Christi Junior on Nostr: As for my Based Morality Score, I’d say this is a pretty clear-cut case – like ...
As for my Based Morality Score, I’d say this is a pretty clear-cut case – like most Nintendo games that aren’t story-heavy, Metroid Prime Remastered is very much Neutral, the kind of apolitical, escapist gaming experience that hardly lends itself well as culture war fodder. Sure, I guess some people will always try to claim Samus as a Feminist icon, but ultimately she's best understood as an exceptional individual with an extraordinary background. Between Samus getting infused with Chozo DNA, growing up on a planet that almost literally eats regular humans for lunch, and being granted her legendary Power Suit, it’s blatantly obvious that she can in no way be compared to regular human men and women , even in-universe. Also note that when Metroid Dread finally pitted Samus against an elite *male* Chozo warrior, she lost. Badly. Samus is awesome, but your typical Girl Power Marvel heroine, she is definitely not.
On the note of Based Morality however, I will mention a little detail of Metroid Prime that I really appreciate: At the very start of the game you enter the Frigate Orpheon, a Space Pirate vessel that has definitely seen better days, as the pirates’ Phazon experiments backfired badly on this occasion. As Samus explores the frigate, she repeatedly comes across heavily injured, but still very-much alive Space Pirates…and the way you’re supposed to deal with them is blasting them in their fucking face! Because if you don’t, those bastards will start firing at you, and they won’t stop until they’re dead. In addition to being very clever tutorial enemies (you “fight” these crippled, immobile Space Pirates before coming across comparative healthy and agile specimen), I just really like the implicit message that evil people, even when in pitiful, vulnerable state, are still evil and potentially dangerous, and that you’ll therefore need to just finish them off without mercy.
I’d also like to address claims that Samus herself has been made less attractive, in keeping with the emerging trend of remakes and remasters removing fanservice and hitting female characters with the Ugly Stick just to piss off straight men. Yeah, no, that didn’t happen here. Samus ALWAYS looked kinda weird in Prime 1, this was the first 3D Metroid, and Samus’s face was the only human face Retro Studio ended up making for the game. Realistic graphics + the GameCube’s limited capabilities + developers with very limited experience designing realistic human faces isn’t exactly a recipe for unqualified success, and of course Prime 1 also predates the Zero Suit Samus redesign by several years. The remaster could of course have opted for just that type of redesign, making Prime Samus look much more like her Other M or Smash Bros. counterpart, but I definitely understand why the developers instead stayed faithful to the original game. You don’t want to risk pulling a George Lucas after all, inserting fucking Hayden Christensen’s face onto a character from a 1983 movie.
At the end of the day, Metroid Prime Remastered is a lovely remaster of an absolutely fantastic game. Metroid Prime is still my favorite game in the Metroid series, and one of those rarest of games that is truly deserving of being called a masterpiece. It’s wonderful to finally have it available on the Switch, and here’s hoping that its surprisingly strong sales will also result in Metroid Prime 2 and 3 getting a similar treatment.
Also, when the FUCK is Metroid Prime 4 coming out?
On the note of Based Morality however, I will mention a little detail of Metroid Prime that I really appreciate: At the very start of the game you enter the Frigate Orpheon, a Space Pirate vessel that has definitely seen better days, as the pirates’ Phazon experiments backfired badly on this occasion. As Samus explores the frigate, she repeatedly comes across heavily injured, but still very-much alive Space Pirates…and the way you’re supposed to deal with them is blasting them in their fucking face! Because if you don’t, those bastards will start firing at you, and they won’t stop until they’re dead. In addition to being very clever tutorial enemies (you “fight” these crippled, immobile Space Pirates before coming across comparative healthy and agile specimen), I just really like the implicit message that evil people, even when in pitiful, vulnerable state, are still evil and potentially dangerous, and that you’ll therefore need to just finish them off without mercy.
I’d also like to address claims that Samus herself has been made less attractive, in keeping with the emerging trend of remakes and remasters removing fanservice and hitting female characters with the Ugly Stick just to piss off straight men. Yeah, no, that didn’t happen here. Samus ALWAYS looked kinda weird in Prime 1, this was the first 3D Metroid, and Samus’s face was the only human face Retro Studio ended up making for the game. Realistic graphics + the GameCube’s limited capabilities + developers with very limited experience designing realistic human faces isn’t exactly a recipe for unqualified success, and of course Prime 1 also predates the Zero Suit Samus redesign by several years. The remaster could of course have opted for just that type of redesign, making Prime Samus look much more like her Other M or Smash Bros. counterpart, but I definitely understand why the developers instead stayed faithful to the original game. You don’t want to risk pulling a George Lucas after all, inserting fucking Hayden Christensen’s face onto a character from a 1983 movie.
At the end of the day, Metroid Prime Remastered is a lovely remaster of an absolutely fantastic game. Metroid Prime is still my favorite game in the Metroid series, and one of those rarest of games that is truly deserving of being called a masterpiece. It’s wonderful to finally have it available on the Switch, and here’s hoping that its surprisingly strong sales will also result in Metroid Prime 2 and 3 getting a similar treatment.
Also, when the FUCK is Metroid Prime 4 coming out?