Grave Gamer News & Views — metroid
Nintendo Shuts Down Fan Remake of Metroid II (Happy 30th...
Nintendo Shuts Down Fan Remake of Metroid II (Happy 30th Anniversary!)
Coinciding Samus Aran’s 30th birthday, a fan made remake of Metroid II was released for download hereabouts under the name AM2R: Return of Samus. Project AM2R lovingly remastered the 1991 Game Boy classic with graphics closer to the SNES’ Super Metroid while infusing it with the snappy gameplay of latter-day sequel Metroid: Zero Mission. Featuring redrawn sprites, updated enemy AI, brand new areas to explore, and a better interface than the colorless Game Boy could house, AM2R is a better remake than some of the tepid “remasterings” publishers shit out into stores these days.
Naturally, Nintendo responded to this fan celebration of their renown, yet dormant, franchise the only sensible way they could: they slapped the remake’s web host with a DMCA takedown notice.
Now, Nintendo absolutely has every right to protect their brand in any way they see fit. I’m not contesting that. (As Game Informer points out, the company is, in fact, still selling the original Metroid II on 3DS to this very day.)
But fans have grown impatient with the series. The outstanding Metroid Prime games have been quiet since 2007, and despite big league developers like Double Fine and Insomniac releasing their own brilliant renditions of the “Metroidvania” genre very recently – Headlander and Song of the Deep respectively – Nintendo, bewilderingly, has not. Just look at the upcoming Metroid Prime Federation Force – a title that shares no visual semblance with the series at large and focuses on gunplay instead of exploration.
Nintendo, we’re hungry for a game like AM2R and this shutdown will only continue to starve us out. If you won’t let us satiate ourselves on fan projects then it’s about time you fed us yourselves.
(Note: a torrent link is provided on the site as well. The DMCA is filed against the web host but anyone that downloads the torrent can serve as the host. Get it while you can. Pretty doubtful it’ll stay up indefinitely).
theomeganerd: Samus Aran, suit up by Jonathan Hamers
You’re about to get F’d up your A, Mother Brain.
You’re about to get F’d up your A, Mother Brain.
