Metroid: Other M

[LostOverThere]

^ This pretty much sums up my views on the situation.

 

The huge thing that was missing for me was the sense of isolation. Having your buddies dancing around with you all the time and the fact you're just exploring a ship really didn't help the cause. That's really what the Prime series nailed the best.

 

But man. The most disappointing aspect was how close this game gets to greatness. It nearly gets there so many times, only to have a "What could have caused a guy to look like this" segment where you have to look around. Pacing ruined.

 

It won't be long before Link speaks. Sadly.

Actually, I think if anything's crushed the chances of Link speaking, this has been it.

Edited September 19, 2010 by LostOverThere

[EEVILMURRAY]

-Speed Booster was excellent in 3D, as was shinespark. Space Jump/Screw attack were better than in the Prime games.

Although I agree with the latters, the speed boost annoyed me slightly. In some environments the blur became too much and I couldn't see where I was meant to stop and jump.

-Ridley's corpse coming from here instead of the fucking atoms of Planet Zebes makes far more sense.

Wasn't it cloned from the atoms from Planet Zebes that were on Samus' suit? Or was that just the Metroids?

 

Actually, I think if anything's crushed the chances of Link speaking, this has been it.

I wish I could agree, honestly. But there's still a feeling it's going to happen.

[LostOverThere]

I wish I could agree, honestly. But there's still a feeling it's going to happen.

Well, if he does, I hope Nintendo do the poler opposite of Samus and give him a really deep manly voice. The kind of "I wipe my ass with sandpaper" types of voices.

 

Why the fuck does Kenji Yamamoto have to be involved in Donkey Kong Country returns?

Does he just hang with Retro Studios nowadays? I didn't mind the atmospheric stuff in Other M, but as some have mentioned, it lacked any sort of melody or thematic motifs.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Well, if he does, I hope Nintendo do the poler opposite of Samus and give him a really deep manly voice. The kind of "I wipe my ass with sandpaper" types of voices.

If only... I've been playing Darksiders quite a bit recently. If only it was something like this:

Skip to 0.35.

 

But he's always just a boy. So we'll get some broad doing the voice. Because young male voice actors don't sound like young males.

[Mike]

 

But man. The most disappointing aspect was how close this game gets to greatness. It nearly gets there so many times, only to have a "What could have caused a guy to look like this" segment where you have to look around. Pacing ruined.

 

I think that sums up my views on the game, too. I enjoyed it, certainly, but there were just too many bizarre design choices that stopped it from being a classic Metroid title.

 

Anyway, I got 100% of the items today, with 14 hours on the clock. Had to laugh at the 'reward' for getting 100% - a perfect example of one of the game's many moments.

[Zechs Merquise]

I think that sums up my views on the game, too. I enjoyed it, certainly, but there were just too many bizarre design choices that stopped it from being a classic Metroid title.

 

Anyway, I got 100% of the items today, with 14 hours on the clock. Had to laugh at the 'reward' for getting 100% - a perfect example of one of the game's many moments.

 

I found the game did sooo many things right, but for each one there was a moment of frustration or button mashing nonsense. I remember when I was 'authorised' to use a power up, I had literally seconds to work out what to do with it, failure meant instant death - GREAT. I used to love the old Metroid way, defeat the boss, gain the power up, use the power up in a gentle way to get out of the arena you fought the boss in. Use the power up in more taxing ways later on when you've mastered it.

[Kav]

I found the game did sooo many things right, but for each one there was a moment of frustration or button mashing nonsense. I remember when I was 'authorised' to use a power up, I had literally seconds to work out what to do with it, failure meant instant death - GREAT. I used to love the old Metroid way, defeat the boss, gain the power up, use the power up in a gentle way to get out of the arena you fought the boss in. Use the power up in more taxing ways later on when you've mastered it.

 

I'd argue against that though, I loved the extra challenge. Hard Mode is easily the best way to play this game!

[or else you will DIE]

If Samus had LOST all of her abilities at the start of the game, people would bitch about that too. "Oh, AGAIN? FFS blah blah blah..". It's as stale as having to find three pendants / emeralds / light spirits /whatever at the start of the Zelda games.

 

Having all of her abilities from the start and having them authorised throughout is a great way of keeping it fresh rather than doing that same old shit over again. Sure, it's kinda silly having the Varia Suit authorised AFTER having to go through the heat, but it's no more silly than the GF not giving you all of your power ups from the get go in Fusion (especially after they discover the SA-X).

Edited September 19, 2010 by or else you will DIE

[EEVILMURRAY]

If Samus had LOST all of her abilities at the start of the game, people would bitch about that too. "Oh, AGAIN? FFS blah blah blah..".

