Hard Reset Cliché

You know what I am talking about here. Actually, maybe you don’t know. I can’t assume that everyone reading this is a fan of the Metroid series can I? That would be irresponsible and unprofessional of me. Does that mean I am responsible and professional? Not really, but it’s the thought that counts right. Anyway since we are still in the middle of Metroid month, it would be remiss of me to not bring up this particular cliché. For those who are not familiar with it, it is the scenario in which for whatever reason you start with basic equipment despite the fact that in previous game you ended with a lot more abilities and thus should still have them and the beginning of a new adventure. This happens with quite a number of videogames which this series being one of the more well known examples of this happening frequently. The main reason for this is typically because of the nature of the game. A lot of Metroid games are centered around building yourself back up so that you can contend with the enemies you are facing and complete the mission successfully. So, if you started the game with all of your abilities from previously, then there wouldn’t be able sort of growth curve for you to follow. That and you wouldn’t have any abilities you would need to look for to progress to different areas. At that point you might as well just make it an open world game. So, it essentially has become Metroid tradition that Samus will lose all of her powerups between each game. Frankly speaking, I wanted to address either this or the fact the Samus keeps blowing up each area she fights a final boss, but this one seemed easier to talk about for this game. Yes, I will still be talking about Super Metroid, I promise.

Now normally when one talks about Super Metroid, they would talk about the new features and mechanics such as shinesparks and stacking beam weapons. Or maybe they would talk about the controls allow you to pull off insane maneuvers that allow for intense speedruns and sequence breaking. Or maybe they would talk about how much bigger the game is compared to its predecessors which so many different enemies and environments. Well, you already know that I am not going to be doing any of that. Truth be told, other people could probably do it better than me considering I haven’t beat the game yet. Yes, I still have yet to complete it, mainly because I usually forget what I am doing every time I pick up the game. I could look up a walkthrough, but that would take away from the whole point of exploring on my own, so right now we are at a standstill. I will definitely beat it one day, but until that day comes I will find other things to talk about regarding this game. Truth be told, I didn’t just pick this topic for this game because I haven’t finished it. I’m not that hopeless. You see, the Metroid series has spent a good amount of time justifying why this happens to Samus at the start of each of her adventures. The first Metroid doesn’t really need an explanation. With the introduction of the Metroid Prime spinoffs, we know a considerable amount of time has passed between the first two mainline games so it understandable how she could have lost her upgrades in between games. Metroid Fusion starts with you undergoing surgery that causes your DNA to change and having most of your Power Suit stripped off, so it is reasonable to see that there were some changes that resulted from that. Maybe that is why Samus got the ability to climb ledges? The latest game has a similar reason for her loss of power suit functionality as well, although it feels a bit more contrived this time around. At least this time it wasn’t hitting an elevator wall. Super Metroid is the only game in the series where I can’t really think of an explanation for why you lose your abilities.

At the end of the Metroid II: Return of Samus when you kill all the Metroids, you actually find a baby Metroid that imprints on you and follows you back. You end up giving it to the Federation scientists to study and heading out after having completed your mission. However, later you get a distress call from the very same research and arrive to find out that Ridley has retrieved the baby Metroid and it manages to escape with it back to the Space Pirates’ home planet of Zebes. You arrive there with none of the upgrades you had from the previous game and the question is why? Not only is there not a clear explanation for it, but not a lot of time passed between the events of the second and third games so there is no reason she shouldn’t have access to her full powered suit. It shouldn’t have anything to do with the confrontation against Ridley since he didn’t really do anything to you in his escape sequence that would cause such malfunctions. So I do wonder if there is more to the story? Like maybe we are supposed to pretend that was considered to be an actual boss battle so we got wrecked and he taunted us by running away? That doesn’t make much sense when I say it out loud. Maybe there is just something about Samus’ power suit that causes it to lose functionality more easily since he isn’t full Chozo? I know I am just winging it here, but I hope you can see where I am going with this. The game itself is not very heavy on story as many of the older ones were and it hasn’t had any spinoffs to add to the lore surrounding the events leading up to that game. I wonder it maybe a remake of the game could help with that. You know, maybe add it some more details that weren’t in the original. Who knows? I am just saying that for a series that has embraced starting from scratch, it feels weird to leave this game as the outlier by not giving it much in the way of explanation. Then again, I will still take it over having all of my abilities and the start and not getting to use them. So maybe I should just such my mouth now. Abrupt ending in 3. 2.