It’s that time again! We’ve got another edition of the mailbag for you all, and it’s pretty long again. Maybe we can make these weekly?

Anyway, this week sees a lot of questions about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, in addition to questions about Wii Music, clone characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, The Tanooki’s “Treasure Ship” feature, and the seeming fall of hardcore games. What does the staff around here think? Click on to find out!

There’s been lots of rumours about Metroid Dread and its easter egg appearance in Corruption. What do you know about this mysterious Nintendo project?
- Captain Blueshirt

Christian: Metroid Dread was never officially announced as being in the works; it merely appeared on Nintendo’s list of upcoming games. Fast forward to this month’s comment from Nintendo (with Michael’s image clearly inspired by my previous one), and it still technically not in the works. I do believe that ideas are being tossed around for a true, traditional, yet new Metroid game for the Nintendo DS, and the Metroid brand has regained some popularity, and the DS is currently the most penetrating system in the market. Pretty sure Nintendo likes money as much as the next company.

As for the easter egg in Corruption, I hate to disappoint you. It’s just an easter egg. While the Metroid series will almost certainly return to the Nintendo DS, it’s already got a couple of games on the platform already, and Nintendo is in no rush to see Samus on dual screens at the moment.

Michael: As much as I’d like to think we’ll be getting a 2D Metroid soon, It is officially not in the works. Christian covered the back-story well enough, so I’ll just add my two cents. We will be getting another Metroid title soon. Whether it’s on the DS or the Wii, Nintendo is well aware that Samus has joined Link and Mario in terms of success and fanbase. Metroid is not as far along as Mario and Link because the series has been neglected in the past, but they know when they have a winner on their hands. Don’t count out anything right now, there will be more Metroid this generation. Just be patient.

Hey to everybody here at the Tanooki! I love this website and find myself checking it every day. My question is What happened to the lists that you used to make as well as the treasure ships? If you could continue those at some point it would make my day that much better.

Assuming that most of you at the Tanooki are as excited about Guitar Hero III as I am, I was wondering what your favorite song on the confirmed list of songs was and what song (any what so ever) would you add if you could.
- Nick

Christian: The lists and Treasure Ships were mostly Matt’s thing, but I’d put up a list every now and then. The reason we haven’t been able to get around to them is because the priority around here is getting all of the latest news to you. Lately, that’s been a problem due to multiple obligations including work and school. We hired additional staff to lift some of the load off our shoulders, but it hasn’t been enough and we’ll be adding more people soon. As soon as we’re on top of the news again, we’ll be able to bring you more lists and original articles… like the good ol’ days. And don’t worry; Matt, Becky, and I were talking about bringing back the Treasure Ships a few weeks ago on the way to the batting cages.

As for Guitar Hero III, I’m not so much a fan of the series due to the fact that I can play most of the songs on an actual guitar. Still, I’m looking forward to giving this game a shot. If I had to pick a song from the current track listing that I’m looking forward to most, it would have to be “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions. That song was one of the first hard songs I ever learned on my electric (shortly after I learned Clapton’s “Crossroads,” which was my first), and it’d be nice to see how I do on the Guitar Hero III version. As for adding songs… let’s not go there.

Michael: I’m looking forward to “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse the most. I’m really into Muse right now, so it should be a lot of fun to play. If I could add any song I wanted, it would either be “Thunder” by ACDC, or “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.

Matthew: Alright, so I am a few hours late with my response. Let’s all take a moment to blame work and school for that…

The Treasure Ship will definitely make a triumphant return to The Tanooki. When? I guess you will just have to wait and see, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. I want to find an awesome prize to give away for the latest edition.

As for Guitar Hero III: I’m so pumped. Every week a few great songs are added, but my favorites are still “3’s and 7’s” “Cherub Rock” and “One.” “Closer” is also on the song list, but unfortunately, it is not the Nine Inch Nails song… Oh well. Oh wait, I just remembered that “Bulls on the Parade” is now included in the list. Include that as my favorite!

I was browsing the Score Hero forums a while back and one of the members was able to play the full version of GHIII the other week. While the game is amazing, he says that his “all time favorite” Guitar Hero song was on the list, but has yet to be unveiled. I’m having a hard time believing that Led Zeppelin will make the cut, but I bet the mystery song is some crazy metal song. Or another version of “Trogdor.”

If it was all up to me though, you would be seeing downloadable albums with GHIII, starting with Abbey Road.

I have about two questions. What really is Wii Music, I keep seeing it on release date lists but there is no where where I can find anything about it. The second is that I was wondering when is the next podcast coming? Ah I love the mailbag.
- Starry

Christian: Wii Music is a set of games (à la Wii Sports and Wii Play) that focuses on music. Last time (and both times) we saw the game, it had two modes: Drums, and Orchestra. In “Drums,” you use two Wii remotes as drumsticks while sitting at a set and playing to the music. In “Orchestra,” you are the conductor of a standard orchestra of Mii that will perform a selected piece. They’ll watch your motions of the Wii Remote and interpret your conducting and play the music as you show them. You can conduct marcato or legato, lento or presto, piano or fortissimo… you conduct it, they play it! Aside from that, there’s no other information on the game or when it will be released. Nintendo commented that we might see the title in 2008, but it’s not a priority title.

The next podcast will be produced when each of us gets enough time to take a breather from our normal lives and be able to plan a podcast. Then there’s the obvious challenge of finding a time when we’re all free for about two hours to actually record the podcast. We’re not going to be able to be in the same room this time (unless we’re really lucky), but we think we’ve got that part figured out. The main problem these days is just finding time.

