Jon Wofford, the Lead UI Artist at Retro Studios, shares his excitement about the reveal trailer for “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.” He highlights the HUD, which he has meticulously crafted to honor the Metroid Prime legacy while incorporating modern updates. He credits Jordan Johnson for the UI technology and Nina Morris for her work on the scan holograms. Wofford details various aspects of the HUD, including its combat functionality, scanning animations, and the Morph Ball HUD. Check out his Artstation for more details: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JvXzev
Here’s a nice insightful breakdown of Sylux’s bio & history by YTer Fat Brett. He takes a deep dive into the character as well as adding some speculation onto the new Prime 4 trailer.
One thing to note though, Brett: those are Mochtroids behind Sylux, not normal Metroids.
Yesterday, Nintendo of Japan launched its microsite for Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. It’s nothing more than the logo, a link to the trailer and a year, however, there is a video playing in the background depicting footage of the environment we saw Samus walk into during the last few seconds of the trailer. Since the footage is darkened on the site, it’s hard to make out the details. But there’s hope! A clever fan has already ripped the background video and enhanced it so we can see the environment in its full glory:
What do you think of this new environment? Will MP4 take place on multiple planets like Corruption and Hunters or will it take place on 1 like Prime and/or have different dimensions Echoes? Time will tell…
Without words. Nintendo blew everyone’s collective minds by showing the first trailer for Metroid Prime 4 as the last game of today’s Direct. Watch it below:
RELEASE DATE: 2025
I don’t have much to say right now as I’m still regaining my composure, but more impressions will be made soon, right here and on our socials.
Screenshots from the trailer
Lastly, let’s not forget to mention that starting TODAY, Metroid Zero Mission is now available to play on Nintendo Switch Online’s GBA emulator (Expansion Pass).
For the most part, I do think annual celebrations of game releases is a tad bit pretentious, especially when it comes to an entire website dedicated to the franchise, but here we are. Today (well, technically yesterday in Japan) we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Super Metroid‘s release.
Metroidvanias today are all the rage. I think this year alone, we’ve had at least 5 or more AAA Metroidvanias released. Two of them I am extremely excited to play – Prince of Persia the Lost Crown and ULTROS.
But I digress. Back to celebrating Super. How to celebrate? You could actually sit down and play Super Metroid.
There are a ton of ways you can play Super Metroid:
Play an actual game cartridge on a SNES or use a SupaBoy if you want to go portable.
Play it on Wii Virtual Console
Play it on Wii U Virtual Console
Play it on Switch SNES service
Play it on a New 3DS
Play it on a SNES Mini console
Play it on an emulator (there’s plenty to choose from – bSNES, SNES9X, ZSNES, MESEN, RetroArch)
And many other ways if you’re clever enough to know how.
Or if you’re not in a gaming mood, watch this commercial:
Or you could watch this promo video that the commercial was cut from and we offer the exclusive translation for:
Or you could watch this fantastic 14 minute documentary on the game’s development history by Jordan A.H.:
Or continue to RT/share our social media content. It’s up to you.
Anyway, yay, 30 years of Super Metroid. I love it, you love it, we all love it. Don’t stop loving it, and keep telling people it’s the best……cuz it is.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to doing my taxes.
In case you’ve been living under a Chozo statue the last couple weeks and don’t follow our social media accounts, MAGFest happened on Jan 18-21, 2024. This MAG was special, in that the show’s theme was Metroid-motherfucking-Prime.
Concerts
The show was one of the best MAGs I’ve experienced in recent memory. An arsenal of Metroid fan stuff occurred, including this Metroid Metal concert:
We can’t forget Lacey Johnson, who initially donned a Zero Suit costume during her act, and also featured Super Metroid inspired visuals during the intro of her performance that consisted of Metroid arrangement tracks:
The Ro Panuganti show was also incredible, and featured an awesome Ridley Battle theme track (with singing Ridley visuals!). Check it out here:
Hip hop artist Sammus was also on the scene, bringing her incredible skills to the main stage: VIDEO COMING SOON
Other MAGFest Stuff
These awesome floor stickers greeted you in the hotel lobby: They also adorned the elevator glass:
And here’s what this year’s maps looked like:
On top of all the awesome performances, our former staff member Devin was on a panel where he spoke about the fan translation and development of Twinetroid, an excerpt from that panel can be watched here: VIDEO UPLOADED SOON
MAGFest merch
In standard MAGFest fashion, the theme lent itself well to offering attendees a great amount of merch, featuring the annual mascot, a Samus-like bird lady named “Cho” and her cute not-Metroid Prime like alien, “Zip.” This year’s swadges (a “swag badge” that has interactive lights and buttons) featured a full-color screen, a 3D FPS Wolfenstein/Metroid Prime hybrid game, and was in a shape very similar to that of Cho’s spaceship (clearly based on Samus’s Super ship).
Cosplay
Metroid cosplayers came out in full force over the weekend. It was an incredible sight – including possibly the world’s first ever Joey cosplayer – these costume makers really brought their A-game to the event. See pics of the Metroid photoshoot below:
Lastly, I must give a huge shoutout to our FB admin Carl, who – along with a few friends – built a ~10ft tall Mother Brain pixel costume that towered above everything else, and featured MB’s classic screams, a light-up brain, blinking eye, drool, exhaled fog, and had animatronic mouth, arms, and fingers. It was epic as it could possibly be. Here’s the reveal:
Of course, my biggest regret was not having a panel of my own, where other plans were made, but ultimately fell through – however there’s always next year. MAGFest seems to only get better with each passing year. See ya in 2025!
Over the last 2+ months, well-known NES scene hacker infidelity has worked tirelessly to create this incredible, perfect port of Metroid to SNES. This isn’t just a vanilla port though, no – infidelity has gone way above and beyond the call of duty. I personally helped infidelity by creating special sprites for Samus, as he has utilized the extra VRAM in the SNES to allow Samus to have two unique sides – something the developers had originally intended to have from the get-go.
He has also retained the original Famicom Disk System 3-slot save system that only Zelda fans were privy to at the time, as well as giving players the ability to use M1’s diverse password system. All working perfectly.
The number next to your name is a death counter.
When you die, you are given the ability to save your file, even if you’re using a password.
It’s an incredible port, and if you have the ability to do it, I highly recommend you give it a try. Big thanks to infidelity and I was super honored to be able to contribute to this port, something I consider to be a historical event in the world of Metroid.
And finally, the coup de grace:
Using the power of the MSU-1, this port offers 4 different soundtracks that you can choose before booting into the game:
Metroid 1 NTSC, Metroid 1 FDS, Metroid Zero Mission, and the arranged score by VG Music Revisited.
We have a nice surprise for you today! A second fan comic by Omar Morales and MauMora Art has been released to the public. The comic is 18 pages long, fully illustrated, full-color and totally awesome. I think the passion for Metroid really shines through in this little comic. Give it a read today.
The Metroidvania Cafe on Discord – hang around, talk about metroidvania, suggest metroidvania that aren’t on the list below Metroidvania and other exploration-driven platformer games 19...
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