Game Spotlight: Metroid: Other M

The wait is finally over and I’ve gotten my hands on the next instalment of my favourite video game series… but is this new Metroid going to stand up against the likes of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime? If you’ve been catching up on the news surrounding this game in the last few days, you’d have seen that there is a great divide of opinion… some love it while others are very disappointed.

Metroid: Other M is a huge leap in a new direction for the Metroid series… in comparison, the first-person perspective and slightly more action orientated tone that the Metroid Prime trilogy took was only a small step. Prime still carried a lot of the very traditional elements that make Metroid what it is and most people found this to be a pretty decent balance of new and old working together. Other M is likely to scare a lot of people with its new additions and gameplay changes… this is NOT your traditional Metroid and that’s basically the whole point of its existence.

This is going to be another long entry, though maybe not as huge as that E3 2010 entry from awhile back… that was nuts. So let’s get down to it… first up is the most important part of any game…

Gameplay

Metroid has always been a series that allows you to have great precision and control over Samus at all times. The more traditional 2D Metroids as well as the Metroid Prime trilogy gave you the ability to land every shot on your target (provided you have the skill) as well as the ability to dodge enemies and their attacks on your own without any assistance or forced automation. When you played a Metroid game, you knew that you were in total control and that if you happened to take a heavy amount of damage, it was your own fault. Is this true with Other M?… unfortunately not.

Much of the disappointing aspects of the gameplay come from its hand holding in various forms… Some of these hand holding elements were obviously designed to cover some of the limitations of the simplified NES control scheme. At the same time they also nullified the effects of some of the more challenging elements that were put into the game… in the end, it all started to feel more like the point of the game is to mash your buttons than anything else.

As much as I love a good D-Pad, I also know that the D-Pad suffers many restrictions when trying to control a character in a three dimensional environment. Shigeru Miyamoto knew this and that’s why we have an analog stick on the Nintendo 64 controller when Nintendo took its big leap into 3D gaming. There are very few areas where the D-Pad felt like it actually belonged in the game. To add to that, the three button controls (4 if you count the map button) felt too simplistic for its own good… of course I’ve already gone over all of this before in the Metroid: Other M part of my E3 2010 entry, so suffice it to say… this just does not compute…

So, because the controls are the way they are, the rest of the gameplay has to play to its tune. Some of the elements in Other M are actually pretty clever on paper and I commend them for trying something new, but at the same time it makes me think “why would anyone think this is a good idea in a Metroid game?”…

One of the very traditional elements of a Metroid game, the health and missile replenishing items, are completely missing and it makes me ask “WHY?”… What makes it even worse is the gameplay feature that replaces it… All you need to do is point your Wiimote upward and “concentrate” by pressing A. Doing this will restore your final tank full of energy (provided it’s in the red) and all of your missiles. When I first learned of this feature a few months back, I vowed not to look at any more Other M media because I feared that I’d be further put off the game.

Then again, once you get used to the controls you end up mastering the “sense move” dodging mechanic enough that you can go through boss battles and mini boss battles without taking a hit… to add to that, you can easily spam as many missiles as you want since you can simply “concentrate” to replenish your supply. Add into the mix the “lethal strike” and “overblast” moves and the ever present auto-aim… well it all looks pretty flashy and cool, but you’re not really in control of those moves.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out how to exploit all of these features, and the game encourages you to in the first place since these moves do more damage to enemies than simple cannon fire. I found a combination of close quarters combat worked best with jumping and shooting at the same time as well as a lot of D-Pad tapping in the direction of enemies to make sure you were in the general direction to allow for the auto-aiming mechanic to lock on and to also perform the “sense move” dodge where needed… all through it I thought “this doesn’t really feel like Metroid… it feels like I’m playing God of War or Dante’s Inferno”… and that’s actually a very depressing thought.

It’s nice that they acknowledge Metroid Prime’s contribution to the Metroid series, but the inclusion of the first person mechanic in Other M feels out of place somehow… I mean, it’s very much needed to progress, but when you think about it, you’re purposefully given less buttons just to justify its existence. Want to fire your missiles? Can’t do it in third person, have to do it in first person, see a grapple beam point? Switch to first person… but that’s not the worst part about it. It’s the “scanning” that really ticks me off.

Again, it worked in Metroid Prime but seems to be very out of place here in Other M. There are moments when you are even FORCED into scanning an area to proceed. The very first moment when you land on the Bottle Ship and you’re suddenly stopped dead in your tracks in first person perspective. You can’t move, all you can do is look around in a certain area trying to find something specific. At first I was like “okay, what am I meant to be looking for here?” It didn’t seem very obvious at all so I just moved the targeting reticle around until I hovered it over the Galactic Federation logo on a ship that had also landed in the hanger. Now here’s my problem… you have to directly point your cursor at a very specific location for it to register so Samus can discover whatever she’s meant to discover to allow the game to progress. It has to be exact not “around that area”… which would be fine if the logo actually stood out, but it was pretty much a part of the rest of the background elements as far as my eye was concerned… and this happens several times during the game. Another time you have to find a patch of blood on grass… of course you don’t know that at the time… it also doesn’t help that the textures in Other M aren’t all that great in first person view that when you look at a splotch of green blood on a patch of green grass… ugh… I know I don’t have perfect 20/20 vision, but still…

As annoyed as I may sound about the forced first person moments in the game… the moments that really annoyed were the forced walking areas of the game. Areas where the camera comes up close behind Samus in a kind of over the shoulder perspective as you inch your way slowly through winding corridors or a restroom… I don’t know about the rest of you, but I felt kind of silly during those moments in the game, especially with the D-Pad controls… I haven’t felt such a wobbly turn in a video game in a very long time.

