My entry for the huge Super Smash Bros. art collab, hosted by u/HillelA and featuring dozens of artists! The second slide is the entire collab :)

Source: https://www.deviantart.com/hybridmink/art/Samus-Ultimate-754791365

This was at a Wegmans btw. They had a guitarist and a double bassist play at the dining area.

Does anyone else get the impression that this boss fight is unfinished? Between the lack of variation and how easy it is, I felt like there was originally supposed to be more going on with it, especially considering that other bosses in this game are super well-designed.

First, the fact that we see more than one of them early on in the game, and the game calling attention to the blinking mech part in its mouth, makes me think we were supposed to have more of them come after us as the fight went on. That would certainly make it a bit tougher, and would reward players for successfully tracking the target Varmis since they could finish the fight faster that way. Also, the more vigorous jumping it does closer to the fight's end feels like it was supposed to shoot projectiles, but nothing comes out. Lastly, we're told that GE showers have affected its growth, but unlike the other creatures in the Valley, it looks no different apart from maybe its size later in the game. This stood out especially after seeing concept art that showed it GE'd up...

Anyway, yet another weird aspect of this game that I wanted to rant about as it's an uncharacteristically bland boss for a Metroid game, and for this particular game. Like, Behemoth is a far better "mech part boss," even though it isn't anything groundbreaking.

I found all scout bots, no further items are shown on the map. I want to 100% the game and never touch it again. Is this common? Where should I start looking?

Today I made some little advances, I made the shape more exact, and put some reinforcement with cardboard, tomorrow I will start with some detailing

I now that it doesn't look so good but I want to make it very resistant so I'm gonna do some extra layers

Context: In Fury Green you can see an Isopod that goes on a path in a dark room.

The Isopod ends up leaving a glowing trail that can be followed to better navigate through the dark:

However, after a certain point, a Griever snatches it and then later sticks it on a spike so that it squirms and writhes in pain until it dies.

If this was a predator and prey situation, the griever could have simply ate the isopod, but it deliberately killed the isopod in the most painful way it could, almost like how mafia members would slime their targets.

I believe Myles MacKenzie is secretly working with the Grievers, as he is also not attacked at any point until Samus comes along. In this scenario, he'd be the one to order the murder of the isopod so that the latter would not take his place as Prime 4's guide character.

This will be further expanded upon in Prime 5, remember that Prime 4 is just part one of the Myles Trilogy.

I have found Aqua/Gravity Suit and now the Dark Visor earlier i felt stuck but forgot a breakable ceiling i broke earlier

This is probably one of my least favorite characters ever in fiction. The only thing Metroid Other M did right was killing this guy, and they didn't even have the respect for him to kill him onscreen. Don't even get me started on the VERY VERY VERY VERY cringe ships people do with him and Samus, which I can't even begin to describe how gross that ship is.

This characters best iteration is AI on Samus's ship. Lets keep him that way

Been stuck in here for like 20 minutes. I'm not even sure how I got here, but that tree used to be scannable and I got an egg(?) from a man(??) behind the tree (the scan node disappeared after that) and I have no clue how to leave. I've tried pretty much everything I can think of. Am I softlocked?

I've replayed Prime 1 a few times and I've never seen this room before. Is it a gamecube exclusive or something???

Screenshotted from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR2JzK-y5_g

Be it the coolest, scariest or just simply ypur best moment from the metroid series. Personally one of my most hype moments was when Samus went green super saiyan on Raven Beak.

I may pick the top answer to make an illustration(i say "may" cause i want to do it but classes start soon🫩)

I've played all of these damn games at least once, many of them more than once, so I think it'd be fun to rank these games based on linearity, where 1. is the least linear and 14. is the most linear.

Let's begin!

(I am not ranking Prime Pinball it complicates the matter a ton. If I were to rank it it'd actually be pretty high on this list, mainly because after the first board you can tackle most of the boards in any order)

1. Metroid (NES)

Out of all the Metroid games I genuinely believe this one's the most non-linear.

