Metroid: Other M

[MinisterofDOOM]

You guys probably know what a massive Metroid fan I am. I've been looking forward to this one for ages. My anticipation has been a mix of high hopes (with Mr. Metroid himself, Yoshio Sakamoto at the helm again) and horrible fears (with the game showing signs of dumbing-down and absence of Metroidy soul).

Back when Prime was in the works, I was hugely skeptical. First person Metroid? No... And anyway they didn't even give it free look. My hopes weren't good. But Prime ended up being SPECTACULAR. I was wrong. The first time I played Prime I openly admit, I got goosebumps from the opening sequence. It was great gameplay, thick atmosphere, and pure Metroid.

This time around, there was the skepticism. And the fanboy hopes. But the opening didn't do ANYTHING for me. The cinematics lost my interest. The people who aren't Samus failed to catch my care train. I've played about an hour of the game and the whole hour has felt like waiting. Waiting to get to "the good part." Waiting for it to become Metroid and not 3rd person shooter #128473. Waiting for it to feel nostalgic. To show some sign, other than the yellow-and-orange Chozo powersuit, that it is, actually, Metroid. And not something else.

It's certainly not all bad. The sidescrolly parts feel somewhat Metroidy. But they fail to invoke the Metroid 3 memories I'd been hoping for. And enemies like Wavers and Geemers look better-realized than ever, the way the original cartoony NES instruction booklet art had me imagining all these years. It's good to see them back as the common enemies.

But there's so much missing. Samus autoaims now. Much of combat is automated or one-button quick-time events (mash 2 to jump on a baddie's head at the right time, then shoot his head off in one blast). There are "time-it-right" dodge maneuvers, and "mash jump repeatedly" walljumping (though I won't complain about this one...wall jump in Metroid 3 was GHARHHBEHFHG TOUGH AS HELL to get right).

The platforming doesn't feel Metroidy at all. Her jump height feels limited. In fact the whole game has a distinctly 2D feel in a very different way from the classic games of the series. One thing that really set Metroid apart in its day was the verticality of its setting. Mario runs right. Sonic runs right. Even Kirby, who can fly, runs right. Samus...Samus spent a lot of time going UP. Hopping from platform to platform. Up and up and up. Tall, vertical shafts. Regular platforming levels turned on their sides--an effect enhanced by wall-crawling baddies like Zoomers.
I've seen NONE of that yet, in Other M. Not a bit. The only "up" that's happened so far has been walljumping. There was one barely-vertical platforming section, but it didn't work very well. Samus' new automated wallhang ability kept deciding it was smarter than me, grabbing ledges I was trying to leap just beneath.

Other things don't feel right either. The charge beam has become gimmicky now. And it's either all or nothing. There's a HUD meter for it now, bizarrely (never needed one before) and if the meter's not filled completely, Samus unlseashes a regular power shot. Charge all the way for charged shot, or no charged shot at all.
And you can only use Missiles in first-person view. Not only that, but you have to be locked-on to a pre-defined Missile-able target. Otherwise you'll just be popping off power shots in first-person.

And the first-person view, which was an effort to tie the greatness of Prime in with the greatness of sidescrolling, adds nothing of value to the game. It's nothing like Prime, and comes across as a gimmick. And it is exactly that. Fighting with the first-person aim (which is clunky and not intuitive, like that of Metroid Wii FPS Corruption) while under fire is far less than ideal. Worse, it's just frustrating. Not fun. First person mode is never fun. So I have to ask myself why it's there.

But, aside from all that, the thing that has struck my hardest as being MISSING from Other M is:
THE MUSIC.
Every Metroid game up to now has played host to some of the best music in gaming history. Stuff like the Brinstar theme, The Tunnel, Lower Norfair, and Samus' Fanfare...those songs are iconic. Metroid Other M isn't just lacking in good music. It's lacking in ANY music. Samus' pseudo-2D dashes around the Bottle Ship have been accompanied by nothing more than the too-loud clanking of her boots on steel corridors. There was, during an early cinematic, a thickly-disguised and barely-recognizable, very quiet hint at the Samus Fanfare. And that's it. WHAT THE s*** IS THIS?! No Samus fanfare?! The HELL?
Even the iconic "item collect" noise is missing. All you hear when you grab a missile expansion in Other M is "clunk, clunk." It almost feels like they forgot to add the audio file to the disc.
More than anything, I think, the lack of Metroid audio is what has kept Other M from feeling like a real Metroid game. The Prime series showed that Metroid could have new, non-rehased music that's still epic and absolutely Metroid. Where'd that go? Where's magic like Phendrana Drifts or the Space Pirate theme? It's just MISSING. And it leaves a gaping hole in the experience.

Another unMetroid aspect of the game is the other people. I didn't like this in Corruption, either, but it didn't get in the way so much in that game. Like Metroid 4 (my least favorite in the series by far...until perhaps now) this game tries to bank on Samus' humanity and history to keep it interesting. But it isn't interesting. It's like trying to show off the Mona Lisa as modern art. It's not. It has its OWN strengths. Gluing new crap on top doesn't help. What makes Samus interesting is the fact that she's a lone wolf. She was a lone wolf before it was a cliche. And just because it's become cliche doesn't mean you should take it away. She does it well. Samus isn't supposed to have help, abominable Metroid 3 manga be damned. Samus is supposed to tell Malkovitch to get hanged, give him the two-finger solute with her left hand, and walk off. Like a lot of story backdrops, Samus history is more interesting when left UNEXPLORED. Keep it mysterious and it holds much more appeal. It's where Samus is GOING that I care about. I don't give a damn about Malkovitch and the Marines. What is this, Doom? Halo? The f***? Knock off the people skills and get with the space-pirate murder.

