Support NeoGAF

[Linkstrikesback]

Blind fanboyism: I am willing to try this game and decide for myself.

Legitimate criticism: This thoughtless budget game will murder the franchise and should be cancelled. I know this without playing it.

I mean we can all play the blast ball demo now, so we all can get a decent idea of what the game feels like to play if nothing else.

Suggesting that people buy a game to see if they like it when there is still plenty of reason to not is a bit daft too.

 

[Hale-XF11]

Nintendo has been on this fucked up trend over the past 5 years or so of taking all their beloved franchises and making b-tier game experiences with them. I don't understand what happened that set them on that path.

 

[ReyVGM]

That doesn't sound like the dev is defending anything, it reads like he's just explaining why it is the way it is.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Nintendo has been on this fucked up trend over the past 5 years or so of taking all their beloved franchises and making b-tier game experiences with them. I don't understand what happened that set them on that path.

Money issues, probably.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Nintendo has been on this fucked up trend over the past 5 years or so of taking all their beloved franchises and making b-tier game experiences with them. I don't understand what happened that set them on that path.

I love the hyperbole of ALL their beloved franchises when most of them have seen some of their best quality entries in the last 5 years.
I suppose if your vision is limited to Paper Mario, upcoming Metroid, Mario Tennis and some Animal crossing spin offs then sure.

 

[Opa-Pa]

Seems like there's plenty of legitimate negative criticism of this game / direction to take the series, but sure, just lump it all into blind fanboyism.

I can hardly get mad at this game anymore because it looks so bad that it's hilarious and then you get people call Metroid fans "rabid fanboys" while getting ridiculously defensive of Nintendo and unironically comparing this to Wind Waker and Prime 1, it's surreal.

Who would make this supposed 2d Metroid.
That's the biggest obstacle since they're not going to farm something like that out.

I'm worried about the future of the series for this same reason, it feels like if this bombs and Nintendo never gives the series to Retto again, it's as good as dead, but then I remember this https://www.vg247.com/2014/09/08/metroid-pitch-prototype-cancelled-nintendo/ and boy, the irony of it all.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Nintendo is out of touch confirmed. Game looks dogshit bad. Nothing with the visuals scream metroid to me.

 

[nynt9]

I love the hyperbole of ALL their beloved franchises when most of them have seen some of their best quality entries in the last 5 years.
I suppose if your vision is limited to Paper Mario, upcoming Metroid, Mario Tennis and some Animal crossing spin offs then sure.

Many people are also disappointed by Tri Force Heroes, Hyrule Warriors, some NSMB games, some Mario RPG etc.

Not that I disliked all of those, but I also think TFH is a b-tier experience. There have been a lot of spinoffs of games in the last few years, and while some of those have been good many haven't come close to the quality of the "main" games.

As for this one, Prime Hunters looked totally fine on DS. I can't grasp how that on a way lower res DS screen is fine but somehow isn't acceptable on the 3DS so they had to do this awful super deformed stuff.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The visual problems are not simply a matter of the chunky cartoony design, it's also the egregious lack of creativity. Why am I just playing as generic GF designs? Why couldn't they have design variations? And to tie into this, why couldn't they have designed a class system to make for interesting combat situations? Instead, unless I'm misunderstanding the game, it's just four shooties who you can give different visors.

Nintendo shouldn't have to defend anything. Whiny fanboys are being whiny fanboys. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo decided to lower themselves to their level here.

What a glorious first post. Essentially a fanboy complaining about fanboys.

 

[blu]

Seems like there's plenty of legitimate negative criticism of this game / direction to take the series, but sure, just lump it all into blind fanboyism.

Legitimate criticism: I don't like the game. It's too aqua-marine for my taste.
Blind fanboyism: OMG, nintendo, Y U no proper metroid (tm) (r) (c)?

 

[AdanVC]

Metroid Prime Hunters kept normal proportions, and it looked great and played great on hardware far less powerful. So I'm not sure I see the necessity of FF's terrible style.

T H I S.

 

[Already Torn]

"Nintendo admits that major upcoming release kind of looks like shit."

 

[Ansatz]

When you get these sorts of games in a franchise that's in a state like Metroid's, however, people get the impression that the series is dead and they're just fucking its corpse, milking its remaining fans who are just desperate for something out of the series for whatever money they can. Usually these games are mobile/browser games rather than proper portable/console titles, though.

