So...Other M wasn't a terrible game.

[rcs619]

I didn't even mind the "working with her former unit and CO" angle, or the "one of the members of the unit is a traitor" angle, or "one of the experiments is an android replicant of Mother Brain" angle... it's just that NONE of these were competently written.

Definitely. Why did Samus leave the military? Did a mission go bad? Did she disobey unjust orders and get court martialed? Did she just get sick of the bureaucracy and decide to go off on her own to help people in her own way? Maybe the Federation military routinely ignores the people living on the fringes of human space in order to protect coreworld interests and this pissed her off. There was a ton of ways they could have used her previous military experience, and subsequent leaving of said military, to build her character in a meaningful way.

Instead, they decided to give her daddy-issues and unwavering loyalty to a man with the personality of wet cardboard.

Hell, even the authorization thing could have worked if it had been better written. Soldiers requiring certain clearance before being allowed to use certain kinds of firepower, especially in certain, sensitive environments, is common military protocol. And Adam being all like, "This station is under martial law, and you are non-military personnel. Follow my orders, including what kinds of weapons you can deploy and when, or leave" actually makes perfect sense, but only for weapons. For Space Jump and Varia Suit? Nonsense. And the whole Varia Suit scenario? Makes Samus and Adam look like incompetent idiots.

Why the hell would Samus care about martial law or what the military thinks? She's not a soldier, she's an independent non-military agent. There were only like, five of them and she easily had more firepower than all of them combined. They were in absolutely no position to enforce anything upon her. Samus had all the leverage in that situation, and as soon as Adam comes along and is like "You bow your head and obey!" Samus positively jumps at the chance to do so.

Where is the independence? Where's the self-sufficiency and self-confidence? This woman is supposed to be a badass who works alone, doing an extremely dangerous job out on the extreme edges of civilized space, and she just bows her head and falls into line immediately at the first sign of authority? Like I said, character-assassination. It would have been *faaaaaaar* more interesting if Samus' relationship with Adam was more antagonistic. If her leaving the military had been on bad terms, or at least a negative experience, and she uses her leverage to either take command of the situation from him, or at least secure a more favorable position for herself. But she doesn't.

Basically, what I wanted was a roguish space-cowboy (cowgirl?) in powered armor. Someone confident, and comfortable in their own skin after spending most of her life living among the outlaws, aliens and fringeworld colonists at the near-lawless edges of civilized space. What I got was every single mopey, brooding anime protagonist rolled into one. A character who would rather monologue and immediately bow to authority instead of sticking up for herself, her own values, and making sure that shit gets done.

I admit it could be a cultural thing, but I still think that terrible characterization and writing can cross cultural lines.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I didn't even mind the "working with her former unit and CO" angle, or the "one of the members of the unit is a traitor" angle, or "one of the experiments is an android replicant of Mother Brain" angle... it's just that NONE of these were competently written.

Definitely. Why did Samus leave the military? Did a mission go bad? Did she disobey unjust orders and get court martialed? Did she just get sick of the bureaucracy and decide to go off on her own to help people in her own way? Maybe the Federation military routinely ignores the people living on the fringes of human space in order to protect coreworld interests and this pissed her off. There was a ton of ways they could have used her previous military experience, and subsequent leaving of said military, to build her character in a meaningful way.

Instead, they decided to give her daddy-issues and unwavering loyalty to a man with the personality of wet cardboard.

Hell, even the authorization thing could have worked if it had been better written. Soldiers requiring certain clearance before being allowed to use certain kinds of firepower, especially in certain, sensitive environments, is common military protocol. And Adam being all like, "This station is under martial law, and you are non-military personnel. Follow my orders, including what kinds of weapons you can deploy and when, or leave" actually makes perfect sense, but only for weapons. For Space Jump and Varia Suit? Nonsense. And the whole Varia Suit scenario? Makes Samus and Adam look like incompetent idiots.

Why the hell would Samus care about martial law or what the military thinks? She's not a soldier, she's an independent non-military agent. There were only like, five of them and she easily had more firepower than all of them combined. They were in absolutely no position to enforce anything upon her. Samus had all the leverage in that situation, and as soon as Adam comes along and is like "You bow your head and obey!" Samus positively jumps at the chance to do so.

