Surely if you don't like the one game you can just ignore it and remember the character as you chose to?
Poll: Metroid: Other M killed Samus
- Thread starter sargeant15
- Start date
Even if the game didn't ruin Samus' character, the huge backlash about the changes and the backlash from the backlash probably will damage people's opinions of Samus. Overall not ruined, but this is a chapter of Metroid that won't soon be forgotten, for better or for worse.
Personally? Now, I'm all for three-dimensional characters and a compelling narrative and all that. And if any of Nintendo's empty vessel characters got this treatment, I'm glad it was Samus. I just don't think the game did her any justice by having the game be badly written all around.
There's also the fact that even if Samus' previous persona was just one projected by the gaming world at large, why not roll with it? Give Samus some depth, have her be vulnerable, be three-dimensional. Just have her be a badass in a power-suit in ways besides the gameplay, too. Honestly, the switches in persona are more jarring than any controller tilting.
Personally? Now, I'm all for three-dimensional characters and a compelling narrative and all that. And if any of Nintendo's empty vessel characters got this treatment, I'm glad it was Samus. I just don't think the game did her any justice by having the game be badly written all around.
There's also the fact that even if Samus' previous persona was just one projected by the gaming world at large, why not roll with it? Give Samus some depth, have her be vulnerable, be three-dimensional. Just have her be a badass in a power-suit in ways besides the gameplay, too. Honestly, the switches in persona are more jarring than any controller tilting.
Oh yeah... I forgot ..or ignored them.Gigaguy64 said:
Awesome picture is awesome.LeonLethality said:Aura Guardian said:
Oh, hey you're here too!Gigaguy64 said:
I always pictured Samus as a reserved female Indiana Jones or Zoro or anything other than a whiny anime girl, like maybe a bounty hunter. But no, the Japanese businessmen made sure that didn't happen. They went anime on her ass. If this was the early 90's when heroes were heroes with only a touch of pedophilia undercurrent this might not have been so bad but now with the introverted in-the-closet Narutos sulking for 5 straight episodes and rampant pedophilia I don't want them animeing up anybody. Honestly, it's like a cry for help nowadays.
I blame Evangelion for all of this. Up yours Shinji. 'Waaah, Daddy didn't love me, waaah.' Um you do know the fate of the world rest in your hands, right?
I blame Evangelion for all of this. Up yours Shinji. 'Waaah, Daddy didn't love me, waaah.' Um you do know the fate of the world rest in your hands, right?
As I've said before I honestly believe Samus was one of the best and most interesting characters in the history of video games. There was a lot of character depth to be found if you bothered to look for it and Metroid: Other M took the established characterization and tossed it aside.
I'm not adverse to change as long as the change makes sense but a lot of the changes made to Samus just seem arbitrary at best and offensive at worst.
The point I would actually object to in the article in question is the statement. "While under the player's control, she is exactly the Samus of old"
She is? Did I miss the game previous to this where Samus was a bloodthirsty Space Marine choking the life out of enemies with her bare hands and performing acrobatic God Of War style killing moves?
She was a soldier, and a warrior to be sure but that's not really the same thing.
Anyway, I'm not going to be supporting this new trend in the franchise. I love the Metroid games and I love the character of Samus Aran but despite the name, this game doesn't deliver either of those things.
I'm not adverse to change as long as the change makes sense but a lot of the changes made to Samus just seem arbitrary at best and offensive at worst.
The point I would actually object to in the article in question is the statement. "While under the player's control, she is exactly the Samus of old"
She is? Did I miss the game previous to this where Samus was a bloodthirsty Space Marine choking the life out of enemies with her bare hands and performing acrobatic God Of War style killing moves?
She was a soldier, and a warrior to be sure but that's not really the same thing.
Anyway, I'm not going to be supporting this new trend in the franchise. I love the Metroid games and I love the character of Samus Aran but despite the name, this game doesn't deliver either of those things.
this side of Samus doesn't surprise me, but they coulda left her some common sense (lava zone chase i'm looking at you)
far as i'm concerd, any one whinny about 'how they ruined Samus with other M' is an idiot and needs to read up on her back story before popping off again.
yes, its fanboy sounding, butits true, a lot of the whinning is from ppl who donno the back story,
and anything from G4 TVs fail feast that is Xplay, is ignorable anyway
far as i'm concerd, any one whinny about 'how they ruined Samus with other M' is an idiot and needs to read up on her back story before popping off again.
yes, its fanboy sounding, butits true, a lot of the whinning is from ppl who donno the back story,
and anything from G4 TVs fail feast that is Xplay, is ignorable anyway
Wow, lots of ground to cover in this thread, but here goes...