The idea of having an online co-op shooter on 3DS came first, then they slaped on the Metroid name because it's a popular IP. They don't sit in a conference room going: "okay, Metroid. What do we do this this franchise?" Likewise, Star Fox Zero exists because Miyamoto's goal was to produce titles that would show the potential of the Wii U gamepad, not to "milk fans"

Games like Other M and Federation Force don't have the Metroid fanbase as target audience, Other M exists because they wanted a first party game on Wii that would appeal to the hardcore PS3/360 demographic. Whether we would've gotten a sequel to that game didn't hinge on what Metroid fans thought about it, but rather if it succeeded in bringing in new audiences. I don't know what their aim is with FF, I just think of it as part of Nintendo's current gen experiments with online games.

Nintendo won't develop a game specifically for Metroid fans, in the same way the new God of War reboot isn't aimed at hardcore GoW fans, but rather it's an IP they slap onto a successful template. In other words a TLoU clone in structure and tone, because it's what the market wants now. In the same way Castlevania Lords of Shadow was a God of War clone, to reach new audiences. And the same reason why Castlevania changed from classicvania to metroidvania; to artificially increase its game length. Difficulty had to be scaled down for the masses during the 90s, and that means a classicvania would last 2 hours on average. Nobody would buy a 2 hour game at full price, so they fucked classicvania fans because of that.

This is not the first Nintendo franchise to suffer from niche sales and outdated design (in the context of market demand), and won't be the last either. Fire Emblem fans can be happy thanks to the waifu elements that attracted new audiences, it's why the franchise is alive and kicking right now while Advance Wars fans am cry. This is the future: finding ways to expand the audience and modernise design, while doing their best to keep core elements of a franchise. Fire Emblem Fates isn't successful because it's a quality strategy game with deep gameplay systems (lol). Embrace the chibis and the waifus.

Metroid Prime Hunters kept normal proportions, and it looked great and played great on hardware far less powerful. So I'm not sure I see the necessity of FF's terrible style.

For you yes, but we're talking about the mass market here. Those who find navigating 3D space confusing and all that.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Many people are also disappointed by Tri Force Heroes, Hyrule Warriors, some NSMB games, some Mario RPG etc.

Not that I disliked all of those, but I also think TFH is a b-tier experience. There have been a lot of spinoffs of games in the last few years, and while some of those have been good many haven't come close to the quality of the "main" games.

Yeah but this really ignores the great stuff put out by other long running franchises like Pikmin, DKC, Kirby, Mario (Maker, 3D World and yes even NSMBU), Mario Kart, Smash, Pokemon and so on.
Heck we finally got the impossible with a great modern Yoshi game in Wooly World.

I get some are disappointed that their preferred franchises may be slumming it a bit at the moment but it's a pretty broad statement for some to act like all of them are in the pits because Nintendo's last few struggle months.
And heck even with Triforce Heroes being a B tier effort (I'd agree) I really can't see what Zelda fans would have to be that miffed about over the last few years, they get catered to incredibly heavily.

 

[Regiruler]

Have you ever played a spinoff?

Because that's what this is. It seems like some of you have never heard of this concept before. Spinoffs are allowed to play and look differently than the mainline games, and it's okay. They've been clear from the start that this is not a mainline game.

The game doesn't even play differently from prime barring some small changes.

There's a meta change of replacing upgrades with the loadout system, but the minute to minute gameplay seems to just be "best of prime 3: handheld edition".

 

[Pandy]

The visual problems are not simply a matter of the chunky cartoony design, it's also the egregious lack of creativity. Why am I just playing as generic GF designs? Why couldn't they have design variations? And to tie into this, why couldn't they have designed a class system to make for interesting combat situations? Instead, unless I'm misunderstanding the game, it's just four shooties who you can give different visors.



What a glorious first post. Essentially a fanboy complaining about fanboys.

I dunno if visual mech customisation is just part of Blast Ball, but it's certainly in there so I'd expect it applies to the main game too to some extent.

There's a 'build-your-own' class system, with the best players getting to pick first. The four players will each have a unique loadout.

 

[Layell]

Have you ever played a spinoff?