Where is the independence? Where's the self-sufficiency and self-confidence? This woman is supposed to be a badass who works alone, doing an extremely dangerous job out on the extreme edges of civilized space, and she just bows her head and falls into line immediately at the first sign of authority? Like I said, character-assassination. It would have been *faaaaaaar* more interesting if Samus' relationship with Adam was more antagonistic. If her leaving the military had been on bad terms, or at least a negative experience, and she uses her leverage to either take command of the situation from him, or at least secure a more favorable position for herself. But she doesn't.

Basically, what I wanted was a roguish space-cowboy (cowgirl?) in powered armor. Someone confident, and comfortable in their own skin after spending most of her life living among the outlaws, aliens and fringeworld colonists at the near-lawless edges of civilized space. What I got was every single mopey, brooding anime protagonist rolled into one. A character who would rather monologue and immediately bow to authority instead of sticking up for herself, her own values, and making sure that shit gets done.

I admit it could be a cultural thing, but I still think that terrible characterization and writing can cross cultural lines.

Samus isn't really independent. Yes, she's called a bounty hunter, but the way she's treated in-story is more like a contractor or mercenary. Her working with the military and not making waves makes sense with that in mind. After all, she's there to investigate, but it's not wise to make waves with potential future clients, especially given their history.

Now, the rest of what you said? Completely agree. They basically made Samus someone who practically couldn't do anything unless she had someone tell her what to do, and the relationship between her and Adam was highly uncomfortable, and verged on abusive at the very least.

 

[Naldan]

I have a question to anyone who has played Other M and any other Metroid (except for Fusion!? I'd disagree, though). People say that it's so linear that it hurts to play, especially considering the other entries. Is this true? I've seen multiple playthroughs and they were pretty similar.


Personally, the worst thing about this is the interference of the stupid plot with the gameplay. You, Samus Aran, can't use the power ups until Adam allows you to!? There is one sequence iirc where you have to go to a hot area, burn up a little, and then Adam calls in to allow you to use the Varia Suit. Just an example. This is the case when the poor story makes a restriction much worse than it had been without any explanation whatsoever. Aside from all the other stuff.

Best thing from my observation are the execution moves. That's it. This game made me fear for the franchise as a whole since I doubt they will ignore this into retcon entirely and people reacting to this in later entries that may very well suffer from this plot development. But I doubt an Adam will ever be there again to watch you suffer a bit and then gives you the thumbs down to use whatever part he deems necessary. Yes, I know that Samus was the one who thumbed down. Jesus Christ.

Great if you had fun. Great if anyone managed to have fun with this. But it stabbed, imo, my favourite Nintendo franchise not only into the heart but also into the brain to seal the deal. Just look at where Metroid is now. Fucking Other M.


---

About Fusion: Why do people say that it's incredibly linear, though? It may be more linear than Super and all Primes, but way less than II and especially Other M.

 

[rcs619]

Samus isn't really independent. Yes, she's called a bounty hunter, but the way she's treated in-story is more like a contractor or mercenary. Her working with the military and not making waves makes sense with that in mind. After all, she's there to investigate, but it's not wise to make waves with potential future clients, especially given their history.

The Federation government isn't going to be a client of hers. They've got a full, professional military, along with the usual sorts of intelligence-gathering and special-operations mechanisms that go along with that. Why the heck would they even *need* to hire a lone mercenary?

If anything, going into that station and completely showing up the Federation military would be the best possible thing she could do for business. I imagine she does most of her work well outside of core Federation systems, where the space-police and military are sparse to non-existent, and laws aren't easily enforced. Those people likely aren't fond of the Federation as it is.

There's a lot of neat things they could do with it, but the people behind Metroid have never shown any interest in actually expanding the setting into something proper. Who actually is the Federation? Who actually are the space-pirates? How is life caught in between these two larger groups? What does Samus actually do in her day-to-day job between games? There's a lot of story potential in all of that.

But, I think a lot of that would require Samus to have a wild, adventurous, daredevil sort of spirit... which the guy who created her doesn't seem to want at all. Basically, what I want is Malcolm Reynolds in powered-armor. What they seem to want Samus to be is some kind of stoic, mopey icequeen who just stepped out of about two dozen bad animes.