Samus is dependant on the cast of character presented before her
Last time I checked, which was about last night, Samus was bound by Galactic Law (or whatever fancy organisation those guys belong to, now being refered to as "Space Law") even if she is a licensed bounty hunter. And that's the important thing to remmeber: licensed! If she goes around doing whatever she wants, she could be hunted down as a criminal. Yes, some of the "unlock" scenes make little to no sense (why can't she use Ice Beam but everyone else gets to use the Freeze Guns/Why can she only activate the Varia feature after going through most of the volcano part) but you need to excuse small mistakes sometimes because even great works have small foibles in them. Also, that's not to say Other M is a "great work", just that things far above it have similar flaws.
But Bounty Hunters don't follow laws! They get the job done! She's too bad ass for Space Laws!
You know what? I'll conceed that point. Let's assume to go around killing people and raking in cashs he doesn't need all those galactic space stations to help fix her ship up, reload her aersenal and give her her next mission. Is Samus really a Bounty Hunter at this point, though? She's doesn't really get paid for any of this. Most of the time people just ask her to go check out what's going on at "location X" for "reason Y". Wouldn't this make her an explorer? I mean, she's discovered the entire planet of Zebes! Really, I think her job title needs adjusting at this point.
Why can a Freeze Gun stop Samus!? They're weak sauce!
Considering these are banned by Space Law, I doubt they're weak. I'd go as far to say that considering it seemed to me that it was a "last ditch effort" tactical decision when they first used them that Freeze Guns are pretty powerful and harmful to organic life. Even the Freeze Gun power-up clearly states it increases damage to all enemies hit with it! All enemies! If a Freeze Shot is an upgrade from the plasma Samus normally fires, then I'd have to say that Freeze Gun technology is pretty powerful.
Why is she such an emo *****!?
Emo? Really? All I saw was a character that lamented for good times passed, but then decided that part of her life was behind her because she grew the hell up! What I get out of what I've seen of Other M is that she's been alone for a very long time and has no real way of associating herself with humanity anymore. However, she seems to understand that as much as she doesn't fit well with society, it was her choice to be excluded and rolls with it. And all the blubbering over past friends? Well, I'd be pretty emotional too if I had close ties with people and then suddenly they appear in my life. Get over it.
Why is she so scared of Ridley!? She's killed him, like, a bajillion times!!!
Alright, this is probably the easiest argument out of them all.
Remember when in Super Metroid, the game Other M directly follows, Samus "kills" Ridley? Of course you do, it's one of the times you counted in the "Samus vs. Ridley" tally of why she shouldn't be afraid of him. Now, do you also remember the part where the entire planet blew up and no one saw Ridley escape it!?!? By all accounts, Ridley was still on planet Zebes when it blew up. Now, I understand Samus is pretty cool under preasure, but if I had an arch-nemesis that just survived a brutal beat-down by me, which was followed by a planet exploding on him(!!!!!!!) I'd be seriously considering my life decisions and career goals at that moment, right before I crap out my intestines and cry to anyone near-by to make the bad space dragon monster go away! Yes, there's hyperbole in there, but that's just how rediculously scary that would be! This guy survived an explosion from something that killed Mother Brain, which would probably be that of many, many megatons of blast force, after getting the crap kicked out of him. Hope that puts some perspective on that.
Why isn't Samus the badass we all know her to be!? That's not how we invisioned her!
Fault in your statement. You can invision all you want but it's not your character. It is no player's character. It is the character of Nintendo and you can cry about it all you want but it was never your character. If you put your own personality attached to Samus and the character didn't develop exactly how you believe she should have, tough cookies! Stop buying Metroid games if you don't like where it's going. Your fault for expecting one thing and getting another instead of following the actual story and character development as it came out.
But all the fans thought she wa-
SHUSH! Not anyone's character but Nintendo's! No excuses. They can make her into whatever they want. Really, she could've been that way all along and this is the first game they decided to flesh it out. Honestly, there's enough reading material to get a sense of where she was and where she is now to make a full judgement. Seeing as I haven't read any of it, I will reserve fan rage until then. For now, I simply say "that's how she is, deal with it!"
Now, I'll be the first to say that I haven't completed Other M yet, but I think my arguments are fairly clear and also tie in information I've gathered. I hope to hear some good rebuttles or an ultimate declaration that I'm the supreme debater and I win this thread...
