E3-2021 MEGATHREAD!!!

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Even if I agreed, it's way too late for that - the manga lay out her backstory explicitly.
Yeah, I know. I was just saying it shouldn't have.

I'll happily defend Other M (to an extent).

It's not a good game, but it's not a bad one either, nor is it the worst Metroid game I played (that would be Hunters).
I would say it is a pretty good game. The gameplay was really solid. The main issue is its a Metroid game and how they did the story was just bad. It would have been bad if it was a new IP but its worse since its Metroid.
 

Casual Shinji

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That Somerville game looks pretty cool. That is all.

Also, Sony was just a no show, huh?
 

laggyteabag

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Not really. Plenty of games have made their debuts with cinematic trailers, and do so well.
Im not saying that cinematic trailers are bad (hell, there are quite a few that I really enjoy) - im just saying that they are a waste of time, as a tool to reveal a game.

They show you nothing concrete about how a game plays, and are often just a glorified title-card reveal.

Not to mention that a lot of these games get revealed, then disappear for a year or so, hearing nothing in between.

Honestly, I'd just prefer it if studios waited until there is some gameplay to show off. I just get increasingly tired of sitting through a reveal show, with nothing being shown off, but CGI concept trailer after CGI concept trailer.

Show me the game. I don't need to know that the game exists until then.
 
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Hawki

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Im not saying that cinematic trailers are bad (hell, there are quite a few that I really enjoy) - im just saying that they are a waste of time, as a tool to reveal a game.

They show you nothing concrete about how a game plays, and are often just a glorified title-card reveal.

Not to mention that a lot of these games get revealed, then disappear for a year or so, hearing nothing in between.

Honestly, I'd just prefer it if studios waited until there is some gameplay to show off. I just get increasingly tired of sitting through a reveal show, with nothing being shown off, but CGI concept trailer after CGI concept trailer.

Show me the game. I don't need to know that the game exists until then.
I get what you're saying, but I think what you've described is a problem with how cinematic trailers are used, rather than there being an inherent problem with the use of cinematic trailers as reveals.

So, on one hand, yes, there's absolutely cinematic trailers that are a waste of time. Take Elder Scrolls VI. We have a trailer of nothing, telling us simply that "Elder Scrolls 6 exists, yo" (which is something that we already knew), and nothing else. On the other, well, I'll use Blizzard as an example. As far as I can recall, every Blizzard game reveal since at least 2010 has debuted with a cinematic trailer and a gameplay trailer at the same time - it helps that their cinematics are stellar in of themselves (not just on a technical level, but from a presentation and story-flow level). Or, even if you want to use cinematics by themselves, take Redfall. As a cinematic trailer, it works by itself. As far as gameplay goes, the cinematic trailer still informs us about gameplay. Even to use another example, Starfield. I doubt I'll ever play it, but even the trailer by itself is something I fawned over because of its tone and theme.
 

BrawlMan

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(Please note, I mean the porn aspect) since the game might stray into that territory
I highly doubt they're going to do that. And even if they did, that's not the worst thing that's ever been on Steam. There's been so much worse. I wouldn't be asking for it either, but my reaction would be whatever.
 

Eacaraxe

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Its always a flawed marketing strategy that doesn't work...
That's an oversimplified, reductive take on the issue, and that's what I'm criticizing. Harsh truth, Other M's narrative focus was a continuation of a trend started not with the Prime trilogy, not with Fusion, but Super Metroid and Metroid II. Let's not forget, Super Metroid's introduction was a first-person narrative account of the first two games, and the culmination of Metroid II's story and epilogue, represents a decision made by Samus in which agency is transferred from the player to the character.

From that point, were other NPC's, dialogue, and story evolution based upon the interaction between Samus and those NPC's, added to the game in a fairly naturalistic progression as the series developed between platform generations. For better or worse. Perennial fans of the franchise should have well recognized the trend and began to perceive Samus as not merely a tabula rasa protagonist for self-insertion purposes, long before Other M was released.

Team Ninja didn't just decide in a vacuum to completely upend the series' narrative structure. They simply took the next step in its ongoing evolution of how narration and dialogue fit into the bigger picture of the series' focus on environmental storytelling, and greater themes of isolation and angst. It's not on Team Ninja's and Sakamoto's heads that players preferred to REE! about Varia suits, and missed the entire point the way to translate themes of isolation and angst from a narrative in which isolation is physical, into a narrative in which physical isolation is no longer possible, is to isolate the protagonist socially and psychologically.

