Nintendo Puzzled Over Other M's Poor Performance

[TsunamiWombat]

Here's a quick rundown:

Samus before "Metroid: Other M" = Ellen Ripley. Badass
Samus according to "Metroid: Other M": Whiny, approx 13 year-old girl with massive emotional problems and insecurities. NOT COOL.

Oh yeah, and the control were terrible, the story was bad, and it's buggy like nothing else.

Samus has never been characterized like Ellen Ripley. Just so you know, Other M is the first time Samus has ever been characterized at all. This game shows us Samus is just a regular girl inside of her Chozo power suit.

The main controls are actually really good, the main complaint is the missile aiming. Once you figure out you can still use the "1" button to fire your missiles instead of shifting your hand to the A button, it becomes more intuitive. You can even pre-charge super missiles.

A lot of people hate the characterization. I didn't. Go back to Gears of War.

I didn't have a single bug on my multiple playthroughs. There was one massive showstopper, which is avoidable with pre-knowledge of it. To say "it's buggy like nothing else" is to ignore Fallout New Vegas. Enough said.

Only insecure juveniles would see the Ridley scene and be embarrassed. Everyone has the wrong idea. It is about overcoming fears, not the fear itself. The Ridley fight would have just been another random nostalgic boss fight without the scene. *cue Phantoon, Nightmare, Metroid Queen*

Incorrect. Samus has been characterized and her past expounded upon in official comcis. This is not the first time she's been characterized, and Samus is NOT a Regular girl. She watched her entire family die when she was a child, she was raised by jedi-esque hyper advanced aliens, who were also later killed I believe. She joined the military, excelled, and left because she felt they didn't go far enough in protecting the far flung reaches and quit to become a bounty hunter and professional killer for hire. She had also faced and killed Ridely twice by the time of this game.

A scene where she is struck by memories of her family? Great. Scene where she FREAKS THE FUCK OUT AND GETS ALL GIRLISH AND MEEK AROUND AN OLD COMMANDER? NO, EFF THAT. Samus and Adam's relationship was characterized GREAT in fusion (adam was said to be DEAD in that game by the way), where she mentioned Adam used to call her "lady", but he didnt mean it insultingly because he RESPECTED HER, and he was also the only one with the Balls to ever do it.

PS: Even one bug that can crash a whole game in a linear easily testable 8 hour game is inescusable.

 

[Why do I care]

Let me tell you something.

I have been a Metroid fan since the first game. Ever. Every game I enjoyed thoroughly. I honestly think that M:OM was not that bad, but it could have been WAY better. Let me list the problems.

1. Story

Ok, ok I've heard that the story is shitty, and I can only partly agree. Most can only make sense if you actually played Metroid Fusion and Super Metroid (to make sense of the Adam and Baby part though). But good god they made Samus look WEAK man! I mean, come on, HOW DO YOU FUCK UP A KICKASS SPACE BOUNTY HUNTER?! When I played the games, I thought that her voice was to be strong and never like this.

2. Items that only Adam can unlock.

God damn it where do I start?

You can't fuck this up. You just can't. Metroid is about exploring to find your items so that you can advance further into the planet/base you are on. Making the game so that you can only get specific items after Adam decides that Samus needs to live for another hour just seems wrong.

Overall, I enjoyed the game myself, but there are some things that they need to work out.

 

[pneuma08]

Seriously? Without even mentioning the characterization, long and unskippable cutscenes, or even the elements of its story, I could easily write an essay about what Other M did wrong or poorly.

I was pretty excited about Other M too. I'm so glad I played it without purchasing it. I was angry enough at the game without spending any money on it.

 

[mattttherman3]

I say, put it on the shelf for now, wait for the next console generation, then bring it back along the lines of metroid prime, just call it metroid appocolypse or something

 

[duchaked]

not that I'm a fan or play the games, but I mean well at least it wasn't BAD overall I suppose

 

[Angeryterrano]

its because the Wii cant run shit

 

[Zeromaeus]

Because giving a silent protagonist a voice has never worked ever.

Ahem.