So, how far are you guys through Metroid Prime 3 (or not)?
- drktrpr1

Joey: As of this past Wednesday, I have officially finished Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on the difficult setting. Eventually, I want to go back and re-play the game on the harder difficulty mode that is now unlocked, but unfortunately, school is now starting to occupy more and more of my time. In addition to that, Halo 3 is coming out soon, so I will probably be spending most of my gaming free time with Master Chief instead of Samus Aran.

Michael: I’m as close as you can be to beating the game without actually beating it. I’m about to enter the last “zone”, or whatever you want to call it. I can’t figure out what to do, and all of a sudden I’m really busy. So it might not happen for another week or so for me. But hopefully I’ll find time.

Christian: Not. I’ll get around to it, but unlike Phantom Hourglass, it’s not enough to make me forget about job and school obligations, sadly. My roommate’s done with Hyper mode, though.

Previously, it was mentioned that not all characters from Super Smash Bros. Melee would be returning to Brawl. I can imagine they’d like to get rid of a lot of the clones in the game, but are there any others you don’t think will return? And for the clones, are there any you think they’ll just redesign as standalone characters?
- Mike S

Christian: Pichu, Young Link, Dr. Mario, and Roy shouldn’t have been in Melee as separate characters, period. Dr. Mario and Young Link could have made the game interesting as alternate costumes with their respective stat differences, but Pichu was useless, and Roy was stuck in the game merely to promote a Fire Emblem game that had not come out yet and ended up not selling so well. I wouldn’t mind them not being in Brawl.

Ganondorf and Falco, on the other hand, are significant enough characters in their own universes to deserve to be in Melee and Brawl, though I do think they should be given original movesets. At the very least, since they’ve now been established, they need to be given tweaked movesets. Give Ganondorf some of the magic attacks we saw in Ocarina of Time or his sword in Twilight Princess. As for his Final Smash, I’m pretty sure we all know he could turn into.

Joey: I pretty much agree with everything Christian said on this one. I do not expect to see any characters with duplicate move sets this time around for Brawl, thus it very unlikely that many of the duplicate characters from Melee will be returning at all. However, I would be shocked if Ganondorf did not come back with a new move set based off of his role in Twilight Princess.

I have a question regarding the 16×9 widescreen mode games that have been appearing. Resident evil 4 and Metroid Prime are supposed to have 16×9, but if this is so, why is there still black columns on the right and left side of my screen? It seems like the only game that I have that is actually widescreen is Red Steel. It would seem that these games are actually 15×9, kinda false advertising!!
- Billie

Joey: One of the main reasons we are currently seeing these black spaces is that developers are still trying to figure out the best ways to use the Wii’s more limited graphical horsepower. Whenever a new console launches, it takes some times for developers to master utilizing every resource the system can provide. This is the reason why the games on a given console tend to look better as time goes on.

Retro could have chosen to leave this black space simply because the image they had been developing with looked stretched when displayed in full widescreen. The decision to include these black bars is made by the game’s developers, and Nintendo really doesn’t have much of a say in this matter. As time passes and newer games are released for Wii, we will see less and less titles playing in “false” widescreen with these black bars.

I have been playing Metroid Prime 3 recently (who hasn’t?) and I was wondering what the four bars are at the top of the visor? They are blue in color and occasionally there are only three of them. Can you guys help me out with this?
- Travis

Joey: This is a very good question. In all honesty, I hadn’t even noticed that those bars were there before, and I have already played all of the way through the game. However, after doing a bit of investigating, I figured out that those bars show how much battery life is left in the Wii Remote that you are currently using. If you hit the home button, the battery power gage for each remote in use should display. The number of bars remaining for the P1 remote should be the same as the number of blue bars you see at the top of the screen.

I am positive this works out because when I checked at first, I had two bars displaying. However, after I replaced the batteries in the remote for brand new ones, four blue bars were now visible at the top of the screen. I think this is a pretty clever extra feature added in by Retro.

Do you think hardcore games will slowly fade out? Just look at the success of all the casual games on the Wii and DS. Sure, the Wii has the big 3 this year and Mario Kart next year, but other than that will Nintendo just stick with casual games as they are making quick cash?
- rickytheleaf

Christian: Here’s the way I see it: Back in the days of the Atari 2600 or NES, games had a simple, inviting control scheme. Some games were harder than others, but the simplicity of one or two buttons made it so that anyone could give games a try. As generations passed, games got harder and harder, more cinematic, and more “hardcore” as a lot of you like to call it. This required control schemes that scared most of the general public. With the Wii, Nintendo is simply trying to remove a barrier of entry with the Wii remote, inviting anyone to play games like Wii Sports or Big Brain Academy. As time moves on, they can choose to challenge themselves with future incarnations of Metroid, Final Fantasy, and more. Nintendo will be working to find a balance between the two, and needs to keep going. It keeps established gamers happy while allowing newcomers to play. If Nintendo were to move exclusively towards casual games, then what happens when these new gamers lose interest in games that no longer challenge them?

Michael: Nope. Nintendo has repeatedly said they are not going to leave the hardcore gamer. This industry was created because of dedicated hardcore gamers. There will always be hardcore gamers, and companies know that. The success of WOW is a perfect example. Yes, casual games seem to be gaining a ridiculous amount of success, but as Christian said “what happens when these new gamers lose interest in games that no longer challenge them?” This industry would be a joke without hardcore games. So I don’t think we need to worry.

That’s it! Hope you’ve had a good time reading this mailbag. Remember to keep writing us for future mailbags. Who knows, if we get enough submissions, it might come out sooner than September 30th…

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