Metroid: Other M Review
Morph or your money.
Version tested: Wii
For the first 20 minutes, Metroid: Other M does a decent job of confirming your worst suspicions about just what Team Ninja might do to if it ever got its hands on Samus Aran.
With the start screen out of the way, the game immediately descends into a pretty – and pretty vapid – fug of cinematics, back-story and bizarrely delivered dialogue, while the roving cut-scene director never misses an opportunity to perv over the famous bounty hunter's jumpsuited body. By the time training is completed and a rather mopey Samus dons her armour and answers a distress call that takes her to an abandoned space ship, the more melodramatically inclined could be forgiven for deciding that the series' new caretakers have set out to systematically dismantle everything that ever made Metroid wonderful in the first place.
For a few minutes more, the disappointments continue to pile up. Oh dear, the space station isn't abandoned at all, but is instead filled with a squad of jerky NPC soldiers. Oh dear, one of the jerky NPC soldiers is Samus' old boyfriend. (Boyfriend? Seriously? Did they watch Kirsten Dunst movies together? Did their lips ever meet over a single strand of spaghetti?) Oh dear, another one of them looks like David Beckham. All that's left is for the team behind all those Beach Volleyball games to wedge the camera right inside Samus' unmentionables, and we can all go home and smother ourselves with our fan-made Ridley pillows.
Don't panic. For starters, Samus keeps her clothes on most of the time after that, and she saves her dull observations on all things cosmic for the cut-scenes, the traditional spot for putting the kettle on and fussing over the cat. More importantly, that squad is hardly a constant presence in the game that follows. Rather, they're an occasional intrusion as Team Ninja's pacy sci-fi mystery plot starts to unfold.
1/4 Rather than locating her weapons, Samus now has to wait for one of the jerky NPCs to authorise their use a tiny change, but an oddly annoying one.
In Other M, as it should be, lonely wandering is still the order of the day, and the game is actually almost everything Metroid fans have been saying they've been after: a genuine sequel to Super Metroid, with an intelligent third-person camera and plenty of time to revel in the good old gadgets.
Tending to favour a side-on perspective, Samus Aran's exploration of various spooky spaceship corridors and holographic outdoor environments is entirely evocative of the series' early 2D days - and yet, the game is hardly a throwback. Team Ninja hasn't run aground with Metroid; in fact, it's hit an enviable sweet spot with a game that acknowledges the franchise's history while finding room to employ some of the smarter tricks that Retro Studios dreamt up in the Metroid Prime series.
Environmentally, Other M doesn't deviate too far from the standard template. If you're expecting ice and lava, jungles and derelict warehouses, Other M won't disappoint, crowbarring some pretty large outdoor vistas into the shape-shifting interiors of its space station. While the wallpaper grows a bit predictable, however, the game's greatest strength lies in the creatures you fight as you explore.
Team Ninja truly understands the warped Galapagos appeal of the Metroid menagerie and offers up some really inventive monsters, ranging from leathery bipedal armadillos who can match Samus for gymnastic ability to evil, razor-teethed Pokemon, and a kind of driftwood Diplodocus who appears to have had a radioactive grapefruit driven into his gut. (I'd shoot that bit if I were you.) Everything's drawn beautifully, too, from the hard-candy glossiness of the metallic enemies to the gooey, stringy excesses of the organic bits – just the kind of thing the Wii generally struggles with.
The tools you're given to fight the horde are decent as well: important stuff, as Team Ninja has really dialled up the combat. The standard lock-on is limited in range, but does the job once you distinguish how far you can reasonably push it, while the developers have worked genuine wonders in utilising the Wii remote's traditionally arthritic D-pad for both general movement and a series of last-minute dodges and feints.
A nice range of brutal finishers throw in a little combat flair, and the control scheme's one potential sticking point – you play most of the game with the remote on its side but need to switch to pointing it at the screen when you want to fire missiles – is something that takes some getting used to, but will eventually click. Once you've mastered it, in fact, and you're juggling between auto-targeting, close-up melees, and then a quick, risky missile up the snout of any downed foes, it feels wonderful.