Spoiler: My Counter Argument

-claps-
Good show. I almost forgot about those wonderful games. Note to self: Play them again.

OT: I can't really add much that hasn't been added already. The gameplay was pretty good, barring a few exceptions. The story... well... not so much. They characterized Samus very badly. She was shown as weak and dependent upon others. How are we supposed to believe that that person could do all the things she already did. Take for example her HBSOD (heroic blue screen of death (I blame tvtropes for this acronym))when she saw Ridley. Does this seem like something Samus from the previous games would do? If so, how in the world did she survive all of those previous encounters with the space-dragon? Also, the whole Adam thing was overplayed to the point of ridiculousness. Metroid: Fusion implied a sort of give and take between a superior officer (Adam) and Samus that implied a sort of mutual respect. All I saw in M:OM was Adam lording over Samus and Samus rolling over and allowing it for some odd reason.

I also disagree with the people who claim that Samus wasn't characterized before M:OM. Even excluding Fusion's little monologues, I feel that Samus was characterized quite a bit. It was subtle, however, and I can understand how people would believe otherwise. Her actions spoke much louder than words when it came down to it. The act of saving the baby metroid alone spoke volumes, to take a popular example. It spoke of her motherly nature, her willingness to divert from mission parameters and even the extent to which she's willing to risk herself for what she feels is right. As anyone who's played the games before well knows, having a Metroid within your general vicinity is generally a very dangerous situation, but she decided to take the risk and take the baby with her. The fact that she always deals with the 'space police' infers a great deal to. She's a bounty hunter, and a skilled one at that. I imagine that someone of her skill is known quite far and wide and would have bounties pouring in from all sectors of space just for her. However, she always works with the 'space police,' the established law, the good guys in other words (Fusion grayed out this last one quite considerably). Speaking of Fusion, her persistence toward the end of the game was quite considerable as far as characterization goes. She was ordered not take further action, but instead defied her orders and acted on her on judgment for pretty much the rest of the game. Its little things like these that establish a character in a way that simple dialogue never could. Well, it probably could be established in dialogue, but it would probably come out a great deal more ham-handedly than it did.

...
...

Everyone always forgets Old Bird, Samus' adoptive father-figure...

 

[mechanixis]

It had nothing to do with the quality of the game; Nintendo has just cornered the casual market so well that the Metroid fanbase has migrated away.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

]Just give us another Metroid Prime game. Without a massive story like Metroid Prime 3, but the free exploring that made the original Prime so fun.

But Prime 3 didn't really have a massive story, did it? Basically it was

Spoiler

"Freaky new Virus, oh no wait, it's attacking your friends! And it's growing inside you! Kill your friends, find source of virus and kill it. TEH END

I have yet to play Other M yet, but I don't think I'll like the whole "Silent protagonist given a voice" thing.

 

[sdfasdfhfgfgjtyisdgdfdfj]

This is what a good game developer would say:
"Well, we've tried!"
"Yup, let's try something else or stick with the old formula (Or a mix in between)"

 

[inkheart_artist]

Well shit, after Nintendo alienated the audience I was part of for so long I lost hope for the Wii and gave it away; all's it ever did after a brief stint of intrigue was collect dust. I was still interested in Other M until I saw the lackluster reviews. Samus is one of my most beloved video game characters but I'm not buying a half decent game on a system with a crummy line up and a future I'm not looking forward to just because it has the Metroid label on it. Did he expect the non-casual crowd to just start giving a shit out of nowhere for one game? Did he think the casual crowd would be excited for a character that they may have only vaguely known about getting a new game?

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

Personally..I loved it. It's just that you can't please all fans. Fans are fans after all.

HERE HERE!

I also really enjoyed Other M, in fact probably not just of my favorite games for the Wii, but one of my favorite games periode.

Is this really that hard to figure out? Other M did poorly because it was a shitty game! I don't think I need to embellish on that, we've been all around the mulberry bush on that one.

*blows raspberry* THHHHBTHTHPPTTHTHT!

 

[Xerosch]

Overall, I enjoyed the game myself, but there are some things that they need to work out.

