Metroid's Next Step

[wijg]

Long before I had the idea of a possible next evolution in gameplay, and before Echoes came out, I had hopes for a new direction in the Metroid series. One of my favorite aspects of a game is replayability. While I played through Prime a couple of times, I just haven't felt the urge with Echoes. And while there are many urges going on, I am referring to the one to replay the game. My idea for Metroid's next step is for the game to include some customization for Samus.

One of the best designed games in terms of replayability imo is Diablo 2. I didn't play Diablo, but saw a friend playing the sequel and the game intrigued me. Plus they make it for the Mac, which brought up the Mac game total to like 2. What makes Diablo 2 rank so high in replayability is that you can customize your character to a great degree, from the depth in skill trees to the almost endless item possibilities. I think Metroid should adopt some of these customization options for everyone's favorite bounty hunter.

Now I know Metroid has a grand history of replayability in terms of speed runs and secret worlds, but what I am proposing may not discount those ideas.

The basic premise is to adapt the skill tree idea to Metroid. Several games have used modified versions of the skill tree such as the Baldur's Gate series and X-Men Legends. After leveling up, you get to add points to various attributes. I think this would work well with Metroid. Each beam you acquire would have characteristics you could enhance by adding skill points to them. These characteristics could be as simple as rate of fire and damage inflicted. Each beam could start out at a particular point on both scales: the power beam has a high rate of fire but is weak; the ice beam is insanely slow, but fairly strong. Yet through using skill points, you could make the power beam stronger or the ice beam faster, depending on your taste in weaponry. The various suits of armor Samus acquires can also utilize this system. Their characteristics, however, could be something like mobility and defensive strength. The gravity suit may allow you to be very quick, but not provide strong defense. With the fusion suit, you are slow as Kraid, but extremely well protected. Of course some mechanism would have to be added to the game to allow you to switch armor, but I think it could be worked into an apparatus similar to a save station. I think skill points could also be worked into some of Samus's misc capabilities such as space jump and screw attack, but I will not elaborate on them here.

Basically with this system, you could create a different kind of Samus each time you play through the game. You could be a lightening fast gravity suit bearer, wielding a blazing power beam. Or you could be a tank in the fusion suit, with the plasma beam for your cannon. One of the coolest things about Diablo 2 is that you can focus on a few abilities and make them extremely powerful, or you can be more well rounded over several disciplines. In Metroid, you could have one piece of amazing armor and one impressive beam, or several strong armors and beams. Adding further special characteristics to each beam and piece of armor would further add to the customization.

Many people will probably disagree with me in regards to where the Metroid series should go. While I loved Prime and Echoes, as well as all other games before them (Super Metroid may have the best play control of any game ever), I think it would be fun to add more depth to the series in terms of character customization. Samus is one of my favorite video game characters and it would be cool to allow you to create a new and different version of her each time through the game.

 

[kurruption]

great post and idea, I would just like to elaborate, I would love to base samus on just one aspect such as, have her use only fire attacks kind of like a fire elemental or you can stay on just one side of the skill tree such as only ice attacks or focus on the beams, like you said, the problem would be with the puzzles in prime, haven't played echoes yet, you get to a point and you have to lets say get the fire weapon to melt the ice on the door, well what if you specialize only on the ice techniques, you would be screwed. But what if you specialized on ice techniques so much you can absorb the ice, or freeze yourself when in the morph ball like iceman from the xmen, and just ram yourself onto the ice and break it, with the beam you could have rapid fire and it just chips away at the ice. Same thing with the grappling hook puzzles, concentrate on beams, you get the grappling hook, specialize on ice, you could form ice bridges like the xmen, fire weapons, fire whip god of war style. So yes metroid is a great series and adding customization, should be, not a step forward but a giant leap.

 

[wijg]

Thanks kurruption. I expected to get blasted by people who love the speed run aspect of Metroid and think that I am crazy for believing that the game does not have a high replayability factor. Of course, those people might not have read the post yet. Your suggestions would work as well. I think anything that would add to the customization of the game would be cool. I think, extending the idea one step further, it would be cool if Retro released shorter games in quicker succession. Kind of like expansions to MMORPGs. Instead of one game every two years, or something, they could release shorter missions maybe twice a year or something. The catch would be that you could carry over your developed characters from one mission to the next, further focusing on their development. I am sure there would be a few design hurdles to iron out with regards to different characters abilities, but I think it could be done. I also have an idea for a strictly multiplayer game in the Metroid universe, but I want to see if we can get some more responses, before throwing out that idea.