BlueInkAlchemist said:
So the best way to enjoy a game that's trying not to be an FPS is to play an FPS? Huh.
When was Samus established as having a "bold, independent spirit"? I don't remember that being mentioned at all in any of the games other than the fact that you, the player, are controlling her and she's completely alone. She blindly followed our orders even if it meant smacking into a wall repeatedly when our phones rang or falling into an acid pit when we mis-judged a jump she probably could have handled were she in control of her own body.
This sounds so much like so many other arguments against Other M I'm wondering if Yahtzee either got bored with the ZP enterprise now that his novel's out or has just been too busy to form salient points that he's cribbed notes from other sources. Not that I myself would ever do such a thing [http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html].
Funny? Yes. Accurate? No idea. I'm too poor to own a Wii. But I find myself kinda confused by all of the hatred. Maybe it's just me.
To be fair, in Metroid Fusion her personality was rather bold and independent. It starts with her going on a mission to inspect a space station that's gone silent, but when she realizes that the place is crawling with creatures that can kill and then clone living organisms, and that the government wants them for weapons, she abandons her mission AND defies her partner AI (which is hinted at to actually be Adam) so that she can destroy the space station.
But mostly I think that when people say her personality is bold and independent, they are only trying to give more power behind the fact that Samus was one of the first iconic female badasses in gaming, and she didn't need a personality because by that time, most badasses didn't need personalities to be badass (Like the majority of 80s action films). Giving her a personality wasn't needed, because Samus wasn't supposed to be a deep character, she was supposed to be a badass without personality, showing that the role of badass wasn't exclusive to men.
Now, I'm not saying that they shouldn't add more depth to her. On the contrary, not adding depth to her would be stupid. But you can add depth to a character without taking away the badassness. What Other M did was take away the feeling that Samus was a super-badass. She was too dependent on other characters, she froze still when facing Ridley, and all that other stuff people complain about.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while Samus didn't have much of a personality before Other M, her character still made a statement: Women can be equally as awesome as men. And Other M took away that statement.
Metroid Fusion is still the best Metroid game in the series for me, because that game managed to add some more depth to Samus while keeping her a badass.