Metroid: Other M

[Ragnell]

Who's played Metroid Other M, and what are your opinions on it? The game's been out for a while, but I haven't seen anyone really discuss it here. From what I've seen, most people either love it or absolutely hate it, so I'd like to see what people here think.

I personally love the game, though I would never compare it to Metroid greats like Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. It definitely has its own feeling, and yet it also still feels quite a bit like Metroid IMO. And I think the dodges and finishing moves are really good additions to the series, though I think the finishing moves shouldn't be quite as good against bosses.

Edited October 26, 2010 by Ragnell

[Rhythm]

Well, I haven't finished it yet;

Malkovich just died

but I'm loving it. I'll admit, I've never clocked a Metroid game in my life, so I think Other M will be first. This game has got me motivated to finish Zero Mission and Prime when I've got more time.

I love the gameplay and the way it builds on Samus' character, and the swap from third to first person is seamless. ^^ I haven't been this excited about a game in forever.

Iced, you don't even own the game.

[Florete]

I enjoyed it, but I don't disagree with the hate; it had some major shortcomings. Super linear when compared to past Metroids, bland story and acting, some sketchy controls (recharging often gets you into Morph Ball first, only able to shoot missiles while in 1st person?), and retarded Hard mode. Still, I liked the idea of the control scheme combining the 2D and 3D styles (except the previously mentioned missile controls) and thought the actual game play worked really well. I also liked being able to actually use the Screw Attack for a good portion of the game (I love ya, Metroid Fusion, but...).

tl;dr, I chose Amusing.

[Ike-Mike]

Change the last option to

Samus needs to shoot Sakamoto in the face

Yes, I fully believe that Other M is a complete disgrace to the series, even a disgrace to Nintendo's entire game library to the point that nowadays when there are less and less good games coming out I can't even depend on Nintendo anymore that they'll steadily bring out quality games.

I'd carefully explain why I hate this game if it hasn't already

elsewhere (spoilers abound). Edited October 10, 2010 by Ike-Mike

[Iced]

I love the gameplay and the way it builds on Samus' character, and the swap from third to first person is seamless. ^^ I haven't been this excited about a game in forever.

Iced, you don't even own the game.

But the character building is the worst bit, they've completely screwed her up.

thank you Ike-Mike, my point exactly.

[Mikethfc]

Got to Zone and not feeling all too into it if I'm honest its crap compared to the metroid prime games but hopefully it will get better.

[Kintenbo]

I liked it very much, for the most part. Naturally, the forced 1st person "search the item" stuff was annoying, but not enough to kill it. Really, that was the only part of the game I didn't really like. It was a challenging game, and it felt nice to beat it. Well, I beat the main part, haven't exactly gotten the helmet yet. I personally thought the story was pretty interesting. The aspect of the deleter was pretty interesting

I especially like how subtlely they revealed his identity as James Pierce.

and I liked how they executed the "don't tamper with nature" message. All this is very subjective, I know there are those who disagree with me.

Some people seem to think the game is "sexist". The reasons they give are pure shenanigans in my opinion, but whatever. I personally think Samus was portrayed pretty realistically. People seem to complain about how she was portrayed, but hey, I personally wasn't expecting character who was a woman in physicality alone.

People also complain about the Ridley scene. It actually makes sense to me, since she was convinced that Ridley was gone for good, if you pay attention to the beginning. All those other times, Ridley actually had a body for the Space Pirates to patch up. Do you really think she'd react like "oh, my mortal enemy has apparently survived an exploding planet, whoo."? (keep in mind she wouldn't have known about the cloning at that point)

I understand that this game is very much a love it or hate it, but some of the reasons for the hate baffles me. The aspect of having weapons needing to be authorized to be used, I can understand why people don't like that. Once again, those parts where you must find the thing to scan, I can understand that. The long cutscenes, especially if the story doesn't appeal to you, I can see that. But the perceived sexism? Really, that comes off as looking for reasons to not like this game, in my opinion. By the way, when I'm talking about the apparent talk of sexism, I'm talking about that X-Play review for the game.

[H3X/AntiStyle]

Hrm. It was a good game, just not a good Metroid game.

That, and a lot of it seemed like they were trying to take all of Samus's development that she skipped in the first so many games and stick it in here. What I mean is that her freezing up at Ridley would've made more sense in ZM, shock at the Metroid experiments in Fusion, shit like this. Flashbacks, yo.

Gameplay was good, just not Metroid.

[Ike-Mike]

Oh hey, all the complaints?

