Is this game as utterly horrendous as I've heard?
Metroid: Other M
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Not really. Calling it "horrendous" is overblowing the complaints.
Its a good Metriod game.
Just a lame Metriod movie.
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The game itself is good. Just ignore the poor plot and annoying side-chars. I'm wanting them to be offed ASAP.
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Is this game as utterly horrendous as I've heard?
It's Metroid Fusion 3D. Take that as you will.
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I think this one's a rental then.
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Spoony did a vlog review of Other M.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/09/05/pre-pax-ramblings/
For the most part I agree with him, but I don't think it's as bad as he says. However, I really do agree that the characterization of Samus was all wrong in this game.
Once I finish the game I'll post a review of my own.
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Then the biggest wtf. Samus says she left the Galactic Federation cus of some incident and is on her own now. 10 seconds later.
'Samus isn't gonna use her stuff until the guys she left tells her to.'
WTF!? WHY!?
Because if she's gonna work with these people, she has to follow their rules. Protocol, and so forth…
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So my other m jpn download finished.
Just like super metroid there is a language select that has English and Japanese for both voices and subtitles.
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Its a good Metriod game.
More like a game with okay or decent gameplay that forces you into the pain of disappointingly shameful melodrama in the form of cutscenes and flat dialogue which cannot be skipped until you've sat through every
single
one.
Is this game as utterly horrendous as I've heard?
H… hey Airflow. Airflow - do you know Ridley? Ridley, Ripley, Riddles? I know Ridley. I know him well.
!
! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABecause if she's gonna work with these people, she has to follow their rules. Protocol, and so forth…
Like the protocol required to wear the Varia suit? A suit that, for all intents and purposes, has no foreseeable shortcomings or drawbacks upon adornment, and only serves to benefit both the self and surrounding allies with boons not limited to: defense, mobility, and the enhancement of overall physical performance?
And way to kill what little character Adam Malkovich had, Team Stripper. I'll take the A.I., thanks.
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The Ridley reveal was actually my favorite shocking plot point. Everything about the story (and game) was awful though.
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@CCC:
The Ridley reveal was actually my favorite shocking plot point. Everything about the story (and game) was awful though.
! That scene was simultaneously great and awful. Awful because Samus became paralyzed with fear at the sight of him.
! Uh…what? So she's afraid because he's her greatest enemy and she thought he was dead? She's already fought and "killed" him at least four times already. Sge shouldn't be terrified of him, she should be like, "'Sup bitch. Back for more?"
Anyway, I beat the game last night and now I'm just doing the epilogue stuff, so I'll post my full review later today. -
Ah, not quite. I meant the reveal that
! Little Birdy is Ridley's larval form. I think they intended for you to realize that when the intermediate chicken form attacks you, but at first I thought that was something completely unrelated.
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More like a game with okay or decent gameplay that forces you into the pain of disappointingly shameful melodrama in the form of cutscenes and flat dialogue which cannot be skipped until you've sat through every
single
one.
Thats why I said it was a lame Metroid movie.
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Okay, here's my take on Other M:
I love Metroid. It's a very enjoyable and entertaining franchise that has brought me countless hours of fun for over a decade now. My favorite Metroid game, and I'm sure many will agree with my sentiments, is Super Metroid. Not only is it the best Metroid game I've ever played, but it was also the first Metroid game I ever played. I can't tell you how many times I've replayed the game and relived all the amazing iconic moments within. I consider the game to be a cultural milestone of video gaming. Other M, however, doesn't even come close to holding a candle to it.
Okay, fine, so not every Metroid game can be Super Metroid. Metroid Fusion, Metroid Zero Mission, and the Metroid Prime Trilogy (with the first being my second favorite), while not being as good as Super Metroid, are still very good games that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Regardless of their varying qualities, they all felt and played like real Metroid games. But I think that's the problem with Other M; for a good portion of the game, it doesn't feel like a true Metroid game. I hate to say it, but Other M is one of the worst Metroid games I've ever played.