Now, the rest of what you said? Completely agree. They basically made Samus someone who practically couldn't do anything unless she had someone tell her what to do, and the relationship between her and Adam was highly uncomfortable, and verged on abusive at the very least.

More than just verged. Adam literally shot her in the back when it suited his purposes.

 

[FillerDmon]

Hm... it's been more than long enough. Maybe my tastes have shifted again, but I suppose I could give Other M another try to see if it's as horrible as I remember it being. Granted, it's -hard- to live in the shadow of the Prime Series, but still.

 

[loa]

I don't know how you can rationalize samus being turned into a battered housewive to be a good story whose only flaw was in how it is presented. This game killed metroid.

 

[Hawki]

This is where we split. The quality of narrative elements of a game don't always have a relation to the quantity and in some cases an inverse one. (brevity is the soul of wit) I don't really mind that samus barely has any character. She stars in a video game. Not a movie, or a book, or anything like that but a game. Games can work perfectly well with far less narrative and far less character development than movies or books.

Movies can still function without strong characterization, and games don't have the monopoly of stories functioning without characterization (look at poems, for instance). True, a game doesn't need characterization for its story to function, but I'm not sure if I've ever played one where I thought the characterization of a character was a bad thing in of itself (again, haven't played Other M, but even then, Samus was characterized before it, so the flaw is bad characterization rather than characterization at all, in theory).

When I watch the Mona Lisa I don't think it would be greatly improved if there was an elaberote story about who that lady is and where she comes from. On the contrary. Similarly, I don't want to know how master chief or samus or rayman are feeling about stuff. Not because halo, metroid or rayman should have no narrative but because the narrative isn't about the main character.

Well, personally disagree. Not so much the Mona Lisa, but the Mona Lisa isn't even telling a story. Halo, Rayman, and Metroid DO tell stories however, so under the principle of the Five Elements of Story (plot, characterization, storytelling, worldbuilding, themes), characterization is worthy of consideration, even if it isn't present. So, for those characters? I've played a lot of Halo, and John's always been a core component of its story, at least as far as the games go. One of the few things I can credit Halo 4's story for is the characterization it gives him, how it shows how over the course of the games (not to mention EU), he's gone from obedient soldier to a more functional human being. And, by Halo 5, he's more or less outright broken. Granted, he was broken by Halsey on Reach in 2517, but the 'breaking' here is of another nature.

Moving onto Rayman, I've only played The Great Escape, but I like Rayman as a character. Certainly I care for him more than much else, since it's ultimately his story. A very simple story (has to save the world, he doesn't grow as a character by the end of it), but Rayman, in the narrow scope of my experience, is a very character-centric series (or at least that one game was).

Skipping out on Metroid here, because it doesn't need specific examnination when this thread is dedicated to it already, but point is, by my recknoning, Halo and Rayman are character-centric. I'd also argue that Metroid is character centric in that Samus has always been the star of each game bar Federation Force. Not even John can meet that record from Halo.

The narrative gives context and atmosphere for the gameplay which is what I'm really there for. For a lot of games I'd rank, in decreasing order of importance, gameplay, atmosphere, plot and only then characters. Also, in the gameplay, I already have the power to make the protagonist do all kinds of weird things, so giving a protagonist to much characterisation just seems like a risk of contradicting the gameplay to me.

Gameplay vs. plot, I'd say, is a different argument. Now, if we're focusing on elements of story (atmosphere I'd lump under storytelling), I'd probably go Storytelling>Plot/Character>Worldbuilding>Themes. I'm iffy as to whether plot or character is the more important story element, because I can cite examples of one functioning without the other. But a protagonist without characterization is rarely, if ever, a boon for me. It's part of why I generally stay clear of games like Falout or Elder Scrolls - if the protagonist is a blank slate, why should I even care about his/her struggles? And I know these are 'blank slates,' but that's not something that appeals to me.

I'm not saying that characterisation is neccesarily a bad thing but if it isn't good it gets in the way even if it isn't actively bad. And even if I was really waiting to learn about the character traits of samus, I still wouldn't have liked those elevator scenes because her monologues are insipid and out of character.

