Metroid: Other M

[Sean]

Pulling this game off the shelves is the most fucking retarded thing Nintendo has ever done.

[Saint Nathan]

Pulling this game off the shelves is the most fucking retarded thing Nintendo has ever done.

At the same time, it's kinda brilliant. Anyone who would go and buy it was in a huge rush before everyone else got one.

It guaranteed good sales right off the bat before they stopped making them.

[Sean]

Glad to hear that it worked out for those who have it! I'm better off hunting for all of these games individually.

[EuroMIX]

OK I've found my first two annoyances with this game:

First of all the forced first person search sections like the one with the ship near the beginning of the game are stupid and give no real hint towards what you are looking for. I've been left hanging several times now simply because I HAVE NO BLOODY IDEA WHAT TINY LITTLE THING I'M MEANT TO BE LOOKING FOR! A CLUE would be nice game, or else a time-delayed hint if you happen to get stuck for a while.

ahem

The second thing is that I'm a good way into Sector 1 and was happily enjoying myself finding that the difficulty was growing at a steady pace when all of a sudden I'm forced into an awkward battle against a new enemy for the Diffusion Beam (OK handled that one in the end), the the next reasonably difficult battle, then I'm left wondering for a while because I can't see the pipe I'm supposed to enter in the room where I have to activate the holographic generator to continue and then finally I'm thrown into a boss-type battle and left feeling distinctly underpowered and overwhelmed. The enemies seem to take a ridiculously large amount of health making me feel like I should have more than two energy tanks by now and I die more times then I feel is warranted at this point in the game.

I repeat, I WAS enjoying myself up until this point. Now the game has gone from getting harder to stupidly hard without any real warning. Maybe I'm just that bad a player but seeing as I coped well enough up until this point that doesn't seem true somehow.

[Saint Nathan]

Are you charging your beam? The game is designed so that single shots are incredibly weak, so charging the Arm Cannon to attack is the best idea.

[EuroMIX]

Yes, I'm charging my beam but it doesn't seem to help too much. Also can the bud things only be destroyed with missiles because laser shots, charged or otherwise, don't seem to do anything?

It's the sudden jump in difficulty that annoys me the most; I was plodding along fine until then and I swear that I didn't feel this unprepared in the older 2D games.

[Yong]

Yes, I'm charging my beam but it doesn't seem to help too much. Also can the bud things only be destroyed with missiles because laser shots, charged or otherwise, don't seem to do anything?

It's the sudden jump in difficulty that annoys me the most; I was plodding along fine until then and I swear that I didn't feel this unprepared in the older 2D games.

Welcome to a Team Ninja game.

[Ekaje]

I finished this game sometime last week, but I forgot to post what I'd though about it.

I thought that this game was pretty good, I liked the story much better than most, though I still think there were some award or badly written moments. I really enjoyed the gameplay, though it did feel a bit shallow sometimes when it boiled down to "Sensemove- Wait for Charge Shot/Missle opportunity-shoot-repeat. Also, I think that if they were going to make the game completely linear, it could've been a longer.

So I'd give it around a 3.5-4/5.

It's the sudden jump in difficulty that annoys me the most; I was plodding along fine until then and I swear that I didn't feel this unprepared in the older 2D games.

I felt this quite a bit too, though for me, after I'd encountered a certain enemy type once or twice, I had a much easier time later.

Like when fighting the

Pirates that appear in the post-credits mission that come out f Power Bomb doors

, the first time I encountered one, it nearly killed me, but later I was killing them fairly easily.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Ekaje

[SuperStingray]

At the same time, it's kinda brilliant. Anyone who would go and buy it was in a huge rush before everyone else got one.

It guaranteed good sales right off the bat before they stopped making them.

Yeah, but I don't think they announced that it was limited edition before it went on the market, even if it was implied by the steel box.

I also want to say how much I loved the menu in that game, from showing the inner workings of the arm cannon to the neat touch of showing Samus' current appearence in the game you just selected. The only thing that could've made it better is if they reused the MP2 menu theme.