The fighting schedule very occasionally seems like it's taking the place of proper level design (and some of the enemies outstay their welcome) but for the most part, Other M adds real style to Samus' traditionally rather utilitarian arsenal. It also allows the developer to unleash a near-endless parade of gratuitously creative bosses to fit in alongside some devious puzzles.
More on Metroid: Other M
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Interview: Reinventing Metroid
Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi.
Hands On: Metroid: Other M
Samus usual?
News: Team Ninja: Nintendo did Metroid's story
Other M's plot "all" Sakamoto's work.
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Screenshots: Metroid: Other M
If there's a casualty in this approach, it's the way that the setting and story in Metroid games traditionally tend to dovetail. If you were a fan of the smart narrative archaeology of the Retro games, where the environment was left, for the most part, to speak for itself, bad news: that's almost entirely gone here, with scanning relegated to set-piece moments that feel like hidden object games, and the plot throbbing forth in globs, mainly via cut-scenes, heavy-handed exposition, and that inane rambling from Samus.
Her stilted, tranquilised vocal performance goes a long way towards destroying the bounty hunter's hard-won air of mystery, and while this is not a huge problem in itself, the clumsiness of Other M's scene-setting and characterisation eventually erodes a little of the texture of the rest of the Metroid universe. The Magmoor Caverns and Phendrana Drifts from Metroid Prime managed to step beyond their fire and ice branding and feel like genuine places; their equivalents in Other M tend to come across as nicely-built videogame levels at best, and sets for the future's dumbest soap opera at worst. The game's corridors and closets are still densely packed with puzzles and secrets and unexpected Morph Ball speedways, but that old sense of genuine discovery is slightly diminished.
These are pretty minor gripes, however, particularly when you're in the presence of a character that always expresses herself best through her moves rather than her speech, and the occasional fumbling by Team Ninja can't take away from its otherwise astonishing achievement. Guess what? The unlikeliest of developers has created a game that manages to encapsulate huge chunks of the series' traditions, even as it pushes it onwards in a slick new direction. Metroid has spliced its genes once again, and the results are typically fascinating.
8 / 10
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Comments (61) Latest comment 1 year ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Glad the rest of the game seems good though, and looking forward to messing about with that 'missile point at screen' mechanic.
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OH GO ON THEN!
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How did MP3 go 'all Halo' with the soldiers? They were only there during the tutorial missions and after you cleared major sections of each world. I actually thought it struck a great balance of isolation and making you feel you were part of a larger story
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'I promised I'd never attempt a Metroid again after really not liking Prime 3.'
You maniac. Never rule out Metroid.
Still not totally convinced by this game..... But I'll be certainly trying it out.
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But yeah, it's still Metroid...
Maybe for when I can get it cheap.
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Edit: Add some gameplay video footage, please.
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Sounds good.
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Between Metroid, Kirby and Kong...it's probably time to buy some more AA batteries, methinks.
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How big is the thing anyway? Nodody seems to have told the length (more or less). Prime 1 was about 20 - 25 hours. Prime 2 could easily go over 30 hours and Prime 3 was nearly 40 hours. I expect this to be in the 20 - 25 hour mark but i could be very wrong.
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lol - seriously excited for this. I always thought the Metroid series could go one step further with its storytelling and Samus of all the Nintendo characters deserves a voice. If they had to give one Nintendo character a voice, whether Link or Mario or any of them be in the running - it would have to be Samus. She has a story to tell and i'm hoping this is the game that does it.
The remade sequence of the end of Super Metroid looks absolutely amazing.
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For many years I'd been of the opinion that Nintendo were the only manufacturer who truly knew how to make a good d-pad, but the Wii's 'pad really me made think that even the Big N had forgotten how to do it - and this saddens me greatly.
However, away from the controls, I definitely still think I'll get this, the main draw for me being the boss fights and enemy design. I'm a sucker for well-designed bosses - and as far as I'm concerned no-one does them better than Nintendo with the Zelda and Metroid series - and if Other M's are as good as the review suggests they are then I think I'm going to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
Pleasantly surprised to see the release of this creep up on me.
