"
Retro making another fucking Donkey Kong" notwithstanding, (and even then, that a case of expectations with the developer, rather than a Metroid title), Other M and Federation Force make up a grand total of two red-headed stepchilds of the series that receive a ton of flak from the fans. Virtually every other Metroid game in the fanbase is either acclaimed at best or considered decent at worst (spinoffs like Pinball and Hunters).
What does it change to anything I said? It's been six years that part of the fanbase hurls insults at Nintendo and developers such as Sakamoto, Tanabe or Next Level Games saying they shouldn't touch the series ever again, and that any attempt at doing
anything with Metroid, even something as mundane as releasing Other M on the eShop or having a Metroid themed activity in Nintendo Land, is met with over the top harassment, peaking with the sabotaging of the Federation Force launch even before anybody could touch the game. If that's not being toxic, what is? Were Mario fans harassing Nintendo when they released a Mario spin-off, when Yoshi's Story released on the eShop, or when Nintendo Land was revealed to have a Mario activity?
As for the other games, in the latest Metroid Fusion NeoGAF thread I've read, people who said they really liked the game were trashed by many people who also trashed Federation Force without playing it, because you see, Fusion is way too linear and has too much dialogue and story and is therefore a disgrace to the Metroid name. The same purists generally go like this:
- NES Metroid is now unplayable.
- Metroid II is now unplayable, and Nintendo are bastards for not allowing AM2R, a game which straight rips Metroid II's level design and concept and Metroid Zero Mission's visuals.
- Super Metroid is God incarnate, but nobody should buy it on the eShop because Nintendo are bastards and released an unplayable version of the game.
- Metroid Fusion is too linear and has too much story and dialogue.
- Metroid Prime Echoes is too slow and purple and painful and derivative.
- Metroid Prime Corruption is too linear and has too much story and dialogue.
- Metroid Other M is Satan incarnate.
... which leaves only three games in the whole series that satisfy them, that are basically all variants of Super Metroid.
If you add to this that Metroid doesn't sell, that its maze/"figure out where to go next" design is nowadays really unpopular and even the Metroid Prime Trilogy sold poorly despite being full of amazing content on Nintendo's most popular console, that makes the series a risky bet for development money. Some people can victimize themselves as customers all they want, from a producer's point of view, their money can be better invested elsewhere given all those circumstances, nobody wants to invest in a niche audience when that audience repeatedly trashes you. In fact, at this point their best bet is to ignore that base entirely, ironically.