Poll: Metroid: Other M killed Samus

[Lunar Templar]

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

 

[HellsingerAngel]

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.

 

[LeonLethality]

HAHA. No. No it didn't.
It's just that Nintendo can't win when you think about it. People wanted Nintendo to add voice acting and emotion to their franchises. They listen and the fans hate it.

Ruined? No, it added character to an otherwise uninteresting character.

Other M made the series much more interesting and I hope to see more Metroid titles like it.

Thank you.

Glad I saved you a bit of opinion typing. It's sad how fickle many fans can be, the same fans who praised OoT as the best game ever and comparing every following Zelda game to it saying they were not as good criticized Twilight Princess for trying to be like OoT. I kinda feel bad for Nintendo, no matter how much they listen to their fans they just can't seem to please them.

But it's a complete shift of character. Every single game in the series portrayed her as this fearless champion, something games with female leads lack. Suddenly, she's a robot that will die if ordered to. She went from Heero Yui to Rei Ayanami if you'll forgive the nerdiness there.

This character shift would be like if suddenly Link had Dante's personality from DMC. Or if Master Chief rolled over and cried every time another 100 marines were killed in Halo.

They added the WRONG kind of depth, adding traits to make her weak.

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.

 

[li-ion]

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.

 

[dalek sec]

As someone who's never played the game can someone please explain to me what they did to Samus that's so bad? I'm not trying to troll, just wondering what's so bad?

 

[LeonLethality]

HAHA. No. No it didn't.
It's just that Nintendo can't win when you think about it. People wanted Nintendo to add voice acting and emotion to their franchises. They listen and the fans hate it.

Ruined? No, it added character to an otherwise uninteresting character.

Other M made the series much more interesting and I hope to see more Metroid titles like it.

Thank you.

Glad I saved you a bit of opinion typing. It's sad how fickle many fans can be, the same fans who praised OoT as the best game ever and comparing every following Zelda game to it saying they were not as good criticized Twilight Princess for trying to be like OoT. I kinda feel bad for Nintendo, no matter how much they listen to their fans they just can't seem to please them.

But it's a complete shift of character. Every single game in the series portrayed her as this fearless champion, something games with female leads lack. Suddenly, she's a robot that will die if ordered to. She went from Heero Yui to Rei Ayanami if you'll forgive the nerdiness there.

This character shift would be like if suddenly Link had Dante's personality from DMC. Or if Master Chief rolled over and cried every time another 100 marines were killed in Halo.

They added the WRONG kind of depth, adding traits to make her weak.

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.

Look at Fusion. She states that she hates taking orders, and especially from some computer. And even when she was given explicit orders not to enter Sector 0, she did because it allowed her to survive, and regain her strength. This goes a complete 180, and not in a good way.

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.

 

[MasterV]

Took long enough to see something like this. The answer is a big resounding YES. YES! I'll just pretend this piece of shit story never existed.

 

[Reunech]

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.

 

[PrototypeC]

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]

 

[sargeant15]

Ok, maybe the story isn't good, the plot sucks, or the direction they went with Samus isn't great. That doesn't mean that it ruined Samus and the franchise forever. The girl who wrote the article, Morgan Webb as well, are just offended because Other M showed the sensitive and emotional side of Samus. I don't see a problem with it, but if you don't like it then just ignore it or don't play it.

 

[Ethylene Glycol]

I find myself wondering whether all those people who like the way Samus was characterized in Other M have actually met a real woman.

 

[sargeant15]

I find myself wondering whether all those people who like the way Samus was characterized in Other M have actually met a real woman.

Um... Why?