The real reason why people are complaining is actually far worse!

[Kintenbo]

Oh hey, all the complaints?

The real reason why people are complaining is actually far worse!

Basically, it's up to interpretation, yes? None of those complaints seemed to reflect the actual game in itself. Yeah, the authorization stuff was sort of dumb, but it didn't ruin the game for me. I guess its all a matter of how one likes the portrayal of Samus and Adam, I suppose. I personally had no objections (no pun intended) with them. I can see where some of you might not like it, so that's ok. Just be careful not to join the ranks of those who think those who like the game are half-witted, in denial fanboys.

[Ragnell]

First off, this whole post contains spoilers, but I like italics, so I'm not putting it in a spoiler box.

I'd like to emphasize that odds are, pretty much all of those moral atrocities that Ike-Mike's article talked about are probably just instances of stupidity by the developers. They've said that they wanted to find a new way to explain Samus' loss of equipment (y'know, other than the technical malfunctions that have happened over and over and over again), so someone decided that maybe she just isn't choosing to use her items. From there, someone decided that maybe Adam isn't letting Samus use them for safety reasons. My guess is this is where conversation ended. Maybe not, maybe they discussed the moral implications, but I don't know. From there, they likely decided that they would use power-up activation to justify putting crazy action sequences in the game, and to build tension (remember, this is Team Ninja). For instance, the meeting where they came up with the "hell-run" probably went like this:

Developer 1: All right, so we've got this lava area...

Developer 2: I know, let's have the player run through the area without the varia suit to protect them from the heat, so the players have to hurry. I know some other Metroid's have cool sequences like that.

Developer 3: Yeah, and then she can fight the boss, and she'll active her varia suit at the last second to build tension

Developer 1: Awesome, let's do it.

Nowhere in that conversation is there any hint of rampant sexism or praise of violent relationships. It's a cool gameplay idea and was supposed to be a tense scene where Samus saved herself at the last second. I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be Adam beating up on Samus. And even if they did think about the story a little bit more, there is always the possibility that Adam was doing something other than watching Samus in his little command booth. You know, something like analyzing ship floor plans, communicating with the other soldiers, etc. He does always seem to have new information for Samus (like suddenly knowing where the survivors are likely to be); he has to get that info from somewhere. He probably had better things to do than analyze Samus' movements every second of every minute of every hour. He glances at her screen, sees lava everywhere and decides that Samus should use her varia suit.

Granted, not allowing the varia suit in the first place was just a power-show, but that's forgivable in my eyes. He was reminding Samus that she was working for him again, and couldn't just do as she pleased. He's a good leader, and good leader needs to let people know who is in command once and a while. It doesn't mean he had to be quite that big of a jerk, but he's not terrible, IMHO. They never said that Adam was the perfect man. He actually has some fairly prominent flaws, unlike 99% of video game characters, which is definitely not a bad thing. I thought the first scene with Adam made it pretty clear that he's not a little angel. Samus even specifically comments how Adam chose his words to hurt her. He was pissed at Samus, and to me rightfully so. Adam obviously liked having Samus as a subordinate back in the GF army, and then Samus went and ditched him - possibly forever - just because she disagreed with one of his (good) decisions. How would you like it if your favorite pupil, who was a dear friend and almost like a child to you, ran away because they don't like you. She was acting like a whiny teenager who can't make tough decisions and hates their parents, who can, because they're "mean". Adam was rightfully pissed that she left. It's getting on my nerves that everyone always assumes that Samus' leaving was a good thing. She herself talks about how naive she was back then.

But I would argue that she's still pretty naive. It's been obvious, since the very first Metroid, that Samus is a loner. She never needs any help, and never leaves anyone alive. As we learned in Other M, it's always been that way. But Adam was the one person Samus connected with, and she connected very closely with him. Then she randomly decided that she couldn't stand him making decisions for her, so she left. No wonder when Adam sees her again he doesn't trust her. One minute she adored him like a father, and the next she couldn't stand him so much that she left the entire GF to get away. Her independence may be her most defining heroic attribute, but it's about time she gets some of the negatives of independence too. She doesn't trust anyone, so why should they trust her? Friends are supposed to forgive other friends' mistakes (ignoring that fact that Adam didn't even make a mistake). She betrayed Adam, and he's venting some of his anger towards her while also trying to (like a good leader) reestablish that she needs to follow his orders. That's my super-deep though-out out take on the "hell-run" and some of the other power-ups, anyway. But I still don't think the developers put that much thought into it.

