Beat the game 100%

My main impression: I LOVED IT, but it wasn't perfect, and I couldn't stop thinking of all the little things that would've made it perfect. But its a really good start and I would LOVE to see more Metroid games in this format, with some obvious and major fixes.

The Pros:

-The game plays like a charm. It truly is a 2D Metroid game in 3D fully realized. If you're like me and you like the 2D games more than the prime games, then this is a huge treat for me to finally experience the 2D feel in a 3D light, and I feel like this is the proper evolution of Metroid(though its still imperfect). Get rid of the invisible walls, let us shoot missiles normally, and dump the forced-search/slow-walk sections and you have IMO the best 3D Metroid game formula available. That plus scanning. I liked scanning.

-The combat is best in the series, easily. Its fast, its badass, its seamless, hard at times but not too hard, and you have lots of options. Switching to first person to shoot missiles still seems a bit awkward but it just adds more strategy and difficulty I guess. The finishing moves are totally awesome and a great touch, while not too overbearing or even necessary if you don't want to use them.

-Once you get over the invisible walls and learn to read your map, the exploration aspect of the game is still pure Metroid. Its a little linear at first, but halfway in I felt like it really opened up more, and by the endgame I was in full-on Metroid exploration mode. There are tons of very well-hidden paths and items, some of which took me quite some exploring to find. Some say that the whole radar thing makes them too easy to find - couldn't be further from the truth. Super, Fusion, and Zero Mission had the same thing, indicating a powerup on your map with a small dot/circle, not telling you exactly HOW to get that dot circle though. And this time, you don't have the X-Ray scope or your all-revealing Power Bombs to help you. Finding items in Other M was just as hard (if not harder) than in the 2D Metroids. (though IMO, Prime still did it best... wum wum wum...)

-Nostalgia factor/fanservice was in full swing here. Seeing lots of aspects and enemies from previous games return was unexpected and awesome, namely Kihunters, Sidehoppers, Zebesian Space Pirates, Nightmare, Metroid Queen, and WTF OUT OF NOWHERE huge-ass Phantoon of Outer Space Death. Also just little things like how Samus will start spinning if you press A during a normal jump, or bomb jumping, and everything about the Speed Booster.

-The story was surprisingly good and deep, if not a bit overcomplicated towards the end. The cutscenes were very well made and high-production, the voice acting was excellent (save for a few way-to-cheesey lines from Samus early on), and it didn't really intrude on the gameplay at all since the bigger scenes were few and far between the long gameplay segments. The plot twists were genuinely unexpected and well done: A traitor/assassin among the fed troopers??? An AI clone of mother brain? That little fuzzy adorable thing was actually fucking RIDLEY!? And probably the biggest shock of all, the only monster-food canon-fodder generic federation trooper who DIDN'T die was the BLACK GUY!?!?! Overall solid story that ties into the other games incredibly well.

-Well, it was FUN! I guess that's what matters most. I won't say its the best Metroid game yet, but its a damn good Metroid game. Not as good as Super or Prime obviously(though with some major polish, a sequel potentially could be), but better than Fusion or Prime 3.



The Cons:

-INVISIBLE WALLS EVERYWHERE OH GOD. I share all of Shadowbun's grievances and it is easily the game's biggest flaw. Although it doesn't actually CHANGE anything exploration-wise since this is essentially a 2D Metroid in 3D and you're supposed to be bound to the walls represented on your map, after the Prime game's excellent and ridiculous attention to detail and exploration, its quite jarring not being able to explore the stuff in the "background". If we could just combine Other M's gameplay interface with Prime's exploration and detail, I'd have the perfect game. Also just being able to see that missile tank sitting on a ledge 300 feet from my ship and not be able to get it because there's a magic barrier blocking off the whole left side of the hangar(cue me running around the facility the whole game trying to figure out how to get that damn thing since it was literally the first powerup I saw, yet the last one I collected). Seriously they could've just put like a glass wall there so it would make sense...

-Where was the music? Metroid games are supposed to have good music. All I heard was "ambient noise". Sometimes I couldn't tell the music from the sounds the enemies/environments/machines/Samus would make. Disappointing that the only memorable songs in the game are remixes of Super Metroid songs.

-The forced-first person sections were all beyond stupid. Half the time when you're supposed to search for something, I have no idea what I'm looking for, and even if the cursor scrolls over it it doesn't always give the lock on option. I spent like 5-10 minutes standing around looking at random crap before I realized you're supposed to look at that indiscriminate puddle of green goo behind you. Or the whole "shoot the lizards's tail 25 times in a row or he'll kill you" part. And don't get me started on the "final battle". Seriously, who's idea was this? Its random, pointless and very detaching from the real gameplay, did Sakamoto hire someone from Sonic Team for that or something?