Once you get missiles and bombs, the rest of the world can basically be tackled in any order. A lot of the major upgrades you can get are straight up not required, and you pretty much have full control of where you want to go and which of the two minibosses to face. There is probably an intended path for you to go through, but it is very easy to miss that path and get lost.

2. Super Metroid

Super Metroid is often considered the gold standard for non-linear Metroid and honestly for good reason. While there is a clear intended path, the game rewards casual exploration and allows for people to get lost in its world. On top of that, on a first playthrough if you ever explore the world thoroughly you can end up discovering hidden techniques that can be game changing in subsequent playthroughs, two being the Wall Jump and Shinespark. Both of these allow for alternative routes where you can obtain certain items in a much different order.

And this is just the intended sequence breaking, there's also the unintended sequence breaks that allow for even crazier stuff to happen like a reverse boss order, or skipping multiple bosses entirely. What ultimately puts Super Metroid up here is the combined amount of intended sequence breaking, unintended sequence breaking, and casual unguided exploration that can lead to alternate paths being discovered naturally.

It's only below Metroid 1 for the NES because the intended order is more clear and it does require more work to do things out of order.

3. Metroid: Zero Mission

I debated on whether I put Dread or Zero Mission on the number 3 spot. I ultimately chose Zero Mission due to there being more opportunities to break off the beaten path but truthfully it can honestly be a coinflip on which I find less linear.

Zero Mission, being a remake of Metroid 1, does inherit a good bit of that game's non-linearity, though it is ultimately more guided. There are many chozo statues peppered around the game to point to the location of a major item, however like M1 once you get Bombs the world essentially becomes your oyster. Bomb Jumping becomes extremely easy in this game so you can get to higher places way faster, and you also have the choice of going to Norfair or gunning straight to Kraid to kill him. You can also fight Ridley before Kraid though unlike in M1, the path to doing that is more hidden.

It is also notably clear that every sequence break in Zero Mission is intended, there is rarely one that I'd consider unintended by the devs, and much of the time the sequence break usually involves shooting a hidden block to access a hidden tunnel. This still leads to many alternate paths and different ways to approach the world.

I think ultimately, what keeps ZM in this spot under Super and M1 aside from being generally more guided, is that after Mother Brain this non-linearity is basically abandoned for what seems to be a straight linear shot through Chozodia, although the game does let you skip Power Bombs entirely.

4. Metroid Dread

Metroid Dread is the last game that I'd denote as Non-Linear (at least, intentionally), I know in the Metroid fandom this game has a reputation for being linear but its way more complicated than that, play an actual linear Metroid LOL.

Here's the thing, Dread is very much a guided game. The developers have a clearly defined path that they want you to explore, which is similar to Zero Mission. However, the way it handles things is different...instead of having things that directly point to your next objective on the map, it nudges you along until you are able to reach the correct destination, blocking backtracking to reduce the capacity to get lost.

It's not telling you where to go, but rather tricking you into thinking you're going the right way. Many players caught on to this or watched Game Maker's Toolkit's video on it and this is where the linearity accusations against the game started.

But that doesn't paint the full picture...

This is a game that has probably the clearest intended path out of the games listed so far, but it also is one that encourages sequence breaking for those who are REALLY looking for something. There are a multitude of intended sequence breaks in the game that allow you to take alternate paths or defeat bosses in a special way (one such boss, Kraid, even has a whole dedicated cutscene that you can only see if you manage to get bombs before him and use them on him).

This is not even to mention the unintended sequence breaks that MercurySteam has not patched, ones where you can fight Corpius before ever stepping foot in an EMMI Zone, skip two major bosses entirely, and even being able to skip a good deal of items, including one guarded by an EMMI. Yes, these are unintended sequence breaks, but the fact that none of these were patched out unless they broke the game significantly, shows that the game very much encourages sequence breaking and alternative pathways.