And STOP GUIDING ME THROUGH THE GAME. Metroid's supposed to be about EXPLORING, not "objectives" and orders. First time I played through Metroid 3 I completely skipped over the Spazer, which made the Phantoon fight crazy hard. But I STILL MANAGED. I beat Phantoon with skill and then later stumbled upon the missed Spazer upgrade. Wasn't until my 2nd time through the game that I realized how much of a difference that beam made in that fight.
No chance for that kind of thing here. It's all linear and guided. Even if you do find side-tracks, they're unusable until you're "supposed" to go there. Locked with beams you don't have "authorization" for yet (more on that in a minute) or simply blocked for deus ex machina story reasons.

And this time, your weapon upgrades aren't found or hidden or discovered. They're "authorized." Samus starts with a fully powered suit, but the Marines she's helping won't "authorize" the use of certain abilities until the story needs them. It takes a lot of the FEEL of progression from the game. You don't feel like you're earning them. No Prime-esque boss-drops. No Metroid 3-style "look harder, it's there somewhere." Just "hey, Samus, this boss looks tergety, let's use your Missiles now, even though there was no good reason not to use them before."

Yeah...I'm planning to give the game more of a chance. But as a gigantic Metroid fan I feel very let down by Other M at this point. The story needs to either start getting good or (preferably) get the Hell out of the way. And gimme back my Music. With those two hurdles out of the way, I might be able to enjoy myself.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

To me...it looks like one giant quick-time event. I was waiting for your review too:)

[RCA]

Holy wall-of-text I hate you...

[MinisterofDOOM]

To me...it looks like one giant quick-time event. I was waiting for your review too:)

A lot of the combat ends up that way. You end up mashing on the d-pad in hopes that you'll dodge the next attack via the quick-time dodge ability (which usually works). For instance, one boss fight was against a huge war wasp hive with defensive turret flowers. It'd constantly spew out war wasps. You can run circles around it to keep your distance as you charge your beam (which must, again, be fully charged for a charge shot, contrary to previous Metroid games). But if any of the wasps attack (by charging at you), you can hit a d-pad direction to dodge. If you dodge while charging, you instantly get a full charge. Making the charge beam shot critical in this fight is the "diffusion beam" upgrade which causes your charged shots to do area damage, taking out the entire swarm of wasps currently pursuing you. Attempting to take them out one by one just doesn't work.

So it turns the fight from a "run, charge, turn, shoot, repeat" scenario into strategically dodging and making good use of the charge shot. It's a genuinely neat concept, and adds more depth to the fight, but it doesn't feel very Metroid. I'm always up for improving where there's room, but I don't know that Metroid combat really needed this particular "improvement."

And the frequent use of missiles as a boss vulnerability adds a clunkiness that seems at horrible odds with the rest of the "improved" combat system's fluidity. Turning the remote to face the TV, fighting with the aiming reticule, waiting for the lock-on to register and enable missiles--all the while immobilized (but still able to dodge, though it requires sacrificing your aim) is just horribly clunky. Why can't we just have a missile switch button as with every preceding Metroid title so far?

[hitbychance]

And the frequent use of missiles as a boss vulnerability adds a clunkiness that seems at horrible odds with the rest of the "improved" combat system's fluidity. Turning the remote to face the TV, fighting with the aiming reticule, waiting for the lock-on to register and enable missiles--all the while immobilized (but still able to dodge, though it requires sacrificing your aim) is just horribly clunky. Why can't we just have a missile switch button as with every preceding Metroid title so far?

^this , but it's a very graphically pleasing game for the wii and it is also fun to play.

[MinisterofDOOM]

^this , but it's a very graphically pleasing game for the wii and it is also fun to play.

This is true. But I wish more developers would remember that you can't just take an existing, well-established nameplate and throw in random unrelated gameplay, no matter how "fun" it might be. Lots of games are "fun." Very few games are still impressive more than a decade later. Metroid 3 is. Other M will not be.

Metroid 3 still manages to be one of the most atmospheric games in history. It uses no shaders. No dynamic lighting. No fancy modern graphics catchwords apply. It has stood the test of time extremely well. There's so much DEPTH to that game, and I don't just mean gameplay-wise. The game absorbs you in a way few manage. Every aspect of the game shines with ultra-polish. The two biggest complaints I can come up with, even after 16 years of progress and hindsight, are the slight awkwardness of cycling through weapons and the difficulty of the wall jump maneuver.
The music is brilliant.
The controls are fluid and responsive.
The level design is varied and original and interesting.
The visuals are amazing, even when seen by jaded modern eyes.
The monsters are varied and creative.
The boss fights are genuinely challenging and often require a thoughtful approach.
The final fight is one of the most adrenaline-pumping and rewarding game segments I can think of.

Next to that "pretty and fun to play" is pretty underwhelming.

Other M could absolutely have been another Metroid 3 in terms of excellence. But Nintendo's too caught up in mass-appeal right now, so instead it got dumbed down and blanded out. Failure is always more disappointing in the shadow of great potential. You don't get much greater potential than a Metroid game.