Yes, yes we have. Spin-offs can be great when they also respect the source material. Nobody complains about Hyrule Warriors because we've had regular mainline Zelda games and know a Wii-U/NX Zelda is in development. Metroid Prime Pinball wasn't derided either, and that game has even less to do with the main series. We had a steady release of games then, it wasn't a huge pain.

Now here is a thought, if you took away the Metroid Prime label along with whatever obvious Metroid references were included, and just called the game Federation Force, or something else entirely like Fighter Force, would you ever think, "this plays like a Metroid Prime Spin-off!"? No you wouldn't. There is no exploratory gameplay that would remind anyone of Metroid, you'd probably think of Halo before Metroid.

Even if this game was more Metroid-like I can't imagine rushing out to buying it because I don't have people who I know will also be interested in this game. This is similar to why I didn't buy Tri Force Heroes.

 

[Vena]

With the demo up, I don't think Nintendo needs to do much defending. People can just go play the demo or go to SDCC if they are in the area.

Game is pretty ace in the training section (basically intro the main game), though I could and would prefer if BlastBall were done with the faster of the balls. Ultimately, this shouldn't be much of a surprise given the talent behind the game itself.

 

[Aldric]

Nintendo has been on this fucked up trend over the past 5 years or so of taking all their beloved franchises and making b-tier game experiences with them. I don't understand what happened that set them on that path.

The reasoning as explained by Miyamoto is to give fans of certain franchises appetizers to make the wait between two main titles easier.

And that's perfectly fine, in theory. lt's just that in this particular case the execution was a disaster.

 

[Aostia]

I can clearly see the logic behind and I honestly respect their dedication to level and game design, but it should be clear that if you are forced to follow all those logical steps in order to make it work, ending so far away from the initial starting point, that means that it would have been better to create a new "world"/"skin" and not keeping it attached to the Metroid universe for the sake of it (cant even see its actual selling power honestly)

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Well, we only have one example outside the trilogy to go on so far, Hunters. This game is not even trying to be as similar to Prime as Hunters was, so I wouldn't say that's entirely a foregone conclusion. You're probably right though.

I think someone (Tanabe?) said as much in a interview about using the prime name, but I can't find it.

As for the "is Metroid prime 4 in development" part you quoted me about, that one is here. Where he outright said that he didn't have a team or anyone working on Prime 4 as of July 2015.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-17-next-proper-metroid-prime-would-likely-now-be-on-nx

 

[SirPenguin]

I don't necessarily think that they need to explain or justify their design decisions. But as far as reasons go, this is a weird one

Let's say I'm a chef that cooks steaks by microwaving them. Sure, I could probably explain and defend my extreme use of ketchup and BBQ sauce to mask the taste of this horrible dish, but shouldn't I instead examine if a microwave is even the right tool to be using?

Or, alternatively, if I'm deadset on using a microwave then why not pick another dish that's meant for it?

 

[A Link to the Past]

The reasoning as explained by Miyamoto is to give fans of certain franchises appetizers to make the wait between two main titles easier.

And that's perfectly fine, in theory. lt's just that in this particular case the execution was a disaster.

Here's my deal: for their whole thing with appetizers, they gave us

1. A weak Mario Tennis game
2. A bad party-themed Animal Crossing game
3. A good Animal Crossing game that suffers from a lack of length and depth
4. A Four Swords game
5. A Mario & Luigi game only populated by (with a few exceptions) mainline Mario characters and enemies (it's still good at least)
6. A Kirby game that... well, is one of the best ever (way to go HAL)
7. A Metroid spin-off that, for the time being, isn't looking too hot

Compare it to their late-gen N64 appetizer, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Designed in under a year, and it's one of the most unique, interesting, and fun Zelda games ever. You can make appetizers, but appetizers should taste just as good as the main course.

 

[KingBroly]

The reasoning as explained by Miyamoto is to give fans of certain franchises appetizers to make the wait between two main titles easier.

And that's perfectly fine, in theory. lt's just that in this particular case the execution was a disaster.

