Nintendo strikes again.

Nintendo is one of my favorite video game companies. It revived the video game industry after the infamous Video Game Crash of 1983. With amazing hardware and quality games Nintendo became a gaming juggernaut. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Gameboy were some of the hottest selling items of their time. Today many of the biggest franchises in gaming were started on the NES and Gameboy such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. 

I'm going to take a look at Metroid today a series celebrating it's 30th Anniversary. Metroid is a series where you take control of the space bounty hunter in a power suit Samus Aran. Back when the first game in the Metroid series named Metroid, you travel around the planet Zebes collecting power ups to defeat Mother Brain. After you defeat her and end the game to many people's shock Samus removes her giant suit to reaveal that she was a woman all along. This was an interesting plot twist at the end because at the time mainly game protagonists were male such as Mario and Link so this was a great twist.

Earlier this month a man on the internet who goes by the name Dr. M64 after over 10 years of development released a recreation of the game Metroid 2 Return of Samus titled Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R). Metroid 2 originally released for the Gameboy and time has not been kind to Metroid 2 so it feels very old and dated. Knowing this Dr M64 out of love for the series not for a profit decided to remake the magical experience and remake the game from the ground up with better graphics, music, and game play. Although he received help from others this was a 10 year project in which everyone who worked on or followed the game did it out of passion and love for how much this series was a part of their life. Nintendo wasn't showing any intention of doing anything with Metroid 2 so it became one of the the largest and fan games with passion put into it.

This is an image of the original Metroid 2 for the Gameboy

And here is an image of one of the old demos showing the updated graphical design

There is much more to the remake than revamped graphics. There are power ups from newer games, better controls of Samus, increased screen visibility, color, and better enemy AI. I have played AM2R and have enjoyed this game so much that it has become one of my favorite games of all time.

This amazing remake is free and Dr M64 never made a penny off of this decade long endeavor. This however did not stop Nintendo from sending a DMCA or online Cease and Desist to all of the download links a day after the official release of AM2R. While Nintendo is is the legal right to copyright claim this game for using the assets of its series Metroid this can be seen as morally wrong. While the argument can be made that it would cut into Nintendo's profits and make people not want to buy the original Metroid 2 on virtual console (Virtual Console is a legal way to play old games on new Nintendo hardware such as the 3ds or Wii U). But this argument falls flat as more people would rather play it using computer emulation and Metroid 2 definitely wasn't making Nintendo millions on the virtual console service.

Nintendo could've taken the game down over those 10 years but instead they decided to immediately copyright claim the game right after the official release. Nintendo still lives in the mindset that the internet doesn't exist yet and needs to enforce their power as much as possible. Nintendo even copyright striked YouTube videos when people played their game even when it was free advertising. It seems odd how people defend the actions of Nintendo thinking that Nintendo cares about them but in all reality Nintendo is a business in a capitalistic society where the fans are $ signs. If the AM2R was making a profit then I could definitely see their reasoning but when they strike down a game that took 10 years to be made out of love and passion for the original game and doesn't charge 1 cent then Nintendo's legal right just seems like a real horrible thing to do to bully others. And if anyone tries to say any company would do that to protect their game they are wrong because Sega allows these to happen and even hired Christian Whitehead who made Rom hacks of Sonic. I would leave a link to download the AM2R game if I could but since it has been taken down you'd have to find a safe link or use the wayback machine to download the game. But Nintendo can do what they want as they have the law on their side which is why in my opinion some power should be taken away from giant companies. This also isn't the first time Nintendo did this. Earlier this year fans remade the original Zelda on the NES in 3d and Nintendo also striked them so the cycle will never end. It seems like Nintendo will just keep disregarding their fans and try to shove things people never asked for down their throat like the unwanted Metroid Prime Federation Force which doesn't even star Samus that also released this month.

 Deep down I want Nintendo to succeed but when they take illogical actions like this I just wonder whether they'll ever learn anything and stop using their legal rights and look at things from a moral perspective as well. This topic is open for debate so let me know your opinions down below! 

Link to the AM2R blog if interested:

metroid2remake.blogspot.com/

Source's of images (All labeled for reuse):

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Gameboy_color.jpg

c2.staticflickr.com/4/3623/3342234984_0d4bb20fb0_z.jpg?zz=1

orig05.deviantart.net/a8f5/f/2014/055/4/6/samus_s_standing_pose_in_the_ruins_by_darkfalco313-d77ulza.jpg

i.ytimg.com/vi/TTlFmQa7hco/hqdefault.jpg

i.ytimg.com/vi/XQHV66Xh2LY/hqdefault.jpg

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Nintendo-3DS-AquaOpen.jpg/531px-Nintendo-3DS-AquaOpen.jpg

c2.staticflickr.com/6/5581/18869525871_ef1a35b5c2_b.jpg