Various Previews (mostly DS)

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, but not by a whole lot. Who was it that loved M&L's art again?

Not me. I do like this more than that...

Mega Man is not a tenth as good as Metroid. There's no comparison there. And with MM you have ten games following the same exact formula, one that was fun but up to a point.

Let me ask you this: After having played so many Zelda games (especially the Oracle games which are carbon copies of LA in terms of graphics and gameplay), have you ever once said "Man, this is kinda getting old". Hopefully your answer will be the same as mine: Fuck no! And Metroid isn't anywhere near Zelda in terms of number of similar sequels! Here's how I'd brake it down in terms of gameplay for the two series (hell I'll throw in Mario as well), bunched up into the titles that play a lot like each other:

Sure Mega Man is an extreme case, but some people got tired of that formula a LONG time ago. Yes, the Nintendo games are better and more inventive. This makes that less of a problem. But I do think that it is a good point... you CAN have too much of the same. Redoing the same thing over and over is not necessarially a good thing! See: Mario Party. I think we all agreed on that one. Is Metroid there? Probably not... but it has been getting a lot of titles in the last few years. The 3d ones are one thing, and are newer, but the 2d ones? That formula hasn't changed much... oh it's still great fun, but how many times will Nintendo want to do another similar game? I definitely hope that they keep making 2d Metroids, but I wonder how much they will do... after all, 2d is inherently less flexible gameplay-wise than 3d.