secretanchitman
Member
Sorry to say, but it still doesn't appeal to me. Doesn't look good at at all.
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Metroid Prime: Federation Force - Story Trailer
- Thread starter Penguin
- Start date
enigmatic_alex44
Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
Poor Samus 
The level of disrespect Nintendo has shown this series...Federation Force is going to flop harder than Star Fox Zero.
The best thing about this disaster of a game is that people are going to look back at Other M and realize it isn't actually that bad.
The level of disrespect Nintendo has shown this series...Federation Force is going to flop harder than Star Fox Zero.
The best thing about this disaster of a game is that people are going to look back at Other M and realize it isn't actually that bad.
Incitemaybe
Member
I actually had no idea it came out so soon, especially after not showing up at e3.
Poor Samus
The level of disrespect Nintendo has shown this series...Federation Force is going to flop harder than Star Fox Zero.
The best thing about this disaster of a game is that people are going to look back at Other M and realize it isn't actually that bad.
NO
In the same way that after Sonic Lost World everyone agree to retroactively consider that Sonic 06 wasn't that bad.Poor Samus
The level of disrespect Nintendo has shown this series...Federation Force is going to flop harder than Star Fox Zero.
The best thing about this disaster of a game is that people are going to look back at Other M and realize it isn't actually that bad.
What gets me is that chibi Metroid can actually look pretty cool in the right hands:
Federation Force is really bad at being cartoony, it has no character or charm. It's just these walking refrigerators stumbling around generic environments shooting generic lasers at generic enemies. It's especially strange because normally NLG is really good at this stuff.
You're looking at an hd pc emulator. The game could look even better with even more filtering.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Why is Ken Masters playing Metroid?There's bad screenshot and there's whatever the fuck that is
For more than a year it was basically this and the vid they showed at e3 that we had to go on.
Hoping the game would actually be more than a small collection of rooms for us to be done in less than 10 mins.
I don't know what you expect when you look at games in motion but I could give you a folder long of press coverage that showed nothing but this kinds of shot.
In nearly all cases the games were vastly better looking than the shots would lead you to believe.
captain_skyhawk
Member
Even so, there is a lot more detail and thought put into the textures and models.
What gets me is that chibi Metroid can actually look pretty cool in the right hands:
Federation Force is really bad at being cartoony, it has no character or charm. It's just these walking refrigerators stumbling around generic environments shooting generic lasers at generic enemies. It's especially strange because normally NLG is really good at this stuff.
I've been wondering for a long time now if this game even had a real budget given how it looks overall. If one were to go for the chibi style like said there ware many ways of going about it that look really nice. This game simply does not look appealing artistically and it never has. The fault is not at all with the 3DS. I'm not even willing to blame Next Level Games here. I really do wonder if this thing was made on a shoe string budget and they had to use assets that were made back when this was first attempted on the DS. No way they could have gone for this intentionally. I have a hard time accepting that.
I bet that even if Nintendo released a string of good Metroids, you'd still trigger a page long argument if you tried to say the Other M hate was overblown.
What gets me is that chibi Metroid can actually look pretty cool in the right hands:
Federation Force is really bad at being cartoony, it has no character or charm. It's just these walking refrigerators stumbling around generic environments shooting generic lasers at generic enemies. It's especially strange because normally NLG is really good at this stuff.
Yeah, I don't think the notion of "chibi Metroid" is flawed. It's just that the blocky, grey characters have zero personality, and the worlds all look flat and lifeless. Luigi's Mansion 2, which was also made by NLG, manages to be cute and cartoony, but also full of creepy atmosphere. The animation on the ghosts is especially great. FF just made too many sacrifices art-wise in order to get a handheld co-op FPS to work.
Bananastand
Member
I have a gut feeling Nintendo is just sending this game out to die.
From what I've heard the reviewers already have the game so we can expect reviews next week I guess.
From what I've heard the reviewers already have the game so we can expect reviews next week I guess.