-Similar to the above but not as idiotic, the "slow walk" sections. It works well in some places where its used subtly and really gives you that sense of eeriness, but when you have to slow-walk through an entire SECTOR its just idiotic. Why am I CASUALLY AMBLING down this mile-long hallway to no nowhere? THIS ISN'T RE4, RUN DAMMIT!

-I would really still prefer it if you could shoot missiles normally. And the whole "recharge your missiles" sort of defeats the purpose of missile expansions(and you have much less total missiles by extension of that), except for maybe some boss fights when you can't recharge often. Only being able to heal in Save Rooms and through recharge does add more difficulty, but overall I would've preferred they stuck with just enemies dropping health and ammo...

-The ending just felt anticlimactic, mainly because in the storyline they really built up Sector Zero, the Metroid breeding and the MB. BUT HEY GUESS WHAT!? We never get to go there, we never get to fight the killer super Metroids, we never get to fight the MB. Instead, uuuuuhhh.... OH HEY I KNOW lets fight the Metroid Queen again. Huh? Not random enough for you? Okay then how about...... Phantoon? Seriously, those bosses were fun and badass and cool and totally unexpected and all, but they basically had little-to-no explanation or buildup or really any major purpose in the story altogether. Not only that, but why are there no alternate endings for percentage/time??? I wanted to see Samus naked or a scene hinting at a sequel or something, not just Samus saying "Good jorb hur hur hur!" off camera. There wasn't even a "See you next mission!" text I don't think. All these oldschool throwbacks and they forgot the biggest Metroid tradition of all!

-I also find it quite ridiculous how easily Melissa/MB was taken down. I really wanted HER to be the final boss, maybe using some kind of crazy telepathy to send endless swarms of Metroid and Space Pirates at you, and as the battle goes on she takes more damage and her robot parts are revealed, until her face is burnt off and she looks like a freaky human-version of Mother Brain, and she starts shooting Mother Brain lasers and shit gets crazy.... dammit that would've been awesome!



Summary:

So overall I think it was a great Metroid game that everyone who likes Metroid should play, though certainly it wasn't a Super or an MP1. The combat was excellent, the items were well hidden, the enemies and bosses were epic, story was great but the ending sucked. However the invisible walls were jarring, it had like no real music, and the forced FP/slow-walk portions were boring and stupid. I think the core gameplay concept is the best evolution of the classic Metroid style we've seen yet, and I'd like to see more Metroid games made like it, it just needs some serious polish and Metroid Prime-level attention to detail in environments. And a better setting in general.

Hope I get it this week... feel like you guys won't even want to talk about it anymore by the time I start playing. hah.

@Hinph
Bullshit. I'll take about this game FOREVER!!

<3

It's supposed to ship today... but I've got a lot of crap to do this week. Hopefully getting hired at a new job so I won't be (as) poor anymore.

Dillo64 said:

Beat the game 100%

(...).

I feel exactly the same. I'm V.E.R.Y. disappointed about the two final bosses... man, the Mother Queen is just so easy and yes, it was unexpected but so easy to defeat... and about the last battle... who the hell decided - and designed - that... nonsens crappy battle ?! I don't even know how I won ! I was firing everywhere with my plasma beam against monsters and suddenly... MB got shot. Bleh.

I liked it but in the end, I feel really disappointed. The Prime Trilogy is way better on animation (slowdowns in a Metroid...), gfx (even Prime 1 stomp Other M), monster design (the stupid boss you fight many times and that attacks Anthony..., that boss is always the same and is defeated the same way each time !. Level design not very inspired, sectors very shorts...

But it's not a bad game nor a bad Metroid, it's just that for a modern Metroid, I feel very sorry...

Yesterday I was tired, so I didn't try that much, but ...

What I think is the Metroid Queen is hard! I guess you have to kill the Metroids before you can attack her. I freeze some, prepare to do a seeker missile, and then another one starts sucking on me. It's impossible! I can never get to freeze all of them at once. damn

@Dillo

Your 'review' is pretty much point for point what mine was..same positives, same negatives. - I'm glad I played it and the positives outweighed the negatives but those negatives kept this game from being really special. Ending Stuff: Unless you want to unluck hard mode, it's just not worth your while to get 100%. You get the same ending no matter what - and that's just not Metroid. However, Phantoon was a HOLY SHIT moment - I don't care what anyone says.. that was good.

@Zero

Ok..true..I can't really argue too much about that.. It was a gamble but Resident Evil 4 improved on almost everything from the previous games. Metroid Other M just had a few negative things that really took you out of the Metroid experience (where Resident Evil 4 made you more a part of the game with every change)- and people who play tested this thing before it was released should have realised that. Invisible walls..well..not so much. I think it was necessary to have a lot of them because it is a 2D game inside a 3D environment..but the forced first person perspectives, the play control on tense battles when super missles need to be fired (GelatinousEncoure I feel your pain man..just keep trying) and the over the shoulder slow walking segments didn't do anything to the game except hinder it. Not to mention no special reward for 100%.