So now, back to Samus, and the elevator scenes. Leaving everything in this post aside, how can they be "out of character?" when she's barely had any character to begin with? She's taking time to reflect in a breather between combat. This certainly isn't in the same league as Other M's attributed sins, but answer me this - prior to Fusion, keeping things contained to the games, what characterization did Samus receive across Metroid, Return of Samus, and Super Metroid? Admittedly I've only played Super Metroid of that bunch, but I'd argue that there's only a few pieces of characterization you could take, namely:

-Compassionate (possibly, in that she spares the infant)
-Reckless (chases after Ridley from Ceres, without any sign of her contacting the Federation)
-Brave (in that she's undergoing these missions at all)

Bear in mind that "reckless" and "brave" are words I could also use to describe Sonic from his early days. And even he had more solid characterization (impatient, cocky) within the games themselves. But moving onto Fusion, I can add:

-Reflective
-Strong-willed (defies Adam when she has to), including a strong sense of right and wrong (will defy the Federation and destroy BSL, regardless of the consequences)

Probably some more, but out of time. So, I ask, how is any of this bad characterization?

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...I enjoyed Hunters. Certainly wasn't the cream of the crop but nothing to decry 'fanon discontinuity!' over.

And Other M... I dunno man. Story was garbage, characters were garbage, VA was garbage, plot was... alright. Gameplay was very weirdly controlled an had a number of bugs to it, but wasn't offensive to play. The biggest problem was it was just so hard to care about the game, since everyone and everything involved in the story was Objectively Terrible.

It was adequate gameplay with awful plot - so neither saved the other. The gameplay wasn't good enough to play through the plot, and the plot wasn't good enough to justify the sub-par gameplay. If the controls had been tighter or the plot better written odds are Metroid Other M would be seen in a more favourable light, but as it stands it's a disappointing point for the series after the excellence that was the Prime series.

...Hell, that's what's probably made everyone decry Other M as the Literal Worst as well - it followed on after Prime 3: Corruption, which was fucking awesome. It's pretty jarring to go from a game that's a 9/10 (literally 90/100 on Metacritic) to a game that is arguably a 4/10 in quality.

It's weird. I actually really liked the gameplay. Any time the story went to garbage town (which was over 75% of the time for me) I was able to do a quick eye-roll and hand-wave it away to get back to the playing because I was enjoying it so much.

It seems the gameplay is very polarizing. Many, like myself, will say that it feels tight, intuitive, and fun. Others will say that the game is awkward. I guess it's just one of those cases where it just "works" for some people and doesn't for others without a clear explanation.

Yeah, that's entirely fair. I ain't gonna shit on anyone who actually enjoyed the gameplay, it was just to me not quite tight enough and had some bugs to it (I recall some infinite Spin-Jump glitch that broke the game horribly being a thing). Not bad enough for me to hate the game, but to me just not good enough to make me want to muscle through the atrocious story telling.

A game I enjoyed that was reviewed as god-awful was Starship Troopers: Marauder. Absolutely reviled in every manner, but I had quite a lot of fun with it's gameplay despite everyone saying otherwise. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

 

[Pseudonym]

So now, back to Samus, and the elevator scenes. Leaving everything in this post aside, how can they be "out of character?" when she's barely had any character to begin with? She's taking time to reflect in a breather between combat.

-snip

Probably some more, but out of time. So, I ask, how is any of this bad characterization?

Ahem:

I liked most of the story of metroid fusion, but the elevator scenes and the complaining about how this soulless computer wasn't as sensitive to her as Adam was, I thought those bits weren't very good. Those bits also reminded me of other m when I replayed fusion a while back. They have the same problem of making Samus very whiny and dependend on validation of Adam or her CO which makes very little sense for a ruthless mercenary who works alone most of the time. Even if you want to show her as having certain unexpected soft spots, making her insecure and grumbly about not being trusted by her CO is just weird.

The only thing I'd like to add to that is a point similar to what nazulu said. Perhaps we have not been told in a little dialogue that samus doesn't care what federation CO's and computers think of her, but we can easily gather this from the fact that she is a mercenary who mostly works alone.

Gameplay vs. plot, I'd say, is a different argument.

I disagree. When I play a game I want the different elements to work well together. Having elaberate but poor narrative elements getting in the way of the gameplay (like in Metroid other M) can make a game worse. Having different parts which don't combine well, like gameplay wherein samus does her thing and monologues where she complains about a rude computer hurting her feelings is just jarring.

