I edited my earlier post for clarity. *deep breath* Let's do this.
Metroid: Other M is still decent, but it's worse than it was nine years ago. The game hasn't aged gracefully. Its faults are even more pronounced now. Many Nintendo games are timeless; Other M isn't one of them. I used to defend Other M by saying it's a decent game but bad for a Metroid game. That hasn't changed. Some things in the game are bad because they're bad. Other things are bad because the game is tied to an established IP and leans way too hard into it without understanding why they worked before yet don’t work here. Remove the ties to the Metroid IP and the developers would have to put something else there instead.
For example, the grapple beam is mostly useless. One boss fight uses it fairly well. Otherwise, it's unintuitive in 3D. You have to stop, go into Search View mode, aim, and lock on to the grapple point, and if there are multiple grapple points, Samus will grapple automatically with the push of a button. That requires zero skill, and the grapple beam feels as if it's there because Metroid. The grapple beam worked in 2D because it was instantaneous. It felt natural because the game gave you more control and the perspective lent itself to the kind of item it was. In Super Metroid, you can even kill weaker enemies if you're just putzing around with it. You can also cheese a whole boss with the grapple beam, and the game never tells you it can do that. It was mostly used for gating areas you weren't supposed to access yet. Once you get Space Jump, you don't even have to use the grapple beam again. Other M similarly uses it to gate certain areas except you still have to use it when revisiting those areas because a ledge is too high and Space Jump doesn't grant height anymore. Using the grapple beam always feels like an inconvenience in Other M. You have to stop progressing just to use it, and it was a chore every time.
The transition when using the grapple beam is smoother in the Prime games. Additionally, in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Samus could grapple and shoot at the same time. Still not that fun, but I appreciate the effort in trying something new with the item. In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, she could use the grapple beam to rip shields off enemies. Retro Studios attempted to adapt with the change in dimensions. Team Ninja didn't.
Other M introduced a completely new game mechanic at the very end of the epilogue just so Zero Suit Samus could be playable for less than five minutes. First, y'all didn’t need to put that in the game. Second, it didn’t even make sense. Is there any reason Samus couldn’t escape the Bottle Ship holding Adam's helmet while wearing the Gravity Suit? Also, shenanigans on the Gravity Suit not being purple in Other M. Sakamoto was so attached with tossing in Metroid things, but the one time it actually makes sense, he was like, "Nah..."
I'm not here to argue with ejamer on the controls. If you liked it, you liked it. I'm glad you liked it, and it isn't my desire or intention to try to change anyone's mind. That said, I flat-out did not like the controls. It felt almost hostile toward the player for Sakamoto to be so adamant about the controls. I wonder if we would have gotten sideways Wii Remote controls if Other M wasn't a Metroid game. Sakamoto called the control scheme "Famicon Control Plus". It's meant to harken back to the NES/Famicom days and thus the original Metroid. None of it really worked for me. I just dealt with it. Samus was a sitting duck whenever you wanted to shoot missiles which became even more problematic when you had to charge to shoot Super Missiles. Waggling to SenseMove while in Search View didn't always work making Search View feel even more inhibited. In larger areas, due to the D-pad, it was hard to get Samus to run in the direction I wanted her to thus requiring stopping altogether and repositioning Samus. Additionally, Samus would adjust while running sometimes. Other times, she wouldn’t and just ran into a wall. The auto-aiming worked except when it didn't. Sometimes I'd face an enemy's direction and Samus would completely miss. If only there was a lock-on button except there weren't enough buttons on the Wii Remote to do this.
The story and its presentation are objectively bad. Sakamoto flat-out ignored basic tenets of storytelling. Show, don't tell is Writing 101. Video games are an interactive audio-visual medium. Other M has fully voiced cutscenes, and apparently, Sakamoto's best move was to just have Samus tell us what she was thinking which is both frustrating and exhausting. Samus' monologues in Metroid Fusion worked because they were brief and uncommon, and there was very little voice acting in the game. Relying on narration in Other M for so much of its storytelling is bad writing. Samus was also intentionally written to be mostly emotionless. If you write and direct correctly, dialog, tone, body language, and sub-text communicate emotions to the viewer.
Also, since this always comes up, the PTSD scene with Ridley was bad, is still bad, and will always be bad. I have a lot of experience with PTSD. I promise the way PTSD is portrayed in Other M isn't how it works. Based on the quick flash to child Samus, she may have dissociated, but even that wasn't handled well. A lot of movies, books, games etc. get PTSD wrong. Manchester by the Sea is one of the more recent movies I've seen that fairly accurately portrays how debilitating PTSD can be. If you're curious, check a look.
(Ridley looks stupid in Other M.)
Anyway, being a Metroid game, particularly a canon Metroid game, hurt the narrative especially when it didn’t move the story forward. If you insist on introducing interquels, don't **** with the continuity. As it stands, one (or both) of Other M and Metroid Fusion is really stupid. For example, viewing Other M as one part of a larger series narrative, I'm curious why the Galactic Federation would have the consciousness of a man who conspired against them to destroy Sector 0 of the Bottle Ship and all their fancy biologically engineered Metroids accompany Samus onto the Biologic Space Laboratories research station (which eventually leads to Samus and robot-Adam doing the exact same thing there too). It was as if the Galactic Federation was somehow convinced Samus and Adam wouldn’t destroy a bunch of Metroids so they paired them up again.
