For whatever reason, the Metroid series has been present on all the Nintendo home consoles except the N64. I always assumed this was because 2D gaming was no longer the "in thing" anymore and that 3D was too rudimentary for the vision that Nintendo wouldve had for a proper FPS Metroid game.

If Nintendo HAD went ahead and made a Metroid 64, do you think it would've looked something akin to Jet Force Gemini, maybe? That's the closest I can think of to what they likely would've done. I think 2D just wasnt in the cards for Nintendo at this point, circa 1997-1998 when the big push was for 3D gaming. Konami essentially wanted to filled the "Metroid gap" with the release of SotN and obviously that was a 2D game but Nintendo seemed to want to steer away from this style of game.

The only 3D model we have of Samus Aran for that generation is in Super Smash Bros. and it would be interesting to have seen maybe a 2.5D Metroid game that utilized full polygon Samus and full polygon environments but still side-scrolling gameplay.

My wish is for Nintendo to release an official Metroid 64 on an N64 cartridge with that 2.5D gameplay. Yeah yeah I know, snowball's chance in hell, but I can still dream right???