Metroid amiibo unlocks new Paint Jobs in Federation Force

... and in Blast Ball.

This might seem weird, but even though I got Samus Returns already, my first instinct was to try the new Metroid amiibo in Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which was still inserted into my Nintendo 3DS, after I had 100%ed the game earlier this week.

Dataminers had found at least one secret Metroid Paint Job a while ago, so I thought that the amiibo might unlock it - and it really does! There's one for Federation Force and one for Blast Ball.

Flying Life-Form (Federation Force):

This Paint Job lets you carry packs of five Repair Capsules instead of just one, which is the ideal Paint Job for anyone, who likes to specialize on healing.

Floating Parasite (Blast Ball):

Blast Ball Paint Jobs don't have any special abilities, but they're still nice to have. And before you ask, the new Samus amiibo just unlocks the same Paint Jobs as the one from the Super Smash Bros. series.

This is overall quite curious. For once it means that Nintendo had planned the Metroid amiibo over a year ago and secretly implemented its support into Federation Force at the time. But then they seem to have forgotten about it...! They could have advertised this, but they didn't. Not even the packaging of the amiibo mentions this special usage. This hasn't even made it on the typical Nintendo news sites yet...

Or maybe it's just that no one cares. This really shows, how dead the game is, but Nintendo could have used this to draw some attention towards Federation Force, which these days might not get as much hate as it did one year ago, when the franchise didn't offer anything else.

Metroid Prime Blast Ball: All Paint Job Feats

In Metroid Prime: Blast Ball you can collect 15 Paint Jobs for your mech that get unlocked by getting certain achievements. Here's a list of what you will have to do to unlock them all:

• First Blast Ball Win
• 10 Blast Ball Wins
• 100 Blast Ball Wins
• Won 7 Blast Ball Games in a Row
• Scored within 5 Seconds
• Scored 3 Goals in a Game
• Performed 3 Assists in a Game
• Performed 5 Blocks in a Game
• Scored 50 Goals
• Performed 50 Assists
• Performed 100 Blocks
• Pushed Ball over 10km
• Ran over 10km
• Beat a Challenge
• Beat 10 Challenges

The unlockable Paint Jobs are:

Camouflage, Clover, Clubs, Diamonds, Fire, Flower, Hearts, Lightning, Polka Dot, Shark, Spades, Star, Kraid, Mother Brain, Ridley

These are not tied to specific feats. For each player it's completely random, which feat does unlock what Paint Job. For example in the above image you can see that the Shark Paint Job got unlocked by the task "Won 7 Blast Ball Games in a Row". However, this might be different for you and the Shark Paint Job can't be associated with that achievement. This means that you can't "show off" with a certain Paint Job, so just go ahead and chose whatever Paint Job you like best visually.

Additional Paint Jobs can be unlocked with amiibo:

• Samus
• Zero Suit Samus
• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Rosalina
• Bowser
• Bowser Jr.
• Skull - Any other amiibo

Apparently Super Mario seems to be really popular in the Metroid universe...

Metroid Prime Blast Ball Released

Out of nowhere Nintendo released Metroid Prime Blast Ball to the public yesterday and I'm having a blast with this game (pun intended)! I discovered it last night and it was so fun and addicting that I stayed up until 7AM, which is quite unusual for me.

And this is great advertisement for Federation Force. Despite being a Metroid fan I wasn't really excited about it (understandably) and didn't even have this on my radar at the moment, but Blast Ball plays so well that I might give it a chance now. The fact that I'm almost exclusively playing on my New 3DS right now, also helps, but it's a good move from Nintendo's end.

At least Nintendo of Europe's end. The way I understood it for North America is that there the game is only a demo and if you want to keep playing, you have to buy Federation Force. In Europe it seems to be a standalone game, where they completely separated both titles. And I prefer this, because Blast Ball makes perfect sense as a small download title that you can play in between, without swapping any cartridges. In this form I will play it certainly a lot more, because it's quick and easy to access. And since I like Blast Ball so much, I still might give Federation Force a go now.

The gameplay itself is very simple, but hard to master. I guess, most people will compare it to Rocket League, but as an old Unreal Tournament fan it feels more similar to the Death Ball mod for Unreal Tournament 200x, only more grounded. And these matches can get very intense and exciting, where scoring a goal feels really satisfying. I especially like, how the goals get smaller after every score, because this makes it easier to catch up for the losing team, which result in more suspense for the overall match.

It could use some more fine tuning, though. The blaster runs out too quickly for my taste. I understand, why there's a limit, but I once too often couldn't score a goal, just because my blaster was on cooldown. And it's not like the small blasts are that great, it's just limiting and a way to have you charge as long as possible. And the ejection power-up is way too overpowered, the game probably would be better without it. A Missile Pack power-up would have been nice instead, where you get three fast and strong shots without charging.

There is some other stuff that needs to be improved as well...

