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Retro Studios

Metroid Prime GameCube dev kit freezer

Believe it or not, the developers at Retro Studios working on Metroid Prime back in the day actually put their dev kit in a freezer while attempting to fix a particular issue that affected a small portion of GameCube owners.

Jack Mathews, a technical lead engineer that worked on the project, shared this story while reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the game. Nintendo had shipped a “bad batch” of GameCubes that affected the CPU, but it turns out that Metroid Prime was the only game that wasn’t working properly. Because of this, animated objects weren’t acting the way they normally would on any other console.

Several weeks ago, Did You Know Gaming? released a video providing details on a couple of cancelled spin-off games that Retro Studios (of Metroid Prime fame) had pitched to Nintendo for The Legend of Zelda series. Since then, they’ve managed to acquire new information on one of these two projects via an official 22-page document, a strategy game planned for the Nintendo DS titled Heroes of Hyrule.

The game would have featured a plot mostly exempt of Link, in which a young boy named Kori finds a book that, unbeknownst to him, was used to seal away Ganon 100 years ago. He would have gathered pages of the book unaware of its true purpose in order to learn more about the stories held within, which detail the adventures of a Goron, Rito, and Zora hero who venture to Ganon’s Castle in a effort to free Link from his evil clutches.

Heroes of Hyrule

Did You Know Gaming? has secured information about another Zelda spin-off that Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios pitched to Nintendo, which was known as Heroes of Hyrule.

The game would have a story involving three heroes that lived 100 years in the past: a Goron, a Rito, and a Zora. The trio actually went on a mission to save Link. Link himself was actually captured while trying to rescue Princess Zelda from Ganon. That’s where the three heroes come in. Eventually 100 years pass, and Link becomes an old man that owns an antiquities shop.

metroid prime Autechre

According to Sean Booth of Autechre fame, the music duo almost got a chance to create the soundtrack for Metroid Prime.

The information was revealed during a Twitch AMA with one fan asking about how Booth as well as Rob Brown – the other half of Autechre – were included in the game’s credits. Booth responded by saying that they almost handled the soundtrack for Metroid Prime, but the role eventually landed with Kenji Yamamoto, who handled music for other entries in the series.

metroid prime 1 remaster switch

According to Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, who has a track record of leaking gaming news, a remastered version of Metroid Prime will be released on Switch this holiday. Additionally, Metroid Prime 2 and 3 will be appearing on the system at a later date as well.

Grubb shared what he’s heard about previous Metroid Prime games for Switch during his “Game Mess Mornings” show today. He started out by sharing the following:

While Metroid had a strong return late last year in the form of Metroid Dread, the series has been quiet when it comes to Metroid Prime 4. Nintendo did reveal the game’s existence way back in 2017, but a couple of years later, announced that the project’s development had been rebooted entirely with Retro Studios taking the helm.

There’s still not much in the way of news regarding Metroid Prime, but there’s been at least a slightly interesting discovery today. Over on Retro Studios’ Twitter page, some art has appeared as it’s showing up on the company’s banner – check it out below. It’s not any sort of indication that something is happening in the near future, but perhaps it can be interpreted as a positive sign. At the very least, Retro is still tinkering away on Metroid Prime 4 in the background.

In recent years, Nintendo developed a number of games under the 2.5D concept. These are titles that are completely modeled in 3D, but the gameplay functions primarily in two dimensions. That’s not the only definition of the term, though let’s stick to that.

The 2.5D style is a great way to bring back a lot of classic games from Nintendo’s huge catalog of hits. Personally speaking, there are two games in specific that I consider the best 2.5D creations from Nintendo: Metroid Dread and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Both are amazing in a lot of aspects, and in today’s video, I discuss how well they explore the many possibilities provided by 2.5D. You can check out the video down below.

retro studios wii

We all know today that the Wii was one of Nintendo’s most successful consoles, but early on, the system garnered its fair share of doubters and people that were concerned about how it would perform – including Retro Studios.

Bryan Walker, who was with Retro starting with Metroid Prime 2 before going on to be a senior producer on Metroid Prime 3 and then the director on Donkey Kong Country Returns, revealed to Kiki Talkz that the company was “a little concerned” after seeing the console’s specs. It was only after Nintendo unveiled the Wii Remote and saw massive interest during its showing at E3 2006 that the staff at Retro Studios started to understand Nintendo’s approach.

According to Walker:

metroid prime 3 hypermode

As part of a recent discussion with Kiki Talkz, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption senior producer Bryan Walker commented on how there was initially some consideration to make the game open world as well as the difficulties implementing Hypermode.

As for the open world, director Mark Pacini first came up with the idea to leverage Samus’ ship and make the game less linear. Walker is proud of what the team accomplished with Metroid Prime 3, but “would be very interested in seeing what the response was, especially the fan community to the expanded use of the ship and the more open world non-linear that we were touching upon with that pitch.”

Pacini’s full words:

In an interview with Kiki Talkz, former Retro Studios developer Bryan Walker discussed how the team ended up working on Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Walker worked on Metroid Prime 2 and 3 before directing the Wii title. Retro actually had some interest in moving on from the Prime series after the second entry, but after Donkey Kong was presented to late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, he instead wanted the team to come out with a third game. Then after Metroid Prime 3 launched and there was a lot of some key staff, the opportunity to work on the Donkey Kong Country IP came about.

Walker also talked about meeting with Shigeru Miyamoto early on and had much praise for him. After one conversation in Kyoto, Miyamoto asked Retro to take care of IP, stating: “Please take care of DK. He is my friend.”

Below is Walker’s full words:


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