Wouldn't it be nice if the next Metroid refined the good parts of Other M (no matter how little here was)

let Samus wake up from a nightmare in the very first scene (thus removing Other M from the canon without saying it) and...

let her be attacked, resulting in a scar on Samus' throat and her becoming mute (See? Character development plus missing voice)

 

[Cid Silverwing]

They didn't do one damn thing right. Refer to Yahtzee's review and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Xander_VJ]

Most probably it was because the game didn't really reach the casual audience, and in the hardcore community (the one the advertising was aiming for) mouth-to-mouth utterly killed it.

And for good reason, I'm afraid.

It was not a bad game, but it was definitely not on the average "Metroid" quality either.

Samus' character is THE SAME she had before. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't played "Metroid Fusion", nor knows the "expanded universe" (AKA the official manga). Hell, even in "Super Metroid" we have glimpses of her insecurities.

The problem was not in "WHAT", but in "HOW". There is where everything went wrong.

First of all we need to clarify something: Team Ninja DID NOT write Samus' character. Sakamoto did. And it was jarringly obvious that he doesn't know the first thing about good characterization.

Making her banging her head over her insecurities over and over... and over, and over, and over... and over (a mistake that bad japanese writers seem to make every time), doesn't make her a likable character: it makes her annoying.

In "Metroid Fusion" Samus talks about her insecurities too, but since she only does it from time to time, and in the RIGHT moments, that made her more human.

The same could be said about every other story issue the game had. It was not a matter of giving a "Metroid" game a heavy story. It was a matter of HOW that story was executed.

And gameplay wise, yes, it was a matter of bad calls and sticking to them out of sheer stubbornness. You want to make a "Metroid" game with retro-feeling gameplay in a NES way? Fine by me. But when you do it with controls like MoM... YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!


Finally, I feel sorry for Team Ninja too.

Despite their obsession with big boobs (which makes some people to unfairly underrate them), they are a great team. "Dead or Alive" is a great fighting series and "Ninja Gaiden Black" is still the best 3D hack'n slash ever.

But with this game they are receiving some harsh criticism about things that are NOT their fault. The only thing that they truly deserve to be blamed for is the uninspiring level and character design. Not that those are minor issues, specially the first one, but the REAL game brakers (story and control decisions) were not their fault.

 

[Grygor]

Only insecure juveniles would see the Ridley scene and be embarrassed. Everyone has the wrong idea. It is about overcoming fears, not the fear itself. The Ridley fight would have just been another random nostalgic boss fight without the scene. *cue Phantoon, Nightmare, Metroid Queen*

Incorrect. Samus has been characterized and her past expounded upon in official comcis. This is not the first time she's been characterized, and Samus is NOT a Regular girl. She watched her entire family die when she was a child, she was raised by jedi-esque hyper advanced aliens, who were also later killed I believe. She joined the military, excelled, and left because she felt they didn't go far enough in protecting the far flung reaches and quit to become a bounty hunter and professional killer for hire. She had also faced and killed Ridely twice by the time of this game.

Four times, actually. She's fought Ridley four times at this point in the story. Other M is chronologically the next-to-last game in the series - only Fusion comes later.

Never mind that Other M is fundamentally the same story as Fusion anyway, making it also unnecessary - not to mention it introduces plot holes into Fusion (namely, why would it surprise her in Fusion that the Federation is breeding metroids if she's already seen them breeding metroids in Other M?).

 

[GloatingSwine]

Oh hey, a complete gameplay shift from open exploration to linear platforming, overblown cutscenes and a main character that was suddenly completely unrelatable.

In short, it's the exact polar opposite of everything a Metroid game, sidescroller or first person had been up to that point.

And they wonder why no-one liked it?

 

[10BIT]

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet:

http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html

It is by far the most accurate and detailed article on the faults of Other M reaching over 7,000 words and yet only looks at the characterisation. If it were to include gameplay changes and controls, I'm sure there would be a lot more to complain about.

 

[ItsAPaul]

They should just realize no one gets a wii to play real games since its a terrible console and all. No one I know played it since the whole "have to have permission to use upgrades" thing is retarded and no one in their right mind could like that story.