>Our pitch to Nintendo was an open world Metroid game in which side quests would take the form of bounties that Samus could hunt
>As you moved through the four playable planets (plus a yet-undefined number of space stations), you'd occasionally have the opportunity to take a bounty for an alien criminal
>When we presented this idea to Nintendo, we were met with blank stares and confusion
>As the meeting progressed, I slowly realized that Nintendo did not know what a bounty hunter is, and had only given Samus the title because it "sounded like a dangerous sci-fi job"
>I think the problem is that bounty hunting isn’t really a profession in Japan, so they interpreted the entire concept as just a cop who operates outside of the normal chain of command, and that affected their understanding of the Samus character
>I also realized that there was a large divergence between how the West and how Nintendo viewed Samus
>To the West, Samus was a grizzled, experienced adventurer, only a little dangerous to society than the people she fought. I think most fans imagined her personality as somewhere between Sarah Connor and Master Chief
>To Nintendo, she was a much more straightforward hero, and much more feminine and naive. Closer to Princess Peach, but with guns
>They obviously rejected our pitch, and three years later, Other M came out.
>As you moved through the four playable planets (plus a yet-undefined number of space stations), you'd occasionally have the opportunity to take a bounty for an alien criminal
>When we presented this idea to Nintendo, we were met with blank stares and confusion
>As the meeting progressed, I slowly realized that Nintendo did not know what a bounty hunter is, and had only given Samus the title because it "sounded like a dangerous sci-fi job"
>I think the problem is that bounty hunting isn’t really a profession in Japan, so they interpreted the entire concept as just a cop who operates outside of the normal chain of command, and that affected their understanding of the Samus character
>I also realized that there was a large divergence between how the West and how Nintendo viewed Samus
>To the West, Samus was a grizzled, experienced adventurer, only a little dangerous to society than the people she fought. I think most fans imagined her personality as somewhere between Sarah Connor and Master Chief
>To Nintendo, she was a much more straightforward hero, and much more feminine and naive. Closer to Princess Peach, but with guns
>They obviously rejected our pitch, and three years later, Other M came out.
