Quick Look: Metroid Prime: Federation Force

I know we say we wanted a new Metroid game but...

...not like this.

Finally, the Blitzball game I've been waiting for.

This game looks kinda bad.

We got AM2R - and it's pretty good.

The fact that Nintendo shut down AM2R while simultaneously releasing this... It's just sad that a bunch of amateur devs have a much clearer idea of what Metroid fans want, and a better ability to deliver on it than Nintendo seems capable of these days.

Actually @brad, Metroid Other M came out in 2010, so its been 6 years since we've gotten a Metroid related game.

Hoo boy. It makes absolutely no sense to me how a team with such pedigree released such a bland game.

I know it's stupid to be mad at a game but I can't remember the last time Nintendo put out something that caused me to have intense negative feelings towards.

I wouldn't have to care about this in the first place but the assholes had to name it Metroid Prime. I know you did it so to grab my attention but you won't get my money, fuckers!

I still want this, I need to pick it up sooner than later though since the small amount of people willing to play it will probably disappear in quick time.

This game doesn't seem bad, really. It just seems kind of unremarkable. I was hoping for better, but I think the 3DS is just not a platform suited to FPS games. Maybe if it had been more of a 3rd person action co-op thing it would have turned out better?

I'd love to hear the development process of this game - like, what led a development team to tell Nintendo, "You know what Metroid Fans will love? Playing as a small squad of cutesy-chibi-not-Samuses, fighting not-Metroids!"

Come to think of it, it looks like this almost wants to be Halo: ODST for the 3DS, but they couldn't acquire the rights, so instead they turned to the IPs they DO have ownership of.

But the last official Metroid Metroidvania was twelve years ago!

It's like Rocket League without the parts of Rocket League that are actually great: the fast movement and control. Just uhhh... aim at the ball and keep shooting? What a boring design.

I understand why you said this, but I think it's unfair to ODST. ODST explores part of the Halo universe that's very interesting, the things going on with the non-supersoldiers in the war and civilian life under Covenant attack. It has a very distinct personality (the neon colors and the jazz soundtrack) and it was released as a sort of expansion 2 years after Halo 3 and 1 year before Reach, so Halo fans were not feeling neglected at the time.

This game, on the other hand, is released at a time when there hasn't been Metroid since 2010, and has no real personality or, as far as I can tell, story to tell. It's bland and generic in a way that ODST just isn't.

If this game had more personality and came out only a year or two after a well-received Metroid release I think it would be getting a very different reception.

As it is it just feels like a slap in the face and it LOOKS like a generic N64 shooter.

In fact it reminds me a lot of Jet Force Gemini for whatever reason. If Jet Force Gemini had no personality.

I can see this making sense in the heads of people in a boardroom somewhere. People like Metroid Prime. People like handhelds. People like chibi stuff.

But this is like one of those things where you put three things you like in a bowl but they dont turn out so great together (in this metaphor you are Dan Ryckert)

Let's all just donate money to that guy who made the Metroid 2 remake. Next.

I had a lot of fun with this game. If you care about the Metroid Prime games at all, then I recommend giving it a shot. It works as a single player game ,too, as long as you are smart with your load-out. For example, I completed the level that Jeff said took too long in single player in half the time by myself than it took in this video with a group of three.

So it's like a crappy Warframe? (Warframe has a fake sport analog now too).

I liked Metroid Prime Hunters just fine, but it was basically unplayable if you didn't have the DS thumb strap thing.

Nintendo eventually quit packaging those along with the DS systems, and when I eventually bought a DS Lite, I had to special order one from Nintendo. I sort of doubt those are still available, and at this point the built in thumb pad is probably the better investment. Even still, none of these options are exactly comfortable--including what PlayStation has been attempting on their end--and they all feel like a thing that's just a stand in for what's clearly a much, much better option on consoles.

I think that's where any first person game breaks down for me on a portable system. It's just not comfortable to play. It's all these systems and choices built around making this experience just barely bearable. I'd just prefer a game designed from the ground up with the hardware in mind.

@hassun said:

With the baby as the blitzball, and Adam Malkovich to clear out those Metroid ghettos afterwards.

What a bummer of a game.

I remember liking Coded Arms, I think.

They didn't.

The Circle Pad Pro made playing this a bit better.

It's still not Metroid.

Ah, the Metal Gear Survive of the Metroid series.

