Development
Nintendo first revealed Metroid: Zero Mission at the E3 convention in 2003, and its release date of February 9, 2004 was announced later that year. The game was directed by Yoshio Sakamoto, a Nintendo veteran who has been involved with the Metroid series since it first appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System and has played a role in every Metroid game except for Metroid II. Official positions that he held include director of Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Metroid Fusion for the Game Boy Advance, producer of Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube, and supervisor of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Sakamoto is the only member from the Metroid development team to also work on Metroid: Zero Mission.
While working on the concept for the next Metroid game after Metroid Fusion was released in 2002, one of the developers for Metroid Fusion suggested that Super Metroid be ported to the Game Boy Advance; however, Sakamoto decided to port Metroid instead. The development team decided to return to the roots of Metroid gameplay by creating a game based on the original. Sakamoto, noting that Metroid Fusion's gameplay was drastically different from previous Metroid games, wanted to "show people who had never played a Metroid game prior to Metroid Fusion, the roots of the Metroid franchise, that this is what Metroid is, this is the style of gameplay that Metroid sprang from at the same time, retell the story of Samus' original mission".
One of the biggest challenges that the developers faced was in adding enough elements to Metroid: Zero Mission to make it feel new, while keeping the spirit of the original Metroid. Because both games were made for the Game Boy Advance, Metroid: Zero Mission uses a rebuilt version of the game engine used for Metroid Fusion so that it did not need to be built from scratch. This marked the first time two Metroid installments have been released for the same video game console. Metroid Fusion had offered connectivity with Metroid Prime on the Nintendo GameCube, but Metroid: Zero Mission did not offer such a feature. Sakamoto explained that the developers wanted to make the game connect to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on the GameCube, but the fact that both their release dates were far apart and not enough development time to implement connectivity features prevented them from doing so. However, they managed to include the ability for Metroid Fusion to connect with Metroid: Zero Mission.
In addition to borrowing the plot from Metroid, Metroid: Zero Mission introduces new cinematics to push the story forward. Sakamoto believed in the importance of having a story to complement a game. He found it particularly difficult to convey the game's plot accurately in a way that the player can understand, because of the sparse use of dialogue in the Metroid series. The story for Metroid: Zero Mission was rewritten to explore Samus Aran's backstory more than in the original Metroid. Cinematics are used to show Samus' memories to move the story forward and to keep the plot open for interpretation. Sakamoto claimed that this was intended to expand the original story while retaining some mystery. The game is the first Metroid game to let the player choose a difficulty level at the start of the game; each of three levels varies in the amount of damage caused by enemies. The battle with Mother Brain marked the end of the original Metroid; however, Metroid: Zero Mission offers players extra levels to play after the battle.
Read more about this topic: Metroid: Zero Mission
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