Metroid fan-site ShineSparkers have published a lengthy English translation of an official Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes question and answer session. A number of Japanese Metroid fans had the opportunity to send questions to the game’s development staff and they answered a whole host of questions. There’s a wealth of information to be uncovered in the interview and I suggest giving it a read right here.
English Translation Of An Official Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes Q&A Is Here
||How did Dark Samus come from Tallon IV to Aether? Also, despite their scientific achievements such as the defense system, a totally mechanized fortress, and QUADRAXIS, why could Luminoth not predict the arrival of the meteorite? If it had been predicted, what about destroying it or at least breaking it into smaller pieces?||
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Oh look, this post is definitely your calling. :3
And to answer your questions: Like what Prime 3 opening revealed, DS was possibly a stowaway on that Pirate freighter ship as well when they got engaged and chased by the GF. How can you forget that the Lunimoth race are peaceful and advanced for prosperity like the Chozo which is where their race got inspiration from and they had nothing to defend their new home planet Aether from a fast moving “doomsday” meteor which BTW CAN WARP VIA WORMHOLES, again, revealed in Prime 3 with its Phazon energy. Same thing happened on Tallon IV so why couldn’t the Chozo their stop the meteor themselves…? The reason: Neither didn’t set up strong orbital defenses like the GF did which saved Norion from their Phazon Meteor Impact. That reminds me, the lore on Aether did reveal that Lunimoth tried to stop or deflect the Phazon meteor but couldn’t because it’s composed of materials they’ve never seen before.
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What? DS ended up on Aether by stowaway, both Tallon IV’s Chozo and Aether’s Luninoth did attempt to stop their meteors but couldn’t because it’s an unknown substance/material to their knowledge. None of them have any significant orbital shielding or defenses like the GF has on Norion to just shoot rocks out of the sky. I got a question of my own that hopefully won’t have me facepalm myself: How can a so called powerful spider robot A. Couldn’t beat/repel the Ing that was designed for and B. Lose to a stranger female bounty hunter in the first fight that’s literally 23x her size? lol
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I can answer your first question. The Luminoth never got to finish Quadraxis because the Ing came along and stole it before they could, finishing the machine themselves. Pretty sure I recalled that right. Anyway, it’s explained in the game by one of the logs left behind by the Luminoth.
Either finished or not, the possession abilities is beyond their control and understanding. Although I’m not sure why that doesn’t work when they attack Samus at times and attempt to possess her. Maybe the Chozo technology is far more advanced.
Actually, I’m pretty sure the Luminoth said the Chozo were more advanced than them.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. They were inspired by the Chozo but not as advanced.
Actually, the reason of Samus not being possessed by the ing is because of the Energy Transfer Module which is obtained after defeating the Alpha Splinter (the boss where U-mos is).
Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that light module thingy! It’s been a very long time since I’ve played the Metroid Prime games that I’ve forgotten some details of the games.
The reason of why the Energy Transfer Module protects her is because it has a core with the light of Aether. All this is explained in the Logbook. Just select items then look for it. I think its in the Miscellaneous section if I am not mistaken.
So it was the Light Module that shielded her…but then how the fuck can they steal the others if it’s light actually repels them?…
Unfortunately there is no clear answer to that. My guess is that the light core of the Energy Transfer Module cannot harm them because its inside of the Module, therefore they never got contact with its light core.
Unless they grow resistant to the light as it grows weaker on Aether. Remember the possessed Splinters roaming around daylight?
Actually the only way for the ing to live in Aether is by being inside a creature that live in Aether, which is why they possess creatures. This is answered in the last page of the Question and Answers of Metroid Prime 2 Dark Echoes.
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What’s up?
||I’m still waiting to see the errors of their way, they answer questions I never even asked, typed or to which I didn’t know cycles ago already…||
I’m surprised that (in 2004) they revealed the name of that place where the meteors came from but at least they didn’t specific if it was a planet or something created by some race.
I feel sorry for the two persons who asked if Ridley was in Metroid Prime 2. Ridley is a good boss but it would have ended possessed by the ing if he had appeared in this game, which could cause that he couldn’t be in Prime 3 unless he was cloned but, it would then not be the true nemesis of Samus.
Plot twist: before the Prime games and the remake of Metroid 2 renamed Samus Returns came along that showed Ridley with metal parts on his body where he lost chunks of his body to his fight with Samus in the original Metroid, the Ridley we faced in Super Metroid WAS a clone. Dun dun dunnn!
