Metroid: Other M

[EEVILMURRAY]

No items whatsoever? bloody hell. Glad I'm not that bothered about it :p

 

But that's 100% on normal done. I admit to cheating on a few but I'm not sorry.

[LostOverThere]

Seeing I haven't got the game yet, can you play "hard mode" from the start? If so, would you guys recommend doing so?

[FalcoLombardi]

From what I have read, to unlock Hard Mode you must get 100% on Normal first.

[Tellyn]

Can't wait to get up to SPOILER and see how I can fair.

 

What happened to the spoiler tags?!

 

Right I'm enjoying it so far but basically it feels like what Sonic Advance is compared to the older sonic games. I'm basically just pushing forward and occasionally shooting. Also where is the music?! Nothing so far even gets me remotely engrossed in the game compared to something like this:

 

 

That said the music that plays as you continue a file and a brief synopsis of what you've done pops up is fantastic! Anyways, just got the shinespark, how far through am I?

 

I quite like the music, it's unobtrusive and there's a few epic cues where a creepy little burst of soundtrack plays.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Mokong
Automerged Doublepost

[Mokong]

What happened to the spoiler tags?!

 

 

 

And shit, sorry mate, was late last night, wasn't thinkin...edited my post and your quote

[starscream316]

I have to say that I an loving this game!! I keep getting a strong James Cameron vibe whilst playing...and not just from Aliens, some of the music is kind of Terminator like..

[Zechs Merquise]

My copy finally arrived from Play.com, nice one Play.com, won't be preordering from them again. After a couple of hours with the game, really mixed feelings.

 

The graphics are really nice and they clearly poured a lot into the production values. When moving around in wide open areas and generally navigating around the bottle ship it all feels great, they did a wonderful job of making such a simple control system work. The whole movement in first person also works very well, it just feels natural and is silky smooth.

 

It's the little things that seem to let it down. Whereas the controls feel great when running around, when you want to position yourself over a specific object they feel fiddly and you really notice the lack of analogue precision. Everything is also from a fixed camera in 3rd person, which is fne when it's in the right position, but when you're running into the screen blasting away at enemies you can't see, it feels a little odd.

 

What's more, after playing and loving the Prime games, I really feel as if the bottleship isn't really alive. I keep looking around and everything looks nice, but I miss the scanning and all the attention to detail that Retro Studios added.

 

Insted of that detail there is the story, which I really so far have no complaints with. The delivery is fine and seems almost like a woman reading a diary, which fits the mood. The cutscenes and cinematics are jaw dropping and clearly an awful lot went into them.

 

I've only palyed for a few hours, so am not quite sure how I'll feel after a few more. But at the moment, it seems like a solid game, but I can't help but feel the developers harmed it by opting for such a simple control scheme. I can only imagine that with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck and a simple button press to go into first person it would have felt just that much more intuitive and complete.

 

The controls seem to make running down a corridor picking off enemies feel a little like the game is playing itself as the generous autoaim does the work, but when a bigger enemy comes along it all feels like you have too much to do with a limited input. So on one hand it all feels too effortless but on the other hand some sections feel like you are having to do too much with a system that isn't suited to that level of combat.

Edited September 8, 2010 by Zechs Merquise

[RedShell]

I finished this a couple of days ago, my time was much quicker that I was expecting though, 8:05! But I've still got a lot of items to find before reaching 100%, which is what I'm currently trying to do.

 

Overall I enjoyed the game, it has definitely got some weird gameplay quirks here and there, but it's still quality stuff.

[Mokong]

Seeing I haven't got the game yet, can you play "hard mode" from the start? If so, would you guys recommend doing so?

 

As Falco said, you need to get 100% on normal first to unlock hard mode.

 

Main difference between the two is there are no item pickups (energy/missile tanks)... I think enimies might do a little bit more damage and there are a few extra in some places I think.

 

If you really wanted the challenge from the start just play without collecting any items. Boss battles will certainly be tough as you you really need to be good with dodges as a few hits can kill you easy.

[Dante]

Japan Sales - August 30 -September 5

01. / 01. [PSP] Monster Hunter Diary: Pokapoka Ailu Village (Capcom) - 88.405 / 344.480 (-65%)

02. / 03. [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo) - 55.837 / 915.570 (+2%)

03. / 00. [WII] Metroid: Other M (Nintendo) - 45.398 / NEW

04. / 02. [PSP] Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault (Bandai Namco) - 27.560 / 85.345 (-52%)

05. / 00. [PSP] Bleach: Heat the Soul 7 (SCE) - 25.374 / NEW

06. / 07. [WII] Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo) - 11.933 / 807.536 (+0%)

07. / 08. [NDS] Art Academy (Nintendo) - 10.248 / 159.007 (-1%)

