Metroid: Other M -- Impressions!

[KingBroly]

Ridley never "dies" in the Prime Trilogy, at least not by Samus' hand. [spoiler]Heck, in Prime they explain how he survived in Zero Mission.[/spoiler] There are things to point this out as well.

The Prime Trilogy SHOULD BE part of the series, but Sakamoto's really just a big baby about the whole thing. In his callousness to erase the Primes from history with his "Ultimate Metroid" he also erased everything before them as well, Zero Mission and her influence by the Chozo. He said he made the "Definitive Samus" with his "piece of art," but in reality he made a pile of poo with no clear direction in terms of the gameplay and the story alike with plot holes and contradictions not only to series, but the game's contained story as well.

[Animerican_Redeemed]

Urgh... was about to shower and then I saw a quick reply... le sigh.

The Prime Trilogy SHOULD BE part of the series, but Sakamoto's really just a big baby about the whole thing.

Hey now, Prime is still Metroid, and Sakamoto still had involvement with it. And I sincerely doubt that Sakamoto is being a "baby about the whole thing," as you've put it here and elsewhere, and wants some silly revenge that would only emerge out of some high school nerd's wet dream. I think many such as yourself are reading too much into Sakamoto's psychology, or are at least trying too hard to look for sinister motives behind the design or story of other M.

In his callousness to erase the Primes from history with his "Ultimate Metroid" he also erased everything before them as well, Zero Mission and her influence by the Chozo.

Again, Prime wasn't erased; it's just that the timeline moved a few character-impacting games ahead. It's natural for the later installments of an overall storyline to not make use of every significant event that happened in earlier installments, and even more natural when Metroid's story is spread out over years. Regarding Zero Mission: you remember that was designed by Sakamoto, right? And as cool as it would be to have it shown, the lack of an explained Chozo influence or a name-drop in maybe just one or two installments isn't tantamount to denying their influence altogether. Again, maybe it's one of those areas that Sakamoto somehow felt didn't need constant utterance or name-dropping, especially in a game so late in the timeline. And given how the overall context of OM is in a sterile Galactic Federation Bottleship and there are Fed soldiers on board, I think the only way that the Chozo could've been worked in was by name dropping (which would be unsubstantial fanservice), or awkwardly shoehorning them in a story intended to explore her past with the federation. Sure, there could've been a line that said "After being raised by a bird-like race known as the Chozo, I came to the Galactic Federation," but that line would seem both too random to those not familiar with Metroid lore and too unsatisfactory to those waiting for Chozo-stuffed back story. To adequately explore her past with the Chozo, a lot would have to be said to show how it ties to her entering the Federation, or simply create an entirely different story in a different setting altogether (to which you might say "YES!").

Perhaps Sakamoto has a personal all-or-nothing approach with the Chozo-- a game that deals strongly with Samus's Chozo past shouldn't let Federation soldiers play a prominent role and vice versa. I feel that if one were to simultaneously go in depth into the past with the Federation the Chozo, you would have either:

(a) a Prime-esque game where all you find out about the past is through scanning and reading
(b) a Metroid rpg, or story heavy and very long metroid game
(c) the Metroid manga we already have

And now that the backstory with the Federation is pretty much done with, maybe there can be a future game more story-centric on her Chozo past.

He said he made the "Definitive Samus" with his "piece of art," but in reality he made a pile of poo with no clear direction in terms of the gameplay and the story alike with plot holes and contradictions not only to series, but the game's contained story as well.

I doubt he ever made the pompous claim that it was a "piece of art;" I think he was just satisfied with achieving what he had wanted to achieve from the beginning. The "pile of poo" part and all the rest after it? Well my mind's totally fried right now, so for now I'll be politically correct and say that's an opinion where plenty of intelligent stuff can be said to both support and oppose that opinion.

so much for the shower...zzzzzzzz

[KingBroly]

I don't think he called it "piece of art" but he did refer to Other M as art, that much I'm sure of.

It's been debated about Prime before, he says 'they're different canon' and it really comes down to whose translation you trust the most. A good translation is what I trust the most and that one says non-canon.

Instead of forcing it down our throats that Samus is a woman with words/tones related, he could've easily had her say 'I wasn't like them' which has a double meaning while she is woman, also means she wasn't raised like they were. Saying 'I was a woman so I was scared' is kinda damning to the character cuz he's an idiot writer. If it was all or nothing, then there would've been nothing about the Chozo in Fusion. Also, why was Adam her father figure and not one of the Chozo? Other M ignores everything before Metroid II either because he doesn't have the guts to truly say the Primes aren't canon or really just hates his Super Metroid-esque work in general.

[LesserChozo]

Clearly Sakamoto made a lot of assumptions about what the player already knew about Metroid and Samus Aran. For a game meant to be a "gateway" for new players that seems like an odd choice, but then again it may also encourage players to go back and play the other games to learn more. There is so much back story at this point, it would be difficult to cram it all into one game. Zero Mission dealt with her Chozo upbringing well enough. Like Animerican said, Other M focused on her Federation background. True, there are still questions unanswered, but some things may always remain a mystery; and, quite frankly, isn't that why we love Samus?

[KingBroly]

But her Federation story told that she was a weak person, not a strong person. See the problem?

But something like her Chozo background can probably only be told PROPERLY through a prequel. Personally, that's the story people want. As of now, I'd rather just have Samus die in a Metroid 5 in a way to finally eliminate "all Metroids" from the universe only to have her be "reborn" at the end of Super to retcon the lot of them.

[LesserChozo]

But her Federation story told that she was a weak person, not a strong person. See the problem?

I think you're confusing emotional conflict for weak, but so does nearly everyone else.

