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Metroid: Other M (Nintendo Wii) discussion [game]
 
Metroid: Other M on the Wii
8.16/10 from 55 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for Metroid: Other M on the Wii!

To start, please add this game to your log, add it to your collection (if applicable), and (when you are ready) rate it using the link above!
...seeing as you're the group of gamers whose opinions I trust the most.

Picking up Other M today was a bit of a strange experience--the guy at Play-N-Trade revealed that one of his coworkers mistakenly told everyone that the game released today, so the store had preorder folks coming in all day to try to get it. However, this particular employee was pretty upset about the whole ordeal and decided to sell it to me anyway...then promptly called his manager and quit. I told him I didn't want to cause a fuss and would come back Tuesday for it, but he took a devil-may-care attitude and let me buy the game regardless (he was actually quite friendly to me, just upset about the mistake the coworker made).

So that interesting story of acquisition aside, I now have the game and have played roughly 40 minutes or so (just beat the first boss). It's quite early so my previews aren't going to be very in-depth, so I'll make this quick for now:

-Controls are better than expected, feels fun and pleasantly quick like Samus should
-Voice acting better than expected; the ancillary soldiers and such sound pretty good
-Samus herself seems to be directed to sound fairly cold and emotionless, which usually works, but sometimes her delivery is stilted (so far)
-I'm kind of missing Retro's attention to environmental detail, but the areas still look decent enough
-Killing classic Metroid enemies like Geemers and Rios in 3rd-person is somewhat cathartic. They made a 3rd-person Metroid feel work rather well, and I like the Wiimote so far
-You can't seem to wall-jump off every wall, just select surfaces
-Not sure what to make of the story yet, I kinda like a lot of it and some of it is sort of overbearing; we'll see. The direction and transitions are pretty nice though
-Pretty cool first boss
-Casper's right, it needs more music during gameplay

That's all for now. I mainly made this thread for everyone else to post their impressions too, but I wanted to give a few of my own first.

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08/30/10, 01:20    Edited: 08/30/10, 01:31
 
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Just beat the game tonight. Ended up liking it a lot overall. I guess it helps that the Samus in the game is pretty much how I had imagined her. I guess it also helps that I read the Metroid manga awhile ago : p

Anyway, game stopped feeling weird and just started feeling fun. Loved all the boss fights and the post-game content is really fun, too.
09/13/10, 11:32   
Something is kinda strange about Samus. When Ridley appears, Samus is in full panic mode... but come on, she fought him 5 times before ! Metroid > 1, Prime > 1, Corruption > 2, Super Metroid > 1. Ridley is her nemesis and killed Samus parents but... no, Samus is terrified by Ridley.
09/13/10, 11:42   
@Luther
Actually a good point. Well I guess she really thought he was dead that time. Plus, Prime apparently isn't canon remember?
09/13/10, 11:45   
@Luther

But she barely had a personality in previous games and I don't think we even knew back then that Ridley had killed her parents either. And as carlosrox said, the Prime games aren't part of the official timeline apparently. I guess they wanted to emphasize the fact that Samus is terrified of Ridley due to her past and this is the first game they were able to properly do so.
09/13/10, 16:10   
@carlosrox & VofEscaflowne :
You guys are right. But I felt it was really too much. Anyway, I didn't liked a lot of things in Other M, but it's still a good game. Therefore, the Hard Mode is completly stupid :no Missiles / Health upgrades AT ALL, with ennemies dealing damages x3 !. I don't want to play on Hard Mode.

If I want a real Die & Retry game, I'll play to Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, VVVVVV or Cat Mario. Being killed in three hits by little stompers... meh !
09/13/10, 19:20   
Actually, Samus fought Ridley six times--they battled twice in Super Metroid. While it's understandable that this is the first game able to show her fear of Ridley, that's not the part that players mind so much. I think it's more the fact that she freezes up entirely, letting herself be grabbed and almost killed, while also being responsible for the death of a fellow soldier. I'd be surprised too if Ridley was still alive...but you'd expect the same reaction in Super Metroid, after she killed him in Metroid 1 (and Metroid Prime, and MP3).