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No Samus, you've changed too much.
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No xbots, no sony defense force, and overall very little butthurt going around.. What a change.
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*jumps off next building*
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But ONLY to see another Metroid installment on the 3DS, hopefully in 2D glory. Does that make sense? Yes.
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EDIT: Ok, you mentioned part of the second issue in the picture description. I still think an 8 is a lot for a Metroid game that sacrifices so many core Metroid elements.
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8/10
i felt sure that this game woudl end up a complete mess and get 3/10 and a 50% average on metacritic.
I'm not going to rush out and be proved wrong but it's good to know it might be worth picking up at some point.
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If the next Zelda becomes a vapid, linear non-game too, and I so fear that it will, then that's it, I'm done with games. There is absolutely jack else that interests me anymore anyway, it's all become uninteresting disneyland ride crap, one longass cutscene punctuated by some shooting or fighting every once in a while. There's plenty of good older games left that I haven't played yet (I honestly could not care less about the gimmick called HD), hopefully enough to last me until the industry has grown out of this terrible fase.
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- It's mindnumbingly linear
- It has no gameplay
- It is uninteresting
- It ruins the franchise
- It is vapid and linear
- If you like it, you are an idiot, and should be killed
Insightful stuff. Why would I want to pay attention to EG's review now, or indeed that of any other professional reviewer, when you've done such a succinct job of breaking the experience down in a fair and balanced way? And without even needing to play the game, no less!
I also like how you criticise the game for its poor gameplay, while simultaneously stating that you don't care about how good the combat (ie, the gameplay) is. And your use of the "I think all modern games are terrible and you're stupid if you disagree" card was a nice touch.
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I'm not reviewing the game, I'm trying to bring posters out of the woodwork to hopefully tell me my guess is wrong. Which, unfortunately, has yet to happen. Anyone?
Also I'm sorry but you lost any credibility you had when you implied the gameplay of Metroid consisted of its combat, or that it's even its most important feature. That's horrible. It's because of people with a mindset like that, that almost all franchises are slowly converging into the same linear shooter model. Even you can't deny the fact that this is happening. Even people who just want to play shooters every day should be able to see that the complete eradication of various game genres in favour of one single gameplay type is a bad thing? Surely?
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If you're genuinely trying to elicit assurances on the quality/crapness of the game, why not try reading around for some other reviews - many of which address your points of contention more directly than EG's does - instead of rattling out a list of assumptions about the game to a bunch of people who can't possibly have played it yet? There's a site called Metacritic, they have a whole range of opinions there, from "it's a fantastic and faithful Metroid experience" to "it's a blemish on the franchise". Go and take your pick of whichever one salves/indulges with your preconceptions most effectively.
As for combat in Metroid; no, I wouldn't say it's THE most important part of the gameplay, but it is an important aspect of the game's playability, which is why I find it odd for you to say you don't care if it's any good or not. But then, it seems I don't see eye-to-eye with you on a lot of things, such as the industry trend towards making everything a linear shooter or the idea of high definition as a "gimmick", neither of which I believe to be true. All I'm doing is questioning your decision to base a quite aggressive tirade about the industry on your assumptions about a game you haven't actually played.
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Right. Uses it in the desperate attempt to simulate an actual, conservative/classic controller. Innovative.
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It's because frankly, I trust comments from regular users a lot more than convoluted reviews which barely ever really get to the point, they seem to focus on their writing a lot more than on what they're actually saying. But indeed, the game isn't out yet! So I'll ask again once it is.
(Edit: ok you know what, never mind. I've read more than enough by now, reviews and offhand comments by people who got to play it already, to know all my fears have come true, and it's apparently even worse than I imagined. I would have accepted a Metroid Fusion level of linearity, but I hear it's way beyond that. I hope you're really damn happy that Metroid has joined the ever increasing majority of simplistic, nearly on-rails shooting galleries. We really needed another one of those to add to the hundreds already available, right? We sure did! And we especially needed to sacrifice Metroid for it! Change is good, yay! End edit.)