I’ll be. I didn’t know that even though I played Super Metroid. I hope that the Ridley’s cloned by the space pirates have the memories of the Ridley from Metroid 1.
It was a joke since I don’t know for sure. Yokoi and the others didn’t really write down much of a story for the original 3 Metroid games. Hence why I’m starting to think Sakamoto is adding a story where there was none with his remakes of Metroid 1 & 2. So Super is probably next.
I see. like your theory (I had reply here because there’s no reply button in your other reply) and I really hope that Sakamoto and MercurySteam are making a remake of Super Metroid. Its one of my favorite SNES games and also because I want to see the area of Maridia in 2.5D (I like almost all the water areas of the 2D Metroid and all the water areas of Prime Trilogy).
It’s the music. They have some of the most calm, atmospheric, ambient music in the entire franchise. Just like Donkey Kong Country series with it’s Aquatic Ambience (and it’s remixes.)
I mean, we’re talking about a dragon who was blown into pieces so small we couldn’t see them anymore and yet continuously came back, even decided to not be a cyborg anymore and somehow completely regenerated. Clearly, there is something about him that’s not normal, besides, a blast of light energy would do the trick.
Indeed. He must have something that makes him a viable candidate for regeneration and he even had an artificial metamorphosis to become Meta Ridley.
Perhaps the space pirates has advanced in regeneration technology and has found a way to make a metamorphosis to Ridley despite him not being able to have one in a natural way.
With the 2D games, thanks to the limited things they could do, Ridley blowing up into tiny pieces was just an over-exaggeration of his defeat since they could rarely show an enemy fall to the ground in a heap. Blowing the enemy up was the best way to show you defeated an enemy back then. In Ridley’s case, it was apparently not him dying but merely being highly damaged by Samus since he returned in Super Metroid. In Metroid Prime, he got blasted off a cliff so we didn’t see him actually die and he did return in Prime 3. Prime 3 is where it gets tricky, though. He could have been blown to pieces in Corruption but we didn’t see his remains as all we saw was a cloud of dust and no body, not even pieces of him. With Samus Returns, he definitely took damage in his fight with Samus in Corruption but apparently the transformation into Omega Ridley healed him up enough to where all they needed was a few armor pieces to regenerate the lost tissue, thus giving us Proto Ridley in Samus Returns. If Other M remains canon, it means that Super Metroid is the only one where we know for a FACT that Ridley was truly killed since he had to be cloned, accidentally might we add, in that game to even appear. This is my theory as to why Ridley could be in so many Metroid games. In any case, it seems Sakamoto is trying to write a story where there was none in past Metroid games with the remakes of Metroid into Zero Mission and Metroid II into Samus Returns. If that is what he’s, we all better be ready because Super Metroid will be next to get a remake that adds more story to the original game.
That’s hardly an excuse, as he’s continued to explode in each game, even the prime games, and come back. He even decided “Y’know, this whole cyborg thing isn’t working out” and somehow got rid of it while retaining his whole body. The only game where it can be confirmed that he wasn’t the same was Other M and 4. He was killed in the original and in all the others. Prime series takes place before Super so if anything it seems they were just trying to show off how he became a cyborg in Prime1, but nothing there suggests that he isn’t the same until Other M. If anything, it seems likely that he died after Super.
It’s highly possible he did die each time but with the Space Pirates still around til after Super, they merely revived him after Samus left the area. I view the blowing up as not him actually blowing up into pieces but simply being blown off screen (least in the games where he didn’t get shown blowing up into pieces.) But I concede it’s possible him blowing up was just him losing huge chunks of his body, forcing the Space Pirates to rush in after Samus left the area to revive him by attaching metal parts to his body to replace what he lost (like Frieza in DBZ, heh.) Ridley & Frieza. Two villains that if you don’t make sure every last cell of their body is disintegrated into ash, some asshole can just come along, put their remains together, and attach cybernetics to the remains and the son of a bitch will regenerate and live on to continue being a pain in your ass. Without the Space Pirates, Ridley was gonna stay dead. (Some might hate hearing this but I use this possibility as to why Samus freaked in Other M when she saw Ridley in the boss battle area. I like to say if Sakamoto did a better job at telling Other M’s story that people wouldn’t have reacted the way they did to that scene. But some would still hate it no matter how good the story was and no matter how good Sakamoto explained why this was happening. *shrug* Whatever, though. If it gets retconned, I just want Anthony and the metamorphosis with Ridley from little Furby to giant badass space dragon to remain. I find it awesome when a little cute thing you think is harmless turns out to be such a badass. The ultimate “Never judge a book by it’s cover!”)