The Prime games are still canon, I think Sakamoto's words are being twisted around. He essentially said that the Prime trilogy's story is unrelated to the main Metroid story, but that certainly doesn't mean it hasn't "happened" in the Metroid series (well, maybe not Pinball).
09/13/10, 20:11   
Edited: 09/13/10, 20:12
And even so, in Prime 1 in the Orpheon Space Ship on the prologue, you can read a Pirate log that says : Ridley has been resurected. It seems that the pirates did clone Ridley a lot of time... too bad they never cloned Crocomire and Kraid :'(
09/13/10, 20:59   
@carlosrox

There's actually an interview with Sakamoto where he says something to the extent of "Yes the Prime games are canon they're just not relevant." And yeah, I think Samus' personality in this game can be attributed to the fact that after Super Metroid she just thought she was done with all that particular stuff. Not to mention the baby's sacrifice.
09/14/10, 01:53   
Hmm, Prime games are canon but he is going to ignore them anyway?
09/14/10, 04:17   
I think this Prime/Sakamoto thing is going way out of hand. Here are the exact quotes from him:

The Prime series, which was developed by Retro Studios, is also a great series, but I was not involved there as the series was developed by other creators who have different perspectives.


And in a separate interview...

The games that I've been involved with in the Metroid series have been on the NES, GameBoy, Super NES and the GBA. I actually didn't have a lot of input on the Prime series. But when they're doing with Other M here, it's not so much a different universe, it's just a different part of the story. You can't say that there's no relation here; it's probably best to think of them as being in parallel in this world.


Personally, all I'm getting from this is that he's saying that the Prime trilogy doesn't really have much to do with the ongoing storyline that he's developed between Metroid 1 through Fusion. Which is true! But he's not wiping the series from canon at all.
09/14/10, 04:57   
Unlike a lot of others, I don't get the feeling that Sakamoto dismisses the Prime trilogy either. He just talks about it frankly and honestly, the rest comes from poor translations and a gaming media that's looking for conflict where there is none in order to get a few hits.

But where I do feel Sakamoto has slighted Prime fans is with the design of the 1st half of Other M - more specifically the simplicity of its puzzles. It feels like the creators have simply ignored the fact that we've been playing Metroid throughout the GC's and the Wii's life. We don't need our hand held, and we certainly can hack a bit more complexity in navigation and puzzle design.

I'm about 9 hours into Other M and its steadily becoming a very good game, but even if it continues this way, I can't forget how disappointed I was with some of the early parts of the game. I haven't finished it yet, but this game is begging for a sequel. One that's flat out great throughout.
09/14/10, 05:18   
Still was bullshit that she panicked. I mean, come on. It's fine to be shocked but this is not the first day of this galactic heroine - don't freeze in front of the damn giant dragon! Do something!
09/14/10, 05:20   
Edited: 09/14/10, 05:21
GelatinousEncore said:
Still was bullshit that she panicked. I mean, come on. It's fine to be shocked but this is not the first day of this galactic heroine - don't freeze in front of the damn giant dragon! Do something!

PTSD (Spoiler?)
09/14/10, 06:28   
@Luther

Hard isn't actually that bad... I've seen much worse. Yes you'll die but it makes boss battles so intense, having to recharge your missiles and finding that one perfect moment when you can work it in between attacks or surviving and attack and trying to replenish that lost energy that might just be enough to get through the battle. Ridley was definitely the hardest for me with Nightmare being second. Both didn't feel cheap once you get a pattern down and it really forces you to learn them too. You can't just rush in expecting to get hit and not care like on normal.
09/14/10, 07:01   
@Griptor Hmm, but you can't do ANYTHING in them (shoot, dodge, etc.), so you don't really have to worry about anything happening besides walking around until you find the next cutscene. To me tension in a game comes from knowing that at any second something can jump out and F you up.
09/14/10, 07:34   
Secret_Tunnel said:
GelatinousEncore said:
Still was bullshit that she panicked. I mean, come on. It's fine to be shocked but this is not the first day of this galactic heroine - don't freeze in front of the damn giant dragon! Do something!

PTSD (Spoiler?)


Not PTSD. PTSD is re-occuring and triggered easily. Nothing happened when she fought Ridley the other 5 or 6 times the games preceding. Why should it happen now?
09/14/10, 09:21   
Because she stopped taking her meds.
09/14/10, 10:10   
Alright! I just finished the game, after sitting down with it for nearly 6 hours tonight, being determined to finish it. I was spoiled in a bit from hearing podcasts, but only in minor things. For instance, I knew you could plow through the story and then could dick around finding everything.

