Metroid: Other M Art Gallery Translation Thread *Spoilers*

[Zeroº]

We currently have no plans to authorize the use of Power Bombs. As you know, they have the abiliity to spread a high-temperature heat wave over a large area, impacting living things... which is a nice way of saying they can vaporize humans instantly. You should be well aware of how dangerous Power Bombs are and how their devastation can't be obstructed with common materials.

Nothing was said of any lingering radiation. There is likely some residual increase in local temperature, but it probably normalizes rather quickly after the event.

And that was inside a Queen Metroid inside a giant hall that most likely has been designed to withstand alot because it is, well, the holding cage for the Queen Metroid.

Walls that were twenty feets away from Samus and specially re-enforced to keep the Queen Metroid in. While Madeline Bergman was sitting in a corner faraway from the door.

Plus the fact that the only reason I can come up with for why they lowered the blast shield over the observation window during the tutorial segment was because the Power Bomb detonation would have melted the glass.

If you can remember the aftermath of the Queen Metroid fight, the room was wrecked, including the door that Madeline was hiding behind. But the reasoning behind her survival was likely that she was shielded just enough by the distance, the Queen Metroid guts, and the door. I know there's a whole "gameplay vs story" quandary, but the Power Bomb only shows any sort of purely destructive force during the Queen Metroid fight, where it just batters the room. I hazard a guess that that was a result of not being able to settle (or simply changing the story/forgetting) on the mechanics of the Power Bomb. Is it an explosive/destructive force, or is it destructive by way of intense heat? It's as though they changed their minds but didn't have time to change that scene.

[CapCom]

They don't want her dropping it while anyone is in the room. That also results in a bit of gameplay that doesn't mesh with story.

No disintegrations!

It's like dropping an F-bomb on prime time.

[KingBroly]

Capcom, I believe you mean:

Disintegrations are not authorized!


I still think Samus should call someone a motherfucker in the last game in the arc. I just imagine it being used correctly and poetically.

[okey]

Thanks a lot for translating these. Who actually drew this stuff?

The concept art has a completely different tone than the actual game. This game is so confusing to me, it's got bi-polar disorder. It's like "hey let's make samus look really vulnerable but then let's also give her power wrestling moves and roundhouse kicks" and "we should come up with the worst design for suitless samus but also the best design" and "lets tell a tragedy story, we'll start by drawing concept art that's cartoony and filled with jokes"

I really want to see the bizarro-world version of this game, where the story is lighthearted and fun but all of the concept art looks like warhammer 40k.

[Chris]

Concept art is just that, concept art and yeah some artists add a little humor to their work, I wouldn't read much into it.

[AuroraUnitComplex]

Thanks a lot for translating these. Who actually drew this stuff?

The character and stage concepts were drawn by Takayasu Morisawa from Nintendo, who was previously in charge of the backgrounds in Metroid Fusion and was also the art director for Zero Mission. For Other M, Morisawa was an art director, along with Yutaka Saito, who was the art director for design and cinematics on Team Ninja’s side.

You should really go and check out all the Iwata Asks features of Other M. In the Development Staff interview, Morisawa gave a number of interesting details about his experiences and how he learned to efficiently work together with Team Ninja. Apparently, this was the first 3D game he had ever done artwork for, and he was rather nervous after Sakamoto told him that he would be in charge of conceptualizing the “visual representation” of the game.

Sakamoto-san just came to me one day and said 'we're leaving the design of Metroid: Other M to you'. 'Design', however, includes absolutely everything from 3D models to motion capture. I didn't know how to proceed with such things in my work, and since I didn't have any personal experience, I was really wondering what I should do...

For more, go and read all the Iwata Asks! You’ll probably get a clearer idea of who did what in Project M, what their goals were, and what challenges they ran into. The North American site only has the two main volumes, but you can actually find all three Iwata Asks features, plus Sakamoto’s GDC Keynote at Nintendo UK.

I can appreciate the cartoony style for its light-hearted contrast to the game, but I suspect it was done in this simple fashion to functionally illustrate the creatures' personality, and help the Team Ninja animators quickly get a sense of how the creatures would behave, move, and attack Samus.

[Chris]

I also seriously doubt these were the only concept art produced for this game. They almost seem they were specifically created to be put into the game rather than something that was drawn and later decided to be suitable for putting in.

[KingBroly]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly.

[Chris]

That they were drawn almost specifically to be put into an art gallery for the game rather than drawn for the developers to use. Some parts probably were but doubt all the images were used by those working on the game.

[okey]

I also seriously doubt these were the only concept art produced for this game.

Yeah, I don't think this is everything they drew. Sorry if it came across that way. (Though Team Ninja deserves major props if they managed to squeeze a whole game about of 96 pictures!)

Part of the reason concept art is so cool is because you can learn stuff from it. It would have been cool to see some of the more 'practical' stuff, like the reference images for Samus' animations. Samus wears a full suit of armor, armor makes it hard to convey motion, so it's tricky to draw a picture of her actually doing stuff. It would have been great to see how the pros pull it off.

[YamI]

I also seriously doubt these were the only concept art produced for this game.

Yeah, I don't think this is everything they drew. Sorry if it came across that way. (Though Team Ninja deserves major props if they managed to squeeze a whole game about of 96 pictures!)

They actually put about 500+ Pictures per game, as regards to Items, weaponary, mapping, level design, Enemies and characters. so actually, about 1000 pictures in total, for Other M. Possibly more.

[KingBroly]

I think he means the Gallery that we see is not be entirely genuine. Usually with concept or promotional art you get what was done in Prime, with each individual piece on its' own page. Not to mention that there are several story points in the Concept Gallery that don't make it into Other M or are done extremely poorly.

I think, AT MINIMUM, the game gets a re-write in terms of dialog and some things are re-worded to remove some of the burden a Metroid 5 would have to do in order to right some kind of ship here, so you don't have to get insane in terms of explanations.

[spoiler]Bombs and Missiles namely, shortening some dialog, re-writing one-liners to not sound cute and clever, etc.[/spoiler]

[AuroraUnitComplex]

I also seriously doubt these were the only concept art produced for this game.

Probably not. If you include all the storyboard conceptualizations, there is a whole ton of artwork we're missing right there. The Prime games didn't give us every single drawing.

That they were drawn almost specifically to be put into an art gallery for the game rather than drawn for the developers to use. Some parts probably were but doubt all the images were used by those working on the game.

Yes and no. The concept art was arranged and assorted with frames and effects specifically for display in the game, but the main art of these concepts were certainly all being used to specify the design of the game from the very beginning of production. Again, look at Iwata Asks.

Iwata: Morisawa-san, you're the one who created the documents to specify the visuals of Metroid: Other M and distributed them to Team NINJA as well as to Kitaura-san, Nagasawa-san and others in charge of the cinematics, aren't you?

Morisawa: That's right. I produced a huge volume of documents, the stack was as thick as several phone books.

Here is a sample:

[YamI]

I can tell you there is probably 700 pictures minimum in that stack of paper.

[Toxsyl]

I loved the Other M artwork.