Metroid Topic

[Kuzu]

Was Sakamoto apart of Fusion?

[Winston]

Was Sakamoto apart of Fusion?

Yes, he wrote Fusion.

[Kuzu]

........Then what the fuck happened in Other: M?

[G-Force]

I dunno, it's kind of important as to the game making any sense in the first place. Without it, why does the Metroid vaccine do anything at all? What do the space jellyfish have to do with the space jelly?

The Metroid vaccine was based on the premise that since the Metroids were the predators of the X parasites, and were able to feed on them without being infected, then elements of their biology could potenitally be used to counteract Samus's X parasite infection.

The fact that the metroids were the predators of the X is the only thing that matters, whether they evolved naturally into that role or were engineered for it is completely irrelevant.

[Winston]

........Then what the fuck happened in Other: M?

Not sure. If I were to guess, what happened is he probably wanted to do a Metroid with a more dramatic atmosphere, but I think he forced the drama too much.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Big Boss

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

........Then what the fuck happened in Other: M?

Sakemoto copy-pasted Fusion and added in "DEEPNESS."

Edited September 5, 2012 by Soma

[Diogenes]

Not sure. If I were to guess, what happened is he probably wanted to do a Metroid with a more dramatic atmosphere, but I think he forced the drama too much.

The problem is more that his drama is shit

[Winston]

The problem is more that his drama is shit

That too.

The plot for Other M was mostly just this. Warning Spoilers.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Big Boss

[Emmett L. Brown]

........Then what the fuck happened in Other: M?

You're right to be incredulous. Here's my favourite line from Metroid Fusion, as said by the AI with personality imprints from Adam:

"Would Adam sit by in a control room and order you to your death?"

It's funny, because in Other M that exact thing happens several times. "Samus, go into this lava sector without your Varia suit." "Samus, fight that chicken lizard monster without using your plasma beam even though that's the only weapon that can hurt it - you're not as responsible as Anthony is, so I can't let you have a dangerous awesome laser like that". "Samus, you're being attacked by a Metroid, I must shoot you in the back and kill it myself because I can't trust you to be able to deal with a creature you singlehandedly rendered extinct."

No, I don't know what Sakamoto was thinking. At some point Samus Aran became his pet for him to write self-insert fanfiction about. Sakamoto IS Adam; that's deliberate on his part, and incredibly disturbing. It also explains a lot about why he's so offended that the majority couldn't stand Other M.

[Old dead account]

That scene where Adam shot her for now reason pissed me off more than the Ridley scene, at least the latter had some probable deep psychological reason, but this one was just bullshit lolguntotin' for drama!

My theory on the whole Metroid's are everywhere deal is that the Chozo have been in like every fucking corner of the universe since their relics are everywhere, maybe they made a few experimental Metroids on Tallon IV and then when the Leviathan hit it drew in one of them to become the core's guardian, but then the Metroid's hunger made it absorb the core and thus becoming the new core itself and evolving intoMetroid Prime. The presence of Metroids on Phaaze may be because Dark Samus is Metroid Prime itself and it could create metroids like a queen could as seen in the final battle, and Dark Samus created them in Phaaze to just roam around. Their presense on other planet's might be because of Space Pirate transports as well. Again, this all just theory.

There's also another notable change in lore for Prime 1. In the Gamecube cersion, the pirates claim that they accidentally drilled their way into Metroid Prime's lair and tried to contain it but were unable to, if this was the case then why would they need the chozo artifacts to enter the Impact Crater then? In the MP Trilogy version, it is changed to say that they only detect a powerful life form inside the crater, but have not seen it. I think you can see the changes on the Metroid Wiki, and if you've played both version of the game.

[Kuzu]

No, I don't know what Sakamoto was thinking. At some point Samus Aran became his pet for him to write self-insert fanfiction about. Sakamoto IS Adam; that's deliberate on his part, and incredibly disturbing. It also explains a lot about why he's so offended that the majority couldn't stand Other M.