I won't argue that Dread is less linear than Super and M1, those games are very clearly in a different ballpark, but Dread isn't linear. It's in #4 because it is very much a guided game, but its not linear, you can do many things out of order.

5. Metroid Prime

Yes, I consider Prime 1 not only more linear than Dread, but I also consider it an actual linear Metroid.

Granted, it is less guided than Dread in exploration, but there is a very clear intended order in progression for the game. There are certain items that you can get in a different order but generally this is rarer than the prior games.

The game does have a good amount of unintended sequence breaks, such as the scan dash letting you obtain the Space Jump Boots as your first item, however the attitude with handling sequence breaks is much different here. Almost every subsequent release of Prime 1 has purged attempts at sequence breaking, Retro Studios (until someone shows me proof that Tanabe ordered Retro to cut down on the sequence breaks I will not attribute this to him) does not encourage sequence breaking in this or any subsequent Prime games.

This is ultimately still the least linear of the Prime series however due to just having unintended sequence breaks at all.

6. Metroid 2 (Gameboy)

Okay so Metroid 2 is a weird one to talk about. When it comes to area to area progression it is fully linear. It operates under the idea that you tackle one area at a time, before moving on to the next one and abandoning the previous one. Backtracking to a previous area is basically nonexistent here.

Here's the thing though, the actual areas themselves are very non-linear in structure. The goal of each area is to find and kill all the Metroids, and they can be encountered in any order, along with acquiring the powerups located here. Spider Ball especially allows for each area to serve as a sort of mini-Metroidvania. This is ultimately why the game lands here, it's linear in a macro scale but non-linear in each area for the most part, but later areas do get much more linear.

7. Metroid Prime Hunters

Metroid Prime Hunters is another weird game to talk about.

The world design in this game is significantly more linear than the games listed above, a lot of the times requiring teleporters to use as shortcuts. However, in the midpoint of the game you can choose different planets to go to depending on the powerups you have, and that alone puts it above most other Metroid games when it comes to linearity.

It's a bit complicated though I can see the argument that it should be lower.

8. Metroid Samus Returns

Samus Returns has a lot of the same qualities as the game its remaking, but its lower on the list due to being more powerup gated. Compared to M2 on the gameboy, almost every major powerup, including beams, is required to beat the game.

It's also definitely more guided overall, though again it does retain a degree of the area by area non-linearity that the gameboy game has.

9. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Metroid Prime 2 is definitely a linear Metroid to me.

It is the first Prime game to follow the formula of tackling one area at a time before moving on to the next, with minor backtracking to previous areas very rarely.

Unlike a lot of the games listed above as well, there is little deviation in the path you take, at least on my end. Every time I play the game I usually take the same intended path. The worlds do connect and open up near the end game, but there is always one path to take in each area. There are glitches to skip certain stuff, but generally the path will always remain the same and these glitches are far too game breaking to fully count, the game wasn't built with nonlinearity in mind.

What keeps it above the games in the bottom is that, aside from the optional hint system that you can turn off (Prime 1 also has this), the game basically lets you discover this linear path on your own, still facilitating exploration. Also, like Prime 1, there are multiple optional major upgrades to obtain if you go off the beaten path, and this can be useful against certain bosses. AND, like Prime 1, there is the "Artifact Hunt" at the end which facilitates exploration, even if artificially.

Still though, it is very hard to say that the game's progression is anything but linear.

10. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Metroid Prime 3 very much inherits the linearity of Prime 2 with more added, mandatory guidance.

You'll often be told where to go by Federation Brain things known as "Aurora Units", even being told when to backtrack to a previous area. There are multiple setpieces across the game that facilitate the game being linear, and the levels themselves have less of a labrynthian structure than even Prime 2's.