The Ridley fight, I can't explain. It just seems stupid to me. I don't think Adam had anything to do with it, it was probably just plain old, straight-up stupidity. Like, they put the scene in the game thinking "Cool, this is really emotional and thrilling," and only afterward realized, "wait, she already met Ridley like five times before and never did anything like this, oops."

[Ike-Mike]

Basically, it's up to interpretation, yes?

It isn't anymore when in a medium that is far more open to interpretation than other forms of entertainment there is suddenly a game that is supposed to have the very definite characterization of Samus Aran!

... and said characterization is the complete opposite than what basically everyone has been interpreting so far.

Just be careful not to join the ranks of those who think those who like the game are half-witted, in denial fanboys.

If not that then they're people who forgot that for entertainment it takes both the author and the audience and not just the author so they need to constantly rely on Word of God instead of coming to their own conclusions.

remember, this is Team Ninja

I swear if I got a dime for people blaming Team Ninja instead of the real culprit I'd be rich by now!

Now why isn't the last option in the poll still changed?

Edited October 25, 2010 by Ike-Mike

[Ragnell]

It isn't anymore when in a medium that is far more open to interpretation than other forms of entertainment there is suddenly a game that is supposed to have the very definite characterization of Samus Aran!

... and said characterization is the complete opposite than what basically everyone has been interpreting so far.

It really isn't. Other M proves that Samus has always been a loner, to the point that she abandoned her only real friend just for freedom and independence. Samus has obviously realized that she was wrong to leave, and that her leaving was hurtful to Adam, so she's trying to make it up to him. She does like him as a person, she just can't stand to be ordered around, the exact same Samus we've been seeing since the first Metroid.

Granted, the whole baby thing is pushing the feminine side of her a little far, but it is understandable to an extent, since I'm pretty sure I (a guy) would be a bit sad if a creature that followed me like a parent and saved me from death was blown to bits. And the whole "mother" side of her has been around since Metroid II where she spared the baby first.

If not that then they're people who forgot that for entertainment it takes both the author and the audience and not just the author so they need to constantly rely on Word of God instead of coming to their own conclusions.

Huh? I don't... what does God have to do with anything? I don't get what you're saying here.

I swear if I got a dime for people blaming Team Ninja instead of the real culprit I'd be rich by now!

Now why isn't the last option in the poll still changed?

Did you read the rest of my post? Or the rest of that sentence for that matter? I said "...they likely decided that they would use power-up activation to justify putting crazy action sequences in the game, and to build tension (remember, this is Team Ninja)." The part you quoted was the least important part of the sentence. I'm not blaming Team Ninja, since as I explained in the second, third, and fourth to last paragraphs there isn't really that big of a problem, I'm saying that because this is a Team Ninja game, it is very likely that many design decisions were made for no reason other than to look cool. And the fact that Nintendo is desperately trying to pull back "hardcore" gamers doesn't help things. That's just one piece of evidence, not a finger point.

I would say blaming one person for an entire series' problems is ridiculous. And I've yet to hear a single person blame Team Ninja. Don't try to tell me that no one else is blaming Sakamoto for everything, since I would say there's a larger anti-Sakamoto movement than there is an anti-Team Ninja movement (every single article you've posted spends most of its time saying "grr, Sakamoto's terrible, ah, it's all Sakamoto's fault, darn, why is Sakamoto running things). Which is stupid, because blaming Sakamoto is like blaming the president/prime minister for every problem in a country. Sure, they might have helped the problem, but blaming everything on one person is just ignorant. Sakamoto's vision of a feminine Samus is a tad too wimpy for my taste, but I don't think he's doing a terrible job by any means. This game is not as bad as people think, and it definitely won't kill the series.

[Ike-Mike]

Which is stupid, because blaming Sakamoto is like blaming the president/prime minister for every problem in a country.

It's rather the equivalent of people complaining that the secretary of the president/prime minister has taken over his spot after he died prematurely.

Also there would be no anti-Sakamoto movement if people weren't all like "it's okay that we're getting another Metroid despite seven games within this decade being more than enough to cover any demand for this series because the original director is at the helm".

[Ragnell]

It's rather the equivalent of people complaining that the secretary of the president/prime minister has taken over his spot after he died prematurely.

Also there would be no anti-Sakamoto movement if people weren't all like "it's okay that we're getting another Metroid despite seven games within this decade being more than enough to cover any demand for this series because the original director is at the helm".