Mr. Pointy
Member
I like this. This has charm.What gets me is that chibi Metroid can actually look pretty cool in the right hands:
Federation Force is really bad at being cartoony, it has no character or charm. It's just these walking refrigerators stumbling around generic environments shooting generic lasers at generic enemies. It's especially strange because normally NLG is really good at this stuff.
I liked NLG's Western cartoon concept art for their Metroid pitch as well. It probably would pretty nice when animated decently, like Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars. I think it would have worked better than the chibi direction we currently got.
You can tell FF is running on the same engine as Luigi's Mansion 2. It's got fairly blocky geometry and relatively simple textures, but really nice lighting. I'm curious if the engine is the reason we got the blocky chibi look.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
There's not blooming around the health bar. There's some ringing, which normally happens when sharpening is applied.
The game does have a pronounced bloom effect. You could try it yourself, there's a free demo.
I still can't get over how stupid it is to have a game where you play as a mech, but all the environments and enemies are still normal sized, the mech animates like a normal human, the weapon feels like a normal guy's weapon, and on top of all of this the mech's design is just a bigger version of a normal Federation trooper.
What is the mech angle even adding to this game besides an excuse for terrible looking stealth levels?
What is the mech angle even adding to this game besides an excuse for terrible looking stealth levels?
I would say the blocky chibi look is a result of the game's more arcade-like nature. It looks to be a game about shooting enemy waves as a team first and exploring immersive worlds second. I do remember them saying they made them look chibi so they're easily identifiable on such a small screen so I wouldn't be surprised if similar reasons applied to the entire game's fairly simple look. The biggest thing killing my interest in MPFF is its co-op focus and I reckon we would have gotten a much more appealing game visually if they focused on making a single player experience.
You made the effort to answer me, so I'll gladly do the same, even if you disagree.
The wording in those bullet points is a bit extreme and biased towards gender issues. These are a result of Samus's past traits + the situation she is in, and can be applied to many other characters (even male characteres) in other media.
- Samus is servile in this game... because she has breached an ongoing investigation area. She has two options: cooperating or going away, and she choses to stay under Adam's conditions. She cannot do what she wants because she is a virtuous hero and wants to help, with ever more reason if some of her old friends are part of the squad. After Adam disappears from the control room, she activates her powers freely on demand.
- Samus does not make mistakes "all the time" in this game as you imply, but making mistakes is a way to counterbalance Samus' perfect soldier aptitudes and make her more humane. Back in Metroid 2 she made a fatal mistake by saving a Metroid baby when she shouldn't, and lots of things happened after that. In Fusion, she wanted to blow up the BioLab station right away, but that wouldn't have accomplished anything at all and the computer scorns her. Samus seems to make perfect decisions in the middle of combat but lacks the vision for long term ones, even at a disregard for her own life. Adam, in the contrary, is an expert tactician and knows when to sacrifice expendables (his own life) for long term goals (Samus' survival). The concept of Samus being a flawed hero was there since the beginning of the series and it's one of the elements that makes her interesting as a character.
- Samus losing "agency" or getting knocked out is a narrative device to make main powerful characters momentarily weak and when they recover they become even stronger. You have a Star Ocean avatar, so I guess you are familiar with anime and RPGs. The device is well ingrained in Japanese narrative, but you can see that even in Western comics like Superman. It has even happened early in the series, at the end of Super Metroid, in Fusion and even the Prime series. It is also a Japanese device to stop stubborn or bad at words characters from doing things they shouldn't (ie: if you have seen Dragon Ball, sometimes a character knock other one out to save them for killing themselves). Due to cultural differences, Adam shooting Samus out of the blue may seem inconsiderate and an act of abuse, but she knows Samus very well and she is only protecting her from Sector Zero's self-destruct system. From a player's perspective it's even justified because at that time the Deleter was running loose and for a moment it may seem that Samus is being targetted by him.
