Metroid: Other M

[RedPouch]

From what I've heard...

- Samus is portrayed as a subservient to some dude, is sexualized, and can't stop droning on in monologue about emotional crap. She's suddenly be turned from a mute protagonist who gets the job done to an overly emotional SOOOO DEEEEEEEEPPP character

I think the only people who whine about this are people that are opposed to protagonists that show any personality of any kind. The description you gave sounds so exaggerated that it's almost sickening. People hate on things way too much, and they will exaggerate things to no end to try and get their point across [almost the form of a straw-man argument].

Other M looks awesome. Makes me wish I had a Wii. Altough I don't understand why they have focused on developing Samus as a character. The appeal of the character was that she was the silent bounty hunter. Seems a bit off having her moping around like she has PMS.

Also giving Team Ninja the responsibility of creating a story sounds like a disaster.

Team Ninja didn't create the story [what gave you that idea?]. The story was very nice.

Yeah, the gameplay is great, but the story is the worst smurfing thing ever. Samus is not a damsel-in-distress ever.

You're right, she isn't a damsel-in-distress, which is why she was able to deal with her traumatic experience after a mere minute or so and readily own Ridley. She also single-handedly conquered the Metroids along with the you-know-what. How does that make her seem like the damsel-in-distress??? Besides, for those that have read the manga, she has a pretty grizzly past with Ridley, so it makes sense that she would have some unresolved issues with him.

The other half of the combat is gimmicky and annoying. To use missiles, you need to be in first person mode, which not only severely cuts your vision (as turning while in first person mode is rather annoyingly slow), but also prevents you from moving. And, yeah, that just gets frustrating.

You were saying in one paragraph how easy it is, and now you're saying how frustrating it is. I personally love using the Wii remote as a controller for this game, and the manner in which they had you use it was very nice.

Then there are the flashy moves. Jump on top of an enemy, and shoot a charge shot into its head for an insta-kill, or run up to a downed enemy with your charged shot for a similar deathblow. Unfortunately, the platforming is rather annoying for jumping on enemies, especially when they are all moving around. But, more than that, these just feel unnecessary. They're tacked on just to prevent you from being bored with the constant power beam spam (not that it prevents that), but are too annoying to activate, and nearly impossible to do without.

Actually I found it pretty easy to activate and use. I felt the platforming made that especially easy for this game. It made combat pretty fun.

And, my final gripe, enemies don't drop health or missiles anymore. And this is just a WTF moment. With controls as unwieldly and gimmicky as this, you really, really need a constant supply of health. You have basically unlimited missiles, which is nice, but when an enemy can take out 30 energy in one hit, and you can't replenish except at a save station, you do not have kind feelings towards this game.

I personally think the entire combat scene as a whole in this game was easy. Switching to first-person mode to shoot missiles was fine [I personally found it fun]. The fact that you might drop a lot of health if you aren't careful with what you're doing sounds like... they did a good job at making the game. I honestly think that too many games nowadays are easy with watered-down battle mechanics geared too much towards the modern gamer who has a problem with any type of challenge. I actually applaud Nintendo and Team Ninja for making a Metroid game that gives more challenge to the player than most would expect from a Metroid game [the Prime games were too easy, and Super Metroid was very very fun but still easy].

This game felt a little out of place to me. It doesn't feel like Metroid, which is a big disappointment after all the games that came before it. It lacks the simple elegance that Metroid's combat has always had in exchange for gimmicks and flashiness.

I think there's a difference between a gimmick and an innovation. I thought that all of the combat moves [including the sense movement, finishing moves and all that] made the combat in the game very fun. The game was still simple enough to where it was easy to play through.



My actual complaint is that I'm a bit disappointed with hard mode not allowing you to do the post-game sequence. It's a shame, because I would've liked to have fought [monster that I won't say the name of because it's a spoiler] with only 99 Energy and 10 missiles. Barring that, going through the game on hard mode was hella fun. I've played through Other M 3 times already and counting. The story for this game was also very well-developed and nicely executed. The voice acting was also great! I was impressed.

Team Ninja and Nintendo created a true work of art with this game, and I hope they do another together. I give this game 8/10.