When Nintendo announced that the latest game in its Legend of Zelda series, “Tears of the Kingdom” would release in May of this year, it wasn’t an absolute lock that the game would top my list this year, despite my obvious affection for its direct predecessor, “Breath of the Wild.”
I mean, yes, it was likely, but I was still dipping my toe in with a few other genuine all-timers for the first time this year, and there was no real guarantee I’d click with Tears anyway.
As it happens, three other games ended up earning a perfect score from me in 2023, “Super Mario Odyssey,” “Metroid Prime Remastered,” and “Gris.” Those three, along with Tears of the Kingdom, finished outside of my personal all-time Top 20 despite getting a 10/10 (the competition is stiff up there!), and all four games have been welcomed to my favorites list in the same general area.
You could say that they are brand-new neighbors now in my world of video game nostalgia and fondness. I give my highest recommendation that people play all four of them.
So, there was competition, and Zelda itself didn’t instantly become one of my absolute favorites.
But despite all that, Zelda finished on top of my 2023 list anyway.
The how and why is at least a little interesting (at least to me), so I wanted to devote a few extra words to Tears of the Kingdom: in particular how it takes risks, how it plays it safe, and how it fits into the overall Zelda tapestry.
Metroid Prime is a testament to the concept of “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
For the better part of a decade, the idea that a game like Metroid Prime could even exist stretched the imaginations of developers and gamers everywhere.
Could it be done?
A decidedly 2D concept, that of a large, atmospheric map that is gradually unlocked through the accumulation of additional powers acquired via backtracking and exploration, dependent upon tight, precise controls as well as highly specific memorization of not just enemy attack patterns but also more critically of the terrain itself … Metroid just didn’t seem like an easy thing to convert into a 3D space.
Also problematic was that Metroid, as a franchise, had never, not once, ever been a big seller.
We’re talking about a brand that had traditionally been outsold by such glorified tech demos as Pilotwings and Mario Paint (fine experiments in gaming to be sure, but not exactly the first games that roll off the tongue when talking about the greatest or even the most popular video games of all time).
Overwhelming financial incentive to engineer such a difficult switch-up just wasn’t there.
So, thusly, a 3D conversion for Metroid wouldn’t happen for a long time.
Eventually, of course, it did. But by the time Metroid Prime released on the GameCube in the fall of 2002 to glowing reviews, Nintendo had lost its stranglehold on the gaming industry to Sony and the mighty Playstation 2, thereby ensuring that Metroid would, once again, sadly not sell a gazillionty copies.
I think this is important to note, as Metroid, to this day, remains a niche property, appealing to a relatively small audience. This is despite the fact that:
Metroid games, by and large, are incredibly good. Like almost illogically good?
Metroid Prime should have been an absolute gold standard, Grade-A system seller.
On that second point, my contention is that Metroid Prime would have had every opportunity to find an entirely different level of success above and beyond the 2.84 million copies it sold had it not been married to a gaming system that consumers just weren’t buying.
Speaking from personal experience as a PS2 owner back in the day, I had little incentive to double-dip and buy a second gaming system. I, like many others, knew there were only so many hours in the day to devote to gaming, and also, I was poorer than dirt.
So … no GameCube for me. The temptation to go against this very sound logic was literally one game: Metroid Prime.
And that just wasn’t enough.
The GameCube, still utterly beloved by generations of Nintendo stans, finished third in sales (21.74 million units sold) during its generation’s heyday, behind the aforementioned Playstation 2 (155 million!), and the new kids on the block, Microsoft and their Xbox (24 million).
Xbox’s system seller was Halo, a game that very much deserves its flowers (while the Playstation 2 had too many “system sellers” to even count – that system’s library is insane!).
But Halo – to this day a monster of a property for Microsoft (perhaps its most important) with over 81 millions copies sold – was simply no Metroid Prime.
Was Halo excellent?
Yes. (It’ll absolutely make an appearance on this countdown at some point.)
Was Halo revelatory?
No. Not quite.
So … why didn’t Metroid Prime take off in quite the same way?
Well, we noted it being chained to a comparatively unpopular system, but beyond that, the game itself was a quieter, more thoughtful affair. “Cerebral” isn’t usually one of the first characteristics one might list when noting what mass audiences crave.
Nintendo as a brand was also no longer seen as cool or edgy in the GameCube era. Having hemorrhaged developers during the N64 days due to an odd commitment to cartridges (a commitment they dumped a generation later), Nintendo WAS at least trying interesting things with its main properties. Zelda was now a cell-shaded cartoon. Mario was wandering around a tropical resort with a water cannon on his back. Luigi had his own game, and it was very much unlike a traditional Mario platformer. Heck, even Mario Kart had a gimmick.
But some of those creative decisions alienated long-time fans while simultaneously failing to court new users. At best, some of that generation’s games might be characterized as colorful diversions (Luigi’s Mansion). At worst, they could be called actual missteps (Mario Sunshine).
But regardless, it felt like Nintendo was throwing things against a wall to see what would stick.
