Topic: Metroid Other M

[Adrock]

Not to mention the fact that FPS games do not sell over in Japan at all, so if you have a game in 1st person then it is pretty much guaranteed to bomb over there. If Nintendo wants to boost the appeal of the Metroid franchise in Japan then having it in 3rd person is mandatory.

I thought giving the series to an American developer made up of former id Software guys and putting it in 1st person was Nintendo not giving a **** if the game was popular in Japan because the series was never popular in Japan. They focused on North America and Europe which was smart of them. Additionally, Other M is the best selling Metroid title in Japan.... by being the least Metroid game in the entire series and that's including Metroid Prime Pinball. Unless Nintendo makes Metroid not-Metroid, the series is never going to catch on in Japan.

Since Sakamoto is Japanese, he probably would refuse to ever make the game in 1st person anyway...

Wait, "since he's Japanese?" Putting Metroid Prime in 1st person was Shigeru Miyamoto's idea and he's very Japanese.

But I don't see why it can't just be like in the original Metroids except in 3D. Samus can move with one analog stick and independently aim her arm cannon with the other analog stick, and one button can fire an energy beam and another can fire a missile. What would be wrong with that approach?

Kind of like Gunvalkyrie? That game was balls hard. I kind of feel like that complicates the gameplay. Other M pretty much nailed Metroid gameplay in 3rd person though I would have liked the gameplay more if missiles were mapped to a button, there were health orbs, and the enemies were so pattern-y. Controlling the camera would have been nice too. I thought the auto-aim was pretty close to how the 2D games worked. You didn't aim at enemies so much as you dodged their simple attacks while they walked right into Samus' beams/missiles. I guess that's why I didn't mind locking-on in Metroid Prime. Same basic concept there.

[TrueNerd]

So I've had Metroid Other M for five months now and it's been a struggle getting through it. I mean, it's not terrible, but with every other Metroid game (Hunters excluded) I have been completely unable to put them down. The "Metroid Formula" is, for me, the most compelling formula in gaming and Metroid Other M does everything it can to undermine that formula. I mean I'm not opposed to change in Metroid, but the changes here are baffling. Like, why bother removing health pick ups? What is the point? The regeneration system is stupid. Why have some commanding officer authorize Samus' abilities? That feels lazy. Instead of having Samus solve a puzzle or find a hidden area or defeat a boss aka all things that are fun, they just give abilities to you when you walk into a room. And the story blows, but everyone knows that. But still, there's still some interesting puzzle solving and hidden stuff to uncover. I just wish they weren't trying so hard to keep the good stuff down. I'm not saying anything new here.

Let's all just pretend that Shadow Complex is actually the latest Metroid game published by Nintendo and we'll all be a lot happier.

[gbuell]

For the record, I am totally not against the idea of (another) 3rd person 3D Metroid game, and I think what you guys are describing sounds fun. I just think the 1st person ones were great. I also enjoyed Other M, and any problems I had with it weren't with the controls or auto-aiming, they were with the game structure and story.

[Jonnyboy117]

I agree with every single word of Grant's post.

[Plugabugz]

So i'm the only one who played Other M and saw one game that was made unplayable with three control schemes that pauses any momentum?

The perspective didn't bother me, and i would enjoy another third person Metroid, but how non-existently (is that even a word?) you control Samus through each perspective in this game is a far bigger problem. All of my problems could have been solved if sense move was available during recharging and first person (although the latter would be dizzying).

[Enner]

You can sense move in first person. You're supposed to retract the cursor just before an attack. I don't remember ever getting it to work. Maybe I did it once?

I never felt that the controls were unplayable or too clunky, but I can see how one could.

[broodwars]

You can sense move in first person. You're supposed to retract the cursor just before an attack. I don't remember ever getting it to work. Maybe I did it once?

I never felt that the controls were unplayable or too clunky, but I can see how one could.