I agree and disagree at the same time. While we're on the subject, there was a "sketch" animation around the time of a past E3 I think which parodied many game shizzle being presented and they had a short segment where Samus tripped on a rock and lost all her powers. Anyone remember/got a link?

 

The thing is. Having Samus "lose" her abilities is like starting a new Zelda. Link doesn't have all his gear. Timeline excluding, half of the fun is regaining your abilities/items etc. Knowing full well you could break the game in two from the beginning is much more different and frustrating than Adam giving you permission.

 

It's being born knowing full well how to walk, but your parents keep holding you down for the next couple of years before deciding you can have the privilege to do so.

[Zechs Merquise]

I agree and disagree at the same time. While we're on the subject, there was a "sketch" animation around the time of a past E3 I think which parodied many game shizzle being presented and they had a short segment where Samus tripped on a rock and lost all her powers. Anyone remember/got a link?

 

The thing is. Having Samus "lose" her abilities is like starting a new Zelda. Link doesn't have all his gear. Timeline excluding, half of the fun is regaining your abilities/items etc. Knowing full well you could break the game in two from the beginning is much more different and frustrating than Adam giving you permission.

 

It's being born knowing full well how to walk, but your parents keep holding you down for the next couple of years before deciding you can have the privilege to do so.

 

I remember that cartoon, I think I saw it on funnyjunk.com however they seem to have removed their search function, so I can't find it! It was good though.

 

I never had a problem with Samus losing her powers as it's clearly a gameplay mechanic. However it did seem silly in Other M that you'd see a grapple hook and not be able to use it because Adam hadn't authorised it. I can understand certain bits, like he has to authorise destructive weapons that can harm his team - like the power bomb. But having him authorise different armour or grapple beams which he really doesn't need to is silly.

[James McGeachie]

They really should've came up with a story like Adam was deliberately limiting Samus' progress until he'd analysed the environments and planned ahead to make sure things were "safe" due to some Fatherly instinct to protect her. Like, they could've said that's why even exploration items were limited.

 

I know that's virtually equally retarded but it would've came them a fitting cop out for why she wasn't authorised to use stuff like the space jump, speed booster, grapple, etc.

 

Of course nothing really can explain waiting to authorise the varia suit until after she'd sustained heavy heat damage.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I can understand certain bits, like he has to authorise destructive weapons that can harm his team - like the power bomb.

You never actually get authorised when you have to use it the first time. Fucking stupid.

 

Of course nothing really can explain waiting to authorise the varia suit until after she'd sustained heavy heat damage.

Preach it brother. They could've at least explained it somehow:

"Hey Samus, I see you've been in the Pyrosphere for awhile and sustained heavy damage. I was going to authorise your Varia suit but I thought you'd assume that since you don't have it you'd go somewhere else to find it. Now you've discovered you have to go through without any protection... I was going to authorise it then, but I was busy on YouPorn. You're about to go against a boss, so fuck it. Varia it away.

 

Any objections lady? You're welcome."

 

Flawless scriptwriting.

[LostOverThere]

IGN just wrote up a horrible article titled "Killing Samus", about how Other M completely "destroyed" her character.

 

Yep. More classy journalism.

 

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/112/1122068p1.html

 

Mega Edit: In contrast, I highly recommend everyone check out the Game Overthinker video about Other M.

 

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html

Edited September 21, 2010 by LostOverThere

[Zechs Merquise]

IGN just wrote up a horrible article titled "Killing Samus", about how Other M completely "destroyed" her character.

 

Yep. More classy journalism.

 

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/112/1122068p1.html

 

Mega Edit: In contrast, I highly recommend everyone check out the Game Overthinker video about Other M.

 

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html

 

Very good post on gameoverthinker. I think they summed it up perfectly. Really, if Nintendo had just kept her as a cold emotionless killing machine it wouldn't have made for a good character. Real people have feelings, emtions, feel sadness, pain, loss and have hang ups. People wanted Nintendo to flesh out their characters, well they did and now people are upset.

 

If by fleshed out character people actually meant a cold emotionless space marine that grunted the odd phrase, well that ain't really character development on any deep or meaningful level.

 

Oh and from a personal point of view, people keep yabbering on about her being scared of fighting Ridley in Other M. The common thread being that she shouldn't have given a f*ck as she'd dealt with him on numerous occassions before hand.

 

Well, I ask you this - if you had repeatedly KILLED or thought you'd killed a creature like Ridley, yet he simply kept coming back to life, like some recurring nightmare - but a real and tangible nightmare that was actually trying to kill you - wouldn't that slightly unnerve and possibly scare you?