It has even happened early in the series, at the end of Super Metroid, in Fusion and even the Prime series.
So I don't think the game is blatantly sexist, when a lot of details has been put into describing Samus' feelings and deductive thoughts, without objectifying her sexually, no matter how jarring it may seem at the end, partially because the English voice over is monotonous and not very well done. She undergoes the typical ordeals of disempowerment of any Japanese manga or game character, only for becoming more powerful through them. In the end she is the most powerful human character in her universe and unfazingly exterminates all kinds of dangerous alien creatures (that the men cannot scratch!), so the game cannot be possibly sexist in that regard.
Another interpretation is that one of themes of the game is how women can survive in a world ruled by men, On one hand, you have Samus, who is the single most powerful military unit from the Federation, and thus seen as an "invader" and object of bullying and scorn by her fellow men from the military. On the other hand, you have Melissa and Madeline (who symbolize women and motherhood) being disrupted by the evil faction of the Federation, portrayed as men. I think this is a possibility.
A very sexist piece of media are the ecchi games were women (and men) are sexually objectified or stereotyped, or games like Policenauts in which you can grope women for the lulz without any kind of reprimend. I remember one instance in Xenosaga in which one character says that KOS-MOS was modeled after a woman because men can only destroy things, which is a sexist remark towards men (although valid, because opinions). And beyond gaming, I can give you the example of Z Gundam. Here, all female characters here act blatantly bratty, obnoxious and spoiled, like like the writer was having a bad time with women at the time and he channeled his frustration when writing them.
I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this wall and that at least you find it interesting even if you disagree, but I wanted to show you that there can be more than possible opinion about this game's narrative and I think it's as valid.
Considering the extant of your reply, I'll try to be less abrupt than I usually am on this subject (if you ask me the issue of Other M being sexist is pretty low on the pole but still).
I think we shouldn't look at it from an in universe perspective as you can explain away pretty much all kinds of issues.
I mean "why is this character only wearing a thong?", "it was the only thing in her wardrobe!".
We have to look at it from the perspective of the writer of the story and the coherence of the narrative.
The bottom is not true, she activated the gravity suit after a lengthy sequence despite going into an area where gravity was altered.
Then again it could be Samus being a moron like for the varia suit example.
I mean he expressedly denied use of "weapons", not freaking everything.
Nothing Samus does is of any consequence in this game.
She accomplishes nothing and is probably the reason people die even.
She was the only one who could defeat Ridley so she can't enter Sector 0? Too bad the Queen metroid actually does the job. Considering that you can destroy Metroid through exploding the space station, she could have left the Queen alone for all the good it did.
In the term of the narrative of the game we are beat over the head about how Samus is unreliable and cannot make a good decision to save her life.
That is what the game is showing. She doesn't even get to clean up the mess she started Super Metroid or Metroid Prime 3 style.
Samus is not perfect and can make mistake, in Other M that is the only thing she did.
That scene makes zero sense.
Adam incapacitated Samus in the face of mortal danger. She only survives because of dumb luck according to Adam.
What would have happened if the Metroid was unfreezable? Adam would have weakened the only character capable of doing something in the face of mortal danger and Adam's mission would have been an abject failure because of that.
That scene serves no other purpose than to show Adam stealing the last level with Samus pounding on the door like an helpless moron.
The whole deleter plot point serves no purpose than to have
That's why the scene starts with Samus being in danger and being shot in the back,
that way when you learn that for sure he's not the deleter it's an even bigger surprise.
Except it doesn't work because the whole thing makes even less sense than a shark with a chainsaw.
The deleter just exists for this very scene, it's another tool to show how Samus is weak and vulnerable.
There's no other game (or even media at this point) where Samus have no agency at all.
In all the other games she's left to her own device and decide what threat is important to deal with.
In Other M, you can't have that.
The game actually railroad you to the point of closing doors after you used them and blocking your progressing till you used a savepoint.
Yep you don't even get to choose if you're using a save station.
