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Should Phazon get one-upped?


Ridley Prime

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I don't mean going back to Phazon specifically, as Prime 3 was meant to be the end of the Phazon arc and bringing it back would kinda kill the point of MP3, but I mean like, should Prime 4 (and by extension the 2nd trilogy or whatever kind of arc MP4 ends up later branching out) introduce some new kind of poisonous or radioactive substance that ends up having as much a presence as Phazon did? If they were to go there, I would like this new chemical substance to have maybe some similarities, but also a lot more differences from Phazon, whether it gets hyped up as being more potent & powerful than Phazon or not.

 

Aside from getting different flavors of the Metroids and space pirates & Ridley (and sometimes clones of all the above), a somewhat recurring theme in the series has been the possessive alien parasites, in the form of the X and the Ing. Should there be more unique poison radioactive substances like Phazon as another recurring theme, or should Phazon just remain its own thing and Prime 4 move away from all that?

 

Then there's the Sylux factor. Would he be interested in a new chemical substance that could make him or anyone more powerful if harvested and salvaged properly, or would he have little or nothing to do with it like with Phazon? It's unknown what Sylux was really doing during the events of Prime 3 other than spying on Samus, but since he didn't get involved in the whole Phazon crisis himself (maybe after seeing what Phazon corruption did to Samus's fellow hunters), he may have smartly preferred to play it safe and stayed away from any kind of radioactive shit that would ruin anyone's day, and strategically make a move only when there's a chance without interference to strike a hard blow to Samus or the Federation.

 

 

When it comes to a cool or unique concept getting one-upped and sometimes replicated with a similar thing that has the same kind of premise (like having Spider-Man's Venom and then Carnage), how I judge it mainly depends on how it's executed. If something's eerie similar, but also creatively fresh and different in its own way, I can give it a pass, but if there's something too blatantly similar that doesn't try to be different enough, then yeah, I may see it as a ripoff. If Phazon ever gets a radioactive successor in the series of some kind, I would want it to be more like the former of course. If you think Phazon should get one-upped, what all kind of characteristics do you think a next generation radioactive material should have? What would you name it, if you have any idea? What differences should it have from Phazon, to avoid getting too stale?

 

Let's get this discussion going.

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Personally, I don't think there should be a Newzon substance as that'd just be repetitive. Between Phazon and the X we don't need more threatening-alien-goo-taking-over-your-body. I do believe, however, that the use of Phazon should be FAR from over.

 

Let's be real here: the ending to the Phazon story was pants. You got this planet that reproduces every 100 years. In the MILLIONS of years that the planet has existed has there really been no other Phaazes established? Moreover, what kind of survival mechanism causes all colonies to collapse by destroying the first one? If I kill the queen ant, sure, THAT colony dies, but the entire planet isn't instantly purged of ants. It was a real cop-out.

 

Now let's say Phaaze being destroyed ended the threat of Phazon as a sentient biological mass that controls or corrupts other beings, but left it as an inert, non-sentient radioactive substance. That would definitely still cause Dark Samus to poot out as well as the stuff to stop taking over Samus. Phazon still has SO much potential though even as a tertiary plot element. Think about it- this stuff is not only a source of energy but can be used to instantly cause larval Metroids to mature to adult Metroids. They don't have to have it as an in-your-face plot element where entire planets are being taken over and the like, but I can totally see the Federation using inert Phazon goo in their illegal Metroid experiments or as a way to power their ships. I would tend to think that Sylux's technology was at least remotely based on Phazon given how the shock coil functions similarly to the Hyper Grapple or Dark Samus draining energy from Phazon, but who knows.

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Federation Force emphasized again that Phazon was done with, so if they bring back Phazon they would be cutting out major plotlines for both Prime 3 and that entry. At that point, it would just be silly. If Phazon were in Prime 4, people would want Dark Samus too, and I personally don't want to see that resurrection idea come true regarding Sylux and the stolen Metroid. Tagging along with that same conflict wouldn't be a great comeback for Sylux, who should be very geared up following Federation Force.

 

If Sylux decides to not deal with the Space Pirates, which won't enable them to recover quicker following their collapse in the Bermuda System, Prime 4 could certainly introduce a new power source into the series through the Space Pirates. Without Phazon, they were all over the Bermuda System discovering minerals, substances and artifacts that did turn out to have some potential, even if it wasn't on par with Phazon. I can imagine them up to that same desperate search within Prime 4, trying to keep up with the Federation, now with the successful Project Golem under their wing.