Yeah, I know the latter will never happen, but a man can dream.
Samus is dependant on the cast of character presented before her
Last time I checked, which was about last night, Samus was bound by Galactic Law (or whatever fancy organisation those guys belong to, now being refered to as "Space Law") even if she is a licensed bounty hunter. And that's the important thing to remmeber: licensed! If she goes around doing whatever she wants, she could be hunted down as a criminal. Yes, some of the "unlock" scenes make little to no sense (why can't she use Ice Beam but everyone else gets to use the Freeze Guns/Why can she only activate the Varia feature after going through most of the volcano part) but you need to excuse small mistakes sometimes because even great works have small foibles in them. Also, that's not to say Other M is a "great work", just that things far above it have similar flaws.
But Bounty Hunters don't follow laws! They get the job done! She's too bad ass for Space Laws!
You know what? I'll conceed that point. Let's assume to go around killing people and raking in cashs he doesn't need all those galactic space stations to help fix her ship up, reload her aersenal and give her her next mission. Is Samus really a Bounty Hunter at this point, though? She's doesn't really get paid for any of this. Most of the time people just ask her to go check out what's going on at "location X" for "reason Y". Wouldn't this make her an explorer? I mean, she's discovered the entire planet of Zebes! Really, I think her job title needs adjusting at this point.
Why can a Freeze Gun stop Samus!? They're weak sauce!
Considering these are banned by Space Law, I doubt they're weak. I'd go as far to say that considering it seemed to me that it was a "last ditch effort" tactical decision when they first used them that Freeze Guns are pretty powerful and harmful to organic life. Even the Freeze Gun power-up clearly states it increases damage to all enemies hit with it! All enemies! If a Freeze Shot is an upgrade from the plasma Samus normally fires, then I'd have to say that Freeze Gun technology is pretty powerful.
Why is she such an emo *****!?
Emo? Really? All I saw was a character that lamented for good times passed, but then decided that part of her life was behind her because she grew the hell up! What I get out of what I've seen of Other M is that she's been alone for a very long time and has no real way of associating herself with humanity anymore. However, she seems to understand that as much as she doesn't fit well with society, it was her choice to be excluded and rolls with it. And all the blubbering over past friends? Well, I'd be pretty emotional too if I had close ties with people and then suddenly they appear in my life. Get over it.
Why is she so scared of Ridley!? She's killed him, like, a bajillion times!!!
Alright, this is probably the easiest argument out of them all.
Remember when in Super Metroid, the game Other M directly follows, Samus "kills" Ridley? Of course you do, it's one of the times you counted in the "Samus vs. Ridley" tally of why she shouldn't be afraid of him. Now, do you also remember the part where the entire planet blew up and no one saw Ridley escape it!?!? By all accounts, Ridley was still on planet Zebes when it blew up. Now, I understand Samus is pretty cool under preasure, but if I had an arch-nemesis that just survived a brutal beat-down by me, which was followed by a planet exploding on him(!!!!!!!) I'd be seriously considering my life decisions and career goals at that moment, right before I crap out my intestines and cry to anyone near-by to make the bad space dragon monster go away! Yes, there's hyperbole in there, but that's just how rediculously scary that would be! This guy survived an explosion from something that killed Mother Brain, which would probably be that of many, many megatons of blast force, after getting the crap kicked out of him. Hope that puts some perspective on that.
Why isn't Samus the badass we all know her to be!? That's not how we invisioned her!
Fault in your statement. You can invision all you want but it's not your character. It is no player's character. It is the character of Nintendo and you can cry about it all you want but it was never your character. If you put your own personality attached to Samus and the character didn't develop exactly how you believe she should have, tough cookies! Stop buying Metroid games if you don't like where it's going. Your fault for expecting one thing and getting another instead of following the actual story and character development as it came out.
But all the fans thought she wa-
SHUSH! Not anyone's character but Nintendo's! No excuses. They can make her into whatever they want. Really, she could've been that way all along and this is the first game they decided to flesh it out. Honestly, there's enough reading material to get a sense of where she was and where she is now to make a full judgement. Seeing as I haven't read any of it, I will reserve fan rage until then. For now, I simply say "that's how she is, deal with it!"
Now, I'll be the first to say that I haven't completed Other M yet, but I think my arguments are fairly clear and also tie in information I've gathered. I hope to hear some good rebuttles or an ultimate declaration that I'm the supreme debater and I win this thread...