That's not to say it's a bad game though. There are certainly much worse games out there than Other M and did get a lot enjoyment out of playing it. But there's a lot of things about the game that really dampered it and made it difficult to sit through at times. So let's take a look why don't we.
Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty good. It's got the typical map structure that has become a staple of the Metroid franchise and, quite frankly, would be foolish to change. Of course, before this game was released, the big attraction about it was that, after being stuck in 1st person view for three Metroid games, they were finally going to allow to play in 3rd person view (as well as first), and for the most part it works. When Samus is in 3rd person view she fires her gun which automatically aims at enemies and in 1st person mode she can fire missiles at the cost of not being able to move.
Now I'm not gonna gripe about how you can't use missiles in 3rd person view, because, frankly, you don't really need them in that mode. 95% of the enemies can be taken down with regular shots or charaged shots. I'm not going to gripe about how you can't move in 1st person mode either since, well, that's pretty the point of it. You have to clear out enemies in 3rd person before you take a shot at the boss or door or whatever in 1st person. And the other times you do have to go into 1st person it's clear most of the time anyway (though I will admit they could have tried to implement the nunchuck controller and make things a little easier to handle). However, I am going to gripe a little about the auto-aiming and the transitioning from 3rd to 1st person view.
Auto-aiming took me a little while to get used to and even at the very end of the game I wasn't sure if I had totally mastered it. The idea is that you have to be facing the general direction of the enemy to take aim at it. The thing is, at times, even though I was facing the enemy, the blast didn't always hit its mark. Of course, it may have been that I wasn't really facing the enemy at all, which, most likely, would be due to poor depth perception. The problem with 3D environments, especially in dark places as in Other M, depth perception can be a bit hard to determine. Sometimes you may think an enemy is a little bit in front of you, when really they're a little bit behind you. But still, it's just a minor complaint and it still worked for the most part.
As for transitioning, I also a bit of a problem with this from the start. It may be due to the positioning of my scanner bar, but sometimes, if I nudged the Wii remote ever so slightly, it would jar into 1st person view for a split second. Then there were times when I wanted to transition into first person, but it would be delayed for a second, most likely due to the position of the remote. Of course, this problem may just be Wii-remote-related in general, and it's still just a minor complaint.
Now, to shift gears a little bit, let's talk about the power-ups. Another staple of the Metroid series is that would navigate the world, unlock doors, solves puzzles and beat bosses and eventually you would be rewarded with a power up for your suit. Lord knows how those items got there in the first place, but it was still a lot of fun to beat Kraid or Ridley and get the Varia Suit, Grapple Beam, Screw Attack, what-have-you.
But here's the thing I don't get. In recent years, the game designers have started a trend where, at the start of every new Metroid game, they have to come up with some reason why Samus doesn't have all her power-ups from the previous game. Personally, I dont' see why there has to be an explanation. Just put her on some planet, weak as a kitten, and let her power up as she goes. I don't care.
Unfortunately, this new trend has met with disastrous results in Other M. I'm sure you all know or have heard by now that in this game Samus already has all her powers but she is restricted from using them until Adam says so and thus she "powers up." I'm not gonna play the gender card here and talk male dominance or whatever (I'll save that for the story section) but I will that everything else about this is stupid. Why in the hell can't Samus use her powers?! Okay, fine, so he explained that the Power Bombs can be lethal against humans. THEN JUST RESTRICT HER FROM USING THE POWER BOMBS!!! What possible harm could the Varia Suit do? Or the Grapple Beam? All it does is make her unnecessarily weak while she gets roasted alive in Sector 3! God, Adam is stupid!
Oh, but let's talk about how this affects the player. As I mentioned earlier, the thrill of achieving and obtaining new power-ups is a staple of the Metroid franchise, but in this game all that thrill is gone. There is no thrill in Adam FINALLY authorizing you to use the Ice Beam or the Morph Ball Bomb. I think it was around the time Adam authorized the Wave Beam that I truly realized how stupid this concept was (I regret I didn't realize it sooner). Gee! Thanks Adam! I've only been getting my ass beat by these Space Pirates for 30 seconds now!