It's just so Misogynistic on his part, and I still cannot fathom why.

[VO.SUPER]

Here's an old 2010 interview showing Sakamoto and what he thought about the Japanese public and their reaction to Other M.

]It’s quite interesting that the company you mention didn’t feel confident following up on Super Metroid. That’s something that happens even now with fans comparing every new game to the SNES version. Does it frustrate you that you made something so good that nothing else appears to come close to it?

We have just launched Other M in Japan and I’ve been checking user opinions on the Japanese bulletin boards. What you say is definitely true; many of them are saying that they prefer Super Metroid. So it gives me some mixed feelings to hear that. It’s complicated simply because to me Super Metroid and Other M are both products that I was deeply involved with. So as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to compare the two. It’s definitely true that Super Metroid was a good game but it is one of many good games in the series. Of course, there was the choice for me to work on a game more similar to Super Metroid but I don’t know if that would represent a true evolution of the series. We might be able to come up with a better Super Metroid but, some day sometime, we would work ourselves into a creative dead end if we were simply moving forward in one direction. I, myself, have been seeking new stimulations and new play feels with the games that I’ve been working on so at least I am trying to avoid repeating the same things.

I definitely consider the feedback of those players that prefer Super Metroid but the fact of the matter is that Other M has other features that must be exciting and appealing to the audience. It’s only a few days since the game’s worldwide launch and at this point I’m anxious to learn the initial reaction from the public but, on the other hand, I’m always looking forward to reading the comments and feedback once those players have completed the game for the first time. Perhaps their opinion will have changed by then.

One of the biggest differences between Super Metroid and Other M is a much greater emphasis on cut-scenes. If you’d had today’s technology in the Nineties, would Super Metroid have been as story-heavy, as character driven, as Other M is?

As a matter of fact I think I made some basic comment about that in one of the official guide books to Super Metroid all those years ago. Specifically what I said was, the way we made Super Metroid was to try not to use dialogue or text at all and that everything should be conveyed through gameplay. We intentionally avoided direct narrative. Rather than have Samus talk about herself we preferred the player to feel things through the game. This even extended to navigation as, rather than tell people where to go using text messages, we would design the stages so that people could sense where to go next.

So, between Metroid: Other M and Super Metroid we had clearly defined concepts and even if we’d had similar technologies back then we would not have made Super Metroid the way we made Other M.

Other M is a lot more helpful a game than previous Metroids. It constantly updates the player on where they should be going and what their current objective is. Was that a concession to the casual Wii audience or is it a natural evolution of the Metroid design?

Yes, it might be true that I thought in terms of the new audience, who might not be very good at games like Metroid. But the reason we emphasised storytelling this time around was that we wanted to have the psychological depictions of Samus Aran and have clear cut drama sequences in order to tell the entire story. We thought of that premise because in the drama sequence we have so much dialogue and narrative devices that if we somehow eliminate all such similar devices in the gameplay sections then it might become unbalanced as a whole. It became more natural for us to make written or spoken directives given to the audience now that we have so many drama scenes.

So, yes, I always want to attract more players to the Metroid franchise. Giving clear cut directions in terms of where they should go next, through dialogue and drama scenes, is something that we thought would help with that. But it was more about us wanting to include some in-game narrative outside of just the story scenes. Now, I have to admit that yes I wanted to cater to the needs of casual players. Metroid games have always been created so that players can sense where they should go next but that’s a skill of the veteran players and must be hard for newcomers.

Of Nintendo’s big three franchises, it’s Metroid that has the most developed story and characters. And with so many videogame-film adaptations around at the moment are there any firm plans to produce a Metroid movie?

