Metroids 10: The Time Limit

It is slightly early in this project for a denouement, but since we have five streams of Metroid: Samus Returns to burn through, we are going to assign two articles to this game. We covered the requisite “what we never saw again” last time, so this week we are going to talk about what we learned from these Metroid streams.

Never play Metroid games over the course of weeks.

The first handful of 2-D Metroid games are famously speedrunners’ dreams. Now we have waded into the era of “complex” 2-D Metroid games (as indicated by the fact that countering is now a thing), and the games are a tweak longer. If you know what you are doing, you can claim the best ending in Samus Returns by completing the game in under four hours. Given our streams are usually around three hours, and none of us are experts on this particular Metroid title, it is unlikely we ever could have finished this one in a single night. The next ending tier is under 8 hours, and that is a more generous target for someone playing the game without a memorized map. But 8 hours still works out to be 3-4 streams, so we are looking at a month of Metroid’ing.

And let me tell you: you do not want to play a Metroid game over the course of a month.

Or at least I don’t.

More than anything, I think this experience has further highlighted how my brain works. I am a computer guy, so I will put this in computer terms: my short-term RAM is a lot more effective than my long-term hard drive. While I am playing a Metroid game, I can and will mentally note every last power bomb block so I can return later when I’ve got that upgrade. This information will last in my head for approximately a weekend. After that? It is gone forever. If I attempt to remember damn near anything after a week of not playing a game, I may as well be starting from scratch. What was I supposed to do next on this hostile planet? No idea. Probably going to die.

And maybe this is a significant reason I enjoy the metroidvania genre. I like running around and exploring things, and I like doing it quickly. Perhaps larger worlds that require too much mental hard drive space are literally too much for me. Maybe my aversion to lengthy RPGs as an adult stems from how I literally cannot retain the beginning straight through to the ending, and my experience is lessened for it. Maybe the ideal length of a videogame is exactly how long it takes us to stream a game on a random Tuesday night. Two Tuesday nights, tops.

Or maybe I just don’t like countering every stupid creature in SR388.

Whatever, Samus. Feel free to return when your adventures are a little more bite sized.

Even Worse Streams Presents Metroids
Metroid: Samus Returns
Night 15

Random Notes:

• New Year’s Day Stream! Jeanie, Cassandralyn, fanboymaster, BEAT and I are all ringing in the new year. Once again, fanboymaster is piloting Samus Aran. But toward progress this time!
• If you learn one thing tonight, it is that snails have a lot of teeth.
• Caliscrub joins and notes this is not Spider-Man 45. It’s Spider-Man 46.
• Cass has watched Barbie twice in a week. But there is a cool reason!
• And then we must speak of the difference between DC and Marvel movies, and which ones are allowed to get that R rating.
• About halfway through, we begin an effort to add movies to Cass’s list of must-see movies.
• BEAT knows how to use Excel. Please hire him for his ability to use VLOOKUP correctly.
• Bring it on: Cheer or Die: apparently a thing that happened.
• “I would watch Steamboat Mickey Does 9/11 in theatres.”
• Twitter is now a place for the weirdest advertising on the planet. BEAT noticed, and has been cataloguing its sins.
• And we call it a night as we discuss Samus’s possibly space-based physique.

Even Worse Streams Presents Metroids
Metroid: Samus Returns
Night 16

Random Notes:

• BEAT, fanboymaster, Caliscrub, and myself are all here. This will be the last night fanboymaster has to remember what the heck is happening.
• “I like being in the lava. It’s nice and warm.”
• “A tiny, idiot fish passed the mirror test.”
• Please enjoy me attempting to direct fanboymaster while we discuss everyone’s favorite show, Manimal.
• As we release the diggernaut (progress!), we discuss the plots of Final Fantasy 13-2 and Lightning Returns (but not Final Fantasy 13-1).
• AJ Vark joins just about then, too.
• “I’m so glad I taught you how to cuss, fanboy.”
• This was when Elphelt Valentine came back to Guilty Gear. BEAT derides any woman that forsakes her bunny ears.
• “Who wants to talk about Ballz?” “Nobody wants to talk about Ballz!”
• Videogames are art because of “law jaw”.
• This stream goes a lot longer than fanboymaster’s usual streams. It is because he is actually accomplishing things!
• Caithness joins just as we hit… uh… green area?
• I wonder if we will ever get through a full stream without referencing the soundtrack from Venom…
• Samus outraces the Diggernaut while we discuss disgraced streamer Ninja.
• And we close after acquiring the Space Jump. We may return to this game again one day, but for now…

Next time on Metroids: Dread the new blood.