 

[Gigaguy64]

Every bit of music I could hear was just a shoddy remake that sounded terrible, otherwise I just heard silence. Maybe my TV's speakers aren't that great. But having no music is a terrible way of building up atmosphere, especially if you're having characters all over the place. Every other metroid game has amazing music, this game has terrible music and none of it is original as far as I'm aware. Feel free to prove me wrong, it'd be welcome to know this game isn't entirely shit. You also don't have to explore. There are exactly two ways you go about this game. Through the green door or through the obvious morphball tunnel. There is virtually no exploring in this game, I managed to get 100% in less time going blind then it takes me to get 100% in any other metroid game after playing several times. Linearity is bad in a series where the main focus has always been free exploration only limited to what you've found. It was always what metroid was known for, linearity will be the death of the series and it's just converting it to another generic action series of "go here, do this then repeat". Maybe you like having your hand held, I might suggest another franchise entirely. But then again if Sakamoto keeps this level of control over the series then it'll most likely remain the same shoddy quality.

Are you talking about Fusion or Other M?
You seam to be switching around.

Actually concentration will restore all of your missiles and at first one tank, you can make it up to a maximum of three or four depending on how many upgrades you've gotten. But given that most attacks won't actually kill you and instead just leave you at 1/0 health all the time it's pretty easy to not die in the game if you're bad enough to even get hit given that you don't even have to time the dodge move at all and almost every move can be dodged without any consequence. Because you know, metroid is totally an action based game for gritty god of war fans.

its still not infinite health as it only works when your Dying, and you don't get that many Missiles anyway.
And in not of the Metroid Games will most normal attacks Kill You.
Outside of Bosses you will only take about 1/10 to 1/3 points of Damage.
And all the Charging is done Standing Still, and Dodging wile Charging will restart the charge sooo its a "Do it at your own Risk during fights" move.
But in other Metroids you just had to shoot everything to restore health, or do something that makes even more sense, visit Health Stations on Space Pirate Ships designed to Work for Samus and not the Space Pirates themselves.

The prime series did end on a good note, it was a good series too. It showed how the series could change and grow without being shit. Other M was a step back in every way. It's not evolution, which implies good traits becoming more refined or advanced, but rather mutation. Uncontrolled cancerous mutation that will be the death of the series as it turns into a generic, linear action game with terrible anime plots and a character who is characterized as a complete and utter whiny fuck-up, despite being the most competent character in past games and being a complete bad-ass in the game.

Or its a game where the opinion varies from person to person.
The Camera works pretty well, and opening up to show the environment is awesome.
2.5d is interesting and with the way the Game flows it works pretty well.
That;s what id call a Evolution.
Other M was a step back in some ways but an improvement in others.

And it was made by Japanese Developers, what did you expect?
I knew it was gonna have more Anime style influences this time around and they don't bother me that much.
The story itself is great, the way it moves and the Voice Acting is whats bad.
Samus now has emotion that is clearly shown and not hinted at like in other games.
Sometimes it worked.
But i wont deny that the Monologue is bad.
And while the Cutscenes didn't match up with her Actions during the game, it didn't kill her.
And you talk as if this is the entire Future.
If Prime showed us Anything its that the Series will Grow and Change.
The next game could be a Strategy game for all we know.
don't go making assumptions about the Series just because one game didn't tickle your fancy.
This game was made to Make Samus's character Fleshed out, if someone liked it or not is up to them but whats done is done, now that its done it can move on to bigger and better things.

 

[Aura Guardian]

Ok, maybe the story isn't good, the plot sucks, or the direction they went with Samus isn't great. That doesn't mean that it ruined Samus and the franchise forever. The girl who wrote the article, Morgan Webb as well, are just offended because Other M showed the sensitive and emotional side of Samus. I don't see a problem with it, but if you don't like it then just ignore it or don't play it.

Bare in mind that that they gave Bayonetta a 4/5. And a man reviewed it and didn't say anything about the ..well

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well I haven't played the game so I can't really say much, but my usual response to stuff like this is to quote Yahtzee from his Silent Hill: Homecoming review,
"Fans are clinging complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concessions you make, the moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices the happier you'll be for it."

 

[Gigaguy64]

HAHA. No. No it didn't.
It's just that Nintendo can't win when you think about it. People wanted Nintendo to add voice acting and emotion to their franchises. They listen and the fans hate it.

Ruined? No, it added character to an otherwise uninteresting character.

Other M made the series much more interesting and I hope to see more Metroid titles like it.

Thank you.