An appetizer after 6 years is more like starving fans, especially when fans are allergic to the appetizer being offered.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Here's my deal: for their whole thing with appetizers, they gave us

1. A weak Mario Tennis game
2. A bad party-themed Animal Crossing game
3. A good Animal Crossing game that suffers from a lack of length and depth
4. A Four Swords game
5. A Mario & Luigi game only populated by (with a few exceptions) mainline Mario characters and enemies (it's still good at least)
6. A Kirby game that... well, is one of the best ever (way to go HAL)
7. A Metroid spin-off that, for the time being, isn't looking too hot

Compare it to their late-gen N64 appetizer, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Designed in under a year, and it's one of the most unique, interesting, and fun Zelda games ever. You can make appetizers, but appetizers should taste just as good as the main course.

We also got Captain Toad, an outstanding spinoff.

 

[pretty done]

Nintendo shouldn't have to defend anything. Whiny fanboys are being whiny fanboys. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo decided to lower themselves to their level here.

:>

 

[A Link to the Past]

We also got Captain Toad, an outstanding spinoff.

It was a fine game, but it was way too short and the padding was off the charts - if you beat it 100%, you likely have played every level a minimum of three times. Me, I did everything except the time trials.

I'd be happy to see a Captain Toad 2, but it needs to have a lot of content and a lot of refinement.

 

[Salty Rice]

Nintendo shouldn't have to defend anything. Whiny fanboys are being whiny fanboys. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo decided to lower themselves to their level here.

First post gets it right.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

First post gets it right.

No it doesn't. It's a lazy generalization regarding legitimate criticism.

 

[neurosyphilis]

Nintendo shouldn't have to defend anything. Whiny fanboys are being whiny fanboys. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo decided to lower themselves to their level here.

Why do some people act like no one has the right to criticize good ole Nintendo ?

-d0hv

 

[Aldric]

Here's my deal: for their whole thing with appetizers, they gave us

1. A weak Mario Tennis game
2. A bad party-themed Animal Crossing game
3. A good Animal Crossing game that suffers from a lack of length and depth
4. A Four Swords game
5. A Mario & Luigi game only populated by (with a few exceptions) mainline Mario characters and enemies (it's still good at least)
6. A Kirby game that... well, is one of the best ever (way to go HAL)
7. A Metroid spin-off that, for the time being, isn't looking too hot

Compare it to their late-gen N64 appetizer, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Designed in under a year, and it's one of the most unique, interesting, and fun Zelda games ever. You can make appetizers, but appetizers should taste just as good as the main course.

l thought Hyrule Warriors was the most fully realized spinoff. I didn't have any interest in Captain Toad but it looked solid too. On the other hand stuff like Amiibo Festival was a borderline mockery.

 

[Neiteio]

First post gets it right.

First post sounds like a whiny Nintendo fanboy blindly defending Nintendo, even when Nintendo makes something no one wants. See, the fanboy accusation can go both ways! ;-)

Honestly, it's not just Metroid fans who are disappointed with this game, although their disappointment is understandable. After all, this is like if Mario hadn't had a game since 2010, and the last game sucked, and then all of the sudden you get a Mario-branded game... starring Birdo... and a garish new art style... and there's no platforming.

But like I said, it's not just the Metroid fans who are disappointed. Fans of good aesthetics in games are also disappointed by how tacky this looks — especially since Hunters nailed the look of portable Prime, on far less powerful hardware, more than a decade ago.

Fans of quality productions are also disappointed by how cheap this whole production feels. You can make a spinoff, but it doesn't have to feel like one.

It'll be interesting to see how well this game sells.

 

[Spieler Eins]

First post gets it right.

Only if you have an unhealthy amount of affection for an electronics corporation. Statements like that feel like people straight up insulted this guy's family. While in reality, people are calling out bullshit moves from a company that wants to earn their money, or who want to see adequate support for hardware they've paid for. Way to live in a bubble and mix up who's the whiny fanboy here. This narrative that tries to label critical and rightfully annoyed costumers as ,,babies" is truly ridiculous and sad.

 

[Salty Rice]

No it doesn't. It's a lazy generalization regarding legitimate criticism.

People can critize of course but they still dont need to defend themselves.

If you dont like it just dont buy it.

All the whining about this game not being a new Metroid Prime and it should be canceled was just silly.

 

[nkarafo]

For you yes, but we're talking about the mass market here. Those who find navigating 3D space confusing and all that.

Ιts a Metroid game. The series was always for more demanding players. Such market can exist. Not everything has to be dumbed down for the mass market.