 

Sylux will probably assist the Space Pirates though, and could do so without giving them the stolen Metroid. The Federation Force took all in the Bermuda System as they worked through the Space Pirates' interplanetary operations, and given how easy it was for Sylux to get the Metroid, Sylux could also have samples of the power sources discovered on Excelcion and Bion. I believe Excelcion had both mineral and liquid resources that were collected by the Federation that could, together, yield a lot of power. With Bion, I'm pretty sure the Federation Force recovered two carts worth of energy/power cells that also had a lot of energy potential. Both planets saw high levels of pirate activity due to those resources. If Sylux decided to steal these resource samples, trades them to the Space Pirates, they get to use these power sources more within their units and Prime 4 gives these resources a more specific name, the game would then have its own Phazon without being an overpowered, sentient network.

Edited by IU
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2 hours ago, Carl321 said:

Personally, I don't think there should be a Newzon substance as that'd just be repetitive. Between Phazon and the X we don't need more threatening-alien-goo-taking-over-your-body. I do believe, however, that the use of Phazon should be FAR from over.

 

Let's be real here: the ending to the Phazon story was pants. You got this planet that reproduces every 100 years. In the MILLIONS of years that the planet has existed has there really been no other Phaazes established? Moreover, what kind of survival mechanism causes all colonies to collapse by destroying the first one? If I kill the queen ant, sure, THAT colony dies, but the entire planet isn't instantly purged of ants. It was a real cop-out.

 

Now let's say Phaaze being destroyed ended the threat of Phazon as a sentient biological mass that controls or corrupts other beings, but left it as an inert, non-sentient radioactive substance. That would definitely still cause Dark Samus to poot out as well as the stuff to stop taking over Samus. Phazon still has SO much potential though even as a tertiary plot element. Think about it- this stuff is not only a source of energy but can be used to instantly cause larval Metroids to mature to adult Metroids. They don't have to have it as an in-your-face plot element where entire planets are being taken over and the like, but I can totally see the Federation using inert Phazon goo in their illegal Metroid experiments or as a way to power their ships. I would tend to think that Sylux's technology was at least remotely based on Phazon given how the shock coil functions similarly to the Hyper Grapple or Dark Samus draining energy from Phazon, but who knows.

Eh, fair enough. When I was thinking earlier what Prime 4 could do that's new and different but also somewhat similar to its predecessors, the idea of a new recurring mutagenic substance just kinda hit me. It could get a bit too repetitive after Phazon, yeah, but just depends on how it's executed.

 

While Prime 3 did eventually cause me have Phazon fatigue (still hard to believe it's been a decade since that game while just recently learning Prime 4 is in development), I am kinda open to it and by association Dark Samus still returning if used more subtly and less on-the-nose than Prime 3, like some of your ideas there. I just doubt we'll see them anytime soon (if ever) based on Kensuke Tanabe's statements where he stressed that Dark Samus was done and over with. I'm iffy with that guy in general after Federation Force (as IU pointed out, that game also further established that Phazon was done with), but hope Tanabe does a good job with MP4.

 

And the Sylux part might be reaching, but it's still anyone's guess as to what his stolen technology was based off of, so yeahh...

 

 

@ IU: As you know, I eventually chose not to get FF, so forgot a lot of those details, but your mentioning of those places (I just wiki'd Excelcion, Bion, and the other places from the game to refresh my memory) and power sources on them definitely gives me some new perspective, considering. If anything I hope your idea there is how a new powerful resource ends up happening by the time of MP4. Will have to see.

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I really don't know.  I mean, it wouldn't be absurd to bring Phazon itself back on some level; Ridley keeps coming back somehow, Metroids keep coming back somehow...I don't see why they couldn't do a similar thing with Phazon.

That said, I don't want it to be a major plot element though.  It can be involved in some way...like, maybe there was a negative effect to removing all the Phazon so abruptly?  I dunno.  I'd be just as fine if they did the Halo 4 thing and make the next game mostly unrelated to the previous trilogy at least as far as the overarching story is concerned.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This has vexed me ever since fans first started asking for Prime 4. After all, where can the story go now that there's no Phazon? Unless there's some serious retconning going on, that's how it'll have to stay. I always thought that if Prime 4 were to exist, the Prime subtitle would come to mean a designation of gameplay style, rather than necessarily continuing story elements in the original trilogy.

 

That said, I don't want them to bring back Phazon, and I don't want them to invent a similar substance. It's enough for me that it uses the same gameplay style. After all, Hunters had nothing at all to do with Phazon, and yet it bore the Prime subtitle and was a ton of fun.

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