Croal: Metroid should never have gone 3D
The latest "Vs. Mode" exchange between Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV's Stephen Totilo compares Metroid Prime 3 with BioShock (a.k.a. the game that people won't stop talking about). They're up to part 3 now, which mostly covers the morality of the two games. Almost in passing, Croal makes the following remark: "'Metroid' is a franchise that should never have made the jump from 2-D third-person to 3-D first-person."
He goes on to say that the first-person format works best for games involving forward motion (shoot, go through door, shoot, etc.), and that the Metroid games' trademark backtracking is most easily conceivable in a side-scroller.
And even though we can almost hear you rummaging in the closet for your Indignant Commenter hats, we mostly agree. While Metroid Prime is a great series of games, they aren't great Metroid games. The emphasis on storytelling (via scanning) and the reduced platforming required of a first-person game make for a fundamentally different experience from a real Metroid game. We admit we have big problems with the 3D maps, too, which hampers exploration significantly. For Croal, the change is enough to keep him from making progress in Prime; for us, we can enjoy both independently, but at no point do we really feel like we're playing a 3D Metroid.
