scarcely contrasted the two games. I especially noticed that when you talked about that one instance with the fake lava, which is a remnant of the original game and no mention of the archaic origins of this design choice was made. It doesn't really take anything away from this great video, it's just something that I noticed.
NEW NAFAN VIDEO LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO
this video deserves so much more attention :(
29:38 - I can't speak for everyone, but I personally did not consider this. That is, Samus in a leotard wearing a leotard was not the 'prize'. It was knowing that the character you were playing was a female, that was the true prize. Samus didn't give me funny feeling, I honestly thought she was cooler when her identity was revealed. I still remember Metroid fans were did not obsess over fanservice, much less see it as the main draw. Not to say it is now, but there is a lot more material out there that just was not prominent in the past. The main draw was exploring cool planets while playing as a super cool bounty hunter.
What I believe caused the paradigm shift where Samus became hyper sexualized by the internet was not even a Metroid game: It was Smash Brothers. As soon as Brawl came out and revealed ZZS, the flood of unfortunate material began to flow, to the point where Samus seems to be largely regarded as a sex doll by people unfamiliar with the main games. There is a good reason why the Zero Suit specifically features so much in fanart, and it's not because all those artists really liked Zero Mission.
I'd agree with you if it stopped at the leotard. The fact that faster times result in her getting more and more undressed is what makes me feel like it positions her as a prize or object. But that's something the developers did, when it comes to fans i'm sure you're right, for many, many players, especially girls growing up, i'm sure they found it cool they were playing as a woman, and didn't think of her under a sexualised lens. And i think your second point is pretty spot on, the cg cutscenes and playable zero suit samus from Brawl definitely provided the internet the means (or excuse) to sexualise her more and more, until we're where we are now. Thanks for your comment!
the intro slides. big respect shoutouts to this vid keep up da good content
i really appreciate your speaking cadence. lots of creators say barely anything in short span of time. here the writing AND the delivery is rly tight.
Are you going to do a Mother retrospective
One of my favorite games, and in contention with dread for my favorite metroid. Very excited to watch this.
Metroid is stronger than halo
He has unlimited ammo
I hope you’re trolling
@@maccamachine I ment Lazer ammo not missles