[TrueBlue]

Sakamoto talks about Dread

[Phos]

Warning: you may not be able to stop laughing

[Solly]

Warning: you may not be able to stop laughing

Aha wow. That's awesome.

[EuroMIX]

Warning: you may not be able to stop laughing

I braced myself to laugh and barely smiled.

Incidentally, I'm glad someone else revived this thread other than me so that it wouldn't seem like I was doing it just to complain, but I must say that the storyline and Samus's character are my LEAST biggest gripes about this game.

The walking tree-creature-boss-thing: GOOD. A nice "boss" that I could tackle well and not feel like I needed to reflexes of Spiderman to beat.

Exploring and puzzle sections: GENERALLY GOOD. The morph ball puzzles are by far the most fun and the whole thing only ever suffers from giving you very little direction and making me feel rather lost sometimes. In small amounts it implores discovery and wonderment, too much just annoys me.

Exploring the Test Center-thing: BOTH GOOD AND BAD. Good because it was nice to explore for once without fear of attack, bad because it was so slow going and staring at Samus's metal rear for ages wasn't all that fun.

Certain bosses like the Lizard guy who holds you down: SERIOUSLY BAD. I felt thrown into it and it JUST WASN'T FUN. I don't have split-second reflexes so it'd be nice if the game could have backed off a little.

Starting to explore Sector 3: URGH. At first I was interested, but when I realised that this was an excuse to throw tough platforming sections all while constantly depleting your health, it quickly became a chore.

Cheap deaths, examples are:

- The elevator near the beginning: how am I supposed to know it would fall? I was led to believe that this was a close-quarters boss fight!

- The fire whale-thing smashing the glass behind me: came from absolutely nowhere. No game, panning out the camera does not give due warning of what is about to happen!

OK I'll stop bitching about unimportant things like the gameplay and try to hate the fact that Samus talks too much instead.

[Saint Nathan]

Warning: you may not be able to stop laughing

I'm not sure what was funny about that.

What was he doing with the controller? I couldn't tell.

[Doctor MK]

Due to a lack of motivation at the present moment, as soon as my Wiimote finishes charging up I'm going to stop item collecting and head on over to the final final boss to complete this game once and for all.

And then come back when I can be bothered to 100% it.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Doctor MK

[Solly]

OK I'll stop bitching about unimportant things like the gameplay and try to hate the fact that Samus talks too much instead.

It really is the easiest way to sum the game up in five seconds.

It's not just that she talks too much; it's that she has the habit of breaking out into these long, frequent and terrible monologues that interrupt the gameplay and kill the atmosphere that has been a staple of the entire series. This may seem insignificant to you, but that doesn't mean you should belittle other people's complaints or opinions.

I do have a lot of complaints about the actual gameplay itself though. The primary issue for me is the awful controls. Moving in a 3D plane with an input designed for 2D play is uncomfortable and imprecise. And switching between the third person button-mashing/platforming and stationary first person shooting is EXTREMELY awkward- especially when you're forced to do it quickly and efficiently, like in a boss fight.

Besides the control issues though, the game is actually too easy. There's really no skill involved whatsoever. Pretty much every fight sequence boils down to frantically tapping directions on the D-pad to dodge while charging up shots to set up for an easy counterattack. Occasionally you'll be asked to go into first person, but it never gets any deeper than that.

[Octarine]

Warning: you may not be able to stop laughing

That could've been really good, but the delivery let it down a bit. I still smiled.

...the extra joke at the end was spot-on, though.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Octarine

[Saint Nathan]

Cheap deaths, examples are:

- The elevator near the beginning: how am I supposed to know it would fall? I was led to believe that this was a close-quarters boss fight!

Generally in Metroid games, when an elevator stops, you find a way to get the fuck out of there.

Granted, I think it only happened once, in Fusion. But still. Stopped elevator never good. Always escape.