Now, if we're focusing on elements of story (atmosphere I'd lump under storytelling), I'd probably go Storytelling>Plot/Character>Worldbuilding>Themes.

I don't want to establish any kind of fixed order or hierarchy of what is more important to a game. Clearly the gameplay of mass effect is of lesser importance than the story. Clearly in Crysis it is the other way around. Likewise, it depends on the specific game we are talking about which narrative elements I find more important. In the case of the metroid and the other games I spoke of I think the atmosphere is important and the actual plot and characters not so much. In the case of mass effect I wouldn't say that.

The rest of this post is longwinded and has drifted off-topic. If you are interested in my opinions halo and rayman and puns that are probably funny to me alone you can read on.

Spoiler

Well, personally disagree. Not so much the Mona Lisa, but the Mona Lisa isn't even telling a story. Halo, Rayman, and Metroid DO tell stories however, so under the principle of the Five Elements of Story (plot, characterization, storytelling, worldbuilding, themes), characterization is worthy of consideration, even if it isn't present. So, for those characters? I've played a lot of Halo, and John's always been a core component of its story, at least as far as the games go. One of the few things I can credit Halo 4's story for is the characterization it gives him, how it shows how over the course of the games (not to mention EU), he's gone from obedient soldier to a more functional human being. And, by Halo 5, he's more or less outright broken. Granted, he was broken by Halsey on Reach in 2517, but the 'breaking' here is of another nature.

Going by the games alone, in order. Masterchunk has barely any charactarisation in halo: CE beyond 'random supersoldier protagonist'. The focus of the story is on the flood and the monitor, and even then, the story of halo barely matters. I barely spoke english when I first played halo so I didn't understand what was going on, and when I did speak english, understanding the story did little to raise the game in my estimation. In halo 2 everything, and especially masterbeef is made more cool. He now dual wields weapons, fights with swords and has some neat oneliners and action hero stuff. The star of the show characterwise, however, is the arbiter. In halo 3, things start to go south, precisely because athens 666 starts receiving characterisation. This happens in the form of him hallucinating (possibly induced by gravemind through unexplained telepathy) about Cortana crying. This is extremely annoying because a) it breaks gameflow. These hallucinations happen in the middle of levels, slow down your movement to a crawl, and shout awful monologues at you implying johnyboy is losing his mind. Even if that were an interesting story, I don't want to explore some guys PTSD in halo, a game I mostly play because I find shooting its NPC's fun. The worst part about those scenes however is how they completely ruin the gameflow. Me and my brother ussually started shouting "shut up, Cortana" over it. This has the added problem of turning Cortana from a neat portable story mcguffin into a complete nuisance. In halo: CE and 2, she had the decency not to get in the way of gameplay and she was of importance to the plot. The characterisation of Syracuse 911 in halo 3 as traumatised and hallucinating also contradicts his cool, completely unaffected demeanor in halo 2. This characterisation of Corinthian 2 was the worst thing in halo 3 by far. Even if we pretend that it did anything positive for the story, it was awful for the game as a whole. Halo ODST and reach don't feature the faceless green giant at all. Halo 4 was hot garbage, taking the worst elements of halo 3 and cranking them up to 11, whilst barely doing anything interesting with the gameplay and continuing a story and a series that was pretty much exhausted and should have just stopped. I haven't played halo 5 and probably won't do so since I have no xbox one and won't be getting one any time soon. That and I have no interest in the 343 halo's. They aren't ever going to recapture what made CE and 2 great and they aren't on par with 3, odst or reach either. But in summary, no the masterful chef is not a core component of the story, let alone of the game. His characterisation is inconsistent, poor, dull and from halo 3 onwards, doesn't combine at all well with the rest of the game.

Moving onto Rayman, I've only played The Great Escape, but I like Rayman as a character. Certainly I care for him more than much else, since it's ultimately his story. A very simple story (has to save the world, he doesn't grow as a character by the end of it), but Rayman, in the narrow scope of my experience, is a very character-centric series (or at least that one game was).