There really is no defending in this one. It looks like shit and it's a bad idea. I can't even feel bad for the developers, they should have known it's a bad idea to take this particular franchise and try to make it the opposite of what it was all about. I mean, they tried to dumb it down with OtherM and we all saw how this turned out.

Despite their efforts to dumb it down even further, it's gonna bomb because there are countless other casual games out there for people who don't care about videogames that much. And it will be deserved.

 

[Neiteio]

People can critize of course but they still dont need to defend themselves.

If you dont like it just dont buy it.

All the whining about this game not being a new Metroid Prime and it should be canceled was just silly.

Nintendo pays attention to feedback. The negativity around this game reached such a critical mass that they didn't even acknowledge it at E3, despite showing other upcoming games like Color Splash, TMS, etc. They knew that Federation Force would kill the hype train much like it did the previous E3.

When this game bombs, they should know why.

 

[brainchild]

Mounting a defense for this shitty looking game doesn't magically make it look less shitty, so who gives a shit what their reasons were?

 

[Vitacat]

Nintendo pays attention to feedback. The negativity around this game reached such a critical mass that they didn't even acknowledge it at E3, despite showing other upcoming games like Color Splash, TMS, etc. They knew that Federation Force would kill the hype train much like it did the previous E3.

When this game bombs, they should know why.

Problem is, are the bean counters going to say it's because the Metroid franchise has no audience any more, and throw it into the dungeon with my beloved F-Zero?

Or will they understand how they screwed it up?

 

[Neiteio]

Problem is, are the bean counters going to say it's because the Metroid franchise has no audience any more, and throw it into the dungeon with my beloved F-Zero?

Or will they understand how they screwed it up?

Yeah, I understand your concern, although I think in this case they know it's the negativity toward FF in particular, since they have social media metrics like the number of dislikes on YouTube videos, etc. Hence the decision to not show it at E3 despite showing all of their other upcoming games during the Treehouse Live segments.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Problem is, are the bean counters going to say it's because the Metroid franchise has no audience any more, and throw it into the dungeon with my beloved F-Zero?

Or will they understand how they screwed it up?

Honestly, I'd be fine with either outcome. If Nintendo doesn't know how to proceed with Metroid, they should stop trying. This franchise doesn't need its reputation tarnished any further.

But if they're actually committed to creating another classic, by all means, go ahead.

 

[KingBroly]

Nintendo pays attention to feedback. The negativity around this game reached such a critical mass that they didn't even acknowledge it at E3, despite showing other upcoming games like Color Splash, TMS, etc. They knew that Federation Force would kill the hype train much like it did the previous E3.

When this game bombs, they should know why.

They didn't pay attention to feedback involving Other M, I can tell you that much. They put the franchise on ice, have no new ideas for it. This is a shelved idea that came from when Nintendo was making hand over fist and could afford to come up with something extra.

This game, at this time, in this visual presentation, is the absolute worst thing they could've done with Metroid, but they did it anyway.

 

[Fredrik]

Nintendo has been on this fucked up trend over the past 5 years or so of taking all their beloved franchises and making b-tier game experiences with them. I don't understand what happened that set them on that path.

Not all of them, the Marios and Donkey Kongs has been awesome during that period. But my guess is that the low WiiU sales, which resulted in that most AAA development moved over to NX faster than planned, is the cause for some strange releases.

 

[Neiteio]

They didn't pay attention to feedback involving Other M, I can tell you that much. They put the franchise on ice, have no new ideas for it. This is a shelved idea that came from when Nintendo was making hand over fist and could afford to come up with something extra.

This game, at this time, in this visual presentation, is the absolute worst thing they could've done with Metroid, but they did it anyway.

Maybe they need to put their hand on the stove twice to come to their senses

 

[Spieler Eins]

They didn't pay attention to feedback involving Other M, I can tell you that much. They put the franchise on ice, have no new ideas for it. This is a shelved idea that came from when Nintendo was making hand over fist and could afford to come up with something extra.

This game, at this time, in this visual presentation, is the absolute worst thing they could've done with Metroid, but they did it anyway.

