To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Metroid, we are running a poll to find out which Metroid game is our readers favorite. Maybe there’s a clear choice, or perhaps it might be difficult to choose just one! Regardless, we are excited to find out which game you have voted in as the ultimate favorite Metroid title. To vote, please visit the following link below:
Shinesparkers Poll: Your favorite Metroid game
Voting ends August 6th 2021, with the results revealed shortly after!
The fourteenth episode of the Shinesparkers Podcast is now available! This episode focuses on the announcement of Metroid Dread and the team’s initial reactions to the newly announced game. We go on to share our thoughts on what the future of the Metroid series post-Dread could look like as the current story-arc comes to a close. We had a lot of fun making this episode so we hope you will check it out! Podcast hosted by Amanda, who is joined by Roy and Darren.
01:10 – Main Topic: Metroid Dread Reactions
18:56 – Second Topic: The Future of Metroid
27:23 – Bloopers
Our Community Spotlight of the month is now live! Today we feature the work of Alejandro Aguilar, a 3D artist and big fan of the Metroid series. He created two 3D models of the classic Power Suit, based on their Metroid Prime and Metroid: Samus Returns versions, as well as several 2D artworks. We hope you’ll check out his work!
With the release of Metroid Dread on the horizon, our Community Manager Glaedrax has written a feature detailing the story of Metroid so far. In this feature, Glaedrax recaps the traditional series that will lead to the events of Dread. We hope that this will serve as a good introduction to people who may be experiencing Metroid for the first time with Dread as their entry point, so they can learn about the thirty-five-year story that came before it.
Despite the Wii U being a commercial failure for Nintendo, it is still the most accessible way of playing certain titles for some fans.
Upon inspection of the Best Selling titles on the Wii U eShop, we are able to confirm that Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion have taken the 1st and 2nd spots respectively. In addition to this, the Metroid Prime Trilogy is currently at a respectable 5th.
It comes after confirmation from Gamestop that Metroid Dread was their most pre-ordered title post-E3, and that Metroid Dread had been selling very well on Amazon in multiple regions.
While there is no indication on the number of sales made, it is the best indicator so far that Dread has created plenty of hype for people to go back and experience earlier entries to the series. Earlier this week we asked Shinesparkers readers if they were playing Metroid as a result of the Metroid Dread announcement, and the response was overwhelming!
UPDATE: We can also confirm that Metroid: Samus Returns is currently 2nd on the Nintendo 3DS eShop in the United Kingdom! (Special thanks to Leon at Shinesparkers for the pictures!)
Source: Nintendo eShop
It has been just over a week since Nintendo revealed Metroid Dread during their E3 2021 Direct, and Gamestop have revealed that the highly anticipated title has placed first in their top-selling pre-orders following E3.
The top ten was dominated by Nintendo, but Metroid Dread even beat Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda to take the top spot. Could this be an early indication of some notable success for the title before it launches? Will Dread be able to maintain this momentum in the following weeks before launch? We certainly hope so!
Below is a full list of the top-10 games:
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
Popular Japanese video game magazine Famitsu have shared five videos featuring high quality gameplay footage from Metroid Dread. They were uploaded two days after Nintendo’s E3 2021 Direct. They don’t show any footage we haven’t already seen, but it’s great to see and hear the game clearly without commentary.
Source: Famitsu
The announcement of Metroid Dread seems to have gone down well, with preorders of the game selling highly in multiple regions on the popular online store Amazon.
Amazon’s Best Sellers list is updated hourly, and as of 11am BST on the 18th June 2021, Metroid Dread places in these positions on Amazon:
Germany: 7th (Standard edition), 8th (Special edition)
France: 20th (Standard edition), 16th (Special edition)
Japan: 40th (Standard edition)
North America: 4th (Standard edition)
United Kingdom: 12th (Standard edition)
The amiibo double pack appears to be highly received too, with Amazon France listing it as their 4th best selling videogame product, and Amazon Germany listing it in 3rd.
While this doesn’t reflect total preorder sales across each region, or confirm the number of copies actually preordered, it does give an early indication that the title has been received well by Amazon customers. Big thanks to Nintendo Life for bringing this to our attention!
Source: Amazon
Yoshio Sakamoto has been making the rounds in the gaming news, giving additional information about Metroid Dread following its announcement two days ago. In a Zoom call attended by reporters from Polygon, Eurogamer, The Verge, IGN and other outlets, Sakamoto-san clarified that Dread will not be the final 2D Metroid game and revealed the inspiration for the E.M.M.I., Dread’s major antagonists.
In his Development History video, Sakamoto said that Metroid Dread was in development and cancelled twice due to hardware limitations. According to Eurogamer, the second time was in 2008, where a playable prototype was created and shown to Nintendo executives in secret. It never went any further.
This seemingly confirms the claims made in 2015 to game researcher Liam Robertson by an anonymous source from Nintendo of America (video here). This person said that Dread was prototyped on Nintendo DS in 2008 and secretly shown before E3 2009 to Nintendo personnel. The source also said that it had a map screen on the bottom and gameplay on top, and looked very similar to Metroid Fusion. It would seem that the game was initially sprite-based like the classic Metroid games, before being realized as a 3D game on Nintendo Switch. The concept of a Metroid game with gameplay on the top screen and a map on the bottom screen was eventually realized in Metroid: Samus Returns.
Source: Eurogamer/Liam Robertson
In our last post, we shared a snippet from Yoshio Sakamoto’s new interview with Polygon, in which he clarified that the Metroid series would not conclude with Metroid Dread. He has shared additional information in this interview, which we’ll cover in this post.
The other notable tidbit is that Sakamoto-san conceived the E.M.M.I. when he was first developing Dread fifteen years ago for the Nintendo DS. The system’s technology was too limited for him to realize his vision for the game at the time. When Sakamoto-san met with MercurySteam to discuss making Metroid: Samus Returns, he did so with the hope that they could help him bring Dread to life, and they exceeded his expectations.
The E.M.M.I. were directly inspired by the SA-X, the memorable antagonist of Metroid Fusion who stalked Samus throughout the game, and could not be killed until the very end. Unlike the SA-X however, which is infamous for its poor artificial intelligence coding, the E.M.M.I. will relentlessly pursue Samus and be harder to avoid. This “fear-based gameplay” in his words is what most excites Sakamoto-san about Metroid Dread, although it is not meant to be a horror game. Dread’s story will have importance, but it will not be intrusive, making use of occasional cutscenes in a similar way to Samus Returns.
Metroid Dread is currently 112 days away from release. We can’t wait to finally experience the next chapter of the Metroid franchise!
Source: Polygon