Okay, but he doesn’t NEED the space pirates to revive himself, he just needs organic cells. The manga shows that he was able to survive the planet blowing up by eating human flesh. In a sense, he’s kinda like that one monster from Jeepers creepers who could heal himself from seemingly “Okay, there is no way in Zebes that you survived that” deaths. His nickname is “the cunning god of death” after all, he probably is close to being immortal due to this ability (although he probably could die eventually, for good)
It was suggested that he did the cybernetics thing as a change in strategy, further supported by the fact that he became completely organic again (albeit it may have been a slow going process if Samus Returns edits are anything to go by). In Corruption it did mention that the Pirates had repaired him, but it also is the only game where he appears twice as a moving, agile, boss. (Zero Mission had him appear as the final boss as mecha ridley, but he was an enormous machine in that one, chained basically to the wall) I think if he didn’t have the space pirates fix him, he would’ve need a lot more time (as in, not appearing twice in the same game sort of time) as it even said that the repairs from the Pirates was rushed, which left a weakness of which was exploited to defeat him a second time.
Ridley is supposed to be Ganon to Samus’ Link, His Moby Dick to her Ishmael, I don’t think he was supposed to die for good in the original vision of Yokoi. He may be killed off now that Sakamoto, who has all the talent of Uwe Boll when it comes to writing, is behind the helm. A clone just simply wouldn’t be the same, so it would be a poor choice IMO, that’d be like cloning Ellen Ripley. oh wait. Other M was horrible, maybe if it was merely a Metroidvania type game that wasn’t Metroid it would’ve been given passable reception, but considering the series it came up in, it was hated for destroying everything that Metroid had built up, mutating it into a former shell of itself that put the series on hold for several years.
It was like that gosh awful Alien Resurrection, Sakamoto being a good comparison to Jean-Pierre Jeunet in how he took the series in a “startling” and “new” direction. The whole stunned by Rids scene was a “okay, this is probably a very bad idea, but if you’re a mad genius you just might pull it off” sort of thing, but it was executed in a “I haven’t written anything since my first fan fiction got a negative review, but I’ll try!” sort of manner, it was a bad idea that was executed in the worst way possible. If another person (I have no hope in Sakamoto’s writing abilities) could’ve portrayed it in a way that DIDN’T make Samus just look oh so delicate and fragile and vulnerable (a fetish to some people, especially in Japanese made material) and defenseless in such a manner that a bounty hunter who has blown up planets literally COULD NOT be like, then maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.
Sure, he tried to justify it with the whole PTSD thing, but one thing he clearly didn’t know and/or care about is that PSTD doesn’t work like that. One cannot be traumatized by something, fight that something as they get older, kill it, blowing it up to smithereens, and then go on their merry way, see it again likely years later, fight it again, kill it again, then fight it again, then kill it again, then fight it again, then kill it again, and again, and then again, and then fight it once more for the seventh time in a row, and then all of a sudden be affected by PTSD that you allegedly got from it, especially since croco rids was still very much like Rids, if she was going to be affected by it, his similar sounds and face should’ve been enough since that’s what she got a good look at. He clearly just wanted to paint her in a manner he found to be attractive: submissive and fragile while still being in some ways “strong” it’s no different than other allegedly “bad@ss” female characters in Japanese media who are really just pathetic. I think this is the reason why Other M gets such Vitriol, he tried to take the Ellen Ripley of games and turn her into an anime waifu.
I don’t think Sakamoto has done so bad. He was involved with the story for Super Metroid (the most popular game in the entire franchise) and Metroid Fusion. (I think he was a writer for Metroid 2: Return of Samus, as well.) I’ve also enjoyed Zero Mission & Samus Returns’ slight alterations in the stories for the original games where he also wrote the stories for. Other M is just the black sheep in his history of writing for Metroid. I wouldn’t put him on Uwe Boll’s level. He’ll need to make a hell of a lot more Other M type stories to match Boll. And for all we know, some of that story for Other M wasn’t entirely his idea & was pushed on him so they could make the series appeal more to Japan because we know how Nintendo is when it comes to their home country. (It’s also a big reason why the Switch is what it is since Japan is obsessed with portability (smartphones, laptops, handhelds, tablets.)) Not defending him with that (not entirely anyway) since he could have put his foot down & said no if that is the case but didn’t. We’ll never know, though, since I doubt him or Nintendo will ever tell us as long as he’s working there since he’s most likely under a strict NDA and Nintendo doesn’t want to look bad for interfering with their developers.
