Other M

[Jagos]

Just a few thoughts on the subject (http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html)

Honestly, I have yet to play Other M. Given the fact that I have no nexgen game systems, the chances of me playing in the next 5-10 years are slim to none.

Regardless, I have to admit that Bob has a few things right with Metroid. She did get a lot of characterization that I don't think a lot of females in games quite get.

Yes, there's Gum in Jet Set Radio, Alyx Vance in HL2, even Lara Craft...

But it takes balls the size of Great Bruce to do what Nintendo did with the series and make Samus... Feminine in a way.

She's the largest single badass on the planet and yet given what we know about her (Chozos and the baby metroid imprints on her) she needed a lot of stuff to really be a great female character.

I think I may watch the youtube of Other M and see how the story progresses. It should be interesting.

[Kim]

AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH THIS GAME. Writing is absolute shit from every angle, their attempts to make Samus feminine come off as offensive, during one scene she becomes a damsel in distress, since Adam's authorizations are the game's stupid way of limiting your powers and since his reason for dying makes no sense you don't give a FUCK when he dies, and I could go on and on and on. In fact, I have (http://www.gamepad-dojo.com/?p=1986). The gameplay is decent but would be better if they let you use the nunchuck.

Adam's death is not a spoiler since it was told to you in Fusion and you basically go into this knowing he's just in the game so he can die.

[Magus]

What really surprised me about this game is that from what I can tell in the commercials the backstory from those Nintendo Power comics about the Space Pirates decimating her home planet was actually freaking canon. I did not expect NP comics to actually keep this stuff accurate.

From what I heard about the game, it's pretty fun, but the fact that you only use the items in scripted puzzle solving events at specific times, not really as a kind of exploratory factor, kind of made it...not as Metroidish as it should have been. But yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure they were going for making it not exactly the same as it's been so I think they accomplished that mission.

I hope the feminization was handled tastefully and wasn't just an excuse to show off some tits and ass. That's like the opposite of what is supposed to be being done here.

[Kim]

I hope the feminization was handled tastefully

Samus talks about how she didn't like it when people treated her differently because of her gender, but when Adam did it it was okay because it made her feel pretty. She also talks like how her striving to prove she was just as capable as any man was a bad thing. Also, she won't shut the fuck up about the goddamned baby metroid, because Sakamoto wants to make her more maternal, and AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH. Not necessarily sexist on that last bit but annoying as fuck.

EDIT: Also, she was raised for more of her life by bird people than she was by humans. Why would she be feminine according to human standards? And why is the military still sexist as fuck in the super future?

[Funka Genocide]

From what I've heard they're sort of raping the shit out of my childhood with this game, so to speak.

Like I remember spending hours happily destroying the shit out of planet Zebes secure in the knowledge that while I, a mere 10 year old boy, could not hope to best the horrors of an alien world, that Samus was an ultimate badass capable of going toe to toe with the strange and wondrous monsters of the universe.

I mean she didn't really have a need for a lot of dialogue, who was she going to talk to? She was the only remotely human thing on the planet, and every other form of sentient life was out to end her. She had a fucking cannon strapped to her arm!

The sense of total isolation and complete self sufficiency was somewhat terrifying but at the same time empowering. If the player was not a tower of indomitable will, we could rest assured that the heroine was. We didn't know what path she'd traveled to arrive at the present day, we simply had the undeniable sense that she was a singular being of undeniable puissance, and in a lot of ways ahead of her time as a sort of "masculine heroine".

The single point of overarching femininity in her progression was when she spared the baby metroid. I think in a lot of ways making her a heartless, supremely efficient killing machine throughout most of her travails only to lament at the last showcased more depth than any amount of bitching and kowtowing to a male's dominance ever could. I mean giving her a love story is one thing, but defenestrating the core of her lonely mystique is another.

In summation, I always saw Samus as a hero first and foremost, the fact that she was female was neither here nor there. To try and emphasize femininity through stereotypes really kills the image I'd built up, and if anything I'm disappointed that Nintendo would try and shove one of their most unique characters into such an uncomfortable mold.

I listened to that dude on the original link and he does bring up a lot of good points, but I've got to disagree that projection is an inherently negative thing in a video game. I always got the feeling that she had a somewhat taoist or zen philosophy inherited from the Chozos who raised here. Again I haven't actually played it yet and it might just be a case of really fucking terrible voice acting that makes here come off as a ditz, but really you can't hold people responsible for being disappointed. Which is essentially what the narrator is doing in the critique. We all had a certain image in our heads from 2 decades of playing these games and they decided to take a risk by moving away from that image. Fine, it took balls, I'll give them that.

They still fucked it up though.

[Magus]

Yeah, I read your review NonCon, it sounds like they screwed it up. Though she was pretty attached to the baby Metroid in the comics and it was sort of convincing (but they also had her as the competent badass to Houston's stupid Riker-lookin' dumbassedness, so I think they did a better job in that deptartment). But yeah the contradictions with how she feels about her nicknames doesn't make any sense, or at least it doesn't without the game showing you some reason WHY, explaining it somehow.