All right, I've got one last thing to talk about in this department. The forced scanning sections. God, what a fucking headache. I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the developers' meeting room the day that was decided.
"Hey, I've got an idea! Let's put the player into about 6 or 7 forced scanning segments where they have to scan an arbitrary object without giving them any sort of clue or indication!"
Oh, and it can't just be in the general vicinity of the item. You have to have pixel perfect precision (say that five times fast). Not only are the objects not obvious, but sometimes they can be damn near impossible to see in the dark environments. You know Team Ninja, not all of us have bright high-def screens that allow us to see every nook and cranny! All I can say is thank god these segments constituted only about 5 minutes of actual gameplay.
Graphics
No complaints here. Other M has some of the best graphics the Wii has to offer. Graphics during the cutscenes and the actual gameplay are all done gorgeously. Not much else to say.
Design
Here's where the game starts to falter. Now, let me say first that there's nothing really wrong with the world design. You've got your typical jungle world, ice world and fire world and, while they're not as extravegant or detailed as the environments in previous Metroid games, they are appropriate and at times are pretty fun to look at at.
Samus herself is fine, though I am kinda disappointed that her suit never wen through any design or color changes. The Galactic Federation combat uniforms are fine, but as I side note I think Adam's formal white uniform with the goofy hat on top looks pretty fuckin' stupid. Couldn't they have given him a sleek Star Trek-ish uniform?
Where the game really starts to run into trouble though is the enemies. Yes, many of the classic enemies are there, such as the Zoomers, the Skrees and the Gliders, but the game also offers a lot of new enemies and boy can you tell they are new. The thing about Metroid enemies is that they're gritty; they have a certain edge to them. They are, in a word, "intimidating." These new enemies I wouldn't be surprised to find in a Kirby game.
To name a few, there's the hulking bipedal behemoth with moose antlers sticking out of its head. There's the feral snow wolf with giant icy tusk-like apendages sticking out of its shoulders. And then there's the big lava boss with a pig nose and long lanky arms. And, of course, my personal favorite, the lava men.
…Yes...the lava men.
Here's a tip for you Team Ninja: the only humanoid enemies that Samus should fight should be Space Pirates. Those lava men rising out of the molten lake with their big stretchy arms just looks stupid as hell.
But, to be fair, a decent amount of the new monsters are all right. I really liked the lava whale.
Story
It's at this point I have to wonder why I even have a section for this. This is, without a doubt, the worst aspect of Other M, bar none. It's also the aspect that was highly publicized before the release; that this new Metroid would have a compelling plot and Samus would get a deep emotional backstory. These statements are about as true as O.J.'s testimony. I really don't where to begin with this, so let's just do it from the…uh...beginning.
The first bit of story and narration we see is Samus on a medical table being woken by a quarantine officer. Her first words are...
"I awoke to the familiar voice of a quarantine officer."
......NO FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!
We just saw that Samus! We don't need you to tell us things that are mind-blowingly obvious! Why don't you give us some introspection. Why don't you tell us what you're feeling. Oh, but what am I saying? She is going to tell us all that. And tell us. And tell us. And tell us. AND TELL US.
So she continues talking about her past and her regrets over the baby Metroid all while her voice actress continues talking in that extremely dull monotone (not that it matters since the script itself is so lifeless that no voice acrtess could possibly save it). After some a brief tutorial, she goes back to her ship but then receives a distress call, called a "baby's cry" (yeah, these obnoxious mother metaphors run rampant throughout the whole game), from a ship called the "Bottle Ship" (let me guess, like a baby's bottle?). Shortly after docking and exploring the ship she comes across her former commanding officer Adam Malkovich and his crew.
And thus begins one of the most convoluted, nonsensical and irritating relationships I have seen in any sort of media. For half the game all Samus ever talks about is Adam this and Adam that and how she has to do whatever she can to please him. This is TERRIBLE characterization for Samus. I guess what they were going for is that deep inside, behind all the lasers and high-tech armor, Samus is really just a delicate flower. NO! SHE'S NOT!! She's a fearless bounty hunter with a cold and stoic attitude towards her enemies!