[killer kirby]

I don't get it? Nintendo finally take a stab in the dark by making one of their franchises more story driven and making the main character feel more...real, and instantly nerds are all 'OH WHAT THE FUCK!!! IT'S ALL OVER SAMUS IS DEAD METROID WILL NEVER COME BACK!!!' people need to chill out and just have a good time playing something different from Nintendo

 

Those are my 2 cents.

 

Oh and I might get into the game tonight, not sure yet.

[LostOverThere]

Re: Ridley.

 

HE KILLED HER PARENTS. Breaking down a bit because you're confronting someone like that is not a sign of being a "weak woman" - it's a sign of being human.

[EEVILMURRAY]

IGN just wrote up a horrible article titled "Killing Samus", about how Other M completely "destroyed" her character.

 

Yep. More classy journalism.

 

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/112/1122068p1.html

Good article for IGN.

Re: Ridley.

 

HE KILLED HER PARENTS. Breaking down a bit because you're confronting someone like that is not a sign of being a "weak woman" - it's a sign of being human.

She's not entirely human is she? I thought she got half Chozo shizzle in her body? Either way you would've thought she would've gotten used to it by now. She didn't seem to flinch when Ridley appeared again with her "baby" in Super Metroid.

Well, I ask you this - if you had repeatedly KILLED or thought you'd killed a creature like Ridley, yet he simply kept coming back to life, like some recurring nightmare - but a real and tangible nightmare that was actually trying to kill you - wouldn't that slightly unnerve and possibly scare you?

Mario seems to have gotten used to Bowser and the Koopa family also. Should he shit himself in fear?

 

The thing Gameoverthinker didn't mention was the Bounty Hunter fact. I didn't think she was "stoic" because she didn't have her tits out, but because she's a solitary bounter hunter. She hunts/kills people. For money. I know it may be a misconception, but intergalactic bounty hunters aren't known for their friendly personality. I wasn't aware Jango/Boba Fett threw house parties occasionally for his wealth of friends.

Edited September 21, 2010 by EEVILMURRAY

[Burny]

The thing Gameoverthinker didn't mention was the Bounty Hunter fact. I didn't think she was "stoic" because she didn't have her tits out, but because she's a solitary bounter hunter. She hunts/kills people. For money. I know it may be a misconception, but intergalactic bounty hunters aren't known for their friendly personality. I wasn't aware Jango/Boba Fett threw house parties occasionally for his wealth of friends.

And I wasn't aware, that you and so many other whining fans invented the Metroid universe and therefore know - better than those wannabe Metroid creators at Nintendo - whats going on in that universe and Samus' head.

 

Also, I have yet to see Samus hunt/kill people. During the time I spend playing Metroids, she mostly seemed to kill monsters with precious few personality and to hunt items.

 

That's just one more of those little inconsistencies in the Metroid universe, that people whining about inconsistencies in Other M seem to have overlooked for more than a decade... Were they all too busy imagining how those few pixels of Samus on the (S)NES are a total badass Killer?

 

Funny though, from time to time you stumble upon one of those "Are video games art?" discussions. Every time such a discussion comes up, you'll find that blogs like IGN & co. write overblown articles about how video games are so art. On the other hand, once the people behind "Game with a lot of Fans 7" try something slightly different than in "Game with a lot of Fans 6", there are those, who would make you believe that two shades of color beyond gray and brown are already too much artistic freedom.

I wonder how large the intersection between those groups of people is?

Edited September 21, 2010 by Burny

[EEVILMURRAY]

And I wasn't aware, that you and so many other whining fans invented the Metroid universe and therefore know - better than those wannabe Metroid creators at Nintendo - whats going on in that universe and Samus' head.

Glad to see we're on the same page.

Aside from that, I have yet to see Samus hunt/kill people. During the time I spend playing Metroids, she mostly seemed to kill monsters with precious few personality and hunt items.

As you said you weren't aware, but since I created the universe I'm telling you she hunted and killed people.

 

The definition of a bounty hunter is "A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward (bounty)" from the Wiki. Dictionary.com gives it as:

"a person who hunts outlaws or wild animals for the bounty offered for capturing or killing them." Now even if you consider the word "people" to apply only to humans, the "monsters" you designate space pirates are a sentient race considering all they've built/accomplished etc. No matter their motives.

 

You think Samus has come to be known as "protector of the galaxy" from the Galactic Federation by killing little animals and finding missile expansions? Don't bullshit me.

