Cognition Dissemination: The Return and Departure of Samus

After the 25th anniversary was celebrated with a harrowing silence, that Nintendo would respond similarly to Metroid’s 30th was sadly a foregone conclusion. Expecting them to tease or announce a new mainline game would have been too much, but this also entailed not doing the bare minimum of acknowledging the franchise on social media. It’s understandable that Nintendo would want the franchise to lay low for a while after the misguided Metroid: Other M, and potentially start anew with a new installment after enough time has passed. But completely ignoring a franchise that includes some of the best titles they’ve ever released is cold treatment, and you can’t blame anyone for being at least a little upset.

Okay, there’s Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which arrives in America at the end of next week. But it won’t offer the traditional experience fans of the franchise want. That’s assuming people remember its existence at all, and Nintendo doesn’t seem enthusiastic about reminding them.

Expecting the anemic response from Nintendo, an incredibly dedicated fan wanted to do something special for the anniversary: Release their remake of Game Boy title Metroid II: Return of Samus under the name “Project AM2R” — an abbreviation for “Another Metroid II Remake.”

This involved giving the game a 16-bit facelift using assets from Super Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, and redesigning some levels and encounters to suit the newly-added gameplay mechanics. The music was also remixed so as not to clash with the new graphics. In other words, the creator and his assistants wanted this to feel like an authentic remake that was beyond the typical fan effort, which explains why he gave the project eight years of his attention. Fortunately, most who’ve played it have said his efforts were successful, with the result receiving enough polish that you’d almost think it was from Nintendo themselves.

So it’s no surprise that one particular party wasn’t impressed with this effort: Nintendo. Honestly, after hearing of the project’s existence around a year ago, the cynical part of me expected the company to send a cease and desist letter the creator’s way sometime before it was finished. That he hadn’t received one before its release this past Saturday hinted that how this could be one of the few fan projects they’d let slide. No one was profiting off this, after all, and they’ve been known to let a few efforts slip through without interfering, like the superlative Mother 3 fan translation.

But it wasn’t long after its release that the potentially positive scenario wasn’t the case. This started when the Metroid Database fan site received a copyright strike for hosting the download file; though it appeared the creator might catch a break thanks to download links on the AM2R website being untouched, they were simply next on the agenda. Nintendo has done their best in trying to remove any way to obtain the project off the internet to the best of their abilities. Companies have to protect their IPs, but they could have handled this project another way.

(Of course, “to the best of their abilities” means they can’t scrub it from everywhere. For every download link they take down, around three more manifest. It helps that the file size is a paltry 71.55MB, making it easy to upload.)

Nintendo was well within their rights to take the title down, but they could have let the community have this one, regardless of how uncharacteristic that would have been. It’s unlikely this would have taken sales from a potential official remake in a significant way, after all, especially since they would use 3D models. Removing this project is a good way to draw the ire of more fans and onlookers from the gaming community.

That said, it’s nice to see the creator taking this well. On the update made to the blog, he asked fans not to hate Nintendo for taking it down. It’s apparent that he knew the risks, and respected their decision to remove it. Of course, that doesn’t mean those aforementioned fans will let this go for a good while, which Nintendo will be made well aware of when they start further teasing Federation Force on social media, or upload trailers to YouTube. Don’t be surprised if they prevent people from commenting on or rating those videos.

Like other such incidents, the removal of this title triggered a Streisand effect. Those who were previously unaware of the project now know of its existence thanks to news of its takedown hitting various gaming press sites, and they desire to own a potential rarity. This could work out for the creator after all, given that this is receiving further exposure as a result of this debacle. For as bad as the Metroid franchise’s outlook is, at least this particular tale isn’t ending on quite as bad a note as it could have.