They don't let it through often, but certain moments indicate that they observe what's being discussed about them in public very well. Even for Other M, there was an interview in which Reggie tackled some of the criticism, but pretended to be somewhat oblivious (,,I heard they did not like Samus' portrayal?"/paraphrasing). Whether they acknowledge and approach criticism in an adequate manner is a different story though.

Right now Aonuma is the only one openly approaching fan feedback... and what is this? People love it? Madness! But yeah, let's keep hating on people that actually call out bullshit and pat Nintendo on the shoulder for all these shit efforts in recent years. That's sending the right signals for sure...

 

[lastrealgameralive]

I don't think people should be taking this spin-off title on a handheld seriously. Nintendo is testing out the waters making a kid-friendly sci-fi game. I would rather them do this then actually dedicate resources making a proper 3D Metroid game (2D Metroids are dead) on a handheld. The game should be viewed as a chibi-Metroid title like how SNK's fighters on handhelds were.

 

[Ansatz]

They don't let it through often, but certain moments indicate that they observe what's being discussed about them in public very well. Even for Other M, there was an interview in which Reggie tackled some of the criticism, but pretended to be somewhat oblivious (,,I heard they did not like Samus' portrayal?"/paraphrasing). Whether they acknowledge and approach criticism in adequate manner is a different story though.

Like I said, that type of criticism isn't relevant in the context of Other M hence why they ignored it. The game was part of a handful of Wii games, both Nintendo and 3rd party published, meant to appeal to the dads of Wii households if you will. The initiative failed and Nintendo hasn't cared about mature titles since.

Nintendo E3 2009 Press Conference

Metroid Other M was part of these games with "a little harder edge". They brought in a 3rd party dev with experience making core PS3/360 games to make one using elements from the franchise. It was said to be one of Nintendo's most ambitious games on Wii and that they had high hopes for it sales wise (implying an expansion beyond the Metroid userbase). In E3 2010 Reggie was like "oh yeah, of course, we haven't forgotten about Metroid fans. There's still isolation and stuff"

Which IPs Nintendo will use next and what changes they apply to them all depend on contemporary market trends. Expect less sidescrolling platformers and more games as a service. Traditional Metroid simply doesn't fit in their NX software plans.

Right now Aonuma is the only one openly approaching fan feedback... and what is this? People love it? Madness! But yeah, let's keep hating on people that actually call out bullshit and pat Nintendo on the shoulder for all these shit efforts in recent years. That's sending the right signals for sure...

That's because open world exploration is a massively popular genre and linear TLoZ would was loosing mainstream relevance. It makes more business sense to go the open world direction to attract the masses, and it just so happens that this is what half of the Zelda fans wanted and he is simply taking advantage of that. I'm of course bummed out by the sheer size of the world but I'll live because there are elements in BotW that appeal to me (physics engine, shrines, temples). The point is BotW wasn't the result of "we have listened to our fans!", not even close.

 

[Socreges]

Dp

 

[Menitta]

That's because open world exploration is a massively popular genre and linear TLoZ would was loosing mainstream relevance. It makes more business sense to go the open world direction to attract the masses, and it just so happens that this is what half of the Zelda fans wanted and he is simply taking advantage of that. I'm of course bummed out by the sheer size of the world but I'll live because there are elements in BotW that appeal to me (physics engine, shrines, temples). The point is BotW wasn't the result of "we have listened to our fans!", not even close.

That's not true. Aonuma specifically said he learned from the problems of Skyward Sword.

 

[Socreges]

Nintendo shouldn't have to defend anything. Whiny fanboys are being whiny fanboys. It's kind of a shame that Nintendo decided to lower themselves to their level here.

It's fine for someone to express discontent with a product. The creators of said product shouldn't feel the need to defend or apologize for it, however.

Consistency isn't your strong suit.

I'm sure the honest excuse is that they tailored the game to Next Level's capabilities and a more general demographic.

It's really unfortunate. Metroid deserves much better.

 

[mikefrails]

Consistency isn't your strong suit.

I'm sure the honest excuse is that they tailored the game to Next Level's capabilities and a more general demographic.

It's really unfortunate. Metroid deserves much better.

In fairness, "this isn't Metroid" isn't a good reason to dump all over it.

Mario has BASKETBALL games on his resumé, Link has crossbow training, Yoshi has cookies. Why can't Metroid have soccer or whatever the heck this is?