 

In the Captain N comics in the 1990's she was depicted as Samus is depicted as "brash, money-hungry, and fiercely independent", so don't imply that this personality was invented by everyone in the past few months. Canon or not, Nintendo have done nothing since then (until now) to dispute it. So don't blame us if we've had this image in our heads for over a decade.

[Burny]

So don't blame us if we've had this image in our heads for over a decade.

I blame people for denying the inventors of a character to decide how that character develops.

 

You think Samus has come to be known as "protector of the galaxy" from the Galactic Federation by killing little animals and finding missile expansions? Don't bullshit me.

That's the point. Don't ask me, ask Sakamoto & co. If they say she has a darker side as a bounty hunter, she has. If they say she hasn't, then she hasn't. They haven't said it in the games and I'm not aware, that they have in the comics either. "Brash, money-hungry, and fiercely independent" doesn't mean cold blooded killer who hasn't had any human feelings at some point in her life.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Burny

[EEVILMURRAY]

If they say she has a darker side as a bounty hunter, she has. If they say she hasn't, then she hasn't. They haven't said it in the games and I'm not aware, that they have in the comics either. "Brash, money-hungry, and fiercely independent" doesn't mean cold blooded killer who hasn't had any human feelings at some point in her life.

True, but thrusting a sudden personality change in everyone's faces distances everyone from a character they once loved. If they gradually changed it throughout the series, perhaps we'd become more accustomed.

[Burny]

...but thrusting a sudden personality change in everyone's faces distances everyone from a character they once loved.

Only if "everyone" was naive enough to fill up the gaps left by the game's characterization with their own imagination and assume their image of Samus was the true image of her.

 

If they gradually changed it throughout the series, perhaps we'd become more accustomed.

They haven't and that's it. And I'm rather sure that spreading out Samus' characterization as a being with human feelings towards Adam over another decade of Metroid games wasn't an option, when they decided to start with it in Other M.

 

Personally, I found another way for getting "accustomed" to the games:

Loving the series less and enjoying the games more for what they are.

 

That way I can still gripe about the parts of the games I didn't like without having to overblow any criticism into "How Nintendo killed Metroid". Because that would a bit more than disrespectful towards a lot of talented people who spent the last 2+ years of their time creating an outstanding game and whose biggest crime was not to make it the way I would have done it.

 

And Other M is an outstanding game. It plays smooth as silk, it tells it's story expertly, the voice actors are great (if you've ever played a non-German game with German voice actors or watched an anime, you'll know what bad voice acting sounds like), the controls are great (I'm not even a good video gamer and could practically handle the controls in my sleep, what does that make all the whining "experts"?) and it does things very different from any other Wii game. Yet, the lowest scores it received would make me believe this game was an unplayable mess of bugs and sloppy game design, as that's what I expect from a 2/5. Although there is one grievous bug, what those people criticize at the core is: It's not like Metroid _____ and Samus is not the way they imagined her.

 

Big. Fucking. Deal. :P

 

If I wanted to play a game that's like Metroid ____, I would play exactly that. And neither them nor me had ever any business in determining what Samus' character is like.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Burny

[Cube]

Samus was always pretty much a cold-blooded killer. In the good 'ol days she would never have stopped her mission mere seconds from completing it just because she didn't have the heart to kill a newly-hatched infant. Even if she had just killed it's mummy and it was the most dangerous species in the galaxy.

 

Samus never, ever had a personality like that.

[Zechs Merquise]

This is when Samus really showed her true personality

 

 

Hell yeah, she went on a special mission with Pikachu!!!

[EEVILMURRAY]

And neither them nor me had ever any business in determining what Samus' character is like.

One good way of getting into a game/book/movie is understanding the character/s, and having it altered radically (or so it would seem) for seemingly no reason has tainted my experience of the game.

Personally, I found another way for getting "accustomed" to the games:

Loving the series less and enjoying the games more for what they are.

Like you I do try to separate portions from the whole (which is why I can appreciate movies based on games as the cinematic masterpieces they are), but with the Metroid series it's been more continuous than other series' I've played so I've built this character of Samus in my mind. Yes I made the foolish mistake of assuming she would be how I have imagined her in previous installments and I hate myself for it.

 

This is what scares me most about Link*. And what they're going to do to him.

 

 

 

*his next incarnation.

Samus was always pretty much a cold-blooded killer. In the good 'ol days she would never have stopped her mission mere seconds from completing it just because she didn't have the heart to kill a newly-hatched infant. Even if she had just killed it's mummy and it was the most dangerous species in the galaxy.

 

Samus never, ever had a personality like that.

Nah, she just sold it off. That's why her ship changed after Corruption.

Edited September 21, 2010 by EEVILMURRAY