S

Just beat it yesterday, (with an abysmal 43% collection rate).

I have to be honest...I'm a bit disappointed. I liked the idea of Melissa being a human form of MB, but I was really hoping for her to go ape-shit and build a traditional Mother Brain body using parts from the ship and her telepathic powers…instead we get bugs made from lighting fixtures.
As such, I found the final “fight” incredibly anti-climactic…No mention of the Chozo, (nor flashbacks including them). Nightmare boss fight 2 times, but NO MOTHER-LOVIN’ KRAID!

What did Kraid do to warrant such omission? The Bottle Ship is a pseudo-Zebes, right…well, what they hell? We get Ridley, (for the umpteenth time), generic lave monster with no bottom jaw, Metroid Queen, but no Kraid?!?! I’ve been waiting to fight him in 3-D since 1994, and am always let down…weak…

If anything, we should have had a proper battle with Melissa, with Kraid as her personal guard.

On the whole, I think they could have used MORE story. Playable flashbacks of the raid on K2L, living with the Chozo, being infused with their blood. I liked the story, but there was no real closure for me. Samus’ story is very rich, but they focused too much on her and Adam, and not about what makes her Samus.

…I’m very torn…

It's a good game - very similar to Fusion in many ways for better or worse depending on your tastes (I lean on the "for the worse" side for the record).

However, my main gripe with the game stems from the controls. Going sideways wiimote for this was a mistake. The amount of automation in the game is somewhat startling. The game plays itself mostly - you're just there to interact with the invisible quicktime events.

That said - the controls WORK. The game is perfectly playable, but that doesn't make the controls good. I can't count the number of times the game sabotaged me when I was simply trying to move my character, but the game decided to dodge for me instead... right into another attack. Not being able to aim at what you want to aim causes unexpected results in packs of stronger enemies.

Luckily the bulk of the game is designed around the limited controls. However, I feel the game could have been considerably better if the player were given better control over Samus.

@Chozoman
Whoa, chief, black that shiz out! There are some pretty major spoilers in there.

I mostly agree with Dillo's final impressions. I personally liked the controls and many elements of the story quite a lot; generally speaking, the core gameplay is quite fun and with the exception of some snafus in level design, feels nice and Metroid-y.

I think complaints about the final battle and--by extension--Samus's overall role in the story are warranted though. Ignoring gameplay conventions, Samus doesn't really help nullify the Bottle Ship's threats all that much. Most of the things she fights are various monsters in the sectors that aren't really threatening the galaxy. The big threats are Ridley, MB, and the Bottle Ship colliding with GF HQ. Ridley gets finished off by the Metroid Queen, and Samus just plays a bit role in the MB "battle." Anthony saves GF HQ by diverting the ship's path. Even the Queen isn't a major player in this story, essentially something that could be taken care of with a self-destruct sequence (it's hardly a space flier like Ridley or a control freak like MB). So for the duration of the last battle against the Queen, there's...not really all that much at stake, save for Samus's life (the same thing that's at stake during every battle of the game!). Phantoon was an awesome bonus, but again, not a threat to anything. The Ship's being blown up anyway, what do we care if he smashes the cockpit?

I thought the reward for 100% was pretty good though. You get a new page in the art gallery, plus Hard mode. It's not the greatest bonus ever, but better than several of the games where you got a single new image for the ending, or in the case of Super Metroid, nothin' at all! Nothin' at all!

My apologies, I thought we were freely discussing spoilers in this thread...it has been spoiler-ized...

[ref=id=3079&pagenumber=11#70876]Simbabbad said:[/ref][quote][ref=id=3079&pagenumber=10#70827]Smerd said:[/ref][quote]How can you match Super Metroid/Prime series when you are going a different direction in developing a Metroid Game? You can't.[/quote]Er... so basically you're asking for remakes over and over?

Erk.[/quote]
no no no... You can still make it a metroid game with changes. Why would I want re-makes? The negatives I (and a few others) that were pointed out kinda of wrecked the metroid experience a bit..at least for me. If you took those away, you are still left with a game that has massive changes (cinema scenes, voice work, faster battles, 2D play in 3D environment etc) along with the typical item hunt and backtracking that was in this game..all made it great. Nintendo/team Ninja can't please everyone - clearly the reviews out there have shown this.. But if a negative 'change' takes away from the overall "metroid" experience. then it's a big negative - for a Metroid game.