Glad I saved you a bit of opinion typing. It's sad how fickle many fans can be, the same fans who praised OoT as the best game ever and comparing every following Zelda game to it saying they were not as good criticized Twilight Princess for trying to be like OoT. I kinda feel bad for Nintendo, no matter how much they listen to their fans they just can't seem to please them.

But it's a complete shift of character. Every single game in the series portrayed her as this fearless champion, something games with female leads lack. Suddenly, she's a robot that will die if ordered to. She went from Heero Yui to Rei Ayanami if you'll forgive the nerdiness there.

This character shift would be like if suddenly Link had Dante's personality from DMC. Or if Master Chief rolled over and cried every time another 100 marines were killed in Halo.

They added the WRONG kind of depth, adding traits to make her weak.

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.

Look at Fusion. She states that she hates taking orders, and especially from some computer. And even when she was given explicit orders not to enter Sector 0, she did because it allowed her to survive, and regain her strength. This goes a complete 180, and not in a good way.

She said she hates taking orders but that it wasn't the first time she did so.
She was a Member oft he Federation Military and as stated in an earlier post she is a Licensed Bounty Hunter and still bound by some laws.
And she still blows Adam off for the Good of everyone else.

 

[Stevepinto3]

First of all, this isn't the first time we had ever heard Samus speak her mind (well, audibly it is). She had monologues and a conversation in Metroid Fusion. It depicted her as a kind of stoic soldier on the outside, but having having real emotional connections under that surface. Not the kind that make her a pansy, but a real human. So something you may expect from a battle-hardened mercenary that has seen more than her fair share of struggle.

Other M just makes her into a the stereo-typical woman in any media; weak, scared, and her life revolves around men. And yet this is supposed to somehow be consistent with her running head on into dangerous places and fighting giant alien monsters. Makes no sense.

Well I haven't played the game so I can't really say much, but my usual response to stuff like this is to quote Yahtzee from his Silent Hill: Homecoming review,
"Fans are clinging complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concessions you make, the moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices the happier you'll be for it."

Way to comment on the topic without actually reading the article. It's about character consistency, not fandom. For instance, I personally don't care for ("don't care for" read as "despise) Halo, but even I would be saying "WTF" if they made a Halo game were Master Chief just started acting like a scared little ***** that couldn't go into battle without a hug and kiss from his mommy.

 

[Gigaguy64]

First of all, this isn't the first time we had ever heard Samus speak her mind (well, audibly it is). She had monologues and a conversation in Metroid Fusion. It depicted her as a kind of stoic soldier on the outside, but having having real emotional connections under that surface. Not the kind that make her a pansy, but a real human. So something you may expect from a battle-hardened mercenary that has seen more than her fair share of struggle.

Other M just makes her into a the stereo-typical woman in any media; weak, scared, and her life revolves around men. And yet this is supposed to somehow be consistent with her running head on into dangerous places and fighting giant alien monsters. Makes no sense.

She isn't Weak, just questioning her power and discovering some things bout it.
She gets Scared of a enemy that was Obliterated the last time she fought him, who suddenly appears on a Place no one would expect.
And she only feels major Emotional Attachment to one man.
Adam, her Father Figure and Former CO.

 

[LeonLethality]

I find myself wondering whether all those people who like the way Samus was characterized in Other M have actually met a real woman.

Mind explaining what you mean by this statement?

 

[Necromancer1991]

Let me highlight a few things to put this in context, the game was developed by Team Ninja who as we all know hate women (or at least women without self-aware boobs), secondly I think they totally disregarded every action she's taken in the history of the franchise, "Ridley killed her family" say one developer, "Let have her cry her eyes out when she fights him!" says another, "But hasn't she already fought him at least 5 times already, he should be on equal footing to the average space pirate by this point." say a third one, "nah that would go against her character, let have the big burly space commander save her from the mean old space dragon." say the first. The second thing they do is apparently make samus the most clueless female character ever, she's in a volcano and she taking damage, and she receive a message from her commander "Oh yeah samus I forgot to mention, you may have to go through the volcano when you get there, so feel free to turn on your heat-resistant suit so you don't die, kay bye."