They just happened to do it in the context of a story fundamentally incompatible with Western audiences' cultural mores, values, and norms. And, rather than adapt the story to be friendly to Western audiences, they let it stand on its own merits and flaws to predictable results. Because let's not forget, while you point out the mid- to late-'00s was a period in which Japanese developers were eager to Westernize popular game franchises, it was also the genesis of weeb pushback against localization, fan backlash against localized scripts of popular Japanese entertainment (mostly anime), and the apex of fan translation and misguided notions of preserving the cultural integrity of products (see, Nier).

That was the problem. To drive the point home, as a thought experiment let's reimagine Other M's story as a samurai movie.

A highly-regarded and skillful ronin, during his travels, sees smoke on the horizon coming from a nearby village. We learn the ronin was released from service to his daimyo, because in the past he had to defend one of his daimyo's holdings from a bandit group...alone. The ronin successfully defended the village but not without deaths, which included his wife and son. Rather than commit seppuku, the ronin instead decided to take to the road, fighting bandits to protect peasants.

The ronin goes to the village, and learns it's under attack from bandits, but a group of samurai led by his former master is there to defend it. The ronin wants to stay and help, but this is a grave insult to his former master, because the ronin's request is an implicit statement he believes his former master, and his samurai, aren't up to the task. But out of sentiment, the master agrees on the condition the ronin takes an oath to not draw his sword, to which the ronin agrees.

The battle goes poorly for the ronin's former master and his samurai, but the ronin stays true to his oath at personal cost sustaining several minor wounds. At the battle reaches its climax, the ronin and his master learn the bandit group is led by the same man who caused the death of the ronin's family so long ago, which shakes the ronin's resolve and conscience to the core. And worse, the bandit group has been sponsored by a rival daimyo to attack the ronin's former liege by proxy. The ronin's former master, knowing the ronin's sense of closure and justice are on the line, and knowing the odds are slowly turning against his own men, relieves the ronin of his oath and at last allows him to draw his sword.

The ronin manages to help turn the tide of battle, but at the end it's down to the ronin, his former master, and the leader of the bandit group. The ronin's former master sacrifices his life in a feint to allow the the ronin to strike the killing blow, allowing the ronin to get justice for his dishonor and family.

Sounds...pretty typical for a popcorn-muncher samurai flick, yeah? Same plot beats, same criticisms and "plot holes" are there, what's the difference really? The audience's expectations as a function of genre and cultural differences, that's what.
 

CriticalGaming

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Yeah, but didn't they still have their own thing, like Nintendo?
They had two direct showcases right before e3 that featuring ratchet and clank as well as one for Horizon 2.

I dont think they have much ready to show right now but there is supposed to be another direct either end of june or early july i think.
 

meiam

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At this point you're just intentionally missing the point. Nobody cares about translation issue, the story suck, Samus in other M is a terrible protagonist both because she has no agency and because she's written in an incredibly sexist way, where they literally flip every aspect of her personality just so she could be the damsel in distress. This is not a samurai, nothing about you're example map onto other M well and you avoid literally every criticism.

Here's the story other M as a samurai Flick. The main character, the best swordsman in the world, pass by a village and hear about bandit attacking the village. He goes to help but find some old comrade of his, all of which are far less experience than him and worse fighter. For no reason whatsoever the samurai decide to immediately follow their leader. The leader then tell him he can't use his best sword and instead has to use some wooden sword in case of civilian casualty (somewhat resonable) but also he need to not use his right leg and instead has to hop on his left leg the entire time (this is not treated as a joke).

The samurai then slowly progress trough the village while his former comrade team are all useless, get slowly killed and one of them even turn out to be a traitor (this plot point is abadonned halfway trough the movie and never resolved). The leader never does anything about this and barely gives any information to the samurai who at this point is literally the only person progressing. At some point the samurai come across a swamp filled with piranha, he could easily go trough the swamp normally, but because he can only jump on one leg he can only makes his way trough very slowly while piranha eats him. This is done in plain view of the leader but he still wait until the samurai is halfway trough the swamp before telling him he can use his other leg.

Toward the end of the movie the samurai comes across one of his recurring rival, despite the samurai having bested him many times before the samurai inexplicably crawl into a ball and start sucking his thumb while crying, this scene goes on for an uncomfortable long time. Finally he gets rescued by one of the comrade (well more like the comrade shows up and get his ass kicked) but for some reason the samurai then finally remember "Oh I can totally womp this guy butt".