08. / 06. [NDS] Inazuma Eleven 3: World Challenge!! Spark / Bomber (Level 5) - 10.022 / 820.739 (-22%)

09. / 00. [PS3] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [Reprint] (Square Enix) - 9.162 / NEW

10. / 04. [PS3] Another Century's Episode R (Bandai Namco) - 8.880 / 257.083 (-69%)

11. / 12. [NDS] Friend Collection (Nintendo) - 8.052 / 3.405.925 (-1%)

12. / 16. [WII] Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) - 7.902 / 2.053.170 (+9%)

13. / 17. [PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom Unite [PSP the Best Reprint] (Capcom) - 7.783 / 408.303 (+11%)

14. / 43. [WII] Sengoku Basara 3 (Capcom) - 7.342 / 92.126

15. / 15. [WII] Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road Victory (Square Enix) - 6.468 / 243.989 (-13%)

16. / 14. [NDS] Taiko Drum Master DS: Dororon! Battle With the Ghouls!! (Bandai Namco) - 6.359 / 199.914 (-15%)

17. / 10. [PS3] Sengoku Basara 3 (Capcom) - 6.010 / 367.463 (-32%)

18. / 20. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 5.858 / 2.920.669 (-5%)

19. / 13. [PSP] Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2 (Sega) - 5.676 / 327.931 (-28%)

20. / 05. [PSP] Hakuouki: Zuisouroku Portable (Idea Factory) - 5.518 / 29.986 (-77%)

 

Metroid Series Japan Sales

06/08/86 [NFC] Metroid (Famicom Disc System) (Nintendo) - / 1.040.000

14/02/03 [GBA] Metroid Fusion (Nintendo) - 49.680 / 155.528

28/02/03 [GCN] Metroid Prime (Nintendo) - 39.829 / 78.384

27/05/04 [GBA] Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo) - 39.112 / 85.045

10/08/04 [GBA] Famicom Mini: Metroid (Nintendo) - 14.900 / 50.353

26/05/05 [GCN] Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Nintendo) - 17.680 / 40.355

19/01/06 [NDS] Metroid Prime: Pinball (Nintendo) - / 15.541

01/06/06 [NDS] Metroid Prime: Hunters (Nintendo) - 32.613 / 90.028

06/03/08 [WII] Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Nintendo) - 34.151 / 74.647

19/02/09 [WII] New Play Control! Metroid Prime (Nintendo) - 5.200 / 20.607

11/06/09 [WII] New Play Control! Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Nintendo) - 1.700 / 12.427

 

Dolphin HD Engine - Screencaps

 

 

 

Dolphin HD Engine - Art Gallery

 

 

Source

Edited September 8, 2010 by Dante
Automerged Doublepost

[Zechs Merquise]

Played a fw hours more and I'm starting to enjoy it more. There are bits where the pace slows and you look over your shoulder, as in RE4, some people complained about these but I think they fit the game well and add a little tension at times.

 

I'm now more used to the controls and when things work you'll find yourself dodging attacks and returning fire before literally shoving your arm down a monster's throat to give it a devasting final blow. But I still find at times things stop working, not as often but occassionally.

 

I've discovered some new powers and backtracked to collect items from previous areas - very Metroid and very satisfying. However, when going through certain areas you can just run through them, this feels odd for a Metroid game. In the Prime games you would scour every nook and cranny and scan everything and in th NES and SNES games you would bomb the walls and check everything out - that is defenitely missing to a larger degree in Other M.

 

Overall, I'm liking things but just as I really get into a section and start to find my feet something will crop up that is frustrating and just stops the game from reaching the heights it could have if the control system had ulilised the nunchuck.

[Goron_3]

Right completed this yesterday with a time just shy of 8 hours, here are my thoughts.

 

The game is a total mixed bag. It's been developed since what, 2006? There clearly seems to be some design choices than Sakamoto wanted that team Ninja weren't comfortable with. A lot of the game is just holding forward and shooting, and the whole concentration thing is a bit :/ I mean, it toally takes away the reward of tracking down missile upgrades because you effectively have unlimited missiles. The game is also much too short and far too easy because of this, it's easily the easiest metroid game i've played.

 

Graphically the game is a complete mixed bag. Some of the boss battles (especially the last 2) look spectacular and the effects look amazing, but god some of the corridors and areas (the first open 'jungle' area and the 'fire' area) look AWFUL. Dear god, I've seen GC games that look better than this game half the time. Thankfully the animation is slick and the presentation (including the cutscenes) are actually good. Samus gets much less annoying as the game goes on and it works well.

 

Overall. I dunno. I might play through it again one day but once I've completed the post-game it's going to be traded in straight away.