Specifically talking about the storytelling of Other M and the visual quality of the computer graphics, I think we have used quite luxurious resources to create these movie sequences and I think these scenes are worthy of the ‘movie’ label. However, if you ask me if I want Samus’s story to be told in cinemas, I really don’t think so. I want to tell the story of Samus only in the unique, interactive game format. However, if Mr Ryuji Kitaura, the director of the CG scenes in Other M, wants to make a Metroid movie and if the concept and methodologies he presents are agreeable with me then I might be okay with the idea. But only if it is made by him. Right now though, I have no intention to make a Metroid movie.

You know... is it me, or is he being a hypocrite here? I'd like to hear his opinion in this year.

[Mangoaxe5]

If there's one thing that we learned from Other M it's that Adam sure was like a father to Samus.

[Gregzilla]

Sakemoto copy-pasted Fusion and added in "DEEPNESS."

That's one thing I also didn't like: out of all the Metroid games, Other M seemed to borrow the most heavily from Fusion in terms of style. It mostly took place in a space station, Samus was given monologues, and it overall feels much more sci-fi than the other games. That's one thing I don't like, and it's something I didn't like in Fusion either.

In the Prime games, for example, you still have Space Pirates, lasers, space ships, and alien technology. But all of that stuff is placed alongside the beautifully atmospheric landscapes and remnants of ancient civilizations. I felt that the soul of those games came from exploring the strange worlds of varying technological advancement. Very rarely did the games shove a bunch of scientific information in your face. Hell, they barely even shoved ANY story in your face, and when they did, it was done with restraint and good taste.

Fusion removed most of the atmosphere by keeping the whole game restricted to a space station. You rarely felt surprised by what you saw. The areas of the space station all emulate certain tropes, in contrast to previous games which gaves us awe-inspiring, unique locations. On top of that, the tone of the game just didn't feel dark enough. The computer sidekick somewhat lightened the sense of loneliness, the graphics looked bright and colorful like a comic book, the music was rarely emotional (the water area is an exception), and the dialogue and monologue kept the narrative flowing, rather than having an overwhelming air of mystery.

Granted, it did have its good moments. The SA-X chases were always intense. However, because of the more vibrant graphics, wacky sound effects, and mostly cheesy music, even these moments aren't that atmospheric. Can you imagine what it would be like if the SA-X was in Super Metroid? Bricks = shat.

But despite this change of tone, Fusion still manages to be a fun game. Other M just takes all of Fusion's problems and maximizes them to the point of self-parody.

[SuperStingray]

I've been a little busy to really post here, but believe me- Metroid is hands down my favorite game franchise of all time. And Metroid Prime is one of mankind's greatest achievements, alongside the Pyramids of GIza and the moon landing. THAT is how you do immersion; the design is supernaturally cohesive, understated, detailed and rewarding. I think this deconstruction of Phendrana Drifts I posted here a while ago is an apt representation of my feelings for this game.