[Jagos]

I think the mother figure type stereotype is a really difficult one to sort out. On one hand, Ripley did it quite well in Aliens. She was still bad ass, but she protected Newt like it was going out of style.

I can't recall where it's really gone bad, save Other M (which seems almost ironic... Sakamoto is a guy, and I assume there's a lot of males that work in Team Ninja as compared to females that may make for a better story in writing)

[Magus]

It's a "mother bear" archetype/stereotype...it's not automatically bad, it just usually is and apparently is here. Ripley is the exception, it was done extremely well and that is why Ripley is considered such a badass. Here we get Samus as an apparently helpless damsel stricken with love for some guy to the point she doesn't mind him degrading her with nicknames (apparently in the context "Lady" is being used in a degrading way by Adam as opposed to romantic, or at least it comes off as degrading in the end because of how helpless she is at points).

[Fenris]

Tagged this thread.

[phil_]

Phil's quick thoughts on Other M:

If it cut out Samus' inner monologue and relied on body language to get at what she was thinking (like in Prime), then the story would run a lot better. Cut out naming the soldiers and just have them be corpses you run into would accomplish Fusion levels of "I'm alone here," which would help. Since the stuff Samus says out-loud actually fits her character and the soldiers don't matter anyway, doing both would have actually made this as good a story as any Metroid.

But they didn't do those things. And Adam is a dick. So yeah. It's pretty fun when the game deigns to let you play, at least, and seeing Nightmare and a Queen Metroid in polygons was really, really cool.

[Roland]

I have done so much ranting about this game on Gamefaqs that if I'd sat down and used just as many words for a writing project, I'd have a novel on my hands.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the least Metroid-esque Metroid title ever released. Well, except for that Pinball game, and even that's debatable--the Pinball game didn't make the single most iconic Metroid ability (Morph Ball, fyi) feel useless.

[Jagos]

Ok, storywise -

Suit and power - Let's just pretend that the suit had a few fail safes that Adam messed up on. It's been deactivated because he's a retard like that and at certain intervals, it makes sense that his team hacked the system and reverse engineered it to work again.

Looking at NonCon's review... Damn... Samus does need a little help on the characterization. It seems she's still 1D just given a mommy complex.

[Kim]

I'm 100% for characterizing Samus more and giving more in-depth stories to the Metroid games. However, only if they'll actually hire a writer. Sakamoto isn't one.

[Magus]

Yeah I seriously heard something about the morph ball only being able to be used sometimes and it made absolutely no sense. Ever since THE FIRST ONE your normal blaster and the morph ball have been available from the get-go and are constantly used in both combat and puzzle-solving situations. The morph ball is like an extremely important basic aspect of the games.

[phil_]

What are these complaints about the morphball? Is it that it gets no upgrades?

[Kim]

Morphball is fine and I don't know what you people are talking about. Wish you got the spiderball, though.

[Roland]

It's not the lack of upgrades.

It's that the morph ball is only used in a handful of situations, and invariably it's of the "go through this tube" variety. Outside of places that absolutely required you to use it, I only remember a single one where it was beneficial to do so--the avalanche room.

Morph Ball Bombs were heavily nerfed, too. They pretty much exist solely for clearing away arbitrary obstacles now. The jump is pretty low, and while the infinite bomb is possible, it has its height artificially capped at that of a full jump anyways, so there is literally nowhere you can reach with it that can't be reached by just jumping for it instead.

[Kim]

Okay, yeah that's true. I thought people were saying something else.

[Arhra]

Woah now, you're telling me bombs were effective for doing more things than destroying arbitrary obstacles?

(Aside from bomb jumps, of course)

[Jagos]

You've never played Metroid Fusion and skipped around have you?

Where's your sense of adventure, Arhra!

[BitVyper]

I have no intention of picking this up. I'd ignore the mechanical complaints if that was all there was, but it sounds linear as hell, and that's pretty much the worst thing a Metroid game can be (and also why my enjoyment of the Prime series dropped with each sequel). And then there's Samus' character...

I have no problems with giving her vulnerabilities, and I don't expect her to be macho, but I watched a bunch of the cutscenes, and this? This is a big pile of horse shit. Like, there's so much potential with Samus' character - revealing her character could be just as challenging to the audience as showing that she was a woman in the first place, and there's lots of ways that could be accomplished. What we got is pretty well a generic chick archetype laid over a character who should be almost anything BUT that. Seriously, the way she's acting in these cutscenes makes so little sense, given what we DO already know about her, that it feels entirely artificial, like she's drugged up or something. I guess Mother Brain DID hit her with brain lasers...

A couple things I don't mind: I don't actually mind the "FINE! I won't use my super powers!" Bit. To an extent. It should have ended with them agreeing that it was silly, and coming to an ACTUAL follow-my-orders comprimise. Or if you really wanted to go this route, maybe have Samus trying not to show too much of her super-technology out of distrust for the military/government. It's not like we have any reason to believe anyone had ever seen her beefed up prior to Fusion. I wouldn't really like that either though, 'cause it still means no exploring to find power ups or sequence breaking.