First off, there are, confusingly, at least 2 different versions of the great escape. Some versions where the characters speak gibberish, others where they speak english, some versions have different levels and bosses and I believe one version has 800 lums and the other 999. We might be speaking slightly past eachother if we've played the other version. (mine was with the gibberish, 999 lums and no pirate bossfight at the end of the sanctuary of fire and stone)

On to the point: What now? Character-centric? If a game does nothing interesting with it's characters, and rayman: the great escape doesn't, it isn't character-centric. It does some narrative things well, but the narrative elements at best serve to set a certain mood. You cannot seriously maintain that the character of rayman is of any interest for his own sake. He works well as the protagonist of his games, but that is not the same as being an interesting or good character. At least the other characters in rayman 2 are characatures of children, fat friendly cowards, or comic relief. Rayman has pretty much no character traits that he doesn't have in common with the vast majority of protagonist of games.

 

[Hawki]

I'll skip out on Halo & Rayman and agree to disagree, since this isn't the thread for them. But that aside:

I liked most of the story of metroid fusion, but the elevator scenes and the complaining about how this soulless computer wasn't as sensitive to her as Adam was, I thought those bits weren't very good. Those bits also reminded me of other m when I replayed fusion a while back. They have the same problem of making Samus very whiny and dependend on validation of Adam or her CO which makes very little sense for a ruthless mercenary who works alone most of the time. Even if you want to show her as having certain unexpected soft spots, making her insecure and grumbly about not being trusted by her CO is just weird.

The only thing I'd like to add to that is a point similar to what nazulu said. Perhaps we have not been told in a little dialogue that samus doesn't care what federation CO's and computers think of her, but we can easily gather this from the fact that she is a mercenary who mostly works alone.

I see you avoided my challenge of labeling Samus's characterization prior to Fusion, confining it to the games. As you say, "we have not been told in a little dialogue that samus doesn't care what federation CO's and computers think of her." All I can say is absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There's probably some things that you can't do with the character from those three games (e.g. clearly not a coward), but I figure you effectively have carte blanche over a large amount of characterization.

That aside, I can only recall one point in Fusion where Samus actually complains about Adam, namely after he berates her for the metroid section being destroyed. Frankly I enjoyed it, as much as the others, in that it fleshes out her character, emphasizes just how dire the situation is (this being a game that starts off in a bad situation and gets progressively worse), and makes Adam's actions at the end all the more meaningful. In fact, what irked me in Fusion is that at some point, the monologues just stop - after that point, we get one monologue with the varia suit (after finding the etecoons and dachoras), and one in the gravity suit (the above point).

It may be a moot point though - I think we played the same version of Rayman 2, but we clearly played the same version of Fusion. Just ended up taking things away from it.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I haven't had the chance to read the huge comments here yet, so I just say what I think of Other M for now (and try to keep it short[footnote]Sorry, I tried.[/footnote]). I agree with nearly everything the Gaming Brit said in his review video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX4mhp-8sOc] (and his 3D Metroid Dissection video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfS0254dRRw]).

To put it bluntly, I hate it, both as a Metroid fan and as someone who was willing to try something critics weren't really thrilled with. There are the hints of a decent game buried somewhere in the code, but those a suffocated by the mountain of flaws the game has. I've been trying a second run for years, but I can only go for maybe 30 minutes before wanting to hit the next save room and quit.

The voice acting is horrendous. Although, I heard they got good VA's, but Yoshio Sakamoto himself wanted to do the English voice direction as well. (Way to go full George Lucas, while not letting the localization team do its job.) I believe that's why Samus has those obnoxious monotone monologues.

At the 2009 announcement, I never expected the story to be super great, then I found it to be far worse when I played it. The setting and the basic framework of the plot are lifted straight from Fusion; Samus goes to a biological research station that is split into certain biosphere sectors and is under distress, her leader (who she reluctantly accepts as a temporary CO) for the mission is named "Adam," and there are conspiracies in the plot. It's almost like Sakamoto wanted to remake Fusion, or he's just unoriginal. The controversial scenes like the Varia Suit authorization, the Ridley encounter, the Sector Zero scene, and most of Samus' interaction with Adam in general are poorly written, even for the few scenes with a decent concept behind them. I definitely don't like Samus' characterization in this game either. The symbolism of motherhood and "the baby" were so damned overused it got annoying within the first 10 minutes. Also, the "deleter" subplot is a waste of time (poorly implemented red herring?).

