Metroid Musing: Should Metroid Prime 4 Have Minigames?

I’ve been playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask lately. If you’re familiar with it, I was at a moment in the day where I needed to simply wait. I wanted to sell something to the Curiosity Shop, but they don’t open until 10 pm. So, I found myself wandering around town, and my first thought was the Deku Playground. It’s a minigame I stumbled onto early on, but skipped never-the-less to focus on more important matters. It took me a few tries (and a decent chunk of rupees), but I beat the record and got my first prize. From there I still had time to kill so I ventured to my next victim–the shooting gallery. It was fun, and it was at that moment I started to wonder, why the heck don’t we have minigames in Metroid? 

So many developers understand the importance of minigames. There’s the legendary Triple Triad from Final Fantasy 8. Mario has been chock full of minigames through its history–Memory, Games of Chance, Jump-Rope (a recent addition from Odyssey). You even have the unexpected candidates such as Far Cry 3’s Texas Hold’Em. And yes I played a bunch of poker in that game.

When we play these games, we engross ourselves in the worlds they build, and yet sometimes you just want a break from the story. You don’t want to turn it off per say, you just want to do something different, something less intense or maybe just silly. Minigames are a great way to provide alternatives in gameplay while still keeping yourself immersed in the world. 

Which now brings me all the way back to Metroid. Other than Metroid Prime Pinball as a standalone, we simply don’t have that option. You do have the option to hunt down your 100th or so missile expansion as a break to the main story, but it’s not the same thing. I wanna fly off to some Federation city and play some games. I want to play a sci-fi card game with random people on the side streets. I want to hop into morph ball to help clear a system of pipes and tunnels for some random lady. And I want to do all of this for no other reason than to grab some Federation currency so I can head down to the local gift shop and buy a bobble head for my ship’s dashboard. 

What do you think? Wouldn’t you just love it if we could venture off the beaten path on a whim to play some Botwoon Boppit? Share your thoughts below. What minigames would you want to see in Metroid Prime 4?

Daniel Hoctor

Daniel is a Website Reporter for Omega Metroid and an avid fan of the Metroid series. You can find me most places as AFallenApple.