I'm kind of baffled how anyone could not see how games in general are becoming more linear, more combat oriented, simpler. Of course it's either that or the sandbox type game where developers barely have to think about game structure at all. I dare you to show me a single retail game released in the past two years or so that's like, say, Doom 1, with structured levels that yet don't simply funnel the player straight forward mindlessly. I mean seriously, I want to play those games if they exist.
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"Right. Uses it in the desperate attempt to simulate an actual, conservative/classic controller. Innovative. "
I think you've misread my post. I refer to the controller being used in an intuitive way, not innovative. Your point is further weaked by the fact that not everyone has a classic controller with their remote so Nintendo are catering for the largest audience possible.
Also I am glad to see what direction Metroid is going in. It looks more polished than Prime 3 and it looks like it has a larger budget in general. I'm not saying the game is going to be better than any of the Prime's but I'm glad Nintendo are giving it more production value (something hardcore gamers have been yapping about from them since the start of the Wii).
So I kind of see this as a way of Nintendo listening to its fans.
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While I was typing this I discovered that renting games in Belgium has been outlawed since 2008 :s. I'll just have to wait for it to turn up in the used games sections. Should not be long if it's as bad as it looks and sounds.
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We'll call it an irreconcilable difference in perception, I guess, and leave it there. Shame you feel that way about modern games though. It'd be nice to think that Other M could change your mind if you actually gave it a go, but it sounds like it probably wouldn't anyway.
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Wonder how many other gaming treats are coming my way without me knowing?
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So you're telling me Metroid hasn't become a linear action game? I mean I would love to believe it, but it's your word against everyone else's.
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That Nikanoru is getting really annoying, Stop whining like a little bitch, and just PLAY THE FUCKING GAME AND ENJOY IT.
Consider yourself ignored.
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The cutscenes aren't great, truth be told. Stylistically, they borrow more from the likes of Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy XIII than Gears of War. The dialogue is unusual and the expository elements - an early example being a young Samus refusing to issue an apparently customary "thumbs up" gesture at a military briefing, supposedly coolly replacing it with a thumbs down - are just odd. Later, you hear through narration that Samus has decided to call a potential imposter, "the deleter"... :-/
That said, the interruptions become much less frequent and far more tolerable as the game progresses. The basic gameplay, while linear up to a point, is fantastic, and occupies a good 90-odd percent of the overall experience. There's no in-game help system (other than the basic "go here" mechanic, but that was in Fusion anyway) and the difficulty does spike quite early on, until you unlock superior weaponry and more energy tanks.
I was worried about the story bits and I certainly agree with the reviewer that they erode "a little of the texture of the rest of the Metroid universe", but for me they don't ruin it. The core experience is classic Metroid with some welcome tweaks, and well worth playing.
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One is her ex commanding officer who she sees as a father figure and the other guy is her old friend.
As a huge fan of Super Metroid (Number 1 in my top ten) This is such a great game, loving every second of it, its like the direct sequel to SM and Tecmo have done a great service to both Samus and the franchise! While it got a well deserved 8/10, the text reads like it rewards the score bregrudgingly. Sure it might not be for everyone, but reviewers should at least show a bit of unbias when reviewing a game, esp. when, like i said eariler, they get points drastically wrong. That can be not only damaging to the franchise but to fans of the series too.
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I think it is really bad. 6/10 at best. It was over before it had begun, and man.... it was the most linear and boring gaming experience.
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I think the problem here, and why nintendo didn't get as much attention with this game has nothing to do with the quality of the game whatsoever.
It's because nintendo left the hardcore fan-base waiting too long for their games. The wii, unlike every other nintendo product ever, has a majority casual audience. This was intentional and nintendo shouldn't be surprised that this game has suffered.
I read some comments from Reggie in an interview about other m's performance and he said that the game was a great game and it was unclear why it wasn't selling better.
It's because housewives don't play Metroid.
It's because you de-prioritised nintendo's original audience.
It's because the people who make up metroids target market gave up on the wii.