Episode 146 delves into the sisterhood of Metroid Fusion
Meet the creators of two very different games that took up the Metroid mantle.
Watch out, it's another one of those episodes involving something that vaguely resembles traditional journalism if you squint hard enough. Yeah, it's another game developer interview episode. This one makes for a pretty respectable follow-up to the recent WayForward episodes — not only is it a set of interviews with indie game developers who work in the retro mold, both games in question fall under the metroidvania umbrella.
(I swear I don't play and think about metroidvania games exclusively. Episodes like this are really just a side effect of my having covered those games so vocally during my years in the press — the connections I made with devs, that sort of thing.)
This week I interview the developers behind two games that don't have that much in common besides having been influenced heavily, in very different ways, by Metroid Fusion. Yes, specifically Metroid Fusion, rather than Super Metroid the way most indie devs are. I had not recorded these segments with the thought of combining them, but it just made a lot of sense to pair them up given their common inflection point.
The games in question: Orbital Media's Scurge: Hive (an isometric action game for Game Boy Advance and DS) and Konjak's Iconoclasts (a freshly released PS4 and Vita platformer). With their heroines Jenosa and Robin exploring the world and clobbering bad guys, these games comprise what I am calling the Sisterhood of Metroid Fusion.
I realize Scurge: Hive did not exactly leave a giant footprint on video game history, but it's a game that means a lot to me, so I was glad to be able to venture into its history with two of the people who worked on it. And Iconoclasts has the potential to go down as a cult favorite, I think — it's a very distinct take on the genre with a heavy emphasis on puzzle-solving and no apologies offered for its extremely dense narrative. Both are games worth checking out, and I highly recommend you track 'em down… although of course you'll have an easier time of it with Iconoclasts than with Scurge.
Retronauts Episode 146
The Metroid sisterhood: Scurge Hive & Iconoclasts
MP3, 53.2 MB | 1:52:03
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Episode description: Nintendo never created a follow-up to 2002's Metroid Fusion, but this week Jeremy interviews the developers who did: Dan Kratt and Graham Scott, who put together DS/GBA cult classic Scurge Hive, and Joakim Sandberg, creator of Iconoclasts.
The music accompanying these segments, naturally enough, comes from the games under discussion in that particular segment.