[S.C.G]

Completed the game in between 10 and 11 hours... for me there was a point about 4-5 hours in where I thought to myself 'Ok now this actually feels like a Metroid game!' and I really got into, not that there hasn't been a day thats passed in which I haven't played it but within the last 24 hours I was hooked on it.

 

The focus game mechanic still seems broken to me... yes you can find time to recover health in a boss battle... if you find the 'broken' part of the area you're fighting in which allows you to effectively 'hide' and take no damage but as for out in the open? your chances of fully charging are slim at best and that's why it feels a bit pointless, I;d rather collect health... replenishing missiles is fine though as that just negates the need for having seperate missile station rooms but... I still prefered having those in Prime particularly because it felt more challenging having a limited amount of them.

 

Fighting enemies is an entirely new experience though and for that Team Ninja should be applauded because the system works well once you get to grips with it and allows for some particularly fancy footwrok on Samus' part.

 

Cutscenes are nothing short of spectacular, clearly this is where most of the budget went because as mentioned before some of the other in-game fire effects etc are somewhat lacking but I deal with that due to the environments themselves aren't essentially 'real' as they are contained within the bottle ship, whereas in say Prime you were actually visiting a new planet and so everything looked and felt more authentic but that was also down to Retro Studios putting a lot of effort into stuff like that so this still doesn't excuse the fact that Team Ninja have been a tad lazy in some areas when you compare with other Metroid games.

 

Overall it's still a very good game but it's not without its moments of frustration, but it has served its purpose in moving the series forward in some respects which I think we should all be pleased about to a certain degree, not that there was anything wrong with the Metroid formula but some of the better ideas in Other M will surely go on to be subtly included in future iterations of the series, whereas recharging health will hopefully be nothing but a faded memory.

[Burny]

...that so this still doesn't excuse the fact that Team Ninja have been a tad lazy in some areas when you compare with other Metroid games.

Metroid Prime games. Environments in 2D Metroids are hardly comparable. I agree that the outdoor area's design could use a bit more attention to detail, but we shouldn't forget, that most areas in Other M are far larger than anything in the Prime games and there are mostly no loading times between rooms.

[S.C.G]

Metroid Prime games. Environments in 2D Metroids are hardly comparable. I agree that the outdoor area's design could use a bit more attention to detail, but we shouldn't forget, that most areas in Other M are far larger than anything in the Prime games and there are mostly no loading times between rooms.

 

I meant in terms of effort that had been put in, so in that sense it is comparable, ok so fair enough they had two perspectives to work with maybe the workload increased in that area and meant that they had to skimp on the graphics/audio but still it would have been nice to see a little more detail.

 

Size of rooms? I can remember plenty of huge areas in Prime that looked a lot nicer and as for the loading, fair enough but I'd rather wait a second or two for a door to open in a long corridor than for the game to stop for 3 seconds and tell me that it's loading.

 

I'm not saying that Metroid Other M is bad, because it's clearly a good game, I just can't help but notice the areas in where it's lacking is all.

[Ganepark32]

Size of rooms? I can remember plenty of huge areas in Prime that looked a lot nicer and as for the loading, fair enough but I'd rather wait a second or two for a door to open in a long corridor than for the game to stop for 3 seconds and tell me that it's loading.

 

This did grate with me a little. I don't need to be told the game is loading. I can see that it's doing it. I can also hear the disc drive working away trying to prepare the next area.

 

But I'm at the point now where I finished the game on Monday completely and I'm now starting to actually look back on it in perhaps a more forgiving light than I did and feel as though I enjoyed it more than my demeanour let on while playing it.

[Burny]

I'm not saying that Metroid Other M is bad, because it's clearly a good game, I just can't help but notice the areas in where it's lacking is all.

I'm noticing the same areas. Well, mostly the visuals of the outdoor areas, in terms of playability I think they're fine. Just what you call "effort" and "detail" in the levels, I call level design. As areas in Other M are far larger than those in Prime, I doubt the same level of detail in terms of texture resolution and geometry was even possible.

 

Most areas in Prime are fairly small, even the large ones. In Prime, the character moves very slowly, you see the levels from a 1st person view so everything appears rather large, the textures have a fairly high resolution and the level geometry is quite complex so you rarely move in a straight line for long. Combine that and the levels appear much larger than they are. This is really a testament to the quality of the level and game design.

Compare that to Other M, where Samus regular speed has more in common with flying than running, the levels are fairly straight and you mostly see her from a distant 3rd person view where everything appears smaller and you'll notice that Other M's rooms are rather huge. Just think about many details in Prime's levels, that you wouldn't even be able to recognize in Other M's standard perspective.

 

But there are developers who work with low polygon count and relatively low texture resolution and still achieve great looking results (mostly Blizzard), so there is where I see the lack in effort and maybe even ability from Team Ninja.