The game isn't sexist because it sexually objectify Samus.
Then
again
It is sexist, because the only thing Samus is allowed to think about is what in fiction we call "woman problem".
She has to have maternal feeling and have to deal with it because she's a woman.
She has to have daddy issue because fuck you that's why.
Yeah, no.
That's putting more thought in the narrative than the writer even thought of putting.
MB being a robot is perfectly believable considering how little we interact we her and how stilted her dialog is.
We have no reason to believe that the military(or Adam) has any respect for Samus, that's not shown in the game anywhere.
And if the theme of the game is "how can women survive in a world ruled by men", then the answer the game gives is "nope, they don't. They have to be at the service of men and have to rely on the kindness of one of rare men (remember me guy) willing to protect them even at the cost of their life".
MB is killed, Madeline is vanned by the FBI and Samus is not put under arrest because that stereotype of a black man saved her at the last minute.
I don't think there's any interpretation that isn't inherently sexist.
That seems a bit of a narrow definition but ok.
The bold is actually a criticism you can levy at Other M actually.
that's how Samus is portrayed during the course of the game.
I took my time to reply so I hope the tone doesn't imply anything untoward for once.
User 479360
Banned
SCReuter
Member
All right, forget YouTube captures for a moment. Here are direct shots of the Federation Force demo. I've uploaded a bunch to Imgur.
The game genuinely looks good to me.
FreedomFighter
Member
Game looks like it might be alright actually.
themagicalkitsune
Member
What timeline is this in because this never happened in mine.
Maybe he mistook people liking it's music in retrospect for people rewriting history on the game's reception?
All right, forget YouTube captures for a moment. Here are direct shots of the Federation Force demo. I've uploaded a bunch to Imgur.
The game genuinely looks good to me.
Ok, this needs to stop!
How the fuck do you access this in the demo?
Is that a special NA demo or something?
I only have blastball stuffs in my download.
Well it happened in the same timeline when after Federation Force people thought that Other M was alright.
That timeline is a bit of a nightmare considering Trump won, launched a nuclear strike against Hungary plunging the world in a world war that only ended with Superman crashing in Kansas.
Why Kansas? Because Trump moved the administration to Kansas, his birthplace in that timeline.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
N64 material. Of the SGI-wish-they-had-graphics-workstations-like-that-back-then kind.
FF Training is unlocked after some Blastball wins.
SCReuter
Member
Come on!
Next Level's track record with Nintendo is solid and the Federation Force demo is clearly a polished effort. I would be shocked if the final product came anywhere close to disaster territory.Finish Blast Ball's five-match solo challenge. (Nintendo probably shouldn't have locked the campaign training mode behind Blast Ball. I wonder how many players have missed it.)
Thank you both.Come on!
Finish Blast Ball's five-match solo challenge. (Nintendo probably shouldn't have locked the campaign training mode behind Blast Ball. I wonder how many players have missed it.)
I had no interest in BB so I probably would have avoided the game after what I played.
Rookie mistake, Nintendo!
-shadow-
Member
So far the first and also only screenshot of the game that makes it look good. The rest still looks terrible.
All right, forget YouTube captures for a moment. Here are direct shots of the Federation Force demo. I've uploaded a bunch to Imgur.
The game genuinely looks good to me.
It certainly doesn't look bad but not impressive either. I like the lighting.
GameXplain said theirs was coming next Thursday
Or maybe it was sarcasm
1 day prior does not inspire confidence.
R
Rodin
Unconfirmed Member
Play blastball until you get a message that says you've been chosen to join the federation force (winning 2-3 matches should be enough). Then you'll be able to play the demo-tutorial of the game.
Game isn't what Metroid fans wanted (myself included) but NLG is a great studio that knows how to make a good game. I said this many time (and it's obvious, really) but if the game came out after/alongside a new classic, main chapter, the reactions would've been like "oh this looks interesting, it's awesome that Nintendo is trying to expand the series with spin offs!"
