Chris Pratt and Charlie Day call for a Metroid movie

Mario and Luigi themselves, Chris Pratt and Charlie Day, recently gave an interview to Gizmodo about The Super Mario Bros. Movie. One of the questions they were asked was, if the movie is a success and Nintendo decides to adapt their other games to film, which ones would they want to see? Day said he and Pratt had talked about Metroid, and added, “How interesting and creepy and cool a Metroid [movie] would be?”

Many fans will remember a live-action movie directed by John Woo was in the works for a time, before being cancelled when Nintendo didn’t approve of the intended story. Since then, a few people in Hollywood have said they want to direct or star in a Metroid movie, such as Brie Larson. Maybe if the Mario movie goes down well, the chances of seeing Samus on the big screen will increase!

Source: Gizmodo

Feature: Metroid Prime Remastered Review

Our next feature is now available, and it’s a review of Metroid Prime Remastered written by team member Leon. They evaluate the updated visuals and controls of the game, how the gameplay holds up after twenty years, and whether it is a worthy update to a timeless classic. You can check out Leon’s review at the link below. We were provided a day of release code by Nintendo for this review.

Click here to check out the feature

Interview: Bruce Hunt

The Shinesparkers team is thrilled to present an interview with Australian filmmaker Bruce Hunt, the director of the live-action commercial for Metroid Fusion! Bruce shares how he got into film production, and provides behind the scenes details for Parasite, including where it was filmed, the animation of the enemies, and who played Samus.

Earlier this week, we uploaded two high-definition versions of Parasite, provided by Bruce, to our YouTube channel. One of them is a director’s cut with extra shots of Samus and the SA-X, which was an amazing find! Links to them are at the bottom of the interview page. We hope you enjoy them, and the interview!

Click here to check out the interview

Metroid Prime Remastered nearly outsells Hogwarts Legacy in the UK

A new report from GamesIndustry.biz has revealed that physical copies of Metroid Prime Remastered are selling extremely well in the United Kingdom. In fact, as of this writing, it is only 1,000 units behind Hogwarts Legacy, which is currently the top-selling physical game in the UK for four consecutive weeks. Remastered received a physical release in Europe only four days ago, and has been available digitally for a month, so this is hugely significant. It’s now the fourth biggest physical launch of a Metroid game in the country, and the second biggest physical release of the year, surpassing Fire Emblem Engage and the Dead Space remake.

Source: GamesIndustry

Episode 27 – Kit and Krysta

Shinesparkers Podcast
Shinesparkers Podcast
Episode 27 - Kit and Krysta
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For our second podcast of 2023, we are joined by Kit and Krysta, the former hosts of Nintendo Minute, who now host The Kit & Krysta Podcast! They answer our burning questions about Nintendo’s approach to marketing the Metroid series, and we share our reactions to Metroid Prime Remastered, which was announced and released only one day before our recording. We also answer our mailbag on the question of which Metroid game we’d save if we could only have one.

Podcast is hosted by Amanda, with team members Darren and Roy.

00:00 – Introductions
00:54 – Interview: Kit and Krysta
36:19 – Topic: Our Thoughts on Metroid Prime Remastered
45:03 – Mailbag
49:12 – Bloopers

The fanart contest submission and AM2R ending mentioned in this podcast:

Metroid Prime Remastered icons come to Nintendo Switch Online for a limited time

Icons based on Metroid Prime Remastered are now available through Nintendo Switch Online until March 9th. There are six and they each cost 10 Platinum Points. The icons feature Samus, the Morph Ball, Meta Ridley and a Metroid. Notably, the banner image says “Wave 1”, implying that more might be on the way. We will update you if this turns out to be the case.

Metroid Prime developers criticize Remastered credits

Original Metroid Prime engineers Zoid Kirsch and Jack Mathews have criticized Metroid Prime Remastered for omitting the original game’s credits. The remaster instead credits the new Retro Studios employees, and staff at external partner studios, for their work on the game, while adding this general credit to the end: Based on the work of Metroid Prime / Original Nintendo GameCube and Wii Version Development Staff. This marks a change from Metroid Prime Trilogy, which included the original credits in addition to new ones.

Additionally, Ashley Rochelle, an Environment Artist who was hired for the remaster, found that she was credited under special thanks in Remastered despite doing significant work on the environments, including the Hall of the Elders. She said that she and other people who left Retro before the credits were finished got listed under special thanks instead of receiving full credit for their work. She also claimed that at least one artist was completely left out, as was anyone who was laid off during development.

This is not the first Metroid game to have its crediting practices criticized by people who worked on it. Metroid Dread also had this issue, where at least three developers found they were not credited since they did not work on the game for at least a year, per MercurySteam policy.

While it might be that this is the result of an internal policy at Retro Studios, we believe that this is wrong. Two of the original developers, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson and Andy O’Neil, have since died, and it is imperative that we remember their work and contributions to the Metroid Prime series, along with everyone else who is still with us. We hope that Retro Studios will make this right by releasing an update that adds the original credits, and acknowledges new developers’ roles appropriately.

You can read the original Metroid Prime’s credits on Wikitroid at the link here.

Source: Zoid Kirsch/Jack Mathews/Ashley Rochelle

Vanessa Marshall confirms her role in Metroid Prime

We are happy to report tonight that another Metroid mystery has been solved! Back in 2018, we interviewed Metroid Prime Audio Lead Clark Wen. One of the questions we asked was about the effort noises made by Samus when she is hit or killed in the Prime series. Clark examined the filenames from his ProTools sessions and determined that “JH” (Jennifer Hale) had in fact recorded Samus’s pain grunts. However, he had used the death scream from an actress with the initials “VM”. A few people, including us, had speculated she was Vanessa Marshall.

Recently, we reached out to Vanessa with a link to the interview to confirm if she had recorded for the game. Tonight, she shared both Clark’s interview and the Launch Trailer for Metroid Prime Remastered, and confirmed she had done voice work for Samus. Vanessa even signed off with a message to us signed “VM”. We now know another actress who’s given her voice to Samus! What a great way to wrap up a wonderful week for Metroid fans.

Source: Vanessa Marshall (first/second tweet)

Community Spotlight: Topher Putnam

Our first Community Spotlight of 2023 is now live! We are starting off this month with Topher Putnam, a talented Metroid fan and sculptor who has created action figures based on characters from the series. There are so few official ones and he wanted to bring characters like Sylux, Rundas and Gandrayda to life. Outside of these Metroid figures, Topher is also an accomplished illustrator and animator who created a children’s television series. We hope you’ll check out his fantastic work!

Click here to check out the spotlight