Yeah, I know the latter will never happen, but a man can dream.
She was never portrayed as anything before, she was a blank slate with no personality, that champion is what you filled the blanks in with, for all you know it really wasn't her.NameIsRobertPaulson said:
They turned her into just another bimbo. In other M she doesn't do anything as long as a man doesn't tell her to. For example in that much publicized part of the game where Samus is burning her butt off, until her boyfriend allows her to use her varia suit. Samus as helpless, scared little girl who needs a man to command her around. Next thing you know he got her chained into the kitchen, where she belongs. Ridiculous.
Fusion comes far after Other M, people's personalities can change. Perhaps she doesn't take orders from anyone but Adam and since he is not around for Fusion she doesn't take them from anyone. Just a guess.NameIsRobertPaulson said:
I just think that they could have handled her characterization better. Hopefully this is only a momentary hiccup. I'd love to see some more character for Samus, but I just can't get behind a whiny little girl who introspectively narrates how she feels weak and powerless. Or, if she's going to do that, if she could at least have some semblance of real emotion. She deadpans everything, which is good if we want a robot Samus. If my character is going to become 3-D it would be pleasant if she was believable.
I GET that she has daddy issues. I get that. But, it's not something I really want to deal with. She's an interstellar bounty hunter. She fights space pirates for breakfast. If she likes to knit before bed or if she's a raging lesbian who mainlines heroine through her eyeballs, that's FINE. But make it work with her character; she's a bounty hunter. She works alone, doesn't mean she's heartless. Maybe she just doesn't want to hurt a potential partner because of her crazy chozo tech.
Anyway, giving a character weakness is a powerful tool for story telling and helps us to appreciate and connect with the character more. When you make the WHOLE STORY, however, about how the character has daddy issues, or was a petulant brat it's not engaging. It's annoying. Making Samus more dimensional should be just that, more dimensional. Not just shifting her from "Empty Vessel" to "Vunerable Human."
I suppose that by the end this hurdle is overcome, but honestly, it's like if Kratos spent one game talking about how vulnerable he felt because Zeus never really loved him, or how Poseidon used to call him short and it made him self conscious.
tl;dr
I like that they wanted to give Samus character, but the execution was poorly done and left the character kind of annoying.
I GET that she has daddy issues. I get that. But, it's not something I really want to deal with. She's an interstellar bounty hunter. She fights space pirates for breakfast. If she likes to knit before bed or if she's a raging lesbian who mainlines heroine through her eyeballs, that's FINE. But make it work with her character; she's a bounty hunter. She works alone, doesn't mean she's heartless. Maybe she just doesn't want to hurt a potential partner because of her crazy chozo tech.
Anyway, giving a character weakness is a powerful tool for story telling and helps us to appreciate and connect with the character more. When you make the WHOLE STORY, however, about how the character has daddy issues, or was a petulant brat it's not engaging. It's annoying. Making Samus more dimensional should be just that, more dimensional. Not just shifting her from "Empty Vessel" to "Vunerable Human."
I suppose that by the end this hurdle is overcome, but honestly, it's like if Kratos spent one game talking about how vulnerable he felt because Zeus never really loved him, or how Poseidon used to call him short and it made him self conscious.
tl;dr
I like that they wanted to give Samus character, but the execution was poorly done and left the character kind of annoying.
She didn't have much character to begin with, but I still don't know if a "meek little girl" was what they were aiming for. Sure that seems like how it turned out, but... the fact is, we knew nothing about Samus, and while it may feel weird to discover she has daddy issues and PTSD, shock was kind of the reaction Team Ninja is going for. Like, say, the same kind of shock gamers felt when they first finished the original Metroid?
That's not to say that I think Team Ninja has a complete, nuanced and respectful view of women's rights and feminism (some of them were involved with Ninja Gaiden, remember), and I don't personally like it much either, but I'm glad that Nintendo and Team Ninja tried something new and risky. If I had a Wii, I might get the game. Well, no I wouldn't, but that's not because of bad decisions or anything like that.
[sub]God I'm so poor...[/sub]
That's not to say that I think Team Ninja has a complete, nuanced and respectful view of women's rights and feminism (some of them were involved with Ninja Gaiden, remember), and I don't personally like it much either, but I'm glad that Nintendo and Team Ninja tried something new and risky. If I had a Wii, I might get the game. Well, no I wouldn't, but that's not because of bad decisions or anything like that.
[sub]God I'm so poor...[/sub]