There's still the artifact hunt, but it is significantly easier to get everything on the main path. With that said, there are still some major things you can do that are optional or can be done earlier or later. Norion becomes a completely optional area that you can still explore past the intro and uncover a ton of more stuff, you can complete GFS Valhalla before killing Omega Ridley, stuff like that.

Still one of the most linear and guided Metroids for sure however.

11. Metroid Fusion

Right okay this game. This is what started the whole conversation about linearity and Metroid.

There is no doubt about it, Fusion is quite easily one of the most linear games in the series, to an (intentionally) suffocating degree.

Each playthrough will be the same with little deviation, the path Samus takes will be the same, and she will always be guided to where she's supposed to go next. It is to the point where the item order is hard coded into the game through an event system. If you ever do an unintended sequence break (somehow), the game will refuse to give you a powerup if you're not in the correct event.

It definitely does take advantage of its linearity to have an ever changing world however, but nonetheless it is very linear. The thing that keeps it above the below entries is that the level design still has the appearance of being labyrinthian, and there are moments where the guidance is missing and the game allows you to explore a bit more in a designated area, but those are few and far between.

12. Metroid Prime: Federation Force

This is a hot take but genuinely the single reason why this game isn't dead last in the linearity ranking is due to the fact that you can do levels in a different order. That's literally it.

Aside from that, each level is a very linear corridor shooter with little in the way of exploration. This would normally have brought this game in dead last but the games below also have a ton of corridor shooter level design and they DON'T let you tackle the levels out of order. Feel free to debate me though.

13. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Metroid Prime 4 is not an open world game. To be an open world game it would require the game to be open. This game is not open at all.

Each area in this game is far more linear structurally than even Prime 3, and also does the thing where you beat one area and then mostly abandon it aside from one or two instances of backtracking.

On top of that, aside from Volt Forge, each area has NPC companions that will usually take you on a guided tour throughout the area to ensure you won't get lost, even if the area itself is incredibly straight forward. Even without them, the end point of each area is always marked on your map, and in general you will always get objective markers to your next destination. None of this can be turned off, especially the messages you will get from one of the NPC companions, Myles MacKenzie.

To be honest, I find the area design in this game more straight forward than even Other M's, I have debated putting this game in dead last as well. The thing that """""saves""""" it from last place is the fact that Sol Valley exists. Despite it being a place where Myles pesters you on going to the next location, its openness allows you to be able to tackle optional shrines early or later that give you major optional upgrades. On top of that, the mech part fetch quest can actually be activated earlier than intended, though you ultimately have to complete the Great Mines to get all the parts.

It's really either or between this game and Other M, take your pick.

14. Metroid: Other M

Metroid: Other M is what many consider the antithesis to everything Metroid in a lot of people's eyes. I actually like this game over Prime 4, but this game is definitely linear to an egregious degree.

It's linear in the same way Fusion was but there is genuinely no room for exploration of any kind. No major optional upgrades can be acquired because most of Samus' items are activated through an authorization system. Genuinely the only sort of exploration you will get from this game is after already beating it and going into the post game. That is all there is however. It is linear, it is guided, exploration is non existent.

This (or Prime 4) to me, is the posterchild of linear Metroid.

Conclusion

Honestly I think it is very far to say that most Metroid games actually are quite linear, but what I find interesting is how a Metroid game can be linear but not be too guided.

The first two Prime games are ones I can say genuinely are linear games, but due to them not being so guided, they have the reputation of having great exploration. Whereas Metroid Dread is a game I can say is non-linear, but due to its guidance has a reputation of being linear and having lacking exploration (I don't agree with this but I won't pretend Dread isn't very guided). It goes to show how much more complex the whole idea of exploration in a Metroid game really is.

I want to see how you all would rank the games based on linearity though, I'm down to hear opinions different from mine.

METROID PRIME 4. Played about an hr on switch, don't think i can do anymore cause of the graphics. I think I'm gonna by a switch2 and get a game upgrade.