It's difficult to explain why Phendrana Drifts is so great without tying the rest of the game into my compliments, but it's only because it's juxtaposed with everything else so well. Every step in Metroid Prime is another step into the unknown, and the Drifts' juxtaposition and contents introduce the unknown as something to be feared, welcomed and studied. See, the preceding chapters raise questions about the goal of your enemies and the fate of this world, but Phendrana Drifts is where the answers start; the game's centerpiece- it's where your fight truly begins. It starts with the ascent out of a burning, hellish cavern into a crisp, ice cave with glass walls, and ambient music I can only describe as shiny. After walking though a short hallway, not knowing what lies ahead (other than it being an ice level), you emerge in a frozen valley. The camera slowly pans around to show you the scale of it. Between that and the following exploration, you discover how the world has become cold and barren, yet its ecosystem still thrives and its remaining inhabitants are still peaceful that despite the forsaken state of this world, it still breaths. It's living and dying. Something beyond hope but still worth fighting for. And in all of it, you feel at ease. Peaceful. A perfect break after a hostile volcanic environment and a boss fight with a giant plant monster. But shortly into the level, you'll see the shadow of Ridley as he flies over you. A perfect omen and a subtle reminder of why you're here. And after a stroll down several corridors, you find the space pirates' hidden labs where nightmares begin. This is a very important point in the game's level design. The game doesn't tell you the space pirates are evil- it doesn't have to. It makes you FEEL the evil of the space pirates the second you walk into their domain. The cold, mechanical rooms combined with the looming presence of these militant monsters is a recipe for true fear. But before too long, you find yourself on a bridge back in the snowy winds, coming up for air before diving back down into this nightmarish machine. But before you thought you were done with this ominous nightmare, you'll have to go back out again the same way you came. IN THE DARK. And now that you have the thermal visor, the game combines environmentally-induced fear with a tutorial for a new mechanic in an absolutely brilliant show of game design. The chapter finally comes to a close with the boss fight with a giant rock monster the pirate's quarantined off. Now that you have a reason to fear the pirates, the game shows you the kind of power they're playing with. But then you destroy it, replenishing the feeling of power that comes with being Samus after losing it to the fear that came in the pirate labs. And now you know your true mission. I'll be honest with you, I've played a lot of games and I've NEVER played a level that gave me such strong feelings of both peace and fear in the same environment before or since Phendrana Drifts. How it let one emotion to flow into the next so seemlessly and invisibly. How the game is able to teach you not only not patronizing you but giving you an emotional need to learn to use what you've just earned. It's not only game design brilliance, it's literary brilliance. And that's why Phendrana Drifits is my favorite video game level of all time.

Outside of Prime, this series has had a marvelous track record, even accounting for Other M. The only other game I hear frequent complaints about is Hunters, which I totally understand, but nothing about it was a total deal breaker for me, so it's still 9 for 10 in my eyes, which ain't bad for a 25 year old franchise. My other favorites include Prime 2, Fusion, and Prime Pinball.

[Semi-colon e]

To me Fusion worked for what it was despite the linearity because it added the narrative and kept the flow of the pacing going. It also made me feel claustrophobic, especially when the SA-X showed up. I don't see why every Metroid game HAS to be set on planets, Fusion was pretty creepy when it wanted to be and the linearity allowed more changes in the areas over the course of the game.

Other M, however, doesn't have the pacing as the cutscenes are so damn long, the areas are basically rehashes of Fusion with a few more naturalistic looking areas which other games do better respectively and are old hat, and the areas don't even change much throughout the game so you don't get much of a change of pace or anything. The whole game was such a rehash in many ways. The thing I hate the most about the Fusion/Other M style progression is that you can't get a lot of items before the very end, so if you want to 100% the game, you need to spend ages collecting like 40% or maybe more of the items.

Prime 3 was pretty classic sci-fi and pretty linear as well, but it was action packed enough in it's set pieces and the going around different planets and a few space stations was a really novel idea that I rather enjoyed. And at least it allowed for backtracking. It was kind of a combination of Super and Prime's kind of progression with a more Fusion based narrative.

Metroid games have been getting more and more linear though aside from Zero Mission, I miss the non-linearity. Even if the progression is linear like in Prime for example (by that I mean you get the items in the same order pretty much every time and there's not much sequence breaking), you can backtrack whenever you want so it doesn't feel as restrictive. It was cool how Zero Mission allowed a hell of a lot of sequence breaking as well as playing it straight as normal, but it didn't engage me as much as some other Metroid games and kind of felt lighter and softer in tone.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[Yoko/葉子]

The SA-X was always creepy to me. Loved giving Queen Metroid's explosive indigestion with (Power) Bombs

[Emmett L. Brown]

Here's the final boss of Metroid II (notice the lack of quicktime events). Samus defeats the Queen Metroid, saves the hatchling and escapes. What's interesting to me is the Metroid counter drops down to 1 and then rises back up again when you reach the final area of the game, meaning that the last group of Metroids you kill before facing the Queen are in fact...babies!!!