I honestly wish the story in Other M as far more minimal as well. Fusion's story was decent, and its more linear gameplay than anything else the franchise ever saw at the time was still somewhat made sense for handheld audiences. Unfortunately, Fusion's unskippable cutscenes still bog down what is otherwise one of the top 5 GBA games ever made. Other M, on the other hand, forces cutscenes down your throat that don't even taste good, and the game is the most linear title in the series so those scenes can play and (try to) make sense. The game looses even more of that Metroid magic to show you a crap movie.

Even with garbage for a narrative, a game can still be good with decent controls, level design, and pleasing environments. Too bad they went with a Wiimote only control scheme. (I read somewhere that was probably another Sakamoto decision to "challenge" the developers to make something great out of the limitations, like back during NES Metroid's development.) The d-pad of course feels clunky for 3D movement. Worse than that, the limited amount of buttons means the only way to fire missiles to is point the Wiimote at the screen and aim in first person with the IR sensor. Samus is forced to stand still during this and risk pot shots from foes. The movement the player has to do to switch between the normal and missile modes is very awkward to routinely perform, but must be done often.

The first person mode is also used in cutscenes to scan the area for clues, like in the Primes. Unlike the Primes, these sections do not highlight the scan targets, do not give any info other than maybe another barely on topic monologue, have the player looking for tiny specs (small amount of green blood on green glass!!!), and are all mandatory. They take a nice, mostly optional, world building mechanic from previous well regarded entries and turn it into a pace breaking, Where's Waldo-fest. Why bother doing that?

The authorization system may have been a decent way to move away from the constant bag of spilling. There are a few items that do seem logical from the story's veiwpoint to limit, but others don't make a lick of sense in any way.

The environments are bland and unimaginative, as is the music, and the enemies mostly don't fare much better. Those sectors inspired by Fusion's are now narrowed down to a hot place, a cold place and a tropical plant filled place, with generic industrial parts joining them together. They aren't even interesting by typical game setting standards. Fusion at least put more various areas in its station and spiced up the stereotypes somewhat. Ridley and the Metroid Queen are the only memorable enemies (and her highness is mostly only memorable for the final flaw of the authorization system). The final boss's true challenge? Lock on to it to get another cutscene. Yeah!

TL;DR; It could have been decent, but they blew their chance several times. Team Ninja isn't the one to blame for most of the flaws. The story blows and also drags the game away from the series' core gameplay. The controls and level design don't make up for it.

people shit on Other M too much. Hunters was the real turd of the Metroid series.

I would disagree a little here. Other M is the turd. Hunters is the bunch of cupcake sprinkles someone spread on the turd in a desperate attempt to sell it. Hunters was just bland and felt empty. It's Metroid Prime: Barebones Edition (with bonus hand cramps!).

 

[Vigormortis]

Other M wasn't a terrible game.

Yes, it was. It really, really, REALLY was. On almost every conceivable level.

Team Ninja not only shat out a horrifically bad game, they utterly mutilated a good series in the process, pulling a complete 180 from the heights Prime had reached.

Having marginally passable gameplay isn't a positive. It's a requirement for any game to be considered playable. But being playable (which Other M barely was) does not make it not terrible. It only made it a barely functioning train wreck.

 

[Gizen]

In the 2 days before Other M came out, I marathoned 100% completion on Metroid Zero Mission, Prime, Prime Hunters, Prime 2, Prime 3, Return of Samus, and Super Metroid. I also hunted down and read the Metroid manga that came out way back. Then, early in the morning I went to my local game shop, bought Other M at full price on launch, brought it home, sat down, and literally did not stop playing it other than to use the bathroom and eat until I had beaten it and 100%ed it too, finishing in the early hours of the next day. Then I slept, and the next day woke up and got 100% completion in Metroid Fusion. So I literally played every Metroid game back to back in a row, with the goal of A) seeing the entire franchise, and B) ranking them all next to each other.

And frankly, I never understood all the hate that Other M got. I ranked it directly in the middle of the franchise. Not as good as Prime 1, Super, Prime 3, or Zero Mission, but definitely better than Prime 2, Hunters, Return of Samus, and a tiny bit ahead of Fusion. The game wasn't anywhere near perfect, but it was hardly bad, and certainly not the utter abomination people liked to treat it as. Even the story wasn't as bad as people claimed, with one notable exception that was clearly bad for poorly justified gameplay reasons more than anything. There were also some moments which people like to casually ignore when badmouthing the story because they go against the established fan narrative.