At the end the leader sacrifice his life for the samurai, this is supposed to be very tragic, but since the leader was an asshole who only caused problem and did nothing useful the audience just cheer when he dies... or rather they would if they didn't stop giving a crap about the story 30 min into the movie, but instead everyone is too numbed out to care. The only reason anyone is still watching is because the movie has some good fight choreography, you can occasionally hear somewhat murmur "this would have been such a great movie if they had a competent writer and director", the ending happens but no one really notice. The movie bomb so hard that no other movie in the franchise is made for a decade, most people just writes it off as a non cannon.
 

Eacaraxe

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At this point you're just intentionally missing the point...
No, I understand the criticism entirely well, thank you very much.

I'm taking issue with the fact people just hate on it and look for any available excuse or rationale to justify their hatred, however well- or ill-founded. Which is exactly what you're doing in this very post; attempting (and failing) to deconstruct the game by applying the most uncharitable interpretations of it possible, simply because you've decided you don't like it and need to justify to yourself why you don't like it, as opposed to engage in any meaningful, substantive analysis or critique that functions on a level beyond the entirely superficial.

Rather than try to understand what went wrong with it and why, in order to gain a better understanding of not just this game's failures, but how translation and localization work in the first place and are critical to a game's reception in markets outside that for which the game was originally developed.
 

BrawlMan

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Enough with Other M already. Despite all the context and explanations most gets, the game's story still sucked. If anyone likes the game for any reason; good on them. Getting this thread back on track.

 
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Hawki

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where they literally flip every aspect of her personality just so she could be the damsel in distress.
Not sure how much of a personality Samus had before Othe M, but okay...
 

Hawki

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The original Doom protag never had much of an explicit personality either, but if Bethesda had released Doom (2016) with a storyline of Other M: Doom version, it would also be considered a betrayal of the character.
Possibly, but we're getting into lots of grey territory in both areas.

The problem with Other M (to me) is its storytelling far more than its plot (and yes, those are two different things, even if they're often conflated). From a plot standpoint, the main problem with Other M is that it undercuts Fusion - Samus is introduced to Nightmare and knowledge that the Federation is breeding metroids, but these are presented as revelations in Fusion. Apart from that though, there's little issue with it IMO. It's the storytelling where it falls short. What's frustrating with Other M is that so many of its issues, from the Varia suit to Ridley, could so easily have been fixed with the execution kept more or less the same, but it falls short.

But on the other hand, does Other M "betray" Samus as a character? I don't know. I think it does a poor job of showing that character, but here's the things with Other M:

-Other M is thematically about loss, grief, family/friendship, and arguably isolation. We see that with the Samus/infant thing, we see that with Samus and Adam, we see that with Samus and Ridley, we see that with MB. I think most of us will agree that it's deeply flawed in how it presents those things, but since Samus is mostly a blank slate, I don't agree that Other M can 'betray' her character when so little of Samus's character has been established, and of what has been established could easily segway into it.

-I can't help but feel that there's a double standard with Other M. I mean, the sins of past games don't excuse its own sins, but Metroid's never been big on storytelling bar a few key exceptions (e.g. Fusion), yet it seems that people are willing to turn a blind eye to some things, and not others. People have criticized stuff like the Varia function (correctly), but are fine overlooking how Samus loses her items in every adventure. People raise eyebrows with Ridley (correctly), but have never addressed Samus's LACK of reaction in other areas. People criticize the Platoon members' lack of characterization, but give a free pass to Hunters (FFS, will someone PLEASE explain why Sylux is so popular?) People criticize Other M for differing in its portrayal of the Federation from the Prime series, but give the Prime series a pass for differing from its portrayal of the Federation from the original game manuals and the manga.

And okay, fine, you can make the argument that a) the other games kept story in the background, so it's less egregious, and b) that we hold games to a higher standard these days than those in the past, but while I agree that Other M's story is heavily flawed, that's a criticism I can apply to the majority of Metroid games I've played, or if I can't, it's usually because they don't really have a story at all.
 

FakeSympathy

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Enough with Other M already. Despite all the context and explanations most gets, the game's story still sucked. If anyone likes the game for any reason; good on them. Getting this thread back on track.

THANK YOU!

Looking back on the advance war remaster. I think I may have been a little too excited.
Here's the original gameplay on gba:

And here's the trailer from e3:

IDK if it's because of 2d to 3d transition, but something about the remaster feels.... off? Like, I can't help but feel the 16-bit sprite looks better than the 3d models
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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It *does* look a little bit Live 2D Mobile Game, doesn't it.

Honestly, the fact that these game companies are sniping Sqeenix's Octopath style pixels is maddening. Hell, Sqeenix doesn't like sniping Sqeenix's Octopath pixels.