I also don't mind showing her without the power suit more. However, she's supposed to have gotten over her limitations with keeping it on by this point (for those who haven't read the Metroid manga, it was shown that it takes concentration on her part to make the power suit work, otherwise it just disappears. I think the idea is that it's some kind of energy construct). I really like Zero Suit Samus in SSBB. She moves with practiced grace and percision that seems a lot like how I think Samus SHOULD move, deprived of her power suit. I don't really see any of that killer instinct in her body language in Other M. Again, she seems more like a standard anime girl in this regard.

That reminds me; Samus was raised by aliens from a very young age. She even took their blood, becoming more like them, and she's been trained as a warrior and taught to maintain absolute focus in battle since then as well. Why not explore THAT if you want to give her real vulnerabilities? Make her a little inhuman, and a little detached from human behaviour and culture. Like putting someone from a warrior tribe (I know the Chozo are pacifists, but Samus was brought up different intentionally) into a modern army.

Also: When someone like Samus has PTSD issues, it really shouldn't be her NOT shooting things that you have to worry about.

[Regulus Tera]

People who got this game instead of Sin and Punishment: Star Successor are what's wrong with this universe.

[Ecks]

You've never played Metroid Fusion and skipped around have you?

I tried the shinespark thing post-Nightmare and got uber frustrated.

However, I DID sequence break the HELL out of Zero Mission.

[BitVyper]

Prime and Super Metroid are both great for sequence breaking.

[Kim]

They fixed the sequence breaking in the Wii port of Prime, though.

[Jagos]

I listened to that dude on the original link and he does bring up a lot of good points, but I've got to disagree that projection is an inherently negative thing in a video game. I always got the feeling that she had a somewhat taoist or zen philosophy inherited from the Chozos who raised here. Again I haven't actually played it yet and it might just be a case of really fucking terrible voice acting that makes here come off as a ditz, but really you can't hold people responsible for being disappointed. Which is essentially what the narrator is doing in the critique. We all had a certain image in our heads from 2 decades of playing these games and they decided to take a risk by moving away from that image. Fine, it took balls, I'll give them that.

They still fucked it up though.

I got the impression that the Chozo were Librarian warriors. They had great power, but for the life of me, I've wondered how it is that the Space Pirates could collectively take them out but not take on Samus.

[BitVyper]

They fixed the sequence breaking in the Wii port of Prime, though.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

but for the life of me, I've wondered how it is that the Space Pirates could collectively take them out but not take on Samus.

They didn't, really. On Zebes, the Chozo got "beaten" by their own creation: The Mother Brain, who also took control of the pirates.

Otherwise, the Chozo were already pretty much dead or ascended beyond the veil of this reality. They were all gone but for a few elders, it seems. Either way, they were a civilisation in decline.

[Arhra]

It probably doesn't help the Chozo race seems to be entirely composed of creaky old birds.

Hmm, being raised by a race completely composed of grandparents. Samus musta been sooooo spoiled.

[Roland]

They fixed the sequence breaking in the Wii port of Prime, though.

That's not entirely true. Some of the following aren't possible in the MP Trilogy release, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9U3zqQKQG0

And then there's everyone's favorite, getting the Space Jump Boots first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WJ8gpLZ5Fs

[phil_]

the stuff Samus says out-loud actually fits her characterAfter waking up today, it occurred to me that this is not true when the scene outside Sector Zero is taken into consideration. God, that was awful. Jesus.

[Aeria]

Having actually played the game, I can tell you that I enjoyed it. It was short, but the gameplay was good, and the mix of 2D and 3D, for the most part, was excellent.

Having Samus agree to not use her weapons from the get-go makes sense. From a gameplay perspective, you can't have everything all at once, or it is too boring... It is a device they used, and if they'd used "somewhere along the line you've lost all your powers," I think that would be more annoying. It makes for a good ending anyway! The part that is frustrating is why her upgraded suits are locked out, until vitally necessary. Oh well.

The Samus and Adam relationship was not really a romantic one -- he was more of a daddy figure. He was allowed special treatment because of that.

The morph ball is fine. It does exactly what it allowed you to do in Super Metroid, except you can't cheat to get into places early. Spider ball would have been nice though.

The game is a mix of linear and non-linear. Linear in that you have to follow the story, and you can't fight bosses out of order. This is because they set it up to be like a movie (there is a theater mode). Non-linear in that you have to return to places again, and with new weapons becoming available, there are a lot of hidden items to find.

The game is good, and follows well after Super Metroid. I was hoping they'd let you replay the Mother-Brain battle, but c'est la vie. Yes, there are moments of "what the heck?!" but it isn't too hard to get past them. I do agree with whoever it was that said it, about the soldiers and just finding them dead... If they'd gone for an on-the-fly story telling style, instead of so many flashbacks, I think it would have been better. I mean, if the only story you got was what was actually happening right now, and you had to piece it together, it would A) feel like a smoother transition from Super Metroid, and B) wouldn't have held up the gameplay so much. If they'd wanted to tell the story of Samus and the Galactic Federation, then they should have made a prequel to establish her character. And then they could have made this game, without all of that, and it would be so awesome!

In short, flashbacks are bad.