In the end, game was fun, I enjoyed it, no regrets.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

long snip

And that pretty much settles it all, save for one semantic issue. When I said "give it a pass" I didn't mean "it's good," because that's silly. Other M's story is terribly told. No question there. And I completely agree with the Final Fantasy XIII comparison, except that I really dug Other M's gameplay, while I only enjoyed FFXIII's gameplay about 5% of the total time I spend playing it.

When I was saying, "I give it a pass" I meant "it didn't greatly offend my sensibilities," or, in more specific terms related to this topic, "even as a big Metroid fan, it didn't bother me on nearly on the same level as the Metroid community as a whole."

And yes, wanting to play Metroid Prime again always feels like good thing.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I didn't even mind the "working with her former unit and CO" angle, or the "one of the members of the unit is a traitor" angle, or "one of the experiments is an android replicant of Mother Brain" angle... it's just that NONE of these were competently written.

Definitely. Why did Samus leave the military? Did a mission go bad? Did she disobey unjust orders and get court martialed? Did she just get sick of the bureaucracy and decide to go off on her own to help people in her own way? Maybe the Federation military routinely ignores the people living on the fringes of human space in order to protect coreworld interests and this pissed her off. There was a ton of ways they could have used her previous military experience, and subsequent leaving of said military, to build her character in a meaningful way.

Instead, they decided to give her daddy-issues and unwavering loyalty to a man with the personality of wet cardboard.

Hell, even the authorization thing could have worked if it had been better written. Soldiers requiring certain clearance before being allowed to use certain kinds of firepower, especially in certain, sensitive environments, is common military protocol. And Adam being all like, "This station is under martial law, and you are non-military personnel. Follow my orders, including what kinds of weapons you can deploy and when, or leave" actually makes perfect sense, but only for weapons. For Space Jump and Varia Suit? Nonsense. And the whole Varia Suit scenario? Makes Samus and Adam look like incompetent idiots.

Why the hell would Samus care about martial law or what the military thinks? She's not a soldier, she's an independent non-military agent. There were only like, five of them and she easily had more firepower than all of them combined. They were in absolutely no position to enforce anything upon her. Samus had all the leverage in that situation, and as soon as Adam comes along and is like "You bow your head and obey!" Samus positively jumps at the chance to do so.

Where is the independence? Where's the self-sufficiency and self-confidence? This woman is supposed to be a badass who works alone, doing an extremely dangerous job out on the extreme edges of civilized space, and she just bows her head and falls into line immediately at the first sign of authority? Like I said, character-assassination. It would have been *faaaaaaar* more interesting if Samus' relationship with Adam was more antagonistic. If her leaving the military had been on bad terms, or at least a negative experience, and she uses her leverage to either take command of the situation from him, or at least secure a more favorable position for herself. But she doesn't.

Basically, what I wanted was a roguish space-cowboy (cowgirl?) in powered armor. Someone confident, and comfortable in their own skin after spending most of her life living among the outlaws, aliens and fringeworld colonists at the near-lawless edges of civilized space. What I got was every single mopey, brooding anime protagonist rolled into one. A character who would rather monologue and immediately bow to authority instead of sticking up for herself, her own values, and making sure that shit gets done.

I admit it could be a cultural thing, but I still think that terrible characterization and writing can cross cultural lines.

Just because she's a free agent doesn't mean that she's willing to fly in the face of Federation law. We see from Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion that she works with the Federation, not against it. She's not an outside-the-system rouge like smuggler Han Solo; she's a work for/with the system bounty hunter like Boba Fett. The difference is that the Empire in Star Wars was straight-up evil while the Federation is morally gray.

And it's fair enough that you'd prefer a different take on the story. I would too. I was just saying that the angle of "I respect this person and I respect Federation law and I want to help out here so even though I prefer working alone and don't like taking orders, I will play along with the Federation laws in play here" could have worked, without character assassination, if it had been written better.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

I have never seen a game partake in character-assassination to the degree that Other M does.

Third Birthday was worse, IMHO.

Then again, as a huge Parasite Eve 1/2 fan I'm biased.

There is nothing subjective about the verdict of Third Birthday.
Third Birthday is an abomination of a video game and a supreme travesty for the Parasite Eve series. It deserved better.