Metroid

I dunno, I don't recall him saying that they're non-canon. I think he meant that he didn't take the Prime-series into consideration when he made Other M's story, from what I've heard. And this doesn't sound like that the Prime-series is non-canon now to me.

My own belief is the Phazon incident is what led the Galactic Federation to finally decide "Screw it, Metroids are dangerous."

Well, whatever. I also see the Prime Pinball games a canon.

>Other M

>Story

....Sorry.

But I coulda sworn he said it wasn't canon, though that could have been a mistranslation.

I believe he said something like "The Prime games are a different part of the series", which could go either way, and Samus' comment about the BOTTLE SHIP incident being the first time she worked with the GF since she left could be parsed as either "Corruption didn't happen" or "Adam was part of a branch distinct from the GF Marines".

Sakamoto basically said he was ignoring the prime series. The series that resurrected the franchise. The series that is fresh in everyone's minds. The series that currently defines metroid. The series that was very much critically acclaimed.

Japan apparently have a different view of what exactly the word "Canon" means anyway tho.

Yeah, I know, it's flamebait, but the game is, what, two or three years old now?

It's probably that, yeah.

edited 24th Nov '13 10:39:12 AM by Jaryl

Yeah, either way, it was pretty bullshit.

He apparently remembered the Seeker Missiles, though.

edited 24th Nov '13 10:40:05 AM by Pulse

I'm just slightly bitter because I almost bought a Wii for that game before it came out. >.>

Honestly it would have gone better if he had made Other M into a deliberate side-story, an "Episode of Samus" or something like that, since he then could have more deliberately handwaved all of the stuff that he had to come up with flimsy excuses for (the Ridley scene and her relationship with Federation authority at that point in the timeline)

Or even if he had put Other M right after Metroid/Zero Mission but before Prime 1, which would at least fit the Ridley thing

As it stands, though, the Prime story was mostly self-contained with few, if any, implications on greater Metroid lore, because most of what Prime introduced it also wrapped up, including the whole idea of Space Pirates being distinct from the Zebesians (my headcanon is that the Zebesians were a subspecies of Pirate that Mother Brain bred with consent of Pirate Command to be better servants under her hivemind control), since the Pirate Homeworld ended up under Federation occupation at the end of 3, so the non-Zebesians were effectively ended as a threat. Phazon came and Phazon went. There is the possibility that some stocks of Tallon Metroids are still running around in Pirate caches. They didn't state that the Tallon Metroids were dependent on Phazon, so they may or may not have died off with Phaaze

Actually, it's stated that the Pirate Homeworld in Corruption is actually one of many "Homeworlds" that the Pirates terraformed and industrialized.

IMO the (semi-)lack of dialogue worked very well for the Prime series. I think it actually conveys a lot more that way.

I think 3's occasional dialogue was fine. I still consider 1 and 2 better, but for other reasons (Not that 3 isn't a stellar game).

Anyway, Sakamoto didn't explicitly declare Prime to be non-canon, but he didn't take it into consideration when making Other M. He probably never even played them.

Not sure if Other M's Seeker Missiles are explicitly the same upgrade from Prime 2 and 3, or just a coincidence. Same with Super Missiles being reworked into "charged-up Missile".

edited 24th Nov '13 11:22:36 AM by Anomalocaris20

There's a lot more to enjoy about certain games when they're not so dialogue intensive. Prime was almost minimalistic in that apart from the narrator that was in the PAL and Trilogy versions and Jennifer Hale's Dummied Out monologue, there was no voice acted dialogue at all, and all the backstory was in easily readable log files.

MP 3 was great but it still had voiced dialogue, but not overtly so. Plus Admiral Dane and AU 242 are far more likable than Adam was and 242 is a giant fucking brain-shaped supercomputer.

edited 24th Nov '13 11:23:29 AM by MightyKombat

There was no narrator in Prime 1, aside from the dummied-out stuff. Not even in Trilogy. There is the "Recording to logbook" voice, but I don't think we care about that bit.

Prime 2 had exactly one voiced line (Aside from that logbook voice thing). Can anyone guess what it is?

edited 24th Nov '13 11:26:10 AM by Anomalocaris20

No, I definitely heard a narrator in my copy of Trilogy's MP 1 and my PAL copy of the original GC one. Some versions had a narrator at the start, some didn't. But I know I heard it.

Strange...

I never heard a narrator on my GC, granted I got mine real late, maybe it was just a thing for earlier copies?

Earlier copies didn't have it I think but I know there's one in I think PAL and/or JP copies of the GC one and I heard it in T Rilogy too.

What did the narrator sound like? Like what did they even narrate?

I can't think of anything needing narration.

edited 24th Nov '13 12:06:05 PM by LeGarcon

I think it was Nate Bihldorff who naratted?

Here he is. He might only be in the PAL Trilogy version as well.

The Prime parts have a simple explanation. Team Ninja were big Metroid fans and familiar with the Prime series. They were not especially unpopular in Japan, they simply did not take off the way they did in say, the European or Pan Am regions. (The whole series, Super, Fusion and all is less successful in Japan but it has a vocal fan base there)

Notice before development team Ninja were all fine to talk about what they did, such is in Iwata asks. The corridors and linear nature of the Bottle Ship were there doing as they felt that was the design that worked best It was only after the game came out and there was heavy backlash that they said "Wait, that was Sakamoto's idea, we were just contract workers."

There was evidence prior to release that he was not a very flexible director, giving surprisingly short deadlines, arbitrarily drawing out aspects of development, insisting on archaic schemes but Team Ninja still had input he did not reject or modify, they were only on the project in the first place because they knew something Sakamoto did not (how to design a game on a 3D plain)

He reminds of the Soul Caliber guy somewhat.

Did someone say dummied out Jennifer Hale monologues?

I ninja'd you earlier.

But yeah there's the narrator. He does sound kinda Soul Calibur-y.

As for the Jennifer Hale monologue, there's an audio rip of it on the Cutting Room Floor wiki. Basically she talks about Samus' previous mission and her past.