[Doctor MK]

Just defeated Phantoon and evacuated the Bottle Ship. Going back for Adam's helmet is a very nice way to finish off the game, especially as an excuse to do more item collecting (I finished at 62% but I planned to go back and get the rest at some point). Plus the opportunity to play as Zero Suit Samus (correction: Team Ninja Zero Suit Samus

) is too good to pass up, even if it is only for about 3 minutes with a limited moveset.

All in all, this is up there as one of my favourite Metroid games, alongisde Prime 3 and Fusion. Yes, there were niggles, but I like a game with a cinematic feel and I found the story to be interesting, Samus' voice didn't bother me much at all (in fact by the end I was rather fond of it!) and the more intense combat felt well handled. For a first attempt at a Metroid game of this kind, it's not bad at all.

[EuroMIX]

This may seem insignificant to you, but that doesn't mean you should belittle other people's complaints or opinions.

That line at the end was mostly a joke on my part because I'm honestly having more trouble PLAYING the game than with Samus's characterisation/monologuing, which by the way I actually don't mind so much.

I don't see how I was "belittling other peoples opinions" though.

Generally in Metroid games, when an elevator stops, you find a way to get the fuck out of there.

Granted, I think it only happened once, in Fusion. But still. Stopped elevator never good. Always escape.

See I didn't know that probably because I didn't play far enough into Fusion to know it was there. A countdown or something would have helped, but I assumed my job was to defeat the miniboss and THEN find my way out.

[Solly]

I'm not sure what was funny about that.

What was he doing with the controller? I couldn't tell.

He pressed up on the D-pad, moving forward and triggering another cutscene.

The joke is that he was afraid to knowing it could happen.

That line at the end was mostly a joke on my part because I'm honestly having more trouble PLAYING the game than with Samus's characterisation/monologuing, which by the way I actually don't mind so much.

I don't see how I was "belittling other peoples opinions" though.

I suppose it's a different case if you were just joking, but you sounded like you were telling people what should and shouldn't matter to them, and that one of the things they care about(story) is unimportant. You also made it sound like you were the only one addressing the "real" issues, which I took offense to.

I probably overreacted, but that's just the impression I got. I don't intend to start anything here, and I know you don't mean anything by it.

Just defeated Phantoon and evacuated the Bottle Ship. Going back for Adam's helmet is a very nice way to finish off the game, especially as an excuse to do more item collecting (I finished at 62% but I planned to go back and get the rest at some point). Plus the opportunity to play as Zero Suit Samus (correction: Team Ninja Zero Suit Samus

) is too good to pass up, even if it is only for about 3 minutes with a limited moveset.

Am I the only one who thought Samus going back to the Bottle Ship for Adam's helmet seemed kind of weird and obsessive?

And why did she choose to escape in her Zero Suit when her Power Suit has all of her weapons, energy tanks etc?

All in all, this is up there as one of my favourite Metroid games, alongisde Prime 3 and Fusion. Yes, there were niggles, but I like a game with a cinematic feel and I found the story to be interesting,

I like a game with a cinematic feel too, but once it starts making sacrifices and compromises with the rest of the game to have this cinematic feel, it pisses me off. The control was taken from my hands every few minutes, and in a game that already felt sort of uninvolving with its automatic aim and hand-holding navigation.

[Tornado]

For a first attempt at a Metroid game of this kind, it's not bad at all.

Fusion basically did all the things Other M did, only it did them first and it did them better.

[Saint Nathan]

Fusion basically did all the things Other M did, only it did them first and it did them better.

Except the style of gameplay.

Also large amounts of cutscenes.

Other M has done a lot of new stuff.

[Tornado]

Except the style of gameplay.

2D Metroid, but more objective/story-based and linear.

Also large amounts of cutscenes.

Fusion had cutscenes.

Other M has done a lot of new stuff.

"Having some fundamental design problems (some of them being intentional)" is a new frontier for the series, but not one that I think deserves any praise.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Tornado

[Saint Nathan]

2D Metroid, but more objective/story-based and linear.

And controls. Samus' movement is different. The first-person switch and such.

Fusion had cutscenes.

Like three real ones.