Now, okay, we did explore the Adam character a bit (and were introduced to him) in Metroid Fusion. I'll admit it's been a while since I played the game, but I really don't remember having this needy dependent attachment towards him. It was more a relationship of mutual professional respect. And that's fine! Samus may be cold and calculating, but she's still a good person. They didn't need to turn her into this whiny second-guessing prissy little queen to show she has a human side!
This emphasis on plot and backstory does absolutely nothing for Samus' character. Actually, it harms her character. I've never had such little respect for Samus than I did in this game. I, and so many others, would've been better off with her cold silence and letting our imaginations fill in the blanks.
So, Team Ninja, and anyone else out there who attempts to write a story for Metroid, here's a few tips:
-Show, don't tell. And don't have the characters restate what we already know.
-Make sure you have an understanding of the character. Don't turn her into this emotional drama queen just because you want to invoke pathos.
-Work on character relationships. Come up with something better than he was her commanding officer and she developed an attachment to him for some arbitrary reason.
-Get better voice actorsConclusion
As I said, Other M is not a bad game, but it's not a great game either. Is it the worst Metroid game I've ever played? I'm not sure. Metroid II is still up there, but I may have to replay it some time. Also, I know most people have said that Metroid Prime Hunters is the worst Metroid game (until now) but I have yet to play it.
A lot of people have said that, due to brevity and low quality of this game, you should rent it rather than buy it. My stance? Well, it's hard for me to say. I bought it the day it was released. Do I regret it? Eh, not really, but mostly it's out of general principle. I'm a diehard Nintendo fan and I adore most of their titles, so I make a habit of purchasing all their new games to support the company. But if you're not as enthusiastic or anal as me, then yeah, you should probably just rent it. I don't have as much free time as some people, but I was able to complete this game with a 100% total in exactly one week over a span of 12 hours. I don't see myself replaying it any time in the near future.
So what's the final verdict? Well, I know I've been harsh on this game, but I'll be damned if I didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of this game, despite any character-ruining cutscenes and questionable gameplay and game design. So I'll give this game a solid 8 blown up Metroids out of 10.
8/10
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Nice review! 8/10 seems high given the points that you make though.
Get rid of the curses and I'm sure gamefaqs would accept it (if you want your writing to reach a wider audience than the people in this thread) :D
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@CCC:
Nice review! 8/10 seems high given the points that you make though.
Well, you know what they say, negative criticism is much more fun to read than positive. But in all honesty I did enjoy the game for the most part.
Get rid of the curses and I'm sure gamefaqs would accept it (if you want your writing to reach a wider audience than the people in this thread) :D
…...Oh, you're serious? Well, maybe. If I did, I guess I'd have to revise it like you said. But thank you for your input
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The way I see it, we can be a part of solution or… not a part of the solution? XD
Gamefaqs might have a shitty community, but a lot of people do go there to read reviews... -
best review yet.
edit: you know I was thinking, this was made in japan was it not? did they decide to make samus in the image of a meek japanese woman? sounds kinda odd since they're able to rid themselves of this stereotype with other female characters.
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So, i am now at sector 3 (and got my first game over as soon as I entered the sector by that lava dragon eating me out of the tube….no warning at all).
I only have 2 real complaints so far:
1: Forced scan scenes (why can't you walk around?)
2: Samus walking slow when not in action (God is it slow)I love love LOVE Ai Kobayashi! She's so good! Her VA is phenominal. The other people are ok, I guess.
Immediately, when I heard Samus talk, I thought of a better version of Lightning (sounds similar to Sakamoto's Lightning voice...but better). I guess Samus and Lightning are pretty similar, huh?
I'm finding, so far, absolutely nothing wrong with the story. I don't know if it's the English VAs or not but I would never make the same complaints people are making about her playing the English game than with the Japanese one.