[KingBroly]

Considering her emotions can either be:

- A toddler
- A dead area
- A teenager
- An adult

I'd say she didn't handle herself to well in Other M. Now if she could connect the dots between toddler and teenager she could probably eliminate the other emotions altogether.

[Smoking Spoon]

Another thing. I'm surprise that DNA material remained on her suit after all her adventure. Like after a speedbooster run, shinespark, morphball+ a bomb on her emplacement. .
or swimming in water, lava... Tourian love goo.

[Jeremytroid]

I'm gonna review it in the MDb style

Controls:
Very smooth. They're hard to get used to at first, but you will quickly become proficient. It seemed to me that the Wii reacted a little slowly to my movements for such a fast paced game (Yes, my batteries were new.) My main problem comes with targeting. It was very hard for me to change targets once I had locked on. Especially since, to turn the screen, you had to hold "B" which targets other enemies in your sight.

Game Design:
BIGGEST focus, as we all know, are the acrobatic ninja attacks. I'll be honest. I didn't like this when I saw the previews. But now that I have played it, they're awesome. Smooth to pull off and extremely rewarding and satisfying. They're also very Samus. Doing these new moves does't seem out of place at all (I'm a little disappointed they're not in other Metroid games.)Never once did I question them while playing. The parts that forced you to first person, were some of the worst parts though, and the game is FILLED with invisible walls. These two factors broke the experience when I ran into them.

The story is my favorite aspect of the entire game. It was too cinematic for some, but I thought that the story was brilliant and didn't mind being told straight out what was happening. They're also plenty of background details to notice and expand on that require more than one playthrough to notice. All of the new characters feel right at home in the Metroid universe and are realistic.

Aesthetics:
Beautiful. Absolutely f***ing beautiful. Never have I run into any frame-rate problems or ugliness. Character models were almost Final Fantasy, and moved realistically and humanly. The environments were varied and interesting. Two layouts never seemed alike.

Special Notes:
ANTHONY HIGGS IS A BAMF

That is all.

[Troid]

They're also plenty of background details to notice and expand on that require more than one playthrough to notice

I dare you to name three background details about the story that aren't subjective (like "James/Melissa/Ridley made all the bosses attack Samus").

[Jeremytroid]

1) As the game progresses the ship continues to deteriorate more and more.
2)Similarities to BSL show that the Bottle Ship was not an exclusive experiment. The GFed were seriously considering mass production of Bio-weapons and Metroids.
3)The Galactic Federation was developing a copy of Mother Brain ever since the end of Metroid one. The Aurora Units may have been test and/or prototypes of the Mother Brain synth.

[Troid]

1. If that's true (I never noticed, perhaps I'm unobservant), it's still not a story detail. Do you mean more things are destroyed when you return to some areas?

2. Not a background detail, either of OM or Fusion. Both Adam and Samus talk at length about the Federation's plan, so it's a very obvious plot element.

3. The Bottle Ship wasn't run by Federation scientists; there's no evidence MB and the AUs have anything to do with each other. Note the word may in there.

[Jeremytroid]

Fine you win.

maybe not as much as I thought. Sorry.

[Troid]

There's nothing to apologize for.

As a whole I don't even dislike the story: it's just plain generic. There are aspects of it I really take issue with, one of which is how obvious everything about it is.

By the way, if you want to discuss potential plot elements below the surface, I'm not the right person and you shouldn't let me discourage you. Check out one of KingBroly's threads.

[Animerican_Redeemed]

Alright, so after not coming to this thread since late December... I've come back with a vengeance (no, not really). If you look back a page, you could see that in discussing my impressions of OM, I debated Prime's importance in the overall Metroid canon with Broly. In response to one of my posts, it was said said:

It's been debated about Prime before, he says 'they're different canon' and it really comes down to whose translation you trust the most. A good translation is what I trust the most and that one says non-canon.

Am I getting this right in assuming that a certain Spanish media outlet is being referred to here, in which some phrase that mentioned the Prime games had two possible translations/interpretations to it (hence the "good translation is what I trust the most and that one says non-canon" part)? Because if so, I found this interview tonight that was brought to my attention a couple months ago but had forgotten about it until now... don't know if you saw it yet, but if you did...I don't know what to say, really. This excerpt comes from a Nintendo-sanctioned email interview that Chad Sepieha of The Globe and Mail, at had with Sakamoto himself. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/video-games/controller-freak/nintendo-designer-yoshio-sakamoto-on-metroid-other-m/article1718156/page2/):

"...It is true that all the Prime titles are chronologically between the original Metroid and Metroid II, but they have so many things that are not in common with the rest of the Metroid story.

"Myself, the Metroid Prime producer, and Retro Studios decided that the Prime titles would be different from the original Metroid games from a story perspective. This allowed the Retro team to express what we really wanted to express as freely as possible without being bound to the existing storyline or settings.

....

"There are many different perspectives of Samus Aran between the series of classical Metroid games and the Metroid Prime titles. However, I don’t find they are completely different personas. Samus in the Prime titles mainly shows her cool and professional side as a bounty hunter and represents what Samus Aran is for many of you. For Metroid: Other M, we tried to introduce another side of her and to get more insight into her inner conflict."

I believe that last excerpt-block was deliberately highlighted in the thread, "Sakamoto: In His Own Words," and so was a link given to the entire Globe and Mail article sometime in October. However, maybe the rest of the interview was ignored or forgotten, because it wasn't acknowledged in my discussion with Broly here... rather, it seems that more attention was paid to either a little presser or a translated-from-Spanish interview. If there is anything that Sakamoto said that somehow outright contradicts this interview (which was published on September 22nd), please tell me where. I realize this was probably not needed for the majority on the board, but I think it wouldn't hurt, so as long as there aren't any more lingering doubts or beliefs that Sakamoto disavows Primes' existence in the timeline....