 

Also, I highly doubt the partly lacking design can be attributed to working with two perspectives, because implementing the control system shouldn't take that much time and it was done early in the development, as some levels were already playable in 2009. Being able to look at the levels from a 1st person perspective just doesn't make textures, that aren't very beautiful when viewed from a distant 3rd person perspective, look better. :P

 

Overall I'm enjoying Other M greatly, despite a couple of quirks. I don't think the "outdoor" levels are a feast for the eyes while the industrial space station levels look a lot cooler. Camera work is superb though and movement + combat is absolutely smooth. Overall the controls re-imagine the classic sidescrolling games very faithfully. Aside from Samus' (over the top) melodramatic moments at the beginning, ingame and CGI cut-scenes really give the game's story some meat. I'd definitely like to see more of those from Nintendo, when the time for the next Metroid and maybe even Zelda comes.

[LostOverThere]

Just started playing. I thought the lack of music would add to the atmosphere (the feeling of isolation) but all it makes me do is wish there was music playing.

 

I like the creepy, haunted Metroid music.

[S.C.G]

But there are developers who work with low polygon count and relatively low texture resolution and still achieve great looking results (mostly Blizzard), so there is where I see the lack in effort and maybe even ability from Team Ninja.

 

This... is basically what I was trying to say, but failed somehow, they could have made some of the textures look a lot nicer, I'm sure Team Ninja have the ability to do this but just didn't quite put in enough effort, as for the rest of the game though it is well designed indeed but yes... the actual space-station areas look better than the faux outdoor areas.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

I've just gone back to the game after completion and all I have to say is...

 

OMFG! they brought back Phantoon! in 3D! that was actually amazing and gave the game an extra 'final' boss which it so sorely needed... and then the scene... and then the escape sequence it was just sublime.

 

This basically improved the game experience tenfold for me, so much fanservice in such a short space of time.

 

 

This game has certainly gone up in my estimations a lot.

[EEVILMURRAY]

As areas in Other M are far larger than those in Prime, I doubt the same level of detail in terms of texture resolution and geometry was even possible.

Doesn't mean that there's more to do. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even without the random scanning. Prime would still last longer, and still be better, maybe. But this would be an amazing clash of the technical genres which would blow the universe apart.

Overall. I dunno. I might play through it again one day but once I've completed the post-game it's going to be traded in straight away.

I'm half tempted to contact Amazon and ask for a refund for some random reason.

Edited September 10, 2010 by EEVILMURRAY

[Cube]

Doesn't mean that there's more to do. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even without the random scanning. Prime would still last longer, may even be better.

 

It's really hard to compare. Some of the larger rooms on Other M would take absolutely ages to get through in Prime, due to the walking/running speed.

[EEVILMURRAY]

It's really hard to compare. Some of the larger rooms on Other M would take absolutely ages to get through in Prime, due to the walking/running speed.

Thus the implosion would begin. Would be interesting to see them both reversed though.

 

 

Retro. Team Ninja. Make it so.

[Burny]

I like the creepy, haunted Metroid music.

There is lots of creepy music/sound/whatever. But it lacks the melody and isn't really pronounced. Plus, the game's sound is very quiet. To hear it distinctly, I have to crank up the volume of the monitor to a level, that wouldn't be bearable in other games. When the Wii's disk drive makes more noise than the game, there is something wrong. There is lots of dramatic music during the fights, too.

 

I'll have to correct myself on one point:

ingame and CGI cut-scenes really give the game's story some meat. I'd definitely like to see more of those from Nintendo, when the time for the next Metroid and maybe even Zelda comes.

If Nintendo put more effort into fleshing out stories of these future games, I could do very well without CGI cut-scenes. Somehow I just like in-engine cut-scenes better.

[The Peeps]

I was enjoying this game until the ending. Now I just feel cheated really. That was hardly a boss fight. There is no challenge to this game and while it's still fun, it's nothing in comparison to the prime series. I suppose I prefer a bit more exploration and freedom. The game is too linear and that gives it a really short lifespan. The cinematic scenes looked very nice though.

 

The game is just patronising in my opinion. We are forced to scan things rather than just be naturally inquisitive, we are forced to save at some points before we are allowed to continue. The aiming is done for us. We are told where to go, what weapons we may use and shown where all the 'upgrades' are.

 

Overall it's a good game but not one I'd play more than once I think. Definite trade-in while it's still priced high.

[S.C.G]

I was enjoying this game until the ending. Now I just feel cheated really. That was hardly a boss fight.

 

If you were left wanting more then you should go back to your file because trust me, theres stuff that happens post-game that more than makes up for the slightly 'lacking' ending and really finishes it off properly, so I would advise going back to it to at least get the proper ending before you trade it in.