AAA used to simply imply good graphics. These days it tends to refer to that and the hand-craftedness of things. Like every moment being designed for some playe

AAA used to simply imply good graphics. These days it tends to refer to that and the hand-craftedness of things. Like every moment being designed for some player impact. The new Tomb Raiders are the most emblematic of this imo, though not in a good way. AAA games tend not to feel like a set of standard mechanics and actors arranged in different levels. They have a lot more special circumstances. Worst case this is just cut scenes. Commonly it's special control schemes for specific situations that break the standard game design and may be cool or may suck. I haven't played any of these titles, including Metroid so I can't comment. But... idk Hollow Knight was an excellent 2d side scroller with beautiful art that was clearly not AAA to no detriment, imo. Nintendo does things their own way too so it's always funky. In my headcannon this transitioned most clearly with the cultural shift of Halo 3 being AAA to CoD4 being AAA.