It is no fault of Sakamoto that his predecessor died. And seeing as Sakamoto has been involved in the making of several good Metroid games, I don't think there's really any reason to blame Sakamoto for every perceived problem with the series.

And you still failed to locate the most important part of my post. The key statement was not my example of the president, it occurred one sentence later. "...blaming everything on one person is just ignorant." One person cannot ruin a game. One person cannot make every story, design, gameplay, and control decision that needs to be made in a modern video game. We are living in an age where game-making is a large team process, and blaming everything on only one member of the team, no matter how 'high-up' they are, makes no sense. Yes, Sakamoto likely had to okay the game to be released in the state it is in, but he in turn likely had pressures from other groups, like marketing, or the people at Nintendo who are desperately trying to drag players back to Nintendo systems. As much as Sakamoto-haters like to think it, Sakamoto is not the only person at fault for the "problems" in Other M.

But I've yet to see someone respond to the part of my post where I explained why the problems are not problems, so currently no one is responsible for anything bad. Except the very brief nonsense in the Ridley scene.

EDIT: and I've changed the poll option to a neutral wording

Edited October 27, 2010 by Ragnell

[mr_e_s]

Cool Ragnell, you're hypothetical 4 sentences prove there's no character issues with the Hell Run. After all, if it was just poor storytelling for the sake of a same-y health drain march, it's completely forgivable, right?

I also enjoyed the parts where you said Samus is the same old bounty hunter we know and love from other games. Man, I remember that time she spent half an hour crying about Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime, that was a real tear-jerker. I also liked the motherhood issues preset while she was fighting off the Ing. Remember that part in Super Metroid where she sat down with Crocomire and talked about her severe Daddy issues?

Good old Samus. She's been a strong icon of submissive women since the 80s, apparently.

[Ragnell]

I'm not saying the Hell-Run is exactly forgivable, since I think the whole authorization mechanic is pretty stupid, but it's no reason to claim that Samus is some beaten housewife and that Other M is going to destroy the Metroid series forever like many people are shouting. And if you'll read the next paragraph after my little script, I offer a realistic explanation for the scene if we assume that it wasn't poor storytelling and it was intentional.

I also enjoyed the parts where you said Samus is the same old bounty hunter we know and love from other games. Man, I remember that time she spent half an hour crying about Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime, that was a real tear-jerker.

The Ridley fight, I can't explain. It just seems stupid to me. I don't think Adam had anything to do with it, it was probably just plain old, straight-up stupidity. Like, they put the scene in the game thinking "Cool, this is really emotional and thrilling," and only afterward realized, "wait, she already met Ridley like five times before and never did anything like this, oops."

Plus, it was not exactly "crying" as the deer-in-headlights effect with some childhood trauma thrown in for good measure. Still, this is not exactly forgivable, and it is quite stupid, but it's no reason to condemn a game as terrible. All games have nonsensical elements to make them more interesting. At least they've finally included some of Samus' past with Ridley in the games. They've made practically no mention to it up until now. And if everything that goes against a character's personality is horrendous, I've yet to see them explain why Samus is shown running around towns in skimpy outfits in Zero Mission, when she is supposed to be the "tough" women who isn't just a sex object (haha, bikini Samus says hi). I'm actually glad that Nintendo and Team Ninja are trying to make the story more involved now. Of course they are going to fail occasionally.

As for motherhood issues, she saved the Baby in Metroid II if you'll recall. Her order was to exterminate all metroids. So keeping the Baby alive was not only dangerous, but against all her orders. If that's not illogical motherhood problems, I'm not sure what is. And I think it's ridiculous to view her original rescue and pursuit of the Baby (MII and SM) as totally logic-based. She liked the baby, so I don't understand why it's so ridiculous that she feels sad when it gets blown to bits after saving her life. I'd pretty sad if anything that saved my life got blasted into a million pieces. That's not motherhood problems, that's human problems.

I know everyone knows Samus should be an emotionless statue of pure-badassery, but I for one am not put off by a little *gasp* character development and *gasp again* personality. This is exactly what happens when you give a mute character a voice. The Samus everyone is comparing Other M's Samus to is more an idea than a person. She -- in the older games -- was the ultimate tough woman, who every player could project all of their ideas of perfection and awesomeness onto. It just turns out that mostly-undefined, one dimensional characters are actually really hard to portray with voices, and they're kind of a little bit... boring.

And if following orders and needing help from other people a handful of times in your life makes you submissive, then I would say about... 100% of women in the world are weak and submissive.