• The 3D is horrible. I already think that the 3D in Majora's Mask 3D looks too flat, but Blast Ball has like two layers. Even some paper fold book gives you more depth. It's like with the Wii U GamePad. The closer we get to the NX, the more Nintendo seems to abandon the 3D effect, instead of endorsing it. I still keep the 3D on, because it helps with judging the battlefield. It would just be better, if it had some real depth to it.
• There is no online friend mode. You can only play with random people and that's completely stupid. Last night I was skyping with a friend and we both played the game sharing commentaries, but we couldn't play it together, which was really disappointing. This needs to be added.
• There is no black list. Probably the most important feature from Tri Force Heroes isn't as desperately needed here, but I still saw people playing goal keeper for the enemy team or just trying to be "funny" in creative ways. And then I should be able to say "Squadala! You're off!"
• When joining a new game, you might get many error messages first. Probably similar issues to Tri Force Heroes here.
• Inactive players stay on too long. One team might be stuck with a player, who does nothing, or games can't start at all, because the host is idle. This in combination with the constant error messages can make it quite difficult to find a game.

But I do like the international aspect with the pre-set voice recordings in multiple languages. You can even alter the pitch, where the high and low pitch voices sound really funny. "Gooood joooob!" But you also get the foreign speak, where it shows you the translated message in the HUD, which gives you a nice sense of playing with people all over the world. Tri Force Heroes certainly didn't offer this...

I also like the "Indigo vs. Gold" theme over the traditional "Blue vs. Red" and the visual readability of them game is very well done. Even when switching sides I never have any orientation issues. Only the health meter could work better, because it flashes red, whenever you get hit, even if it is minor damage. It stays red, if you're in danger, but these flashes make you also believe that you're in danger for a split second, which is confusing. They just should add red effects around the crosshairs instead.

Well, if they fix some of these issues and keep the game up for free, I will certainly keep playing it for quite a while. Look out for "Tourian".

Nintendo's Online Shooters: Splatrophy & Blast Ball

Last night Nintendo streamed the Nintendo World Championships 2015, which had its ups and downs. But in general I like that Nintendo is trying to do something with multiplayer shooters

Splatoon immediately caught my "splattention" at last year's E3 and it seemed like a fresh concept, Nintendo's unique take on the multiplayer shooter genre. However, down the road they made so many mistakes with this game that I won't buy it, until there have been some improvements. It does look like a lot of fun and I want to play it, but Nintendo made some choices here that for me personally are inacceptable and are an absolute no-go, especially for a full priced game.

When it comes to online shooters I'm kind of old school, my favorite always has been Unreal Tournament, which I play up to this day. For me this first person shooter game has been unmatched in terms of content, gameplay, weapons, environments and fun. With Unreal Tournament you usually get around six gametypes and 60 to 80 maps, as well as ten very different and unique weapons. And they're currently making a new one, which is looking very promising.

But if you're used to the standards of the old school PC shooters, something like Splatoon is hard to swallow. Only seven different stages at this moment? And you can only play two at a time online? Who thought, this was a good idea? A shooter lives from the variety, even though some fan favorite maps will be played all the time, variety is what keeps the game interesting. At least it's good that they're releasing additional stages for free and don't let you charge 3€ per stage like some other overhyped Nintendo game... But some of the DLC seems to be on-disc-content, where it's really silly that it wasn't available from the start with this little content.

And they're releasing content on a regular basis, which can be very important for a game like Splatoon. Trying new maps is usually what kept me playing Unreal Tournament for years, so it's a good thing that Nintendo has realized this principle. However, as of now there is just not enough content to justify a purchase.

I also don't like the amiibo practices... it seems like a good chunk of the singleplayer options is locked behind three different Splatoon amiibo, which just sucks and is very expansive for the players, who only want to play and get the locked content, but not the figurines. Especially the squid amiibo from the Special Edition is very expansive right now. Nintendo at the moment has a huge problem with creating these bubbles, where the supply absolutely doesn't meet the demand, which then results in these awful markets of highly limited products, where some people try to earn money with the desperation of some fans. (With Majora's Mask 3D Nintendo got the numbers right, at least here in Germany the special editions are nearly sold out, but you can still get them for the original price.)

The only solution for me here would be amiibo cards. If they were cheap and available enough (including the squid), I might give Splatoon a chance. And the amiibo cards would fully unravel the true nature of amiibo: they are just special keys that you have to buy to unlock content. An unnecessary hassle and even a step back from DLC.


I'm also interested in Blast Ball, which got shown for the first time at the Nintendo World Championships last night. It looks like a mix of Metroid Prime Hunters and the Death Ball modification of Unreal Tournament 2003 or Frag Ball in Xonotic. It really, really smelt like a new first person handheld Metroid, from the logo over the visual design. And there was also the fact that they coupled it with Super Metroid. Maybe it's a minigame in a new Metroid. Maybe it spawned from a handheld Metroid title that then got turned into its own game and franchise. We'll see.

However, as of now the game itself didn't seem to offer too much, it seemed more like a small eShop title. Even Death Ball from Unreal Tournament didn't offer that much, it was just a fun, small mod. But it's not like you can do any complex stages with a game like this... Well, right now I just want to now what its relation with Metroid is. Because just look at the logo:

This was taken straight from Metroid...


Talking about Metroid, for me the best multiplayer shooter Nintendo could make is a new Metroid Hunters on the Wii U. Metroid Prime Hunters was an excellent first person multiplayer shooter (the singleplayer was garbage, but the multiplayer was great), however, the Nintendo DS wasn't really the best platform for it. It lacked the good graphics and controls. But if they made something like this one Wii U, it could have great potential.