My problem with the controls is that they might have worked if the Wii Remote wasn't so tiny, especially its D-pad.  For me, 1-2 hours of playing that game just crippled my thumb for the rest of the day.  That game really needed to support the Nunchuk instead of the D-pad, and it would have worked fine.

[Chozo Ghost]

A lot of the issues were indeed due to the requirement that the game be played NES controller style with the wiimote on its side. Now it makes perfect sense why you have to enter first person to use missles; there's simply no other way it could have been done without an analog stick. I didn't really think much about it before, but now I understand why it was done like that. So if the game had made use of the analog stick that could have resolved all or most of the control issues.

But controls weren't the only problem with the game, and even having nailed that problem down there still would have been about 100 other things that needed to be dealt with.

[Ian Sane]

So i'm the only one who played Other M and saw one game that was made unplayable with three control schemes that pauses any momentum?

Switching to first person mode, where you are a total sitting duck, was pretty much broken controls to me.  I think if it wasn't Metroid and some company like Sega made a game with that control scheme it would have been ripped apart.
 
I didn't have a problem with having to hold still to recharge.  I think the recharge is kind of a cool idea for a last ditch effort.  The problem is that that was the ONLY way to recharge health.  The lack of health powerups was such a horrible idea that it could honestly have played exactly like a Metroid game should and that health BS alone would have ruined it for me.  And then you combine that with a broken first person control scheme where the enemies constantly kick your ass?  I gave up on the game because I got tired of entering areas with multiple enemies where I would have to switch to first person and one unseen enemy would get cheap shots on me while I tried to aim at the other one thus leaving me with not nearly enough health to get to the next save point.  The whole time I felt like I was playing one of those Zelda runs where you refuse to get extra hearts.

[Mop it up]

Both the Prime Series and Fusion/Other M seem like logical predecessors to Super Metroid, each with a different take. I think the Prime series is more faithful, keeping the sense of isolation and the story telling style the same. But Fusion Other/M adds a lot of story and makes the game more linear.

That was kind of my point. The Metroid Prime games simply used Super Metroid as a template and followed it, whereas Fusion and Other M continued with the evolutionary process that the first three Metroid games were headed in.

[NWR_insanolord]

There needs to be a happy medium between sticking completely to the formula like Prime and going completely off the rails like Other M. (Full disclosure: I haven't played Other M, and don't really plan to. I haven't finished all the Prime games yet, and in the event that I do, I'd probably go back and play Super again, or maybe track down a copy of Zero Mission.)

[Ian Sane]

I think it is pretty silly to say that Metroid Prime is formulaic.  The switch to 3D and first person changes the gameplay so significantly that I don't think anyone playing the first MP was thinking "boy is this the same old bullshit".  Plus the scans are certainly nothing the original Metroid games were doing.
 

There needs to be a happy medium between sticking completely to the formula like Prime and going completely off the rails like Other M.

Is that not the ultimate goal of a sequel?  The trick is to make a game that feels similar enough to the rest of the series to maintain the same appeal while at the same time changing it up enough to make the experience fresh and unique.  I personally feel that Metroid Fusion did that pretty well.

[Chozo Ghost]

off the rails like Other M.

Other M might as well have been made as an on-rails shooter. If you're going to take away the freedom to explore and can only do what Adam authorizes you to do then you might as well take it the next logical step and make it on rails too.

(I know that has nothing whatsoever to do with your message, but I just wanted to put that out there.)

[NWR_insanolord]

I think it is pretty silly to say that Metroid Prime is formulaic.  The switch to 3D and first person changes the gameplay so significantly that I don't think anyone playing the first MP was thinking "boy is this the same old bullshit".  Plus the scans are certainly nothing the original Metroid games were doing.

The first Prime is like Ocarina of Time, in that at its core it's very similar to previous games, but the switch to 3D and other smaller changes make it feel really fresh. But now that we've seen three Prime games, we're getting to the Twilight Princess point, where, though it's still really good, we really need to see something mix it up a bit. Other M took it way too far.

[Stogi]

So what your really saying is 'Skyward Sword' is going to be a total flop.