There were times when Samus sure did sound like an idiot. Not a great look for the series lead. There was a scene toward the end of Other M in which Samus said, "Wait? Metroid eggs? It can't be!" First, you already saw a Metroid earlier and like, right outside of Sector 0 which housed a bunch of other Metroids, you stupid asshole. Why are you suddenly surprised to see Metroid eggs? If one got out before Adam destroyed Sector 0*, chances are more got out or there are others elsewhere. Second, you also knew the Galactic Federation had been hella cloning everything. That reaction doesn’t even make any sense. One or two of these instances can be overlooked. However, Other M is full of **** like that.
(*Also, Adam shooting Samus from behind first then the Metroid served no purpose. Why did this stupid idiot shoot Samus at all? He endangered her for no reason... goddammit, that made me so angry.)
Other M often felt as if Sakamoto had a checklist of things that need to be in there because this is a Metroid game. And really, it didn't. There's a lot of space to explore in this universe that has nothing to do with Metroids, Space Pirates, Mother Brain etc. As previously stated, the relationship between Samus and Adam could and should have been the core of what Other M's narrative was about. The game touched on it, but what is there wasn’t good. Instead, we got this nonsense about how the governing body in this galaxy decided to clone its sworn enemies in order to create an army of bio-weapons. Why would the Galactic Federation even do that? The Space Pirates are either defeated or largely scattered and non-threatening due to Samus single-handedly hella kicking their asses and the Galactic Federation's big plan was: "Bring 'em back! What could go wrong?" Are you fucking kidding me? What is gained by this plan? It's like Sakamoto couldn’t decide if the Galactic Federation should be stupid, corrupt, stupid and corrupt, or a combination of some are stupid, some are corrupt while others are okay, I guess.
Metroid, Metroid II: The Return of Samus, and Super Metroid work really well as a collective narrative without being narrative-heavy. Even Metroid Fusion works as an epilogue in a "What are the consequences to eradicating an entire species from a planet?" kind of way. That's it. Close the book. That doesn't mean the IP has to die. It just means Sakamoto told the story to its appropriate conclusion which is fine, perfectly acceptable. If he wants to tell more stories within that universe, do something else.
Other M could have been a canon gaiden series. It would have given the developers more room to work with in almost every aspect. Make it a narrative-driven action game without being hampered by what one person thinks should be in a Metroid game. Let the Metroid games be what they are: Exploration-focused, one woman vs. the world adventure games.
Nintendo won't do this, but Other M should be excised from canon. However, the game isn't collectively all bad. I just focused on the bad parts because they stick out more and there are a lot of them. There are things that can be salvaged from the game. I'd welcome revisiting parts of Other M in a game that leans into what the developers seemed to really want to do gameplay-wise: be more action-oriented. Overblast and SenseMove were fun. I agree with ejamer regarding the latter. SenseMove was perhaps too easy to pull off and shortening the window would have made it more of a skillful move. All of this tips the gameplay further away from Metroid which I'm okay with. If they're going to add all this action gameplay, don't go halfway with it. At the same time, don't shoehorn it into a Metroid game. Again, let Metroid be Metroid. Instead, make a legitimate action game starring Samus. Give it to PlatinumGames and tell them they are bound by (almost) nothing. As long as actual Metroid games that play like Metroid games are still being made, no one would bat an eye. It'd kind of be like Hyrule Warriors. Everyone knew a new Zelda was coming out eventually so even if Hyrule Warriors wasn't someone's bag, they were largely like, "Well, this can exist."
The caveat is that actual, honest-to-goodness new 2D Metroid games would need to be made, and Nintendo has not seemed to keen to make those. If it ever does, I'd just start over. The story wasn't so good and deep that it needs to preserved and continued. Just don't "The last Metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at peace..." and a reboot series can go on forever and ever.
I digress.
I found myself more frustrated playing Other M this time. It's simply riddled with really dumb albeit easily fixable problems. "The Deleter"? Hire a writer. There was a good game in Other M that was dragged down by a lot of poor choices. I guess you can say that about a lot of games. Those faults add up after a while and spoil the actually decent-to-good parts. Furthermore, there were times I felt Wii was not powerful enough to do what the developers seemed to want to do. The larger rooms were mostly empty. It's less impressive once you realize you aren't doing a lot in there. Ultimately, Other M isn't a game I feel I ever need to revisit nor is it a game I think we'll see again. It isn't good enough to get remastered, and if it gets the Metroid Series Remake Treatment®, I can see it being almost a completely different game just to fix some things (e.g. no Wii Remote, the closest thing we have currently are Joy Cons which have an analog stick and more buttons).
Topic: Forum Retrospective #5: Metroid Other M - Any objections Lady? (Read 30990 times)