The game also tends to bring you in and out of cutscenes and gameplay pretty quickly in certain areas so you can’t let your guard down. I also discovered the hard way that Other M has its own form of Quick Time Events embedded in key parts of the game. The first time it occurred I didn’t even realise because I had already pressed a random button and thought it was just another embedded cutscene during the action. The second time I died, eaten by some lava monster… I thought the slow motion effect was a dramatic element and not something that was actually cueing me into pressing a button.

I guess what this all really amounts to is the fact that while I’m used to a lot of these gameplay elements existing in a lot of other games out there… they’re not really elements I’d like to see in a Metroid game, especially if they end up taking out parts of what make a Metroid game awesome.

Visuals

Nintendo obviously spent a lot of money with the cutscenes found in Other M. If we’re talking about the visuals themselves with the cutscenes, then they’re all brilliant and the level of quality and detail put into them are top notch. You could easily make a whole movie using them… which funnily enough they have actually done in this game. Once you finish the game you’ll be treated to a Theatre Mode that will string all of the cutscenes together along with some gameplay here and there to create a 2 hour feature length movie out of the entire game.

On the other hand, the visuals during gameplay is a different story… some of the models are pretty well done such as Samus herself and the rest of the humans in the game. The level of detail is what you would expect from a Japanese made game where the characters have that anime-ish feel to them. The bad part comes in from the environmental designs and creatures…

Hands down, Other M has to have the most dull environments I’ve ever seen in a Metroid game not counting Metroid II: Return of Samus (it was on the Game Boy, you can’t fault it because of that…). Part of it has to do with the fact that it really doesn’t hold up against the Prime trilogy which is the only other comparable games to Other M since they’re the only other big production 3D Metroid games to exist. When I compare Other M to the first Metroid Prime on the GameCube, I feel that Metroid Prime still comes out on top… There are many times when it’s obvious in Other M that the textures and models were designed to be seen specifically from the exterior third person perspective with the forced camera positions. Once you go into first person view and start looking around, you tend to begin noticing the imperfections and blocky surfaces. I feel as though the folks over at Team Ninja were rushed into finishing this game in quite a few places… it’s a shame this game wasn’t delayed a little longer for them to have added an extra layer of polish down.

Of course, no amount of polish would’ve saved some of the creature designs you see in this game. A few felt almost Zelda-like… as if they came straight out of Twilight Princess… while others felt like they were rejected Pokémon designs… I’m pretty sure I just saw the evolved forms of Tropius and Kabutops while playing through the game… I swear it!

[spoiler]Though I have to say that Moogle-Ridley was disturbingly cute at first… I know, I know… the very fact that Ridley starts off looking like a Moogle straight out of Final Fantasy is extremely disturbing in itself.[/spoiler]

Music

Okay, now this has to be one of the biggest hits against this game for me… the music. Now, you’d think that since this is a Metroid game the music would naturally be composed by Kenji Yamamoto who has provided Metroid with many years of exemplary service and some of the most memorable pieces of music in the history of the series. Nope, sorry Kenji… you’ve been replaced by Kuniaki Haishima. I know some of Kuniaki Haishima’s work since I’m a huge fan of Macross. He provided the music for Macross Zero…and it’s collectively known among Macross fans that Zero has the worst music among all of the Macross series released so far… and for those of you who don’t know, Macross is an anime series that prides itself on its awesome music.

So what does this mean for Other M? Well, the cutscenes that have most of the orchestrated elements (which is a first for any Metroid game) are okay. They’re “epic” sounding orchestrations that are following along to the action on screen… the problem is when you’re in-game as Samus making your way through the Bottle Ship… get ready for some of the most dull and uninspiring tunes you’ve ever heard. Oh yeah, sure… you’re going to hear a remix boss battle here and there that are practically lifted straight out of previous Metroid games… but really… the music as a whole in this Metroid made me sick… especially knowing how awesome previous Metroid games are when it comes to their soundtracks.

Story

Warning: This section may or may not contain spoilers…

Most of the elements in Other M are lifted straight out of Metroid Fusion and simply given a new twist. The voice acting is horrible, the script is even worse… Samus’ monologues end up being very wordy, as if she’s trying to make up for all of the years she hasn’t spoken… Seriously, there are times during her internal monologues that require a rewind button just to allow you to make sense of what she’s TRYING to say.