Got it.

[NWR_insanolord]

We know essentially nothing about the structure of Skyward Sword. All we know is how it controls and what it looks like, so it's far too early to be judging it.

In addition to the unveiling of Cafe and all the major 3DS titles, E3 also promises a lot of new info on Zelda. Nintendo's poised to win E3 for the second year in a row.

[Halbred]

My hope is that Nintendo announces a 3DS Metroid game at E3, that Sakamoto is not involved.

[Chozo Ghost]

My hope is that Nintendo announces a 3DS Metroid game at E3, that Sakamoto is not involved.

Or if he is involved he at least takes all the criticism from Other M to heart and produces a much better game as a result. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Even Miyamoto who usually seems infallible made some blunders in Wii Music. But either way, I'll be taking a more wait and see approach the next time around.

[gbuell]

Hope they do a 2D or 2.5D Metroid on 3DS. It's been too long.

[Chozo Ghost]

Hope they do a 2D or 2.5D Metroid on 3DS. It's been too long.

August 2010 was too long ago?

But yeah, it has been too long since we've had a GOOD 2D Metroid.

[Ian Sane]

I worry Nintendo will pull a Twilight Princess and react to criticism by being very conservative.  So we'll either get Metroid Prime 4 or something very similar to Super Metroid.  And then we'll complain about THAT and Nintendo will thow their hands up in the air and claim we're impossible to please.

Something very conventional and conservative would still be enjoyable but I want something that has some creative spark to it.  A common mistake companies make when dealing with backlash of changes is mistaking it for backlash against the concept of change.  I was critical of Wind Waker (though unlike Other M, WW is a still legitimately good game) but I was never against the concept of change or else I would not have liked Majora's Mask.  No, it was the specifics of the change that I did not care for.

With Other M it is the same thing.  I'm not mad that they tried some new stuff, I just don't like any of the specific changes they made.  Being able to recognize the difference between criticism of specific changes vs. change in general is crucial.  It's the difference between a series that stagnates with conservative cookie-cutter sequels and a series that bounces back from the occasional mistep.

A good example would be the Final Fantasy series, though it is an example that does not relate to Western gamers all that well.  Final Fantasy II is not held in high regard by fans of the series, and I mean the original Japanese FF2 for the Famicom.  It had some new ideas that were not popular.  But Square didn't overreact and just made cookie cutter sequels in the same mold of the first game.  The series became known for changing mechanics in each sequel.  They obviously recognized that FF2's problems were in the specifics of the game design and that its failure was not justification on its own to reject change.

[Ayer99]

I thought this game was awesome. Even the story alone makes this a masterpiece.

[gbuell]

Hope they do a 2D or 2.5D Metroid on 3DS. It's been too long.

August 2010 was too long ago?

But yeah, it has been too long since we've had a GOOD 2D Metroid.

Huh?

[Chozo Ghost]

or something very similar to Super Metroid.

I wouldn't complain about that, and anyone who would isn't a true Metroid fan (as far as I'm concerned).

[broodwars]

I wouldn't mind a new Metroid similar to Metroid Prime provided that the developers (presumably Retro Studios) were actually allowed to do their own thing and play with the concept a bit.  Supposedly, when making Prime 3 Corruption, Retro was actually going to play into the whole idea of Samus being a "Bounty Hunter" by having the player actually obtain bounties, explore the galaxy, and hunt marks for part of the game.  Maybe it would have worked, maybe not but we'll never know because Sakamoto rejected the idea saying it didn't play into his concept of Samus.  Given what we saw of his vision of Samus in Other M, I get the feeling I would have been more fine with Retro's Bounty Hunting idea.

Like I have said, I actually mostly enjoyed my time with Other M, but it was an experience marred by bad ideas and mind-numbingly stupid execution.  I would like to see more experimentation in this universe, just more ideas that are actually well-designed and fit with the concept of the Samus character beyond what exists in Sakamoto's warped brain.