How would you have improved Other M?

[invulnerablemetroid]

I was about to eat that cookie, but then I took an arrow to the knee (sorry I had too).


Anyways I will present my opinions and I will separate this into basic categories.



What STORYWISE negatively impacted Other M?

One of the biggest problems I had with Other M was that Samus was portrayed SO much differently in cut scenes than in gameplay. Remember when the E3 2009 trailer hit us at the end of Nintendo's press conference out of nowhere? The majority of what we saw in that trailer was gameplay of Samus being much more of a badass than usual. We saw her fighting both new and classic enemies much more aggressively and stylishly than before. What we envisioned when this trailer hit was a Samus that was more battle hardened than ever. A Samus that knew how to get the job done. A Samus that was AS TOUGH AS EVER. The Samus we got was the exact opposite. We had a Samus that not battle hardened, but weak and depressed to the point of making irrational decisions that even the player wouldn't make (HUGE problem right here). Samus did not know how to get the job done, as she's constantly using the other characters to get her information. RARELY during the story does she actually progress the story by herself and herself alone. Samus was as confused as ever. And because of that, the player was just as, if not more confused. And Samus was most certainly not as tough as ever. Samus was incredibly emotionally unstable throughout the game, which once again came into conflict with what we saw in gameplay. During cutscenes we had a Samus constantly looking back to the past and not being able to comprehend what happened along with her actions. The gameplay Samus is always thinking ahead of the bad guy she's about to pulverize, calmly solving puzzles with ease (except for those damn pixel hunts but we'll get to those later), and just overall staying alive without losing her mind. The cutscene Samus on the other hand, is constantly doubting her actions, dwelling on her past actions that serve NO PURPOSE to the main conflict at hand, and once again, MAKING IRRATIONAL DECISIONS THAT CONFLICT WITH BOTH HER ESTABLISHED CHARACTER AND THE PLAYER. This is one of the main reasons for the utter confusion surrounding the majority of players who completed Other M. There were figuratively 2 Samus' running about. One Samus was scared of Ridley while the other beat it to a pulp without any sign of fear.

The solution: Have a Samus that doesn't contradict her previous character, her character during gameplay, and above all, the player.

What GAMEPLAYWISE negatively impacted Other M?

There are a lot of things that in the end detracted the game way too much. First of all the pixel hunts. I won't even go into the mundane details. Everybody hated these for the most part (especially the one right before the Ridley fight). Pixel hunts either needed to have some serious tweaking, or scrapped altogether. Simple as that, and I'm moving on.

Bosses - Not many people had a problem with the bosses but me. On the outside, we're seeing Samus take down bosses in stylized fashion, but it gets annoying to me when EVERY SINGLE BOSS BATTLE is a game of "find the weak point and shoot it". This isn't a problem if this only applies to a couple of them, but when the whole game is composed of waiting for the boss to expose his weak point and doing nothing but shooting it, it gets dull after awhile. I was hoping for original and intuitive boss battle this time around. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in my opinion has some of the best boss battles in the Metroid series. Quandraxis is my favorite boss of all time because of mow utterly original it is. You start off by targeting his knee caps, then you have to use you echo visor to detect the link going to his head module and screw attack into it, then you have to spiderball up his legs and boost onto his head to bomb his head. In Other M, it's dodge-dodge-shoot-dodge-shoot-dodge-dodge-ETC. In the end, all of the bosses use the exact same strategy, which is boring to say the least . That's no better than fighting the same boss over and over like in Hunters.

Controls - Sakamoto wanted the controls to be simple and not too complicated, but made them too simple in the process. And what did I expect with only the Wiimote being used. The problem Sakamoto presented that I hoped he learned was compromise. Read the interviews. Sakamoto stated that he simply REFUSED to use the Nunchuck controller even though he had lots of people from both his team and Team Ninja telling him the benefits of the expansion, and the problems with using the Wiimote alone. Sakamoto collaborated with Team Ninja to help for the GAMEPLAY because his team was inexperienced with working with 3D games and yet he refused to take their advice on a matter they clearly had a better understanding of. Anyways back to my main point. Because the controls were confined the wiimote it created problems such as the clunky-as-hell first person mode. Or the auto aim, or even the dodges and takedowns that required no effort at all. Because of this, Other M presents a very limited & lackluster learning curve. Because the key to mastering the game is "mashing the dodge button", the game can get boring gamplaywise fast because dodging requires no effort .

Solution: With a more advanced, diverse, intuitive, and NON gimmicky control scheme, the learning curve would be higher and would therefore bring a lot more fun and SATISFACTION to the gameplay. A great example of this is Just Cause 2. There is a very large learning curve associated with Just Cause 2. At first it can be very daunting and very hard to pull off some of the game's first maneuvers, but near the end of the game, after honing your skills and practicing you finally learn the games mechanics and can pull off some very cool creative stunts. And because these aren't simple to do, doing these flawless, epic, and smooth stunts is a lot of FUN, the sole purpose of what a game should be.