I’m sure the Japanese version of the game is a lot better since the problem seems to lay with the way the game has been translated… and no, I’m not one of those guys who only accepts the the original Japanese versions and forsakes the English version no matter what. I recognise good voice acting when I hear it no matter what language it’s spoken or if it is the “original” version or not… I just don’t hear any good voice acting in Metroid: Other M. It also doesn’t help when that internal monologue that runs through parts of the game tends to sound like its coming from the diary entries of a teen starting puberty.

In terms of how this game feels a bit too much like Fusion… firstly, the Bottle Ship feels much too similar to the Biologic Space Laboratories research station found in Metroid Fusion… secondly, the inclusion of Adam Malkovich brought with it a sense of restriction that bugged the hell out of me in Metroid Fusion and ends up being ridiculous in some parts of Other M. It infuriates me that Samus “decides” not to use her weapons and defensive suit features even before Adam tells her not to. Sure, when he finally does tell her not to it kind of makes sense… after all, we all know how powerful the power bombs are… but then what harm is it going to do to the other human characters in the game if she has her Varia suit active or not?

It doesn’t make sense for Samus to have the Varia suit power up but then trek through some harsh environmental conditions without it just because Adam said so and THEN finally get a call from him authorising its use… and if you do want things to make sense you’d have a story such as this… Samus picks up a distress signal and arrives on the Bottle Ship finding that she is all alone. She has no bearing on the situation but must discover the source and reason for the distress signal sent by this vessel. As Samus makes her way out of the hanger and deeper into the ship she realises that a mysterious field is emanating from the Bottle Ship and is somehow disabling the more advanced functions of her Chozo power suit.

Wow, look at that… I just made up a more believable and easy to swallow scenario for Other M while writing this entry. Go me.

The story itself is pretty standard, at least the conspiracy side of things… however the thing that really gets to me is what has been done to Samus’ character… Before Other M came along, the way I saw Samus was as a stoic and quietly compassionate individual who lived a solitary life and stood as the chosen one by the Chozo to protect the galaxy from dangers they couldn’t normally defend against. She has single-handedly taken care of entire armies of space pirate forces. Gone head to head with some of the most deadliest creatures in the galaxy all by herself. She’s the destroyer of entire species and even worlds… the Ing were no match for her and neither was the corrupting force of Phazon itself. The Space Pirates threw everything they could at her and feared her as if she were a demon sent to end their very existence… which she practically does. Samus Aran was a person to be admired and previous Metroid games portrayed her in a way that showed us that despite the great things she’s done over the years, she still has a side to her that is private and mysterious… the way it should be for a hero of this type.

The Samus featured in Other M is not the Samus I’ve known and admired for all these years… and I’m sure there are people saying “No, the Samus in Other M is the way Samus has always been, we just never knew about it until now”… but I strongly disagree. Over the years we have gotten a very strong sense of what kind of woman Samus is without her removing her Chozo power suit to show off some tits and ass or delving into her emotional state through her inner thoughts… The Samus in Other M is a new Samus and yes, thanks to the powers of Retroactive continuity (aka retcon), this is the way Samus is going to be from now on and people are going to be looking back at previous games and trying to attach elements of this new Samus to those older games.

Actually, when I think about it… many of the elements of this new Samus would’ve made some sense if they were put into a different time frame, such as before the events of Metroid: Zero Mission. After all, our heroes aren’t born into greatness, they have to go through a tough road to get to where they’re at their prime. Obviously, if this game was set before Zero Mission, a lot of the story elements would probably be different, but the way Samus herself is portrayed would be a lot easier to swallow and seem like a natural step on the way to her becoming the character we all know from previous games.

Some final thoughts…

By now, I’m sure at least some of you are sick of hearing me complain about Metroid: Other M. I apologise… but really… I’m finding it difficult to understand most of the reviews I’ve read and watched about this game so far. They’re all very happy about the game, praising it for a lot of things that it shouldn’t be praised for. It makes me wonder just how honest those reviewers really are when they could ignore such horrible elements of a game and also ignore its history. Are they being paid off or threatened by Nintendo in some way? “Give this game a good review or we’ll stop giving you free stuff and exclusive stories”?…

I mean, I do realise that there are Metroid fans out there who are going to eat up anything Metroid no matter what kind of game it is… I also realise that a lot of people who understand that retcon happens and are very accepting of it when it does occur. I also understand that Nintendo has been trying to attract new audiences in the last few years and that there are untapped markets that they want to embrace and say “we’re thinking of you too”… but at what cost?

I’m sorry, but Metroid: Other M isn’t my kind of Metroid. I absolutely love the series so far, even if it has been getting a little more linear and action orientated in more recent years than it used to be… but Other M has crossed a line that I can’t cross. The combination of elements in Other M, its gameplay and what they did to Samus… I don’t want to be a part of it… at the same time, I know that this game is going to have a profound effect on Metroid games to come… *sighs* at least I still have The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to look forward to…

See, not TOO long… at least not my longest entry on the site… but anyway… I’m sure there are people who have read this and want to challenge me on points they disagree with. Please… feel free to post a comment in this entry and let yourself be heard. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong?… let me know.