>>101503027"We'd had Samus running in a cave," Osawa said. "There was space jump and wall jumping...all the abilities from Super Metroid. I thought we had really caught on the core gameplay." Osawa went on to explain he helped model the version of Samus used in the prototype. However, the team soon ran into trouble in the form of Nintendo's new hardware, the Gamecube. The company at the time felt the resources of Metroid 64 would be best applied to their newest game system; Metroid 64 was simply developed too late int he console's life-span.
"So we took the assets and gameplay we had created for Metroid 64 and put it to work on Smash Bros. DX."
However, Nintendo wasn't quite done with Metroid yet. Other elements were at work pushing for a new Metroid, this time from the other side of the world with the 'external company' that was reported to have been working on Metroid 64...