Ok it's like 4AM and I have school tomorrow so I'm calling it quits right now. There's other stuff I want to add, but I'm exhausted and I shall add them later.

[LuigiandMetroidfan20]

Personally didn't feeling Samus's character had any contradictions, but here's my simple solution: ALL cutscenes skippable from start and/or turn off character dialog (except for Anthony Higg's better lines).

[Zynux]

Personally didn't feeling Samus's character had any contradictions, but here's my simple solution: ALL cutscenes skippable from start and/or turn off character dialog (except for Anthony Higg's better lines).

LMAO imagine that; Everyone's mute except Anthony, because everyone wants to hear his Manly Voice. I'd support it.

[ahren]

i would have gotten rid of the 3rd person view and made it just like its predicessors, 1st person view, secondly, i would get rid of the crap thats forcing you to hold back, no gamer should ever be held back, it makes people angry, thirdly, samus should stop being a whiny bitch and be like her bounty hunter self, silent and awesome.

[Thunderchin]

-How about, instead of forcing you to shut off your upgrades, give you the option to comply with orders versus violate them? If anyone sees you use an outlawed item, it increases a bounty counter, affecting your relationship with the NPC's?
-Speaking of NPC's, make them a bigger part of the overall plot. And actually have them be plot devices in their own right. See the pros section for "fighting alongside NPC's" which is a stepping stone of this.
-Deeper interaction with your NPC's is key to making them likable. And they say they're some of Samus' best friends? Well, SHOW IT!!! (Back to "show, don't tell"). Have a little banter between them! Have them know each others' unique strengths and weaknesses! Goes back to fighting alongside NPC's, having everyone play to each others' abilities...
-Samus does NOT repeat NOT have daddy issues! She took care of all of that during her time with the Chozo.
-Put multiple types of Sense Move in there, and remove the Sense part of it. It should be done manually by button combo. And why is the Jump or Boost button not involved in the button presses?
-You have a Nunchuk attachment, Nintendo. USE IT!!!!! You may say gamers might not have it? Bull fuqin' shit! The damn system CAME with the thing! It would allow for camera control, smoother movement and firing in both perspectives, and overall more precise command of the game.
-Ironically, a series with poor marketing in the past was pushed very heavily this time around, only to get assfucked by poor performance. It's as though Nintendo wants the series to be destroyed, simply because it isn't their cash cow!

Also, I liked that idea of leaving the lava rooms accessible as a sequence break hell run while leaving the exploration of the non-superheated rooms your objective.

[Chris]

At least credit the video you pinched most of those suggestions from.

I agree that the using unauthorised abilties affecting the other characters idea is quite an interesting one though, opens up a lot of potential, has any other game done anything similar to this? I'm surprised not seen it suggested before.

[LuigiandMetroidfan20]

Done some more thinking on this topic. Maybe add the ability to explore different sectors to find optional bosses/items/weapons/suits as well as find "new" environments DURING the main story. Expand the epilogue section and perhaps add some flashback sequences where you relieve moments from previous games. Next, this isn't so much an improvement as it is some random idea: allow the ability to change the graphical aesthetic in-case you dislike how M:OM handled it (ie. cell-shading instead of "realistic", graphical style inspired by Super Metroid or Fusion sprites, etc)


Oh well, just wishful thinking.

[Thunderchin]

Has someone written a fanfic to replace Other M yet?

Yup.

I agree that the using unauthorised abilties affecting the other characters idea is quite an interesting one though, opens up a lot of potential, has any other game done anything similar to this? I'm surprised not seen it suggested before.

Really? Well, thank you. To my knowledge, no other game has done that. I always thought if you're going to have a squad of specialists, why not allow them to talk you through some of the harder challenges? It would also help flesh them out as characters.

Example: You come across a vault containing an important powerup. The door is sealed tight by a lock and cannot be destroyed by anything less than a Power Bomb.
-Do you scan everything in the next and previous few rooms to find the solution to the lock?
-Do you have Maurice the Engineer talk you through with his specialist analysis?
-Do you Power Bomb right away, negatively affecting the relationship with the squad?
-Or do you wait until you get Power Bombs authorised before coming back?

[Code Green]

Example: You come across a vault containing an important powerup. The door is sealed tight by a lock and cannot be destroyed by anything less than a Power Bomb.
-Do you scan everything in the next and previous few rooms to find the solution to the lock?
-Do you have Maurice the Engineer talk you through with his specialist analysis?
-Do you Power Bomb right away, negatively affecting the relationship with the squad?
-Or do you wait until you get Power Bombs authorised before coming back?

I'm going to put it out that this idea seems better with a concrete example given. As has been said throughout this subject (and proven by thunderchin's example), show instead of tell. The theory alone isn't enough to go by, we want to know how it works in practice.