Ie: Wind Waker was awesome..everyone freaked out - but it was still Zelda. It had the core elements that made it a Zelda game. Super Metroid and Prime series were great games in their own way but they all had one thing in common despite changes among all 4: it still felt like Metroid most of the time. Other M gets it right for a little less then that...and only because of the negatives mentioned - that's just my opinion.

S

@Simbabbad

No I agree..changes can be good - and I can't comment on the other Metroid games as I've never played them.. I've only played through 4 of them (SM,Prime,Prime3,M:OM) so I guess for me, the changes for the Metroid games were not as drastic until I hit Other M.

It's a tricky balancing act (what the developers have to do) to keep a series feeling like the series while changing how you play it to make it fresh.

I disagree with myself - because a few words are missing and I didn't catch it until now:
How can you match the hype surrounding Super Metroid/Prime series when you are going a different direction in developing a Metroid Game? You can't.

I meant to convey the feelings/anticipation of the players for M:OM..not that change should be avoided while developing a game- but I can see from my error, how you would interpret that.

However, for me, some of the changes that were made on M:OM can be considered flaws because they took me out of the Metroid Experience. I think everyone should play this game because it's got some great qualities and it shouldn't be missed.

S

EDIT BY SIMBABBAD: Jeez people, use the Reference button instead of building references by hand and screwing up the tags (this post didn't display any content before my edit)

@Smerd I agree.

@Simbabbad
Not that I disagree with what you say about every Metroid being different but couldn't the same be said for most series, really? I thought every Resident Evil was pretty different from eachother, same goes for Mario and even Zelda. They may follow the same formula but I think every new entry in a franchise worth its salt changes things up pretty dramatically.

I agree though, Metroid is more dramatic, having gone through 3 types of general gameplay (2D, "first person shooter", and now 3rd person action) and 3 different viewpoints and angles. Change is great but sometimes I find myself (somewhat) disliking titles like Majora's Mask and Sunshine. I guess it's hit or miss but there's always something great to look forward to anyways. A "bad" Nintendo game is still considerably better than most games on the market, that's the funny thing. Other M being a "bad" Metroid (not imo, general concensus I mean) still leaves me with one of my favorite games in recent memory.

Smerd said:

How can you match the hype surrounding Super Metroid/Prime series when you are going a different direction in developing a Metroid Game? You can't.

I'd say for most people, you simply can't match Super Metroid or Prime no matter what you do. People put them on pedestals, and it's somewhat justified considering their quality and what they represent, but it also means that most people wouldn't recognize subsequent games using those formulas as better, even if they are. Think Ocarina of Time: subsequent Zelda games have used that exact same formula, but refined some bits of it, yet for a whole lot of people OoT remains untouchable.

I do not believe in this Samus.

Tweet by ... Matt Casamassina.

Pandareus said:

Smerd said:

How can you match the hype surrounding Super Metroid/Prime series when you are going a different direction in developing a Metroid Game? You can't.

I'd say for most people, you simply can't match Super Metroid or Prime no matter what you do. People put them on pedestals, and it's somewhat justified considering their quality and what they represent, but it also means that most people wouldn't recognize subsequent games using those formulas as better, even if they are. Think Ocarina of Time: subsequent Zelda games have used that exact same formula, but refined some bits of it, yet for a whole lot of people OoT remains untouchable.

I don't know if this really has merit though. You could make this argument for Super Metroid or Link to the Past before Prime and OoT came out. The fact of the matter is that MP and OoT took a ton of risks and they paid off marvelously. Whenever you have a game completely refine and redefine what the series is all about, paving new ground in the process, you're going to end up with the stuff of legend. Considering none of the subsequent Zeldas have introduced quite as many groundbreaking concepts as Ocarina of Time, it should be placed on a pedestal. That game practically invented 3-D adventures, and games still follow its template twelve years later.

I'm not sure I really like Twitter. I'd much rather read some in-depth article on Matt's thoughts than some bite-size snippet which doesn't really say anything.

he followed up with this on facebook

"Right, Hil. Exactly. Hard to believe that the great Samus Aran, legendary space bounty hunter, does whatever she's told. And all the back story about her character just seems... completely out of character.

Anyway, though, still like the ov...erall game, but the Prime series has nothing to fear."

@Pandareus @Simbabbad I dunno, I'd bet if Nintendo had created a "New Super Metroid" (probably with a different name though) on the Wii and it totally looked awesome and like a true sequel to Super Metroid + some new stuff, it would get a lot of hype. Sort of like Donkey Kong Country Returns, except well... Metroid is bigger than Donkey Kong. I mean, bigger to online nerds who get super hyped about games... I think?

Now, whether people would complain about it being more of the same or not, dunno.

And I agree, another Prime style game right now would get next to no hype outside of the diehards.