History Trivia / MetroidPrime2Echoes

* CreatorBacklash: Senior designer Mike Wikan [[https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/metroid_prime_trilogy_had_a_core_dev_team_of_four_surprisingly said]] that he regretted causing the two cases of ThatOneBoss, Boost Guardian and Spider Guardian, at the suggestion of one of the Japanese producers - "Tanabe-san really fought for it, 'we need to make it tighter', and we were like 'no it's already too tight'. We made it tighter and it turned out to be too tight, right?" - and so when it was time to update the games for ''Prime Trilogy'', he made the battles easier, with Kensuke Tanabe agreeing that it was a necessary change.

* OldShame: In a 2018 interview, Jack Matthews, ''Echoes''' technical lead, said that the multiplayer was greatly simplified from his original vision, with many planned features cut due to time constraints, and that what was left probably shouldn't have been included with the game at all since it took development time away from the single-player, which he thought was the real point of ''Metroid''.

** Early plans for ''Echoes'' were very different from the final game. An early pitch for the game called [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Metroid_1.5 Metroid 1.5]], written by level designer Tony Giovannini, detailed possible ideas for the game: aliens in cryostasis (indirectly got into the game via the sleeping Luminoth), a schizophrenic AI (also indirectly got into the game via the out-of-control rebellious robots in the Sanctuary Fortress), a gameplay mechanic where time can flow backwards and/or the gravity of a room can be altered, many different enemy types, plans for an "Ancient Chozo Robot Battle" multiplayer mode (where the players roll up into the chestplate of ancient robots and use them to battle), the appearance of other bounty hunters, and more. This would all occur on a huge alien starship that was, basically, [[WebComic/GirlGenius Castle Heterodyne]] InSPACE. Some of these ideas were [[RefittedForSequel revisited in later games]] such as other bounty hunters appearing in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeHunters'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', and using ancient war golems via Morph Ball in ''Corruption.''

* ViralMarketing: First, there were two viral promo sites: "Orbis Labs", a weapons-designer creating a "battle sphere" which soldiers could roll up into (which was stated to be [[SamusIsAGirl unsuitable for male body types]]), and "Channel 51", a conspiracy-theory site from "[[SueDonym Samantha Manus]]" of "[[SignificantAnagram Sumas]], WA" investigating alien footage which consisted of blurred-up clips from the game. A third, "Athena Astronautics", which advertised sending women into space, offered job positions for bounty hunters - 25 people who replied to the offer received a copy of ''Echoes'' as an "interactive training manual". Those who went to the other three could earn access secreth fourth one, ''[[http://forums.chozosanctuary.com/topic/7518-a-brief-history-of-the-luminoth-temple/ Luminoth Temple]]''.

* AbsurdlyShortProduction: The developers took 18 months to fully develop and release the game.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' [[EmbeddedPrecursor was going to be an unlockable extra]] similar to how the original ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' was in ''Prime''. It was cut due to time constraints.

*** There is leftover data for the arm of a Space Pirate in the place of Samus' first-person arm cannon model. This implies that a Space Pirate was playable at some point, possibly for multiplayer.

* OldShame: In a 2018 interview, Jack Matthews, ''Echoes''' technical lead, said that the multiplayer was greatly simplified from his original vision, with many planned features due to time constraints, and that what was left probably shouldn't have been included with the game at all since it took development time away from the single-player, which he thought was the real point of ''Metroid''.

* TroubledProduction: The game was almost 30% complete when Nintendo abruptly ordered Retro Studios to complete the game in a whopping ''three months'', all just so it could meet the Christmas season deadline. Part of the blame comes from Retro being too ambitious, starting with not recycling any of the assets from the first game (just see the entry below for how many things they couldn't put into ''Echoes'').
** It was confirmed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlbeRLmfCHk&t=1828s a September 2021 interview]] that this game did not suffer any crunch during development and the commonly cited "only 30% was done" factoid was completely false. It was [[VideoGame/MetroidPrime its predecessor]] that suffered extreme crunch and worker burnout.

* ChristmasRushed: 70% of the game was forced to be finished just ''three months'' before the 2004 Christmas release date. What's more shocking is that the game doesn't show many signs of being rushed or unpolished, save a few balance issues and obvious PaletteSwaps.

** It was confirmed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlbeRLmfCHk&t=1828s a September 2021 interview]] that this game did not suffer any crunch during development and the commonly cited "only 30% was done" factoid was completely false. It was [[VideoGame/MetroidPrime1 its predecessor]] that suffered extreme crunch and worker burnout.

* TroubledProduction: The game was almost 30% complete when Nintendo abruptly ordered Retro Studios to complete the game in a whopping ''three months'', all just so it could meet the Christmas season deadline.

** There was a plan to have both Dark Ridley and a Dark Luminoth enemy. The latter was scrapped because it made no sense InUniverse; a Luminoth would rather self-terminate than allow itself to be controlled by the Ing. Dark Ridley has an unused theme on the disk, which [[https://youtu.be/kbFR7qBQOe0 has been uploaded]] to Website/YouTube. It was possibly only serving as a placeholder, however, because it’s his theme from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' slowed to half speed and put through some filters to create an echo effect. Nonetheless, it suggests that a similar tune would have been used had his boss fight made it into the game.

** There was a plan to have both Dark Ridley and a Dark Luminoth enemy. The latter was scrapped because it made no sense InUniverse; a Luminoth would rather self-terminate than allow itself to be controlled by the Ing. Dark Ridley has an unused theme on the disk, which has been uploaded to Website/YouTube: https://youtu.be/kbFR7qBQOe0. It was possibly only serving as a placeholder, however, because it’s his theme from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' slowed to half speed and put through some filters to create an echo effect. Nonetheless, it suggests that a similar tune would have been used had his boss fight made it into the game.

** Early plans for ''Echoes'' were very different from the final game. An early pitch for the game called [[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Metroid_1.5 Metroid 1.5]], written by level designer Tony Giovannini, detailed possible ideas for the game: aliens in cryostasis (indirectly got into the game via the sleeping Luminoth), a schizophrenic AI (also indirectly got into the game via the out-of-control rebellious robots in the Sanctuary Fortress), a gameplay mechanic where time can flow backwards and/or the gravity of a room can be altered, many different enemy types, plans for an "Ancient Chozo Robot Battle" multiplayer mode (where the players roll up into the chestplate of ancient robots and use them to battle), the appearance of other bounty hunters, and more. This would all occur on a huge alien starship that was, basically, [[WebComic/GirlGenius Castle Heterodne]] InSPACE. Some of these ideas were [[RefittedForSequel revisited in later games]] such as other bounty hunters appearing in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeHunters'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', and using ancient war golems via Morph Ball in ''Corruption.''

** There was a plan to have both Dark Ridley and a Dark Luminoth enemy. The latter was scrapped because it made no sense InUniverse; a Luminoth would rather self-terminate than allow itself to be controlled by the Ing.
*** Dark Ridley has an unused theme on the disk, which has been uploaded to Website/YouTube: https://youtu.be/kbFR7qBQOe0. It was possibly only serving as a placeholder, however, because it’s his theme from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' slowed to half speed and put through some filters to create an echo effect. Nonetheless, it suggests that a similar tune would have been used had his boss fight made it into the game.

*** Dark Ridley has an unused theme on the disk, which has been uploaded to YouTube: https://youtu.be/kbFR7qBQOe0. It was possibly only serving as a placeholder, however, because it’s his theme from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime1'' slowed to half speed and put through some filters to create an echo effect. Nonetheless, it suggests that a similar tune would have been used had his boss fight made it into the game.