As far as the story goes: I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed the humanization of Samus Aran. The parts some people are bitching about, like freezing up when she encounters Ridley, I really enjoyed that part. I like the life brought into this otherwise lifeless character. I was happy to see Anthony didn't die, and in fact the way he survived was totally believable in context with the game. I've shot those suckers dozens of times before, freezing their mouths, why shouldn't Anthony? I do think there were a couple of plot holes though. First... she just dropped the idea of "The Deleter." I guess it's because it was really M.B., and not a Galactic soldier... but then what about the guy in the giant robot? Didn't make much sense. Then, Adam's departure. He says plain as day that only a giant explosion could neutralize the threat found in Sector Zero... why not just "authorize" Samus' power bombs then and save your own ass? I know he had to die, it's a big part of Fusion, but they could have figured out a better way. One last bitch about plot holes. They try, and in my opinion fail, to explain how a little harmless bunny-looking thing somehow became Ridley. And then when you see Ridley dead... it looks just the same as all the other times Ridley "hatched" from another creature's body. Maybe I'm missing something, I dunno.

Alright, onto the gameplay: I hated that there was only one Metroid encounter in the whole game. I must've died half a dozen times, and when I figured out the best way to kill the Metroids, and then the Queen, I really enjoyed the fight. There may be more Metroids on board in the "after-game" but for now I'm disappointed in the lack of them. I enjoyed the controls once I got intimately familiar with them. I don't see how people, reviewers especially, can bitch and moan about broken controls. I didn't experience that at all! Once you learn what the fuck you're doing, this game feels really good to play.

I really did feel like a badass at the end of the game. I felt super-powerful, and I loved it. I was killing things easy as pie and laughing about it. This game really accomplished that well, but of course, so do all the other Metroid games.

Now... I want to bitch about reviewers. I touched on the controls aspect earlier... but I'm not done yet. I really feel that any reviewer who bitched about broken controls did not spend enough time with this game to properly review it. The controls are fine, good even. These people harp about the nunchuck and the pointing mechanic and about all the things they think the game should have. Learn to play the game the way it was made. Stop bitching about shit you'd do with the controls. All it is is pointless bickering, and an unwillingness to try to learn this admittedly different control scheme.

This begins a bigger point about the reviews in general. It just seems so much nowadays that these "journalists" are basing their reviews for a game on what they would have done with the game, instead of the game as it is. Nintendo really tried something new with this game, as they are wont to do. Nearly every aspect of this game has something unique to it, that we've never had in a Nintendo game. The controls, the story, the amazing camera, the PRESENTATION! All of it is really, really different, and really, really good. The game looks fantastic, it sounds fantastic (*), and it plays fantastic.

Here's where I gripe a bit. No I don't think Metroid: Other M is a perfect game, and no I don't even think it's one of the best the series has to offer. The asterisk from earlier alludes to sound, and I think Other M is sorely lacking in the music department. I know I'm not alone in this. I do think that the sound effects are very satisfying, especially the charge beam, and other typical noises, like doors opening/closing, enemy sounds, etc. But this game lacks sorely in the music department. Yes the original game has it's classic tunes, but I felt these were refined in Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and especially Metroid Prime. Other M seems like a leap backwards in this department. The only time you hear something iconic is when you load up a game. HUGE mistake.

Another thing I want to gripe about is the Map. I'll flat-out admit it: the Metroid Prime games have spoiled all maps for me. They were so flawlessly done in the Prime series, that anything else seems like the damn dark ages. This is not a 2D game, it should not be mapped like one. Also, I hated that the map you were looking at in the corner of the screen didn't remotely resemble the map you saw when you pressed pause. Everything from the shape of the room to the navigation of the character is different between the two maps.

Alright, I've written enough for now. I should go back and read this thread. I haven't, lol, since I didn't want spoilers. So it's possible that all of my points have been extensively touched on... I suppose if after I read all 18 pages I feel like this wall of text has added nothing to the conversation, then I'll edit all this out and replace it with a funny gif of a dog licking itself or something.

Cliff Notes: I really enjoyed the game, gonna definitely go back and collect 100%, and probably won't attempt hard mode

The End
09/14/10, 11:17   
@VofEscaflowne :
Yes but Hard Mode is not the way I wanna play a Metroid game. This is Ninja Gaiden: Other M, not Metroid anymore (in this mode).
09/14/10, 12:43   
@grantimusprime

That pretty much sums up my feelings of the game also.

Good job.
09/14/10, 13:25   
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