It was really a stupid decision to make only this one, but that doesn't mean that the game is going to be bad, like the Metroid fanbase insists without even trying it.
Play it. Looks consistently good on the 3DS screen.
Um... "Story trailer"?
Does brief level intro/outro and a few short cutscenes count as Story now? This won't even have dialogue... if it did, they would have included some in this "Story Trailer".
This is intentionally misleading... and I'm actually a defense force member for this game...
Does brief level intro/outro and a few short cutscenes count as Story now? This won't even have dialogue... if it did, they would have included some in this "Story Trailer".
This is intentionally misleading... and I'm actually a defense force member for this game...
-shadow-
Member
I have and it looks just as terrible on the 3DS. The starry background looks great, but the rest is extremely rough and very flat. The lighting looks great, but that's all I can say about it sadly.
I tried to give the demo a chance. It does look a little more polished when actually playing, but the visuals are "OK" at best and the chibi characters are still horrid no matter how you look at it. The gameplay itself turned out to be the bigger problem. Blast ball was just really tedious and irritating to play... running around and frantically shooting a ball to wedge it into an alcove isn't my idea of a good time, and certainly not my idea of a Metroid game. Having your mech blow up and frequently kill the pace of the game was pretty terrible. I deleted after a couple rounds.
I can see some of the missions being a little fun using this control scheme... it is based on the Prime games, after all, and having a scaled down version of Prime isn't the worst idea in the world, but... it's not Metroid Prime gameplay. At best, it's like the most trooper-heavy segments from the end of Corruption, but playing as a trooper instead of Samus, and scaled down to 240p with chibi visuals. It's just not that appealing.
If you were to take the Metroid name off of this game and present it as a new title, I still wouldn't have any interest in buying it, but at least I wouldn't hate it for wasting the chance to get an actual Metroid game. I gave it a shot, still think it's garbage.
I can see some of the missions being a little fun using this control scheme... it is based on the Prime games, after all, and having a scaled down version of Prime isn't the worst idea in the world, but... it's not Metroid Prime gameplay. At best, it's like the most trooper-heavy segments from the end of Corruption, but playing as a trooper instead of Samus, and scaled down to 240p with chibi visuals. It's just not that appealing.
If you were to take the Metroid name off of this game and present it as a new title, I still wouldn't have any interest in buying it, but at least I wouldn't hate it for wasting the chance to get an actual Metroid game. I gave it a shot, still think it's garbage.
This so much. Nintendo, just stop pliz, Japan doesn't like Metroid. You fucked up with the Zero Suit already.
Why is it so hard to understand?
Also can we please get a game post Fusion? Samus alone in a planet, the native creatures, the Space Pirates and the Galactic Federation all hunting her.
Mega secret bonus mission where you play as Etecoons and Dachoras trying to help her. Because shit, they can shine spark, spin jump and wall jump.
Metroid is dad.
Actually its the baby.
outunderthestars
Banned
God I will be glad when the 3DS is gone. That system has some ugly games.
Even watching FF is more fun than playing Retro's Prime series. I was just playing Prime 3 to find redeeming qualities. Nope, that Brryo mission where I had to destroy the gun towers was quite possibly the worst torture I experienced in a shooting game. Those enemies which take so many hits, fly around, respawn nonstop, and reset the switches annoyed the hell out of me. There's no way NLG could make anything so much more horrible than that.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
You seem as determined to hate Prime 3 as people are determined to hate FF. That section is easy as pie if you utilize hypermode correctly.
Hyper mode automatically activates when the enemies spawn because they shoot the purple goo at me. The point is, it has so many annoyances that kill the fun. Before even starting that part, I had to scan a door for the ship to shoot it. Out of reach was the button that launched the ship so it confused me to why there where 2 types of scanning modes. The game sucks, I hate it. Each mission leads to one boring task after the next. I try to like it, but can't get into the way it plays.