In any case, we can both agree Other M needs a retcon. Even if the Hell Run is a case of bad storytelling, I still loved that segment for the challenge & adrenaline pumping moment. It definitely felt very Team Ninja. The entire game did, really. Then again, now that I think about it, with some fine tuning like a bit of rewriting of the story, new cutscenes, and new areas, Other M doesn’t really need a retcon as the gameplay is fun, flawless, and a bit challenging. (I guess it’d still technically be a retcon since the story would be changed.) Sakamoto should take a bit of a backseat, though, and bring someone else in to do the rewrites. It’s probably getting around that time for him to start doing less with the Metroid franchise, train someone to take his place like Miyamoto did with Aonuma & like Aonuma is doing with the new guy that’s taking over as Director for Zelda games, & move on to do his own new IP.
(Sorry for the long time to respond) He may have been the director (or even writer) for some of those, but as the games’ stories become more fleshed out his lacking skills at writing complex stories and characters is showing. Like the saying goes, less is more. Just about anyone could write something that seems good if it’s relatively basic (Metroid has always had minimalistic storytelling until recently) but when he tries to make more fleshed out characters and events it’s clear that he’s not cut out for the job, and it’s also clear the direction that has been changing since Yokoi left the scene. Samus’ official height and weight are 6’3 and 200lbs, but Other M makes her looks about 5’3″ and about 100lbs with how everyone else towers over her tiny frame. She blew up planets and destroyed Ridley several times with seemingly no problems whatsoever (emotionally that is, he tends to be one of the tougher bosses) and in Other M she’s paralyzed at the sight of him out of the blue. There are clear contradictions between her portrayal in Other M than from the previous games. Either Sakamoto had some event that completely made him do a 180 or he didn’t have all that much influence on certain things to begin with. To even think of making Samus like how Other M did would suggest that his vision of Samus never aligned with the actual vision of her. He may have made good gameplay, but since he didn’t work on that aspect, I think Other M drops the ball. With the more linear gameplay, the “press + pad for invincibility” combat and the “where’s waldo” segments, it falls short of the Metroid series I believe. It’s not bad per se, but it certainly isn’t a style that lends itself to grandiose and longevity (I think the gameplay of all TN games is in the 7/10 range) Unlike what Nintendo’s games developed by themselves tend to have: replay value for years to come (I still play their wide variety of Nes/Snes games) based on simple yet complex design. Other M is just simple.
What I’m basically hoping for with 4 is a return to form; that Ridley makes a return since he’s a staple in the series and expound on him a bit (he’s supposed to be an intelligent commander, but in the games he seems little more than a beserking beast) and that Samus has more personality but not at the cost of her value as a character. There may have been other things that affected it, but he directly said that this portrayal of Samus is how he personally always saw her. His version of her just simply could not be the original vision, otherwise she wouldn’t have been made 6’3″ 200lbs super soldier levels of BA that we know her to be.
Maybe he isn’t Boll, but more like James Cameron. He took an idea that was original and phenomenal and removed what made it so great. I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but I personally think that Aliens was a good movie in of itself (Good story, acting, action, etc.) but it was a horrendous sequel to Scott’s Alien masterpiece. Cameron didn’t understand what it was that made the Alien stand out so, and settled to take that away to tell an action drama story he wanted to. If you removed the xenomorphs with zombies you’d have to change little else to the script. It wasn’t bad per se, but simply had the wrong title on it. I’d say Aliens is better as a standalone movie than Other M is as a standalone game (I still have a strong distaste for the overwrought anime like execution that it had even if we forget that it’s supposed to be a Metroid game) but I agree, it would be more like Starfox Assault of the series if it had a retcon for the story and was reintroduced. Different, not exactly what the series is known for, but passable nonetheless.
I’m thinking it’ll be another Breath of the Wild situation though, especially since Namco Bandai is heading the development; They make the best fighting games gameplay wise imo, but their skills beyond that and JRPG’s is lacking. (I mean, just look at their more recent game history http://www.metacritic.com/company/bandai-namco-games The only games that are green are fighting games and RPG’s and a game that they didn’t even make themselves, but only touched up) Even with Nintendo helping them out I’m expecting the game to be mostly likely passable in terms of gameplay. Alright, fine. If they can make the story right is more important. I will give my whole N64 collection if it would somehow make the story good at least with at least decent gameplay (I sincerely doubt that this game will be anything resembling great, but I’ll be happy if I’m proven wrong) Sakamoto maybe could stay for the gameplay segments, but maybe they should get a person who understands what it was that made Metroid Metroid and what made Samus Samus to write the story.
