It was 2015 and Metroid fans were practically starving. Nintendo’s sci-fi series hadn’t gotten a new installment since 2010’s Metroid: Other M, a polarizing attempt to take the series in a more cinematic direction. But for the briefest moment during Nintendo’s 2015 digital E3 showcase, hope seemed to be on the horizon. A trailer for a new 3DS game started rolling, showing a spaceship careening through a frozen tundra. A logo popped up on screen revealing an answer to fans’ prayers. It was a new Metroid Prime game, thank God.
Things went south from there. The debut trailer for Metroid Prime: Federation Force showed off a bizarre co-op spinoff featuring blocky art and ugly trooper designs. It also featured a ball-rolling sports mode, for some reason. Fans were irate, and the sore feelings only got worse when the game actually launched in 2016 to historically poor reviews for the series. It felt like the nail in the coffin for one of Nintendo’s most promising franchises. But now 10 years since its reveal, Federation Force is shockingly fundamental to Metroid history. It’s the key to understanding Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, a game that purports to both pay off the 3DS game’s Sylux-teasing ending and double down on its Galactic Federation storytelling.
Sensing that it was ripe for critical revaluation, I broke out my 3DS and gave Federation Force a chance to prepare for Samus’ new adventure. Could it be that the maligned spinoff was actually holding some secret brilliance that would only reveal itself removed from a testy moment in time? Oh, God no. But is it at least more interesting now that we know where Prime 4 is headed? Vaguely!
According to a freshly released Metroid Prime art book, Metroid Prime: Federation Force was born from a rejected Metroid Prime 2: Echoes pitch. At the time, Retro Studios proposed the idea of a story that would have Samus rescuing members of the Galactic Federation, the military group she often freelances for. It was shot down, but it got producer Kensuke Tanabe interested in the idea of a Metroid game where players didn’t control Samus. That idea directly led to Federation Force, Tanabe confirms in the Prime art book, so you can blame Retro Studios for willing that one into existence.
It’s not a terrible idea in theory. The Galactic Federation has played a major role in the Metroid series since its first game, yet we had never actually seen them operate. We only ever see Samus doing their dirty work. Federation Force tries to show that perspective, following squads of four as they take on the mundane tasks that need to get done while Samus is fighting Ridley. Weirdly enough, it feels like a precursor to Remedy’s FBC: Firebreak. That co-op game imagines what paper pushers in the Federal Bureau of Control do in their day-to-day work. And weirdly enough, both games feature missions that require a squad to move a cart around a track while fighting off enemies.
The problem with Federation Force isn’t the premise; it’s that there’s nothing compelling about the game’s generic troopers. The story mostly just has them hopping between planets to foil Space Pirate operations explained in short mission briefs. It’s a dull riff on Star Wars that funnels towards a showdown with a Death Star-like super weapon led by faceless soldiers. We don’t learn anything new about the Galactic Federation; they are good guys who hate Space Pirates! It’s a waste of the military group’s nuance, as later Metroid games suggest that the operations being carried out by the group aren’t always so altruistic.
It becomes clear right from the jump that Federation Force is a gameplay-first kind of experience — and you should take that as a threat. The story is split into bite-sized missions that are well-paced with handheld sessions in mind. To its credit, the game does offer a variety of mission concepts rather than simply repeating a few or simply throwing players into some linear levels. One has me protecting pods as Space Pirates invade a small map. Another has me baiting ice monsters into cages and shutting the doors on them. There are even some proper boss battles worked in as well that are in the spirit of the mainline Metroid Prime games. An early standout has me blowing the armor off of an ice serpent to expose its weak spot. There are enough ideas here to sell the idea that the Galactic Federation is fighting a multi-phase war that Samus is only a small part of.
Actually playing those missions is a different story. Several feature unclear mission objectives that leave you guessing how one actually protects a pod properly. Others are just plain dull, like a mission where you need to move balls into holes by shooting them. Even some of the better missions are tough to get through due to the 3DS itself. It’s not exactly easy to aim with the New Nintendo 3DS model’s tiny thumb nub, and gyroscopic aiming isn’t exactly a great alternative. It’s an inferior control scheme to Metroid Prime Hunters, a stylus-controlled Nintendo DS shooter that was released 10 years earlier than Federation Force.
All of those problems pale in comparison to Federation Force’s true sin: It may very well be the ugliest Nintendo game of all time. It was a contender for that honor already in 2016, but it has only aged like an open milk carton since. The strange art direction would be bad enough, with soldiers looking like bobblehead dolls, but the image quality itself is pitiful. Rough lines and muddy textures make it difficult to even make out what’s happening on screen in some cases. Metroid Prime Hunters also manages to beat it on this front, which feels impossible.
Oh, and then there’s Blast Ball, Federation Force’s inexplicable 3v3 sports mode that tried and failed to turn Metroid into Rocket League. It’s terrible. Teams try to move a giant ball by shooting at it, leading to long matches where the ball barely moves at all as rapid-fire shots from every angle keep it from getting much movement in any direction. If the co-op missions feel like an early FBC: Firebreak, Blast Ball feels like an initial stab at Drag x Drive. It’s an attempt to put a Nintendofied spin on soccer that trades depth for hollow gimmick.
While I can’t call much of this enjoyable, Federation Force is fascinating as a time capsule nearly 10 years after its doomed release. From one angle, it’s a relic from a now forgotten period where Nintendo was in dire straits. The Wii U was a failure and the company was struggling to find ways to capitalize on its most popular franchises to pull in more players. E3 2015 represented that struggle at its most extreme, as both Zelda was reimagined as a 3DS co-op game and Animal Crossing was turned into a Mario Party clone. If Super Mario Maker showed the positive outcome of that creative sprint, Federation Force showed us its depths.
It should have been a forgotten flop that was quickly cast off from series canon like Metroid: Other M, but we only now know that Nintendo has remained committed to it against all odds. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond previews showed story elements suggesting it will pick up where it left off, as Federation Force locks an incredibly important teaser scene where Sylux steals a Metroid from the Galactic Federation behind an easy-to-miss hidden ending. Federation Force was clearly meant to start a new storytelling era for Metroid and Nintendo seemingly refused to back down from that direction, even if we’re not likely to see another co-op game anytime soon. It’s an admirable move considering how careful Nintendo is about curating its history, casting out black sheep to create the sense that it only produces beloved hits.
You won’t be able to forget Federation Force once Metroid Prime 4 drops — not that you were going to anyways. It was always too notorious a flop to truly disappear, even if players can no longer feel why due to the Nintendo 3DS’ online functionality shutting down. But depending on how Metroid Prime 4’s story plays out, it could wind up being the most important game in the series that you can’t really play anymore.
0 Comments