So here's your emotional anchor for Other M: Samus is really upset that Mother Brain killed the baby Metroid even though she herself murdered every single one of its siblings, as babies, and their mother. I'll completely understand that Samus might feel hesitant about killing the last member of a species, but that'd she'd be seeing one single Metroid as a person when she kills dozens of them per game and has rendered the species extinct three times.

Here's the perfect comparison to me:

Imagine that after killing headcrabs through 2.2 games Gordon Freeman suddenly develops a deep emotional connection with a newly-spawned headcrab (you know, like the ones you squished by the dozens in Gonarch's Lair). The headcrab then dies protecting Gordon, and as a result Gordon Freeman spends most of Half-Life 3 an emotional wreck trying to cope with the loss. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Yet that's exactly what we're expected to swallow with Samus and the Metroid hatchling.

[Thigolf]

I always thought Samus thought the Metroid were soulless creatures with no emotions, so she had no problem killing them because of that. But when the Baby Metroid showed emotions to her, she realized they she didn't kill soulless creatures but caring, sometimes even loving beings. Realizing this, she felt sorry for what she did and didn't want those creatures to become completely extinct, so when the Mother Brain killed the last Metroid, she became upset.

Plus, the reason why she cared so much for the baby is the fact that it was the only Metroid that didn't try to kill her and even saved her life at the end. That alone is reason enough for her to like that single Metroid more than the other metroids IMO.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Thigolf

[Emmett L. Brown]

I always thought Samus thought the Metroid were soulless creatures with no emotions, so she had no problem killing them because of that. But when the Baby Metroid showed emotions to her, she realized they she didn't kill soulless creatures but caring, sometimes even loving beings. Realizing this, she felt sorry for what she did and didn't want those creatures to become completely extinct, so when the Mother Brain killed the last Metroid, she became upset.

Plus, the reason why she cared so much for the baby is the fact that it was the only Metroid that didn't try to kill her and even saved her life at the end. That alone is reason enough for her to like that single Metroid more than the other metroids IMO.

Ah, but see what you did there? You completely ignored the cloned Metroids you have to kill before you get to Mother Brain. So did Samus. So did Samus again when she watched the Metroid cloning facility in Fusion get destroyed. Therein lies the problem: Fusion has plenty of dialogue, so if we were expected to believe that Samus was upset about killing Metroids it'd have been mentioned at least once. Hell, Samus didn't have any trouble killing Metroids even in Other M (well except for that one where her asshole commander shot her in the back).

[Blue Wisp]

The SA-X was always creepy to me.

Pants were soiled.

But hey, that thing of the SA-X chasing you everywhere and didn't left you alone, that's why Fusion is one of my favourite Metroid games.

[Marcello]

Samus only cared about the one baby Metroid that saw her as it's mother. Simple as that.

[Blue Wisp]

Samus only cared about the one baby Metroid that saw her as it's mother. Simple as that.

Not to mention, the only Metroid that wasn't hostile at her.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Samus only cared about the one baby Metroid that saw her as it's mother. Simple as that.

There's a difference between caring for something you've known for like a day at most and saved your rear-end vs. the mother-child deal that Other M tries to feed the player.

EDIT: ^ Again, doesn't justify the levels of weirdness seen in Other M.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Soma

[Blue Wisp]

I don't think ANYTHING can justify the weirdness in Other M.

Anyway, I was reading Rundas' article on Metroid Wiki and I came upon a section that interested me...

Collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily, and frantically and confusedly looking around as if not being at all aware of what had happened, Rundas spied Samus and, recognizing her, offered his hand, presumably to be helped up. Almost immediately, however, a large stalagmite of his own ice erupted from the ground under him, impaled him, and lifted him into the air, killing him instantly (while Dark Samus is likely the cause of this, it is equally likely that Rundas took his own life so that he could no longer be controlled by Dark Samus)

So... Rundas could have possibly done suicide just to avoid hurting someone else (Samus?)? My feelings are hurt.

And apparently some people heard Rundas saying "help me" while he was on the ground before he died, so yeah...