Lucio ball was one of the coolest changes to overwatch...this blast ball is no lucii ball

Hm. I like the look of it and some of the sound effects. This is DEFINITELY one of those titles I'd have to try in my hands to see if I liked it enough to buy. Too bad about it having to be a "Metroid" game though.

Yup, skip.(the game, not the QL)

I'm Sad

seems putting the metroid name on this got it a lot more hate than it deserves.

Casually intrigued by the controls seeming to behave exactly like Metroid Prime... But god, what an anonymous looking game. There's not a speck of identity in this thing. It's as if the generic space marine shooter fad hadn't gone out of style years ago.

What if you could feed a Metroid?

Should Metroids talk?

This looks like it would have been super-cool. As a Nintendo 64 game.

The real tragedy is that Nintendo will use the lukewarm reception is getting as a way of saying "See? There's no demand for a Metroid game!"

So this is basically bad chibi Destiny?

So painful and so true.

I really hope Metroid isn't going the way of F-Zero

@hyperfludd: Well that makes two of us. Despite all the negativity I think this game looks kind of cool. I do wish the focus had been single-player, but oh well. Do I care that they slapped the Metroid name on it? Not in the slightest.

I dunno, seems like it was a decent game at some point. Slapping a property on it not so great....but it's sort of not the worst looking thing.

Next level games should make a new Mario strikers

No, that Mario sports thing is not a Mario strikers

Nintendo wants to get ALL the die-hards on board EARLY with the NX. Their strategy of letting third parties handle the "hardcore" games for Wii U failed so they need not just a new Zelda but also a new game of similar hardcore appeal that is completely exclusive to NX. Metroid Prime makes the most sense for that, so this 3DS game exists to make the franchise somewhat understandable and palatable for kids who would have no idea why anyone would want to play a solo exploration puzzle game. The kids understand iOS games and Monster Hunter clones, and maybe play at a friends house or watch on twitch games like Destiny or Rocket League or other co-op and competitive e-sports type things. Federation force leverages those influences to introduce them to the basics of Metroid Prime like rolling balls around alien temples to solve puzzles, lock-on combat, reading data logs, first person platforming, and looking around for secret breakable walls.

It does this all well if not exceptionally, it's a good game, it feels like Metroid Prime, not as much as Next Level's Punch Out game felt like Punch Out or their Luigi's Mansion game felt like Luigi's Mansion, but Metroid Prime is tougher to pull off and they had to do more than make a clone.

And Jeff doesn't much care for actual Metroid Prime remember, or any game with slow controls (Dark Souls, etc).

Well, if this is what Nintendo thinks they should do with this franchise, it's probably time to give up all hope. Again.

(How can they nail it with Zelda and Mario over and over again, and fail so terribly to figure out how to make a Metroid game that doesn't piss every one off?)

Yes, it is. Pretty good, that is. Not as good as Super Metroid or the GBA games though. The jumping feels way off if you've been regularly playing those other games.

I liked Tri-Force Heroes. But I would have liked it a lot more had I actually been able to find people to play with online. It was a game I thought was well suited for play with anonymous party mates, or at least that's the impression I got from my all to few and brief experiences, in a way that sort of reminded me of Dark Souls co-op.

As a pure single player experience it involved significantly more busywork, but even that management style of play eventually grew on me as I pushed through (with my main annoyance being that you could only outfit 1 of your Links with a suit in single player). In retrospect, I still wish that they could have put the work of that game into a more traditional experience, because as it now is all those neat character designs, animations and mechanics went to waste on a game no one's gonna play.

With this experience in mind, I was unwilling to write off another 3DS co-op experiment by Nintendo at first. But with it getting a similarly poor reception I'm not exactly jumping at the bit to buy it, only to not find anyone online to play with again. The gameplay I've seen also hasn't really grabbed me, so there's that.

Were they to make another big console Metroid Prime game, I might be into that. But it'd have to be a bit bold and not just a copy of the last triology. I played all of those games and enjoyed them progressively less with each new entry.

I'm with Jeff, I can't even joke about wanting a new Metroid game. Fuck this.

...its not even ironically funny bad.

I think the game looks alright if you are a youngin' and only have a 3DS. I was in that camp for a while back in the GB Color through the GBA days. In fact, I never upgraded to a console till halfway through the first XBOX. Yes, why would you buy this when you could play better games on a console or PC? But I wish they would think through some reasons where this game might actually be valid. The multiplayer seems to work, and the slow FPS seems better to me on a tiny screen, when fast FPS would just be chaotic and an eyesore.

metroid was always my favorite space bounty hunter