Sakamoto comes off a bit like George Lucas to me: great as a director & scenario writer but not very good when telling the WHOLE story by himself. They definitely need a second writer that will tell them “No!” when an idea is bad.
Yeah, that’s what he really needs. At any rate, the future of the series in terms of story is on shaky grounds indeed. It seems to be a recipe for disaster by letting Bandai, but if that 1 of 10 chance of it being great comes out, that’ll be a big relief.
I’m not too big on Bandai Namco doing Metroid Prime 4 either but I hope I’m proven wrong in my doubts.
If that is what he’s doing, we all better*
I like like both view of points (yours and Infinite Kalas X3). This has me thinking, if they put Ridley in Prime 4, he would have free will since Phaaze is banished which must have caused that the phazon inside him disappeared just like it disappeared from the body of Samus. But I wonder how the space pirates can made Ridley stronger than when he was Omega Ridley. Phazon was the strongest substance in the universe (Tardust, Parasite Queen, the Plant Boss Flaaghra, Elite Pirates, Omega Pirate and Metroids were incredibly enhanced by the phazon), so how would they make Ridley stronger then?
Perhaps the 4 (of Metroid Prime 4) surrounded by something blue could mean that the space pirates have replicated phazon thanks to their technology advancements.
I’d rather they not bring back Ridley. He was in Prime 1 & 3 but not in 2. Let’s leave him out of 4 to keep that thingy going. (Using the word thingy because the word I want to use refuses to pop up into my head. *is having a brain fart*)
Since the planet Phazee is dead, I have to imagine that that whole stuff will be gone. The fact that we don’t see it in the later games suggests that Retro wanted to give an explanation as to why we don’t see Phazon in the games that take place after the Prime series chronologically.
I think Prime 4 will be more of a spiritual successor to the Prime series (first person perspective adventure game) rather than another go at Phazon (unless this is a game that takes place inbetween the three main games, which I doubt) Well, it seems that Ridley is always a challenge to Samus, regardless of cybernetics and the like. He did decide to forgo the cyborg part after all after the Prime series. The blue part of the title I hope doesn’t point to Phazon returning, as I’d like to see a Metroid Prime like game that goes for a different story arc, maybe exploring the Luminoth a bit more with their civilization being starting up again, or the Bryyo (since they were sentient creatures before Phazon affected them) or the Prime hunters storyline. If they incorporate the multiplayer aspect from Prime hunters where you can play as the multiple different hunters again that will be awesome. Whatever happens though, I hope the true Ridley comes back to continue his rivalry with Samus.
I haven’t thought that, however I agree with you. Putting Ridley in a Prime pattern 1-3-5-7 is an idea I can welcome after seeing the excellent bosses of Metroid Prime 2.
Honestly, I’d rather not be getting another Metroid Prime at all. If the original game didn’t have the final boss being the titular Metroid Prime and with the sequels having Metroid Prime return as Dark Samus in 2 & 3, I wouldn’t mind the 4th game being called Metroid Prime 4. (Hopefully Metroid Prime 4 is just a placeholder name til they have something to actually show us of the game.) But if it is another Prime game, I don’t want Ridley returning for 4.
Perhaps they can do the same as the first Yoshi’s Island which had above his title “Super Mario World 2” in small letters. That way it can have a new title. As for the main title, it could be named Metroid Aether to have something that reminds us of the Prime Trilogy even after the they (hopefully) made Metroid Aether 2.
I’m definitely most interested in Aether and the Luminoth (if my username is anything to go by) but somehow I doubt they’ll do the Luminoth justice since it’s been revealed that Namco Bandai is the development team behind it. It seems Japanese media is much more focused on only giving humans or humanoids interesting lore and backgrounds, unlike western media like starwars/trek, Mass Effect, Halo, and the like which give very in depth and interesting cultures and thought into their aliens, ugly and pretty alike. (that’s probably why they haven’t done much for Ridley’s character in the games) If anything, I’d think they’d shine more if they continue with Prime Hunter’s sort of setting with all those other bounty hunters.